The new drawing mistress feels inquisitive eyes upon her as she arrives to take up her post at a country house. Ex-street urchin Molly's quickwitted candour earns her favour with the old Earl and his guests, but the keen-eyed butler sees through her pose of gentility. The House of Roxbury welcomes a cavalcade of poets and magicians, explorers and cyclists, scientists and surgeons. But Molly begins to suspect that darker secrets lurk in the gardens. Who works so late into the night in the menagerie glasshouse laboratories? In London's East End, a body tumbles from a ship. Sergeant Lawless unearths connections between a newly arrived aristocrat, an unfortunate fire, and a mysterious vanishment. The shadow of European machinations looms over the capital, threatening royals and politicians, but evidence from an accidental blast sends him into the English shires.