London.
Racing to Paris with Watson at his side, Holmes discovers the missing child is.
Mlle La Victoire, a beautiful French cabaret star writes that her illegitimate son by an English lord has disappeared, and she has been attacked in the streets of Montmartre.
Watson can neither comfort nor rouse his friend - until a strangely encoded letter arrives from Paris.
Sherlock Holmes, 34, is languishing and back on cocaine after a disastrous Ripper investigation.
A snowy December, 1888.
London