A detective-mystery film based on the novel of the same name by Wilkie Collins, which takes place in the middle of the last century in Victorian England. The young aspiring artist gets a place as a teacher of painting on the estate of land-owner Fairlie, where his sisters Marian and Laura become his students. Returning home late in the evening, he unexpectedly meets a strange woman, dressed head-to-toe in white on a deserted road...

The protagonists of the film are construction workers. Though they differ in character, they are united by a shared passion for discovery, purity of intention, and emotional depth. Civil engineer Kidin, a creative soul, fights for a revision of the prefab housing plant project. Can a person truly be happy if they pursue only a narrowly defined personal happiness?

The distinctive traits of the Doroshin family are hard work, courage, and principledness. Pavel Nikolaevich is a war veteran and the chief engineer of a factory, while Anastasia Mikhailovna is the head of a university department and an active participant in the partisan movement. Their eldest son, Ilya, a sanitary doctor, demands the closure of one of the city's enterprises. However, war criminals, who are hiding from retribution, know that the Gestapo archives are hidden in the building's basement and fear that the documents might be discovered. Terrified of exposure, they try to prevent Ilya from carrying out this action and attempt to discredit the Doroshins.

A film crew arrives for a three-day shoot in a village in the Yaroslavl region to film a documentary about an old master potter, Mikhail Lukich Bolotnikov.