Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Orlando, Florida.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you this week's episode of Broadways My Beat.
But first I want to encourage you. If you're enjoying
the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software.
Today's program is brought you in part by the financial
support of our listeners. You can support the show on
a one time basis using the Zell app to boxteen
at Great Detectives dotyet and become one of our ongoing
Patreon supporters for as little as two dollars per month
at Patreon, Great Detectives dot net. Now from August fifth,
nineteen fifty one, here is the Howard Crawford murder case.
Speaker 2: This is Bob broadcasting from Tapeka, Kansas, Hope and thanking
the sponsor of your irregularly scheduled program for this two
minute interruption, Ladies and gentlemen. In the last ten years,
I've visited many dramatic spots in this world. But just
a few minutes ago I returned from a tour of
what was once North Topeka, Kansas. I've just seen block
after block of total destruction, streets, caved in buildings, undermined
and flattened, entire new housing developments of shambles, with the
houses jammed together like battered boxes. As we toured this
sickening area, I thought of the heroics that must have
becompanied this disaster as had happened, the emergency operations of
the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, veterans organizations,
and the thousands of civilian volunteers, all striving to hold
this hungry caw river within its banks. Then the complete
frustration when it crashed into the streets. But the excitement
of that time has passed. Today it's a dismal task
of dirty drudgery. Imagine the heartbreaker returning to what was
once your home and finding three feet of dried mud
in the front porch. After scraping and digging for hours,
you finally get the door open, only to find dried,
drifted mud bank throughout the house, with everything in it
destroyed beyond repair. Countless of the heartbreaking stories of human despair.
There's a Great Flood of nineteen fifty one is written.
But you and I, neighbors of these call valley folks
of Kansas can help, and I mean help with dimes
and dollars. The Red Cross and other agencies have done
a magnificent job taking emergency care of ten to fifteen
thousand refugees, and they're still doing great work in helping
the needy with rehabilitation. But that's a far cry from
the tremendous job that lies ahead. And to Peak alone,
the loss is one hundred million. That amounts to one
thousand dollars for each and every person in this city.
I'm appealing to that great heart that has made America.
It's never failed before. Won't you send your contribution, large
or small to Flood to Peak at Kansas. That's all
the address you need. Flood to Peak at Kansas and
join me, Bob Hope and bringing new hope to thousands
of unfortunate American folks.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: William Rigley Company has donated the time for this message
from Bob Hope.
Speaker 3: Now, after a short pause, we switched to Hollywood for
your regular program. Broadway is My Beat.
Speaker 5: Wrigley Spearman Chewing Gum, the refreshing, delicious treat that gives
you chewing enjoyment. Resents for your listening enjoyment.
Speaker 3: Broadways My Beat from Time Spurt to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest,
the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadways
My Beat, the exciting drama of mystery and murder and
the people who walk the Great White Way with Larry
Thor as Detective Danny Clover. Or refreshment while you work,
or enjoyment anytime chew a stick of Wrigley Spearmint gum.
The delicious, long lasting, real mint flavor of Wrigley spearmint
cools your mouth and freshens your taste.
Speaker 5: The good smooth chewing helps keep your feeling fresh and alert,
adds enjoyment to whatever you're doing. So indoors, outdoors at
worker play, enjoy chewing Wrigley Spearmint gum. Wrigley's spearmint refreshing,
delicious on the ground.
Speaker 3: When the summer becomes August, Broadway pauses for a while,
considers what happened to the springtime dreams to be fulfilled
in the middle of July at the very latest, and
what at the blonde on last month's snapshots, the one
with sunny legs, the one you tried with poetry and
she touched her cheek, the fawn of camp never cared
a jewel of the catskills. She's back in the Bronx
shoe store, kid, And the last time you walked by,
she didn't look so good. And walk the streets furious
with people and heat, and feel your throat tightened when
it suddenly comes to you. Another summer's rushing away. Maybe
next year, kid, maybe. And uptown east of Broadway, where
I was in the outdoor swimming pool catering also of
the seekers after something or other. The crowd was divided
into non swimmers, saandsitters, ukulele players, miscellaneous, and the man
in the swimming trunks lying on the concrete walk. The
man who had drowned and the police emergency crew working
over him with a respirator, and the man from headquarters
who had gotten there before me.
