When his mistress Karen Armsby commits suicide during a party at the home of rising young politico, Terry McCormack, he persuades private eye Hal Jones to help move her body to her own apartment so he won’t be implicated.
When a blackmailer phones, McCormack assumes it’s Jones. He gets Jones to agree to come to the drop, and then tails him. When he sees Jones in a phone booth, McCormack kills him.
Jones had been calling his friend, Frank Cannon, for advice on the messy affair. Cannon comes over the next morning to find Hal is dead, and his father, Barnaby Jones, who'd retired and given his son the business, at the house.
Successful attorney Phil Carlyle, 42, plans to run out on his wife Dorsey, 47 and away with his mistress Diane Stewart, 28, and decides to stage his own "death" as a cover. He persuades friend Mike Hartney, 35, to sail his cabin cruiser which he has timebombed and spread with his personal identification papers; after the explosion, it is assumed "Phil Carlyle" is dead.
in order to get money to pay off gambleing debts. Lawyer Peter Harris stages a daring jewel robbery. He uses Roy Wilson as a diversion. But, when falls his girlfriend aks Barnaby for help.