User Reviews

After trying to reach Shayne on the phone, Dave Carson is shot to death in an alley near the motel he's staying at. A cop comes to Shayne's apartment and tells him that Gentry wants to see him. A man has been found dead and "It seems he had this matchbook on him." "Doesn't everybody?" Shayne asks. "Not with Mike Shayne's name on it." Times certainly have changed, who carries matches anymore? The many fewer people who still smoke probably use a Bic. Shayne later receives a letter from Carson that had been misdirected making an appointment with Shayne and including a nice retainer. Carson operated the Palmetto Health Farm, a place where wealthy women go to lose weight. Carson's wife, Belle, has been having an affair with one of the trainers at the club. A shady character from Belle's past shows up with the intent of blackmailing her. All of the suspects are unlikable but none is more conniving than the trainer's wife, portrayed by Beverly Garland. Character actor Percy Helton with his familiar raspy voice has a small part as the motel manager. But it's Garland who steals the show and makes this such a good episode.

***SPOILERS*** Miami private dick Michael Shayne, Richard Denning, take on a case where his client was murdered before he was even on it.It was this William Carson, Byron Morrow, who was desperately trying to get in touch on a pay phone with Shayne who was murdered and took his secret with him to his grave. It's now up to Shayne to find out what Carson wanted to tell him and the reason it cost him his life in trying! It turns out that Carson was being blackmailed into staying not leaving his wife Belle Carson, Shirley Ballard, by his secret lover Elaine Barstow, Beverly Garland, in some cockamamie plot on her part to end up getting all his money when, as planned, he's murdered and Belle is framed for it!

Shayne having no clue in what's going on accidentally gets wind of the plot when he's clobbered over the head by the just released from prison Curly Buford, Robert Ellenstein, while visiting Belle's apartment! Using his secretary Lucy Hamiltin, Pat Donahue, to go under cover at the health club where Elaine works as a instructor she discovers that her lover or late lover William Carson has been playing both her and Belle to his advantage which in his case backfired with him getting murdered.

****SPOILERS*** After getting a few lumps on his head and worked over by Curly Buford Shayne slowly begins to realizes that he's being manipulated by Elaine who together with the unsuspecting Curly Buford have been having him bark up the wrong tree in finding Carson's murderer and the reason he was murdered. Curly who set Shayne up together with Belle to get whacked ended up getting blasted himself by non other then his accomplice Belle Carson. Not because she switched sides but to keep his mouth shut in what the two were up to. In the end it turned that the sneaky William Carson was playing with fire in that he, under two different names, was married to two women, Elaine & Belle, at the same time! Making it a crime of bigamy which carries almost no jail sentence but in keeping it all quite ended up getting murdered for it.