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About this Episode
A collection of gripping detective stories featuring sharp-witted investigators, puzzling crimes, and clever resolutions. Each episode showcases the art of deduction and the thrill of the chase.
Hosts & Guests
Transcript
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You must. You must.
For NBC, William Spear, radio's outstanding producer, director of mystery and crime drama,
brings you the greatest private detective of them all in the adventures of Sam Spade.
Sam?
Who called Young-Witter Perrine?
Lane F. She did all we say.
It's a soap opera ever over there one.
Is that on the phone?
I know, I know, but it's not the end.
It's never the end.
Pull up a chair now, take a firm grip on pad, pencil and your emotions.
Got them?
I'm with the ready Sam.
Good show.
Two Agatha Pilbeam from Samuel Spade License number 137596.
Subject, the soap opera, Caper.
How was I to know what was on her mind?
This strange woman, this mysterious Agatha Pilbeam, this voice on the telephone, directing me to the big sprawling house in Hillsboro.
Is that clear, Mr. Spade?
How origin is it, Miss Pilbeam?
Very, very urgent, Mr. Spade.
I don't know which way to turn.
So I went to the big sprawling house in Hillsboro.
Pulled up behind an ancient model A parked at the curb and was walking past it toward the gate when...
Spade?
Huh?
Oh, oh.
Croc Morton, isn't it?
Good old Sammy, you remember.
Yeah, when did you get out?
Oh, last month, but I'm a good boy now.
Here, take one of my cards.
You know anyone who needs a first class private, I Croc's available.
And what are you doing here, Sammy?
The lady wants to see me.
The soap opera queen.
Is that what she is?
Oh, sexorate of whom she writes.
Oh.
Oh, behind the clouds.
It's not hard of Julia Jukes.
I must be alive for...
You know, I forget the rest.
You know.
Beats come, Sean Sammy.
Yeah, well, right if you get work, Croc.
I'm not a job right now.
I mean, you got your license already?
Oh, me?
Well, I...
Well, you can always run off a pole to status someone else's.
Oh, Sam, that's me.
Croc was a crook, but a nice crook.
You can never kill anybody.
He was just an uncurable camera fee,
specializing in taking pictures of people
doing what they hadn't ought to be doing.
You know, stuff like that.
Or if you wanted a photo stat of somebody else's document,
Croc was your man.
Well, I walked up the drive to the door
through it past a white shirt front
that turned out to have a butler in it
and toured what seemed to be your study.
But it wasn't.
It was your bedroom.
And you were reclining on six pillows
with a cigarette in a long holder in one hand
and a mouthpiece of a dictating machine in the other.
But John, push, Melinda.
There is no way to go now, but ahead.
John, you're so strong.
I need you.
I need your courage.
We must face this thing together, Melinda.
The organ was a pornography playing in her ear.
I waited for an opening, but there just wasn't any.
So I had to interrupt.
John, don't even think about it.
Uh, Miss, don't see Melinda.
We can't run away from life.
We must approach this film.
Calm, Melinda.
They get pardoned.
Oh, just a minute.
My mood music.
I see.
I'm Sam Spade, Miss.
Melinda.
Come.
Come sit beside me, Mr. Spade.
Well.
It's time we talk things over.
Well, thanks.
Maybe you'd better start at the moment.
When a woman reaches for him, Mr. Spade,
she comes to lean upon her man.
To look upon him not just as someone to cherish,
but as a source, a spring, a fountain of strength.
Mm-hmm.
Are you still dictating?
I'm talking about memes, Mr. Spade.
Oh.
Whom can I turn to whom?
I grow by flounder in the darkness.
I cry out.
I listen in vain for an answer.
But there is none.
Well, you always have a better chance of getting an answer
when you ask a question.
What do you mean?
What are we talking about?
What indeed?
Well, I haven't caught the show lately.
You'll have to bring me up today.
Why don't you run through the announcer's part?
Well, you know, right after the organ, when he says,
when we left Julia Jukes yesterday.
