In old age, Edwin James looks back over his scandalous life in the law and the theater. He recalls his rise to fame and fortune which begins as a debt-ridden counsel in the case arising from the Running Rein scandal of the 1844 Derby. Humiliated in court and blocked by the machinations of the Victorian Establishment he begins his hunt for the missing witness and the Derby winner which has been spirited away. Aided by ex-convict Ben Gully, he probes in the dark belly of the London underworld while at the same time trying to avoid his creditors. He is faced with a suicide and a murdered corpse hidden in the London sewers, before he seeks the final deadly truth in the foggy dockyards along the river, only to discover that the truth may not be all it seems, and that old scandals can rise up to engulf him.