"♪ (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) ♪" "Mannix s8e16 Edge Of The Web" "Yes?" "Uh, I'm Matt Jones." "I had an appointment with Professor O'Neill." "It's all right, Mrs. McGregor." "Take Plato in the yard for me, please." "Yes, sir." "(SIGHS) You may go to bed when you like." "Mrs. O'Neill won't be home until 11:00." "She's gone to the movies." "MRS. McGREGOR:" "Yes, sir." "Good night." "Come on in, Jones." "(SIGHS) All right, let's get on with it." "Uh, I-I wanted..." "I wanted to talk to you." "Yeah, obviously." "Professor, do you... do you know what it took for me to work up to my PhD?" "I don't doubt for a moment that it means a great deal to you." "Possibly there were other teachers who bent over backwards to be... tolerant." "However, in my department, there are standards to be met." "No one ever had to bend over backwards for me." "I sweated blood for every passing grade, for every dollar of tuition." "So have other students." "I understand you had help from your father?" "That's right." "That's right." "Money that came out of his own mouth." "He's invested ten years of his life in this degree." "I have never questioned the effort that went into your work." "It's the quality of that work that's not up to par." "Are you sure it's my schoolwork you're talking about?" "What else could it be?" "You think that I..." "What, Jones?" "!" "Speak your mind!" "You think that I had something to do with your wife." "Get out of this house." "I never did!" "I never did!" "Get out of my house!" "I was never even alone with her, not for one time, except the time it was raining," "I gave her a lift home in my car." "Get out!" "That was it!" "That's what's eating at you, isn't it?" "!" "Professor Pryor told me, but I didn't believe it." "But it's true, isn't it?" "!" "I think you've said just about enough!" "(DOG BARKS AND GROWLS)" "(DOG WHIMPERS)" "(WHIMPERING CONTINUES)" "Alex, are you still up?" "Alex, are you still...?" "(SCREAMS)" "Good morning." "Oh, good morning, miss." "Can I help you?" "Uh, yeah." "Uh, Joe Mannix in?" "Can I tell him who's calling?" "Just tell him Scrapiron Jones." "Scrapiron!" "Hey!" "(LAUGHTER)" "You son of a gun." "How you been?" "All right." "All right." "Come on in." "Son of a gun, what have you been up to?" "Uh, same as always." "Getting my brains bashed in by guys who need a live punching bag." "Ah, I thought you gave that up years ago." "Yeah, but I went back to it." "Oh, but look, I can still take most guys half my age." "(MANNIX CHUCKLES)" "(SCRAPIRON SIGHS)" "Things are tough, huh?" "Yeah." "Needed some extra dough, and..." "I just don't want my boy taking too much time away from working on his PhD." "You remember Matt?" "I sure do." "Studying anthropology, Joe." "Rossmore University." "No kidding." "How's he doing?" "Been a straight "A" student since high school." "That's fantastic." "Yeah." "(SIGHS)" "Uh, he's the reason I'm here, Joe." "Trouble?" "He's been arrested for murder." "And just who has he supposed to have killed?" "The head of his department, a Professor O'Neill." "Last night, O'Neill's wife came home and found him with his head bashed in just after Matt had been in there to see him." "But Matt swears he's innocent, and I believe my boy, Joe." "Mm." "It just isn't in him to harm anyone." "MANNIX:" "Yeah." "Ten years I've stood up in the ring and tried to roll with the punches all for my boy." "And it's been worth it." "Joe, can you help me?" "So, what did the old man tell you?" "Oh, that you weren't capable of hurting anyone." "(MATT CHUCKLES)" "Don't you believe it." "I was mad clear through." "If O'Neill hadn't kicked me out in time, I don't who knows what I might have done." "Well, then we've got to assume that whoever did it knew that you had an appointment with Professor O'Neill at 8:30, and, uh, that it wasn't likely to be a friendly conversation." "(MATT LAUGHS)" "Yeah, that's for certain." "Any ideas?" "(SIGHS)" "Oh, the department was full of people who hated O'Neill's guts." "Students and faculty." "And there was no secret how he felt about me." "Why?" "Um..." "Well, O-O'Neill's wife is a..." "is a... is a pretty woman, and, uh, I gave her a lift home in the rain once, and he saw her get out of my car, and, uh..." "That's