I'm sorry.
I thought I told you on the telephone.
No.
For many days now, I've seen somewhat of a strange new look
on my husband's face.
Husband?
Dr. Martin Hawks.
Oh, you're married.
I thought it was Miss Agatha Pilby.
Oh, two years ago today, I met young Dr. Hawks and married him.
Life became beautiful, a gay laughing thing.
A road to happiness.
And then?
Then?
A cloud passed over the sun.
Martin became moody, silent.
I tried to penetrate the shell, but he only drew farther into it.
A strange terrifying clavace seemed to have opened up between us.
What?
What is it, Martin?
I asked him repeatedly.
He'd only stare silently out the window.
And finally walked silently from the room.
Well, how long did this go on?
How long a series did you get out of it?
For weeks until a few days ago when the final blow fell.
It was evening.
And Agatha and Martin were at dinner.
Let's look in on them as...
Oh, sorry.
We were at dinner when the doorbell rang, and I answered it.
It was a telegram for Martin from Mexico.
I gave it to him and watched the blood drain from his handsome features of the reddit.
His hand trembled, his jaw clenched.
But you forced yourself to speak.
Yes.
What is it, Martin?
I asked.
Tell me, please, for the sake of all love.
And he...
Look down at me as if I were a stranger.
When he crumpled the telegram through its savagity into the fireplace and strode silently from the room.
Here.
Here I rescued it from the flames.
Read it.
Thank you.
Regret must confirm your worst fears, Cardoza.
What is the terrible secret of Martin Hawks?
Why did he act so strangely with the mysterious telegram arrived from Mexico?
And above all, where is he?
You mean he didn't come back?
He's been gone for four days, Mr. Spade.
I must find him.
Now of all times I need his love.
When a woman reaches 40.
I know, I know.
What do you mean now of all times?
It's been just a week.
Now since the report came back from the laboratory after my physical examination.
Oh.
The doctor from Vienna.
So it seems Mr. Spade, I too have a terrible secret.
Well, don't you want to tell me about it?
Yes.
I have a very rare, incurable seas.
There are only...
Only six short weeks to live.
Well, less than an hour after his distressing interview with Agatha,
our boy, Sammy, walked into the beautifully appointed office of young Dr. Hawks at 450 Sutter.
Defined his nurse, pretty young Nora Sheldrake, a new character,
working at her desk in the reception room.
In response to a question from Sammy, we hear Nora saying,
I have no idea where Martin is gone, Mr. Spade.
But I can tell you why.
Tell me, Nora.
Please feel free to tell me everything.
It's that woman, Mr. Spade.
Agatha?
Yes.
Yes, Agatha.
She never understood Martin.
She doesn't understand Martin.
She never has tried to understand Martin.
Do you hear me?
She never has tried.
I take it you don't care for Agatha Pilby.
I hate her.
Nora.
I do, I hate her.
She thinks her money can buy everything.
Even Martin.
Well, it won't.
She knows that now.
Well, calm yourself, Nora.
I can't think back now to the last time you saw Martin Hawks.
It...it was Monday.
Four days ago?
Yes.
The call came from some legal firm named Bennett and Hatch.
Let me write that down.
I switched the call into Martin.
I was worried for him.
I was concerned.
I had to admit now I did a terrible thing.
Ah, you listened in.
I did.
They told him his sister was in town.
That she was working at some...
at some nightclub.
And wanted to see him.
What nightclub was this?
Let me see.
It was the...the Tortuga.
What else?
Well, that's all.
They hung up then.
And Martin came out.
I watched the blood drain from his handsome features.
His hand trembled his jaw, Clint.
Yes.
I'm going out, Nora, he said.
If I'm not back, don't worry.
That's all.
It was so light, Martin.
The Tortuga was only a few blocks away on Post Street,
so I walked there.
We're just hooting up for the dinner trade when I arrived.
Sale around backstage like Billy Rose and an inspection tour.
File the dorm and then show them the snapshot.
