Piero Piambo - successful portrait painter, socialite; he was welcome in the most fashionable New York drawing rooms of the late 19th century. But despite his success, he is consumed by a feeling of creative dissatisfaction, so he happily takes on an unusual order from a certain Mrs. Charbuque - to paint her portrait without seeing her, but only talking with her from behind a screen. But while the amazing Mrs. Charbuque tells him about her amazing life, the city is shaken by a series of bloody, unmotivated murders, and Piambo begins to realize that they are somehow connected with his mysterious customer...