Lord Peter is vacationing in Scotland and naturally someone gets murdered. The area where he is staying is very scenic and a popular spot for landscape artists, several of whom have studios there.
One of the artists, Campbell, is an unpleasant fellow who seems to get into arguments with pretty everyone who crosses his path. On the days before his death, Campbell gets into an argument with his neighbor, Ferguson, whose garden wall Campbell damaged with his vehicle. He also tangles with Farran, whose wife Campbell has a crush on. There is also Strachan who banned Campbell from the golf club and Gowan and Graham who have both had beefs with Campbell. And finally there is Waters, a particular friend of Lord Peter's and who got into a drunken argument with Campbell the night before Campbell's body was found with its head bashed in. All of these men are artists and all are skilled enough to have faked a painting in Campbell's style.
Because the killer went to a lot of work to make it look like Campbell died when he fell while out doing a landscape painting. This required the murderer to produce a fresh painting in Campbell's distinctive style. At first the authorities feel certain Campbell died by falling but Lord Peter shows up at the murder scene and quickly realizes that something vital is missing from the scene. Spoiler: turns out to be a tube of white paint. The painting would not be possible without this white paint so someone took the tube of paint and that someone must be involved in some way in Campbell's death.
Anyway, the police accept Lord Peter's conclusions and together they investigate the six artists in the area who have had confrontations with Campbell and who have the skill to copy his painting style and who are unaccounted for at the time of the murder.
This was an OK story. A lot of the plot consists of cops investigating train time tables. Frankly I just skipped most of that. I don't understand train time tables. The best part of the story is discovering what the five innocent artists were up to that fatal night. So I did enjoy that part of it. But tracking their movements via trains, cars and bicycles wasn't quite so much fun.
See also a review by Taking the Short View.
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