A young American sailor on shore leave in the West Indies is tempted by a crazy bet. To win a new Jaguar, all he need do is to make his cigarette-lighter light ten times without any failures. In return, he has to stake one of his fingers. But what is the truth about Carlos, the high-rolling old man who has proposed the bet?
Bixby is a New York dentist. Once a month, for many years, his wife goes to Baltimore by train to visit her aunt. She does not tell Bixby about her affair with the Colonel, a single man with a big house near Baltimore, who is the real reason for all these visits.One Christmas, Mrs Bixby gets a parting gift from the Colonel - a splendid mink coat. So that she can explain the coat to her husband, she devises a complicated scheme which depends on pawning the coat and then 'finding' the pawn ticket... but the best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley.
William Pearl, a philosophy don at an Oxford college, dies of cancer, and his widow, Mary, gets a letter from him. William tells her about his colleague John Landy's scheme for keeping William's brain alive after his death. He also advises Mary not to smoke, not to drink, not to use lipstick, and not to buy a television - and William had spent the long years of their life together disapproving of what Mary wanted to do. Mary calls John Landy and goes to visit what is left of William. She decides to take him home - she has her own ideas about their future relationship.
An enraged detective's wife kills her husband by smashing in his skull with a heavy blunt instrument - but no murder weapon can be found, and the police are baffled. The answer to the riddle lies under the detectives' noses - or, rather, it did...
Billy Weaver, a seventeen-year-old Londoner, arrives in Bath late at night to take up a new job. He finds a room for the night at a bed-and-breakfast house run by a sweet old woman. As he signs the guest book, Billy feels sure he recognizes the names of the two previous guests. Where on earth can he have heard them before? As he drinks a cup of tea with a curiously bitter-almond flavour, the owner of the boarding house is telling Billy she is an amateur taxidermist...
Unworldly art collector Basil Turton inherits his father's publishing empire (and his title) and marries Natalia, an East European with a decidedly Machiavellian streak. Six years on, the new Lady Turton is not just wearing the trousers but also being far from discreet about her lovers. Sir Basil's butler, Jelks, strongly disapproves of it all. Then Lady Turton gets her head stuck in a valuable work of art...
An elderly couple, Edward and Louisa, find their life invaded by a stray cat. The cat's knowledgeable response to Louisa's piano playing, and the pattern of warts on its face, convince her that pussy is a reincarnation of Franz Liszt, the composer. Liszt, the cat, does not trouble to conceal his dislike for Edward, who is becoming dangerously jealous...
William Botibol, an American passenger on a British cruise ship, is anxious to win the rich sweepstake for predicting the distance the ship will travel in twenty-four hours - and William realizes that if the captain were to need to go back to pick up a man overboard, then his own ticket should win. So long as someone sees him go over the side, there can be no real problem...
An elderly American couple, the Fosters, are planning a six-week trip to Paris to visit their grandchildren. Foster gets left behind, and his wife writes to him every week... on her return home, she does not seem very surprised to find that the lift in their house is stuck between two floors.
In a cottage surrounded by the drone of honey-bees, the bee-keeper's baby daughter is ailing and losing weight. The corner is turned when Albert begins to feed his daughter on Royal Jelly, but a curious transformation is under way...
Drioli, a penniless old tattoo artist, has a fabulous work of art by his friend Soutine and is offered a huge amount for it. He desperately needs the money, but how can he deliver the picture to the buyer while he is still alive? - the masterpiece is tattooed on his back.
After more than sixty years, William Perkins is still haunted by memories of being bullied at an English private school... One day, he is annoyed by a swaggering passenger on a train and is sure he recognizes him as Foxley, the school prefect who made his life so miserable, long ago. And Perkins makes a mistake.
Paul Duveen gives a lift in his ultra-fast new BMW to an elderly hitch-hiker on his way to Epsom for the Derby. Duveen, cajoled into taking the car to its limit, is promptly booked for speeding. In the course of the remaining journey, the passenger reveals his astonishing skills as a professional pickpocket - his name for himself is a fingersmith - and before they finally part, the fingersmith has a little present for Duveen...
