March roars in and Charlotte Frayne, P.I., receives a letter asking her to help prevent "a grave miscarriage of justice."

The sender is Miss Olivia Brodie, an elderly resident in the Toronto House of Industry (the Poor House) who claims she witnessed two men on a nearby street, behaving in a suspicious manner. She has learned that two Black teenagers have been charged with burglary on that same street. They will be severely punished. She is sure these boys are innocent; the men she saw are the culprits.

Charlotte is then hired by a Mrs. Emmeline Larkin, who says she is missing some precious jewelry; she fears the thief may be a member of her own social circle. A club of well-positioned women.

These two cases take Charlotte back to connected events in the past, where there was, indeed, grave injustice.