Fact1: Broke ends up spending night at Salvation Army shelter, Fact2: Brenda had refused him as due to sexual peculiarities, Fact3: Blaney arrives to see Brenda only to find office locked, Fact4: Milligan hide at flat of friend, Fact5: Babs returns to pub to fetch her and Blaney 's belongings intending meet him next morning
Output: Set in the early 1970s, the plot centres on a serial killer terrorizing London by raping and then strangling women with a necktie. Bob Rusk Barry Foster, a Covent Garden wholesale produce merchant, is the murderer. However, circumstantial evidence, partially engineered by Rusk, will implicate Rusks friend Richard Blaney Jon Finch, who becomes a fugitive attempting to prove his innocence. Blaney, newly fired from his pub job, visits his exwife, Brenda Barbara LeighHunt, at her matchmaking business. They briefly argue, but Brenda invites Blaney out to dinner. Broke, Blaney ends up spending the night at a Salvation Army shelter; while there he discovers that Brenda had slipped money into his coat pocket. Soon after, Rusk arrives at Brendas office. Brenda had previously refused him as a client due to his sexual peculiarities. When Brenda spurns his advances, he rapes and strangles her with his necktie. After Rusk leaves, Blaney arrives to see Brenda, only to find the office locked. Suspicion falls on Blaney after Brendas secretary tells police that she saw Blaney leaving the building just as she was returning from lunch. Blaney meets up with Barbara Babs Milligan Anna Massey, his girlfriend and former pub coworker. They soon learn about Brendas murder and that Blaney is the suspect. They hide out at the flat of a friend who offers them jobs in Paris. Babs returns to the pub to fetch her and Blaneys belongings, intending meet him the next morning to go to Paris. At the pub, Babs runs into Rusk, who claims he is leaving town and offers her his flat for the night; after leading her there, he rapes and murders her offscreen. That night, Rusk hides Babs body in a sack and stows it in the back of a lorry hauling potatoes. Back in his room, Rusk discovers his distinctive jewelled tie pin with the initial R is missing, and realizes that Babs must have torn it off. Knowing the tie pin will incriminate him, he goes to retrieve it, but the lorry starts off on its northern journey while Rusk is still inside. Rigor mortis has set in, forcing Rusk to break Babs fingers to get the pin. Disheveled and dirty, he gets out when the lorry stops at a roadside cafe. Babs body is discovered when it falls off the truck onto the road. Blaney, now also accused of Babs murder, seeks out Rusks help. Although police are actively searching Covent Garden, Rusk offers to hide Blaney at his flat. Rusk goes there first with Blaneys bag and plants Babs belongings inside it. He then tips off the police, who arrest Blaney and find the clothing. Blaney is convicted but he strongly protests his innocence and accuses Rusk, leading Chief Inspector Oxford Alec McCowen to reconsider the case and secretly investigate Rusk. He also discusses the case with his wife Vivien Merchant in several comic relief scenes concerning her pretensions as a gourmet cook. Blaney, now in prison, deliberately injures himself and is taken to the hospital where his fellow inmates help him escape the locked ward. He intends to murder Rusk in revenge. Oxford, learning of Blaneys escape, suspects he is headed to Rusks flat and immediately goes there. Blaney arrives first and finds the door unlocked. He strikes what he assumes is the sleeping Rusk with a tyre iron. However, the person in the bed is not Rusk but the corpse of another of Rusks female victims. Oxford arrives as Blaney is standing next to the body, holding the tyre iron. He begins to proclaim his innocence, but a large banging noise coming up the staircase interrupts them. Rusk enters, dragging a large trunk into the flat. The film ends with Oxfords urbane but pointed comment, Mr. Rusk, youre not wearing your tie. Rusk drops the trunk in defeat.