Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho. This
is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it
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Detectives. That way you never miss an episode. Also, I do want
to remind you we do have our new Famous Investigator t shirts now available over
at Famous dot Great Detectives dot net. Well, today we're celebrating three thousand,
nine hundred episodes and we're doing it with an episode of suspense. The
original air date is March the twenty eighth, nineteen forty six, and the
title is out of Control. Mister Brian Dunleavy, a star of out of
Control, a suspense played, produced, edited and directed by William Spen.
I arrived in Catlinberg around ten in the morning. I checked in at a
hotel called the Mountain Inn. Went downstairs to breakfast. My dog Schnooky went
with me, as she always does. I gave my order to the waiter,
and as I sat there, I looked the place over. It was
a good sized room by the echo in it. There was a log fire
crackling in a fireplace on the far side of the room, and a large
view window on my right glass as a special kind of echo. There was
only one person in the room when I entered. It was a woman,
apparently a wealthy and rather vain woman, judging from her perfume. She was
sitting at a table diagonally across to me. I looked in her direction,
so to speak. I heard a man's footsteps approaching across the room and smelled
fresh polish on riding boots. As he went past me, he paused before
her table. Well is gonna still more? He Walter Crane. She surprised
to see me. I here. Your husband is thinking of running for governor.
So what well, Marsha, I've got a newspaper clipping here, I
thought it might tempstim. It's about your pal, the late Eddie Hasson.
What about Eddie? I'll read you their headline, Eddie Hasson't killed an auto
crash. Colorful renal figure punges from mountain road car out of control, say
police Dennis Never, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I never mean to.
But as some people can read what's on the marquee of a movie theater ten
blocks away, the most intimate conduct and conversation comes to me from across the
room, as if spoken into a microphone. This is a dubious pleasure for
me at most times. But as Marsha Fillmore and Walter Crane continued, my
interest became more than casual. He was reading again from the newspaper, clipping
here at the bottom of the article. Marsha Hanley, hostess at the Blue
Parrot Hassen's gambling club, has been fishery of an insurance policy. Miss Henley
was the late mister Hasson's companion and was to have been married to him upon
his divorce degree becoming Colonel Well. I was just wondering if your brand new,
politically minded husband would be interested in the fact that you were known locally
as a gangster's companion. You always were a louse, Walter, but I
never thought you'd stoop to black man. Look. I lost a good job
because of your musha. When an insurance indust together gets fired because his employers
think he's too susceptible to beautiful dames, he never gets back in the racket.
I've got to look elsewhere for a sauce of income, and it so
happens. There are some things about Eddie Hasson's accident that might interest my former
employees. Eddie's car got out of control, and that's all there is to
it. Look, you seem to forget baby. I investigated that case of
Pacific All Risk before they paid off, and I didn't tell all the things
I knew or all the things I thought, because well, you were making
life very interesting for me in those days. Well, Marsham, they're wasting
your time. Water, am I get out and take your clipping with you.
Well, you can't blame a man for trying. Oh waiter, bring
me a glass of water? Will you ice water? Or something wrong?
Man? No, nothing's wrong. Get the water, by the way,
Why did you do that? What? Nothing? Skippid? Oh? The
ice water? I'm thirsty, that's all. You're sure? That's all?
What else would I want with ice water? Okay, book water? I'll
sell Dennis on the idea of investing some money in a company of yours.
Well, now that's more like it. When's you coming up here tomorrow?
You mustn't see him till I've had a chance to talk to him. Get
out of town right away tonight. Where will I go? I have a
fishing lodge up in the mountains. I'll give you the key to the place.
You go up there and stay till I've sold Dennis on the idea.
When the time's rife, I'll come and get you. I've got you in
on the deal. If you sound good enough. Women do things sometimes walter
that they don't want to be paid for lonesome women. Maybe maybe, Marsha,
you're still the most beautiful woman that never let a man up a garden
pack. That's strength to that water in ice water. In ice water,
the man who had come to blackmail Marsha Fillmore remained to whisper sweet nothings in
her ear. It didn't make sense at first, but then I remembered I
had been told that she was a very beautiful woman. Beautiful to look at.
