Old Time Radio Detective - Sam Spade
The Critical Author Caper - Sam Spade | 08/15/1948 (Ep112)
Hope you enjoy this episode of Sam Spade! Look for an ad-free option soon. We offer a Crime, Detective OTR radio station and many other podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. Licensed under - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple Podcasts | YouTube Music
- Duration:
- 29m
- Broadcast on:
- 15 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective Wrought to you by Wildroot Creme Oil Heretonic The non-alcoholic heretonic that contains lamellent Wildroot Creme Oil again and again The choice of men who put good grooming first Sam Spade Detective It's only me from under the sea Oh, it's Sam, who was it at the beach? Sam, it's always funny Did you go in? Well, it was up to my neck from the first rumble If you mean did I go in the water? I did I didn't notice I was too busy landing at clubs Oh, Stan, what a coincidence I was just reading my new library book And it's all about a body in the water We're still over a cliff And there's a strangest girl in it with a strange mother And she brings the girl And runs away with a shoulder That rich people They can't do that, they're stealing my material Oh, no, Stan, no! It's my own disappointment He's very well thought of Mother always understands his life Not tonight, she won't Staring her, Angel, I'll be right down And fixate my report on the critical welfare caper The actual hammits, America's leading detective fiction writer And creator of Sam Spade, the hard-boiled private eye And William Sphere, radio's outstanding producer/director Of mystery and prime drama Join their talents to make your hair stand on end With the adventures of Sam Spade Presented by the makers of Wild Root Cream Oil for the hair You know as well as I do fellas, your hair is one of the first things any gal notices So it's really important to keep your hair spruced up right all the time The answer? Why, of course Wild Root Cream Oil Hairtonic Wild Root Cream Oil grooms your hair neatly and naturally Relieves dryness and removes loose ugly dandruff I have a hunch fellas, she'll help herself to another look if you're using Wild Root Get Wild Root Cream Oil Hairtonic in bottles or the handy new tube It's again and again The choice of men who put good grooming first Later in this program, we'll have an important announcement Listen for it And now with Howard Duff starring as Spade, Wild Root brings to the air The greatest private detective of them all In the adventures of Sam Spade If I am looking over Oh Sam Yeah, come on in, let's get this over We've left the next chapter of the page to go The detective just found this girl in the sorted rooming house He had to fight with her boyfriend and boing him And now Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth But I don't trust her What's the name of the boy? Mark Fook His last was a thinly stiff That was about this neurotic nurse who was in love with their employees Evie, how long have you been raiding this kind of trash? What's that trash, Sam? Well, you need to make these characters live And I love this detective He's real hard-boiled like in a dash old hammer Actually, man, why can't we come in? Alright, sir Oh, there it is, are you ready? Yes, Sam, so I can try to wait That's the way I like it, eager? Then he's the chapter I mean Wait I wonder what she's up to She's guilty, of course Of course, but why not? You can read it when I'm finished Oh, my goodness, we've got a report to get out And here we are, chattering about books Great August Alright, we'll get the date That's there Uh, date? Hello there Still missing President's Bureau, San Francisco Police A patient, Sergeant Schwartz From Samuel's Bay, license number 1, 7, 5, 9, 6 Sergeant Gabriel, like it Here Dave I should have handed it over to you at the start But you know me, I'm greedy I cashed the checks he sent me as a lieutenant Without consulting my better judgment Gave the money to have either pay bills without batting an eye Borrowed a nine car fare from the corner news boy Without collateral And arrived in front of the Leggett mansion on Knob Hill Without the five years notion of what I had been retained for I'm going to the Leggett, Mr. Spade It's about my step toward a Gabrielle She's been missing since the funeral Who's funeral was that, Mrs. Leggett? My husband, Gabrielle's father That was nearly three weeks ago She came to me afterwards And said she was going down to Castada To our country place for a few days That she wanted to be alone with her grief But I discovered that she never arrived at Castada Do I make myself clear, Mr. Spade? Yeah, except for one thing, why do you want her back? First, she may do something to disgrace me She'll undoubtedly try her best to do so Secondly, unless I get her signature to some papers In accordance with her father's will, I can't go on living in this house That's okay, you've convinced me Now, when she left, what did she take with her? That's one piece of light luggage And her liquor case, of course She drinks, you know That's not my place to disapprove, I nearly thought it might help you to know Well, we could case all the bars in town It'll take a lot of time and