03x03 - The Perfect Crime

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Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen,

and Doctor Watson,
wherever you are.

Tonight's case is...

Tonight's case is called,
"The Perfect Crime."

I'm not sure
who it was who said,

"A perfect crime
is exactly the same
as a perfect marriage.

"Their being perfect
depends on your
not being caught."

Tonight we plan...

This is exactly
why I never take
my pipe to bed.

If you fall asleep,
you could be
bubbled to death.

And now join me,
if you will,

while we contemplate
the perfect crime.

Good evening,
Mr. Courtney.

I know it's late
to be calling uninvited,

but I just returned
from abroad,
the ship was late docking,

and I just saw
the newspapers.

Haven't I seen you
somewhere before?

I'm John Gregory.

Oh, yes, of course.
Do come in.

Thank you.

My man is off
this evening,

so, if you don't mind,
I'll just put
your coat here.

All right.

Won't you come in
and sit down?

Thank you.

I was just sitting here
enjoying the solution
of my last case,

and, of course,
some brandy.
Would you join me?

Thank you.

You know, I've seen you
on at least
four separate occasions

in the courtroom,
defending...

Let me see, there were
the State of New York

versus your client Richards,

and then you represented
Braverman,

and then,
if I recall, Flanagan,
and finally Kowtowski.

No, it was Kowtowski,
then Flanagan.

Flanagan was the last one,
just before I went abroad.

Then you weren't here
when he was ex*cuted?

No.

I tried to be
out of the state

when all four of them
were k*lled.

ex*cuted, my friend,
by due process of the law

and the inevitable
grinding of the mills
of the Almighty.

Now there is Exhibit A
for the prosecution

in the matter of
your last client, Flanagan.

Do you like Brahms,
Mr. Gregory?

Ordinarily,
but not when it turns out
to be a death march.

I see you keep souvenirs

of your success
as a detective.

I know only
three great detectives.

One is now in London.
The second in Paris,
and the third is...

The third,
or should I say the first,

is here in this room
right now.

No point in false modesty,
now, is there?

Some sportsmen
decorate their walls
with the head of a lion

they once sh*t
in Tanganyika,

or some poor
unfortunate rhino

caught sunbathing
in the Congo.

These, Mr. Gregory,
are my trophies,

perfect memories
of so very many
imperfect crimes.

Believe me,
they are not monuments
to my brilliance,

but tombstones
to the stupidity of criminals.

What's the empty space for,
there in the center?

For the perfect crime.

For years
I've kept this space

in the hopes that
I might come to grips
with a k*ller

who had plotted
a perfect m*rder.

As you can see,
it's still empty.

Well, if it were perfect,
how would you know
the criminal?

What souvenir
could you place there?

The trouble's more basic
than that.

I simply can't find
a real challenge.

m*rder never seems
to evoke the best efforts
of the best minds.

And yet,
m*rder it must be.

Oh, would you care
for some more brandy?

Yes, thank you.

Oh, but tell me,

why must the perfect crime
necessarily be a m*rder?

Well, is it not
the most reprehensible?

Human life is
what we prize most,

what we do our best
to protect.

To take a life with a skill
that eludes detection

is unquestionably
the ideal criminal action.

Now, you make it
sound pleasant.

Well, surgeons talk
of beautiful cases,
don't they?

Well, that's precisely
my attitude.

Now, if it's to be m*rder,
then it must be
the purest kind.

Rule out
the crime passionnel.

Hot blood begets
innumerable blunders.

No, the perfect crime
must be a work of art,

like the ceramics
I make here
in my own workshop,

done for art's sake alone,
not for gain.

There is only
one kind of m*rder
that I consider pure.

That's the m*rder
of elimination,

the m*rder in which
the sole object

is to remove the victim
from the world.

For instance, take that case
which I mentioned when you came in.

Oh, what case
would that be?

The Harrington case.

He really should have
tried to get rid of
West's body.

The absence
of a corpus delicti

is curiously troublesome
to the police.

Although,
even if he had tried
to dispose of it,

I should have caught up
with him nonetheless.
He was much too careless.

It was Harrington
I came to talk to you about.

But he's not
one of your clients.

No. I was away
or I might have taken
the case.

But I know him quite well.

And West,
and Mrs. West even better.

Lovely woman, I understand.

Yes.

Yes, she and West
are separated.

She's been living
in Europe.

Yeah, I know.

