A naval officer who took part in the war with Japan in 1904–1905 returns home after being wounded and held captive. On the train, he helps a victim of a robbery and meets the employees of Moscow’s detective police. And so the retired officer becomes a policeman and begins fighting crime in the capital. The main character gets into another showdown with criminals—but the case is so tangled that it’s unclear who the victim of the crime is and who the criminal is.