Linda Watkins

After getting home from my accident on Wednesday night I went out and bought a can of Creemore. I guess they’d recently stocked the shelf at the liquor store because the beer was warm, so when I got home I put it in my freezer. It was cold by the time I had it with an egg and toast while watching Peter Gunn.

This story begins at a swanky party at a mansion. A private detective named Sam is in the garden arguing with Arthur, the host, about something that he’s involved him with that could cause him to lose his investigator’s license. Arthur tells Sam that if he just does everything that he tells him he won’t have any problem and then tells him to go back inside and enjoy the party. Sam is walking away from Arthur when a hand with a gun comes out of the bushes and kills Arthur. Sam stupidly picks up the gun and is holding it when all the guests run to see their host dead and the detective standing over him with a gun. He is charged with murder and for his one phone call he contacts Peter Gunn instead of a lawyer. Gunn explains that Sam is a sleazy detective but that he owes him a favour. Gunn goes to the scene of the murder and it looks like there is another party going on. The guy that answers the door is named Waldo and he immediately calls Gunn “Leo!” and starts babbling about astrology. The dead man’s lawyer, Paul directs Gunn to Arthur’s widow Louise, who is a faded alcoholic southern belle. Later, while Sam is in custody he grabs a cop’s gun and locks himself in the interrogation room. He is trying to escape through the window when Lieutenant Jacoby shoots off the lock. Sam fires but falls backwards through the window and to his death. Gunn goes to Sam’s office and is slugged over the head, but while getting up he finds an envelope taped under Sam’s desk. The envelope contains the information that Waldo is really Bernie Lutz the con man and swindler. It was Bernie that had slugged Gunn in the dark. Gunn goes to Waldo's apartment and forces him to tell him everything. Gunn goes back to Arthur’s house and finds Louise about to leave on a trip. It turns out that Arthur had been secretly the publisher of the dirtiest scandal magazine ever published. Paul comes out from behind a curtain with a gun. He confesses to having killed Arthur because there had been an investigation coming up and to protect himself Arthur was going to put the magazine in Louise’s name. Paul is in love with Louise and so to protect her he killed Arthur. Paul wants Louise to run away with him but she had not known that he had murdered the man she loved. She slaps Paul several times and then breaks down sobbing. Realizing he can’t have Louise, Paul gives himself up to Gunn.
            Louise was played by critically acclaimed stage actor, Linda Watkins.