Miss Marple is visiting an old school friend Lady Camilla Tressilian along with an eclectic group. Nevile Strange and his wife Kay, his former wife Audrey and her childhood friend and cousin Thomas Royde, Ted Latimer, who is something of a gigolo and very attracted to Kay Strange and finally Freddie Treves, a retired solicitor. When Treves is found dead the day after a dinner party at Lady Tressilian's home and Lady Tressilian herself is found bludgeoned to day a short time later, Mis Marple must sort through the complex set of relationships among all of the players and must determine what role a tale of a child's crime may have had to play in the deaths.