 While Barnaby is away on holiday his replacement, the soon to be retired Ron Pringle, arrests Billie Gurdie for the murder of a tramp who lived in the woods near the village of Upper Marchwood. When Billie s father is also found dead in the same woods some three weeks later, an apparent suicide, Barnaby seriously questions the coincidence. When the post-mortem reveals the second death to also be murder, Barnaby is certain that both murders were committed by the same person.