So the train pulls into the station.  For some reason Henry Taylor is hanging his head out of the stairway like a dog in a car.  Why would he be doing that?  He doesn’t jump off before the train comes to a complete stop, so he isn’t in a hurry.  No one is chasing him.  He risks losing his fabulous fedora (and maybe his head as in Hereditary).  So why?

He asks the world’s oldest station master if any other strange men have come through lately; men who strangely hang their heads out of trains, I guess.   He slips the porter $20 and tells the old man to call him at the Grand Hotel if any strange guys show up at the train station — a bribe known in the train business as a “Kevin Spacey.”

Henry walks to the Kirkland Mercantile Bank, and we see that he has a gun.  He asks to see the bank president, William Spengler.  Henry pulls out a Letter of Credit and says he would like to deposit it, so I don’t think either of these guys knows what a Letter of Credit is.  He is in town researching a book on unsolved crimes.

Arnold Mathias was just killed while escaping from prison with his cellie Thomas Henry.  Mathias had worked at the bank 3 years ago.  He was hired by Spengler’s father-in-law, founder of the bank, over Spengler’s objections about his juvenile record (oddly, as a token gringo in Menudo).  After the old man’s stroke prompted his retirement, Spengler kept Mathias on because he had been a good employee.

Then in 1957, a construction company transferred $500,000 to the bank from their St. Louis branch to cover payroll on the flood control dam at the basin (kudos on the attention to detail here).  Holy crap, that’s a lot of cash for the local economy — $4.5M in 2018 dollars!  Well maybe not if you are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  How many f***ing guys are working on this thing?  Are they being paid in cash?  Are they using $1,000 bills to plug the leaks?  Is the mayor building a new house with a basketball court and swimming pool?  Did he buy a Maserati?  Did he join Scientology?  Did his wife go missing?

A few months later, Spengler got a call that his wife had suffered a heart attack.  He went to his car to go home, but it wouldn’t start.  He went back inside and said to Mathias, “I can’t get my car started, can you give me a push?” The next morning, it was discovered that the construction company’s remaining $200,000 was missing.  Despite being defended by the best attorney in the state, Mathias was convicted of the theft.  Henry reminds Spengler that the loot was never recovered.

What follows is Henry dismantling Spengler’s story with Columbo-like precision.  Both men give excellent performances, but much credit goes to the person who cast them.

“Henry Taylor” led Spengler to believe he was Mathis’s cellmate, escaped convict Thomas Henry.  After Spengler confesses, he reveals that he is really a prison guard named Henry Taylor Louden.  I get that he cleverly used the name Henry to plant the seed that he was Thomas Henry, but isn’t it just silly that Henry is his real name too?

Really, there was no name on the Letter of Credit?  Spengler’s father-in-law is right — he is a boob.  Is this like those bearer bonds at Nakatomi Plaza that somehow could never be traced or voided?

What was the point of the model sailboat in Spengler’s office?  Louden seems to know that Spengler had never removed the cash from the bank.  I guess Spengler could have bought it as a reminder of his retirement the way I keep cans of cat food and a refrigerator carton.

Louden reveals that he is the prison guard who shot Mathias.  I don’t know if that is a great motive for his quest to establish Mathias’s innocence.  What he is effectively doing is making sure he shot an innocent man.  Most people would want to prove they shot someone who deserved it.

Louden does a fine job of nailing Spengler, but he is a prison guard, not a cop.  Will the police believe him?  Wouldn’t this all be dismissed as hearsay ^[1] in court?

It was established earlier that one of the best defense attorneys in the state is a life-long friend of Spengler.  He’ll never go to prison unless he tries to steal back his Heisman Trophy.

Despite all that belly-aching, it was a good episode.

Footnotes:

• [1] Who approved this word for release?  I get that it literally describes the basic act of you say something and I hear it.  But it is in the wrong order. I can’t hear it before you say it.  And WTF asked you anyway?
• AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.