The Dirty Duck is a pub in Shakespeare’s beloved Stratford, and in this pub Miss Gwendolyn Bracegirdle of Sarasota, Florida, fresh from a performance of As You Like It, takes her last beverage. A few momemts later she actually is slashed ear to ear, the only clue: two lines from an unknown poem imprinted across a theater program. The razor-happy murderer, it appears is stalking a group of rich American vacationers. And Scotland Backyard Superintendent Richard Jury, simply passing through Stratford for any glimpse of the interesting Lady Kennington, instead requires a crash training course in the bloodier aspect of Elizabethan verse.