 The FBI in peace and war, ordinarily heard at this time throughout the year, is taking its usual summer vacation and will return to CDS four weeks from tonight on September 1st. Broadway's My Beat, from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. My Beat with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. Broadway, it's a promise you make to yourself in some dismal part of your life, or it's a name you say like a curse. It's a place of golden women in mirrors of chrome, or it's a beggar who will tear off a piece of his soul for a cup of coffee. It's anything you want, any time you want it. And it's my beat. By nine o'clock, police headquarters had settled down to its nighttime routine. So far, business was slow. I was sitting in my office straightening out the detail sheets that all was accumulated on my desk. Lieutenant Clover, good evening, sir. Well, Dr. McClure, Dr. Robbie McClure, it's a pleasure to see you. Sit down, sit down. Thank you. Thank you, Lieutenant. Hey, what's the matter? What's the matter, Doctor? You look pale. Well, I could give you all the clinical reasons for the way I look. Now, now, Lieutenant. Let me get you something, Doctor. I'll be right... No, no, wait, Lieutenant. Last month, there was a shooting. It's not that I want to confess to. It's the thing about... You should know about last month, the murder that the police never solved. Daddy, I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want... Dr. McClure. Dr. McClure. Sergeant Tataglia. Yeah, Danny. Come here. Yeah. Now, what's your trouble, Danny? Close the door. Well, that's all... Danny, what's the matter with Dr. McClure? He's dead. What? Flip his coat aside. You'll see why. Oh, Danny. The size of the wound, I'd say it was from a .22 fired from up close. Dr. Tataglia, call downstairs and tell him about Dr. McClure. Then get a detail to find out everything you can about the doctor. Friends, relatives, bank account, everything. Right. And in the morning, I want the files on every murder that happened about 30 days ago. Unsolved murders on my desk in the morning. Right. Good. I'll see you. Where are you going, Danny? I'm going to wind back McClure's life. I'm going to find out why he had to die. The great buildings of a city lean against the night in crazy, tilted angles, like lighted toys deserted by a sleepy giant. And there's a feeling that unless you walk carefully, you'll upset their insane balance. But Dr. Robbie McClure's office building was different. It sat square and solid on its haunches. And when you pressed the night buzzer, it growled at you. Well, sure, my dear, but it ain't any clover at the torporate. Can't her in me, boy. Can't her in. Oh, same old Pippet. No, not the same, Danny. There are both spots in me fedlock that I ain't so quick to break from the starting gate like I used to. From a dashing, molded policeman to a flabby night watchman. Ah, that's a bitter pasture, Danny. Me, boy, a bitter pasture. Well, maybe you're wrong, Pippet. Maybe it's sweet pasture and you don't know it. Pippet, you know Dr. Robbie McClure, don't you? Sure, sure, I do. A great surgeon. But, ah, what a waste, what a waste. How do you mean? Sure, he was a genus. Should have been a veterinarian. What else could I mean, Danny? What the hell, of course. You know what time he left his office tonight? I have. I do. I have it right here in my book. Now, let me take a look. Here it is. It, party in the pier. Wait, was he alone? No, no. He was in the company of the sleekest, prettiest, richest, looking filly. It's been my pleasure since I covorted and devoted police. Did you have her signature? Oh, no. She was a doctor's patient. Or guest, or best bet for Tamara. Night watchmen are discreet, Danny. Some ladies, they don't ask to sign out. Well, ask them from now on, Pippet. Huh? I mean it. Have you got any idea where they went? No, Danny, but they took a cab in that hack stand out there in front. Did you see whose cab they took? Yes, I did. I did. I opened the door for them. They took Irv Newman's cab. You'll probably find him at his home. I know those hackish gooders, you know. Well, thanks, Pippet. If you got a lump of sugar in the mail, it's from me. What do you want? Hey, it's Danny. Hi, Irv. Hey, Rose, it's Danny. Oh? Danny, Danny Clover of New York's finest. That's going to help me watch the dishes already? They know attention to Rose. Danny, she's moody tonight. Come on in. Come on in. Thanks, Irv. I offer you something, a glass of tea, a cold beer. I got it. How about one of Rose's blinxes, huh? Hey, Rose! Never mind, Irv. Don't bother, Rose. What's to bother? Even if she's moody, she can't rattle you up a blink. I'm here on business, Irv. Some of the time. Oh, business? Hey, Rose, come here. Huh? Shut off Caruso. Make quiet Caruso. Like you, Caruso. Caruso. I'll talk, Danny. What kind of business brings you