In this short story it is the fall of 1879 and San Francisco swelters under a heat wave while Barbara Hewitt, a reserved schoolteacher, uncovers a mystery with the help of her son's Boston Terrier, Dandy.

This story is set in the gas-lit world created by Locke in her Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, which includes Maids of Misfortune, Uneasy Spirits, Bloody Lessons, and the short story "The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage".