Miss Marple sets out at once for Yew Tree Lodge, to find it besieged by the press and cordoned off by police. Gladys is missing. The police dismiss Miss Marple's warning that the nursery rhyme is about to be fulfilled - until Gladys is found by the washing line, strangled. The connection to the nursery rhyme is eventually found - the Blackbird Mine, owned by Rex Fortescue, who betrayed a partner years ago. That man's children might now be seeking revenge. Miss Marple's intuition is pointing to Lance. But how could he have killed his father if he was en route from Africa?
