Overview
The Fogden's are expecting a paying guest to stay with them for the summer. Great-Aunt Popsy is preoccupied with a recent murder in the papers by a woman who has fed her husband with a poisoned shepherd's pie and is now at large. The village gossip, Miss Iggulden, suggests that the guest who has arrived and who has presented them with a shepherd's pie is the murderess. Very soon various mysteries about the guest lead the whole family to think the same. It is only when a neighbour arrives and explains that the guest is really a lecturer on cookery who has been misdirected that the mystery is cleared up.