Summary
In a soot-choked metropolis where gaslight drips like molten wax, two brothers—one a silk-gloved paragon, the other a moth-eaten jackal—wrestle over the last shard of their late father’s tarnished crown. Phillip Griswold, eyes the color of oxidized coins, spirits away his niece beneath the gothic ribs of a cathedral, then daubs the crime across the face of Pietro Balletti, a vagabond evergreen-merchant whose pockets reek of pine sap and Roman sun. Bloodhounds in blue give chase; snowflakes turn to iron filings under boot. William, the girl’s father, storms through alleys rank with brine and confetti, pistol trembling like a tuning fork. One ricochet, one scream curtailed, and Pietro’s own olive-eyed child lies crumpled—an unscripted pieta on the cobbles—while the actual kidnapper counts bank-notes behind a cracked stained-glass window, humming a Christmas carol in a minor key.
Synopsis
Phillip Griswold kidnaps his brother William's daughter for ransom, and frames Christmas tree peddler Pietro Balletti for it. In the course of hunting for Pietro, William accidentally kills the Italian's daughter.
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