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A dead girl is found in a night train compartment, and when inspector Keller (Erik Ode) and his assistants - Grabert (Günther Schramm), Heines (Reinhard Glemnitz) and Harry (Fritz Wepper) - investigate the train, they find a young man, Abinger (Nikolaus Paryla), high-tailing it, capture him, and he turns out to be the girl's ex. Abinger denies everything until his father (Hans Jaray) calls and tells him to deny everything, upon which Abinger promptly confesses. But while his assistants are quite happy to have captured their killer, Keller decides to let Abinger go as he seems to have confessed out of spite, and further investigations reveal tensions between Abinger and his father. On top of that, Keller is quick to tie the murder to three other murders that occured on the same line - and soon he and his team investigate the three passengers that were on all three trains, a businessman (Tony Stahl), a journalist (Hans-Dieter Jendreyko) and a salesman (Paul Glawion), all man inconspicuous enough to be suspicious, but no smoking gun to be found. So the investigations lead to nowhere while young Abinger turns to the press, claiming he's the killer just waiting for his arrest - which puts Keller and company under some extra pressure. And thus, Keller's assistants come up with a trap for the killer: On the next night train the three suspects are taking, Keller's young secretary Helga (Emily Reuer) is to ride as bait. Keller's dead against it, but behind his back, his crew go about it anyhow. And while they're away, Keller puts two and two together and suddenly figures the train's steward (Martin Lüttge) has to be the culprit. But when he wants to call in his crew for an arrest, they're all gone, already riding the night train. And their trap for the killer seems to be fool-proof, and it's not long before they catch ... Abinger, who's by now really desparate to be arrested. But while they're still dealing with Abinger, the steward goes about strangling Helga, who's literally saved in the last second ...

Mostly a typical episode, with the trademark stilted dialogue and far-fetched narrative points - especially young Abinger suffers from both unnatural lines and less-than-believable motivations. But there are some nice scenes of group dynamics in Keller's team in this one, which for one thing liven up things by their almost (intentionally) comical rendition, and are also key for the finale to work - and the finale works really well as a suspense piece of its own, with Helga's almost-murder sure looking suitably horrifying. And these are the aspects that make this one one of the best episodes of the series.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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