A small-time criminal called Harry Carpenter is murdered on the stairway of his lodging house on Greek Street in the Soho, London. A resident saw an elderly blind man leaning over the body. Inspector Harmer (played by Russell Napier) of the Yard discovers that Carpenter had been involved in mail bag raids in 1949, but had received a reduced sentence as a result of turning in his accomplice, Joe Lloyd (played by Edwin Richfield), who got a three-year stretch in prison. Finding the blind man is, of course, vital, but Harmer suspects that Lloyd is the killer. Harmer and Sgt Gifford (played by Vincent Ball) trace Lloyd through his ex-girlfriend, a nightclub singer called Molly (played by Gene Anderson), who has been hiding him from the police. Lloyd is arrested as he boards a taxi cab outside her flat, but without any hard evidence to convict him, Harmer will have little choice but to release him once twenty-four hours have passed. But, things change after the blind man, one George Benson (played by George Manship), is picked up sleeping rough in an alley in Mercer Street. He is found with blood on his raincoat, which turns out to match that of the murdered man. It transpires that Benson had heard Carpenter's murder take place and, during the ensuing struggle, heard the victim speak his killer's name. Then, as he made his getaway, he passed Benson on the stairs who had grabbed his hands, felt the ring on his finger and smelt his distinctive aftershave. Harmer takes a gamble and arranges for an unusual ID parade with Benson as his chief witness that could finally bring the killer to book...
Atmospheric crime featurette from the Scotland Yard series of cinema 'curtain raisers'. Writer-director Ken Hughes captures a genuine feel for place and period with Soho's dangerous back streets, tatty, dingy lodging houses and smoky nightclubs providing the backdrop to this tale of thieves falling out that ultimately leads to murder. It is shot in suitably dark and seedy black and white and, the flashback to the murder shown from the blind man's perspective, is creepily done against a dark screen with white silhouettes representing the killer and the victim seen from his severely impaired vision. The story itself holds the viewer as the Yard works flat out to gather evidence against the killer. In the end, the perpetrator had made a fatal error by underestimating Benson. He thought that because he was blind he couldn't possibly have given him away without understanding that while he had lost his sight, his other senses - hearing, touch and smell - were more acute as a result. Regular viewers will notice that Russell Napier, a series regular, is playing a completely different detective on this occasion, one Inspector Harmer as opposed to Superintendent Duggan. Other familiar faces in the cast include Vincent Ball and Edwin Richfield.
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