I'd like to hear
how you tracked down
Harrington.

Simplicity itself.

I chose
this small revolver

to recall
the various aspects
of the case.

Of course, I could
have selected a tire
with a blister,

but I fear it would
have been rather troublesome
fitting it in there.

Or I could have exhibited
the thread ends
from a tweed suit.

Now, you knew Ernest West,

so you know
he was a millionaire,
Wall Street.

He had a lodge
near Smithtown on the island

and he used it
as a base for duck hunting.

During the season,
he used to go down there
almost every weekend.

West kept only
one servant at the lodge,

a housekeeper
who had grown old
in his service,

but the one woman
absolutely devoted to him.

He'd let her off
the previous evening

to spend the night
with her daughter
in Jamaica.

She came back early
to prepare his breakfast

and found West
sh*t through the heart.

It was as if
he'd been relaxing
when death took him suddenly.

There was no sign
of a struggle.

I was called in
by Homicide at once.

West was an important man,
you know,

and the Department
wanted immediate action.

Inside the house
I found only one item
I thought useful.

In analyzing the dust
in the gunroom,

I came across
several tiny thread ends

that had obviously come
from a tweed suit.

These threads
could not be matched
in West's wardrobe.

Outside there was more
to go on.

The ground had been damp
the previous night

and two sets of footprints
were visible,

a man's and a woman's.

Excluding the police's,
of course.

A woman's?

Yes, the housekeeper's.

I see.

The prints were difficult
to identify.

The man had walked
up and down the lane
outside of the house

and had trampled every one
of the woman's prints.

Well, doesn't that seem odd?

Not at all.

You see, he couldn't decide
whether to run or stay,

even though he had a car
waiting for him
at the end of the lane.

So he paced back and forth,

calming his nerves
and collecting his thoughts.

You say he had a car
waiting for him?

Yes, a heavy touring car.

The tracks
were perfectly plain.

But there was
one unique feature
about these tracks.

A large, hard blister
on one of the treads.

It made a perfectly defined
indentation in the mud

every time it came around.

You still haven't told me
how you got
on to Harrington.

With all the evidence,
all that remained

was to relate the clues
to one suspect.

Such times
I let my mind wander.
I set it free.

It occurred to me
that I might find my answer
in Wall Street.

And sure enough,
I discovered

that in the three weeks
prior to West's death,

a certain common stock
had risen points.

Two days after he was sh*t,
it dropped back points,

so I searched further.

I found that a man named
Harrington had, on the day
that West was m*rder*d,

been short , shares
of that particular stock.

He had been selling short
all the way up,

and West had been buying
all that was offered.

So he simply eliminated West.

It was m*rder for millions.

Now the rest was routine.

In a loft in the garage
of Harrington's country place,

the police discovered
three perfect tires

and a fourth with a large,
hard blister.

The thread ends matched
one of Harrington's suits.

And in his wall safe
we found this.

West had been k*lled by
a single sh*t from this g*n.

So Harrington, of course,
confessed at once.

And the press...

The press, I fear,
made far too much
over my part in the affair.

Mr. Courtney, I haven't held
that g*n, have I?

I don't follow you.

Since I've been here tonight,
I haven't seen the g*n
except for the barrel.

Isn't that correct? I mean,
I haven't seen the handle.

No, don't, don't.
Keep it covered.

But tell me,
is the handle slightly chipped
on the right side

and does a cr*ck run
all the way up
on the left side?

Yes, it does,
but how did you know?

Harrington did not k*ll West.

You caught the wrong person.

The wrong man d*ed
in the electric chair.

Harrington was innocent.

How can you...
How can you say such a thing?

I not only can say it,
Mr. Courtney, I can prove it.

Do you realize
what you're telling me?

I do.

Careful of it.
It's still loaded.

The four of us
were target sh**ting
at Davos in Switzerland.

Alice dropped this on a rock.

Alice West?
Mmm.

That's how it got chipped.

Well, what do you mean,
the four of you?

Alice, West,
Harrington, and myself.

We were all stopping at
the same hotel in Switzerland.

When was this?

My first trip over,
four years ago.

And this was Alice's g*n.

Why, then she gave it
to Harrington.

No, I doubt it. As much
as she loved him, I doubt it.

He probably took it away
from her, but too late.

Now you're talking in riddles.
What do you mean?

Simply that this little w*apon
helped to execute
an innocent man.

