Paris! To most Victorian Englishmen the French capital meant wine, women and song. But there were darker aspects to life across the Channel, and it was the assassination of the President in 1894 which took Holmes and Watson to the Continent. The assassin was said to be an anarchist, but was there some yet more sinister force behind the crime? Holmes certainly thought so, believing that he detected the dead hand of an old adversary Professor Moriarty! And then there was the mysterious Arsene Jupin, the notorious jewel thief, who positively reveled in publicity. Was Jupin involved, and if so, how? In search of the answers, Holmes was obliged to impersonate himself, and also to become a wanted criminal.