That is. There are times when I am profoundly grateful that I have
no eyes to deceive me. It must have been shortly after midnight that I
heard it. I awoke with a start and sat up in bed. Although
I have been blind for many years, I still reach out automatically for the
light switch when I am awakened in the night. When the light went on,
the sound stopped. I turned it off and waited, oh, actually
quiet. It started again. It seemed to be below my window, somewhere
down by the garage hotel garage. Through the years, I have finally trained
myself to identify almost any action by sound, but this one stumped me at
first. It continued for perhaps ten seconds longer, and then it stopped for
good, and the car door slammed. And made a careful mental note of
the car's motor as it started up was a packard and one of the spark
plugs was missing. Fire. But it got underway fast and was soon out
of even my ear shot. Of one thing, I was certain it turned
off the main road on to gravel. There was only one such turn off
within earshot of the hotel, the private road to the Fillmore's Fishing Lodge.
Evidently, mister Walter Crane was going to have a visitor up there sooner than
he had expected, As I dropped off to sleep, the memory of that
sound came back to me. There was something strange and altogether sinister about it.
It was still ringing in my head when I dropped off to sleep.
I was awakened early by an insistent rapping on the door of my room.
Why stucky. Just a moment, I fumbled about sound my robe and put
it on. Captain McLean, I'm duncan McLean? May I come in for
a moment? Of course? I do hope you will forgive me for bursting
in here like this. But I saw you in the dining room yesterday morning,
and when I heard who you were, I hope you won't be angry
with me? Why not at all? Past my getting upturn anyway, must
have been the mountain air that made me oversleep. Won't you sit down?
Thank you? Cigarette? Yes, thanks here, I've got it. You
know you're really amazing. One would never suspect that you're blind. Well,
i's just fillmore weed. Blind people can compensate to a certain extent by developing
other senses more acutely. You know my name. I took the liberty of
asking the head waiter last night who the lady was with the intoxicating put him
just as I asked who the man was with the police dog. Oh no,
Schnookie here is not a police dog. She's just an amiable old German
shepherd. I have a police dog, though, dryst I only take him
along when I'm on especially dangerous assignments. Oh I gather you're not on one.
Now shall we get to the point, Missus Fillmore. Oh well,
well, there's a man staying here in this hotel, or rather he was.
His name is Walter Crane. He's a blackmailer. Yes, well,
there's no need going into it, but he's got hold of something about my
past. If if it were published, it would ruin my husband's career.
There's only one thing to do with a blackmail and missus Fillmore turn him over
to the police. Oh no, you don't understand. The police here is
Sheriff Blackman. He and my husband are political enemies. I'm afraid it would
be too good an opportunity for him to pass up. Yes, I see
your appointment. My first instinct was to get Walter Crane away from here.
I told him to go up to our fishing lodge. I even gave him
the key. I even pretended to renew an old interest which he once fancied
I had in him personally, always a mistake. Oh, you don't know
the worst of it. My husband came in from Knoxville early this morning,
without even waking. We went straight on up to the fishing lodge. He
left a note asking me to join him up there. My husband is a
violent and unreasonable man when he's angry, Captain mc crane. If he finds
Walter Crane staying there in the lodge, he's likely to think that, what
are you afraid of, Missus Filmore. I'm afraid my husband. Heaven forgive
me for such a thought. I'm afraid my husband will murder him there.
Now I've said it. Yes, now you've said it. Excuse me?
Yes, oh, Missus Fillmore. Yes, he's right here. It's for
you, Missus Fillmore. Oh no, don't don't go. I'm afraid.
Hello. Yes, Sheriff Blackman, Oh, dreadful. Oh I know we
didn't know him. I I did speak to him for a moment yesterday evening.
But of course I'd be glad to help you in any way I can.
I'll be in my cottage. What is it? I found him his
car trunged over the embankment. He was killed instantly when some people in the
cottage down. But oh saw it happened when just five minutes ago, on
the way over to her cottage, I was stopped at the hotel desk and
send a wire to the Seeing Eye Cannel in New Jersey. Then drift Air
Express immediately. Christ is my police dog, the dog I use only on
very dangerous mission. Sheriff Blackmar was a big, professionally cheerful man, but
I could tell from his voice that he was plenty worried glad to have you
on this capa McClain. We don't have any case with his kind in these
parts. I'll be glad to do what I can, Sheriff Blackman, Oh,
so let is running them there? Seeing Eye critters don't look no different
from any other boots. To me, I thought they're Seeing Eye dogs were
trained to be gentle I trained this one myself for special jobs. What the
corner? I think I know the answer to that one. Well, oh,
let's get down to business, missus fillmore. Yes, I suppose you
want some information about that road up to the fishing rodgers. It's quite steep
and hard to negotiate if you don't know it. I know the road very
well, missus willmore then what you said you didn't know this man, Walter
Crane, Sheriff. I was very foolish when I spoke to you on the
phone. As a matter of fact, he he's a very old friend of
mine, or was. I think you'll understand when I tell you my husband
was very jealous, jealous enough to have killed him. Killed him. I
thought he died in an auto crash. He was murdered and thrown into the
car just before it crashed. He died with an ice pick through his heart.
