 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 three weeks from tonight on September 1st. Broadway's My Beat, from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomeest mile in the world. It is My Beat with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. It's a journey some people have to make, a journey that ends in a screaming, blinding furnace of light, or ends in darkness, cool and still. You walk it with a quick puppet strut of slapstick, or you walk it slow, slow like the last walk you'll ever take. Whatever way it is, it's My Beat. Broadway is full of people that are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One of them, if you put them together right, will turn out to be Jed Stacey, scandal reporter for a rag that reports scandals. If it's a hot August evening and he's wearing his Hollywood shirt and yellow silk mohair pants, $90 the outfit, he'll buy you a free meal for a price. Jack, bring us prosciutto with melon, vichy soise, shrimp roulette, and a decent white wine. You got that? Oui, Michel Stacey. Yeah. Okay, Jed. Why the banquet? Ah, you know me, don't you Danny? I don't give nothing for nothing, I don't get nothing for nothing. Yeah, that's life like Jack says. Yeah. Look, Danny, I got a note in the mail today, a typewritten note. I want to read it to you. Something you wrote? No, this has class. Here's what it says. Dear columnist, if you need a prophecy, here's a prophecy. A girl, Jane Donnell, will be found murdered tonight. That's a prophecy. And just checking, Danny, you got a corpse named Jane Donnell? No, give me that note. Give it to me. Sure, sure, here, Danny, I'm through with it. It'll be in my column tomorrow anyway, it's all set up. Why didn't you give me this before? Ah, you know what, scribes, Danny, we clutch things to our bosom. Besides, what good would it do you? But Jane Donnell is going to be killed, I would just stop it. You'd play nursemate to a murder for a beat, wouldn't you, Jed? You're getting too large, kid, too large. Take it easy, Danny, first you got to find the little lady. It's a tough thing to do, even for a guy like you, it's a tough thing. There's a telephone call for you, Mr. Stacey. No, thanks, Jack, plug it in here, will you? Yeah, we, Mr. Stacey. Excuse me, Danny. Yeah? Yeah, this is Stacey. Where? Okay. Yeah, you get a fin. Yeah, the same to you. Come on, Danny. We going someplace? Yeah, to the room of a Jane Dowell. She's asleep into Danny, dead asleep, just like I prophesy in tomorrow's column. Right over there on the bed. Yeah, Sergeant, I see. Strangled, huh? With a silk stocking. I'm not a guy who knows about a thing like this, Danny, but it looks like the murder weapon is a pretty inferior piece of merchandise. Buck 98 will get you three pairs. Take your hands off that stocking, Jed. Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, Danny. Police methods. I should have known better. Okay, Sergeant, give me the rundown. A call from the landlady at 8.10 p.m. The landlady's story as follows. She returned here at five after eight, and then she... Where'd she return from? Corner bar. She spent the afternoon there singing ghost writers in the sky and nursing the 10 cent bear for six hours. And they threw her out at 8 sharp. Yeah, we checked. Go on. Well, the landlady knocked at the door of Jane Darnell with deceased. She walked in and found the deceased thus. I mean, like so. Okay, okay. Where's the landlady now? I picked across the hall when we came in, Danny. There's a little old lady sitting in a rocker with a compress on a little wrinkled forehead and a little wrinkled nose on top of a big, big bottle. Landlady, huh? Yeah. Right in here, Lattie. Come on. Right in this room. Take your hands off of me. I've been walking a long time without your help. Who's this, officer? A man who says he lives here. A man who says his name... My name's Mac Taylor. What's going on here? Okay, officer, that's all. What's your business here, Mr. Taylor? I live here. Now answer a question for me. What's this all about? Did you know Jane Darnell? My surely. She takes two hours every Saturday night in the bathroom. And she is the... Oh, that's her over on the bed. What's the matter with her? She's dead. Murdered. Murdered? But who did it? Mr. Taylor, there's millions of people in New York. A little while ago, one of those millions of people came into this room and wrapped a silk stocking around Jane Darnell's neck. The person who did that was the person who murdered her. Do you know who it was, Mr. Taylor? Mr. Taylor didn't. She was just the other renter here in the boarding house as far as he was concerned. She never even smiled at him, he said. Man, you'd have to be mighty strange to kill a girl for that, he assured me. I assured him he'd better stick around. Then I went home and had indigestion all night from the meal Jed Stacy ordered that I never ate. The next morning, I spent the first two hours mulling over what I had in the murder of Jane Darnell. It came to two things. All I had was a girl in the morgue and a typewritten note saying she'd be there. Or, as Sergeant Tartaglia put it... All we got, Danny, is a girl in the morgue and a typewritten note saying she'd be there. Tartaglia, would you? Mind repeating that. Oh, sure, Danny. I said all we got is a... Never mind. Anything on that typewritten note, Jed Stacy gave me? Kind of typewriter, stationery? Oh, typed on a Corona portable. New model. Cheap, great, a stationery. Five and ten cents to our stuff. A routine check, turn up anything? Not