Speaker 6: They've been working on him for quite a while.
Speaker 3: Danny, why'd you call me to come down? Muggulm?
Speaker 6: I asked the same question of Patrolman Kenny. It's like this, Danny.
Kenny was flagged off his feet when this man was
dragged out of the pool, took off the man's locker
check went to the locker, you know, for identification. The
locker was empty. Forced Uh huh, all those locks answered,
what dimsta? Skeleton key robbery gets a dozen calls a
day from these.
Speaker 3: Pools, So you figure that man's drowning and his lockers
being robbed had something and.
Speaker 6: Maybe a coincidence, Danny, maybe something else.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I wanted you to be here. Okay, let's take a look.
Speaker 3: One of you men called the Morgan.
Speaker 6: A lifeguard pulled him out as that one. Danny, you
want to.
Speaker 3: Talk to I'm from the police, Danny Clover uh Russ
gavey what happened here? Alice on my stand? Hem? He
started the yell. I went in after him.
Speaker 6: How'd you get those scratches on your shoulder?
Speaker 3: You fought me.
Speaker 4: I had to take him money to break his hold.
When he stopped struggling, I got him off. By that time,
he needed that official respiration. I gave it to him.
Speaker 3: I said, your man king, all right, did detective Muggaman
here tell you this man's clothes are gone and it's
going to be pretty difficult to identify him now? Yeah,
he told me any ideas about it? Nope, fucking us
back to the office at headquarters and sit with it.
A man had been drowned in a public pool, from
a policeman's point of view, worth only a quarter page
form and triplicate. However, the fact of his lockers being
robbed maybe something else. Again, probably not more forms than
a couple of hours later, when the office gathers up
its private shadows, a door opens, a man walks in.
Speaker 7: Busy.
Speaker 3: Come in, doctor Sinskitch, Sit down, thank you.
Speaker 6: I just came from the autopsy room, Danny. And has
that man brought in from the swimming pool to drowned them?
Has he been identified? Danny?
Speaker 3: Not you? What's on your mind?
Speaker 6: He was murdered, murdered, how whoever administered artificial respiration? That
that man killed him as surely as if he had
driven a knife into his heart, Doctor sens Danny gently,
I'll explain. Inside of the chest, Danny, is a delicate
system of balances, balances which cannot be upset else a man's.
Speaker 3: Heart will be affected in this lung. What's that gut
to do with murder?
Speaker 6: Simply that the autopsy I just performed and the drowned
man revealed small internal hemorrhages, bruises of the muscles and
bones of the chest from too active a manipulation.
Speaker 3: You mean that lifeguard didn't.
Speaker 6: I mean he did a very bad job of artificial respiration.
Speaker 3: That's why you call it murderer, not premeditated. Of coast.
Speaker 6: Doctor, This is not the question in your mind you
wanted to ask if it was a tad, didn't you.
Speaker 3: Dare and let the question take over the room. Add
the weight of its violence to the oppressive night heat,
the stifling remembrance of other such questions posed in the
same room. Quietly, fearfully, because a policeman too reacts to
the touch of death. It fills the room, and against
its pressure, you lift the phone, make the call to
the Department of Public Works, have them check personnel files,
come up with an address for Russ gave lifeguard. Go
there to the whole bedroom, furnished in the style of
Brownstone East twenties, find it empty of Russ. Gavy be
told in the way out by the woman spread wide
on the stoop. You should have asked before Russ was
across the street in the park, on that bench, fighting
for his share of the night air. Walk up to Russ,
let him chew the last fiber of a match.
Speaker 4: Stick, and taking my well earned rest you want to
help mister clovery.
