A sleepy English village is scandalised when the eccentric housekeeper at the vicarage publicly announces the disappearance of a priceless medieval chalice. No one admits to having ever seen the chalice, yet the very next day the old woman is found brutally murdered. Superintendent Pollard and Inspector Toye of Scotland Yard untangle a web of suspicion and deceit, and unearth the remnants of long-ago violence, as they reveal the dark secrets of Abercombe.