a lot of money Besides them on the wagon Well, you might talk to Eric, my chauffeur He drove it to the station, or says he did Where do I find him? Let's see It's at a clock You'll be lightening down the hall somewhere in the neighborhood of the linen closet Helping the upstairs maid fold the sheets I'd knock first if I were you and avoid embarrassment Thanks for the tip Oh, mine, if I have a look at your stepdaughter's room Eric will give you the key, I'm not allowed one It is Oh, Eric, it's coming down, baby! Stop [coughing] [coughing] Excuse me, thank you for your kind assistance to college Okay, Myrtle, any time? Yes, sir You Eric? Collinson, what can I do for you? I'd like the key to Miss Gabrielle's room You the law? Why? You expecting some? Not the old lady's been threatened in the young cop She decided to whisper instead Oh, private take? You catch on fast, lover boy? Okay, I'll let you in her own, come on Mrs. Leggett says she drove Gabrielle to the station He says that, does she? Is that what you told her? I'm not telling you what I told anyone It's yourself [coughing] After you What's eating you? I think it all, just want some privacy On our wait a minute, I'm responding Don't help Myrtle, give me those keys Oh listen, you keep going What? Hey, let me in, don't have your lights [dramatic music] Her room was, shall we say, untidy The mirror-oppressing table was chipped around the edges of the range of the scummer across between two polo pony push-ins It was a mess of books Three odd volumes of a Harvard five-foot shelf A horse-grader's gazette and a bunch of detective allowance I picked one up and opened up at the title page It was called "Mordfruit" And it was by own that Stephen, author of a corpulent cadaver was thinly stepped in a kiss-off It was autographed to the author's great and good friend The late Edgar Leggett The signature looked from that image, it didn't look like a lead If it had anything else in the room I started to unlock the door with the key on the ring I grabbed away from Eric And the light caught the smooth side of the crystal for Myrtle It was engraved for Eric, forever gabby When, uh, Forever Eric went off duty that night, he went across town The trail ended and a crummy broken-down-rooming house out in the film 'Cause I don't sell them with a key, I'm crying the stairs I waited until he was on site [sighs] In, uh, more time than it takes to tell, the door cracked open One knows that can only belong to a landlady, raise it out at me She was, uh, gumming a sunset What do you want? They, uh, get settled in all right? They ain't nobody's settling in on me [clears throat] No, but that's me You got me wrong, ma'am, I, uh, met the newlyweds Did they, uh, raise the rent money all right? Oh, damn, raise it and spend it He's a dick smithered Dick smithered Got to the whole day and throws the dead soldier out the window And they call it a honeymoon Who are you? Uh, I'm her, uh, ex-husband, Bobby I, uh, came to pay her the back alimony, I hope Well, give it to me, I'll see if she get-- Oh, no, you don't No, no, don't you come pushing in here What? After hours Don't allow callers in here after ten o'clock, I'll screw Shut up Well, I don't-- What's their room, woman? I'll give it to me or I'll shake it out of your problem What? You 12? You 12? I'm gonna go work for these new uppers, but you try it Oh, is that what you're doing? Yeah, thank you, Grant, I just married Smart, Alec, no, I need a candy, uncle, woman It's all right You've rolled her to drink! I did not! I already told that for you! You're the best man ever! Oh, what a... ...Hestering Union All right, let me-- I told you to stay away and I'll beat it Hey, what is this? Uh, look, Eric, I don't want me trouble, but I'm coming in Over my dead body Eric? Get back in her room, Gabby Look, I-- I won't you hurt her, so don't-- No, no, no, don't make me don't-- Don't make me don't-- I don't want to-- Okay, I'm sorry! Eric! Eric! Eric! Eric! Are you done? Nothing I'm fucking a cold water can't cure, sit on, I want to talk to you Who are you? Sam Spain I'm a private detective, you're stuck on the highway to find you Oh? You know why she wants to find me? Do you? Do you want me to kill me? Do you kill my father, now she'll kill me? Can you prove that? My father never had a day's illness in his life He could drink three quicks of brandy in the evening Do you believe a man like that should die a heart failure? Frankly, I could Not sure that anything's gonna talk about me What's the real world needs to be insane inside Do I seem crazy to you? No, a little nervous, maybe This idea you have about your father's death Talk some more, Lee Alright I'll tell you the whole thing I gotta have a drink first Hey! I can't get the top off, give me a hand, will ya? Sure You need a court screw, doesn't it? Yeah, I think there's one down there in the cupboard I don't see one Back in the corner No, the father There No, there's nothing, it's hate No, no, no, no I dreamed I was a character in a detective story The title of the story was morgue fruit And the author, a man named Fitz Stephen Was trying to figure out a way to turn me into a red herring Before knocking off his number one suspect I tried to tell him it's