Speaker 3: Sure mind a vi sit down, Rous, Yes, so the
you are almost a hero to day, Russ, you're kidding.
That's how I make my daily summer bread fifty bucks
a week. Agile a girl, save a leg. Longer been
a lifeguard, Russ?
Speaker 4: Oh, six maybe seven summers? Time out for a frolic
on Anzio peach. Then you've had a lot of experience
saving people from drowning?
Speaker 3: Am I allotted? Share? The medical examiner down at headquarters
says that man. You try to say, I remember, Our
medical examiner says he was murdered. Well, I'll come. Our
man says it was murdered because artificial respiration wasn't applied properly.
Well you, A man is a.
Speaker 4: Smart man, but a four bit of weak lifeguard does
the best he can. He studies in classes, he follows
a first aid manual. You call him a murderer because
he didn't make out with one poor slap.
Speaker 3: You tell me, Russ, you murder the man are.
Speaker 4: Considering the percentage of lives that are saved and not
saved by such as we That's a question you may
never be able to answer.
Speaker 3: I'll cut, I'll keep trying, Russ. You won't mind that, Danny.
Speaker 8: Why don't you never turn on a light? You sit
like this in the dark by yourself. It's I got
one of the Tartaglia kids to home, does the same thing.
You both make me feel the same way.
Speaker 3: And you've got your problems.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I could do without them.
Speaker 3: You in the mood, Danny, sure whatever?
Speaker 8: Nothing no progress and identification of the drowned man. No
progress and a connection between him and that lifeguard. Russ
Gavy reports.
Speaker 3: On Gavy State.
Speaker 8: He is looked up to at the pool by girls
and ladies size swimmers. Occasionally he buys for one or
the other a beer at the concession stand, occasionally escorts
one or the other type to her home, deposits it,
goes to the news stand by super type magazines, goes
to us room healthy, normal, muscle boy.
Speaker 3: Maybe a murderer's you know.
Speaker 8: Pardon me, Danny, but I must take gods, Sergeant I
Taglia speaking, Yes, yeah, I got it. Hansen's porn shop.
He's thirty four. I told you I got it. They
bother us with such such what you know, a man
with a porn shop got the nudges in the midst
of a nice conversation, because somebody who works in a
pool hawk the sud of clothes valuables look to this,
mister hansome like stolen goods and four. Yeah, do I
bother yourself with it, Denny.
Speaker 3: Because maybe it'll give me the name of a murdered man.
Speaker 9: You might ask me why I called the police, mister Clover,
after so many months of abstemiously staying away from your fellows.
All right, mister Hanson, why because there was something fishy
about it? This time, this suit, this watch ring, money
clip was brought me by a boy who's in attendant
at a public pool all on Upper Broadway. Inevitably that
pool where that unidentified man was drowned, his things stolen.
You read about it, of course?
Speaker 3: Who brought this to you?
Speaker 9: A boy know him well, I've had dealings with him intermittently.
Who's the boy Bobby Kent. He's got a room in
one of those crates on East thirty seventh er er
sixteen fifty four East thirty seventh. Just ask for Bobby.
Speaker 3: We all know him, and you think these things belonged
to the drowned man.
Speaker 9: The man was robbed where Bobby works, died where Bobby
works Bobby Pond's things that obviously don't belong to him.
What is there left for a decent man to think,
mister Clover.
Speaker 3: Then the three walk to the languid summer night, the
city Bond and the dream Bond people and the Sandstone Steps,
who find their delights in a pop bottle or by
taking possession of a star in the sky, or by
cooling themselves with a fan courtesy of Swanson's Chicken Freckracy.
Past them and mind the kiddies at their nighttime play
the patter of little feet up on alley and arrive
at the address on thirty seventh Street, and over one
of the bells, see a name, Bobby Kent, Apartment three.
