S01/E22: EDIE FINDS A CORPSE

Harvey Austin uses a key to open the door to an apartment that is not his. It is Edie’s temporary apartment (#3) on the first floor of the building located at 1709 Verbena while her regular apartment on the second floor is being painted. Austin has a key to Apartment #3 because that was his and his wife’s apartment before moving into the one directly across from it. (Why they had moved from one apartment to the other was never explained). Harvey Austin leaves the door to Edie’s apartment open and then goes back into his to carry a dead body wrapped in a rug back to Edie’s apartment with the help of his wife Virginia Pelgram (who we later learn is actually named Virginia Austin)—and who happens to be drop-dead super hot. Once they get the body into Edie’s temporary apartment they place it on the floor of the shower. (Why there?)




Edie returns from a day of shopping and puts away the items she’d bought. She then takes off her clothes—yeah, you guys wish that was shown in its entirety—and puts on a bathrobe. Edie walks into the bathroom and reaches with her arm into the shower to turn on the water. After returning to the sink to grab a shower cap from the counter, she pulls the shower door open and begins to get in with her robe still on. (She’s alone at home in her bathroom; who is going to see her if she removed the bathrobe before getting in the shower, as most women would do?) Edie then lets out a scream when she discovers the body.



Peter Gunn is home cleaning his revolver when he gets a phone call from Edie. She’s in shock and tells Gunn, “He’s dead.” Gunn wonders who is dead. Edie tells him she doesn’t know and that she found the body in the shower. She then faints.


Gunn grabs his jacket and revolver and races out of the apartment to his car where he speeds to 1709 Verbena. He runs up to the second floor to Edie’s regular apartment, but the only one there is a painter painting the wall. (As intimate lovers, don’t Gunn and Edie speak every day? How would he not know of the temporary move?) Peter Gunn yells out Edie’s name and she calls out to him from the first floor where she later explains the switch of apartments.


Gunn goes to the shower to inspect the body and then calls Lt. Jacoby who is reclined in his office chair playing what appears to be a badly tuned guitar. Jacoby then speeds over to 1709 Verbena and makes the same mistake Gunn made by running up to the second floor and running into the painter. Edie calls out to Lt. Jacoby from the first floor.


 

Lt. Jacoby inspects the body and determines right away he was killed somewhere else because there would have been blood all over the bathroom after a deep head wound. Gunn and Edie tell Jacoby that all the doors and windows were found locked when Edie arrived home. Jacoby is a bit annoyed that Gunn had already done a full inspection of the body. However, Jacoby removes the dead man’s watch and finds it engraved with the name Leland Gipson. 

The building’s oddball bespectacled landlord, Mr. Bartel, enters Edie’s apartment alongside the painter complaining about all the noise of people running up and down the stairs. Looking and sounding a bit like Jack Benny, he glances at the dead body and says, “How revolting; I think I’m going to be violently ill.” He’d also blamed Edie for ruining the reputation of his establishment, as if she’s responsible for the dead man in her shower.



Peter Gunn arrives at the home of deceased Leland Gipson where he meets with the daughter, an attractive young blonde named Marie Gipson. (How Gunn managed to get an address so quickly is not made clear; phonebook?) Marie explains that her father received a phone call earlier and left the house in a rage. She tells Gunn that his father is a widower and was in love with a much younger woman. When Leland and his daughter had argued about that relationship—with her telling him that the woman was only after his money—he got angry and moved out about a week ago. But this morning he’d returned and apologized. The phone call was from a detective who Leland Gipson had hired informing him that his suspicions about the woman are true. The woman is not only a gold digger, she’s also married. Marie tells Gunn that her father then stormed out of the house to confront the woman and to recover everything he’d given her; jewelry, mink coat, money. She tells Gunn that the woman’s name is Virginia Pelgram and that she works at the Courtland Hotel. Gunn informs Marie Gipson that her father is dead.



Gunn arrives at the Courtland Hotel where he asks the front desk clerk about Leland Gipson. The clerk tells Gunn that “he’s out.” Gunn asks if Virginia Pelgram works there and the clerk replies, “She used to.” He then tells Gunn that he can be helped further in the dining room. When Gunn puts a five dollar bill on the desk, the clerk provides Gunn with some details regarding Virginia Pelgram and Leland Gipson and a full description of her, as well as an address that Leland Gipson often had flowers sent to; 201 Hugo Lane.



Gunn arrives at the 201 Hugo Lane apartment building and finds a mailbox with the name V. Pelgram. A woman suddenly opens her apartment door and finds Gunn about to ring the doorbell button above the mailbox. The woman (listed in credits as “Manager”) says Pelgram is not in and wonders if Gunn is a boyfriend. When Gunn asks if she had many boyfriends, the building manager tells him she had just one, a man much older than her. The woman invites Gunn into her apartment where she does her artistic painting. She tells Gunn that Pelgram rented the apartment three weeks ago. A short time later a taxi driver arrives, ready to model for the building manager for one of her paintings. The manager then tells Gunn that the taxi driver should know how to find Virginia Pelgram, because he’s the one that “drives her”. The taxi driver then tells Gunn that she goes to the same building every time; 1709 Verbena. Gunn repeats, “1709?” and the driver finishes by saying, “Verbena.”



