On her death bed, an old Russian aristocrat entrusts her son-in-law with a strictly guarded secret. Namely, that she had hidden all of her valuable jewelry in one of the twelve salon chairs that were taken away from her after the revolution. Her son-in-law, lppolit, is a former nobleman and a dandy who is currently wasting away as a small town magistrate in charge of civil marriages. He eagerly takes up the quest to find the treasure.