London. 1888. Two of the most unlikely characters in Victorian London are brought together by a savage street robbery and an unexpected act of charity.25-year-old John Howard Batchelor, disinherited and cast out of the family home in Gloucestershire after refusing an Army commission, struggles to survive on the brutal streets of London - at one point even contemplating suicide.Cullen Moffat, a retired Colour-Sergeant, now driving a London hansom cab, is lonely and disenchanted with civilian life. As a veteran of the Crimean War, he misses the comradeship of Army life.Purely by chance they are drawn into the investigation of the brutal Whitechapel murders. What they discover takes them beyond the boundaries of East London and Jack the Ripper, endangering not only their own lives, but also the very existence of the British Empire.