Rabbi Small, bored with his clerical duties, is enlisted by Police Chief Hugh Lanigan to set his scholar's mind to a drunk-driving accident that looks like murder. Victor Joyce, a local college professor infamous both for his ambition and extracurricular activities, had been drinking heavily the night of the crash. But a witness who passed by the wreck insists that the victim was not dead, just unconscious. Rabbi Small learns that quite a number of "innocent" citizens drove down the seldom-used road on that rainy night. Any one of them could have had it in for the not-so-revered professor . . .