Running late to a gala performance of Gilbert and Sullivans Ruddigore, Phryne Fisher meets some thugs in dark alley and handles them convincingly before they can ruin her silver dress. She then finds that she has rescued the handsome Lin Chung, and his grandmother, who briefly mistake her for a deity. Denying divinity but accepting cognac, she later continues safely to the theatre where her night is again interrupted by a bizarre death onstage. What links can Phryne find between the ridiculously entertaining plot of Ruddigore, the Chinese community of Little Bourke St., or the actors treading the boards of His Majestys Theatre?