When a friendless old widow dies in the seaside town of Crythin, a young solicitor is sent by his firm to settle the estate. The lawyer finds the townspeople reluctant to talk about or go near the woman's dreary home and no one will explain or even acknowledge the menacing woman in black he keeps seeing.
Esther, the beautiful queen of Persia, intervenes to save the Jewish people from a bloody massacre.
The daughter of scientist Professor Presbury sees her father's face at her second-storey window; Holmes connects this with recent zoo thefts.