Mary arrives at Jamaica Inn and meets her towering, brutal uncle Joss Merlyn for the first time.

Mary sees how completely Joss has broken Aunt Patience and decides to stay at the inn to protect her.

Joss warns Mary she must ignore all nighttime wagons and threatens to break her if she ever meddles.

Mary watches from her bedroom window as Joss oversees smugglers loading stolen cargo into moonlit carriages.

Mary sneaks downstairs at night and overhears Joss and an unknown accomplice deciding what to do with a man who refuses to commit murder.

Squire Bassat arrives to inspect Jamaica Inn while Joss is away but leaves frustrated when the locked parlor is found completely empty.

Mary gets lost following Joss across the moors at night and is rescued by Francis Davey, the Vicar of Altarnun.

Joss drunkenly confesses to Mary that he leads a wrecking gang that has personally murdered countless people.

Mary spends Christmas Eve with Jem in Launceston and realizes by the end of the day that she has fallen in love with him.

Joss and his men ambush the vicar's carriage, shoot the driver dead, and force Mary to join the final wreck.

The wreckers light a signal flare on the shore and a ship crashes onto the rocks and sinks.

Mary discovers Joss dead on the floor of Jamaica Inn; Squire Bassat arrives and confirms Patience was also murdered.

Mary finds a hidden sketch in Francis Davey's desk depicting him as a wolf preaching to a flock of sheep.

Francis Davey confesses to leading the wrecking ring, then kidnaps Mary and forces her onto horseback to flee the moors.

Mary encounters Jem on the moors with his belongings packed and decides to leave with him rather than return to Helford.

Mary Yellan arrives at the remote Jamaica Inn to live with her Aunt Patience and her brutal husband, Joss Merlyn, only to discover the inn serves as a hub for smugglers. After witnessing nighttime cargo transfers and overhearing what she believes is a murder being arranged, Mary becomes determined to expose Joss and bring him to justice. A chance rescue on the moors by the Vicar of Altarnun, Francis Davey, provides a seemingly trustworthy ally, while Joss's drunken confession about leading a deadly wrecking gang confirms her worst fears. A fateful Christmas Eve with Joss's brother Jem ends in her kidnapping and being forced to witness the horrors of a real shipwreck firsthand. When Joss and Patience are found murdered, Mary discovers she has misplaced her trust entirely — the real mastermind is Francis Davey himself, who is ultimately shot dead by Jem before Mary chooses to leave the moors with the man she loves.

The headline events driving Mary's battle against Jamaica Inn's criminal network.

The coachman and a fellow passenger warn Mary that Jamaica Inn is no place for a respectable woman.

Aunt Patience begs Mary not to question Joss's activities, warning that the truth will destroy Mary's peace of mind.

Joss puts Mary to work behind the bar during a late-night gathering of poachers, thieves, and smugglers.

Mary creeps into the empty parlor after the nighttime meeting disperses and finds a rope hanging from the ceiling beam.

Jem Merlyn visits Jamaica Inn uninvited and helps himself to alcohol, then apologizes to Mary through her bedroom window.

Joss returns home after Bassat's unannounced visit and, after initially raging, tells Mary she did well handling the magistrate.

Mary tells Francis Davey everything about the smuggling and suspected murder at Jamaica Inn and he advises her to wait and lie low.

Joss drinks himself into a stupor for five days and Patience nurses him with surprising composure and calm.

Jem nonchalantly sells the horse he stole from Squire Bassat directly to the squire's own wife at the Launceston market.

A fortune teller at the Launceston market warns that Jem has blood on his hands and that Mary should beware a dark stranger.

Harry the pedlar catches Mary alone near the shore after the wreck and attacks her, but she escapes into the fog.

The wreckers mutiny against Joss after dawn exposes them following the final wreck and Joss and Harry shoot two men dead.

Harry returns to Jamaica Inn demanding his share of the plundered loot and Joss locks him in the storeroom.

Mary sneaks out of Jamaica Inn to seek the vicar's help but discovers Francis Davey is away from Altarnun.

Mary recovers at the Bassat family home but grows restless among their social class and longs to return to Helford.

From the moment locals warn Mary against going to Jamaica Inn, her arrival unfolds as a steady accumulation of dread and discovery. Through a raucous nighttime gathering at the bar, an unannounced visit from Squire Bassat, and her first conversation with Francis Davey, Mary pieces together the scale of Joss's criminal enterprise. A lighthearted Christmas Eve trip to Launceston is shadowed by a fortune teller's warning and Jem's unexplained disappearance, while the botched final wreck ends in mutiny, violence, and Harry the pedlar being locked away as a suspect. With Joss and Patience dead and Harry cleared as the killer, Mary is left without any clear suspect until Davey's guilt is exposed. She recuperates with the Bassats but finds she cannot settle into comfortable society, longing instead for the simpler life she knew before Jamaica Inn.

The supporting moments and encounters that shaped the mystery at Jamaica Inn.

Mary's mother dies after a long illness and Mary sells the family farm to travel to Jamaica Inn.

Joss tells Mary alone that he drinks compulsively and that alcohol always forces him to reveal his secrets.

Joss orders his men to strip a vulnerable man and drive him naked out onto the freezing moors as punishment.

Joss sends Patience to bed and cryptically warns Mary he will one day have work for her involving life and death.

Joss sets off on foot across the moors after Bassat's inspection and Mary decides to follow him at a distance.

Francis Davey drives Mary back across the moors at reckless speed, revealing an alarming and intense passion for the wild landscape.

Mary visits Jem at his cottage, cooks supper for him, and he hints darkly that Joss has been connected to murder.

Jem invites Mary to join him at the Launceston Christmas Eve market and she accepts to prove she is not afraid of him.

Mary waits in pouring rain for over half an hour before learning that unknown men forced Jem away in a carriage.

Francis Davey warns Mary that the government is preparing to shut down wrecking and smuggling operations across Cornwall entirely.

Mary breaks free on the beach and shouts to warn an approaching ship, but the wreckers catch her, bind her, and kick her in the sand.

Jem appears at Mary's window after the wreck, sees her cuts and bruises, and swears to kill his brother Joss.

Mary arrives at Squire Bassat's manor seeking help only to find he has already ridden out to arrest Joss.

Francis Davey reveals to Mary that Jem had been secretly informing against Joss in exchange for his own clemency.

Mary hesitates at Jem's cart packed with all his belongings but then climbs in, choosing a life on the road with him.

Mary's journey begins with the death of her mother and her resolve to honour a dying wish by travelling alone to the forbidding Jamaica Inn. From Joss's earliest threats to his cryptic promise of dark work ahead, Mary is confronted at every turn with choices that test both her courage and her heart. Her growing attraction to Jem Merlyn complicates everything, especially after he vanishes in Launceston and she begins to build a damning case against him in her mind. The night of the final wreck pushes Mary to her most desperate act of bravery — breaking free to shout a warning to a doomed ship — before she is overpowered and bound. In the aftermath, the truth unravels quickly: Jem is cleared when Francis Davey reveals he was an informant all along, the vicar is exposed as the true villain, and Mary must decide whether to return to safety or follow her heart into an uncertain future with Jem.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that define Mary's journey.