It is late in the evening
and a wealthy older woman wearing a fur stole around her shoulders pulls up to
Mother’s in a fancy Desoto convertible. Lucile Lederer staggers out of the car
as if dying and stumbles to the front door. Even though there’s quite a bit of
activity going on inside the club, with the band playing on stage, the door is
locked and it has a “CLOSED” sign on it. Inside, Mother hears knocking at the
door and goes over to open it. She tells Mrs. Lederer the club is closed. (Then
why is the band playing and some patrons can be seen in the club?) Lucile
Lederer begs to be let in and staggers over to the bar. The band, concerned
over the very sickly woman that just entered, suddenly stops playing. Mrs. Lederer
tells the bartender, Barney, that she needs water and Barney rushes to pour it
and serve it to her. She guzzles down the water as Edie walks over to ask if
she needs help. Mrs. Lederer asks for Peter Gunn and then drops dead onto the
floor.
Peter Gunn is at
Mother’s kneeled over the body. (He either arrived there on his own or was
called. Not police? A doctor? An ambulance?) Gunn asks Mother if she’s ever
seen the woman before and Mother says, “No, but here’s her purse.” Gunn
inspects the contents of the purse and learns the dead woman’s name. He gets up
and tells Edie to call Lt. Jacoby. (How long did the club’s staff plan to leave
a dead woman on the floor before notifying authorities?)
Gunn leaves the club
and rummages through Mrs. Lederer’s car. In the back seat he finds a yacht skipper’s
hat embroidered with the letters “NR”.
Gunn must have known
or quickly learned that the hat comes from the North River Yacht Club, because
that’s where he went next; only now there’s daylight, so it appears to be the
following morning. As Gunn looks around at the many rows of yachts docked in the
harbor, the yacht club’s café owner approaches him. Gunn says he’s looking for
Mrs. Lederer (knowing she’s dead). The café owner tells Gunn that she owns a schooner
called “Destiny” and points to where it’s docked. He says it’s all a strange
situation; that Mrs. Lederer lives on the boat and even has a butler and a maid
there with her. He also says Mrs. Lederer’s husband disappeared about six
months ago when he fell overboard during a night the boat was out. She then put
the boat up for sale. Meanwhile, two young men seated at a table outside the
café, each also wearing boat captain type hats, keep calling out to the owner,
who they refer to as “Skipper”, asking for more coffee. Peter Gunn tells
Skipper he might be interested in buying “Destiny” from Mrs. Lederer and heads
over there.
Peter Gunn makes his
way into the boat and has a look around; obviously a search to see what he
might uncover in relation to the dead woman from the night before. (Interesting
that Gunn, the detective for hire, decides to devote time to a case he won’t
receive any payment for from anyone. However, he does so many times during the
series.) Suddenly, an older man named Hugo Hessler, speaking with a heavy European
accent, approaches with a revolver pointed at Gunn. Hessler is a very grumpy
bad-tempered man who says he’s the captain. He tells Gunn the boat is not for
sale. Gunn inquires about the death of Mr. Lederer and insinuates that maybe he
was pushed. This appears to anger Hessler, who says that Mr. Lederer fell
overboard. He then tells Gunn to leave. After Gunn gets off the boat, Hessler
walks over to a landline telephone on the boat and calls the café. He asks for
Dutch, who was one of the two young men asking for coffee earlier.
When Gunn arrives at
the ramp from the docks leading up to the café, Dutch and his partner, Blackie,
are waiting for him at the top of the ramp. Gunn surely suspects that Hessler
notified them to rough him up to keep him away. The men tell Gunn he shouldn’t
be snooping around and to mind his own business. Gunn acts quickly to fight off
the two thugs and manages to dispose of them into the harbor.
At Lt. Jacoby’s
office, Jacoby tells Gunn that Lucile Lederer was poisoned with arsenic found
in a vermin poison called “Rat Rough”. Jacoby tells Gunn that a coroner’s jury
was convened to determine Mr. Lederer’s cause of death and that it was ruled
accidental. When Gunn asks who was there, Jacoby says Mrs. Lederer, Captain
Hessler, Max the butler, and Rosie the maid. Max is Hessler’s son and married
to Rose. Jacoby further states that all of them had the same story at the
hearing.
Later that night Gunn
returns to the docks at the North River Yacht Club and spots the two thugs he
got rid of earlier, but they don’t see him. He sneaks over to the Destiny by
hopping across from other docked boats. (Fairly obvious that this is a stuntman
double and not Gunn; hardly looks like Gunn at all and even the hair is
different).
On the boat, Hessler
is using a knife to pry open a safe box that belonged to Lucile Lederer. His
son Max is trying to get his attention by saying “Papa” (in a very child-like
manner). Max’s wife Rose seems to be telling him to not bother Hessler now, but
he continues; “Please let us explain,” Max says. Gunn arrives on the boat’s deck
above and the family below here a sound. Max yells out “Papa” again (like a
child; ugh) after hearing what sounded like an intruder on the deck. Hessler
grabs his revolver and heads up there. Gunn quickly hides and makes his way to
another area of the boat. Hessler with gun pointed looks around, but doesn’t
see anyone and goes back downstairs.
Hessler is frustrated
that he can’t find any friend’s names or addresses for Lucile Lederer in the
safe box and says that he must know where she went. (Interesting; wasn’t Hessler
involved in the poisoning? What makes him think she’s still alive? Or he knows
she died somewhere, but needs to know where. Why?) Hessler is angry with Max
and Rose because they let Mrs. Lederer get away while he was out picking up
supplies. He says he’s made plans over the past months (implying to get rid of
Lucile Lederer) and Max and Rose carelessly let her leave. Rose says they
hadn’t known she left. The argument continues, with Max saying “Papa” before or
after every sentence he speaks. (Max is so dimwitted and childish that it is maddening
to watch).
