When a beloved 3-year-old boy went missing, only to be discovered soon after in an outhouse with his throat slit, suspicion at first settled on the child's nursemaid in a London-area town in 1860. After local police failed to find any evidence, a brilliant detective was dispatched from the Metropolitan Police. Jonathan Whicher turned his attention away from the lower-class servants living in the home, and toward the family of Samuel Kent, a well-respected government official.