Harry Pope is a reformed alcoholic working in Kashmir, India, and hoping to go home to England soon. One hot night, Harry is reading in bed, when he feels something moving on his chest. He looks down to see a deadly little snake, a krait, which slides under his pyjamas and goes to sleep on his stomach. All Harry can do is to wait for his friend, Timber, to come home. When he arrives, Timber sends for a local doctor...
The husband of a fat, greedy woman has a clever plan to get rid of her - but the plan is flawed.
Richard Pratt, a famous middle-aged wine connoisseur, is having dinner with the Schofields for the third time. Twice before, he has won a case of wine from Mike Schofield by correctly identifying the claret served with dinner. This time, Pratt wishes to increase the stakes - he offers his London house and his place in the country against the hand in marriage of the Schofields' teenage daughter, Louise. And Schofield (who is sure he has found a wine no one could identify) persuades Louise to agree to the bet. After all, this wine is unguessable...
Arthur Beauchamp's wife, Pamela, decides to have some fun with their weekend guests, the Snapes - they instal a hidden microphone in the Snapes' bedroom. After a game of bridge for high stakes, the microphone reveals that the Snapes have a complicated system for signalling their bridge hands to each other...
George is an English vicar with a fantasy life. He sees naked women during his sermons. One day, he finds he is suddenly irresistible to the opposite sex, and a beautiful woman throws herself at him on a river bank. What is going on?
An art collector finds himself drawn into an unusual struggle with two beautiful women.
A smart old man, claiming to need his taxi fare home on a wet afternoon in London, persuades a stranger to buy his umbrella. Followed into a pub, it turns out that the Umbrellaa Man spends the money on a large whisky. What is going on?
Klara. the mother of a new-born baby boy, is desperately worried, as she and her husband, Alois, have lost three other children in lessss than two years. A doctor convinces her that her new son is healthy, and Klara decides to call him Adolphus. She loves this beautiful child. Her husband comments on his small size, and the doctor pleads with him to give his wife better support. Alois tries to comfort Klara. ""He must live, Alois,"" she cries. ""Oh God, be merciful..."" We slowly realize who the child will grow up to be.
William Botibol is a pathetic failure whose life-long ambition is to conduct an orchestra. He fills his lonely life with music, pretending to be a great composer and conductor. Then Botibol meets a young lady who shares in his fantasy - but why is she really putting herself out for him?
James Carpenter is a successful doctor at the peak of his career and is also an orchid fanatic, much more devoted to his flowers than he is to his elegant wife, Hermione. And Carpenter is also in love with a younger woman, Samantha. Then a research posting to the U.S. gives the doctor the idea for the perfect murder... Alas for Carpenter and his mistress, the victim has a trick up her sleeve, even from the grave...
Arthur Appleby's orderly world centres on his quiet antique and curio shop. He has just married for the fourth time, and his new wife, Martha, discovers Appleby's dark secret - he murdered all her predecessors. But the new Mrs Appleby has a plan to turn the tables on her husband.
Hardy is a young seaman down on his luck. He has no money and no ship, and then he gets caught up in a dockland fight and kills a man. Anxious to get a new ship and vanish, Hardy turns to his friend, the lovely Diane, a prostitute. Diane knows where to find the elusive, mysterious Man at the Top - the one person powerful enough to help Hardy. And then Hardy finds he did not know very much about the man he killed...
A young girl is being followed by a stalker and is glad to take shelter with the elderly Miss Harrison, who lives in a caravan - but the girl is still in danger, and she disappears.... what has happened to her, and who was the stalker? At the end of the programme, an old man joins Miss Harrison in her caravan, and we see that it is near a lake...
Hazel is a gullible old widow whose farm-house is full of antiques, and Merv is a charming con-man who buys a valuable picture from her for a knock-down price... but, somehow, all is not quite as it seems.
Hard-bitten police inspector Walters has a murder on his hands that he can't crack. The prime suspect is George Stamford, who was alone in a locked room with the dead man when he was shot - but Stamford is admitting nothing, and there is no evidence against him...
Tom and George, two young college graduates who are out of work in New York, offer satisfaction to the victims of Lionel Brewster, the city's most scurrilous gossip columnist - for a price. Mrs Wilbur has a job for 'Vengeance is Mine Inc', but she gets rather more for her money than she asked for.