And the sound you hear is the far off thunder
made of heat and air currents and stratosphere. And the
lightning through the window at the end of the corridor
lights up the number three on a door briefly. Then again, Bobby,
Bobby Kent, This is the police, Bobby, open up, I'm
coming in. Bobby Bobby was in his shirt was ripped,
his face, bloody, hands tied behind his back, belt ru
on his neck, and the belt was strung over a
pipe near the ceiling. When I brought over a chair
to stand on, there was lightning again, and the whole
room was stark white for an instant. It took a
while to get Bobby down, but it didn't matter. Bobby
had been dead when I got there. Bobby had been murdered.
Speaker 5: Or refreshment while you work, for enjoyment, anytime chew a
stick of Wriggley's Spearmint gum when your mouth feels dry,
when you're warm or tired. Wriggly's spearmint is really refreshing.
The lively, full bodied real mint flavor cools your mouth,
moistens your throat, freshens your taste, and the chewing itself
gives you a little lift. Helps you feel your best,
do your best. So for chewing enjoyment plus pleasant refreshment,
chew delicious Wrigley spearm It Gum. We now continue with
Broadway's My Beat, written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin
and starring Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover.
Speaker 3: Broadway leans against a doorway, flips a coin, and makes
odds on the thirty one days of August. This month's kid,
It'll come in the Philly, and the third the dream boat,
the oil on that little piece of property at least
in the Texas bad Lands. Gotta come in otherwise what
have you been building? Kid? Gotta come in so you
can indulge the whim of the hour, enjoy it, own
it all that neon. Yours to turn on or off
that music of the dance calling to you from basement
dance lands. Yours to play soft or loud or cut
off like that dance in dark and in stillness. If
you want the traffic signals pushing back the people, yours
to make say stop go. You're a king man with
headlines at your feet. Boy murdered hung by belt in
tenement room, unknown man drowned in public pool. All yours, kid,
clean shuffle a minute of luck, and it's all yours.
And the next morning at headquarters consider your share of
it yours And Detective Muggulmins, you still stick.
Speaker 6: With that, Danny, that the man in the pool was murdered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't like it. Oh, it's not that, danny.
Speaker 6: It's only so many people drowned, so many can't be saved.
You're going to go back and call everyone that wasn't
the murder victim.
Speaker 3: Rus gave he as a trained lifeguard. He told me
the man fought him had to be pushed under happens
that way sometimes, Danny could have been the other way around.
Could have been Russ wanted the man dead. It could
have been he fought the man, drowned him, finished him
with his own brand of artificial respiration. Could have been.
Speaker 6: But where's a string?
Speaker 3: That not Danny? What connection the kid that was hung?
Bobby can't the attendant at the pool. That could be
a connection.
Speaker 6: Because he stole a man's clothes out of a crummy locker.
We're not even sure they belonged to the drowned man.
Speaker 3: What do we know about them?
Speaker 6: Muggamn Well from the cleaner's marks, they belonged to a
man named Howard Crawford married. I checked his wife should
be at the morgue to identify in a half hour
would have come sooner.
Speaker 3: Wanted to go out and buy a dress. First on
a meter, you get whatever you can on. Bobby can't
friends people he stole from whoever wanted it. I'm working
on it. Put a tail on Gavy every breath he breathes.
I on a report, got it?
Speaker 6: Anything else?
Speaker 3: Danny. Yeah, why does a woman need a new dress
to look at a dead man?
Speaker 9: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Ask her when you see her.
Speaker 3: Are you ready, missus? Coffin waiting for you? All right?
Just look at this man and tell me if he's.
Speaker 10: Okay, okay, put him back, he's mine. Can we get
out of his place?
Speaker 3: Now? Of course? I throw that storm. I want to
sit down on this bench for a minute or else.
Speaker 10: Huh, sure, I'll sit. What do you think of my husband,
mister Clover? Can you imagine it? Howard getting himself a
piece of marble and a police morg.
Speaker 3: When did you see him last?
Speaker 10: I got out of a warm bed yesterday morning and
a kind of the phone ringing was for Howard. He
pinched my cheeks, said goodbye, honey, I'm going out of town.