Back at Harvey Austin and Virginia Pelgram’s apartment, she is packing a luggage case while Harvey is standing by the door with a gun in his hand and trying to hear what’s going on with the police investigation on the other side of the door. Virginia appears to be panicking and asks, “How long do you think the police will be here?” Harvey Austin is annoyed with her questions and tells her to just keep an eye out the window.



Peter Gunn arrives back at Edie’s temporary apartment where the body of the deceased, Leland Gipson, is only now being rolled out. (It appears this episode wants viewers to believe a very short time has passed since Edie found the corpse, regardless of a string of places that Peter Gunn had visited before returning). Gunn tells Jacoby that his investigation into this murder led him right back to 1709 Verbena; the building they are in. And that Virginia Pelgram spends most of her time in this building. Gunn and Jacoby head over to the building manager’s office.

At Mr. Bartel’s office, Jacoby gives him a full description of the female they are looking for, and when Gunn says, “Don’t forget the mink coat,” the manager says, “That sounds like Mrs. Austin.” Mr. Bartel also tells Gunn and Jacoby that the Austins once had Apartment #3, the apartment that Edie is now using temporarily, and that Mr. Austin never returned the key. He angrily states that Mr. Austin will have to give him a dollar or return the key. 

Gunn and Jacoby go to Apartment #2 where Harvey and Virginia Austin reside and knock on the door, but nobody answers. They both draw their guns and Gunn opens the door. (A panicking couple left the door unlocked?) They inspect inside, but it appears the couple has fled. After Jacoby leaves, Gunn continues looking around. He heads back to the door, but spots a handkerchief on the floor above a floor vent panel. He then hears through the vent people talking.


Down in the basement, Harvey and Virginia Austin are arguing about how they are going to get out of the building without being seen. They hear someone (Gunn) coming into the basement and both hide behind the stairs. (Lt. Jacoby must still be nearby; why didn’t Gunn alert him to go with him to the basement?) When Gunn walks down the stairs, Harvey Austin reaches through the steps and trips Gunn, who falls face down on the floor. Austin then fires a shot at him, but misses. (Why bother to trip Gunn coming down the stairs instead of shooting first?) Gunn takes cover behind some crates as Austin continues shooting and a bullet bursts a furnace pipe that begins spewing hot steam. Gunn takes advantage by twisting the pipes and aims the steam into Austin’s face. Gunn then tosses some box thing at Austin which knocks him over. Gunn races back up to the top of the stairs. Austin takes another shot at Gunn, but misses and instead strikes Virginia Austin in the shoulder. Gunn then dives from the top of the stairs and looking like Superman he comes flying down onto Austin. (Great way for the episode to sneak in a cool stunt that didn’t seem necessary; Gunn had him down after knocking him over with the box thing.) While Gunn knocks out Austin with a punch, Jacoby arrives at the top of the stairs.



Gunn is back in Edie’s apartment where she is serving coffee. She asks Gunn how she can ever tell him how grateful she is. Gunn replies, “Don’t worry, we’ll figure out something.” (More sexual innuendo?) The hired painter enters just as they’re about to kiss saying he’d forgot his paint brush there.


 

QUOTES:

At the hotel where Gunn gathered information from the front the desk clerk about deceased Leland Gipson…

Desk Clerk: “If Mr. Gipson should return, can I give him a message, sir?”

Gunn: “You can try.”


At Edie’s apartment where Lt. Jacoby is wrapping up the crime scene and Gunn returns after making inquiries around town…

Lt. Jacoby: “Where you been?”

Gunn: “In a circle. Started here, wound up here.”

  

NOTES:

The audio track for this episode on multiple formats viewed (streaming services and DVD) all have the same problem with audio being very low (with the exception of title scene playing the “Peter Gunn Theme” and ending credits when theme is played again); one must greatly boost the volume to hear what’s being said throughout this episode. Remember to lower the volume for title scene and ending credits to avoid blowing your eardrums out.

The painter didn’t get much painting done between the time Peter Gunn arrived at the wrong apartment and when Lt. Jacoby arrived there when comparing the two scenes. Maybe he’d spent all that time in between washing off the accidental paint stripe he’d made on the wall when frightened by Gunn’s entrance. Something he did again when Jacoby entered. (Episode producers attempting comedic effect.)

Virgina Pelgram (Austin) was played by the stunningly beautiful model and actress, Barbara Darrow. Her youngest daughter, Audrey Tannenbaum, married Dodd Darin, the only child of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee. Barbara Darrow died in 2018, three months shy of her 87th birthday.



The role of Marie Gipson was played by Canadian-American actress Ruta Lee; born in 1935. She was 24 years old when this episode first aired. At the time of this writing, Ruta Lee is still alive at 85 years of age.


DECEASED: Leland Gipson killed by blunt force trauma to the head by Harvey Austin and/or his wife Virginia Austin. (Incident not shown.)

Total Gunn Kills: 0 - Series Total: 7.

 

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NEXT BLOG: S01/E23: "THE DIRTY WORD"

  

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