Suzy Starr and Pat Lewis are actresses in a touring theatre company, but it doesn't give them a glittering lifestyle. They can hardly pay the rent on their shared apartment. Then the theatre company finds a rich new backer, Herbert, a middle-aged widower. Suzy is selfish and takes what she wants. She smartly cottons on to Herbert and soon has a mink coat and a sports car out of him. Then Herbert wants her to marry him, but she's less thrilled - she prefers to make use of him but to have fun with other men behind his back. Suzy needs Pat's help - and Pat is under no illusions about Suzy. And Suzy isn't as clever as she thinks...
Cyril Boggis is a rogue antique dealer who goes around posing as a clergyman and describing himself as President of the Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. Cyril makes a handsome living by buying valuable antiques cheap and selling them to Storker, another dealer. One day, Cyril calls on old Farmer Rummins and buys a piece of furniture from him which he knows is worth a fortune. He looks forward to making a huge profit on it - but his luck may be about to run out.
Jack Cutler is an arrogant millionaire, and in middle age he runs into the meek Harold Tinker, a fellow he was at school with - Tinker remembers being bullied by Cutler, who called him ""Stinker Tinker"". Cutler offers Tinker a job, and, to please his beautiful wife, Tinker accepts. But his old resentment and loathing for Cutler have not gone away, and when he suspects his wife is having an affair with his new boss, something explodes...
Roland Trent is married to the rich, beautiful, bitchy Vivien. He prefers to be with his young mistress, Anna, who is nearly blind and needs looking after, but leaving Vivien will leave Roland penniless. Nevertheless, he makes up his mind to leave his wife to be with Anna - but Vivien plans to make his suffering more human than financial...
Christmas is in sight, and for Harry Knox, the elderly manager of a toy factory, it is always an unhappy time of year. But this Christmas looks even worse when Harry hears a rumour that the factory is being taken over by foreigners. Then comes the news that young Leighton is organising an office disco the night before the staff party which Henry has been running for many years. The writing is on the wall for Henry's party and his job - he decides his bosses want to push him out, after forty years of loyal service, and he is so enraged that he sets fire to the factory. But there was more to the planned party than Harry realized...
Two archeologists working in Jordan, Tanner and Miller, find in the desert sand a statue of a woman in a strange posture. Driving through a rainstorm, and using an open truck, they try to smuggle their find over the border into Israel, only to discover on arrival that it has completely disappeared. They could have been in a lot of trouble...
An old lady catches Rex Tobin, a young burglar who was planning to rob her, and makes friends with him... but what is she really up to?
David, a nine-year-old boy, talks his father into getting him a giant turtle. And there is more to David's desire for this unusual pet than meets the eye. Then Sam Jenner, a rugged American, gets drawn into David's holiday adventure in Jamaica.
Arthur is a junior clerk in a city metal broker's office and he's desperately in love with the boss's daughter, Ann Horton. Arthur can't see how he's going to catch Ann's eye, but his smarter friend Charlie knows how to manage these things, and (in return for sharing Arthur's flat and borrowing his money) Charlie helps Arthur out. But then Charlie doesn't want to pay back what he owes...
Arthur is an elegant playboy, but he is dependent on his very rich, ailing, and demanding wife, Elizabeth. The day comes when the hen-pecked Arthur's lover wants a promise of marriage, and Arthur decides he wants his wife dead, so long as he gets her money. But there is something Arthur doesn't know about Elizabeth...
Property tycoon Gerry Williams is married to the beautiful but unhappy Ellen, and somewhere the marriage has gone terribly wrong. Then an assassin is hired to kill Gerry, and he makes the mistake of getting too friendly with his target...
A botanist called Klausner invents a machine which can translate the conversations of trees and plants... and what he hears gives him a nasty shock.
David Rankin is a country doctor with a flighty young wife. Irene's affairs with other men were the talk of the town before she was married - and they still are. No one knows for sure if the gossip has reached the doctor. And then no one knows where Irene has gone... Sim and Bob accuse Dr Rankin of killing his wife and burying her in the cellar - but they have made a big mistake.