down here to Orchard Street, the land of the condition of the bagel? Pippet told me you drove Dr. McClure somewhere tonight, Irv. Where'd you drive him? Park Avenue. Here's the address, Danny. I was just making out my records. Thanks. Was he alone? At Foist, no. Later, yes. Translation? Foist, he is wooded dow. Lean over, Danny. Rose shouldn't hear. It's an exotic type dow. You know what I mean? Then he is without the doll. Around 50, she opens the door. The hacken slips out into the traffic. McClure tells me to keep going. I think they had an argument. What about it? Danny. I'm the type to eavesdrop. Especially when they shut that glass panel. The address Irv Newman gave me was a study in millionaire respectability. Scrubbed Park Avenue brownstone. The butler took my hat and sighed and told me it was all right to go down the corridor into the living room if I tiptoed. I did. Then all of a sudden it hit me. The light from a couple hundred bulbs set in a crystal chandelier. When I finally squinted through it, I couldn't quite believe it. It wasn't the size of the room. That was only about 100 yards long. It was the walls from ceiling to floor. And all the way, the walls were decked with murals. Mother goose murals. Paintings of every fairy tale with a picture in the book. And on the floor, smack dab between Marjorie Donner's seesaw and Jack and his beanstalk sat a man. He was wearing three things. A goatee, a fold dress and a beanie, three propeller type. Well, hello there. And hello to you. My butler said your name was Danny Clover. But my butler lies. What is your name, sir? Danny Clover. You see what I mean? Grab a toy out of the toy box, sir. Mr. Fletcher. Here, take my latest product. Child's High Colleges claim it's remarkable for improving the coordination and tactile responses of a four-year-old. Really? Has it helped you? Immeasurably. We place the ball in the cup, so... Then we squeeze this lever, so... Then we catch the ball. Oops, we missed. Ah, yes, we overestimated ourselves. Now, Mr. Fletcher. Call me Fletcher. Margaret, no. Huh? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm the president of the Fletcher Toy Company. I make toys for children, sir. I bring gay bits of sunshine into their otherwise drab little lives. And, as you see, I test my products before I market them. Incidentally, sir, what is your business? Police. Police! Police! Stop your screaming or wake up snow white over there. Sir, what right have you to be in my house? Technically, none, Mr. Fletcher, but there's a little matter of... a matter of invasion of privacy. What do you want? Was Dr. McClure here this evening? Dr. Robin McClure? In a word, yes. Why was he here? I'm his patient. Is that a good medicinal reason? Simply sterile. Are you a sick man, Mr. Fletcher? You don't look sick? Dr. McClure says I'm a hypochondriac. But he gives me pills. I take them. They make me feel better. Ergo, I must have been sick before I took the pills. One more thing, Mr. Fletcher. Who was with Dr. McClure? I beg your pardon? Only she stayed in the cab that brought him here. Who was she, Mr. Fletcher? Oh, that one. Yes. I peaked out the window and saw her waiting in the cab. Beautiful, isn't she? Striking. One of the most striking women I ever saw. I blew at the top propeller in Fletcher's beanie, and then the butler came in and ushered me out in the downdraft. Lying must have been one of the little games they played in that million-dollar house. Fletcher said the butler lied. Then Fletcher lied about a girl he hadn't seen, a girl who was a question mark or an answer in the murder of Dr. Robbie McClure. If I was going to wind back McClure's life, I needed some sleep. All that got wound up were the sheets in my bed. And in the morning, I started it all over again in the good doctor's office. You're early. The doctor hasn't come in yet. You'll have to wait. Everything about her was anonymous. The white shoes, the white stockings, the starched white uniform, the starched white face. The mouth, scarlet and thin that she wore like a ribbon of merit. You're a new patient? Tell us this card, please. Not a patient. The police. Lieutenant Danny Clover brought away special detail. Oh. Dr. McClure asked you to come here? You could say it that way. I'm here to investigate his death. You mean something happened to him? He died in my office. He was murdered. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I've never been told like that, but we don't almost have time to be gentle. You were his nurse, Miss... Hell yes. I have an agglutination test to make on some RH-negative blood, Lieutenant. May I do that? I'll investigate. Go right ahead. Where do I find the doctor's patient records? In that metal file, Bob. You've been with the doctor long, Miss Elliott? For years. Pardon me, Lieutenant. I need that slide. It's the usual question. Did he have any enemies? You knew him? What do you think, Lieutenant? It doesn't matter what I think. He was a fine man. Generous and kind. I need that microphone. Oh, sorry. Hmm. This is strange. In the patient's file? What strange, Lieutenant? This card has a name and a date. All the other cards are filled with case histories. All this has is a name and a date. Dorothy Rivers, June 29th. Isn't that strange, Miss Elliott? The files with the doctor's responsibility. He had his own way of keeping. But you don't know anything about a patient named Dorothy Rivers or this date. Nothing, Lieutenant. Now take this with me. You're the police. You do anything you like. I'll have to turn the lights out now, Lieutenant, for the test. Go ahead, Miss Elliott. Go ahead. This will do for now. Thank you, Miss Elliott. Goodbye, Lieutenant. Miss Rivers. Miss Dorothy Rivers. Dr. McClure's office. We advise a rest. A long rest in a quiet place. You are listening to Broadway's My Beat with Larry Thorpe as Detective Danny Clover. If murder should suddenly explode in your face, you'd know how Casey, crime photographer, feels tonight in the drama titled Sell Out. That's exactly what happens to Casey. A routine newspaper case suddenly erupts into a savage murder mystery, which requires the sharpest thinking and fastest action of the crime photographer to solve. Crime photographer is yours for the listening every Thursday evening, as is the other thriller Escape. Tonight, Escape brings you Line Engine vs. the Ant, a top story of howling adventure on a top program. Remember Escape and crime photographer tonight over most of the same CDS stations. Now back to Broadway's My Beat. There's this thing about Broadway. It can tickle you under the chin and make clucking noises, or it can slap your heart across the mouth and laugh. Either way, you get hurt. Right now, the receiving end of the slap was the police department for various and sundry, unsolved murders. And the laugh, the big laugh, the cold laugh was what a man named Dr. Robbie McClure had come to my office to die, and I didn't know who'd come. I sat at my desk at headquarters tearing the tabloids into a noose of paper dolls when Sergeant Tartagli opened the door and with a fine Italian flourish lay a thick paper-bound file in front of me. Oh, you, my lieutenant. Your memoir, Sergeant. What is it? Not only what you ask for, a file on one of our more recent unsolved murders. Get it out of here. Get it out of my sight. Is any of you sick or something? Oh, all right. I'd leave it. I also have here in my pocket the dope you wanted on Dr. Robbie McClure. Yeah, read it. Uh, pocket to me, sir. I'm sick of reading. There were some interesting items, Danny, about the good doctor. Item. Friends, numerous and friendly. All with alibis. Item. Relatives, none. Uh, the doctor was a lonesome man. Oh, your wife and kids, Tartagli. Oh, great, Danny, just great. Hey, you should see the latest. Little Christina. Oh, but she's a doll. Go on with the item. Huh? Oh, yeah. Item. And this is the one I think will interest you, Danny. On June 30th, Dr. Robbie McClure made a deposit in the Corn Exchange Bank in Bronxville. Ten thousand crisp, cool, clean dollars. June 30th, huh? Now you can talk to me about the recent unsolved murder. As follows. A man named Martin James was murdered in a certain place penthouse apartment at a party night at June 29th. Yeah. He was asked to step outside and he was murdered. Martin had a gun. He fired one shot. The bullet from Martin James' gun was never found. We figured it took off across First Avenue. Tartagli, there's a doctor's patient card over on the table over there. Tell me what it says on it. Sure, Danny, sure. Says Dorothy Rivers, June 29th. See a name like that on the James guest list? Oh, wait a minute, Danny. Yeah. Dorothy Rivers. In an alphabetical list with a lot of other girls. Is your address there? All the girls have the same address. What? Say that again. They all have the same address. The Tony Seville Model Agency. Tartagli, here's a fin. Buy your doll, Christina, a doll or something. Oh, thanks, Danny. Thanks. But there's something I think you should know. About Christina? About Dorothy Rivers. Tony Seville paid rent for his model agency in the Empire State Building. For this, he received the privilege of maintaining a ten-room suite on the 40th floor and decorating it with orchids and genuine new trills. The other decorations were too numerous to mention. Delicate shadings of blonde and brunette. When they crossed their legs, the silk whispered. I started to whisper back, but a scented haze with magenta fingertips beckoned me into an inner office. She closed the door behind her, and all I was left with was a pork barrel in a double-breasted pinstripe named Tony Seville. My secretary whispered you are a policeman. How have I trespassed? I parked my car incorrectly, perhaps. I