Commandant Michel de Palma follows an anonymous tip-off to a gated mansion by the coast and finds a body whose face is obscured by a fearsome tribal mask. Beneath it is a mysterious wound that could not have been caused by a bullet. Surrounded by scores of masks and painted skulls, de Palma hears the haunting strains of a primal flute from the floors above. With few leads to go on, de Palma delves into an account of the murdered doctor's voyage to Papua New Guinea seventy years earlier. But when his chief suspect is found dead, killed by the same method as Delorme, he begins to wonder whether the bodies on his hands are not the victims of spirits intent on revenge.