all there was to it?" "Are you kidding?" "!" "Do you...?" "Do you think I would take that kind of a chance with my degree an arm's length away?" "Did O'Neill ever actually accuse you?" "No, no, all... all he said was that the quality of my work was not up to par." "But his wife told me that he had accused her." "(DOORBELL RINGS)" "Yes, sir?" "Is Mrs. O'Neill in?" "I'm sorry." "She's resting." "Would you tell her Mr. Mannix is here?" "I'm a private investigator." "It's really quite important." "Well, I suppose it'll be all right." "Hi there, fella." "Hi." "(DOG WHIMPERS)" "Just, uh, what do you want to see Mrs. O'Neill about, Mr. Mannix?" "Well, I'd like to ask her a few questions about Professor O'Neill's death." "The police have been through this place already." "They've torn it upside down." "I'd really appreciate it." "By the way..." "Mrs. McGregor, isn't it?" "Yes." "Where did it happen?" "In the study." "Mrs. O'Neill found him behind the desk." "His head was all..." "Hmm." "He was, uh, quite a collector, wasn't he?" "Mm." "The professor collected most of these things in New Guinea." "Uh, tell me, is it possible that somebody could have gotten in through one of these sliding doors?" "Hmm?" "They were all locked." "Yeah, what about the dog?" "Wouldn't he have made some sort of disturbance if someone attacked his master with a club?" "Plato was in the backyard." "But it's funny you should ask that." "I remember hearing Plato growling outside shortly after young Jones left." "Any idea what he was growling at?" "No." "When I went out to see what was wrong, he quieted down." "Yeah." "I'll tell Mrs. O'Neill you're here, but I don't think she'll see you." "(DOOR OPENS)" "(DOOR CLOSES)" "(BARKING)" "Easy boy." "Easy." "Drop that club!" "Drop it!" "(QUIET BARKING)" "Attaboy." "Yeah." "I'm Ruth O'Neill." "Thanks." "I was just about to have some tea by the pool." "Will you join me?" "Thank you." "Make that for two, Mrs. McGregor." "When Plato was a puppy, he was nearly beaten to death by a man with a cane." "Ever since then, we have been careful not to go near him with a stick of any kind." "I'll try to remember that." "Mrs. McGregor says you're investigating something about my husband's death?" "That's right." "You don't think Matt Jones did it?" "Well, let's just say that I'm examining every possibility." "Well, how can I help?" "Did you know Matt Jones well?" "No, not really." "Well, my husband had hundreds of students." "Then why was your husband under the impression that...?" "Matt Jones and I?" "Well, whoever told you anything like that?" "Matt Jones." "He also said it wasn't true." "My husband was a very jealous man, Mr. Mannix." "I knew how hard Matt Jones worked, under what handicaps." "I admired him for that." "I made the mistake of mentioning to my husband that Matt had given me a lift home one afternoon." "With Alex's feverish imagination," "I guess that was all he needed." "Can you think of anyone who'd benefit by your husband's death?" "Well, in what way?" "Oh, uh, well, who's next in line for his job, for instance?" "Uh, Professor Pryor, I suppose." "But people at universities don't usually go around killing each other for better jobs, do they?" "Depends on the job." "You all right?" "Yeah?" "Yeah?" "(INDISTINCT, OVERLAPPING CHATTER)" "How are you doing?" "I've had better days." "Ten years of it... for what, Joe?" "Just to see my boy get that close to making it, and then end up in the slammer?" "You found out anything?" "Matt ever mention or say anything about a Professor Pryor?" "Yeah." "Matt told me that..." "Professor Pryor saw Mrs. O'Neill waiting for the bus, and suggested that Matt take her home." "I guess..." "I guess that's what started all the trouble." "Maybe that's exactly how Professor Pryor figured it." "PRYOR:" "If you want a eulogy, Mr. Mannix, you've come to the wrong man." "I was not exactly one of Alex O'Neill's fans." "Did he have any?" "Maybe his mother." "Not his wife?" "Ruth?" "Are you kidding?" "Listen, Mannix, you may as well know this, you'll find out anyway." "Ruth and I once had, as the kids would say, something going." "It's been over for some time, though." "What made it end?" "I got tired of dancing on thin ice." "She took it pretty hard." "In fact, she