Set in a deceptively tranquil English country village, Colonel Protheroe is a local magistrate and a tyrannical landowner who is most detested in this venue. Everyone, including the vicar, wishes he were dead. The colonel is soon found shot in the head in the vicar's study. A visiting artist mysteriously confesses to the murder as residents saw him elsewhere at the time it was committed. Miss Marple (June Whitfield) seeks to solve this crime by unraveling the intricate collection of clues.