against the rules to make you detective a red herring But he said it was a new kind of murder yarn And it didn't matter anyway because it wasn't even a victim That's what he thought [Music] The makers of Wild Root Cream Oil are presenting the weekly Sunday adventure Of Dachshoe Hammett's famous private detective, Sam Stade [Music] Now, here's important news on good grooming If you want the well groomed look that helps you get ahead socially and on the job Listen, recently thousands of people from coast to coast Who bought Wild Root Cream Oil for the first time were asked How does Wild Root Cream Oil compare with the hair tonic you previously used? The results were amazing Better than four out of five who replied said they preferred Wild Root Cream Oil Remember, non-alcoholic Wild Root Cream Oil contains lanolin And here's the announcement we promised you Now you can get Wild Root Cream Oil America's leading hair tonic in a generous new 25 cent size On sale of all drug and toilet goods counters It's also available in larger economy bottles and the handy new too Get Wild Root Cream Oil again and again The choice of men who put good grooming first By the way, smart girls use Wild Root Cream Oil too As mothers say it's grand for training children's hair And now back to the critical author, Kayper Tonight's adventure with Sam Spade When I came to it had came to dawn And I was still a character with an effective story And I felt more like a red herring than I had in my dream I had dragged myself across my own trail and wound up No place My quarry had fled leaving nothing behind The empty bottles with fingerprints on them I left with a few and I hustled over to the Bureau of Identification Half an hour later, I got the report They were lined, all lined I wondered what a detective novelist would make of that I decided to find out I had met Colin Fitzgerald several years back in Seattle When I was digging dirt on a chain of fake medians He was plowing the same field for literary material and we fooled forces I got more out of the combination than he did Since he knew the spook ragged inside out I cleaned up my job in a couple of weeks and we fought at friends His San Francisco apartment was on the sixth floor of the St. Mark It was standing in his door holding out a lean hand to greet me When I got there Wow, they're looking fit Sam Little red in the face Yes, the red herring I ate last night How's the literary grip go? You haven't been reading me? No, why'd you get that funny idea? Oh, it was something in your tone It was in the voice of one who bought an author for a couple of dollars I suppose you're still hounding the unfortunate evil Jeward? Yeah, that's how I am, the lucky up You ought to grab the book for Ab, you'll like it Oh, yes, it's Morgan Fruit, especially Prophetic What do you know about that family? Oh, what have they been up to now? Oh, well, you know the girl, like Gabrielle Quite well, since she's a duplicate of her father She has brains, but there's something black in her Something she doesn't want to think about, but can't forget She's a neurotic who keeps her body sensitive and ready I don't know what for Well, she drags her mind with drink and lunatic notions And she's cold and she's sane I had something I wanted to forget, I'd denesthetize my mind directly Leave my body, stay strong and ready I hope you don't think I ever stop means or anything to me Oh, yes, I remember you now, you were always like that Tell me what's up while I try to find one syllable words for you You were an overflower that dries for him? Eh, eh? Well, he was released from Folsom and Leggett's custody When he was 18 years old, murdered his father Nice kid, what about him? Mrs. Leggett hired me to find Gabrielle I found her with Eric in a rooming house on the film one She begged me to save her from her stepmother's murderous schemes And she knocked me cold Well, it's trivial, double. I've been thinking of a Leggett family in terms of Dumont You bring me a piece of Jim Crackley out of all Henry While writing this, Gabrielle would kill her stepmother Or do better than doing it for her No, that won't do, not sufficient motive But it has to have a motive, you know? Why, she's insane, isn't she? I wonder. Are you saying that carelessly or do you really think she's off? Well, I don't know, she's got a kind of a wild look about her I shift from green to brown and back without ever settling on one color How much of you turned up on her and you're snooping around on? Are you who make your living, snooping, sneezing at my curiosity about people And my attempts to satisfy it? No, it's different. I do mine with the object of putting people in jail when I get paid for it Don't matter as much as I should But I do mine with the object of putting people in books and I get paid for it No, not as much as I should Yeah, but what good does that do? Well, what good does putting them in jail do? I have a ladies congestion, you put them up with people in jail And cities wouldn't have any traffic, no problems, that's fine All you have to do is to wait till one of them kills the other And put the survivor in jail, that's simple Yeah, but who's going to kill who? Perhaps they won't have plans, both Gabriel and