March roars in and Charlotte Frayne, P.I., receives a letter requesting her services to prevent "a grave miscarriage of justice." The sender, Miss Olivia Brodie, is an elderly resident in the Toronto House of Industry (the Poor House) who claims she witnessed two men on a nearby street, behaving in a suspicious manner. After learning that two Black teenagers have been charged with burglary on that same street, she is convinced the men she saw are the true culprits. Separately, Charlotte is hired by a Mrs. Emmeline Larkin, a woman from the opposite end of society's hierarchy, who says she is missing some precious jewelry. She fears the thief may be a member of her own social circle, possibly from the influential women's club to which she belongs.Investigating what seems at first like disparate cases takes Charlotte back to events from Toronto's history, and she discovers a time when there was, indeed, grave injustice.