Tales of the Unexpected

A young American couple on holiday meet a mysterious old gentleman who makes them a macabre wager.

Unable to show her dentist husband Cyril the fur coat her lover has given her Mrs. Bixby pawns it and pretends that she found the ticket. She gives it to Cyril to redeem on her behalf but is taught that two can play at her game when he comes home with rather less than she expected, and she sees that his dental assistant will be warm for the winter.

When her husband William dies Mary Pearl is shocked that his will stipulates that his brain should be kept alive and observing her from the lounge sideboard. She determines that, even though he is dead, she will continue to annoy him.

When her policeman husband Patrick callously announces that he is leaving her, Mary Marney hits and kills him with the frozen leg of lamb she has bought for their dinner. Thinking quickly, she calls his colleagues, claiming that she came in from the shops and found him dead. Whilst they speculate over what kind of weapon killed him she invites them all to a roast lamb dinner.

Arriving in Bath to take up his first job away from home young Billy Weaver decides to take a room with a charmingly maternal if eccentric landlady. Her dog and cat are both stuffed and the only other names in her guest-book seem vaguely familiar to him from the newspaper but he cannot think why.

Invited to a weekend house party by Sir Basil Turton and his younger wife Natalia, John Bannister is struck by the lady's infidelity. She tries to undo his pyjamas and is plainly having an affair with another guest Major Haddock. Jelks, Sir Basil's loyal butler, has also noticed and when Natalia gets her head stuck in an abstract sculpture he knows precisely how to cut her down to size.

Elderly marrieds Edward and Louisa discover a stray cat in their garden. It reacts so positively to Louisa's classical piano playing that she is convinced the cat is the reincarnation of Franz Liszt. Edward grows tired of her obsession and decides to get rid of the cat.

An American gambler on a trans-Atlantic liner goes into the pool that bets on how far ship sails each day. Expecting bad weather, he bets a low distance, but then the weather fines up. He must come up with a plan to slow the ship down.

Mrs. Foster has a plane to catch in order to visit her daughter and first grand-child. Her husband is an inveterate and somewhat sadistic dawdler, who appears to do it on purpose in order to rile her. As a result she misses one plane but can catch the next flight in the morning. Mr. Foster attempts to slow her down again but when he is trapped in the lift she exacts a very final revenge on him.