her stepmother Looks as if you have to guard both of them I think I'll settle for my client As far as Gabriel's concerned, her husband ought to be able to watch out for her What? Husband? She and Eric got mine Well, there you are, you didn't tell me anything about that Lord knows how much else are you having told me Don't go away Tell me, Graham, stay in here Oh, all right, Graham, stay in here Oh, thank you There you are, thank you, sir Now, I wonder what The Lord, this is positively corny, listen to this vein I appeal to you as a friend of my dead husband Come immediately, sunset hotel, quesada, trouble, danger Do not communicate, Gabriel must not know Signed, good to play it Graham? Did you have this wire sent to me as a prank? I was just going to ask you, if you said it to yourself as a prank I have it! The key to the whole thing! It's a red herring! I didn't think that Stephen would be able to hold out very long I guess his professional curiosity, and I didn't imagine he thought I would I caught the next bus for quesada Quesada is a one hotel town Pasted on the rocky side of a young mountain That slopes into the Pacific Ocean Some 80 miles from San Francisco I got there at 11 something that night I stepped down from the bus and crossed the street to the sunset hotel All right, all right, be sure Hey, Mrs. Leggen, right just in here What's your name? Owen Fitzgerald Oh, she left a message for you Said for you to wait right here and don't leave Until she gets back She said she was going? Oh, it's probably over visiting with her daughter And new son-in-law knew over through the cold How do you get there? Well, you're never able to find it at night Unless you, you went all the way around by the East Road And up then I'm sure unless you knew the country Well, how do you get there in the daytime? Well, you go down the street, you take the fork on the ocean side Then follow that up along the cliff It's easily enough found in the daytime But you're never in the world Yeah, okay, okay, heard you the first time So I waited until morning Stupid mate I found the road out the point that had never really been a road The side of the ledge became steeper and steeper Until the path was simply a narrow shelf on the face of the cliff The cliff that shared off a hundred to fifty feet on water Ravel out into the ocean A breeze from the gentle direction of China Was pushing fog over the top of the cliff Making a noisy ladder of seawater at the bottom Rounding a corner with a cliff of steepness I checked my cigarette over the edge and watched it spin downwards And that's when I saw it I had to go waist deep in a facility to lift the body I got my hands under the armpits on solid ground for my feet And dragged it up beyond the high-five line This goes through the wagon Somebody came staggering down the beach to meet us She dead? Yeah, Gabriel, she's dead Four of them witches dead They take me back to tell them a little I'm gonna do you talk? Sit down there, sit down What's the big idea? Don't you know I'm sick? So I don't think you're that sick I think you can make some sense That's a laugh You don't know me I've never been able to think clearly the way other people do No matter what I try to think about There's a fog you try to get between me and it You understand how horrible it can become Going through life like that Nobody fights clearly no matter what they pretend Thinking it's a dizzy business A matter of catching as many of those foggy glimpses as you can And fitting them together the best you can Probably you as you've been enjoying in misery You've been so busy trying to prove that you're nuts That you wonder you haven't really driven yourself nuts How do you know I haven't? Because you're too anxious to admit it Alright, I'm saying if you want it that way And just evil for it There's something black inside me What was that again? Something black Everybody knows that about my family My father too Who told you that? I always knew it This is my real mother killed herself But I know that I know how to open a drawer where she keeps the gun Every day Gertured lies on mother's bed And we play killing the witch And she comes in in the night And goes over my crap And she's changed herself And she looks like mother instead of the witch But I know better And I hold up the gun with both hands Very hard to call with both hands It's very hard to call the trigger But I must do it in a way to wake me up And then there's a big noise And red all over And I can't get out I can't get out Now listen to me You were beginning to make some sense I don't run away from it Gertred was lying on your mother's bed That's your stepmother? Yeah She was my nurse She married father Not so fast How old were you when your mother died? Four Four and a half Did you fall in awe about the game of the gun? No I don't think so Anybody? Gertred said I must never tell anyone Because it sent me away And I never did Not till I grew up I was with Owen Fitzgerald I had a lot to drink I told him After that he began seeing Gertred And finally my father died But it didn't do her any good Because Owen really loved me Now watch it Now let's get this straight We'll have to straighten it out again later on When you were a little