Speaker 3: This happened often, is going out of town in his
line salesman. And you didn't see him after that?
Speaker 10: Look, boyfriend, I was in the middle of a beauty
exercise Bendover's for the figure. I was grabbing my ankle,
so I looked back there he was going out of
the house.
Speaker 3: Doesn't it seemed strange to you that he didn't go
out of town that he was fine.
Speaker 10: Strange to me, he's dead, but I'm going to get
used to it.
Speaker 3: Who do you know had a reason for murdering him?
Speaker 11: Murdered?
Speaker 10: Thought you said he drowned?
Speaker 3: Do you like to swim? Missus Coffin?
Speaker 10: You see this sunburn? You think I got it standing
under a hot iron?
Speaker 3: Look at it?
Speaker 10: See how you like it?
Speaker 3: Did you get out of that swimming pool uptown Coney?
Speaker 10: I know a part of Coney where they carry a
pretty good crowd. That's where this burn came from.
Speaker 3: There's a lifeguard at that pool. I go to.
Speaker 10: Coney where they carry a million on a weekend. I
don't confine me to public pools uptown.
Speaker 3: Did you have anything to do with your husband's death,
missus Crawford.
Speaker 10: Now, I'm a girl who's going to tell you the truth. Boyfriend,
every time I've thought of it, I've wished Howard dead
every hour on the hour, and I wished him dead
on a half hour too. But that's when the race
results come over the radio. Howard things have come true.
I've wished for him.
Speaker 3: That's all. Missus Coffin. You can get out of here
now and watch her reapply the lipstick and readjust her
clothes and walk away from her dead to a summer
rhythm that no longer held any part of him. A
woman starting the new day fresh the memory she had
submitted to, now happily dead on a marble slab and
at the end of the corridor, the street, sunlight touching
her face for an instant darting away, leaving only pallor
and the smear of scarlet on her lips. Back in
the office, order a shadow for missus Crawford, then a
telephone report for Mugovan. He'd found a girl who was
the girlfriend of Bobby Kent, a box office girl and
an all day, all night movie on Easte hundred and
twenty fifth. Lucilla Lang on duty for the rest of
the day and night. Police ms Lang, take back your bed.
Speaker 7: You don't buy enough.
Speaker 3: You're a friend of Bobby Kent's.
Speaker 7: Look you you want to lose me my job?
Speaker 3: All we want, miss Lang, All you.
Speaker 7: Want is to mark me lousy with the management. Sweaty
cops snooping around where I live. I know my girlfriend.
Tell me he had his nose in my affairs, asked
questions she had to tell him I was cozy.
Speaker 3: With Bobby All we want is something that will give
us Bobby's killer.
Speaker 7: Search me up and down, you won't find Bobby's killer.
Speaker 3: And maybe someone who wanted him dead.
Speaker 7: All the kid ever did was steal a buck here
and there so we could make an impression on me
and my girlfriend. Boy has to die for that.
Speaker 3: He was a thief.
Speaker 7: Ain't everybody, kiddo, one way or another, to sweep out
the locker room in a public pool, to empty the
footpast grub him out. You think that's the end of
the rainbow for a kid.
Speaker 3: Did you know about the clothes he stole from the
pool to watch the ring money clip?
Speaker 10: Sure?
Speaker 7: I know he told me. I even know about the
five hundred bucks that was in the suit.
Speaker 3: Five hundred We were.
Speaker 7: Going to take it and go off to far away places.
Do you know something, kiddo? What Bobby's dead from hanging
and I'm cooped up in a cage, so I ain't
gonna make it, am I?
Speaker 6: Danny?
Speaker 3: Come on in muggling, What do you want an opinion about?
Speaker 6: What about how soon we should pick up Russ Gavey
for the murder of Crawford and that pool lieutendant.
Speaker 3: If we pick him up, how long do you think
we can hold him killer?
Speaker 6: Danny?
Speaker 3: Are you going to prove premeditated murder by artificial respiration? Now?
