The Palace Hotel is rather out of place in Fort Romper, Nebraska. The bright blue paint on the outside of the hotel owned by a man named Scully doesn't really fit in with the green and gray desolate landscape surrounding it.
Three guests from different places arrive at the hotel, and Scully is pleased to meet them. Known simply as The Swede, The Easterner, and The Cowboy, the three are escorted to their rooms. A family hotel, the three have dinner with Scully and Scully's son Johnnie. The Swede is the most peculiar of the group, often quiet but, when talking, says something that leaves others speechless.
After dinner, Johnnie and the three guests play cards. The Swede is still a wary man, and says that someone has been killed in the front of the hotel. Everyone looks at him as if he is insane, and The Swede announces that he will die in the hotel tonight.
Scully brings The Swede upstairs for a drink, but The Swede believes that Scully is trying to poison him. He also thinks that Scully may have been the one that killed the person in the front of the hotel, but doesn't say so out loud. Johnnie and the other two guests remain downstairs during this time, and say how crazy The Swede is.
Scully and The Swede come downstairs, and Scully tells everyone that The Swede was acting odd, but is now okay. The game of cards ensues, and, losing, Johnnie gets angry. He is violent to The Swede, and takes him outside in a blizzard to fight. The two fight, and The Swede wins easily. Grabbing his suitcase, The Swede trots off.
The Swede goes to a nearby bar, where he meets and angers a notorious Gambler. In another fight, this time The Swede does not win, and is murdered by The Gambler.
The story jumps ahead for a time, to when the other two guests are at the murder trial of The Swede. The Easterner tells the cowboy that Johnnie had in fact cheated in the case that led to the initial fight where The Swede left, but he remained a bystander in that incident. He says that everyone, Johnnie, Scully, himself, The Easterner, and The Gambler, were equally responsible for the death of The Swede.
