In an effort to beguile their Devonshire neighbours, wealthy financier SIR GEORGE STUBBS and his 'subnormal' wife HATTIE prepare to stage a grand summer fete in the grounds of their new acquisition, Nasse House. No expense is spared, and the lawn is soon bustling with visitors keen to have their fortune told, to compete in the fancy dress and to try their hand at the coconut shy. And then there is the ultimate challenge: a fiendishly complicated 'murder hunt' prepared by the famous mystery novelist ARIADNE OLIVER. But Ariadne is perturbed. Convinced that someone is 'jockeying her along', she insists on the presence of her old friend HERCULE POIROT, who reluctantly agrees to apply his uniquely analytical mind to a crime that, as yet, only exists in Ariadne's imagination.