 Broadway is my beat from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesome-est mile in the world. Broadway is my beat with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. When it's September and the summer sighs away, Broadway is festooned with the colors of fall. The pastels of the cotton dresses mix sadly with the brown and gray of the flannel. And here and there, Broadway's shapely foliage turns to plaid. It's the time of the quick and step in the crumpled travel folder, and Coney died beaver. And the September song is a deep-throated sound, the mob voice, the hay fever, and the oysters being torn from the half-shell. Another season kid, one more three-months band to get where you're going. And the autumn days have their six o'clock in the morning time, the just beginning another daytime. It was a street where Broadway turns a corner into the forties, where I was, and Detective Muggevin and a woman. She's in here, Danny. There's a car. Who is she? I don't know. No identification. No handbag. Just this. Car registered to Edward Bishop, 1110, 160th. Uh-huh. Slippers in the glove compartment. Who found her? Officer Kaplan. Tagged at late last night for traffic violation parking. Five o'clock when he was going off duty, he noticed the car still wasn't moved. Opened it. Looked. Found her under that blanket. I'd say she was about 27, huh? Shot once in the back. From up close. Yeah. Death probably instantaneous. Um, here they are, Danny. In the front of the car, Doc. Hey, you're a new doc, aren't you? Don't move her, Doctor. Wait for the photographers. But don't just stand there, Doc. You gotta, you'll get used to it, kid. This kind of thing happens a lot. The cluster of the walkers to work, the people of the subway, glad for the delay of the dead woman, the dead woman who lies at the beginning of another day, stops it for a time, holds it, the desolate pause, the time for turning back, but the hungry day will not wait. Subways are empty and must be filled. The clever machines in the offices long for the fluttering caress of quick fingers can't stop for the dead kid a buck has to be made. Give someone else your place in line. In the corridor of the address on the registration slip, a woman in a raveled coat sweater sweeps away the night litter and autumn mists, gathers them on a dustpan, throws them into the street. You ask for Edward Bishop, and she shrugs you to a scarred door at the end of the hall, watches you as you knock, waits with you for the door to open. You're an early bird, Mr. Police. Huh? A woman drops her broom, scurries away to tell her friends and neighbors. Early bird out to catch a worm, huh, Mr? Not me, not for something I've done. I never do anything bad. You, Edward Bishop? Oh, not me. Mr. Bishop's my roomie. He gone and done something naughty? Come in, Mr. And tell me all about it. Where is he? Oh, out frying his nightly kettle of fish, I presume. His bed ain't been slept in. No? Huh? Oh, my. That hollow you see in the bedclothes is where I tried it. I'm an experimenter. As long as he wasn't in it, I thought my roomie's bed might be better than my own. It wasn't. Mr. Bishop's gone and done something naughty, huh? Do you know where he is? I want to tell you something about Mr. Bishop, my roomie. He's a tight-lipped man. Rock face, I call him, when he ain't looking. That's because he never whispers a secret to me or shares a cope when I offer him part of mine. He just lets me dab his hanky with cologne sometimes when he's going out for a heavy evening. He had a lot of them? Evenings like that? Well, for a man who has to shave twice a day, he has more than his share. You wouldn't know with whom. Well, I might. But first you tell me what my roomie did to you. Maybe you'd find it cosier down at headquarters. Maybe that Japanese kimono you're wearing makes him... You're getting rough. Hello there, mister. I'll tell you what I know, then you tell me what you know, huh? My roomie's been squiring a lady by the name of Anna Compton. You know her? Oh, just to talk to on the phone. The lovely voice. Haunt you? Why don't you talk to her last? Oh, two or three days ago. I'll tell you just how it was. She kept calling here evenings, asking my roomie to call her back. Just leave her name, Anna Compton, my roomie squiring a married lady. Bishop never shared anything with you and still you... I'll tell you about that, too. Her haunting voice made me nervous. I told you I'm an experimenter. So one day I sat down with a phone book and called every Compton there is. Then a man answered and said his wife Anna wasn't home. Who was calling? Of course I hung up. Then you know her address. In the New Rochelle phone book for everyone's eyes to see. Now it's your turn. What did Mr. Bishop do? A woman was found murdered in his car. Oh my, oh my. That's as naughty as you can get, ain't it? Mr. Blackburn