Orson Foxworth celebrates his return to New Orleans by giving a dinner in the 1840 room at Antoines restaurant, ostensibly planned to present his niece for the Carnival festivities and to renew his romance with Amelie Lalande. Laland's daughter Odile, accidently spills a red wine down her white dress, a seemingly light incident. However, it is recalled thirty hours later when she is found dead with a strange pistol and an ambiguous note on the floor beside her. Though looking like suicide the plot revolves out of proving otherwise. Infused with much history, customs, and mores of New Orleans of the 1940's.