The letter was addressed to the king and was signed by the head of His Majesty's Secret Service. When Richard Hall, a graduate student, came across it clipped to some other documents in the Public Record Office in London, he realized at once that it was there by mistake. For although it was written in 1910, it was still marked "classified" and he had no business looking at it. But it intrigued him. Why should a report in which all the principals were long dead still be secret? On impulse, Richard put it in his briefcase and took it home with him. Within hours, he is brutally murdered and his girlfriend, to whom he showed it, is running from the killers in terror.