Now look here, Gregory,
you of all people should know

how precise, how painstaking,
how objective I am
about evidence.

You can't pop in here
in the middle of the night and
drop a bombshell like this.

Four years ago in Switzerland,
Harrington fell in love
with Alice West,

and she with him.

West played dog in the manger,
refused to give her a divorce.

Of course, she left him,
but that didn't help her
towards marrying Harrington.

I was in on the affair
from the first.

I tell you,
he even behaved very badly.

Well, under the circumstances,
why shouldn't he?

He hadn't loved Alice
for a long time.

And he simply made up his mind
that no other man was going
to have her, legally at least.

Then she began to drink.

I'm afraid she's become
a hopeless alcoholic.

This last trip, I saw her
in Monte Carlo at her hotel.

We'd been talking
about her husband's m*rder.

I'd been speculating as to
who could have done it.

You hadn't yet
arrested Harrington.

I asked her if she
and Harrington weren't going
to be married soon.

What distressed me most
was her listless attitude,

as though some terrible thing
had possessed her mind.

She went to her purse
and gave me something to read.

A letter. The last letter
her husband had sent her.

It was cruel, sadistic.
It told her how he intended
to keep her tied up

until she d*ed
a bitter old woman,
alone and unloved,

that he would come
and laugh over her
as she lay in her coffin.

There was a lot more,
but it made me sick.

I didn't want to finish it.

She said, "What would you do
to a man like that?"

I found myself answering,
"k*ll him. k*ll him!"

And then, all at once, she
screamed the words back at me

until I got her to stop.

Then, as calmly as I could,
I pointed out that someone
had already done just that.

I'll never forget
the way she looked at me

or the change
that came over her face.

"It's funny," she said.

"You can sh**t the heads
off all the innocent bottles
you like.

"No one says a word."

"But if you k*ll
a human snake, " she said,
"they'd burn you for it."

"And I don't want to burn,
thank you very much. "

Do you follow me,
Mr. Courtney?

There was no reason
for Harrington to borrow
Alice's g*n

to k*ll West, now was there?

Borrow it?
He had access to it.

You said so yourself.
He simply took it.

Why? He had
quite a little arsenal
of his own, hadn't he?

Well, yes. We did find
a couple of service revolvers
and a heavy a*t*matic.

Exactly. He would never have
used a toy to k*ll West,
not in a years.

That he would or would not
have used a. caliber

is merely an assumption
on your part.

It's certainly
non-conclusive.

Why, he might have used a
pointed stick or a boomerang,

for all anybody could have...

Granted. But he never
would've committed m*rder.

He's far too level-headed.

Three years ago,
I tracked down a fine,
upstanding young CPA

and brought him back here
to face a jury of his peers.

His defense attorney made
the same argument.

"My client is
much too level-headed
to have k*lled his wife.

"He's not the type.

"Why, he had never made
a mistake in his life,

"even in long division
when he was back in school.

"He was secretary of this
and chairman of that
and president of everything.

"Calm, cool and collected
was this young man."

Well, you can imagine what
the district attorney made
of that phase of the defense?

Yes, I know.

District attorneys are not
noted for their understanding
or their charity.

May I ask you a question,
Mr. Courtney?

Was Alice West in Europe
when her husband was k*lled?

Don't you suppose we checked?
Of course, she was.

I'm afraid your check wasn't
very thorough.

Alice West was in Montreal
the month her husband was k*lled.

And Montreal isn't too far
from Long Island.

Impossible.

She told me so herself.

She registered at
the Ritz Hotel in Montreal.

The French police verified
the fact that she was in Europe.

We have the cables.

Oh, she was in Europe,
all right, before the m*rder
and just after.

But did you check
her passport,

her entry dates
through customs?

Well, we assumed, what with
the cables from the French
authorities, that...

Well, what I mean was
it never occurred to us.

Before I tell you, let me
say something, Mr. Courtney.

Something about you.

Me?

Yes.

For some inexplicable reason,

maybe because I can't really
understand men like you,

I've always wanted
to learn about you.

But it's impossible.

Just below that surface
of studied courtesy,
Mr. Courtney, lies a cover.

And the real Charles Courtney
lives beneath that cover,

impervious,
untouched and unmoved.

You're being ridiculous.

You live in a quiet
little place all of your own,
don't you?

Shut off from the rest
of the world like some
lost tribe of aborigines

in a forgotten quarter
of the globe.

