Book Two of English spy George Keene's adventures a la Pimpernel English Spymaster Thomas Challoner has sent Keene on a mission to deliver a treasure chest of 5,000 louis d'or to his principal agent in Paris, but there will be complications. Challoner's highly placed competitors - who have their own competing networks of aristos and royalists to whom they wish to divert funds - unleash their influence against the 'low born' Keene. Once in Paris, Keene is right to suspect Challoner's man, Jean Baptiste Dossonville, Inspector of Police. And things go from bad to worse when, after Keene meets up with Charlotte Corday and fails to deflect her from assassinating Marat, the Terror is unleashed. Keene now comes up against Jean-Jacques Demarche and ends up in prison under sentence of death. Somehow he must escape the guillotine and decide how to employ the gold.