 The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective. Brought to you by Wildroot Cream Oil Hair Tonic. The non-alcoholic hair tonic that contains lanolin. Wildroot Cream Oil. Again and again. The choice of men and women and children too. They spruce up each day with Wildroot Cream Oil. America's favorite hair to 25 cent bottle. You'll see why Wild... Eyes and nose and mouth. Looks like Lieutenant Dundee of Homicide. Well, I guess everyone knows it's Halloween even if they don't listen to the radio. Shall we? Hallow's Eve, 1948 to Hillary Bright Esquire number 13 Black Place, City. From Samuel Spade, license number 1-27596. Subject, the Fairly Bright Caper. It was a fairly bright afternoon for the Fogbound Bay Area. There was no frost upon the pumpkin. In fact, there's yet no pumpkin. But I did see a black cat and several attractive wolf girls and broomstick skirts doing the bus ride down the peninsula to your client's ancestral estate, Fairly Pines. That flew out of a hollow tree as I mushed up a road through some pine woods to the house. In the gathering dusk, I also observed the toad, a lizard and a hoody owl, which of memory serves as staple ingredients for a witch's broom. Then I observed hobbling out of the forest an authentic hag. She was wearing a dusty black robe, a peaked black hat and her matted gray hair coiled serpent-like around her evil confidence. She leaned on a gnarled staff of hemlock, fixed me with her yellow glittering eyes and said, Hello! Witch house? Fairly bright enough and noob's legs couldn't find no adder. All that stuff? It's what they hired for tonight. Name's got a name anymore since they sold out those. The house is up that way. Mindful Bay and me. They'll be lucky if I give them a whiff of what I did promise one manifestation on the screen. Come along, I'll take you to it. Sorry for that challenge just now. Been hearing strange noises around the grounds. You notice anything peculiar as you came up the road? Well, I was an old lady. I used the term loosely. Looking for Pennell? Yeah. That's the witch. Mr. Bright hired her for the party tonight. Takes her work kind of seriously, doesn't she? Well, you know how it is. Seasonal work. What does she do between Halloweens? Plains she hibernates. Fairly spades she's eccentric. Check. Oh, here I was as you wanted. Oh, it's the man from the caterer. No, failure. This is Mr. Spade, the detective that Mr. Bright employed. Oh, well, about that recipe for the asbestos. Cook says she's never heard of putting Pennell and Lezard's claws in a tomato asbestos. And Mr. Bright says hemlock is poison. You've got it mixed up, Aphelios. That's the recipe for the witch's brood. Well, anyway, the grocer says he doesn't stop them so you'll have to garnish it with parsley. Aphelios, he's not the caterer. He's the detective. Oh, well, keep your eye on those pumpkins. Mice, you know. Mice? You know? Mice. Pumpkins? Where is that witch? I've got to tell her about the parsley. But promise. Hillary. Is that any way to speak about a girl's fifth engagement party? Well, forgive me if I'm guilty of understatement. Oh, fix that wire, Wilma. The top of Frankenstein's head's caving in. And look at that. The bolts are coming out of his neck already. Oh, well, come along, Spade. And I'll tell you how you fit into this mess. See you at the party. I think we're quite alone, aren't we? 99%. This is fairly fiancee number five. Ralph Cram by name. Oh, wake up, Ralph. Oh, uh, don't bother. He, uh, started the party a little early? Mm, before lunch. But can you blame him? If I wanted T-Totor, I'd be out staggering around the woods with that witch. Uh-huh. Now, what exactly is my assignment, Mr. Bright? I want you to be present at this miserable party tonight and pretend to have a good time. Why don't you hire an actor? Uh-huh. This is a new kind of masquerade ball. Even I have a unique problem here. A Halloween party combined with a party announcing the engagement of a socially prominent young woman. Well, naturally, the press will be on hand. They always are at my parties. But I doubt if any of the invited guests will show up. That's where you come in. You are one of the uninvited guests. I don't get it. Well, it's very simply this. I have a reputation to maintain. I'm sure you have better things to do than read the society page, or like I'll explain. I believe some ill-informed columnists have referred to me as the male Elsa Maxwell. That's not true. She is the male Hilary Bright. Uh, female, that is. Uh, anyway, you're a professional party giver, is that it? Uh, exactly. What's the matter with Wilma? Why won't anybody come to her party? Because everyone on the guest list is either a relative or a friend of some poor swan she has jilted on the very steps of the altar. Oh, now I get it. Exactly. Now, as to the party. Masquerade. Nach. What else could you have on Halloween? I guess. Yes. If anyone came, they'd probably be dressed as witches or pumpkins, which is dull enough in itself. Right, sir. But the Fairleys