Crime and Peter Chambers.
Created by Henry King, transcribed and starring Dane Clark.
A private investigator, duly licensed and duly sworn.
Peter Chambers.
You're a private eye.
That's your business.
Anything else?
That's for laughs.
It's one of those dark brown nights, dirty with rain.
You're home and you're doing calisthenics with a scotch bottle.
It isn't so much that you enjoy a drink, but after all, you're a private eye.
You might get waved out of the league if you didn't keep in practice.
You're contemplating a warm shower and an early go to bed when...
Hello?
Mr. Chambers.
Peter Chambers.
It's your service, ma'am.
If it's service you want.
I'm glad.
I'm so glad I was able to reach you.
I'm glad you're glad, lady.
What is it, please?
My name is Doyle.
Mary Doyle.
I own a rooming house at 801 West 53rd.
That's quite near.
Perhaps ten minutes from where you are.
Now look, Mr. Chambers, it's kind of a bodyguard job for tonight.
Tonight?
Oh, lady, it's murder tonight.
It's pouring rain.
I know it, sir, but this is kind of an emergency, sir.
Well, it better be.
A hundred thousand dollars in cash.
She's got a hundred thousand dollars up the...
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
A fine night to be making a house call, but emergency, the lady said, and it certainly
sounded like the emergency had bust wide open.
So you're fighting the rain, making tracks for a rooming house at 801 West 53rd, and then
you're there, and you're shuffling the buzzer, and you get no answer, and you turn the knob,
and you're inside.
Inside is a spacious downstairs room, a flight of steps going up.
There's a phone on a corner table, and its receiver is dangling.
And there's a lady seated in front of it, about 40, red hair, buckson, quite attractive
if you're thinking of large terms.
She's wearing silk lounging pajamas with shoes to match, and she's out like the proverbial
light.
You go to her quickly, and you slap her back to life.
All right there.
Come on, come on.
Stop.
Easy does it, lady.
You coming around now?
All right?
Yeah.
Oh, somebody slugged me, but good.
Miss Doyle?
Or is it Miss Doyle?
Yeah, Miss Doyle.
You, who are you?
What are you doing here?
Peter Chambers, you were talking to me on the phone.
Oh, good.
Look, I'll be with you in a moment.
Please don't go away.
Now here's a new gimmick.
You find an unconscious woman, and when you bring her around, she shoots off like a rocket,
comme à des gras.
Well, you know.
Screams to a private detective are like spurs to a racehorse.
You fly up the stairs, and you find Mary Doyle in a room with an open door.
And there's a lady on the floor, quite rigid, and near her, a small instrument of large
consequence, a nickel-plated revolver.
Dead.
She's dead.
They shot her.
There's the gun.
Don't touch that.
But the gun.
Just leave that lie.
Now what's all this about?
Just a minute.
Well, what are you looking for now?
Little black bag.
What's that got to do with this whole...
There was a hundred thousand dollars in it, cash money.
And it's gone.
Look, one thing at a time, lady.
Who's the corpus delicti?
Algodino.
And who that?
An opera singer.
Middely.
She was here in this country for a year.
Oh, Algodino.
Great soprano.
What was she doing here?
She didn't like hotels.
I run a very correct theatrical boarding house here.
The best.
Algodino.
We were good friends.
Look, you better go downstairs and call the cops, and you and I, we'll pick it up after
that.
All right.
All right, sir.
Whatever you say.
So now you go for the gun.
Only you lift it with a pinky through the trigger guard.
But all your careful care is wasted because there's an interruption, slightly from mayhem,
and the mayhem is directed at you.
Get him.
Off.
All right, people.
You still got the gun.
You got me with my hands up in the air.
So what's our next move?
What are you doing here?
What kind of a boarding house is this anyway?
Let me tell you.
I'm sure I can come up with a good answer if I think about it.
And now you get another interruption.
But this one's of the opposite gender.
She stands in the doorway, blue-eyed, red-lipped, blonde, and statuesque.
And you'd be wildly interested if it weren't for a slight matter of murder.
