At the request of his old intelligence colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into a mysterious letter that she had received from her friend Stella Rode, the wife of a schoolmaster at Carnes boy's school, saying that she feared for her life at her husband's hands. When Smiley goes to Carnes to investigate, he finds Stella brutually murdered with her husband, Stanley, one of the suspects, although Smiley is doubtful that Stanley had anything to do with his wife's death. Smiley begins to scratch at the surface of the close-knit society of Carnes and soon begins to find that things are not as they seem. As Smiley investigates, he learns that Stella was a nosy busybody who loved to learn other's little secrets and then gossip about them - or possibly blackmail them. When a student is killed and Smiley unearths a secret, he has the evidence to name the killer.