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4 Episodes 1974 - 1974
Episode 1
Sun, Apr 13, 197552 mins
In pre-WWI England Lord Peter is standing in for his injured brother in a wedding party in a country manor house. Deacon, the family butler, conspires with a local criminal to burgle the room of a wedding guest staying overnight and steal a very valuable emerald necklace. The fleeing thief is shot by Sir Charles, the lord of the manor, while making his getaway and is afterward easily apprehended. Thieves quickly fall out and both perpetrators are sentenced to prison terms. Near the end of the War, Wimsey, serving in the trenches, befriends his Sergeant Bunter, and when both are wounded and sent home in 1918, Bunter enters Wimsey's employment as valet. By this time Deacon has broken out from prison, and ironically made his escape disguised as a soldier. Ironically a car accident on wintry night forces Wimsey and Bunter to seek shelter at the scene of the crime tha occured twenty years earlier.

Episode 2
Sun, Apr 20, 197553 mins
After their car crashes in a snowbank, Wimsey and Bunter make it to a local pub and meet Reverend Venable, who agrees to put them up for the night at the vicarage, the same parish that was the scene of the emerald robbery twenty years earlier. Lord Peter discovers that in 1920 a decayed corpse was discovered clothed in the remnants of a convict's uniform, which was assumed to be Deacon, the disloyal butler. In order to repay the vicar's hospitality, Winsey agrees to replace an ailing bell-ringer on New Year's Eve. The next day Lord Peter and Bunter are back on the road and encounter an enigmatic traveler on the road. After Sir Henry Thorpe passes on the following Easter, gravediggers working to bury him with his recently deceased wife in the local churchyard discover a mysterious extra body in the grave.

Episode 3
Sun, Apr 27, 197552 mins
When a well is discovered on the estate, Hilary Thorpe suggests to Wimsey that it may contain evidence. Using his rod and reel Sir Peter recovers clothing and rope that came from the body of the man found in the Thorpe grave. He is able to ascertain that the deceased spent time in France and is able to track down his French wife, from whom he gets valuable information. He also is able to locate the real Cranton and interview him, and with the help of Reverend Venables, he is able to crack a complex bell code cipher that reveals the hiding place of the stolen emeralds... if they are still there.

Episode 4
Sun, May 4, 197552 mins
Accompanied by his brother-in-law, Scotland Yard Inspector Parker, Wimsey is able to wring confessions from Cranton as well as Jim and Will Thoday as to their complicity in the death of Deacon, but is still unable to identify the actual killer or means of murder. However, he is able to deduce the location of the emeralds which rightfully belong to Hilry Thorpe. Meanwhile, when very heavy rains threaten to break through an already weakened sluice and destroy the village, Reverend Venables makes preparation for the congregation to use the church as a safe haven in case of flood. The tragic death of one of the accessories ultimately does provide Wimsey with the evidence he needs to deduce how Deacon met his death.