Are you quite done?

No, not quite.

I'm going to tell you
what really happened
at West's hunting lodge

the night he was k*lled.

Alice West and
Harrington went down
to see West together,

to see if they couldn't
get him to change his mind
after all.

They only succeeded
in amusing him.

But Alice had come prepared,
Mr. Courtney.

She held that tiny g*n on West
just long enough
to find the heart.

You can imagine
Harrington's utter shock
at this catastrophe.

If only he could have
breathed life back into West,

he certainly
would have done so,

no matter what the price
to himself.

But now there was nothing left
but to help Alice,
and this he did.

You were right
about Harrington's
walking back and forth,

but not out of nervousness,
not to calm his nerves.

He deliberately
trampled out every one
of Alice's footprints,

so all you could find
were those made by him
and by the housekeeper

when she returned
that next morning.

Then he drove away with Alice.

As soon as they got back
to New York,

she left him alone
to face the consequences.

It was like him
to do what he did.

If ever a man loved a woman,
he loved Alice West.

And, I daresay, she loved him,
too, in her own fashion.

But she loved her own
precious white skin even more.

Harrington, poor devil,
wanted to save the woman.

Even though she wasn't worth
saving, to him she was.

You have no proof.

Proof?

The record of customs
of her visit to Canada.

The hotel register
in Montreal.

The fact it was her g*n.
Her accuracy with it.

I've seen her sh**t the tops
off dozens of bottles.

The letter that West sent her,
her hatred of him.

I wanted you to know,
Mr. Courtney.

I wanted you to have
something to live with
through the nights,

through the long, long nights.

The taste of defeat that we've
known, you will now know.

But it has no bitter taste,
does it?

It has no taste,
no taste at all.

But it has something else.
A weight. It has a pressure
all of its own,

and you can feel it
pulling down on you.

You think I made a mistake?

I know you did.
Impossible.

That won't bring
Harrington back.

I don't make mistakes.
This time you did.

My reputation
does not permit mistakes.

Then your reputation
will have to change.

Nobody must hear of this.
Do you understand?

Look, I don't intend
to advertise this,

but if you ever try to slip
the noose around the neck

of one of my clients,
that's something else.

And with
that slight exception,

your reputation will be safe
with me, don't worry.

Providing our paths
don't cross, you mean?

I think
we understand each other.

This has been
a terrible shock.

But please, before you go,
have a nightcap with me.

And excuse me a moment.
I'll be right back.

I think
that's got it, Mr. Courtney.

Oh, Mr. Courtney, you were
gone almost two years.

Is there any truth to the
rumor that you plan to retire,
to give up crime detection?

I shall never retire, sir.

All I needed was
a long vacation.

Which monument on your tour
impressed you the most?

I know you expect me
to say the Taj Mahal,

but actually, it was
Angkor Wat in Cambodia
that I shall never forget.

Mr. Courtney,
there was another rumor.
Oh?

The reason you left New York
and were gone so long.

That was?

That you were searching
for the master criminal,

someone who could
outsmart you.

Well, now, there no need for
modesty, is there, gentlemen?

That man hasn't been born.

Come along, and I'll show you
where I do my ceramics.

I'd like to take a sh*t
in there if it's okay
with you, Mr. Courtney.

You know,
it's sort of a hobby room
where you go to let off steam.

That's very apt of you,
I must say,
that reference to steam.

You know,
the secret of good ceramics
is in the baking process.

You must have
a super hot oven.

The one I have in there is
a most efficient instrument,
believe me, most efficient.

Mr. Courtney,
is this a souvenir
of some crime?

I see there's nothing
on the label.

That? Oh, no, not exactly.

As a matter of fact,

this particular vase was
more or less of an experiment.

I used a rather
special kind of clay.

I regret to inform you

that Courtney did not retain
his last trophy very long.

He was caught.

A charwoman knocked over
the precious vase

breaking it into pieces,

a few of them identifiable
as bits of Mr. Gregory.

You see, the gold fillings
in his teeth had resisted
the heat of the kiln.

But all the good doctors
and all the good police

couldn't put Mr. Gregory
together again.

As for the charwoman,
she became the pride
of the press.

Here is where the real
historical significance
of the case lies.

Ever since, cleaning women
the world over have been
knocking over vases

trying to emulate her success.

That's all until next time
when we shall be back

with another,
though imperfect, crime.

Good night.