Our days Orest Volin's Parisian girlfriend, French police captain Irene Belew, is robbed right on the street by a gang of juvenile robbers. However, Irene manages to detain the youngest of them, twelve-year-old Vincent Rethel. He brings her to his mother, who sells antique and simply dilapidated things of varying value at a flea market. Irene discovers that on Madame Rethel’s tray there is a photo album with part of the stolen photo archive of the Iranian Shaheenshah Nasser ad-Din, who was once saved by Nestor Zagorsky. May 1910 Patron of Nestor Vasilyevich Zagorsky, Privy Councilor S. prepares the latest edition of the Russian-Japanese treaty. This agreement contains a secret section that cannot be published under any circumstances. Otherwise, it could become a pretext for the start of a major European war. The Privy Councilor, having caught a cold, takes the secret part of the agreement from the ministry to his home to work on it at home, because there is very little time left before signing. However, suddenly the folder with the secret section, certified by the seals of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, disappears, along with it the thirty-year-old son of the Privy Councilor, Platon Nikolaevich, disappears. The matter is extremely delicate and S. turns to Zagorsky for help.