An old widow is brutally killed in the parlour of her cottage...

'Mrs McGinty's dead!'
'How did she die?'
'Down on one knee, just like I!'

The old children's game now seemed rather tasteless. The real Mrs McGinty was killed by a crushing blow to the back of the head and her pitifully small savings were stolen.

Suspicion falls immediately on her lodger, hard up and out of a job. Hercule Poirot has other ideas - unaware that his own life is now in great danger...