Harry Flock has had a temporary promotion as acting manager of a branch bank. Harry is honest and meticulous to a fault, but he is in danger of losing his job when head office gets anonymous complaints about alleged embezzlements. Harry's accounts are immaculate. In fact, they seem too good to be true...
Kyros buys the last bottle of a superb 1864 claret - an anniverary present for his beautiful but unfaithful wife. He pays a tremendous price, and plans a dinner party - but Kyros is planning to use the wine for more than just drinking...
Madame Lagrue runs a smart but commercial art gallery in Montmartre, Paris, getting rich at the expense of struggling artists. Then one of her victims falls in love with Fatima, an artist's model, and Madame Lagrue is up against someone even more cunning than she is.
The very rich Joe Brisson is a self-made man with a number of enemies - including Lisa, his elegant but dangerously dissatisfied wife.
Arthur and Margaret Pearson are a quiet middle-aged couple. Arthur is dull, but double-dealing, and when his wife Margaret inherits £50,000 he reluctantly agrees to gamble the money on a dubious and highly speculative property deal.As a result, the Pearsons' lives (and their relationship) begin to change significantly.
Nell and Emma were best friends at school, but after a reunion weekend they find things more difficult. Emma, who is retired and poor, asks Nell to rent her a spare room in her house. Nell agrees and Emma moves in, but she quickly proves to be completely penniless and seems willing to drag Nell down to poverty, too...
Betsy's long term live-in lover, Jack, is planning to get married - but not to her. He has a new girlfriend half-way across the world, in Australia.Betsy is even more enraged when Jack starts to pack up their shared belongings for shipping to his new home. As the paintings come off the walls, Betsy decides to give the bride a present - she has just the thing in mind.
Young Roger Carson has a dreary life and suffers from the domineering ways of his rich Aunt May. By way of escape, he takes up gambling - and swiftly falls for Suzie, a beautiful casino hostess. The boss of the casino sees Roger as a chicken ripe for plucking, and gets Suzie to encourage him. Soon, Roger is losing more than his income...
Captain Waterhouse has to deal with a man on board his airliner who seizes Milly, a stewardess, takes her and a bottle of nitroglycerine into a tiny lavatory, and demands one million dollars in ransom money, plus a parachute for himself. The hijacker believes both have been delivered to him, and he jumps out... However, the story is not over yet...
Marigold is a dream girl supermodel, but she is wrecking her career with drink and other excesses. Paul Foster, her dismayed lover, slowly sees how much greed for fame lurks behind Marigold's beautiful face. Sophie Trent is a more easy-going newcomer, but she sets off a jealous and dangerous reaction when her more dulcet tones are used to replace Marigold's voice on a television commercial.
Donald Henderson gives his wife, Moira, a unique watch, and then it goes missing, so Donald offers to replace it. As a result, Moira is in a store looking for a similar watch when she overhears a young woman telling a friend about her affair. It seems the stranger is meeting a married man - and she goes on to show her friend the beautiful watch he has given her. Unhappily, it looks just like Moira's. Moira puts two and two together and gets herself into a rage, and things soon get terribly out of hand...
Retired safe-cracker Sam Morrissey is approached by Jack Harrison, an advertising man representing the Holdwell Safe Company, with a proposition. Jack wants Sam to try to break into a Holdwell safe on television - and, of course, he firmly believes it can't be done. However, inside the safe there will be twenty-five thousand dollars, and the money is Sam's to keep if he can crack the safe within three hours.Sam accepts the challenge - but he is not a man who likes to leave things to chance.
Just after the Second World War, Robert Simpson was a young U.S. Army interpreter stationed in liberated Paris and living in the house of Jacques Vareille, a hero of the French Resistance, and his downtrodden wife, Nathalie. Robert had no idea why the hectoring Jacques never set foot outside his house. Now, ten years after the war, Robert is back in Paris to write a book about the Resistance, and he pays a call at his former digs. Only Nathalie is still there - and she has a story to tell of a very different kind. It seems that she sought revenge on her bullying husband, with unforeseen consequences.
