The Circassian. "Wrong Side"

1888.
It began with a casual conversation between two bored passengers during a long sea voyage from South Africa to England. Dr. Grant, a British surgeon returning from India explains to Count Peter Evdokimoff, a Russian Nobleman the advantages of using hypnosis in place of an anesthetic during surgery. A few days later a fight breaks out below decks leaving one man dead and his killer seriously injured. Dr. Grant requests the assistance of the Count as he believes the injured man is speaking Russian. The Count agrees to assist, and he visits the patient. But Evdokimoff is no ordinary Count, he is a high ranking officer of the Russian Secret Service, the Okhrana, on his way to London to find the man who is funding Anti-Russian Jewish extremists. And he discovers that the injured man is no ordinary passenger, he is a Circassian with a Russian brand on his shoulder. The brand of a high-security Russian Island prison where convicted prisoners only go to be executed and none have ever escaped. Evdokimoff believes him to be a war criminal, "the butcher of Kokand, a ruthless killer, who was wanted by the Russian Army. When Grant jokingly offers to teach the Count's assistant Gurin to hypnotise him for surgery, Evdokimoff willingly agrees and the patient known only as Jaak, is tricked into allowing it. As Evdokimoff watches Jaak fall into a heavy trance and allow himself to be manipulated like a marionette to Gurin's every whim he realises that he has a perfect scapegoat to use in London and formulates a plan to use Jaak to draw out the dissidents. But Jaak has left a trail of bodies behind him in South Africa and Mikael, the brother of one of the victims is on his way to London to kill him.