A rich man is said to have committed suicide, but we know better. We see what happens in the first minute of the show. The chauffeur sets it up to look like suicide but he's the one who put his sleeping wheel-chair bound boss near the fireplace and turned on the case. He also shut the curtains, rigged the door to appear it was locked from the inside and left a phony suicide note. The whole thing would have worked if the dead man hadn't been a famous entrepreneur in Chicago.
Thus, "Det.Frank Ballinger" (Lee Marvin)- gets asked to check into this deal, see if it is the real thing. The rest of the show is how he slowly learns the truth.
Fay Spain guest stars, along with lesser-known Ken Clark as the conspirators of the man's death. Spain played a woman about 25 and that was about her real age when this did this episode. He had a decent career, although in many "B" films as the "bad girl." Unfortunately, 25 was only half the years she lived, dying at the age of 50 with cancer. Clark was one of these ultra good-looking, well-built and ultra-tanned studs but never really made the big time. I don't know why, as he seemed - at least in this episode - as a fine actor, as well.
This story had a nice little twist at the end. It also was the final episode of Season One, a good year M Squad, a TV series good enough that a second season was in the making. In all, three seasons and 117 episodes were filmed and Marvin went on to be a big movie star.