A bearded, simple-minded stranger, wearing a top hat and a multi-colored coat, appears in a village performing conjuring tricks and is soon a favorite with the village children. They call him Sir Columbus, and he seems delightful and harmless. One day, Columbus talks his way into the office of a local business man, reveals himself as an unexpected visitor from the man's guilty past, and commits what seems to be the perfect murder. (This episode is noted for providing a young Jennifer Connelly with her first screen credit.)
Edward Boyle and George Balsam are newcomers to crime, respectable businessmen on the brink of bankruptcy, who join forces with Meakins, a professional criminal, to rob a bank. They tunnel under the bank's vaults, burrowing through the earth like moles... but their plan comes unstuck.
Pretty policewoman Mary Bryan is out to get her man, in seductive, skin-tight silver pants. And it's all in the line of duty, as Mary is the bait to trap a suspected serial killer who has been murdering young women around the city. But things do not go according to plan.
Pathologist Keith Briscoe has a problem. He has had enough of Elaine, his selfish and expensive second wife, and wants to re-marry Faye, his first wife... but Elaine has given Briscoe five years of her life and doesn't want to let him go. Then the pathologist finds himself working with a police team to catch a serial killer. The man they are after poses as a door-to-door salesman and kills women for their small change, and Briscoe realises how much he loves Faye when she agrees to act as a decoy to trap the killer. And then he has an idea...
Mary Hitchman's disbelief turns to curiosity when a friend tips her off that her husband George is having an affair with a pretty young secretary. Mary arranges a chance meeting with her rival at a beach party - and George does not foresee what is coming to him.
Alan Corwin audits the books of a City investment firm where Oliver Platt is a whizz kid. Platt has taken huge risks, and for a high price Corwin agrees to keep quiet. All is safely covered up - but Platt has not foreseen the well-meaning interference of Leila, his secretary and girlfriend...
Joan Stackpole wants a quiet life. Even talking to her husband Ralph is an ordeal she prefers to avoid. Meanwhile, Ralph has a big problem - someone is stealing the gloves from his glove factory, and the pilfering is throwing all his staff under suspicion, including Cotter, his designer. When Ralph can take no more, he hires a private eye, who forms an ingenious plan to catch the thief, and Ralph tells Joan about it over breakfast. Ralph swears he will get rid of the culprit - but then traces of the thief start turning up in unexpected places...
Rich landowner Sir Ian Masterson marries, and Karen, his new wife, moves into his magnificent house in the country. Karen is befriended by Linda Larch, a neighbour. But Linda has her own agenda, and Karen also senses that there is an evil spirit which wants to see her off.
Richard Mellor and Fergus Locke are two failed actors whose names have never been in lights. They meet by chance for the first time in twenty-five years, remembering that Mellor wooed and won the girl they both loved more than a quarter of a century before. But now their marriages are as washed-up as their careers...
The rich, bossy Norma owns a big house and allows her sister Emily and lazy brother-in-law Bob to live at the lodge. One day, Emily vanishes without explanation, and Norma suspects Bob of killing her for a life insurance pay-out. Norma unwisely makes a noise about her suspicions - but while Bob has a sinister side to him, he is rather more subtle than that...
An honest girl called Cara aims to recover her family jewellery (which has been consfiscated as a result of a lover's tiff) by stealing it from a hidden safe. She hires the ultra-cautious safebreaker Sam to do the job for her, and persuades him to take her along. Realizing that Cara will be a danger, he insists she must follow his orders. The plan is for them to dress as students and make their getaway by mingling with college crowds... But Sam has made the first big mistake in his long and successful career as a peterman.
John Smith is a rich but lonely Californian wine-grower visiting England in the hope of finding his long-lost family. In London, he meets two girls, Janet Murdoch and her room-mate Eva, and things start to go terribly wrong.
Parnell is an art dealer who plans to steal an important picture from his own London art gallery. During a ceremony to unveil The Patrician Lady (a masterpiece on temporary loan) gun shots and an explosion suggest a robbery. Afterwards, surprisingly, The Patrician Lady seems to be unharmed, but then Parnell finds the name 'Zarchetti' stamped on the back of the canvas, suggesting the picture is a fake. With the original under suspicion, Parnell plans that his artist girlfrend will then forge copies of the painting, which he can sell to several of his collectors who will each pay a good price for what appears to be the real masterpiece. But something goes wrong with the plan...