and their immediate circle will undoubtedly trot out their mouth-eaten Beaux-Arts costume. Oh, Langdon is Louie the 14th. Wilma and her mother trying to look like Greek goddesses and some old drape from a fancian Marco idea. What about the boyfriend here? Well, you can see how hideous it's all going to be. And Life Magazine has promised to cover it. Well, I simply had to do something. What about the boyfriend? I think it's the party idea of the year. Twenty uninvited guests who will come as themselves. Who's my date, the witch? Oh, isn't she priceless? You know, I thought of burning her at the stake of the grand climax of the evening. I've got matches. No, I decided against it. It's too messy. Well, it sounds like loads of fun, Mr. Bright, but I'm afraid you call the wrong detective. Now, wait a minute, please. Hear me out. Now, there's method in my madness. I believe I mentioned twenty uninvited guests who were coming as themselves, yes. Exactly. Well, I've gone to a great deal of trouble and expense getting together a really colorful group. All authentic types. A gangster, a shrimp fisherman, a swami, three bubble dancers, a gypsy, a paroled axe murderer, a sand hog, and, oh, that reminds me, I must see whether the blubber arrived for that eskimo they're flying down from Nome. Yeah, well... What I'm getting at Spade is that with a collection of people like that, well, anything might happen. Yeah, well, why don't you invite the local police for it? Oh, they're coming in costume, of course. Good, then you won't need me. Besides, I get eight hundred dollars a day on expense. Mr. Spade, at the last party, our local chief of police attended, the guests were held up and robbed of fifty thousand dollars worth of jewels, including the chief's gold badge. So, you see, we do need you. Leave Ralph, it's only the guests arriving. I get a thousand dollars! In fact, you could have used several others. First, the pickpocket you invited lifted the police chief's wallet, the axe murderer chased the witch up a tree, and the gangster and the cowboy tried to shoot it out over one of the bubble dancers. After I'd foiled a safecracker in the act of blowing the vault in the library, things quieted down and everybody formed a circle around a bonfire. All right, quiet, please. Quiet, please. He has a very important announcement. Yes, a few moments ago. Well, have you seen her around Langdon? Sam, I'm worried about Mother. Would you mind growing upstairs to see what she's up to? She's been behaving so strangely tonight. She's been behaving strangely? Uh, sure. Well, Ma, I'll be right back. Well, come along, let's get on with it. A witch! A witch! You stand over here. No, no, no, bring your groom. I cased the rooms on the second floor. Wilma's fiancee Ralph Cran was in one of them asleep. Ophelia wasn't in any of them. But in one of the bedrooms, I found something that puzzled me. A rope made out of bedsheets dangled out of the window, but the window was closed. I walked over and opened it. The axe was still at it. I couldn't see the merry little group around the bonfire, but where the file I'd glowed against the tree trunks at the edge of the woods, I saw a white-robed figure crouching in the shadow. Then I heard it. A single slug at the end of the body just below her left shoulder blade. If this was part of Mr. Bright's Halloween production, I thought he'd overdone it just a little because she was dead. As nearly as I could reconstruct it, Wilma had been standing outside the circle of people grouped around the fire as if somebody in the woods had called over and she'd left the group to investigate. She'd been facing the fire when she was shot. Then what about the two shots that had missed her? If the killer had been aiming at her and missed, he couldn't have avoided hitting somebody else in the crowd. I went back to the house to check the guests. All there, unwounded and accounted for, except the witch. According to the local chief of police, it was rapidly turning into a toad. She had flown away on a broom. I checked my nose for warts. The Wild Root Cream Oil are presenting the weekly Sunday adventure of Dashel Hammett's famous private detective, Sam Spade. The results were amazing. Better than four said they preferred Wild Root Cream Oil contains lanolin. It grooms the hair naturally, relieves dryness and removes loose, ugly dandruff. So if you want your hair to be more attractive than ever before, get the generous new 25 cent size of Wild Root Cream Oil. America's leading hair tonic, on sale at all drug and toilet goods counters. It's also available in larger economy bottles and the handy new tube. Get Wild Root Cream Oil. Boy, police chief still hadn't sweated anything out of his 20-odd suspects but yawned. The family lawyer, Langdon, had an old gun permit. No gun. Then he canvassed the town for Wilma's 18-chilted suitors. They were all alibied by their wives and children, which knocked that angle out. She carried no insurance. Nobody stood to gain anything financially