A murder in Victorian London. Esther Pay endured a childless unhappy marriage to a violent drunken man, but had an affair with a married man who lodged in her house. When her husband discovered the affair, her lover abandoned her for another woman. A body is discovered on Esther's doorstep, but it is unclear if she was capable of murder to avenge her betrayal.

The tale of Major General Charles Luard and his wife Daisy who retired to the countryside after a long and distinguished career, but became the victim of a writer of malicious letters.