When Rupert Sethleigh's body is found one morning, minus its head, laid out in the village butcher shop, the inhabitants of Wandles Parva aren't particularly upset. Sethleigh was a blackmailing money lender and when the unconventional detective Mrs Bradley begins her investigation she finds no shortage of suspects. It soon transpires that most of the village seem to have been wandering about Manor Woods, home of the mysterious druidic stone on which Sethleigh's blood is found splashed, on the night he was murdered but can she eliminate the red herrings and catch the real killer?