An arrogant young man called Max has to have an emergency operation just before he is due to go away on a holiday with his girlfriend, Emma - a holiday he hoped to turn into a honeymoon. Max panics and gets bad-tempered, and Emma tries to calm him down. Meanwhile, Andy, who is a radiologist at the hospital and a much more pleasant character than Max, is also keen on Emma. So she has to choose between them...
Frank Jesmond is a struggling tough guy who is jealous of his rich and successful former schoolmate Peter Madison. And Frank will do anything for money - including murder. But what about Jesmond's loving wife and young son, Timmy?
Colin Mearns, called 'the memory man', is going through a very thin patch. Out of funds and facing the loss of Mary, his gorgeous girlfriend, he advertises for customers and agrees to help Charlie Krebs, an obviously shady character, to remember the number of a station locker. But then Mearns gets curious and wonders if he might be missing his only chance to make a fortune...
Claire Hawksworth is a young widow who owns a smart hotel in the Caribbean, where she lives with her good-looking hotel manager (and lover) Dave Bingham. Alas, Claire is struggling financially and faces bankruptcy, so she is having to look to her rich Aunt Alicia to save the day. But then Alicia announces she has a new heir. What's to be done?
Paul Standing, the son of a highly-respected doctor who has recently died, is winding up his father's affairs when he receives an account from a book-shop owned by two brothers (Michael and Ronnie Carey) demanding over a thousand pounds for pornography supplied to his late father. Paul knows that receiving this bill could have killed his mother, who has a weak heart - but he is suspicious of the claim, for a very good reason...
Rancher George Devon is found murdered. Devon was a rich man, and his nephews Donald and David (who are identical twins) stand to inherit his fortune. They become the prime suspects, as one of them was seen at the scene of the crime just before Devon's body was found. But Sheriff Milt Singleton faces the problem that no-one can tell the twins apart, and both of them seem to have water-tight alibis.
Laura and Frank Parker are the long-suffering friends of George and Julie Forester. Long-suffering, because George is a compulsive prankster, and some of his jokes are very troublesome... then one day he goes too far.
Gerry Armstrong, an American veteran of World War II, makes a nostalgic return trip to England and visits the town in Norfolk where he served as an airman forty years before. Carol is a pretty young woman Armstrong meets in a dance hall - which is where the sheltering palms come in. But the past can yield secrets and surprises, and Carol brings it all disturbingly alive...
A tale of love, honour and murder in Germany in the 1930s, looked back on many years later. The elderly von Baden, one of those who witnessed a long-ago duel to the death at Heidelberg between Macker and the bully Cassan, reveals a shocking secret...
Helmut Weinrich is a German business man staying in a hotel and looking for a good time after a successful deal. Helmut meets the beautiful and enigmatic Molly, a girl with an edge of danger about her. He ignores the warnings of the hotel's security officer, buys Molly dinner and invites her up to his room...
Susan Mandeville is a glamorous, extravagant American who inveigles Tony Medway, a struggling young writer, into buying her an expensive lunch. Tony believes Susan is still married to a film producer, so he risks a bill he can't afford in the hope of an offer for the film rights of his book. The lunch turns out to be full of surprises...
Three English ladies who served the Empire in distant places, Fanny Soane, Mable Ince, and Lady Eleanor Benson, hear of the death of Nanny Dench, who had served all of them. The three ladies decide against the expense of a notice in The Times and plan instead to meet Nanny's niece for lunch. But a shock is in store for them...
Roger Ashburn is a young hospital doctor with a beautiful but selfish wife. They hold a dinner party for Steve and Carol Hutchins, but the party is ruined when one of the men finds his wife's wedding ring in his dinner - her ploy to signal that the marriage is over.When Roger's wife disappears, he is desperately worried - but there is a surprise in store for him.
Caroline Coates, a television station interviewer, is promoted to be anchorwoman of the station's main news programme - and there are two men who want to marry her. But Caroline worries that she won't keep her looks forever. Humphrey Baxter, one of her admirers, is a scientist working on a formula to stop the aging process. Unfortunately, though, some of the effects of the fountain of eternal youth are unforeseen...
