Joyce Jowett has just lost her husband when a stranger called Nigel Wheeler turns up in Aidensfield asking for him. He is a financial advisor and while he is in the area he might as well visit other potential customers. One of them is Jo Weston and PC Rowan decides to take a closer look at him. George Ward and other villagers have received malicious letters. The only lead is that they are all written on the same typewriter.

Sergeant Merton is dating Vivienne Keen, but the morning after a date she accuses him of stealing her purse. Merton of course denies the allegation and is suspended pending investigation, but things do not look to good for him when the purse is found in his apartment. Furthermore a similar allegation was made against him ten years earlier, but the case was dropped. PC Bradley still thinks his superior is innocent and begins his own, private investigation at the risk of being suspended himself. Bernie Scripps is acting strangely. He has seen Dr. Summerbee a lot recently and Vernon is afraid he suffers from a serious depression.

PC Mason discovers that being a village bobby does not always have something to do with police work when he gives Nurse Cassidy a ride to a farm and the farmer asks him to help getting a cow out of the mud. But he also gets some real cases when somebody nicks 12 shillings from the collection in the village church and a photograph goes missing from Ashfordly Hall. Young Charlie Prentice asks for directions to Ashfordly Estate telling Oscar Blaketon that she is looking for her father and she is convinced he is Lord Ashfordly. David Stockwell decides to make a will because he is afraid to leave a mess when he dies. Maybe that was not such a good idea after all.