John Quaylen made a career out of playing saps and weak-willed fellows, but in this episode of Hitchcock he gets to be the protagonist. After being fired from his job by his boss Mr. Baldwin (Sebastian Cabot) for a myriad of reasons, mild-mannered accounting clerk Quaylen decides to take some drastic action. When the office clears out, he gets a gun from his desk and nonchalantly walks back into Baldwin's office and shoots him dead. Expecting the worse and racked with guilt, he goes back to his lonely boarding house and awaits the inevitable (i.e. the police). Instead, on the very next work day he receives a call from Baldwin's secretary asking him why he isn't at work. MR. BALDWIN is awaiting his arrival.
Quaylen returns to work and finds Baldwin alive and well and he's soon convinced by another executive (a scheming Phillip Reed) that he imagined the entire incident about shooting his boss. What Quaylen doesn't know is that Reed and the look-alike actor that has assumed Baldwin's identity are planning to sell some worthless stock to a group of unsuspecting investors. Reed, of course, is in league with the late Baldwin's wife (they've been having an affair and she's set to dump her husband's dead body and collect some insurance money). Quaylen is then given a nice raise and a new assistant to keep him pacified and out of the way during the transactions. When the dirty deal is done, Reed decides to fire the now totally-baffled Quaylen. Reed tells him that he "imagined" the whole thing about being awarded a raise and admonishes him for spending company money for an assistant. True to form, Quaylen goes back to his desk, nonchalantly gets the same gun out and immediately kills Reed. But there are no guilt feelings this time for Quaylen is sure that the entire incident was merely a figment of his lively imagination.
This episode has a definite "tongue in cheek" quality to it and viewers are left with a good chuckle at the surprise ending. Also, it is never explained why a mild fellow like Quaylen has a gun hidden in his desk in the first place.
Quaylen returns to work and finds Baldwin alive and well and he's soon convinced by another executive (a scheming Phillip Reed) that he imagined the entire incident about shooting his boss. What Quaylen doesn't know is that Reed and the look-alike actor that has assumed Baldwin's identity are planning to sell some worthless stock to a group of unsuspecting investors. Reed, of course, is in league with the late Baldwin's wife (they've been having an affair and she's set to dump her husband's dead body and collect some insurance money). Quaylen is then given a nice raise and a new assistant to keep him pacified and out of the way during the transactions. When the dirty deal is done, Reed decides to fire the now totally-baffled Quaylen. Reed tells him that he "imagined" the whole thing about being awarded a raise and admonishes him for spending company money for an assistant. True to form, Quaylen goes back to his desk, nonchalantly gets the same gun out and immediately kills Reed. But there are no guilt feelings this time for Quaylen is sure that the entire incident was merely a figment of his lively imagination.
This episode has a definite "tongue in cheek" quality to it and viewers are left with a good chuckle at the surprise ending. Also, it is never explained why a mild fellow like Quaylen has a gun hidden in his desk in the first place.