S01/E18: THE MISSING NIGHT WATCHMAN

A black sedan parks along the side of a road. The driver gets out, opens his trunk, and pulls a dead security watchman out of it. (Viewers know its a watchman because he’s wearing a watchman’s patrol watchclock still dangling from his hip with a long strap from shoulder). The driver drags the body across a dock and tosses it into the river.

An absolute nutty goofball named Charles Quimby is at the rear of an antiques consignment shop he manages when he hears a knock at the door. He paces quickly to the door to greet Peter Gunn. Gunn appears to want to ignore Quimby’s silly antics and speaking manner, so he walks around the store picking up items for a look. But every time he picks up something, Quimby removes it from his hand and places it back on display. Quimby tells Gunn that his night watchman, Arthur Block, is missing along with about $50,000 in unset gems. Gunn wonders why Quimby hasn’t notified the police. Quimby explains that the jewels were under consignment to the store from an eccentric collector, Mr. Phillip J. Lasdown. Quimby doesn’t want to report it in the hopes that Gunn can recover the jewels and he wouldn’t have to inform the owner of what happened.

Mr. Lasdown arrives at the store. Lasdown is a completely snobbish character who considers himself superior to everyone around him. Lasdown tells Quimby he’s there for his Buddha statue. Quimby is reluctant in returning it, saying he has someone that is interested in buying the Buddha, but Lasdown says he’s decided not to sell it. Lasdown is walking all throughout the store and doesn’t see it. He demands to know where it is and Quimby tells Lasdown it’s behind the curtain. Lasdown is furious that his exquisite statuette is treated in such a manner and blasts Quimby for his incompetence. Lasdown takes the Buddha as Gunn watches.

Gunn visits the apartment building where the night watchman Arthur Block lives and knocks on the landlord’s door. The landlord, a homely-looking middle-aged woman, immediately gets sexually aroused at the sight of Peter Gunn. Gunn asks to see Arthur Block’s room and the landlady tells him that’s against the rules. Gunn then drops a five dollar bill on the floor and says, “Oh, my goodness, I dropped five dollars.” The landlady offers to pick it up and then stuffs it down her bra. She opens Block’s room. Gunn looks around, but doesn’t find anything of interest.

Lt. Jacoby enters his office and finds Gunn seated at the desk fiddling with a guitar that Gunn must have picked up in the office. Jacoby, who appears grumpy, removes the guitar from Gunn and puts it away. Gunn asks if Jacoby knows of an Arthur Block. Jacoby tells Gunn that if he wants to see Mr. Block to follow him to the morgue.

At the morgue, the mortician tells Jacoby and Gunn that the slug he removed from the body is something he’s never seen before and has sent it up to ballistics. 

Jacoby and Gunn go to the ballistics lab and the technician there tells the men that the bullet came from a weapon made in the year 1837 by Samuel Colt. When Jacoby asks what the gun looks like, the tech says, “It was a forerunner of the Colt .44…It had a single barrel with a revolving breach, carried six slugs.” Since the gun used to kill the watchman was an antique, Jacoby and Gunn presume Lasdown, a collector, may be involved.

Gunn calls the antiques shop manager Quimby to let him know that Arthur Block was found murdered and Quimby faints. Jacoby says he’s headed over there and Gunn tells him to take smelling salts. Gunn says he’s headed to see Phillip Lasdown.

At Lasdown’s home, Lasdown calls out to his butler, a wacky Chinese man named Mao, to get the door (as Gunn is ringing the doorbell) but the Chinese man doesn’t respond. Lasdown opens the door and thinks Gunn is there peddling magazines or kitchen items or vacuum cleaners or a trip to the Bahamas. Gunn says he wants to know about Lasdown’s items on consignment with Quimby. Lasdown says he has many things there of value and plans to remove them all in the morning. Lasdown slams the door, shutting out Gunn. Back inside, the butler shows up speaking in Chinese to Lasdown. 

Outside, a delivery man arrives to pick up luggage from Phillip Lasdown to transport to the airport. Gunn offers him money for information about Lasdown's plans. The deliveryman man tells Gunn that Lasdown will be on “Flight 11”, which Gunn knows flies out at midnight and Lasdown must have been lying about picking up his consigned items at Quimby’s antiques shop in the morning.