hasn't spoken to me since." "MANNIX:" "Did O'Neill know about it?" "PRYOR:" "If he had, I don't know if I'd still be around." "I understand you're next in line for the chairmanship of the department." "The detective mentality." "I suppose that's all the proof you require." "To get promoted, what you do is kill the man above you." "Just like some tribes in New Guinea." "Look at that." "The Afghanistan Head." "I discovered it." "That should make you a pretty important man around the campus." "Mr. Mannix, that is the only death" "I've ever been associated with, and it happened a half million years before I was born." "It's the earliest example of Cro-Magnon man ever found." "Now I'm up for a Jackson Foundation grant, which will take me to Iran for two years." "Do you really believe the height of my ambition was to be chairman of this one-horse department?" "Well, I just ask the questions, Professor Pryor." "I don't know what to think just yet." "I take it you don't think Matt Jones killed O'Neill." "Do you?" "Uh-uh." "He was one of the best graduate students I ever had." "Even with O'Neill against him, he was sure to get his degree eventually." "Can you think of anyone else who might have had a motive?" "Cheap gossip..." "is that what you want?" "Well, sometimes, that's all the detective mentality has to feed on." "Let's see..." "There's a young assistant professor in our department, Jim Duncan." "O'Neill had a rather special dislike for him." "Why?" "No idea." "Was the feeling mutual?" "Couldn't tell you." "Of course, ever since Jim Duncan's stint in Vietnam, he's been soured on life in general." "He was captured, caught undulant fever, tried to escape, wound up with a bullet in his leg." "It ruined his tennis game." "Does he walk with a cane?" "If you were lame, wouldn't you?" "Aristotle said that man is by nature a political animal." "We, in anthropology, just say that he's an animal by nature." "(LAUGHTER)" "Not necessarily one of the higher ones." "(LAUGHTER)" "Okay, people, that's it for today." "(INDISTINCT, OVERLAPPING CHATTER)" "(DUNCAN SIGHS)" "Professor Duncan?" "That's right." "You, uh, mind if we talk?" "Fine." "Mind if we walk?" "Not at all." "Who are you?" "My name is Mannix." "I'm investigating the death of Professor O'Neill." "Oh." "Am I a... a suspect now?" "It's too bad, somebody else beat me to it." "I suppose you can prove that." "(DUNCAN LAUGHS QUIETLY)" "Would you settle for 3,000 witnesses?" "Well, let's say I'd be impressed." "Yeah." "Well, I was giving a lecture at the museum that night." "(LAUGHS) Well, I guess that would rule you out." "Anything else?" "Yes, uh, one thing." "How well do you know Ruth O'Neill?" "(DUNCAN SIGHS)" "Mr. Mannix, look, my chasing days are over." "Even with the ladies who don't run very hard." "Just a routine question." "Sorry." "Yeah." "So am I." "Yeah, we checked Duncan's alibi." "He had a lecture at 9:00." "He got there about 8:45." "Well, he could have killed O'Neill at 8:30, and still have had 15 minutes to get to the museum." "Not without running smack into Matt Jones, he couldn't, and Jones didn't even claim that." "Anyway, for a man who can't run, that would have been cutting it pretty close." "Well, maybe he got in through one of the sliding doors earlier and hid somewhere." "And then, as soon as Matt left, Duncan came out and killed him." "And he carries a cane, right?" "That would have set the dog off as he went out the back." "Well, it could have happened that way." "Just why did he kill O'Neill?" "Art, if I knew that," "I'd have had my client out of jail by now." "Oh, you're pressing, Joe." "Yeah." "Anyway, we've got... (PHONE RINGING) Oh." "Malcolm." "Oh, good." "All right, I'll be right there." "The show up's ready." "Show up?" "Yeah, I was just about to tell you." "We've got a new witness." "A man named Jenkins, a neighbor of O'Neill's." "He saw someone leaving at just about the time of the murder... a black man." "Well, Matt never denied being there." "Yeah, but this one didn't leave the way Jones said he left." "He snuck out..." "through the side gate." "JENKINS:" "Uh, that's right, and then this man ducked out of the shrubbery, looked around and ran off." "But you saw him clearly enough to recognize him?" "I'm pretty sure