Speaker 6: Maybe we shouldn't start from there, Danny, Maybe we should
start from the attendant. Now, he killed Bobby Kent because
Bobby stole the clothes, because Bobby would learn that the
clothes belonged to Howard Crawford. Bobby was a sneak thief
from there to blackmail him. One easy lesson.
Speaker 3: So we get back to Howard Crawford. You know what
we need, Michel, Yeah, motive.
Speaker 9: We gotta find out why.
Speaker 3: We got something.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: Officer Rotchet just called from a gas station on Queen's Highway.
Missus Crawford just arrest registered at the rich Lodge Motel
about ten miles out of the city.
Speaker 3: Thanks Gino muggling. Yeah, Danny, Shadow, you got on rus
gave you get him off. I don't want to followed,
all right? Were you going to find out why a
widow wanders far from home? It's open? Why are you
stop a drink?
Speaker 10: I'll be right in. I had my hair down.
Speaker 3: Where do you see?
Speaker 10: What's the new clothes? You like him? You'll like him
to love her? You like him.
Speaker 3: That's your going away dress, Missus Crawford.
Speaker 10: It could be for that too.
Speaker 3: You've got a home in Manhattan, Missus Crawford. What are
you doing here? Where is your home?
Speaker 10: Boyfriend? And what are you doing here?
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 10: Me and my sunburn made an impression. Huh? So you
got a flunky to follow me? You could have done
it yourself, No uproar would have happened. Well, here we are.
Speaker 3: You still haven't answered my question? What are you doing here?
Speaker 10: Girl likes to get away sometimes. You'd be surprised how
many phone calls I've gotten since Howard drank all that water.
Here's a dime, throw it in the radio. No, and
I'll throw it a dime. That phone calls all day long.
Now it's your.
Speaker 3: Turn just to talk to kill some time?
Speaker 10: Ah that Kenton?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Oh what'd you say? Love it?
Speaker 3: Nothing? I didn't saying that. Look be a doll.
Speaker 10: Will you go away?
Speaker 3: Come back another day? I'll be here.
Speaker 10: Let's pick a tuesday. Make a dad. Why don't you
go right now.
Speaker 3: Out the back way through a window. Let's get up.
Speaker 10: Us got a little trouble, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, Russ closed the door. I'll bet the lady told
you to get out of here. Mister Clover. Uh huh.
You two know each other pretty well, don't you.
Speaker 10: Yeah, swimming pool romance. I saw him in those California
feet flippers, and it twisted my heart.
Speaker 3: You took planning on going away together. I only asked
because the back of Russ's car is loaded a suitcases.
We've got to get married in Maryland, is yes, there is.
There's a whole section in the penal coat about murder.
Back to that. I could have picked you up before, Russ,
but I needed a motive. I had to find out
why you murdered Howard Crawford. There she is? How did
I kill him? By drowning him? You made sure the
resuscitator squad wouldn't revive him. You crushed out whatever life
there was in him. Listen to him made yeah, listen,
you killed Bobby Kent. He was a petty thief. He
took the clothes you had stolen from Crawford. Sooner or
later he put two and two together, probably would have
blackmailed you. You couldn't afford to let that happen. You
ready eat it?
Speaker 10: I'm ready only one thing, Russ. I'm a happy girl, Russ.
I like to live happy. From just now on, you're
going to be a brooden as long as lover here
has got you. I don't want you.
Speaker 3: Both of you. You're an accessory, Missus Crawford.
Speaker 10: Oh that changes things right away, Russ.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there'll be a fool ka your way, Russ. Be
the same. You're ready to go back to town, Missus Crawford.
It's the time on Broadway when the crowd gives up
goes home. Then it's the street of the dim moonlight
and the dark whispers, the wind of the night, the
wind that scatters everything, yesterday's headlines, yesterday's dreams, yesterday's people.
It's Broadway, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile
in the world. Broadway my beat.