said that. Then Mr. Blackburn reached over to my lapel, pinched off a piece hanging from the buttonhole and dangled it accusingly under my nose. This is the way I left Mr. Blackburn. Then back to headquarters, issue an all points bulletin for Edward Bishop. Then down one flight to the photo lab, be handed a picture. Tuck it in the black notebook where you've jotted the name of Leo Compton and his address in New Rochelle. Then the ride there to the community where the houses have the built-in attitude that violent death never visits here. In the next street maybe it happens or to a friend of a friend but it never happens here. Lost your key? Anna, where have you been? Your name Compton? Leo Compton. I'm from the police. My name is Danny Clover. Yeah? Mind if I come in? Well, I guess so. All right. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute there. Yeah? Police. Mr. Compton. It's about Anna. It's about Anna, isn't it? What's happened to her? Listen to me, Mr. Compton. All right, all right. I'm listening. Is Anna your wife? Yes, yes, yes. This woman, this picture I have here. Yes, that's Anna. How did you get that? How did you get Anna's picture? I wish I knew some way to say this. Anna's dead. We found her this morning. She'd been shot. Oh. She, her body's at the morgue. Anna. I've got to ask you something. I know, I know. She didn't come home last night, Mr. Compton. No, no, you're wrong. She came home. Anna came home to me. It was my fault, really. I sent her away. I told her I didn't care. And the things I said to her, the names. Suppose the last word you ever said to your wife were names like that. What happened last night, Mr. Compton? She came home. It was about seven yesterday evening. And she had the bracelet on. She was wearing a bracelet when we found her. She had the bracelet on. And I asked her where she got such an expensive bracelet to wear. And she said she got a bargain. A bargain. What do you mean? From her boyfriend. Oh, she told me, Anna told me, all right. And listen, listen, you know what I did? I called him up. I'm not narrow-minded. Things can happen just because it's your wife. It doesn't mean it can't happen. I called her boyfriend up. And I told him to come over. I'd pay him for the bracelet. Did he come over? Oh, he came over. Anna was stunned, all right. And I wrote a check for the bracelet, $200. Don't you think Anna wasn't stunned? Mr. Comfort. Did you know what she did? She left with him anyhow. Bracelet, check, she, and him. And that's when I sent those off. What was the man's name? Bishop, Edward Bishop. He's an auctioneer for the Hunter Galleries. Oh, there's something else. Yes. I'll call Fran. I'll take her out of that place where she is. I'm in off the avenue of the Americas, Mr. Behind these dirty shop windows, there are bargains. Edward Bishop worked here? He did till he killed himself a woman, ran up a parking ticket. You know all that for sure. I know Eddie, he works for me. The pitchman to end all pitchmen. The spiel that kills, that's Eddie Bishop. He talking to buying something you don't like, Mr. You said he killed her. Why? You're a cop, aren't you? Come inside, I'll brew you something warm. It gets cold for everybody on the avenue. No, leave the door open. A looker might want to come in to browse. That's how it is in the world. Lookers, browsers, handlers, then walk out. Just like my Eddie. You want a sip of the warm brew? Why did you say he killed her? It's in Eddie to do a thing like that. It's what's about him that fascinates a girl. That in the clever way handles an auctioneer's hammer. I could show you a three-time bruise. Three times in your soul on a man like Eddie. You read in the papers a woman is found dead in Bishop's car and that makes you know he's a murderer. That in the way he spoke my name sometimes after we closed up the shop. Zoe, he'd say to me. Zoe killed a long day for me. You don't argue with a man like Eddie when he talks like that. You knew Mrs. Compton? When the summer began to fade, Eddie started talking to me about how she looked when she walked in one day to bid on an object of art and how she looked over a cocktail at a corner bar. And then how it was with the lights of Coney on her face and in Eddie's car on the long way to New Rochelle. All this my auctioneer told me. That's how I know the dead Mrs. Compton. I'm glad for her. You never saw her with him? It was last night. I watched from behind the counter. I saw her shove her wrist at Eddie. Eddie put a bracelet on it. One he'd bought from stock. I thought it was for me. Right in front of me he did it. If it was like that for them, why would he kill her? Who knows? Maybe she rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe she asked him for it. Eddie was a man to oblige a lady. All right. Thank you. Do something for me, Mr. What? You find Eddie Bishop, give him my