You with the gun.
What's between you and Mr. Brown?
Who wants to know?
My name is Joan Bradley.
Well, I do a low bow, Miss Bradley, except I've got to keep the gun pointed at our friend
here.
At Mr. Brown?
Well, Mr. Brown, you maybe.
Bill Craig to me, a hood from Louisiana hiding out from a grand jury investigation.
Mr. Brown?
Just a little misunderstanding.
Never mind him.
Now, take a look at this, Miss.
Olga?
Olga Dino.
Very dead and very murdered.
No.
You live here?
Yes, sir.
What do you do?
I'm a lady magician.
Who else lives here?
Mr. Brown, Olga, and Bill.
Mr. Brown, Olga, Ralph Hardwood, me, and Miss Doyle.
That all in the entire house?
It's being renovated.
Well, that's all she could accommodate at this time.
Okay.
Now, my name is Peter Chambers, and right now I'm in charge here.
Yes, Mr. Chambers.
Is Ralph Hardwood at home?
Yes, he is.
All right, then, my dear lady magician, a favor, please.
Yes?
Make yourself disappear and tell Mr. Hardwood to stay in his room, and you, you stay in yours.
We'll come to you in due course.
All right, sir, if you say so.
And now you're alone again with a corpse and Mr. Bill Craig, sporting around under the
name of Brown in a theatrical boarding house in New York.
Bill Craig, tall, rugged, shrewd, and rotten as a wormy apple.
Any questions, paper?
Oh, a lot of them, pal.
Well, as you know, I'm hiding out from a little heat in New Orleans.
So I'm here as Bill Brown, retired actor.
That's a crime.
I don't know, maybe it ain't, but what's with jumping me and tussling for that gun?
Simple, it's my gun.
Hey, that's a pretty frantic admission for a wise guy.
Had to figure it to be the heater that de-heated our lady here.
I got the same figure.
So?
It's my gun, period.
Took a look at my suitcase a couple of minutes ago.
My gun was lifted.
I'm coming down past this open door, see the dead dame, see you with a gun, and it begins
to add.
Maybe I lost my head.
But I can't use trouble, brother.
And how I can't use trouble.
Where were you this evening?
Took in a movie.
Lousy one, cops and robbers.
When'd you get back?
About a half an hour ago.
Ask Miss Doyle.
I called down for coffee maybe five minutes after I got in.
You know anything about a little black bag?
Sure.
Know what was in it?
A hundred thousand cash bucks.
How do you know?
Everybody in this house knows.
Look, Bill, you didn't kill this dame, did you?
No.
But I got a hunch that whoever did used my gun to make it look like I did.
This Joan Bradley, did she know about that little black bag?
I told you everybody knows.
What am I wasting my time with you for?
I can get the same information and she's prettier.
It's your time, people.
You get Bill Craig back to his room, admonish him that a run-out powder would be a clean
admission of guilt, and then you mosey along to Miss Joan Bradley, who keeps growing on
you by leaps and bounds.
Come in, Mr. Chambers.
Make yourself at home.
Hey, you're awfully pretty.
I wish I had the time.
Oh, so do I.
Really?
Well, you're sort of pretty yourself.
Well, let's make a date, then.
For when?
As soon as this thing is over.
You twisted my arm, Mr. Chambers.
I sort of like the way you twist arms.
Okay then, let's get back to cases.
What's with the little black bag?
Oh, well, we were talking about it at dinner today.
All of us.
Where?
Here, downstairs.
Miss Doyle was serving.
All right, all right.
Let's have it, huh?
Well, it begins with Alga Dino.
Fine, sweet woman.
About how old?
Oh, about 45.
She had a hundred thousand dollars in a vault, and tomorrow morning at nine, she was taking
the ship to return to Italy.
They were going to be married on board ship.
They?
Who's the they?
Alga and Ralph Hardwood.
Same guy that lives here?
Yeah, they met here.
Young English actor.
So?
So, she drew the money out of the vault today.
She was taking it with her, and she had it in that little black bag.
