Moritz Eisner's first assignment as a member of a new special commission of the Ministry of the Interior, which takes on special criminological tasks throughout Austria, takes him to the Arndorf monastery in Carinthia. An international organ competition is taking place there, in which a very special member of the jury is to receive personal protection. The guest of honor is the Austrian bishop Hawranek, who has been campaigning for human rights in Brazil for many years and has already been the victim of several assassination attempts. When the arrival of the bishop who was to open the competition is delayed, jumpsthe young organist Nikolaus Kutil. But the brilliant opening concert ends in disaster: an organ pipe comes loose from its anchorage and kills the young man in front of the assembled audience.
Moritz Eisner and his new boss, Section Head Schremser, are on hand. While Schremser is convinced of another attack on the bishop, Eisner believes it is more of an act of sabotage. However, Moritz Eisner's theories falter when a second music student dies. He used the bishop's cocoa tin to brew himself a drink laced with poison.