Jessica Fletcher has been authorized by the museum to purchase a handwritten manuscript of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's visit to America and Ellis island. At the auction, she runs into her old friend Charlie Garrett who has been hired to bid up to $100,000 on a painting by a relatively unknown modern artist. Garrett's only instruction is not to bid one cent more than the authorized amount but his inexperience leads him to bid four times the authorized amount. Jessica's doubts about the manuscript she was looking to buy and her friend Charlie Garrett's predicament lead her to believe there is scam going on. It all has to do with a Degas painting stolen some two years before. But when a murder occurs, Jessica is in her element and sets to solve it.
—garykmcd