Slade is a criminal lawyer - and a perfect gentleman who plans to commit the perfect murder. He has his reasons for wanting to kill a friend, of course, and he knows he needs to destroy all the evidence. The pivotal moment is an early morning swim... but Slade has overlooked something.
Fred Pearson is a Vietnam war veteran, but he came out with a miserable service record, thanks to the bullying of Guedo, his sergeant, who constantly gave him dirty detail punishments and broke his nerve. Since discharge, Pearson hasn't been able to keep a job and feels the world is against him. Years on from Vietnam, and after an unsuccessful day of looking for work, Pearson goes to his favourite bar to drown his sorrows and finds Guedo boasting about his time in the army. Pearson sees a chance of revenge...
G.B. Shaw, a successful newpaper proprietor, sets out to use people as if they were pieces on a chessboard. His beautiful wife, Paula, has everything she could want - including a horse, a Ferrari and a very large dress allowance. Then Paula begins to live dangerously by taking a lover, and Shaw decides to deal with the problem in his usual cool, calm and clear-thinking way. But life does not always obey the rules of the game...
A millionaire media tycoon and two of his lawyer friends are being blackmailed by a scheming woman on account of past affairs with her. When the woman is found murdered in her apartment, the men fear that the police inquiries will lead to one or all of them, and they will be ruined. But then the tycoon's faithful chauffeur, William, thinks up a brilliant way out...
Sam Luke is a successful male-chauvinist writer, pushing the line that women are the weaker sex. He is a popular fellow, with no enemies - except that the feminists did not like his book Women Weeping... Then the literary lion gets a series of 'Have a nice death' messages, the machismo crumbles and he decides to go home to his wife. But it isn't so easy as it might be...
A smartly dressed driver on his own picks up a scruffy, wild-eyed hitch-hiker. As they drive off together, they hear warnings on the car radio of a dangerous serial killer on the run - the ""will-o-the-wisp"" murderer is said to be of slight build with fair hair... a description which clearly matches the hitch-hiker.
Walter is a vain writer and publisher with a wife and a mistress, based in London, and he likes to show off. He stages a story-writing competition, with a £5,000 prize, to find the plot for a perfect murder...
Elizabeth kills her rich husband, with the help of Ray, her young lover. She then undergoes plastic surgery and begins an exercise programme, in the hope of closing the age-gap between her and Ray, but she finds it too demanding. Then Elizabeth finds a flier advertising a new way to reverse the ageing process, and she decides to give it a try...
Wet weather, and a dead body in the house. Mr Princey's dim-witted daughter, Millicent, thwarted in love, has killed a young preacher with a croquet mallet, and Princey decides he must cover it up, or risk losing his high standing in the community. The police need to be persuaded that there was a tragic accident...
Olivia is a rich widow who seduces Stephen, a younger man with no money. He marries her on the strength of her inheritance from her late husband, whose death she has skillfully arranged. Stephen thinks he is in a position to go on playing the field, while Olivia has other ideas. When Stephen takes up with another woman, Olivia knows what has to be done...
This is the story of a parrot's egg - and a flirtatious wife and a jealous husband. Jack and Edna's pet parrot lays a huge egg - one much bigger than parrot-size - and promptly dies. Jack and Edna keep the egg warm, and it hatches into a menacing, black-feathered bird. Although it fails to talk, the new arrival soon begins keeping a close and disdainful eye on them... Jack befriends the bird, but Edna is unnerved by it - and she has good reason to be.
Wilmington, Delaware, business man Harry Elton is a man on the verge of bankruptcy, as Marvin Castlemore, his partner in the rag trade, has made a disastrous guess on next season's fashions. Harry and his wife have a luxury lifestyle, and he has to decide whether to put his marriage or his business first. So he plans to murder his wife and collect her life insurance money.
Steve and Jane travel around England pretending to be market researchers. They con their way into the houses of the rich, to identify things worth stealing on a return visit. Then one day, in a hotel bar, they meet a scruffy old man called Percy. Local gossip has it that Percy is a rich miser with a hoard of money hidden in his tumble-down cottage, so Steve and Jane decide to call on him at home... But there is more to Old Percy than meets the eye.
