A court clerk and an aspiring writer, later serving under the outstanding investigator of St. Petersburg, Yakov Petrovich Guro. He suffers from mysterious fainting fits when he is at the murder sites, where he is most often visited by visions, during which his hands themselves record supporting facts useful for the investigation. By chance, he meets the famous investigator Yakov Petrovich Guro, who takes him on a business trip to investigate the mysterious murders of girls in the village