I did." "Why did you wait until now to tell anybody about this?" "I believe in minding my own business." "What changed your mind?" "Well, I just got to thinking." "A man's got to stand up and be counted." "Mm-hmm." "Would you take a look in there, Mr. Jenkins?" "Uh..." "I don't recognize any of them." "Are you sure?" "Positive." "The man I saw was kind of heavier." "Well, thanks very much, Mr. Jenkins." "Thank you." "SCRAPIRON:" "Hey, Joe, what's going on?" "I mean, what are they doing to my boy?" "Take it easy, Scrapiron." "We're still working on it." "JENKINS:" "That's the man!" "He's the one!" "That's the man I saw leaving Professor O'Neill's house!" "Are you sure?" "Positive." "How many times do you want me to say it?" "I killed him." "You realize that anything you say can be used in evidence against you?" "You think I want my son going to jail for something I had done?" "Why did you kill him, Scrapiron?" "I knew about the meeting with Professor O'Neill." "I followed Matt to O'Neill's house." "I figured if Matt couldn't talk him around, maybe I could." "When I heard what he said to my son," "I knew there was no chance, except... killing him." "What did you use to kill him?" "A stick I found in the garden." "ART:" "What did you do with it?" "I threw it away." "ART:" "Where?" "ln the ocean." "Charley?" "Take Mr. Jones downstairs and book him." "I'm sorry, Joe." "He didn't do it, Art." "Come on, Joe." "He knew the layout of the room, the position of the body." "Okay, maybe he was there for the reason he said... to see that his kid got a fair deal... but he didn't kill O'Neill." "How do you know?" "He lived for that kid." "If he had done it, he never would have let Matt be arrested in the first place." "I'm sorry, Joe." "We've got a witness who saw him, and he confessed." "There is nothing I can do." "Well, fortunately, that doesn't stop me." "(DOORBELL BUZZES)" "Professor, can we talk?" "Sorry." "I'm busy." "Mm." "A little early for a vacation, isn't it?" "(SIGHS)" "Look, Mannix, do you mind telling me what it is you want?" "Now according to what I read," "Matt Jones' father confessed to that killing." "Isn't that good enough?" "He didn't convince me." "Mind if I come in?" "Oh, just finishing breakfast, huh?" "Good guess." "Very hygienic... eating off of two separate plates." "All right, now does the number of plates on the table make me a murder suspect?" "No, no, no, but neither does 3,000 people at your lecture prove your innocence." "Now, what's that supposed to mean?" "You forgot to mention that you had a meeting at 8:00 just before your lecture." "What made you miss that meeting?" "I did." "Some college." "When I went to school," "I learned about the birds and the bees in biology class." "Yeah, well, they do a little more homework these days." "Now, according to Ruth O'Neill, she was with Duncan from 6:00 until the time he left for the lecture." "Some lady." "Yeah." "Mrs. O'Neill." "This is my secretary, Peggy Fair." "How do you do, Ms. O'Neill?" "Uh, may I see you for a moment, privately, Mr. Mannix?" "Of course." "No calls, Peggy." "Please, sit down." "This morning, in Jim's apartment," "I'm afraid a lot of things were left unsaid." "And you're here to say them?" "Mr. Mannix, I haven't exactly been living in a convent these past few years." "But Jim Duncan is different." "I really care for him." "Oh, I-l know what he thinks of himself, his physical handicap." "But in the ways that count," "Jim Duncan is more of a man than anyone I have ever known." "He is everything my husband never was." "Yours, I take it, was not one of the great marriages of our time." "(CHUCKLES) Alex and I might as well have been living on separate planets." "It got even worse this last year." "Why?" "Oh, he was working on a new way of carbon-dating ancient artifacts." "It devoured him, 24 hours a day." "And so I... tried to make a life of my own." "Jim Duncan wasn't... the first, was he?" "No." "But since Jim, there's been no one else." "What about Professor Pryor..." "is that all over?" "You've been doing your legwork, haven't you?" "(CHUCKLES) Well, it's my infantry training." "I was involved with Ed Pryor at one time, but it's over." "It didn't last very long in any case." "Did your husband know about