Everybody in the house knew about it?
That was Alga, sweet and trusting.
That was the way she was.
Never had a bad word for anybody, never a bad thought.
She felt that the money was just as safe here as in the bank vault, but Mary, Miss Doyle,
kept after her all day.
Kept after her how?
Well, Mary Doyle insisted that Alga hire somebody, sort of a custodian, bodyguard.
Somebody properly trained and equipped to act as custodian until tomorrow morning when
they got to the ship.
She kept after her all day.
And by night time, she probably convinced her.
Meaning what?
Meaning me.
I don't understand.
It'll be explained to you.
There'll be lots of cops here shortly.
Pete.
Pete Chambers, come on down here.
Downstairs the place is crawling with cops.
Detective Lieutenant Louis Parker, friend and gentleman, is in charge.
Louis is involved in the interrogation of Miss Mary Doyle and a fine looking young man
who turns out to be Ralph Harwood.
You turn the gun over to Louis and you bring him up to date on your end of the affair and
then he returns to his questioning.
Well, two things we got established definitely.
The dame is dead and that bag of loot ain't in the house.
That's definite.
Now you, Hardwood.
Yes, Lieutenant.
But our good Dino was 15 years older than you.
Was it love or was it money?
Love, Lieutenant.
With a dame 15 years older than you?
Oh, she was younger than any of us, Lieutenant.
All right, with the left, let's not make with the metaphors, huh?
Were you out of the house tonight?
Yes, Lieutenant.
I was visiting my sister.
Got back about three quarters of an hour ago.
After the rain started?
Yes, sir.
After the rain started.
Miss Doyle?
Yes, Lieutenant.
What about that Joan Bradley?
Was she out too?
She was at a rehearsal.
She returned about 15 minutes before I called Mr. Chambers.
Everybody was out in the rain tonight, huh?
Except me.
You sure there were no strangers around here?
Very sure.
I wasn't out of the house for a minute.
Cassidy, get the rest of them down here.
Soon the whole quorum will be gathered.
Pete, come over here.
You and me alone.
So, what do you make of it?
I don't make a thing yet, Lieutenant.
Crazy artists carrying their loot in a bag, begging to get knocked off.
It figures that Bill Craig's gun was a weapon.
Oh, I'm sure of that.
Three bullets out of the gun, three in the dame, but he's already produced a license
for it, so don't give us no office to hold him.
Yet.
You think he'd kill for 100 Gs?
You know, he's pretty much of a big shot.
Never tell with them, any of them.
Well, how do you make it?
Well, the facts we've got, Mary Doyle is calling you.
But somebody doesn't want a bodyguard around.
So, she gets conked on the cranium, put out of commission, then that alga gets knocked
off and the bag of loot is stolen.
Gets taken out of the house, our murderer returns before Miss Doyle recovers consciousness,
joins the rest of the boys and the girls.
Yep.
Then you show up and the deal busts wide open.
Oh, there's the rest of them.
Let me go and make a speech.
Speech away, Lieutenant.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going downtown to the lab to see what the science
boys may have dug out for me, but my cops stay here.
Is that understood?
Yeah, sure.
Yes, Lieutenant.
All right, nobody leaves.
It's clear?
What about me, Lieutenant?
Sooner you leave, the less trouble we're likely to get into.
No, no, Lieutenant, you're being to sound like a Lieutenant.
No objection to my mosey around a little, is there?
No objection, provided you report your findings to Papa, and I'm Papa.
Yes, sir, Papa.
Well, bye now, everybody.
Try to act like good little murderers.
Well now, first step in the mosing around apartment.
Anybody hear the shot?
Oh, that would have been quite impossible, Mr. Chambers.
How do you know my name?
Miss Doyle told me.
Don't let Miss Doyle tell the rest.
Why would it be impossible to hear a shot, Miss Doyle?
Because I've been soundproofing the house.
It's a theatrical boarding house, you see.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
You, are all of you dressed as you've been dressed, say, for the last couple of hours?
Yes, of course.
Of course we are.
Good.
