Written as a frame story, "Sub pecetea tainei" comprises the recollections of Teodor "Rache" Ruse, a retired Police officer. Punctuated by willing omissions, for which rows of ellipses are employed, the text is structured into accounts of three unsolved cases: that of a missing person, the clerk Gogu Nicolau, who may or may not have been murdered by his wife; that of an epileptic minister whom Ruse is supposed to guard and who, after going missing and returning, presents his resignation and dies, leaving the general public clueless as to his fate; finally, that of a Viennese couple of con artists and presumed murderers (one of whom may be a transvestite woman) whose arrival in Bucharest poses a threat on the life of their female host, Lena Ceptureanu. Ruse's accounts, which oblique references in the text seem to place in 1930, form part of his conversations with the unnamed narrator, which are set in Caru cu bere restaurant and in the narrator's Bucharest home; this, Manolescu notes, echoes scenes in "Craii...". A recurring element in the plot is the role played by secretive women, who may be directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of male characters. Commentators have since attempted to match several of the protagonists with real people in Caragiale's life. Such theories identify Rache Ruse himself with Cantuniari, a policeman whom Caragiale had befriended, the minister with the leading Conservative Party member Alexandru Lahovary, and the female character Arethy with Miller Verghy.