Something's Afoot And The Butler Didn't Do It. How Could The Butler Do It? He's Dead!
In San Francisco, Jim has been assigned to protect Dr. Raven, who is in charge of building some new-fangled weapon for the President. They meet Martin Dexter. Him and Dr. Raven are planning on some kind of reunion in Monterey. Martin tells Raven about a tobacconist down the street who has a cheroot that's a particular favorite of Raven's. Raven heads for the shop and almost gets blown up. Jim follows a wire into a barn and finds Martin sitting with a rather stupid look on his face. Turns out there's a reason for the stupid look -- Dex is dead.
And the band plays on. Raven wonders why someone wants to kill Dexter. Jim wonders why Dexter wanted to kill Raven. (Would the writers please make up their minds?) Raven tells Jim he's involved in an unique investment group worth millions of dollars. However Artie arrives before Raven has a change to explain _why_ it's so unique. Artie tells them the gunpowder, detonator and plunger were bought by someone named Fields, who looks a lot like Martin Dexter. He also tells them two more members of Raven's investment group are dead. Jim, Artie and Raven head for Monterey. En route, someone tries to blow up a tree and it falls on Artie (any volunteers to help him up? <g>). Our Gang arrive at a saloon, where they're greeted with "Ain't you dead yet, Raven?" The speaker turns out to be Wild Boy Harry Stimson, who has Red Shirt written all over him. Artie, Jim and he go for a little "My Gun is Bigger Than Your Gun" (SWARH's going to say something here, I just know it) and finally decide they're all friends. Stimson calls for a round of drinks, picks the bottle out by shooting it and we _finally_ find out about that investment group. Turns out it's a tontine -- the last person alive gets all the money. Which is pretty much an invitation to kill most of the group. And speaking of killing most of the group, Stimson shoots himself. Four down. Only we're not allowed to see all the blood so we get to watch a commercial instead.
Jim and Raven arrive at the meeting (gee, it didn't look like this the last time I was in Monterey). So does Artie, only it isn't Artie, it's Angus MacGordon -- Raven's Secretary, Traveling Companion and Bodyguard. (Would someone please explain why Artie's in disguise here? Nobody would recognize Artie unless they've been following Raven and if they were, wouldn't they get suspicious when Artie disappears and MacGordon shows up in his place?) Raven is about to ring the doorbell when Jim and Artie decide it's buzzing. Sure enough, it's another trap. Artie trips it and gets a mini Quickening. The owner, Martin Grevely (cattle baron), lets them in and Raven tells him about Dexter, Stimson and the two other guys. Grevely pulls a switch, a wall opens and we meet the rest of the tontine: Amelia Mateland (an actress and apparently part of Grevely's Egyptian collection), Mr. Applegate (a banker), Gunther Pearse (a boxer and the show's resident blockhead), Archduke Maurice of Valdofia (abdicated) and Edward Baring (a writer specializing in murder mysteries). Grevely decides to call the meeting to order and tries to kick Jim, Angus and Blockhead out. Fat chance. Jim objects on the grounds that one of the tontine is trying to kill the others. And just to prove his point, Applegate dies from a knife in the chair. Five. Grevely gets all huffy and adjourns the meeting. Only the wall won't open and there's no other way out of the house. Well, you can try the window, but it's a 1200 foot drop. Careful on that first step. Pearse takes Applegate's body to the wine cellar. After a bit of "everyone's a suspect," Jim realizes we haven't had a fight yet, so when Pearse returns, he corrects that problem. So much for the heavyweight champ. The door to the wine cellar opens up and Applegate returns. Jim decides to head for the cellar since Applegate presumably didn't walk up the steps all by himself. He gets ambushed and knocked out by several men in black (MiB). Angus wanders around a bit and reads the paper. Jim wakes up tied to a mining car, set to send him into the surf. The rockets are lit and we go to a commercial while I contemplate the position Jim's in.
Jim undoes his boot, takes out a little thing of acid and gets out just in time. Artie sees the explosion and heads for the cellar. Jim hie-tails it out of there (great shot of his butt, btw), meets up with a few more MiB and arrives in the wine cellar. Meanwhile, the crowd upstairs wonders what the explosion was and Artie takes off his disguise. Jim asks Grevely about the railroad beneath the house and Grevely tells him to ask the architect, since he had a free hand in building the place. One problem -- the architect was Dexter. Since he's dead, it's kinda hard to ask him. But Miss Over-Actress has a solution. She suggests they contact King Rafakhanan, a dead spirit she likes to pester from time to time. So everyone sits around the table and joins hands, you know, all that medium mumbo jumbo. She goes into a trance, the crystal ball starts glowing and King Rafakhanan tells her she's about to die. Jim throws the ball out the window and it explodes. Artie turns the lights back on and Amelia has disappeared. She's somehow wound up in the cellar, Blockhead goes after her and gets shot. Six down. Jim also heads for the cellar, finds the hidden door in the wine barrel and another MiB. He follows the MiB into a steel-lined room. The door closes behind him and one of the walls slides away to reveal another wall covered with spikes. Must be time for another commercial. Guess what? It is.
The wall closes in on Jim. Jim pulls his gun out of his sleeve, fixes an explosive to it and blows the ceiling. He climbs the spikes and escapes. Archduke Maurice, meanwhile, has been in the cellar making a discovery of his own. In this case it's a bottle of Chateau Rothschild, 1806. He grabs a couple of glasses and heads upstairs to Baring's room, barely missing being split in half. (This is going to bug me. I know what the weapon is, but I've sc'd the name and I can't find my weapons catalog. Falchion sort of rings a bell.) Baring is packing and preparing to amscray when Maurice arrives. For some reason, Baring doesn't relish the idea of becoming one of the murdered characters in his books. Perhaps he'll do better in a soap. Maurice pours a couple of glasses, tastes it and gets a funny look on his face. The wine's gone flat so he goes to search for another bottle. Baring goes back to packing when music starts playing. A book tips over, Baring picks it up and zap! he's dead. Body number seven. A MiB comes out of the wall, followed by Jim. Jim captures the MiB, who turns out to be Dexter. Dang! There goes my body count. Well, my body count is still accurate, because it was Dexter's twin brother who was killed earlier. Too bad Maurice hadn't thought of that, he might still be back in Valdofia if he had. Artie notes that Dexter couldn't have collected from the tontine if he was dead, so he must have an accomplice. Turns out it's Miss Over-Actress, who pulls a gun on Artie. Dexter tosses Jim into the playroom. First a rack of guns go off, which Jim ducks. Then some whirling blades come out of the ceiling. Jim takes his jacket off (unfortunately, that's all he takes off) and jams it in the blades. Dexter doesn't like it, so he opens the door, Jim escapes and knocks Dexter inside. And we're up to body number eight. Artie grabs the gun out of Amelia's hand. To while away the time until the storm is over (funny how I've never heard of lightning storms in Monterey), Maurice suggests a parlor game -- Murder (I like Maurice. He has a sick sense of humor).
Later, our boys are back from another date. One of the girls asks what happened to the money from the tontine (greedy little things, aren't they?). Jim tells them the money was turned into a scholarship fund for deserving students. Does wonders for the life expectancy. Jim and Artie pull out Amelia's crystal ball and do a demonstration. The ball starts glowing, the girls wind up in Jim and Artie's arms and the guys exchange a couple of *very* smug expressions. ;-)
And the Ratings are:
Artie disguises: two stars Jim fights: nine stars Shirtlessness: zero stars Kissing: zero stars Explosions: four stars Dead Bodies: six stars Total: twenty-one stars
Martin Grevely
Edward Baring
Jim Heads to the Surf