Whatever she knew, she wasn't telling that part of it came to her
as a complete surprise. I know that now, and I knew it at
the time. Whatever Marsha Fillmore had known about Walter Crane's death, she was
innocent of stabbing him through the heart with that ice pick. As for the
rest of it, her alibi was perfect. I was her alibi this time.
She was in my room when it happened, twenty miles from the scene
of the crime. But someone had driven up to that lodge before, Dennis
Sillmore, someone who had made elaborate preparations for that little drive. As I
walked over to the hotel garage, the memory of that sound came back to
me, the sound that I was convinced held the key to the mystery of
Walter Crane's debt and Eddie Hessen's as well. I found a mechanic working on
a car. Why, sir, all right? Looking for your car?
No, I I don't drive. Oh, missus Fillmore asked me to stop
by. Is her car ready yet? Yeah? Sure? It was only
one of the spark plugs this the car? Yeah, station wagon packer,
didn't it? Ay, you've got a good sense of touch. Mister,
thank you. Hey that's nice uphold street three liver, isn't it? Yeah?
Hey, that's pecuter. What is the floor is wet and cold?
Or maybe they want fishing this morning? I carry a chunk of ice sometimes
when I go trout fishing ice. Of course, that's what it was.
Ice. Captain McClane. You must believe me. I know that my husband
didn't do this terrible thing. Then why did you come to me this morning
and tell me you were afraid your husband would murder Crane? Oh? Don't
you understand why I needed help? I knew you only work on murder cases,
so I tried to get you interested by making that story up. I
think I can save your husband, Marcia, but only if you tell me
the absolute truth. Oh I will, I swear I will. Did you
go up there to that cabin last night to see Walter Crane? No?
Line number one? You drove up there around twelve thirty? How did you
know? I heard a car drive out about that time. It was a
packard with one dead spark plug. This morning, your packet was in the
garage getting a spark plug replaced. You don't know I went up there.
I heard your turn off on a gravel road about halfway up the mountain.
Your road is the only one up that way. All right, all right,
I did go up there, but I wasn't there when when it happened,
Marcia, have you ever seen this bottle before? Certainly it had fell
and in its sleeping medicine. It's it's a prescription of my husband's. Have
you any idea how it gut in Crane's car? But I gave it to
him. He said he couldn't sleep. How did you give it to him?
In the bottle? Of course? Are you intimating that I dropped him.
I'm only trying to find out what Crane did the last few hours of
his life. If he took an overdose of sleeping medicine, it might account
for the accident. He might have got up this morning, still woozy from
the effects of the drug gut in his car, released the emergency brake and
blacked out for a split second. Its sometimes happens in the reaction into an
overdose of sleeping medicine, lost control of the car and crashed over the embankment.
It might have been as easy as that, but that wouldn't account for
the ice pick through his heart. No, not unless you took a chunk
of ice up there last night, didn't you. I don't know how you
knew. Well, Yes, he needed some, especially if he was going
to do some trout fishing, and Walder was very fond of ice water.
Yes, I know he ordered some last night at dinner. Is there anything
you don't see with those sightless eyes of yours? I still don't see the
murderer of Walder Crane. I thought, for a moment there you suspected me.
I'm perfectly capable of it. You had the motive, you had the
ice pick. But you weren't there when it happened. No, they can't
prove that Dennis was canny. Well, he's a pretty likely candidate, isn't
he. Mosiah so worried about him. They have a posse out for him,
probably go I wonder, I wonder. I knew where he'd go,
and so did she, and they both knew that matters would have to come
to a head that night. I didn't tell Sheriff Blackmore everything, but he
agreed to drive me up there. About twenty minutes after the sheriff left,
a man came into the lodge from the storeroom where I was hidden. I
could hear perfectly. He didn't turn on any lights, but went out to
the kitchen and started some coffee. It could only have been Dennis Fillmore who
paced up and down in that darkened room. Then I heard the door open
and a woman's footsteps coming in. Dennis marsha, Dennis, you should not
come here. What are you trying to do? Lead them to me?
I didn't tell the sheriff about you, Dennis. I swear I didn't tell
him what Dennis. I know you killed Crane, so you know I'm a
mooderer. And what are you doing? Oh Dennis, I love you so
much. I hated that man. I'm glad you killed him. What was
Crane to you? I was going to tell you, Darling, I used
to know and he's a blackmailer. It was perfectly innocent before I met you.
