The steamship Pinnacle leaves New York on its way to Liverpool. Suspicions are raised and cast when a first class passenger, a shrewd oil man, is murdered, his head battered in by blows of the sinister bronze hand, modeled from Rodin's original, which the victim had prized as his mascot. The apparent motive is theft of jewelry for his new wife, whom no one can track down, not even knowing if the marriage has happened yet. But, who killed Oily Cox? What part did the bronze hand play in the murder? What was the real motive? Such are the questions which Fleming Stone, enlisted as a disguised passenger on shipboard, sets out to answer in his clever, inimitable manner. So a locked ship mystery and an enjoyable one!