Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 318 - The Television Murders

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THE TELEVISION MURDERS

by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "Shadow Mystery," February-March 1948.

A television mystery that comes true... thousands of people actually see

man being shot (but with the wrong bullet!) as a sinister plot is woven into a

television drama... a plot that wasn't in the script. Then there was a second

murder - also daring. In the subway - at rush hour - in full view of the

crowds. Here was a killer who liked publicity... and here was a case for none

other than... Lamont Cranston.

CHAPTER I

'CRIME PASSIONEL!'

A BOB DORRY VISUMYSTERY!

Directed by Cary Cummings

CAST:

Eliot Mannix (Forty, bluff, stupid)

Maria Mannix (Twenty-eight, pretty, not stupid)

Letty Branner (Twenty, and much prettier than Maria)

Homer Elwood (Thirty, jilted fiance of Letty)

Roddy Hogan (Forty, friend of Mannix)

Vic Todd (Thirty-five, handsome friend of Mannix)

Bob Dorry (Private detective, thirty, tough)

Props: Thirty-eight police positive blank gun; glasses, cocktail shaker,

napkins.

SCENE: The home of the Mannix's. Very uppercrust, modernly furnished

living room. Big fireplace across back of set. In front of this is a low

cocktail table. Heavy carpet on floor. Working door to left. Windows across

right. Six comfortable chairs.

Running Time. Thirteen Minutes

Camera One:

Anncr: Opening commercial; standard: "Pull your chairs up close to your

big new Planet television set, folks, and get set to match your wits once more

with those of that crack private detective, Bob Dorry! See if you can beat him

to the solution of this strange drama of love and hate, of kisses... and

death!

Take it away, Bob!

Bob Dorry: "As always, friends, you will be given all the clues that I

had

at the time this case actually took place. It's up to you to see if you can

beat

me to the solution!

It started one afternoon in December when I decided, since business was

slow, that I might as well accept an invitation to a cocktail party.

Ordinarily

I give these a swift miss, but... I had nothing to do and the liquor was free,

so..."

(Camera two pan to the living room. Mannix is shaking drinks.)

Bob Dorry: "When I got there Mr. Mannix, the host, was the only one

around. I said hello..."

Mannix: "Bob! Long time no see. Sit down... the girls'll be in in a

second. They're powdering their noses."

Bob: "Where is everyone?"

Mannix: "Homer and Roddy are finishing up a gin rummy game that's been

going on all afternoon."

Bob: "Vic Todd, he coming?"

Mannix (Bitterly): "Doesn't he always?"

Bob: "Oops, sorry, skip it. Let's have a drink... just to warm my

corpuscles."

Door opens. Vic Todd, tall, good looking, self assured, comes in. His

handkerchief is sticking too far out of his breast pocket.

Vic: "Well, isn't this cozy! Hi, Bob. Been catching any killers lately?"

Bob: "No more than usual... fewer if anything. How's things?"

Vic: "Can't complain. But I will if I don't get a drink soon."

Mannix: "Take it easy. You've got all afternoon to get drunk."

Vic: "Umm... so it's like that, is it?"

Mannix: "Yeah, it's like that!"

Bob, holding a drink, gets hold of Vic and pulls him away to a corner.

Bob (Voice low): "Tuck your handkerchief back in you pocket, stupid!"

Vic: "Huh?"

Bob: "The lipstick's showing."

Vick (Stuffing handkerchief down hurriedly): "Oh, thanks."

Mannix (Irritably): "What are you two whispering about?"

Vic: "Bob just gave me a good tip for a race down at Tropical."

Mannix: "What are the girls doing anyway?"

Bob: "You know women... uh uh... here they come."

Door opens. Girls, Mrs. Mannix and Letty Branner come in. Letty is blond

and Mrs. Mannix brunette.

Letty: "And so I said..."

Mrs. Mannix: "Whoa..."

Letty: "Oops... hullo everybody!"

Letty: "Where's Homer?"

Mannix: "What difference would that make to you?"

Letty: "If it's going to be one of those parties, you'd better give me a

drink!"

Door opens again. Homer Elwood, Letty's disappointed suitor comes in. He

looks hangdog. He is slightly drunk.

Letty: "Homer! Hullo!"

Homer: "Why don't you beat it?"

Letty runs to Homer's side.

Letty: "Oooh... what I know about Homer! He's drunky!"

Homer. "I'm not drunky atall, I'm stiff!"

Mannix: "Here's a short one, my boy!"

Mannix has offered a drink to Homer. Homer slaps it out of his hand.

Homer: "I'll buy the drinks I drink... I mean... I'll drink the drinks I

buy... I mean..."

