Harvey Cottrell buys furniture at almost stealing prizes. He shows great interest in Alice Stanton's Greek figurine and the next day it is gone. The same thing happens to an old mirror belonging to John Salter, and Cottrell turned really nasty when she would not sell him that. The villagers of Aidensfield have to elect either Oscar Blaketon or Joyce Jowett as the parish representative for the counsel and the candidates do everything they can to outdo and discredit each other. Many villagers find it hard to get to the village hall to vote and Blaketon offers to take them there in David's taxi. Dr. Summerbee thinks that exercise will improve general health in Aidensfield and organizes a fitness class. But fitness may not be too good to herself because she collapses after the class.

Lord Ashfordly plays host to a group of ex-offenders, who will be working on the estate under the supervision of Eric Grey as part of a rehabilitation programme. But not all of the young men are that keen on getting rehabilitated and only want to make trouble. For starters they steal Oscar Blaketon's car when he refuses to serve them at the pub. Dorothy Plum is complaining that someone is disturbing her little dog Marigold, but a search of her garden and the road outside turns up nothing. The old lady gets really worried when the dog disappears and she offers a big reward to get it back. Aunt Peggy is not a woman to let such an opportunity pass. She gets a similar dog with the help of an old friend and tries to return it to its "rightful owner" after a small makeover.

Oscar Blaketon is doing some private investigating for Hetty Bolton, who correctly suspects her husband Arthur of having an affair with the waitress Dolly Forde. The next morning Arthur Bolton is found murdered at his coal yard and Hetty Bolton claims that she and Blaketon were having an affair and that Blaketon was jealous of him. Debbie Black reports her television set stolen. She is a very attractive widow with three children and makes quite an impact on PC Bellamy. And she does not find him particularly unattractive either. Aunt Peggy buys a greyhound for racing, but the dog is not as fast as it was promised to be. As a matter of fact she has seen corpses livelier than that.