Once upon a time in Japan lived a beautiful young woman. The beloved daughter of a silk mill owner, she was lavished with gorgeous kimonos from across the province, but her favorite was the first he gave to her—a deep crimson kimono painted with mischievous black cats that was crafted by the finest weaver in the mill. The weaver, besotted with her beauty, professed his love to the maiden, but finding her indifferent to his advances—preferring the warmth of her feline finery to his—is led down a devious path that separates the woman from one of her beloved black cats! Thus, the cat begins a fantastic voyage, from the bottom of the sea to the smokey markets of Victorian London, sometimes in the company of Sherlock Holmes himself, as he becomes a figure of myth and legend.