Frank, a young artist, arrives in the city hoping to unravel the mystery of his parents' disappearance. He begins working as a washer of robes at a hotel for itinerant judges. There he meets and falls in love with Prudence, a forensic photographer whose pictures reveal the secrets of the dead. When Prudence disappears, Frank sets out in search of her, a quest that leads him into the shadowy world of a revolutionary salon, then to prison, and, finally to discover the city's strange secrets and the secrets of his own heart.