Sherlock Holmes receives a letter from a vicar's wife in Staffordshire, telling him that she has seen the ghost of a young woman who was raped and murdered some sixty years previously. The body was carried up a flight of steps from the canal where shere it was found, and local legend has it that the unfortunate woman's ghost can be seen, and that the steps are still stained with her blood.

The great detective takes on the case, believing that the sightings are due to natural causes, and that a darker mystery lies at the bottom of the Bloody Steps.