Pryor?" "Well, I suppose he must have." "Why?" "He suspected every man who ever looked at me, and sooner or later he would find a way to get back at the men he believed I was seeing." "Get back how?" "Well, in Jim Duncan's case, he tried several times to have him fired." "What about Professor Pryor..." "did he try and pay him back?" "I don't know." "Alex had to be careful there." "The department wanted Ed Pryor on the staff because of his reputation." "Well, I'll, uh, check it out." "There's just one more thing I wanted to say." "Jim knows you suspect him." "This morning after you left, he canceled his lecture tour." "He said he thought it might look like he was running away." "Well, Duncan did cancel his lecture tour." "You know, he's being so cooperative, it makes me nervous." "I guess he wants you on his side." "Why should he?" "Well, who else is there?" "Professor Pryor had no reason to kill O'Neill, and my father's sitting in jail while you and Duncan and Mrs. O'Neill are dancing around each other." "Look, Matt, we know that Professor O'Neill went after anyone who even looked at his wife." "Maybe he was finally after Pryor and they had a fight?" "No, I checked." "Pryor was with his lab assistant," "Anita Moss, the night of the murder." "He wasn't out of her sight all evening." "How do you know that?" "Well, the bursar's office was broken into." "They took some money that night, and the police questioned Anita about it." "Why her?" "She works there part time." "She's the only employee on campus with a key, and the thieves got in with a key." "But Pryor says that Anita was with him all evening." "What's wrong, Joe?" "Well, suppose Pryor wasn't giving her an alibi?" "Suppose she was giving him one?" "Professor?" "Mr. Mannix." "Matt, I'm terribly sorry about your father." "Thanks." "He didn't do it, of course." "I know he didn't." "Professor, I understand you were working here with your assistant on the night of the murder." "Yes, I was." "Her name is Anita Moss." "I hope you'll forgive me if I keep working, Mr. Mannix." "We're a little behind." "The lab's been closed since Alex's death." "What were you working on?" "Why?" "Am I under suspicion now?" "Oh, just interested." "Anita and I were coating Neanderthal bones with a ketoret solution to preserve them." "You have to heat that solution with a Bunsen burner, don't you?" "(CHUCKLES) I've been reading up on it." "Of course, we use Bunsen burners." "There doesn't seem to be burner marks on any of these flasks." "Mr. Mannix, there are students whose job it is to clean the lab equipment." "Oh." "Yeah, well, I clean the prof's lab." "It supports my one bad habit, eating." "When was the last time you cleaned Professor Pryor's lab?" "Uh, 14 pizzas ago." "That makes two weeks." "You have pizza every night?" "What's wrong with pizza?" "Nothing, nothing." "Paul, are you positive you haven't cleaned the lab since then?" "Yeah, as sure as I'm gonna have pizza tonight." "Anita, hi." "This is Joe Mannix." "Anita." "He's a private investigator." "He'd like to ask you a few questions." "Not about the robbery again." "I understand you were working with Professor Pryor in his lab that night, is that right?" "Yes." "He said that you were coating some Neanderthal bones with preservative." "That's right." "Without heating the solution?" "Of course we heated it." "On what?" "No Bunsen burners have been used in that lab for at least two weeks." "You weren't really with Professor Pryor during the time of the robbery, were you?" "He was only trying to help me." "Why?" "Did you steal the money?" "No, I didn't." "I swear, I left the bursar's office early because I had to run an errand for Professor Pryor." "What time was that?" "Uh, it was about 7:30." "He sent me to this lab to do some research." "Did anyone see you?" "No, there was no one here that night." "How late did you stay?" "Well, I don't..." "It was a lot of work." "Um, I didn't finish until about 9:30." "When did you next see Professor Pryor?" "Well, when I got back to his office, he was waiting for me." "He suggested that we call it a night and go home." "But, just then, the campus police came in." "That soon?" "Yes, I suppose that someone called them and reported the robbery." "Which put you in a bad