York, Winter, 1906 - two brothers have been shot to death. Meanwhile, Jim Stringer meets the Lost Luggage Porter, humblest among the employees of the North Eastern Railway company. He tells Jim a tale which leads him to the roughest part of town, a place where the police constables always walk in twos. Jim is off on the trail of pickpockets, 'station loungers' and other small fry of the York underworld.

But then in a tiny, one-room pub with a badly smoking fire he enters the orbit of a dangerous, disturbed villain who is playing for much higher stakes . . .