by her death. And nobody but you, Mr. Bright, actively disliked it. About then, Chief Becker put Ophelia back on the griddle. Now look here, Mrs. Fairley. You still aren't coming clean with us. You're straight. I'll call them me. Come back here. Now, Mrs. Fairley, now let's go over the part of your story where we found the bedsheets hanging out your window. Yes. Why did you tie the bedsheets together and hang them out the window? For a rope. So, you admit that you used that rope to snake out? I did no such thing. I always go out that way at night. And you admit that, Tiff? Uh, Mrs. Fairley. Oh, it's you, Mr. Sting. I want to thank you for guarding the pumpkin so well. I didn't see a mouse all evening. Thank you, Mrs. Fairley. I only did what... Oh, why is Chief Becker so angry? I think what's worrying him, Mrs. Fairley, is why you closed the window behind you when you went out on your rope. So no one would know. Will, my worry's about me. You won't tell her. Ah, it's as plain as a nose on your face what she's doing. Working up to an insanity plea. Ingenious theory, Chief. But look, can I talk to you a minute outside? Yeah. Could use a little air. Keep them all here, Monaghan. Chief, why don't you lay off that poor old dame? She's too vague, disorganized. It took a marksman. The way the wound was, no point of exit. Just punched her the wall of the heart and stopped to low velocity impact. Sure. Oh, what? It had been fired from about the maximum range of a 38 pistol. You'd have to figure on the drop in trajectory as the bullet slowed down. It was either a trick shot or one that just connected accidentally. By the way, we only have your word for it that you were upstairs in the house when those shots were fired. 38, don't you spade? What kind of gun do you carry, Chief? Uh, yes. Well, we'd better wait till ballistic sends back the report on the slug. Gosh, if we could only figure out where she hit the gun. Uh, don't look now, Chief, but that witch is back again. What? Pretty boy. Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you, mortal. You're going to have a good deal of explaining to do, lady. Why did you fly away like that last night? I had to see to my cold run. That's a good thing I did, too. Look what I found in it. No wonder my manifestation didn't work. Based metal in my brew. Hmm. 38 caliber, too. Three bullets fired. Gee, that settles it. You're under arrest. Who, me? Yes. No, her. I'll turn you into a toad. Look, Chief, where's that gun permit? You took out a Langdon's room. Oh, I forgot. I forgot about that here. It's in my pocket. Let's see that serial number. Well? They match. It's Langdon's gun. Boy, oh boy, then it settles. That's what you think, boy, oh boy. Don't forget. He's a lawyer. I found the spot where I'd seen the figure in white crouching just before the shots were fired. A little way back in the woods, I found footprints. French heels, short, mincing stride. Falling along behind them was another set. Flat soles, long manly stride. The mannish footprints followed the feminine footprints almost to the clearing and then stopped. The feminine footprints went on straight to the spot where Wilma had fallen. I knew that no woman had been over this trail since the murder except the witch, who probably had cloven hoofs. Her coven had vanished, but the fire was still smoldering. I kicked through the ashes. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I found it. I raked it out with a stick and prodded it. The blackened outer layers crumbled away. It had been a raging bonfire, but there were few things hotter to burn than a telephone book. The middle pages were yellowed from the heat and seared around the edges, but they were still intact. The hole punched in the middle of each page. Feminine footprints right up to the X that marked the spot in the phone book through which a bullet had been fired. I had enhanced the ballistics report but proved that Langdon's gun did not fire the fatal bullet. I was right, but for the wrong reason. I found it, Chief. Ballistics don't lie. You can see here. You don't even need a magnifying glass. Take a look there. Don't have my glasses. Well, you ought to be able to fail at two big ridges on the test slug. The other one's almost smooth. The rust bits wouldn't make a ridge like that, would they? No, we figure they must have used a faulty cutter at the factory when they raffled the barrel. Well, that settles it. That and those woman's footprints and that phone book all point to Mrs. Fairley. What's about a phone book? Whoever shot her fired the slug through a phone book to make it look like a long-range job. It was a low-velocity hit all right, but it was tearing through that phone book that slowed it down. That proves the killer didn't have to be a marksman. Stood right next to her. What's so funny? This picture in the morning paper. You and those bubble dances. Let me see that. Why, that's libelous. It's more than that. They're in the background, Langdon and Mrs. Fairley. What about them? They're