Autumn 1870. Having read a chapter from the novel "The Killer from the Past," Alexandra Ilyinichna Tarusova suddenly recognizes that the crime described in it—the murder of a cab business owner and his mistress—actually took place. But when? Before the newspaper issue came out or after? How does the novel’s author, Andrei Guravitsky, know so many details? Even the investigator did not discover them right away. Is Ivan Strizhnev, detained by the police, guilty, or, as the novel claims, was the evidence planted against him by the real killer? If so, then according to the new science of optography, his image should be imprinted in the victim’s eyes. And Alexandra Ilyinichna decides to look into them…