Things were going great at Nadezhda Rauk’s fashionable studio, and she decided to expand—sewing not only women’s outfits, but men’s suits as well. The best master in Moscow has already been hired, and a grand reception is planned to present the new direction. The guests—famous, respectable, affluent people—delightedly admired the exquisite studio interiors lovingly created by Nadezhda’s mother, Iraida Samsonovna, a passionate lover of antiques. Her recent acquisition is an author’s copy of a painting whose original is in the Tretyakov Gallery. The canvas is extraordinarily unusual, and Nadezhda desperately wants to uncover its secret—yet she’s stopped by another, far more gloomy mystery: one of the guests was poisoned right during the reception…