The fog of scandal hangs heavy over the city, and a new, darker shadow has fallen upon the house of Elman Pashayev. That solicitor, once the shield for the most notorious sinners and high-society rogues, now finds his own blood dragged before the magistrates. His son, Elvin, has been cast into the pit of a criminal conspiracy—a wretched affair of murder and the theft of a dead man's roof.

Imagine the scene: a quiet dwelling in the heart of the capital, a man vanishes into the void, and while his soul wanders the ether, a gang of vultures descends to carve up his estate. The authorities, acting with the doggedness of a Scotland Yard detective, have unearthed a horror. Eight souls are now entangled in this web of greed. They sought to sell a flat belonging to a Muscovite who was not merely missing, but murdered.

Indeed, the ground was opened, and the cold corpse was exhumed—a ghastly necessity to prove the crime. The records tell a tale of two dates: first, the disappearance of the poor wretch in October, and then, the cold-blooded theft of his title deeds in January.

Among the rogues caught in this dragnet are a variety of characters—a certain Mr. Vlasov, a tradesman; one Nazeli Khachatryan; and a Mr. Anton Prokopovich, the master of a firm with the brazen name 'True Crime'. What a mockery! These knaves plotted in concert for the sake of a few coins and gilded walls. One of them has already crumbled and confessed his sins, while the rest languish in the damp silence of the cells, one merely under house arrest, others behind the heavy iron of the gaol.

But the misfortune does not end with the son. The father, Elman Pashayev, has also been seized by the constabulary. This man, who once marched to the fields of war alongside the husband of that scandalous dame, Elena Blinovskaya, now finds that the law he once manipulated has finally closed its grip upon his wrist. A fallen house, indeed—where the ink of the lawyer is replaced by the grime of the dungeon.