Summaries

Synopsis

A young policeman, Dave Hollis, comes across a woman, Lisa Shillack, trying to break into a mews flat. It turns out she lives there, and has left her latch key in the house. She persuades him to climb the drainpipe and get the key, and let her in.

She talks him into drinking coffee with her, and it emerges that she is German and he spent some time in Germany in the military police. He spends some time in her flat, though nothing amorous takes place.

Meanwhile a robbery has taken place at a location on Dave's beat. He is all unaware of the robbery, although his schedule should have had him there at the time. But he waits at the mews, while the girl puts her car in the garage, and a neighbour shouts down from the window complaining about the noise from the car. She threatens to call the police, and our policeman shows himself; the neighbour purses her lips and withdraws. Eventually the policeman leaves.

At the police station police Inspector Gorman tells Hollis off, and demands an explanation as to how he was not at the location at the right time. Hollis tells a made-up story about investigating a possible break in at a timber yard. He is typing up his report and confides his story to another policeman, Joe Ross.

Hollis realises he has left his torch with Lisa Shillack, and his colleague tells him he should go and fetch it before she brings it in and gives the game away. He is in her flat chatting when her husband comes in unexpectedly. Mr Shillack and his wife argue and it is obvious they are not happy with one another, She is seeing him off in the street when the women who complained about the noise passes, and again she purses her lips.Lisa and Dave now go to a casino, where he loses on the roulette wheel, but it is obvious a romantic attachment is developing; she assures him he is not breaking up a happy home. As they are leaving the manager intercepts Dave and reminds him that he has a large debt to the casino; the manager insists he pays off his account at the earliest opportunity.

Back at the police station, Dave's colleague is approved to transfer to CID work, but Dave is turned down. The inspector tells him that he has been performing poorly lately, and tells him to buck up. Joe Ross commiserates after a tennis game, and advises Dave that he needs to find a rich widow, or else a woman with a rich husband who is often absent.

Now he is at Lisa's house: Lisa obviously fits that profile. Lisa's husband is delayed abroad, but she tells Dave obliquely that she is considering murdering her husband. Dave leaves.

That evening a car draws up alongside Dave and he is forcibly dragged into the car, and taken to the casino, where the manager threatens him over the debt, and has him beaten up. He goes to Lisa's house and tells her about the debt. Lisa raises the possibility of murdering her husband once more; this would generate the money Dave needs (although he has only got two weeks to pay up). Lisa produces a gun and urges Dave to kill her husband.

Lisa's husband is planning a week-long business trip to Germany; is she sure she doesn't want to go with him? No she doesn't; but now he discovers that the gun is missing. He reports the loss but it is Dave who takes the call; he destroys the written notes he took from Lisa's husband's call.

Lisa gives Dave an expensive bracelet she wears, so that he can use it to reassure the Casino manager that he will get paid. Dave and Lisa spend the night at the hotel that is connected to the casino, using the bracelet as a deposit. Their presence at the hotel will be Dave's alibi against becoming a suspect when her husband is murdered. Dave manages to sneak out unobserved, so that no-one knows he has left. Dave gets his uniform on and is let in by Lisa's husband, as he assumes he is there to take a statement about the missing gun. Dave produces the gun and shoots Lisa's husband.

The complaining neighbour hears the gunshot and calls out to Dave as he leaves, complaining about people "letting off fireworks".Dave returns to the hotel, having changed back into civilian clothes and manages to get into the room to join Lisa. Lisa now goes home and phones the police to report having found her husband dead. The police arrive; "is there anyone who would wish to kill your husband?"We don't hear the answer, but there is now an exterior shot; Dave is apparently on guard, and the police inspector, looking grim, tells him to come up into the flat.

Lisa has told the police that Dave has threatened that he would kill her husband. In front of Dave, Lisa tells a story of Dave's vengeful intention to kill him. They go to the hotel and the manager says that Dave was not at the hotel; a maid served dinner to Lisa, and she was alone; and Dave's entry in the hotel register is missing. The casino manager says that they had barred Dave. We realise that the manager and Lisa are lovers, and that they have used Dave to get rid of Lisa's husband for them.

Dave loudly protests his innocence. Now the woman who shouted down to Dave is brought in; she didn't see Dave very clearly in the dark, but she is certain she would recognise his voice. The Inspector asks Dave a question, intending that the woman would hear him speak, but he refuses to speak.

Then a CID man enters with the murder gun; it was found in Dave's lodgings. Things look overwhelmingly bad for Dave, but Dave the grabs the gun and shoots the CID man and escapes.

For five days he is on the run and evades capture; we see that he is hiding out in an attic space above the changing rooms at the police tennis club. He hears his former colleagues mentioning that Lisa will be back home tonight. At the police station they appreciate that basic food supplies are going missing from the tennis club. Ross realises that is where Dave is hiding out. They go there but Dave has left. Ross knows where he has gone.

Outside Lisa's flat, she arrives and as promised a policeman is guarding the place. In fact we see that it is Dave; she puts her car in the garage and the policeman who was posted as a guard is lying on the ground, dead. Dave comes in and produces the gun and shoots Lisa. Ross and the other policemen arrive and bang on the door of the garage.

Next we hear the judge at Dave's trial giving the verdict of a death sentence.