Dr. Vasily Ottovich Falk, known for his refined taste, pedantry, and skepticism, had never shown any interest in solving murders and planned to spend the summer in quiet peace at his beloved “Green Meadow,” where he came every year from St. Petersburg.
However, almost as soon as he arrived at a cottage settlement on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, the doctor was forced to visit the home of an elderly widow who had been found dead. Shortly before her death, she shared with Falk her fears about a gray monk appearing in her garden—visions that, as people believed, foretold death.
As a skeptic, the doctor didn’t believe such superstitions and realized that he was dealing with murder. Despite his desire to stay out of it, Vasily Ottovich sinks deeper and deeper into the investigation, because soon it becomes clear that many residents of the settlement had motives to be hostile toward the deceased.