spot." "Professor Pryor saw how upset I was, and he was kind enough to say that I had been with him the whole time." "I don't know where I would be without his help." "Thanks." "Ciao, Anita." "♪ ♪" "You think she's going to call Pryor?" "Well, we threw a scare into her." "She probably wants him to know about it." "You think that night while she was in the lab," "Pryor took the key from her purse, and he ripped off the bursar's office?" "Yeah, then he reported his own robbery." "And he knew she'd be the suspect." "So by covering for her, he had a perfect alibi for himself." "But why would he kill O'Neill?" "Good question." "Now that he knows his alibi's shot, he's going to have to come up with something." "Good morning, Peg." "Well, good morning." "You're down early." "Yeah, I'm expecting someone." "Who?" "Professor Pryor." "You don't have him down for an appointment." "I know, but he'll be here." "Good morning." "Good morning." "May I help you?" "I'd like to see Mr. Mannix." "May I have your name, please?" "Pryor." "Ed Pryor." "He's expecting you, Professor." "Professor Pryor." "Professor." "All right, what are you after?" "Well, I've got a friend in jail." "I'd like to see him back on the street." "What are you after?" "Anita, my assistant, said you interviewed her yesterday." "Or should I say browbeat?" "Well, let's split the difference." "I had a talk with her." "And she confessed that I lied to the police." "That's right." "But I did it for her." "Isn't that obvious?" "A little white lie to protect an innocent girl." "That's very generous of you." "You'd do the same for your secretary, wouldn't you?" "I cover for her all the time." "(SCOFFS)" "What can I do to get you off my back?" "Help me find the man who killed Professor O'Neill." "What's wrong with the man who confessed?" "He didn't convince me." "Why did you give up so quickly on Jim Duncan?" "He's got an alibi." "What kind?" "Ruth O'Neill." "Huh." "Of course, it never entered your mind that the two of them might be in it together?" "I've thought about it." "Well, maybe you ought to think about it some more." "(DOOR OPENS)" "(DOOR CLOSES)" "(PHONE RINGS)" "Mr. Mannix's office." "Yes, Art, just a second." "Art Malcolm." "Yeah, Art, what's up?" "When did you get the call?" "Yeah, I'll be right over." "Well, it happened sometime last night." "His prints are all over the gun." "And he left a note." ""I killed O'Neill for reasons which are no longer relevant." ""I did not really mean to kill him, but I lost control and hit him with my cane."" "I guess that wraps it up." "Yeah." "Whoever wrote this note is probably the killer, all right." ""Whoever"?" "What's that supposed to mean?" "Well, you forget, Duncan did have an alibi." "Had." "He doesn't anymore." "Meaning what?" "His alibi walked into the office last night, suffering from a fit of remorse." "Or she was afraid of being an accessory." "Ruth O'Neill?" "The lady came to tell us she wasn't with Duncan the night her husband was killed." "She was at the movies." "You, uh, mind if I look around?" "Why, is something still bothering you?" "Yeah, something." "Help yourself." "♪ ♪" "♪ ♪" "Garamycin." "Duncan had undulant fever." "He picked it up in Vietnam." "Take a look at the date." "Yesterday." "Exactly, he bought it yesterday." "So?" "Art a three-month supply for a man about to kill himself?" "Joe, people do kill themselves on a sudden impulse." "Yeah, and people have been known to kill other people and try and make it look like suicide." "(DOORBELL RINGS)" "She's in there, all right." "Ah, I'm Bill Jenkins." "Remember me?" "The, uh, police lineup." "Oh, yeah, yeah." "How do you know she's in there?" "The housekeeper left yesterday afternoon." "Mrs. O'Neill hasn't been outside since." "Her car is in the garage." "She hasn't even fed the dog." "Do you keep this close a watch on all your neighbors?" "A house where there's been a murder, police, reporters, detectives?" "Wouldn't you be curious?" "Yeah, I guess I would." "Oh, I've been trying to give this back to her." "Must have been the professor's." "I found it in the shrubbery in my garden this morning." "Yeah, thanks." "Mrs. O'Neill?" "I was worried when you didn't answer the door." "Are you all right?" "Top of the world." "I just don't feel