John Brown and Company makes furniture and has been a solid business for years. But young Harold Skinner wants to shake things up and make modern furniture. John Brown will have none of it. Soon Harold meets John Brown's wife, an attractive woman in her 30s, who married for money -- though she denies it. Unlike her husband, she's excited about Skinner's modern ideas and wants to help him. Especially after the two of them become lovers. Harold comes up with a "wonderful horrible idea" to get John Brown out of the way: convince him he's losing his mind.

A murderer has been strangling people in the London fog. A reporter manages to continually make it to the crime scene before the police.

London, 1912. A man who runs a small shop may get drunk too much. And he may not have been the best father in the world. In fact, his 35-year-old son has proved to be worthless. Can't keep a job. Always borrowing money from his father and not paying it back. But Joe Saunders is going to do right by his son just this once: he's not going to lend him any more money. The boy will have to get it on his own. The trouble is, Sam Saunders needs the money to persuade a cheap showgirl to run off with him. And he'll do anything to get it. Meanwhile, an old friend pays Joe a late-night visit.