An ingenious structure, in which stories told by acquaintances at a London men’s club unfold like a Matryoshka doll, one inside the other. The tales revolve around a Russian princess, a couple murders, and missing jewels. The *real* purpose? To detain an M.P. from taking an important vote. “We have been matching stories, that is all, pretending we are people we are not,” one tells him, “endeavoring to entertain you with better detective tales than… the last one you read” (77).