Natural History Museum, Park St, Tring, Herts, UK – Midsomer Murders, Murder on St Malley’s Day (2002) - Movie Locations on Waymarking.com

Devington School has an annual race on St Malley’s Day. This year the race ends in tragedy when the lead boy, Daniel Talbot, staggers back to school, collapses and dies. He has been stabbed. The race had taken the boys through local woods. When the police investigate they find the knife in the woods. The knife, when examined has traces of a cleaning product on it. The knife is identified as belonging to the local pub.

Barnaby investigates the route of the race. It passes through the local village, where there is animosity towards the school. One of the villagers, Paul Starkey, son of the pub landlord, had been seen near the woods on that day and is brought in for questioning. Meanwhile a local conspiracy theorist, Dudley Carew, tells Barnaby that he should look to the school, and that there are criminal activities there.

In Daniel Talbot’s room there is a valentine card, which Barnaby traces to a local girl. He deduces that Daniel, rather than wanting to win the race, had actually been trying to run off with his girlfriend, but had to go back to the school after being stabbed. On that basis Barnaby and Troy return to the woods and follow a different path. This path takes them to a hollow tree where Daniel had hidden a bag with his tooth brush etc. There they also find signs of a struggle. Daniel had been stabbed in a different part of the wood to where the knife was found. Obviously Paul Starkey had been set up.

Barnaby has to go back to the school when Dudley Carew is found murdered underneath a heavy mower on the cricket pitch. Carew had been a former pupil at the school, and also a member of the Pudding Club, an elite group within the school with connections to the Foreign Office. A further link to the Pudding Club occurs when a body of a missing diplomat is found in the school lake. The diplomat was a former member of the Pudding Club.

Forensic tests of the school mower reveal traces of the same cleaning fluid as on the knife. When Barnaby searches the Pudding Club room he finds one of the gloves of the school porter, the gloves he uses to clean the school silver. The other glove is trapped under a secret door. When the door is opened there is a hoard of valuable artefacts brought back by diplomat members of the Foreign Office. Obviously the school is finance by art thefts. That is why the diplomat was murdered. The murderer was the school porter.

Movie or TV Show: Midsomer Murders - Murder on St Malley's Day Year Released or First Aired: 2,002.00 IMDB Link: [Web Link]

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.