Intrigue

A butler and the staff of an eccentric aged philanthropist whose family wealth is exhausted engage in larceny and crimes to maintain her lifestyle and provide funds for her charitable activities.

In New York City, Claude Fitzwilliam, Fitzwilly in familiar circumstances, is the chief butler, hence the head servant, in the household, and the confidante and administrator of wealthy, elderly Victoria Woodworth, or so she believes. What Miss Vicki is unaware of is that after her father passed leaving her presumably $10-20 million, he actually left her penniless, which Fitzwilly discovered. As such, Fitzwilly and all the other servants in the house, in their love for Miss Vicki, turned to a career of larceny in order to keep her in the lifestyle to which she is accustomed which includes philanthropy, and in turn pay themselves for their work, with each of their scams, usually at the expense of the wealthy or insurance companies, netting a few thousand dollars, the money often laundered through their front of St. Dismas Thrift Shoppe in Philadelphia. Only able to keep in line with their expenses which includes any surprise outlays by Miss Vicki, they have a chance to get ahead of their financial issues when they embark on a lucrative one time only scam this Christmas season with anxious interior decorator Byron Casey to get him out of his own financial jam. What Fitzwilly does not anticipate is Miss Vicki hiring a secretary, graduate student Juliet Nowell, to assist in a meaningless project set-up by Fitzwilly solely to keep Miss Vicki preoccupied and keep her mind active. There is instant animosity between Fitzwilly and Juliet, Fitzwilly who has to hide the goings-on in the house from her, especially the new work for Casey, and Juliet who believes that Fitzwilly is doing something improper against Miss Vicki. A turn of events between Fitzwilly and Juliet, which was designed solely in Fitzwilly dealing with the issue of Juliet in the house, leads to unexpected results, and the need for Fitzwilly to devise a more stable and thus secure plan to deal with their financial situation.—Huggo

When Miss Vicki's father dies she continues with her charitable donations. Unfortunately, the family wealth is depleted and she is flat broke. Her loyal butler, Claude Fitzwilliam, known as Fitzwilly, leads the household staff to steal from various businesses by misrepresenting themselves, charging goods to other wealthy people and misdirecting the goods shipments, all to maintain Miss Vicki's standard of living and her philanthropy. With Fitzwilly's encouragement, Miss Vicki is writing a "Dictionary for Dopes" which contains all possible phonetic spellings of a word, and gives the reader the correct one, and for that she needs a secretary. Juliet is hired and she is suspicious and she discovers what is going on while at the same time falling in love with Fitzwilly. Juliet agrees to allow Fitzwilly to carry out one more big caper before they get married that will keep Miss Vicki comfortable for the rest of her days.—Danny Kelly<dbgvk@canada.com>