As the fog clears, a brutally murdered corpse turns up, caught in the ropes of a barge in the Thames. Ordinarily, this would be a run-of-the-mill incident, but in this particular case, Inspector Blackstone quickly realizes he is well and truly out of his depth. The clothes may belong to a poor man, but the face does not; and to Blackstone, the aristocracy are in themselves a mystery whose authority far outweighs his own. Blackstone's horizons are to be widened still further as the investigation leads him to Little Russia, an emigre area where he finds still more people who aren't used to taking the British bobby remotely seriously.