Now, step number three, get your shoes off.
All of you.
Oh, really?
Oh, now look here, old man.
It's a rather high-handed procedure, don't you see?
Shoes off, all of you, under the supervision of the good officer here, Mr. Cassidy.
Now, come on, come on, off, off, off, off there.
And lay them there on the table.
Good, that's good, very good.
And what now, sir?
Now you all go upstairs, each of you, to your respective room.
Come on, come on, off you go, my barefooted brigade.
Come on, let's go, let's go.
Really a most high-handed procedure.
And so, under the rather astonished eyes of Parkus Policeman, you do the old Sherlock.
You examine the shoes.
You feel them, you touch them, you bend them, and you put them back.
Then you wriggle into your raincoat and you wave goodbye to the test-torn gentleman of
the law.
See you around, fellas.
And remember the lieutenant's orders.
Nobody comes, nobody goes, except me.
And now you're walking in the rain, trying to think.
An idea is beginning to glimmer in your mind, and you're waiting for it to catch fire.
On the block away, you see a subway station, and a fire in your head has started.
You jog down the subway steps, but you're not going anywhere.
You've got no train to catch.
And downstairs, you see an object of interest, a tall section of public lockers.
You go near and insert your dime, but you don't check a thing.
Then you prance up the stairs and you make for the nearest tavern and a couple of drinks,
but this time they have a purpose to ward off pneumonia because you're wet through and
through.
And then you're back in the boarding house and you're greeted.
Well, well, well, the return of Sherlock Holmes.
Parker's got them all downstairs again, but none of them are wearing their shoes yet.
My orders.
Look, my dear friend, I like my murder suspects wearing shoes, if it's all right with you.
It's not all right with me, not yet, Lieutenant.
Boy, when a private eye goes nuts, it's a matter for the paddy wagon.
Look, I'm just trying to put two and two together, Lou.
You certainly got a crazy way of adding, boy.
I'm attempting to produce the murderer of Algodino.
Well, produce away, Detective.
Pray don't let me interrupt.
Well, sir, first off, we've got motive.
One hundred thousand motives, all green and all stuffed into a little black bag.
Right.
Also, we've got a small but select group.
Ranted?
So when do we produce a murder?
Gently, Lieutenant, gently, gently.
Come here.
Dig these shoes.
Okay, I'm a hipster.
I dig these shoes the most.
Notice, they're all damp.
What did you expect them to be?
Dry, it's pouring out, remember?
Contain yourself, Lieutenant.
I am contained.
All right, let's get back to the beginning.
Mary Doyle called me on the phone.
Pre-order, sir.
The killer heard her and had to act fast.
He slugged her, then knocked off the opera singer.
Then clipped the bag all before you got here.
How long did it take?
About ten minutes.
Okay.
So what's with the damp shoes?
Joan Bradley's figured to be damp.
And mine didn't they?
Didn't mine?
Why don't you say?
No, no, no, no, he's right, Lieutenant.
His figured to be damp, too.
And so did Bill Cragg's.
They were all out in the rain.
But not Mary Doyle.
What?
You weren't out of the house, were you, Miss Doyle?
That's what you told the lieutenant, remember?
Not for a minute, not you.
What are you trying to say?
I'm asking you to explain why were your shoes wet?
Now look, you.
You're not gonna push me around with your smart aleck
private cop parlor tricks.
Maybe the shoes are wet.
So what?
I got a leaky pipe in the kitchen.
The floor is damp.
Oh, that's a hot one. Explanations for wet shoes.
Look, your shoes are wet from the rain.
That's a lie.
Were you out in the rain, Miss Doyle?
Absolutely not.
Oh, yes, she was.
Can you prove it, Pete?
Certainly I can prove it.
But she's the one that called you,
the one who was most worried about that opera singer
and her loot.
Strictly a cover-up, lieutenant.
Let me do a right side up for you.
First, she knocked off Al Godino up there
with the door closed in a soundproof room.
And then she called me.
Lie, lie, lie!
Either you be good, lady,
or I'm going to have to put you under restraint.
