"You're needed, Mr. Holmes. I'm to bring you to Inspector Lestrade. Dr. Watson has been accused of murder." The words from Thomas Wiggins, now a junior printer, formerly the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars, rouses Holmes from the company of bees outside his cottage in Sussex Downs to return to London and save his friend and colleague from the gallows. To his surprise, he will have the recently retired Detective Inspector Lestrade as an important ally. Unsurprisingly, he will be joined by his former landlady and mentor, Mrs. Hudson, the sage of Baker Street. She will, however, first have to be released from custody as she has been jailed for her part in demonstrating on behalf of votes for women. Indeed, not only has Watson been wrongfully accused, so have two prominent suffragettes Mrs. Hudson encountered in the course of her own arrest, and it will be up to Mrs. Hudson to guide the exoneration of all the innocent parties. In the process she and Holmes will find it necessary to outmaneuver both Scotland Yard and London's own fledgling version of the Mafia.