This story takes place in the Caribbean, where Miss Marple is on holiday; her nephew paid for her to take the trip after she suffered a bout of ill health. The story starts quite slowly, and involves lots of sitting around gossiping. Miss Marple is bored and longs for something exciting to happen. She finds Major Palgrave was the man with a million stories, and everyone vacationing at the lovely Golden Palm Hotel on the Caribbean island of St. Honoré tried to avoid his long-winded stories. He approaches the elderly detective, who sits, half listening and making polite replies once in a while, until Major Palgrave started speaking about her favourite topic: murder. He begins to tell her a rather unusual story about a man who got away with murder more than once, and when Palgrave asks her if she wanted to see a picture of a murderer, the knitting stops and she listens intently. But after he fishes through his wallet for the photo, he suddenly stops and changes the subject abruptly and rather loudly. Miss Marple looks up to see why and sees several people nearby.