Speaker 5: Remember friends for refreshment while you work for enjoyment. Anytime
chew a stick of Wrigley's spearmint gum, there's lots of
lively real mint flavor in it to cool your mouth,
fresh and your taste and sweeten your breath. And chewing
wrigley Spearmint helps keep you fresh and alert. You feel better,
work better, get more fun out of doing things. So
indoors outdoors at worker play, Always keep delicious Wriggly Spearmant
chewing gum handy for refreshment while you work.
Speaker 3: For enjoyment.
Speaker 5: Anytime chew a stick of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. The makers
of Wriggley's Spearmint Chewing Gum hope you enjoyed tonight's story
and that you're enjoying Wrigley Spearmint Gum every day.
Speaker 3: We invite you to join.
Speaker 5: Us next week at the same time when Detective Danny
Clover returns again with Broadways My Beat. Broadway's My Beat,
brought to you by Wriggley's Beer Miccum, is produced and
directed by Elliot Lewis, with music composed and conducted by
Alexander Courage. Program is written by Martin Fine and David Friedkin,
and stars Larry Thorr as Detective Danny Plover, with Charles Calvert,
ast Tartaglia and Jack Brush and his Muggeman. In tonight's cast,
Mary Jane Croft was heard as Edith Crawford, hi Averbacus Russ,
Gaby Stan Waxman is Mister Hanson, and Michael Ann Brett
as Lucille Lang.
Speaker 3: Bob Stevenson speaking.
Speaker 5: This is the CBS Radio.
Speaker 1: Network, Welcome back. There's a few points here. First of all,
it's been a couple of years, but I think we
played a Dangerous Simon episode that talked about this, but
it's worth talking about again. The event that Bob Hope
was referencing at the top of the episode was the
Great Flood of nineteen fifty one. There was extraordinary rainfall
on the Kansas River and many of its tributaries overflowed
their banks. July thirteenth, nineteen fifty one, was labeled as
Black Friday by the locals, with local flooding reaching a
level that hadn't been seen since the Great Flood of
eighteen forty four. There were more than twenty five thousand
people displaced and homes, neighborhoods and businesses dealing with ruins
and debrize. And so that's what motivated the appeal. And
the damage extended not just to Kansas but also to Missouri,
with damage of around a billion dollars in nineteen fifty
one dollars obviously much higher today, and that was the
reason for the appeal. Of course, it speaks to Bob
Hope's role in national profile in the nineteen fifties. Now
he is rightfully associated with his work with the USO,
where he was such a key leader from World War
Two to the Persian Gulf War. And I'm not laughing
because of any disrespect from mister Hope's work. I'm just
laughing because my note said OSS, which would be an
entire alternate history. But I digress. Bob Hope did not
work with the OSS, but he did work with the USO.
But if you listen to his radio programs from the
late nineteen forties through the fifties, it really does express
a broader amount of charitable concerns. It seems like every
second or third episode Hope was raising funds for a
different cause or raising awareness of a different issue, whether
it was some disaster relief or some international problem, or
just the typical red feather campaign. He was utilized by
a lot of humanitarian causes, which I think reflected broader
concern It also reflected his popularity during that period as
one of the biggest screen stars in addition to being
one of radio's highest rated comedians. Now, I have to
say that the episode itself has one of the most
far fetched beginnings. First of all, Danny gets called into
a drowning with the thought it's suspicious that the guy's
locker was robbed. Now, keep in mind, Danny is a
lieutenant of homicide and Mugvian is calling him based on
that really should have kept the whole case to himself
for a while. And then you have doctor Sinsky's conclusion
of homicide. Let's be clear, good injuries result from resuscitation attempts, absolutely,
particularly since the methods that were used in the forties
and fifties tended to be a little more crude and rough.