Let me get you straight, Pete.
According to you, she sort of conked herself on the head.
You found her like that, supposed to be uncut.
And she made sure to leave the outside door unlocked
so I could get in.
And you got here during that 10 minute period
from the time she called?
That's when she got her shoesies all wet.
You're going to have to prove those statements, Mr. Wiseguy,
because I'm going to sue you.
I'm going to drag you into court and teach you a lesson.
It's about time one of you guys got a lesson.
Shut up, lady.
Will you please shut up?
Now, wait a minute, Pete.
About the shoes, she could have changed them, couldn't she?
No, no, she couldn't.
They're lounging shoes that go with her outfit.
If she changed her shoes,
she'd have to change the entire getup.
She simply didn't have the time.
Remember?
10 minutes.
So?
So she wiped the shoes as best she could,
which left them damp.
Yeah.
She had to work fast in those 10 minutes.
While you were down the lab with your bright boys, Lieutenant,
I was out in the rain figuring angles.
What did you come up with?
A subway station.
What?
There's a subway station a block from here.
Downstairs, they've got a flock of those dime parcel check boxes.
Now, that figured to be the closest drop.
Remember, she was in a hurry, so she checked the little black bag.
That's a lie.
Check boxes have little keys.
I got no key.
Search me.
Search the house.
There'd be no key here.
Backing down, huh?
Figured I'd break down under your phony third degree.
You want to know why?
Why what?
Why there's no key here?
Yeah.
Why?
Why?
Tell me why.
Because I've got it.
See?
Right here.
In my hand.
What the heck is all this about?
She used the oldest gag in the world.
Probably thought it was new because she dreamed it up.
They all do.
Who?
All do?
Amateur criminals.
Sure, she didn't keep the check key on a person.
Too risky.
Instead, she put it in an envelope and she mailed it to herself.
The old mailer rule.
It's a lie.
Miss Doyle, you made one mistake.
Under certain circumstances, mail can be intercepted.
And that's exactly what's been done.
See this key?
That's the final bit of evidence that's going to fasten you
to the electric chair for murder.
The rest is easy.
A bit of expert prodding from Parker,
and she breaks down and they cart her away.
The police open that panel of lockers
and find a little black bag.
Downtown, she confesses that she mailed the check key to herself
for care of an aunt in Brooklyn.
And one hour later, you and Miss Joan Bradley
are at your place, munching corned beef sandwiches
and drinking beer.
You've kissed her a couple of times,
but you've gotten very little response.
So you ask why.
Because when my mind is troubled,
I can't concentrate on kissing.
But what's troubling you?
That malarkey about intercepting the United States mail.
Malarkey is precisely correct.
Mary Doyle was a type who would fight back
until you had her convinced.
Even if they found a bag in that locker,
they still have to tie it up with her.
So I had to dream up a ruse to convince her.
But where'd you get the key?
That wasn't the key.
It was a key, but of exactly the same type,
out of exactly the same group of check boxes.
I went there, I paid a dime, I checked nothing,
and came away with a convincing.
Very good.
Very good indeed.
Thank you.
And for all that work, not even a fee.
Well, everything isn't measured in dollars, my sweet.
You've got all the right answers.
Come here.
Your mind still troubled?
No, sir.
Not a trouble in the world.
Can you concentrate now?
Try.
Find out.
Quiet, please.
Man at work.
And there you've had crime and Peter Chambers.
Dane Clark was starred as Peter Chambers.
Crime and Peter Chambers Transcribed
was created and written by Henry Kane.
Bill Zuckert was heard as Lieutenant Parker
with Bryna Rayburn and the
John F. Kennedy School of the Arts.
And the
was directed by Fred Way.
And this is Fred Collins inviting you to tune in next week's
same time, same station for Dane Clark in Crime
and Peter Chambers.
This is the United States Armed Forces Radio
and Television Service.
This is the United States Armed Forces Radio
and Television Service.
This is the United States Armed Forces Radio
and Television Service.
This is the United States Armed Forces Radio
and Television Service.