Meanwhile, Gunn has
lowered himself from the deck into the galley (kitchen) where he finds a
partially eaten sandwich on a plate. He wraps it in a napkin and puts it in his
pocket. (This is now the following evening, at least, since Mrs. Lederer died
at Mother’s and that piece of sandwich was never cleaned up?) Gunn overhears
the family’s conversation and Hessler saying that police will be around soon
asking questions. He also hears Hessler saying a man named Gunn was around
earlier and appeared too curious. Max assures Hessler by saying, “I told you
we’d be careful, Papa.” (By this time, in just the past two or three minutes
alone, Max has said “Papa” about a dozen times.) Hessler says he’s going out;
that he must try to find out where Mrs. Lederer went.
In the galley, Gunn
finds a small jar of “Rat Rough”; also on the jar it reads “contains arsenic
and charcoal”. Gunn hears Rose tell Max, “Let’s get the galley cleaned up.”
Gunn quickly heads up a ladder from the galley back up to the deck.
Up on the deck Gunn
picks up the telephone and calls Jacoby’s office and then the payphone at
Mother’s. Edie answers the call. Gunn says he called Jacoby’s office and was
told he was on his way to Mother’s. Jacoby then enters and Edie hands him the
phone. Gunn says Mrs. Lederer was poisoned by her two servants and Hessler
masterminded the whole thing, and that he has all the proof in his pocket. Gunn
theorizes that Mrs. Lederer pushed Mr. Lederer overboard and then was being
blackmailed by her crew until she decided to stop paying. (How did he conclude
all this? Because all of them had conspired together about Mr. Lederer’s
accidental death at the coroner’s inquest?) Jacoby adds that Mrs. Lederer had
no family. Gunn further theorizes that her will probably gives all her
possessions to the Hessler family. When Jacoby asks Gunn for his location, Gunn
says he’s on the boat. Jacoby heads over there.
Max comes up on deck
and spots Gunn. Peter Gunn renews his ruse about being interested in buying the
boat and tells Max that he wants to have a look around. Max tries to shoo him
away, but he’s not able to. Gunn says he wants to see the galley and finds Rose
in there. Gunn leaves the galley and the couple follows him. When Gunn says his
name, Max panics and appears to reach for a weapon, but Gunn draws his first
and tells the couple to sit and make themselves comfortable (knowing that
Jacoby will be there soon). Captain Hessler arrives and points his revolver at
Gunn’s head, then takes his gun.
Hessler orders Gunn
to go up on the deck and he follows. He then calls out to his two yacht club
henchmen, Dutch and Blackie. Hessler tells the duo that Gunn must be taken to
where he can never be found by anyone. One of the men then takes Gunn’s wallet
and tosses it in the river, saying he doesn’t want him to have identification on
him. (How in the world does that help with whatever they’re planning?) He then
punches Gunn in the belly, still upset about the beating they took from Gunn
that morning and getting dumped in the river. Gunn starts fighting back, grabs
a fire extinguisher, and blasts it in one of their faces. Hessler turns and
sees Gunn getting the upper hand, so he points his revolver at Gunn and gets
ready to take a shot, but Lt. Jacoby shows up and shoots Hessler in the arm,
injuring him. One of the henchmen pulls a gun from his hip and takes a shot at
Jacoby, but misses. He then runs to the front end of the boat and, moving his
gun hand like a ballet dancer (ridiculous), he takes another shot at Jacoby,
but Jacoby ducks. Jacoby then shoots back, killing the man who ends up falling
into a net on the side of the boat. Max goes running to Hessler, yelling,
“Papa, Papa, are you alright.” (This episode must hold the record in television
broadcasting history for one individual saying “Papa” more times than any other
ever in a 30-minute show.)
Jacoby and Gunn lift
the other thug off the floor and Jacoby directs everyone off the boat. And to
jail, no doubt.
QUOTES:
When Gunn calls Mother’s payphone and speaks to Lt.
Jacoby to tell him who poisoned Lucile Lederer…
Gunn: “I got a sandwich you might be interested in.”
NOTES:
Edie’s hair looks even shorter in this episode than the previous one,
which was unusually short in that airing.
Who did the yacht skipper’s
hat that Gunn found in the back seat of Lucile Lederer’s car belong to?
The marriage between
Max, a childish or mentally challenged individual, and his wife Rose, an
attractive and seemingly quite intelligent woman, did not seem realistic. Very
difficult to imagine a match like that in real life, but anything’s possible.
The role of Rose was
played by actress Roxane Brooks, who appeared in 26 episodes of the TV series “Richard
Diamond, Private Detective” between 1959 and 1960 (a series also created by
Blake Edwards). Roxane Brooks had replaced actress Mary Tyler Moore in the role
of “Sam” in that series when Moore left the show. Strangely, although Roxane
Brooks seemed quite talented as an actress, nothing can be found of her, or
anything about her life, after appearing in an episode of the TV series “Hazel”
in 1963. [The author of this blog would like to know
more about this actress’ later life if anyone knows anything. Please enter in comments.]
Rose was referred to
as “Rosie” by Lt. Jacoby, but as “Rose” by Max, and that is how the character
appears in credits.
DECEASED: Lucile Lederer poisoned with arsenic (rat poison) placed in sandwich by Captain
Hessler or his son Max, or Max’s wife, Rose (all in cahoots). Lt. Jacoby shoots
one of Hessler’s yacht club thugs. Mr. Lederer pushed overboard from a boat
(possibly by Mrs. Lederer) while it was out on the waters (not shown; incident
having occurred before start of episode).
Total Gunn Kills: 0 -
Series Total: 7
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NEXT BLOG: S01/E26: “KEEP
SMILING”
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