'If everyone had a perfectly clear conscience, the blackmailer would have no chance'. So begins a trial in which the unfortunate judge is himself blackmailed. Unwittingly 'picked up' by a 'respectable-looking girl' the judge finds himself put into an impossible situation in which an unscrupulous blackmailer threatens his career and personal life in an attempt to steer the course of a trial to an acquittal. Can Mr Justice Slaughter save himself from ruin and degradation?