The protagonist (Rudolf Hrusinsky) is a dull, fat, shy government clerk indulging in voyuerism and ego fantasies. In love with another clerk (Kveta Fiolova), he is urged on in his pursuit by a commiserate executive. The story is told in a flashback sequence as the cuckolded Hrusinsky attempts suicide by gassing himself in his bathtub. The "Murder" of the title is not a murder as such, rather the murder that Hrusinsky remembers planning upon discovering his wife's unfaithfulness with his supposed friend and advisor. Both plots failing in his mind, he loses himself in fantastic reveries of his funeral and of hypocritical mourners. ' Deciding (perhaps) that this is not the way out either, he gives up the attempt and imagines a life of reconciliation and eventual affluence.
2차 세계대전 말, 독일점령하에 있는 체코의 어느 작은 시골역. 이제 막 연수를 마치고 철도원이 된 22살의 밀로시 흐르마는 부푼 꿈을 안고 역무일을 시작하지만, 이내 차장 마샤의 매력에 홀딱 빠져 오로지 그녀와의 ‘사랑 만들기’에만 골몰하게 된다. 마침 독일의 무기수송열차를 폭파하려는 레지스탕스 활동이 비밀리에 진행되고, 얼떨결에 작전에 참여하게 되는데…