child Gertred taught you that killing the witch game To use you as a murder weapon Against your mother Then she filled you full of ideas of guilt And fears that you keep quiet about it When you told the story to Owen He blackmailed your stepmother and then knocking off your father That made you feel responsible for his death too So you ran away No Gertred said I killed her too You might but I got it Now try and remember Was Owen up here tonight? I thought I heard his voice But I hear voices sometimes I'm hearing it again Listen Do you hear anything? I didn't hear anything but the wind and the beat of the surf at first When I did hear the voice I sent Gaby for a doctor before I investigated It was pretty badly mangled in the rocks A fallen million as far as he pushed Gertred was still alive The man was comfortable as I couldn Finally opened his eyes Oh man You messed yourself up good Yeah No more rocks for me Not unless you make Alcatraz You know, I had half an idea when you came to see me in San Francisco But you were secretly nursing some exceptional idiotic theory Thanks Owen, but I never had any theory Oh fine, drop down to my lap Don't be too sure of that Understand the present, I admit nothing Better on if I'm forced to The very number of my crimes Will be to my advantage Of the theory that nobody but a community could have committed so many Well there's not so many only Gertred, Gertred, your co-author The murder of the late idea like it Nonsense Crimes and crimes Dating from the cradle Even literature shall help me Not your own books Why not? In the critics agree that the spindly stiff bore all the marks of a party of degeneracy Heaven and son to see my sweet neck And I shall wave my mangled body at them A ruin who's cried since high heaven has surely brought sufficient punishments upon him Yeah, you'll probably make it go of it Legally, you're entitled to beat the jump of everybody, wasn't it? It's eagerly You mean insane? Tell me the truth, Sam Am I? I think that's what they'll say With that spoils everything It's no fun if I'm really cracked No fun at all Hurry it on a report Well, it just goes to show, doesn't it? No, there you go again, I think I mean, if anything like that happened in real life, you wouldn't believe it You mean if anything like that happened in fiction? Oh no, the author is never the guilty party Well, listen, otherwise That's not fair The author is never supposed to be guilty of anything You're right, you're right, I think You shouldn't be even assessed there Maybe a red herring But type that out, I think Oh, all right, then Anything else there? Yeah, fall in the drugstore and order some red herring I mean, some aspirin More and more folks are turning to famous Wildroot cream oil every day Wildroot cream oil gives you all you ever dreamed of in a hair tonic It grooms your hair neatly and naturally The way you like it The way other people like it What's more, Wildroot cream oil relieves dryness And removes loose ugly dandruff So join the millions with handsome hair Tonight, or first thing tomorrow Ask at your drug or toilet goods counter for Wildroot cream oil Also, ask your barber for a professional application If you've never tried it before Get the generous new 25 cent bottle just introduced It's Wildroot cream oils get acquainted size And once you've made the acquaintance of Wildroot cream oil You'll find you've made a lifelong friend Come on, here's where it goes Well, here it gets done Now I can even better the morgue food You did? I mean, it's not for realistic It was a magic type story, myself Of atmosphere and psychology and those Oh, you're gonna have those? You mean you should be a writer, Sam? Right, you think so? Of course, the tech story don't pay much If you write enough of them And look at all the material you've got No good, never do a perfection Sam, there's already that radio series The Adventures of You Know Who? Sunday night? That's what I made, I don't make a penny out of it What, it's your own fault? Sam, I don't want to see them critical But if you played your cards right You could have owned the piece of that show What? And follow Blondie, go home, Abby I think I will, Sam, just fill up with a good book I wonder who killed who? Well, when you find out, go let me know Oh, you know, you can't wait No, I can't Good night, Sam You're nice, sweetheart The Adventures of Sam Spade Sam Spade is played by Howard Duck Lorraine Tuttle is Effie The Adventures of Sam Spade are written for radio By Bob Coleman and Gilled Out The musical direction is by Lud Bluskin With score composed by Renee Garrigan Join us again next Sunday author, Dashal Hamlet, producer, William Speer Join forces for another adventure with Sam Spade Grought to you by Wild Root Cream Oil Again and again The choice of men who put good grooming purse This is Dick Joy reminding you to Get Wild Root Cream Oil Charlie, it keeps your hair in trim You see it's non-alcoholic Charlie It's made with soothed and laddling You barely get Wild Root Cream Oil Charlie, start using it today You'll find that you will have a tough time Charlie, keep on all the gals away Hiya, Baldi Get Wild Root right away This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System [Music]