In a small London alley, Pentecost Alley, not far from Whitechapel, the body of a strangled prostitute is found in a lodging house. In the bed of the murdered woman, investigators discover a golden badge-emblem with the inscription “The Hellfire Club,” and on the back of it the name Finley Fitzjames, the son of one of the most influential representatives of London high society. The case is immediately taken under control by the police superintendent Thomas Pitt. Father and son Fitzjames insist in unison that Finley is innocent, and that the personalized evidence was planted at the crime scene by one of their many enemies. Meanwhile, the city’s public is in an uproar—of course, not long ago, in these very places, Jack the Ripper committed his terrible murders, and the police never found him. Never before had Thomas Pitt had to work under such pressure…