You'd give me a young Dr. Hawks.
Or tried.
Look, young fella, I told you we don't have no dancer here.
Name a Hawks.
I ain't got your...
Norman, Norman, please.
Take a look at the picture.
No, I ain't got your...
What was he?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought I was here.
That...
Tuesday...
there.
Monday night it was.
Well, who'd he come to see?
There wasn't nobody named Hawks, Mr.
who was best-chardine.
Well, bless you, Norman.
Bless you, too.
Thank you.
Mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm.
Mmm-hmm-hmm.
Mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm.
Mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm.
I say, best-chardine.
Oh.
Come in.
Ah.
I, uh...
Close the door, will you?
Yeah.
Rafty.
Yeah. Yeah.
Is there anything I can...
Your choice.
Zip me up, Jack.
I'm Sam.
I don't care if your Boris Carloss.
You've got hands, haven't you?
Well.
Zip me up.
Oh, okay.
You say when.
Mmm-hmm-hmm.
Mmm-hmm-hmm.
Mmm-hmm-hmm.
Mmm-hmm-hmm.
When?
Can you breathe?
Oh, no.
You can't have everything.
Oh.
Ouch.
Oh.
Don't you mind, Jack?
Martin Hawks.
Sorry.
Never heard of him.
Look, we're getting along beautifully up to now on it.
Let's not spoil it.
You not only know Martin Hawks, your sister.
What makes you such a...
What's that card stuck over there in the mirror?
Fennett and Hatch.
Attorneys at law.
Uh-huh.
The same Bennet and or Hatch who called Martin Monday afternoon
and told him his sister wanted to see him here.
How what's this all about?
Uh...
I can't tell you.
He got a telegram from Mexico.
Mexico?
Yeah.
It upset him something awful.
What'd it say?
Regret must confirm your worst fear.
He did, huh?
Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
I'm great.
Pretty hilarious, huh?
Jack, you just ain't got no idea.
I got a piece of advice for you, Jack.
Oh?
Forget about Marty Hawks and live a long and useful life.
Mm-hmm.
I got a chip for you, too.
You're in a tight spot.
Watch that zipper, Jack.
One of the heavier soap opera tights that was
with a throaty voice and a talent for the smirching reputations.
What was the mysterious influence she wielded over young Dr. Hawks?
How much did she know about his strange disappearance?
What about the cryptic telegram from Mexico City?
And what about dinner?
The last question I could answer.
I stopped at troters for Sarbroth and potato pancakes,
ran into Larry Mahoney of homicide.
It was off duty, and we stopped in at a handy alley and bold until 11.
I was walking back down Market Street when I passed the flood building,
which reminded me of the firm of Bennett and Hatch, who resided there.
As a matter of fact, it looked like they were there right now,
since the light was on behind the second floor window with their name on.
Now the sensible thing would have been the call around 9 in the morning,
but as I seldom do sensible things, I hustle up the stairs and down the car there to their office.
Some on other than Bennett or Hatch had put in some time, obviously.
The drawers of a dozen or more file cases have been pulled out and dumped on the floor,
the desk drawers likewise, and the market clearly is the work of a thoroughgoing professional.
The safe door was off its hinges.
All this took me back to the Model A parked in front of your house this afternoon,
Agatha, and I was contemplating same when...
Hello?
Bennett?
Good Christopher, I was scared you wouldn't be there.
God, get your home.
Do it, baby.
Do it, pull the string.
We'll never make it with this guy.
We'll throw a pull the string here.
Do it, baby.
Do it, and make it...
Hello?
Operator.
Operator.
Operator.
I finally got someone at the Tortuga Club, who knew where Beth Jardine lived,
an apartment on Russian Hill.
I didn't stop to ask which apartment, and when I got there I found I didn't have to.
All right, stand back, everybody.
Stand back.
Dogan.
Oh, hello, Sam.
What happened?
Game, just Dr. Tophos.
Huh?
Jump from a room on a floor.
Stand back, you yow.