forgot to curb my dog. Let's stop rubbing noses, huh? I beg your pardon. Let's put it this way. Simple and blunt. There's some questions I want you to answer for me. You must have a doll profession asking questions. Very well. Ask a question. As to Seville, your agency supplied a half dozen models to a party at the home of Martin James. Said party a little over a month ago, June 29th. Said home a penthouse on Sutton Place. Right? Possibly right. However, don't underline your details with a sneer. My agency furnishes models as decorative baubles to any social function. One of your decorations on the evening I'm interested in was named Dorothy Rivers. How do I get in touch with her? You're a detective? Detect. What's her address, Seville? May I suggest a dragnet, detective? Are any of the numerous machinations you police are so adept at? Her address, Seville. Where do I find her? You should be told we only give the models the best to an approved client. I don't approve of you. Look, kid, sometimes I can forget I'm a cop. I can forget right now. I think you mean it. Yeah, try being cozy for one more second. I don't know where Dorothy Rivers is. I haven't seen her in a month. You can do better than that. The day after the party, she phoned. She said she was going on a vacation. She... You do and find Seville. Keep it up. There's nothing more. I tried to get in touch with her several times since she checked out of the hotel. She left no forward in the dress. You're telling the truth, aren't you, Seville? The truth is this. As far as I know and care, they did. Beginning at the 40th floor, I picked petals off a tired daisy. At the 38th, Dorothy Rivers was dead. 37th, she wasn't dead. 36th, dead. 35, not dead. I don't remember how it came out because when I got off at the ground floor and walked into the yellow heat of 34th Street, a character stopped me by tapping me likely on the leg with the front bumper of his calf. The character was the character named Irv Newman. Don't look so scared, Danny. I could stop this calf on a thin latke. Latke Schmatke? So long as I got my health. Ha-ha! You're charming, Danny. Absolutely charming. Hey, tell me your headquarters. I'd find you around here. I got something for you. Maybe better than that yet. You know that girl you were asking me about, the one I picked up with Dr. McClure, the professional man? What a bother. I spotted her for you, Danny. Tell me where. Happens I got a friend, Danny, a truck driver. He's a teacher of fellows. His name is Clem. He gave me a push with the truck so I could start this lousy hack. Why did you spot the girl there? So I'm telling you. While Clem is pushing me with his truck and I'm gliding along in my hack like in a gondola, I see this girl coming out of building. What building? 6 West 23rd Street. So I turn around, I wave to Clem. He should stop already. Danny! Danny, didn't let me finish! Miss Rivers? Who are you? I want to talk to you, Miss Rivers. Get away from here! Get away! Let's go inside, Miss Rivers. Who are you? What do you want? I'm Danny Clover. I'm a police detective, Miss Rivers. Been through a lot to get to you. We get along a lot better if you just settle down. Why do you want to see me? I've read somewhere the grief can make a woman even more lovely. You look like you've been grieving. Don't be clever with me. I'm sick of clever men. Maybe I can help you. You? A policeman? Me. A policeman. But it's all over now, isn't it, Mr. Clover? What's the matter? You want to know what happened at Martin James' party, isn't that it? The guest list said you were invited, but you weren't checked off. That mean you weren't there? I was there. Through the back entrance, Mr. Clover, because he said that was the way it should be done. Who? What should have been done that way? Look, look, Mr. Clover, I'll tell you what happened. I owe it to myself to tell you what happened. I'm tired of paying, paying, paying. That's it, huh? Let me tell you from the beginning what happened. Perhaps you'll even believe me. You'll be surprised, Mr. Ivers. Policemen can't believe the truth. Martin James is a man who made investments in all sorts of deals. A kind of silent partner. One of the partners was a man named Fletcher. A man with a goatee? He manufactured toys, Mr. Clover. I went to the party with him. Mr. Clover. What's the matter? Mr. Clover! He's gone. Who was it? Who dared to see? Maybe you should have told me his name, Mr. Ivers. How you don't owe anybody anything. Even as a coroner, I say it's a shame, Denny. Such a beautiful girl. Shame. Yeah, yeah, it's a shame. What I've been waiting for is your report. Yeah, Dorothy Rivers. Age about 24. Bullet ended left sternum, pierced pericardium. That's the heart, Denny. Dead on arrival. She was shot once before him. She's got a healing wound that looks mighty like a bullet wound. It's right