But the thing is that the injuries that doctor Sinsky
described are absolutely normal for even proper resuscitation attempts, and
drowning itself could cause internal lung bleeding and chests strain
the delicate system of balances in the chest. Sounds really poetic,
but that's just how modern medicine would have viewed things
in the nineteen fifties, and certainly not to the extent
of saying confidently that it was murder. Now, we also
have this great, fantastic line. Every time I've thought about it,
I wished Howard dead every hour on the hour, and
I wished him dead on the half hour two, that's
when the race results came over the radio. I mean,
that line just cracks me up. That's probably the one
line from Broadways My Bait which could have been something
that was being reused from Pat Novak. Finally, on a
really positive note, I love the final fight scene with
the music. Now, if you watch TV shows in the
late fifties and early sixties, they often have these terrific
fight scenes with this jazzy music playing, oftentimes with the
music edited in, though occasionally it'll be something live or
a record. It's rarely tried over radio, and I think
part of the reason for that is that it risked
distracting from the audio of the fight that you're trying
to present. But I think they did a really good
job mixing it so that it actually complimented the fight
scene so nastily. Down on that, all right, listener comments
and feedback now, and we have some comments regarding the
Broadways My Beat episode Buddy Malpaw and the Jeweled Scimitar.
Betsy riots really great episode, very funny and sweet, and
Elizabeth says thank you from Mexico. Well, thank you so much.
Appreciate you taking the time to leave those comments. Now
it's time to thank our Patreon supporter of the day.
Thank you to Margie, Patreon supporter since June twenty sixteen,
currently supporting the podcast at the Detective Sergeant level of
seven dollars and fourteen cents or more per month. Thanks
so much for your support, and that will do it
for today. We will be back next Wednesday with another
episode of Broadways My Beat, but join us back here
tomorrow for drag Net where I don't know.
Speaker 12: He didn't seem to have any friends, see, and his
wife had only been in the city a year before
she died.
Speaker 11: He was retired, you know, Yes, man, we talked to
some of the neighbors out there. They couldn't tell us
much money.
Speaker 12: Maybe some of the people he did business with might
know something. If you tried the neighborhood bank out there.
I know that's where mister Dillan had his account.
Speaker 11: No, man, we haven't yet.
Speaker 12: Well, I can give you the bank's address. It's about
all though.
Speaker 11: That's the only contact, you.
Speaker 12: Know, I'm afraid so, yes, I didn't know much about
mister Dillan's private affairs. Whenever I talked to him, it
seemed the only thing he had on his mind was
his wife's death. It couldn't seem to get over it.
It seemed like he didn't want to get over it.
Speaker 11: You mentioned that when you leased his home, mister Dylan
took an apartment.
Speaker 2: Do you happen to have that address with Spanner?
Speaker 12: Well, I don't have it with me now, but I
have it at home. Mightn't call in and give it
to you.
Speaker 11: If you like? If you wouldn't, please, certainly? Oh, thank
you very much, miss Banner. You have our card. When
you hear anything at all from mister Dillan, we'd appreciates
if you'd call.
Speaker 12: And surely I'll call you right away. Do you think
something could have happened to him? Well, as possible, we
don't know.
Speaker 3: All we have is a letter from his sister.
Speaker 12: That seem kind of strange, doesn't it. It wasn't feeling too well.
I wondered why he hadn't contacted me about sending the
rent money to him. He was such a nice man,
mister Dylan. I certainly hope nothing's happened to him.
Speaker 11: Well, you say it was very depressed about his wife's death, ma'am,
Would you say that it was getting to be a
little abnormal with him.
Speaker 12: Well, I wouldn't know about that, sergeant, but I didn't know.
He brooded about it all the time, he thought that
he'd lost everything, didn't seem to want to go on.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 11: He ever give an indication that maybe he might take
his own life. I mean, all this rooting of his wife.
Speaker 12: Well, no, nothing definite, just depressed and moody all the time. Oh,
now that I remember the last time I saw him,
he did say something kind of funny that. It was
the day before he left. We were talking about the
rent money and I asked him if I couldn't send
it to him. He got kind of a strange look
on his face. Yeah, he said, where I'm going, I
won't need the money.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll be with us then. In the meantime,
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, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham signing off.