When a distinguished judge dies of opium poisoning, the crucifixion five years before of Kingsley Blaine is brought back into the public eye, and it is screaming for revenge. The police had arrested a Jewish actor, who was soon condemned to hang. Police Inspector Thomas Pitt, investigating the judge's death, is drawn into the sensational murder, because it appears the judge was about to reopen the earlier case. He receives curiously little help from his colleagues on the force, but his wife, Charlotte, gleans from her social engagements startling insights into the women in both cases. And slowly both Thomas and Charlotte begin to reach the same sinister and deeply dangerous truth.