here, Denny. Yeah. That makes it all add up. That makes it add up just fine corner. Neat. Real, real neat. Oh, Fletcher. There's a friend, Fletcher. The payoff goes on just the same. Tonight, kid. Nine o'clock. So long, Fletcher. It took me 10 minutes to get to the Park Avenue palace that Fletcher had built out a psychological toys for kids. Across the street, I took a plant behind a fat uniformed doorman who kept looking at me out of the corner of his fat eyes as if he were terribly sorry a thing like me had ever happened under his guilt-gringed canopy. At 8.30, the lights in Fletcher's crystal chandelier began to go out in sections. In five minutes, he was on the street, hailing a cab. I tossed a nickel to my fat doorman, hailed a cab of my own and sent you to an office building I'd been in once before. I watched him slip tip with a bill and then walked down the corridor to a self-service elevator. I thought it would be nice if he had company on his lonesome ride. He didn't. Police? Why am I constantly surrounded by police? Maybe because you bring sunshine into my drab life, Fletcher. You know how to work this thing? Of course. It's nothing but a toy. Allow me anyway. It's the fourth floor you want, isn't it? No, no, no, not at all. Humor me, Fletcher. Let's make it four. All right, down this hall. 438, Dr. McClure's office. That's where you want to go, isn't it, Mr. Fletcher? There are obviously some titillating gyrations going on in that mechanical policeman's brain of yours. You will reveal them to me, please. I was waiting for you to ask me that in just that way. Here we are. After you, Mr. Fletcher. Thank you. Now I reveal the payoff, money, Fletcher. Give it to me. Of course. I see. I thought it was curious that I should have to keep paying blackmail to a dead man. Dr. McClure is dead, isn't he? The money, Mr. Fletcher. It's hard for me to say please. Well, here you are. $1,000. You want it weekly, I presume, just as I paid it before? That's cheap, isn't it, Fletcher? To buy off the electric chair? That's quite a toy too, I hear. Yes, yes, quite quite. Then you know, of course, that Dorothy Rivers and I murdered Martin James. Oh, he deserved it, you know. Dorothy Rivers to you. No, no, you're talking like a policeman again. Dorothy Rivers was a toy. Expensive and fragile. It made her all the more desirable. That and the fact that I could make her do anything I liked. Could you bring her back to life? What? No, don't get upset about it. As long as I was eavesdropping, it makes me less of a lady. Well, that gun's not becoming either, nurse Elliott. Put it away, my dear. Toys like that make me nervous. I prefer this pose. Now, what were you saying, Lieutenant? Now that you're here, I've got even more to say. As a nurse, I'm a humanitarian, Lieutenant. You've got a minute more saying time. A man should never lie under the circumstances, huh? And if I'd told you this, if I'd told you that you were the blackmailer instead of Dr. McClure, what would you say? I'd say you were telling the truth. What? Then I'd been paying all that money to this. Oh, Dr. McClure took the initial 10,000, all right. But the nurse here kept right on blackmailing you and Miss Rivers and the doctor's name. The poor flound out, so he had to die. All through, Lieutenant. Not quite, nurse. After the blackmail, you had to kill Miss Rivers because she was about to talk to me. Now, Lieutenant. One more thing. If you kill me, the payoff stops. Consider it, Miss Elliott. I got a thousand dollars in my pocket. Half yours, half mine. It could go on and on. We could still make Fletcher pay. Think about it, Miss Elliott. Put the money on the table, Lieutenant. Half yours, half mine. All right. On the table. Thanks. I'll take mine. Now. I'll kill you! I'll kill you! Thanks. I'll lift it up for you, Lieutenant. I'll get the guy. Got any smelling salts for Fletcher, nurse? It took three police officers to carry nurse Elliott away. She tore up their faces and screamed in a language she hadn't picked up in medical books. Fletcher? He was different. He settled himself in the Black Mariah, pulled out a solid, gold yo-yo and played with it all the way down to headquarters. Broadway's happy now. It's got on the carnival clothes it wears every night and the midway boils with rust about some yokels and hurdy-gurdy sounds. It's a jack in the box and it's a clown. It's a shining girl on horseback or it's a geek with no arms, no legs and no heart. Broadway. The gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway. My Beat. Broadway's My Beat with Larry Thor as detective Danny Clover is produced and directed by Gordon T. Hughes with script by Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Musical direction is by Lud Bluskin. Be sure to join us next week. Same time, same station for Broadway's My Beat. 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