like company." "I'm not company." "No." "You can just turn around and march right back the way you came in." "You told the police you lied about being with Jim Duncan the night your husband was murdered." "Why?" "'Cause confession is good for the soul." "(CHUCKLES) So how come i don't feel so good?" "You told me Duncan was the great love of your life." "What suddenly changed your mind?" "Uh, like all of them, he turned sour." "He just wasn't the man I thought he was, all right?" "He's dead." "Jim?" "Dead?" "(LAUGHS)" "Oh, you thought you could trick me into saying something that you just wanted to hear, right?" "No." "I'm sorry, but it's true." "He's dead." "The police think it was suicide." "I don't." "And you... you think I had something to do with it." "Did you?" "Uh, we-we talked about marriage." ""Let's just keep things going the way they are," he said." ""Taking love and..." ""turning it into a contract" ""would end... what we felt for one another."" "That's what he said." "No, Mr. Mannix," "I didn't kill Jim Duncan." "I just gave him up." "There was a note left in his typewriter, a note confessing to the murder of your husband." "(SIGHS)" "If..." "Doesn't matter now what... the police think of Jim." "But..." "I believed he didn't do it or else I never would have lied for him." "Did, uh, this belong to your husband?" "No." "Do you know who it did belong to?" "Jim Duncan." "It was his favorite." "He, uh, he left it somewhere." "He'd been looking for it all week." "Is this what killed Alex?" "I think so." "Jim didn't do it." "I agree." "(DOORBELL RINGS)" "Uh," "I think you'd better answer that, Mrs. O'Neill." "It might be very important." "(DOORBELL RINGS)" "(DOORBELL RINGS)" "Ruth." "You all right?" "You're not ill?" "Ill?" "Mr. Mannix." "All right, what's this about?" "You called me and said that Ruth was ill, needed help." "Well, help, anyway." "What kind of help?" "Finding out who killed her husband." "Might put her mind at ease." "Jim Duncan committed suicide." "He left a confession." "Isn't that enough?" "I'm a hard man to convince." "If Jim Duncan didn't do it, who did?" "You did, Professor." "What?" "But why?" "I'll get to that, Mrs. O'Neill." "You knew, of course, the dog's terror when it came to sticks." "So, you deliberately provoked him with Jim Duncan's cane, which you probably stole from him, and then you threw it away." "Do you mean to suggest that I not only killed my colleague, but tried to frame someone else?" "Unfortunately, the cane ended up in the neighbor's bush, where no one found it till today." "But then you did get a break." "They arrested Matt Jones." "(SCOFFS)" "Ruth asked a question, Mr. Mannix... what motive would I have had?" "Ed, you didn't do it because of me?" "You were a pleasant diversion for a month." "No more." "No, Mr. Mannix, there was simply no motive." "What about the Afghanistan Head?" "What about it?" "Overnight, you were an international celebrity." "What if the head turned out to be a fake?" "Fake?" "No expert has ever questioned it." "No, but Professor O'Neill was working on a new way to determine the age of prehistoric finds." "A method which had never been put to the test." "But might be on your discovery." "Professor O'Neill was working night and day because he knew about you and Mrs. O'Neill." "What better way to pay you back?" "Well, he would've been sadly disappointed." "Would he?" "Yes." "We'll find that out when the museum tests it." "When I blew up your first alibi, you killed Duncan and tried to frame him a second time." "Being a private investigator, Mr. Mannix," "I assume you carry a gun." "Take it out carefully and throw it on the couch." "Won't do you any good, Pryor." "You won't get away with it." "Get away with what?" "You phoned me and said that Ruth was in trouble." "I got here and heard a shot." "I rushed in." "I found Ruth standing over your body." "When I tried to get the gun away from her, it went off and killed her, too." "It's your gun, Ruth." "I bought it for you, remember, to protect you against burglars." "You never cared for me." "You just used me." "All of you, Jim, too, used me." "And now you're gonna use me again!" "(GUNSHOT)" "(GRUNTING)" "You hurt bad?" "I've been hurt before." "I've always gotten over it."