Two friends are kidnapped by several masked men, who, to judge by their manners and their accent are men of the best society. One of the friends is a doctor, and the masked men say that they need him to assist a noblewoman, who is about to give birth. When they reach the house, they find no such noblewoman, only a dead man. Another man, known only as A.M.C., bursts in at this point and declares that the man died of opium poisoning. The doctor writes a letter to a newspaper editor, setting out the facts as he knows them. These facts are rebutted first by a friend of A.M.C. and then by the first masked man, who explains the whole story... Eca de Queiroz wrote this spoof mystery with his friend Ramalho Ortigao, publishing it in the form of a series of anonymous letters in the Diario de Noticias between 24 July and 27 September 1870. Many readers believed the letters to be genuine. As the book progresses, one sees Eca gradually getting into his stride as a novelist, equally at home with