But with your career about I didn't want you to get mixed up in
it. That's why I told you to hide. Don't cry. I love
you. I make some coffee. Would you like some of it? You
sit? You sit still, darling, Dennis, what are we going to
do? Have you thought about it? I'm I'm thinking as hard as I
can wash you. You can't confess to this terrible thing, Dennis. I
just won't let you. I don't think the insurance company would pay if I
were electrocuted, wouldn't they? Oh, Dennis, don't say such a thing.
Here, drink your coffee. Taste rust, but it's high. What's
the matter with you? I just feel said, I can't seem to get
my breath. It's stuffy in here. Must be the wood smoker. I
had trouble starting the fire. Come along outside, aerobuck, Yes, there
that is better. Would you like to take a drive somewhere, No,
Dennis, let's just sit in the car for a while. They sat there
in the car, perhaps ten minutes before the car door slammed shut. And
then I heard it, the sound that had been ringing in my ears since
that first night. But now I was hearing the real thing for a second
time. As calmly as the neighborhood iceman chipping out a fifty pound chunk for
a housewife, the murderer was making preparations for a third experiment in a method
of almost perfect crime. Hello, Marcia, how did you get here?
I'm afraid I was eavesdropping. Then you heard what Dennis said? Yes,
I did with Marcia. Oh, Captain mc crane, would you could you
forget what Dennis said? Crane was, what does it matter who killed?
Don't come any close to Marcia. This dog isn't snooky. This is drist
the dog I told you about, Remember the one you take on dangerous missions.
They're frightening me, Captain. You terrified me for two whole days.
Marcia, you're the most perfect killer I've ever met. You said yourself.
I couldn't have stabbed Walter Crane. Eddie Hasson wasn't stabbed. You're bluffing.
You can't prove a thing. No, that's the beauty of your method.
The ice melts away before the accident happens. Ice, that's your method,
Marcia. First, the victim is drugged with an overdose of sleeping medicine,
then lured into the car and kept there till he falls asleep. The rest
is simple. Put ice wedges under the front wheels and release the emergency break.
When the wedges melt away, the car rolls over the bankment with the
sleeping man in it. Your miles away from the scene, and the evidence
has vanished, literally melted away. Only this time it's not going to work.
What are you going to do? Phone Sheriff Blackmer. I want him
to get here before that ice melts. Captain, stay where you are,
Marshal. It would be ashamed to have drice mutilate your beauty. Your beauty
is your most powerful weapon, you know. I only hope it won't free
you and turn your loose to start killing again. You. What do you
know about a woman? Usher? Stay back? I wrong you. This
dog is a killer. I'll kill you, and that monk grew with I've
hated you from the moment I first saw him. What kind of a man
is it that looks at a woman with those cold, dead eyes? You'd
be better off dead. I'm doing you a favorite. She's dead, all
right. I'm sorry the dog. I guess I'll have to have him put
away. It won't be necessary, Captain, she did that for you,
jabbed the ice pick square between his eyes. Oh, poor fellow. Well,
I can't figure out how did she manage to stab Krane and still keep
her alibi. She didn't stab Krane? Then? Who did? Nobody?
Then? How it was a freak accident. The ice pick was on the
seat of the car when it crashed. I knew that when you told me
the angle at which it entered the body. That's why I kept insisting that
Marcia hadn't stabbed him. That in the fact that the stabbing was so obviously
news to her. She really thought her husband had done it after she left
Crane asleep in the car, so much so so that she even accused him
of doing it. By the way, is he all right? Oh sure,
just a little dopey from the sleeping pills. And he's really broken up
about her. He really love the sap. I can't blame her though she
was a beautiful woman. When she looked at you with those big blue eyes
of hers, you could believe anything she wanted you to believe. So they
told me, Yes, Sarah, Sometimes I am very glad I have no
eyes to deceive me. This is the Armed Forces Radio Service Welcome Back.
Well a really solid episode with a good mystery, a good solution, and
I think a very unique sloth. I certainly not the only blind detective.