shoes. Langdon's dress is Louis XIV. French heels. Mrs. Fairley and that Greek goddess get up. Sandals, flat heels. It's Langdon's gun, then it's not Langdon's gun. It's a long-range shot, then it's through a seed catalog. Phone book. Now it's a man in woman's shoes. There's no irony at that. Come on in. Give me some fingerprints. Something I can work with. Playing the chief, my somersaulting clues were getting me dizzy, too. So far, Langdon, like the good lawyer he was, had kept his mouth shut, which meant nothing one way or the other. That was smart. But he disposed of his gun by throwing it in the witch's coffin, which was stupid. A, because it was sure to be found, and B, because there was no reason for hiding it anyway. But two stupid sometimes make us smart. If he wanted it to be found, he must have had a story ready in case he had to talk. If I were in that spot, my story would have been that I fired those shots into the woods after the fleeing killer. But I didn't know how I would explain the fact that only three shots were hurt, one of which killed Wilma. Then I thought of those two ridges on that Tesla, two ridges, two shots into the woods. This time, I did know what I was looking for. They were buried deep in the soft trunk of a pine tree near the ground. I dropped to my knees and dug. I got the first one out and was looking at it. It was in the shape and hunk of worthless lead. Something embedded in the side of it glided in the sun like a diamond. In fact, it was a diamond. Then it stopped glittering. Something behind me had come between it and the sun. I flopped on my side and rolled over. I grabbed his legs and tripped him. Then I saw his face. It was languid. I was halfway to my feet when his foot caught me where it hurt and my legs doubled up. I tried to keep moving and get my gun out at the same time. He was on his feet again before I was. So I fired without aiming from flat on my back. He only scorched his coat, but it stopped in a second. He swung his gun up and I got ready to jump him. But I didn't have to. A pointed black hat rose up out of the brush behind him. Something flashed in the sun. And he collapsed. We're this here, magic wand. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mrs. Witch. God does the handle, son. Witch is my profession. Boy, that was a close call. Put the cuffs on him on the hand. Oh, no, monahan, that's Bade Langdon there. Been following him since I found out he was wearing women's shoes. Well, that settled it, eh, Spade? Yeah, but you'll need this. What is it? A jewel bullet. A slug with a diamond set in it. Come on, girl. It's the master clue of this caper. Oh, yeah, the master clue. You better come along, too, lady, for questioning. We'll book her for a vagrancy if we need it. Oh, no, you don't. I'll turn you into a toad. You don't believe me, do you? Can she's harmless, poor old soul? Two shots into the woods, remember? Yes. Those two bullets had diamond insets so placed that they would gouge the inside of a gun barrel. All bullets fired from the gun thereafter would have markings different from the one fired in the Wilma's body. Oh, he was wrong, of course, but it was noble of him to want to cover up for poor Mrs. Fairley. What for, Abby? Well, she killed her daughter, of course, because she was just out of patience with her. Getting engaged, none engaged all the time, but they had an affair in the world. That was a motive, wasn't it, Sam? Well, that's fairly bright, sweetheart, except that Mrs. Fairley did not kill her daughter. Oh! Langdon did. She mean, she was his daughter, too, by a previous marriage? Go tight that up, sweetheart, before I turn you into a toad. Listen to this. For here's a good tip. Spruce up right, spruce up now with Wild Root Cream Oil Hair Tonic. Wild Root Cream Oil grooms your hair neatly and naturally. Relieves dryness, removes loose dandruff. Get the 25 cent get-acquainted bottle or the large economy size and ask your barber for a professional application of Wild Root Cream Oil Hair Tonic. Again and again, the choice of men and women and children, too. Of course you know best, but Mrs. Fairley was the only one with a motive. And that Mr. Bright was secretly in love with her and wanted to marry her himself. So he killed her. That was fairly bright. Oh, her fiancé. He woke up and went home. Oh, well, I guess he didn't have a motive. Pay attention, sweetheart. Langdon, as trustee of the Fairley estate, had embezzled large sums of money which he would have to account for on the community property law if she got married. She got married. He had already broken up many of her romances, but when the old lady went soft in the head he decided to end the danger once and for all. He could explain matters any way he wanted to and there'd be nobody to contradict him. Are you listening, Ed? Does she do between Halloween? The witch? Oh, she's the squeak in the door. I'm in a sanctum. Oh, I see. You made the joke too small. Yeah, nice. The choice of men? This is Dick Joy reminding you too.