Gunn uses his car phone to call Jacoby at the antiques shop. (This is the first time in the series that Gunn uses a car phone in his car). Jacoby says that Quimby was not there when he arrived. Gunn tells Jacoby about what transpired at Lasdown’s place, including the trip to New York.

Inside the Lasdown home, Phillip Lasdown plays Beethoven music on a record player. He then realizes that the Buddha statue has been moved from its podium onto the floor and looks around curiously wondering how that happened. He then goes up the stairs and upon reaching the first landing he is attacked by someone and goes tumbling down the staircase. As the intruder flees from the home, Lasdown, in a panic, yells, “HELP! MURDER! POLICE!” (Which seems odd, since nobody was murdered). The Chinese butler, Mao, runs over, also in a panic, yelling loudly in Chinese. (Why? He didn’t see anything. He had just heard Lasdown’s yells and he began yelling).

Jacoby and Gunn arrive at Lasdown’s home where he is hollering about the lack of police protection in this city. He says that had he not walked in at the right moment, the thief would have taken the Buddha. Jacoby asks Mao where he was during the situation and he responds in Chinese with a big grin on his face. At first, Gunn thinks the thief was after the 50-carat ruby on the Buddha’s head and said it would have been easier to just pry the ruby off the head than try to carry the big heavy statue away. When Gunn asks if anything can be hidden inside the Buddha, Lasdown presses the ruby on the head and a drawer opens To everyone’s surprise, including Lasdown, there is an antique Gunn in the drawer. Lasdown has said he does not collect weapons. Lasdown said that was not in the Buddha when he consigned it at Quimby’s place. He’s furious when he learns his jewels from the consignment shop were stolen and heads out to see Quimby.

At the antiques shop Lasdown is pounding on the front door with his cane. Quimby comes down the stairs from his upstairs room where he resides and lets Lasdown inside. When Lasdown mentions the gun in the Buddha, Quimby asks, “You found it?” Meaning he knew about the gun. He and Lasdown get into a struggle and as store items gets strewn all over the place, Quimby pulls a gun from his night robe pocket and points it at Lasdown. Jacoby breaks the door glass to get in. As Gunn and Jacoby duck for cover, Quimby takes several shots at them. Jacoby shoots once, hitting Quimby in the leg and disabling him from using his gun.

Quimby confesses that he shot Arthur Block, who arrived at work early and caught Quimby stealing the jewels. He says Block wanted Quimby to split it with him or he’d expose the theft. He then hid the gun in the Buddha and returned to Lasdown’s home to get back the gun. (By taking the whole Buddha statue?)

Quimby is walked out to an ambulance.

 

QUOTES:

Hands down, the best quotes from this episode came from Phillip J. Lasdown. There were quite a few. Here’s one:

When Lasdown discovers that Quimby had placed his Buddha statuette in the back room…

Lasdown: “It is not enough that I suffer the torment of lending my exquisite statuary to a firm that employs a philistine as a manager…No, no, I am now subjected to the ignominy of having it secreted behind a variety of bric-a-brac one would expect to find only in the men’s lounge at Coney Island.”

From Google:

Philistine: A person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them.

Ignominy: Humiliation

Bric-a-brac: Miscellaneous objects and ornaments of little value.

 

NOTES:

Once again, a sector of New York City is referred to when Phillip J. Lasdown mentions “Coney Island” in a way one would say it if he or she was already in New York. However, later in the episode Lasdown tells Jacoby that he is “flying to New York on business,” an indication that they are NOT in New York.

It is not clear why exactly Charles Quimby would hire Peter Gunn to find the missing night watchman that he killed and dumped in the river unless he just wanted to make it seem as though the watchman stole the jewels and was confident that the dead man would never be found. However, reporting it to the police would have made no difference, since, in his mind, the jewels were never coming back anyway. 

If all Quimby really wanted was the gun back, why in the world didn’t he just push the button on the Buddha’s forehead to open the drawer and retrieve the gun? Instead he tried to take the entire heavy Buddha statue with him, a far more difficult task.

DECEASED: Night watchman Arthur Block shot with antique handgun by antiques consignment shop manager Charles Quimby (incident not shown). 

Total Gunn Kills: 0 - Series Total: 6.

 

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NEXT BLOG: S01/E19: "MURDER ON THE MIDWAY"

 

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