There was no need, too, but I looked at her anyway just to make sure.
It was Beth, all right.
When she said she was through, she met it.
I was just turning to go, and something big, and a tan camel's hair,
brush past me, and bent over the body.
Where is she?
Where?
Beth.
Sister.
Beth.
Beth.
Oh.
Where is she?
Where is she?
I recognized him from the snapshot.
While hair, with a four days' growth of beard on his lean-handsome face.
It was Martin Hawks, on the verge of collapse.
Officer Dogan and I helped him through the crowd for the ambulance that had just rolled up.
I had him on the running board and began to question him.
Huh?
What?
What was that again?
Your name, your name.
What your name?
What?
My name.
Of course, I...
My name, I...
I don't know.
I don't know, my name.
It happens to everyone in soap operas, sooner or later.
When he filled out the forms on Poor Beth Jardine, old Doc Peterson gave Martin a double-o.
Blue is nose.
And enough for the twinkle in his eye.
Here's to me, like young Dr. Hawks has got himself a case of amnesia.
Will the mind of young Dr. Hawks come out of the fog?
What does he know about the death of Beth?
Was it murder?
Or suicide?
Or both?
And what of the mysterious telegram from Mexico City?
Will Agatha ever discover the terrible secret of young Dr. Hawks?
And will stupid Sam ever discover anything?
Before we continue, a word from our announcer.
You are listening to the weekly adventure of radio's most famous detective, Sam Spade.
Music
Three chimes mean good times on NBC.
Saturday night is date night, but tomorrow Poor Dennis Day has trouble with his girlfriend Gloria.
However, Dennis manages to sing his way out of trouble in his charming, boyish fashion.
And say, why not let Dennis help your Saturday evening along, too?
And for more music and fun tomorrow, there's the Judy Canova show, starting Judy, in a melodic and carefree half hour of laughs.
And Grand Ole Opry with singing MC Red Foley and his special guest, Cowboy Trubidor Ernie Tub.
And now back to the soap opera caper, tonight's the adventure with Sam Spade.
Music
It's a half hour later now in the sterile whiteness of a hospital room at the three of us.
You, Agatha, I and Old Doc Peterson gather around the pale, quiet form of young Dr. Hawks.
Martin, Martin speak to me.
I have.
Martin darling.
Who are you?
Agatha dear.
Your own, Agatha.
Come, Agatha.
Better leave him be for now.
I can't go on with a womanry.
I know, I know.
You've got to be strong, Agatha.
Sam, we better leave him be for now.
Well, you're the doctor.
Oh, Doc, what could have done this to Martin?
Oh, fuck sometimes.
You don't mean.
Yes, I'm afraid I do.
Seeing his sister then.
Could be.
Or sometimes it's just a matter of a body getting into such a fix his mind backs off and refuses to have any part of it.
The wow from Mexico City.
Huh?
His terrible secret, the strange threat hanging over him and his sister, driving one to suicide.
And the other, the other, to do this.
Well.
No wonder poor Martin gave away before this.
Sure, sure.
And there's still another explanation.
How's that, Sam?
That he figured Amnesia was a nice, easy way not to have to account for what he's been up to for the last four days.
Or where he was when the day took off from the eighth story.
Mr. Spade, you're not accusing Martin.
There's something buzzing around in his little mind.
The nurse tells me she got him into a pair of pajamas and tucked him in nice and cozy before we got here.
Well?
Yes, well.
Well, you may not have noticed, Agatha, because he'd pulled the covers up around his neck, but our boy had his clothes back on just now.
What?
Martin!
Hey!
He's gone!
Indeed he was.
Was Martin.
As we could plainly deduce from the open window and the curtains blowing gently out over the fire escape.
Young Dr. Hawkes, indeed, had packed up his amnesia, his terrible secret, and his toothbrush, and taken off into the night.
So I left you solving gently an old dog's shoulder and found me a phone in a drugstore that's safe distance away.
On the 48th ring, Bennett, the Bennett and Hatch attorney's answer.