Mannix: "Why don't you go over in the corner and sulk. This is supposed

be a party!"

Mrs. Mannix: "Well, why don't you act more as if it were, darling?"

Mannix: "Come over here, Maria!"

Maria walks over to the low cocktail table with her husband. In

background

they talk angrily. In foreground, Vic smiles brightly at Homer and Bob.

Vic: "What a typical Noel Coward situation!"

Homer: "What a stinking situation!"

Vic: "Don t get so excited Homer, breathe deeply!"

Homer: "I'll breathe how I want to breathe; and I'd like to stop Mannix's

breathing!"

Vic gestures behind Homer's back from Mannix to Letty.

Vic: "You know!"

Bob: "So it's like that!"

Mannix (His voice comes up loudly): "I'd see you dead first!"

Mrs. Mannix: "Aren't you cutting off your nose to spite your face?"

She flounces away from her husband. She joins Vic and looks at him

adoringly.

Mrs. Mannix: "I can't make him see reason."

Vic: "No divorce?"

Mrs. Mannix: "If he keeps on seeing that little blond... I'll get the

divorce without his help!"

Letty: "Don't you like my hair, Maria?"

Maria: "Not particularly, dear... the black roots show too clearly!"

Mannix: "Maria! I won't have you talk that way to Letty!"

Mrs. Mannix: "That's cute... that'll sound pretty in court! A wife can't

talk about her husband's girl friend!"

Mannix (Placatingly): "Why don't we all have a drink and relax? Bob, what

have you been doing lately?"

Bob: "Nothing too much, things have been pretty dull."

Mrs. Mannix: "Not like they are here?"

Mannix: "Maria, please! Haven't we washed enough dirty linen in public?"

Vic: "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going out on the terrace for a

breath of air."

Letty: "Now that's a good idea!"

Show them milling around toward the door. Mannix sits down in front of

the

cocktail table in front of the fireplace.

Bob: "Coming?"

Mannix: "I must be getting older, my blood's getting thin. I'm cold

enough."

Letty: "We'd better slip our coats on..."

The room empties out. Mannix is left alone. He rubs his hands over his

forehead tiredly. He stares into the fire. It is completely quiet. Fifteen

seconds go by. The door, which is on a direct line with Mannix, opens a

trifle.

A hand with a gun in it comes into view. The hand holding the gun has a black

glove on it. A man's sleeve shows. Besides the glove there is a handkerchief

wrapped around the gun butt. The door is six feet from Mannix. Mannix stirs

and

looks into the fire. The gun comes up slowly and points at his head. The gun

fires. Mannix jerks erect and then falls slowly into the fireplace. Fade out

Bob Dorry's face.

Bob: "That was the situation we walked into when we came back from our

'airing.' Mannix was dead, face forward in the fireplace. Near him was the gun

with a handkerchief which had a lipstick smudge on it. I had gathered, as you

have, that Mannix was sore at his wife playing around with Vic Todd who was on

the make for Letty. Letty's boy friend, Homer Elwood, was in a stew about the

deal. Homer knew that Mannix had enough money to set Letty up in the style to

which she wanted to become accustomed. Mrs. Mannix and Vic Todd... well, it

was

her lipstick I had spotted on Vic's handkerchief.

You know all the facts! Who killed Mr. Eliot Mannix?"

(Organ sting. Segue up. Fade out from Bob's face to the group of

suspects,

show their faces in a line. Mrs. Mannix, Vic Todd, Homer Elwood, Letty

Branner.

Hold organ under.)

Bob: "Mrs. Mannix? Vic Todd? Homer Elwood? Letty Branner? Who did you

decide was the killer? I don't know how you went about it, but the way I

figured was this: The handkerchief with Mrs. Mannix lipstick on it let Vic

Todd

out. He knew I had spotted the lip smudge. He would hardly have left a clue

that to himself.

Mrs. Mannix? She wanted to get rid of her husband, all right, but she

also

wanted Vic Todd. She would not have put his neck in jeopardy. That left only

Letty and Homer. Letty wanted Mannix alive... not dead! That meant that Homer,

while we were getting into our overcoats, swiped Vic's handkerchief. The gun

had in his pocket already. He waited until we were all out on the terrace

moving

around so that his absence for a second would not be noticed. He wrapped the

gun

in the handkerchief and shot Mr. Mannix. I found out after I had accused him

that he had worked himself up into a deadly rage getting drunk. The lipstick

course, he didn't even know about. He swiped the handkerchief to throw

suspicion

on Todd. He couldn't know that the handkerchief would be the thing to absolve

Todd and Mrs. Mannix.