After ten years, James is fed up with his boring marriage, but his wife, Caroline, still loves him. As he walks out on her, she warns: ""I'll never divorce you."" James's lawyer advises him that the best way to avoid years of delay is to catch Caroline being unfaithful. So James hires a private eye to follow her for a whole day, up to midnight, with little hope that it will do him any good - and he gets a surprise.
Gerald Overton is an ambitious politician with the tough job of cracking violent crime. But a chance encounter with a beautiful woman at a dinner party leads him into a nightmare, and his whole career is threatened... Gerald surprises himself when he decides to take the law into his own hands.
The 'open window' of the title is in a hunting lodge in the Connecticut hills. A young fellow goes through it and finds a strange new world on the other side which does not look much like New England...
Reeve Baker is a successful young romantic novelist who lives life in the fast lane, while Gwen Carter is the wife of his tax consultant and falls for him in a big way. Her husband, Terence, knows all about Reeve and his ways with women, but his warnings to Gwen go unheeded...
Madame Myra is a third-rate fortune teller who foresees a dim future for herself. And then she meets a stranger in town who shows her a way to do a whole lot better. What, though, is in it for him?
A husband and wife, Newt and Marcie, plan to drive home across the desert. They pull into a remote garage to fill their tank, and Harry the mechanic tells them their car urgently needs expensive repairs. He suggests they have a meal in his wife's eating house while he gets on with the work. But are Marcie and Newt being taken for a ride?
Brenda is a lonely drifter living in the island paradise of Key West. She has no friends and drinks a lot to forget her tragic past. Then Brenda runs into Eric, a man she knew long ago in her college days, and suddenly life takes on new meaning...
Robert Smythe is a ruthless executive with a dangerous twenty-year-old secret... An echo from the past prompts him into a new cover-up of the truth, but his wife becomes suspicious.
Eve, the wife of Colonel George Peregrine, writes a book of love poems which is a huge success. Eve is soon in demand from unexpected quarters, but her book, containing revelations about her love life, has unhappy effects on her marriage. George is anxious to find out the identity of the young man Eve's poems were addressed to - and when she tells him, the truth comes as a huge shock.
An Oxford doctor, Robert Sandy, faces up to his own lust for money when a grateful patient, a Saudi Arabian prince, gives him a huge diamond. Robert and Betty Sandy find their new asset a huge liability... Sandy's demise is unforeseen - but is it a form of rough justice?
Albert and Milly Dobson have given sixteen years of devoted service to their parish church, but a new Vicar arrives who does not like the old ways and has little time for the Dobsons. Following radical changes, a secret Albert has hidden for years causes consternation. In defiance, the couple build a new life... Of course, God moves in mysterious ways.
Nicholas Lillie is a naive fencing enthusiast from the country, constantly held back by his parents. Thanks to a national fencing contest he travels to the bright lights of London and gets caught up in a bizarre adventure.
Jeremy Tyler, a timid provincial solicitor, is visiting a smart London hotel on a business trip and becomes embroiled in a curious case of mistaken identity. Babs Colport has arranged a blind date through a dating agency. Jeremy, looking for female company, tries to seduce her.
Lilian Brett, a beautiful air hostess, is having an affair with Ken Johnson, the boss of a charter firm. Ken sets up a drug smuggling operation to cover the cost of their affair, but Lillian is in turmoil. She says she wants to end their affair and life of crime, and Ken has to work out what to do about it.
American safe-cracker Steve Baker is married to a beautiful Arab, and they are leading an idyllic life together in a Middle Eastern country - but then Steve is threatened with extradition for a crime he says he didn't commit.
Yves Drouard is a romantic French electronics expert whose love life has become rather too complicated. His marriage to Marthe has cooled, and his young mistress, Violette, has announced that she is pregnant. Yves is forced into a decision - but something he failed to foresee leads to an outcome he did not reckon on at all.
Pretty medical student Elly Somerton is working as a hotel chambermaid and falls for a guest at the hotel, Professor Max Kelada. Kelada is a well-known archaeologist, staying at the hotel for a conference, but womanising and fun are more on his mind than business. He tries to seduce Elly, with unexpected results.