He was sleepy.
I used all my soft answers, and he used all his hard ones, and finally we got to the point.
All right, Spade, all right, the John Dean Dame left the sealed envelope with us.
What was in it?
How do I know?
It was sealed, marked personal and confidential, to be delivered to the city attorney in the event of my death.
Sign Beth Jardine Hawkes.
Signed how?
Beth Jardine Hawkes.
Not Beth Hawkes Jardine.
No, is it important?
Just a tiresome detail, Bennett.
So she brought you the envelope, paid you a fee, and you stuck it in the vault for her, then what?
Now she had her scholar brother and tell him to meet her at the Tortuga.
Period.
Add in a doll part of it.
We didn't even get our feet wet.
On the contrary, Bennett, you're up to your ears.
In what?
Blackmail.
Bye.
Which explain many things to with A, the lawyer from Mexico City, from the lawyer named Cardosa,
B, the murder of Beth Jardine, and C, the reason for young Dr. Hawkes mysterious flight from the hospital,
his mind still fogged with amnesia.
It did not, however, explain why stupid Sam had kept Croc Morton's business card in his vest pocket for 21 pages without doing something about it.
The address was near third and hour, not one of the better business sections, even for a private detective.
I walked down Third Street past the Sherry and Muscatel joints, looking at numbers, and then discovered it wasn't necessary.
The old model A was pulled up in front of white, what might have been a respectable office building, the pool of the earthquake,
but now couldn't decide whether to be a warehouse or a tenement.
Thus far, a harmonious picture, but behind the model A was something twice as long, and three times as shiny with a motor running,
out of place by about $4,000.
I've kind of late, aren't you, Nora?
Sam.
Nora.
Sam.
Nora.
Don't reach for the home.
But he told me.
Sure, and you believed it, like everything else he told you. Come on, get out.
I will not get out.
Oh, but you will.
Or I'll put you out by your pretty blonde hair.
Come on.
You.
You.
Oh.
That's it.
You can't do this to me, Mr. Spade.
Nothing can stop Martin and me.
We have our right to happiness.
Uh-huh.
Just the two of you.
Chin's up. Eyes on the horizon. Let the dead past bury, it's dead.
How can you joke?
It's no joke, believe me. You got taxi fare?
Why?
Because you're going to get in my cab, go home, put your hair up in curlers, and go to bed.
After saying to yourself 1,000 times, what a lucky little girl you are that Martin Hawks didn't shove you on a window too.
Now scoot.
Scoot.
It was a kind of a dark stairway that made me yearn for the comfortable feel of a shoulder holster under my left arm.
At the top was a three and a half watt bulb, and at the other end of the hallway a crack of light under cracks off his door.
Between the two was a cat, more the city.
So abandoning my stealthy approach, I walked up to the door, turned the knob, stuck my hand in my side cold pocket like Edward G. Robinson, and kicked the door off.
Crack was sitting at his desk behind a stack of bills.
The closet door was just closing softer.
Who was in the closet?
And did he still have his toothbrush, his terrible secret, and his amnesia with him?
Wow.
Sammy, you took me up on it right quick, huh?
Have a chair.
I sat on a chair in the corner out of line of the closet door behind the desk.
Oh Sammy, you got a job for me, huh?
Yeah, you don't look like you need a job, crack.
Oh, this?
Oh, it's nothing.
Good day at the track, that's all. What's on your mind?
Remember the blender has a job?
The one with the letters before you went up?
What are you talking about, sir?
The shakedown, Crack, that they wanted you to get the letters back.
Remember, you know, so you got them for delivered and collected after you had the photo stats maize.
Sammy, you're crazy. I never done no such thing.
You can level with me, Crack, you collected on the photo stats for eight years.
Well, wait, sir.
Well, forget it. Anyway, I got another one.
Dr. Martin Hawks, married to the soap opera queen, you know.
What about it, sir?
She's wearing a couple of million bucks and has six weeks to live.