message. Tell him I want an invite to his execution. It's been a dull season. Danny, over here in the squad cut. You got something, Muggevin? Maybe, maybe not. The guy was found dead in the building excavation over on 3rd. Nobody wants to touch him. Yeah, let's go. Drive down the ramp, Muggevin. Sidewalk superintendents really got something to stare at now. What happened, Mr.? I decided to scratch this ground. First scope full of shovel come up with was him. Let's get it down, huh? Yeah, real good. I'll take a look. Shot, Danny. Here's a wallet. Look at this. Check for $200 signed by Leo Compton. Uh-huh. Pay to the order of Edward Bishop. Edward Bishop. He's the man we figured murdered Anna Compton. Yeah, the man we figured murdered Anna Compton. What'd you say, Danny? Nothing. I didn't say anything at all. Our Vaughn will be Steve Allen's guests on Songs for Sale just a little later tonight. Once again, Steve will be playing host to four amateur songwriters and their unpublished songs, one of which will be chosen for nationwide hearing. For merriment and melody, here's Songs for Sale later tonight on most of these same CBS radio stations. September morning dips a dainty toe into a Broadway billboard and unshivering gazes down upon a street that only yesterday was choked with summer. But the refuse is there, where summer has passed and left pieces of itself. In the scratch and warp of summertime blues still screeching out of the loudspeakers, the sunny mannequins wax slightly melted, waiting in shop windows to be replaced by the fall and winter models. The faint odors of the sunworn perfume, the souvenir of the golden girl who walked right past her, turned a corner, vanished into a place where summer never dies. A place not open to you, kid. Only autumns ahead of you, kid. Start using it. It's already given you two murders. A woman in the front seat of a car, a man scooped out of the earth on the teeth of a steam shovel. What more can you ask? September's showering her gifts on you, kid. Take them. They're all yours. And at headquarters, Sergeant Tataglia brings you your share of them. Holds them from you with a smile that shows he slept well last night. He accumulated atoms under murders, Danny. In these papers, I tease before you. Have a good night, Gino. No complaints come to mind, Danny. Evening was a foolsome one. Father McCleary came to call. A pleasant time was had by all, as is our usual procedure. Father McCleary is a fine man. Salt of the earth. I ask Mrs. T. to break open a bottle of Mogan-dovered wine. He don't even blink an eye. Sips with you, talks with you, brings presents for the Tataglia brood. This is a man who also brings you the gift of restful sleep. Remember me too, M.G. Mr. Bishop, as I am about to be stow upon you, in them you will find a report from technical to it. The bullets that killed Mrs. Compton and Mr. Bishop technical states came from the same gun. Markings are identical. The rundown on the past histories of Mrs. Compton and Mr. Bishop is contained in reports from interested neighbors and relatives gathered by... Hey, you spare me a moment, Mr. Clerk. Look, you. Standard operating procedure I've come to demand something, Mr. Clover. And I intend to. Not leaving here until you give it to me. What would that be? Anna's bracelet. The one that... Well, everyone's dead. It belongs to me. Because you gave Bishop a $200 check for it? I stopped payment on my check. After all, that Mr. Bishop did give it to Anna. I needn't have made that stupid gesture. And now she's dead. And he's dead. Yes, your wife is dead. You loved her, you told me. Bracelet's mine. You wanna quibble about it? Have me spend money on lawyers? You're right, Mr. Compton. It's yours. Take it. We've no more use for it. We have photographs. You understand. It's not the money. It's only that if it once belonged to her, it now belongs to me. It's a kind of... Remembrance of the dead? Well, I'm not going to think about it. I have enough trouble living in an empty house with no one to scream and save all my life, share it with Mrs. Compton. And the cost of things, Mr. Clover, it's outrageous food, furniture, clothes, and transportation. You know what cab fare cost me from New Rochelle? $560. It's outrageous. You could have come in another way. Oh, yes, and be marked at. Pointed to as the husband of a murdered woman. They put my picture in the paper, you know. And that makes me a curiosity, a freak. You didn't tell me when I last saw you, Mr. Compton. What did you do after your wife left you with Bishop? What's that? I said, what did you do? Go anywhere, talk to anyone? Well, of course I talked to someone. A man's wife walks out on him when he's given her all this. Who? Mervyn Mago, he's an old friend from boyhood. I go to him whenever I'm in trouble. He's a professional helper. He's in that business. He makes money by helping