Max Carados is probably the most famous of this sort of detective, though this
one has some unique twist. I did find myself fundering why Captain McLean would
suggest putting away the dog, given that the dog was a trained security and
protection dog. It acted to protect its owner and acted in accordance with its
training in order to protect Captain McClean. I was also unclear how he would
not have known that the dog had died. That came off as a little
bit of clumsy exposition, because I think he would have known through you know,
what they've established about him, whether the dog was living or not,
would not need anyone else to explain what happened. That seemed to be more
for the audience. The true ugliness of the beautiful woman I think was shown
at the end, I mean the way she went after McLane and the way
she irrationally hated him, like, how dare you be a blind person whose
eyes are going in any way in my general direction? Now, this character
was really well developed, and as I and I have to admit that when
I went ahead and I selected this for a thirty nine hundredth episode special,
I didn't listen all the way through. I just kind of read the synopsis.
I'll listened to a bit of it just to get a feel for what
the episode was like, and you know, just getting a feel for it.
I did not take a close listen through the entire episode, but listening
very closely as I was going to be recording this, I thought, you
know, Captain McClean is very well developed, and I realized he was too
developed to be a character that was created for a one off radio play.
So I then began to research him and found out that he actually had a
very long life in a literature with several novels published around a dozen all featuring
Duncan McClean, who was created by Baynard H. Kendrick, and this particular
story out of Control was actually a full length novel, and of course there's
not a novel's worth of material in here. This book's been condensed, even
though according to Amazon, the original book was only one hundred and twenty two
pages long. I was kind of on the short side of novels, so
this does flow very well. I do find myself wondering what the original novel
had in it and what the expanded book looked like. I found myself wishing
that I had been aware of this in advance, because then I could have
backed down the books and read them. But there was no indication, even
like in the credits, that this was based on something else. Though if
we had a network version maybe that would have given us a clue. But
they still may be worth checking out. Like a lot of older out of
print detective novels, Mysterious Press had has actually gone ahead and rereleased the Duncan
McLean mysteries, so I may check those out at some point. In addition,
there were actually Duncan McLean films. The first was for Universal, The
Last Express, and it starred Kent Taylor, who starred in the Boston Blackie
TV series in the nineteen fifties. Then there were two films in the nineteen
forties, Eyes in the Night and The Hidden Eye, both starred Edward Arnold
as Duncan McClane. One of those, Eyes in the Night, is actually
available on DVD and as a rental through Amazon Prime. I have to say
that I would probably be interested in checking that out. Not only do I
find the McClain character interesting, but Edward Arnold is always a talented actor,
and I never knew that he played an attactive as in the Night, also
as a really compelling past including Rosemary to Camp, Barry Nelson, and an
early appearance by Donna Reed. So again, looks like an interesting film.
Of course, this special means that we are closing in on four thousand episodes,
and I already know what I'm going to play for that, and I
think you're going to enjoy it. But you've got another seventeen weeks or so
to wait for that. Now, though, let's go ahead and thank our
Patreon supporter of the day. Thank you to Kelly, Patreon supporter since September
twenty eighteen, currently supporting the program at the rookie level of two dollars or
more per month. Thanks so much for your support. Kelly, and that
will do it for today. If you're not subscribed already, I do encourage
you to subscribe with your favorite podcast software, whether it's Google Podcast, tune
in, cash Box, or Amazon Music at Amazon dot com, slash ot
Art Attactives. We'll be back on Monday with an episode of the Adventures of
Sam Spade where the package was light in the drawing room and the train was
comfortable, seemed like an easy waiter and one hundred bucks. I knew it
wouldn't last. Never does. I was prepared for the knock on the door,
and I got ready for the inevitable small dark man who plays the Peter
Lauri pot. But this one tooled me. It was a tall, thin
actor with sandy hair. Okay, Sean has hand over the packet. You
won't be no trouble. Sure, there it is on the seat. Take
it. It's okay. You got me covered. I won't make any move.
What are you trying to pull? It's a stick up, isn't it.
Maybe I got the rock a pot. Oh that's it. The cups
in there. Unwrap it and see for yourself. Oh no, you don't
know. I'm picking up no booby traps. Oh yeah, yellow huh,
I know that one too. I don't cut no ice from me yourself.
Damon jin, you're nuts. I'm getting out of here. Wait a minute,
Fillo, buy a drink, Hello, Drake, Lunch in a go.
Yes, indeed, mister Spade, I agree. Clarence is a very
comical fellow. So are you I to believe he was stepping into your folks?
So least you have your bit of railway in the off companion ways and
my mate, yeah, Clarence, you mind not at all? Well,
sir, I'm afraid you're going to mind. The great to you. I
hope you'll be with us then. In the mean time, do send your
comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net, follow us on Twitter at
Radio Detectives, and check us out on Instagram, Instagram, dot com slash
Great Detectives from boise idahole. This is your host, Adam Graham. Sign
and off.