As her husband, he's her only heir.
I spot the being.
Yes.
Only he isn't her husband, huh?
Because the Mexican divorce from his first wife, the late Beth Jardine Hawks, wasn't legal, you know.
She blew in a month ago and began shaking him down after leaving the marriage certificate
and a batch of other papers with some lawyers for life insurance.
Sammy, I just ain't interested.
When you hear the payoff, Crack, it's just like the name with letters.
What do you mean?
Hawks hired someone to crack the lawyers off us and get the papers out of the safe.
Some smart guy, yeah.
An unfrocked private eye who doesn't have a license.
I found out where he had the photo stats made, though.
I can get cosy.
He's for crying out loud, shut up.
A closet door knob was turning slowly.
I waved him out of the way and picked up the chair.
It was all over two seconds after it started.
A door flew open.
He came out with his terrible secret which turned out to be a gun.
And I wrapped the chair right around his head.
So I picked up the gun and crock and gun Dr. Hawks and we all picked up a ride ahead quarters.
Only one scene remained to be played in today's exciting episode.
I should try to be brave, Mr. Spade.
Sounds like such a cliche now.
Good show, Agatha. Good show.
Life must go on, you know.
Even when a woman...
You were born in 1911, I believe.
Yes, it says I say life must go on, even when a woman reaches.
Indeed, it must.
Indeed it must.
We have our happy moments and our sad ones.
Our pleasures, our trials, our joys and our heartbreaks.
And sometimes, Mr. Spade...
Yes.
Sometimes at the bottom of our cup of bitterness, we find a poo.
We do.
The laboratory, too.
A mistake, definitely.
They got yours mixed up with someone else's and you have no incurable disease
and many years of happiness ahead of you.
Yes, Mr. Spade.
But happiness?
I wonder.
Can a woman pass 40?
Whose husband is a convicted murder of fine happiness?
Hello?
Well...
Good show.
Period and the Vapra.
Oh, see.
I can't wait for tomorrow's episode.
I'll be sure to tune in at this very same time chirub and meanwhile,
answer me this.
How long will it take a woman past 20 to turn out a 25-page report?
Yes, sir.
I'll have the answer after a brief word from our announcer.
Three times mean good times on NBC.
Tomorrow, our total Toscanini will conduct the renowned NBC Symphony
in the 4th of a Saturday concert series.
For tomorrow's one-hour performance, celebrated Maestro Toscanini
as chosen works by W.C. Wespeake and Edward Elgar.
You're invited tomorrow to the NBC Symphony and Toscanini.
Oh, dear.
Oh, there, there, little girl.
No tears, no tears.
There tears have gratitude, Sam.
When I read all this about other people's troubles,
I'm so grateful to you for the smooth life we have together.
Effie.
Effie.
Sam.
Effie.
Sam.
That takes about 10 seconds.
Go ahead.
I'm only merely a secretary, but shh.
It's over now.
Matter of fact, we're 10 seconds over.
Oh, Sam, I haven't even your wife to be versus.
Nothing but peace and quiet.
I'm fairly regular paycheck.
With only a corpse now and then to produce a ripple
on the mirror's smoothness of our bliss.
Oh, that's beautiful, Sam.
I thought so.
You don't have a single, terrible secret either.
No, but just to keep you interested, dear one,
from time to time, I shall pick up a piece of paper,
read it, let the blood drain slowly from my face,
then clasp you to me thusly.
Sam.
Holding you close and just before striding silently
from the room mother in your shell, Pinkie.
I know.
Good night, Sam.
Good night, sweetheart.
The adventures of Sam Spade are produced, edited,
and directed by William Spears.
Sam Spade was played by Stephen Dunn.
Lorraine Tuddle is Effie.
Script for tonight's adventure by Harold Swanton.
Musical scoring by Ludblaskin,
conducted by Robert Armbrister.
Join us again next week, same time,
for another adventure with Sam Spade.
Join the magnificent Montague
and have fun at Duffy's Tavern on NBC.
