A wealthy business executive turns 50 and his wife has found a unique present - six Japanese bells on a silken rope. One of them, the fifth, seems to ring on its own on occasion. It starts to drive the man crazy but he won't part with them. Add a Japenese businessman, the German proprietor of the antique shop that sold the bells, an old friend of the gentleman who is a private detective, his business assistant, and a police investigator and you've got the complete cast assembled to create this mystery.