Murdoch is assigned to an adjacent station house when one of their officers is found murdered in Toronto's Chinatown, his theories on the crime come under question.

With Murdoch away, Constable Crabtree finds himself investigating the apparent death by poisoning of a visiting Chinese official who was in Toronto seeking men who had participated in the Boxer Rebellion. Their immediate suspect is Wu Chang but as Crabtree gets to know the young man, he is increasingly convinced of his innocence. It turns out it's not Boxers they're after. Murdoch and Julia Ogden meanwhile are trying to find their nemesis, James Gillies. Things take a strange twist when the Cobourg police inform them they may have found Gillies' remains. Ballistics settles the issue but one question remains: who wrote the threatening letters. Murdoch settles that mystery as well.