Anncr: Well, how did you make out, folks? Did you beat Bob Dorry to the

solution? Did you pick Homer as the killer? If you did, tune in next week and

match wits with Dorry. If you didn't, maybe you'll get better as we go along!

This has been a presentation of television station WBRRGX. (Organ sting up and

out.)

Lamont Cranston threw the script down on the table. So that's the way it

was supposed to have gone... instead... Cranston remembered the night, cold,

blustery, when he had walked into a little side street bar.

He had let the drink warm his insides before he looked around; even then

he didn't notice the television screen particularly. The playlet had been half

over when he had looked at the screen. The men in the bar were quiet. They

gave

the screen their undivided attention. There was nothing much else to do. It

was

cold out, warm in, the bar was almost deserted. The bartender had a hangover

and didn't want to talk. That left only the television screen perched up on

top

of a telephone booth.

At first, as the cocktail party proceeded on the screen, the men made

cracks about the female stars. But then, as the actors got going, they wiped

out the illusion of beings on a screen. They became real.

The bar was quiet. It got even quieter as the gloved hand came through

the

slit of the door. There was a circle of flame in mid-air. The bark of the

revolver when it went off made everyone jump.

Cranston blinked unbelievingly as on the black and white of the screen he

saw black blood spurt from the actor's head who played the part of Mannix.

Mannix fell forward into the fireplace. Cranston stared as he saw that

Mannix had fallen face forward into the burning logs. Something was wrong.

That

was no prop fire, it was real.

The door of the set opened and from the side, as though coming from

nowhere, a nervous looking, thin, febrile man with scanty hair and a bristling

moustache, ran onto the scene. He said, "Holy cow! He's dead!"

The actor who stepped through the door was the one who played Bob Dorry.

He said, "Cary... what the hell are you doing on the set? Are we cut off the

air?"

"Oh, my God no... we're not!" Larry, he's dead! He was really shot! His

brains are all over the fireplace!"

At that, but only then, the screen went blank.

The men in the bar looked at each other incredulously. The bartender,

hangover forgotten, said, "Say, do you really think?"

One of the men, cynical, narrow faced, said, "Nah... it's another one of

them Orson Welles, man-from-Mars things!"

Throwing money on the bar, Cranston left hurriedly. That had been no

hoax.

No living man would have thrown his face into a burning fire. No indeed...

besides, they didn't swear over the air... not if they could help it.

CHAPTER II

IT was no cinch, getting a cab in the slushy, ice covered street.

Cranston

looked up and down the deserted street. Two blocks away there was a subway

station. That might be better, after all. Cabs with no chains on had a habit

getting into trouble. Too bad Shrevvie was home.

He plodded doggedly through the two inch deep crust on the sidewalk. No

one was out. The only people who were dressed and out were huddled in bars and

restaurants. Cranston looked at his wrist watch. Ten thirty-two. The

television

show had gone on at 10:15. It had been a fifteen minute show.

No cab passed until he was right at the subway station. He looked at his

watch and then at the slick black tires on the cab. Then he looked at the

street with its ice glare. The street lights hit down like stage spotlights.

Spilled light made arcs in the night.

He shrugged and went into the subway. Probably be faster this way. He

went

down the stairs holding on to the hand railing. Endless snow-covered feet had

stamped snow all over the stairs. The pressure of feet had turned the ice and

snow to water. Then the cold had frozen it.

Step by step, carefully, he made his way down. The subway station proper

was deserted. He dropped his nickel into the slot and waited. Ten minutes went

by. He glanced from his watch to the station clock. His watch was right.

He leaned forward and looked down the tunnel. No train in sight. He

walked

back and forth impatiently. Finally, with a roaring sound, the train drew into

sight. It was almost as empty as the streets. Red-nosed people huddled

together

on the seats. A pretty girl away from the huddle of people was dabbing powder

ineffectually at her nose.

Seating himself, Cranston glanced at his watch again. He had four

stations

to go. Say three minutes a station. He should be at the television studio

inside

of fifteen minutes. His stomach relaxed a bit.

He leaned back in his seat and stared off into space. He was conscious of

eyes upon him. He slitted his eyes and looked out of the corners of them. It

was the girl. She held a book up in front of her, but wasn't reading. She was

looking straight at him.

Puzzled, he returned her gaze. She dropped her eyes. This time, she made

more of a pretense of reading, but when he got up at his station, she hadn't

turned a page.

He rose and left the train. He looked behind him. The girl had tucked her

hook under her arm and was getting out of the train at the back door. He

walked

up the stairs.

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