Miss Marple takes a well earned holiday at Bertram's, a Hotel she stayed in as a child. It seems familiar, but underneath the dainty teas and classy clientele, Bertram's hides a secret.
A friend of Miss Marple's sees a woman being strangled in a passing train. When police cannot find a body and doubt the story, Miss Marple enlists professional housekeeper, Lucy Eyelesbarrow, to go undercover.
While on vacation at a resort hotel in the West Indies, Miss Marple correctly suspects that the apparently natural death of a retired British major is actually the work of a murderer planning yet another killing.