Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov plans to buy the titles to “dead souls” and use them as collateral to obtain a large loan. He comes to a small provincial town and begins to proposition the local landowners. These landowners are revealed to be so petty and avaricious that not even Chichikov’s amazing offer can be worked to his advantage on them. Some stall, some refuse for no obvious reasons, some promise and then renege, and others want “in on the deal.” In the end, Chichikov, having concluded that the landowners are a hopeless lot, leaves for other regions.
One evening, the bell rings at Commissioner Maigret's house. Minister of Construction Puan asks the commissioner to come to his apartment urgently, keeping this request a secret from the police authorities. At the meeting, it turns out that a report disappeared from the minister's apartment, with which Puan was supposed to speak at a government meeting two days later.
A mysterious castle has stood on the island for 300 years, about which there are many legends and rumors. In reality, the castle is home to a boarding school, but local residents are sure that the ghost of the Green Hunter lives there. The boys also think they hear footsteps at night. And they were not mistaken - their search for adventure leads them to the sinister secrets of people who collaborated with the Nazis during the war.
At the beginning of the summer of 1905, representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party Krasilnikov and Elkonen turned to Captain Zhanis Trautman, a Latvian political emigrant living on the outskirts of London, with a proposal to lead a steamer with a cargo of weapons to the shores of Russia. Having recruited a team of old and tried comrades, Trautman changes the crew of an English cargo ship bought by the front men. In the course of the squabble that arose on this occasion, a sailor of the old crew, David Blake, was stabbed. The wounded Blake and the veterinarian Gruber, who accompanied the cargo of anthrax drugs, are forced to leave on board. On the high seas, weapons and explosives were loaded on board. The steamer headed for the Oresund Strait, where a messenger was to meet him.