people? He runs a mission on East 40th. You like him, I think. Well, thank you, Mr. Clover. You were easier to deal with than I thought. Danny, a man's wife is murdered and he comes back for Danny, you think? It's something to think about, huh, Jim? It was something to think about. Consider a man whose wife had been murdered. Consider in space of 24 hours his tears had dried. The shock of death had dwindled into something much more negotiable. A $200 bracelet, for example. The grief tempered by the high cost of taxicab fares. Leo Compton had motive enough to commit two murders. His wife, because she had run out on him, Edward Bishop, because he had run with her. Motives, certainly. So check on his story. Item. He was a man who needed companionship at the time of stress. Specifically, he liked to talk to a man who ran a mission. Go to the man who ran a mission and ask questions. Glad you came to see me, Mr. Clover. I really am. So am I, Mr. Magill. He doesn't check the boards in a few back-issue magazines. You'll admit that I do the best I can. Then there's always the coffee and donuts. The boys expect them. Standard fare for places like this. Sure, now... Once I got a bright idea, put in a ping-pong-pong table. Build it myself. You know ping-pong for the boys. A little physical exercise. What happened? The boys didn't understand about ping-pong. Took down the net. Made a backstop out of the old magazines. Well, I confiscated the dice. Loaded. How often does Leo Compton come down here? Sometimes often. Sometimes not for months at a time. Whenever Leo feels the need. Need of what? Someone to talk to. But why do you? Because he doesn't have to explain himself to me. The embarrassment of bearing himself to someone doesn't have to be done. I know him, Mr. Clover. I know him well. That's what I want you to tell me about, Mr. Magill. I guess it was 20 years ago I met Leo. We went to the same summer camp in the Catsculls. A charity camp. I was his big brother, a sign with a counselor. You know, the older camper. I showed him how to put a French tuck in a bed. His swimming buddy. You know? Uh-huh. And since then, whenever he got into trouble... With himself or with the world, he came to me. I like to think I'm necessary to Leo. I can understand. Leo is a product, Mr. Clover. The making of a living, the background of poverty. Even now, now that he's fairly well-to-do, it still eats him. What does? Even at camp, the pattern was there. He would organize little card games after lights out, wouldn't play himself, but took a cut from every part. That sort of thing all his life. You see, tell me something else. One of his wife ran out on him. He came down here to talk to you. What did he say? Not a whole lot. He told me the story. I listened. That's just about all he wanted down here. He told you, and then he went home, isn't it? Not right away. He told me, and then the boys started to straggle in for their coffee and donuts. He joined them. He always does. He ate four of those donuts, Mr. Clover. Oh, sure, Muggevin. What is it? Why don't you talk to him, man? Come on, Mr. Scott. This is Mr. Scott, Danny. Mr. Scott, Lieutenant Clover. I do. Well, sit down, Mr. Scott. Sure, right there, it'll be fine. Go ahead, Mr. Scott. Give the lieutenant the bracelet. Thank you. I thought it was the right thing to do, Lieutenant Clover. I saw a man's picture in the paper mixed up in a murdering. Then that he should all of a sudden come to me. The bracelet Mrs. Compton was wearing. Come up to me of all people, and out of the side of his mouth, offer the- Where did you get this bracelet, Mr. Scott? I told you, didn't I? Oh, I'm sorry. Would you mind telling me again? Go ahead, Mr. Scott. Please do. Well, here I was walking toward the subway entrance on 59th Street, and he come up to me. Who didn't? The man whose picture was in the paper about his wife's being slain at you. It means Leo Compton. I mean Leo Compton. He plucked my sleeve. He offered to sell me this bracelet. He said he was making deliveries for jewelry concern, and the bracelet was left over, and nobody seemed to know where it come from. Uh-huh. How much did you pay for it, Mr. Scott? Ridiculous price. He has five dollars and sixty cents for it, and that's what I give him. You might as well know too that he kept turning his face for me, but I certainly recognize him. That's why I've come here. Oh, Muggerman, write Mr. Scott a voucher for five-sixty, and thank you very much, Mr. Scott. Do you call me in, Danny, and you ask me to step over into a department that's not strictly mine? Why don't you wait for the reports from technical? All I want is an opinion, Dr. Sinski. Whose toes would you step on if you give me that? Gordon of technical. All right, so he deserves a toast, Mashi, once in a while. What do you want of me, Danny? You examined Mrs. Compton, the bullet wound, the type of wound where it was in her back. Is it one that would bleed freely? Yes, Danny, but you know these things as well as I. Why do you ask? I just got these photographs. Uh-huh. Look at them. The inside of the car where Mrs. Compton was found. Well, Dr. Sinski? You know as well as I, Danny. Tell me anyway, I want to be sure. It is obvious that the loss of blood in the car was slight, which makes it to me apparent that the woman was not shot in the car, but somewhere else, and then put into the car and... I'm a Dr. Danny, not a... A detective? I didn't mean it to sound like that. Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks for the opinion, Dr. Sinski. It's all around in the backyard. Go through the gate. Well, I hope you appreciate me creating all this stuff for you. What you, Mr. Clover? Moving day, Mr. Compton? No, no, no, no. My wife's things. It's hard to live with them. I see. Giving them away, huh? Well, not exactly. Selling them? I saw an ad in the paper where they buy merchandise like... Well, yeah. Yes, I'm selling Anna's clothes. How much are you getting for them? Why? I'm curious. Why? I'm looking for a bracelet worth 200, a man like you to do that strange. How do you know about the bracelet? The man you sold it to got scared. The bracelet was mine to sell. Why should he get scared? That's not the point, Mr. Compton. The point is why you should sell such a valuable bracelet for so little. You could have gotten more. I got what I wanted. Yeah, I guess you did. You broke even. Bishop gave your wife the bracelet so legally it's yours. But you'd paid him for it. I told you that. You gave him the check so we'd find it on him. So your story of what happened the night of your wife's death would hold up. What's that? But with Bishop dead and the bracelet legally yours anyhow, why should you be liable for the check? His estate would have the check cashed. Well, that's right. I did. I gave him a check for it. Stop payment on it, too. That's right. Why should I spend money I don't have to? Sure. You see what I mean, don't you? Sure. You know you're a funny man, Mr. Compton. I guess people say that about me. I don't care. You're so careful with money and you're an honest man. But you couldn't stand having that bracelet around. It was a symbol of what your wife did to you. So you sold it for the cost of your cab fare, even all round. That's how much you know. I lost plenty. I lost my wife. You're a funny man. I told you my wife had a boyfriend. And I was ready to forgive her. She walked out on me anyhow. Oh, she would have come back. Don't you worry about that. You'd already killed her when you called Bishop. I killed... I told you... Yeah, I know. I told you how it was. I said that... Then when Bishop arrived, you killed him too, rode out of check and stuck it in his pocket, put your wife and Bishop in Bishop's car as if she'd left with him. She did, I told... Oh, you didn't listen at all. I could call technical. They'd find blood in your house no matter how hard you scrubbed. You don't understand everything. I worked hard all my life. I put my own price on things. My wife belonged to me. She was mine. And nobody gets it. Not for a $200 bracelet they don't. What do you think I am anyhow? For a bracelet? What good is that? What did you need that for? As if it were something. I'm a hard worker. Things I own didn't come easy. What's gonna happen to them now? Mr. Clover, you'd better get in touch with Mr. Mago. He don't know how to advise me. Well, he's just like a big brother to me. It's the journey to the end of all the other streets in the world, this Broadway. You turn a corner and you're there. Walk it slowly. Lean your heart against it. Shop for the kicks, the bargains, the heartbreak. Until it all explodes in your face. It's Broadway. The gaudiest. The most violent. The lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway. My Beat. Broadway's My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover with Charles Calvert as Tartaglia and Jack Krushen as Muggevin. The program was produced and directed by Elliott Lewis with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage. In tonight's story, Howard McNeer was heard as Leo Compton. Featured in the cast were Billy Hallop, Lou Krugman, Joe Forte and Francis Cheney. Two styles of music both tops in popularity are heard every Sunday over most of these same CBS stations. Guy Lombardo's sweetest music this side of heaven is one. The other is the singing style of Mario Lanza, new vocal sensation of the airways. Enjoy Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians and the Mario Lanza show tomorrow night. Stay tuned now for us singing it again which follows immediately over most of these same CBS stations. Bill Anders speaking. This is CBS, where you meet adventure with Charlie Wilde on Sundays on the Columbia Broadcasting System.