yet. I can't find a thing on this, Jane Darnell. No friends, no relatives, nothing to any. Looks like this will be a tough one for us to crack. It'll take time, Tartaglia, but it'll crack. Danny Clover speaking. What? Who is this? Tartaglia. Trace this call. Yeah. Who is this speaking? I can't hear you. Speak louder, huh? Yeah? Yeah, I got that. When? Who is this speaking? Hello? Hello, hello? What? What? Oh, look, operator, I was talking to someone and we were cut off. I see. Thank you, operator. Tartaglia. Common efficient service, Danny. Did you trace the call? Oh, sure. Well? What? Traced it to a phone booth in Grand Central Station. Oh, fine. That call was important? Tartaglia, I was just speaking to a murderer. Yeah? Well, why did he have to say... A murderer? Yeah, a murderer who was disguising his voice. He had to say just this. He had to say he did quite a job on Jane Donnell, and tonight he was going to do a better one on a friend of hers, a friend named Mary Smith. Mary Smith? Hey, I know a Mary Smith. Which Mary Smith, Danny? Which Mary Smith? Tartaglia was right. In a city of 8 million, what chance do you have of finding a Mary Smith? If it's the Mary Smith who's going to be struck down by a murderer, the odds are precisely 1 in 8 million. You come up with Mary Smiths, all right? You trace one of them to Sing Sing, where she was doing 20 years for dynamiting a bank. Another Mary Smith left her husband's bed and board in Poughkeepsie. And you talk to a Mary Smith who says... Uh-huh, Mr.... So you try again. Forgive me, sir, for having kept you waiting. It wasn't my hour for meditation. Are you Mary Smith? Yes, of course I am Mary Smith. In China, my name is Ler Tzu. But since I am in America, I have a top name that is 100% American of Mary Smith. Do you know Jane Darnell? No, no. I am sure I do not. Jane Darnell. Americans have such a strange name. Yeah. Hey, Danny, hop in. I want to take you someplace where maybe you ought to be. Move your hearse out of the way. Jed, I might scrape the polish with my shabby squad car. Oh, now, Danny, you don't like me anymore. That hurts. I like you. Now, will you move your car? Hey, tell me at headquarters you'd be here. Look, if you checked with me, I could have saved your wear and tear, Danny. I'll make a note. Always check with Jed Stacey. You'll save your wear and tear. Or maybe I can buy it tomorrow over a nickel. You're fighting me, boy. You're fighting me. Get out of my way. You've got nothing to say to me. Nothing I want to hear. You'll want to hear this, Danny? The Mary Smith you're looking for. I know where she is. Where? We're still friends. I'll tell you where. Cut her down to a number in a street. 10 West 16, Danny. A sordid walk-up. A scabrous boy. How do you know so much, paper boy? Anonymous phone call, Danny. Anonymous voice. Voice gives me address in particulars. In particulars? Anonymous girl named Mary Smith. Now we're friends again, huh, Danny? Huh? Miss Smith. Miss Smith. Open up, Miss Smith. It's the police. Maybe you should open it yourself, clover. Yeah! Yeah! Miss Smith. The girl named Mary Smith was home. She wasn't anonymous anymore. The scrawl of blood on her clean cotton dress gave her an identity. And the ice pick thrust deep into her throat was like an ugly pin that held her in one place in one time. And deaf hadn't yet washed away the torture and the strain and the horror that was frozen in the carved lines of her body. The draft from the door I had crashed open moved her hair in gentle swirls away from her face. Then I saw her hand holding something tight, like a claw it held onto it tight. It was a tight written note. It said, what girl next, police? What girl next? I give you a riddle. There were two that will be three. Who will it be? Who will it be? You are listening to Broadway's My Beat with Larry Thorpe as Detective Danny Clover. Those two outstanding adventure shows, Escape and Crime Photographer, will bring you new thrills, new chills just a little later tonight. Casey, Crime Photographer, will encounter a wealthy stamp collector, his two sons, and a strange murderer in Death of a Stranger. Escape will present another Thursday thriller in Red Wine by Lawrence Plotman. This Thursday, every Thursday, Hair Escape and Crime Photographer on most of the same CBS network stations. Now back to Broadway's My Beat. Broadway all depends on the mood you're in. You can be part of the mob and perform for the sightseers, or you can write notes about murdering women and go about your business of murdering. In the latter case, Broadway dangles from strings. Broadway performs for a madman. It puts on a mask of horror and talks in whispers. Two people had died violently, and the clues I had for their dying were about as valuable as a pinch of dust. Correction, I had a thing of value. Another note. What girl next, the note said. It would be valuable if I knew what girl next. The only ray of sunshine at headquarters next morning was a police sergeant named Tartaglia, who did all sorts of remarkable things with details and file cards and pencil sharpness. Morning, Danny. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah, what have you got, Tartaglia? Well, I checked Judge Stacey, like you said. He's got a pretty good alibi. He was with you at the approximate time of both murders. Only approximate? How long does it take to kill a person? What did you find on that border, Mac Taylor? Oh, he's got an answer for every question we ask him. Right now, we're still checking the answers. So far, Mac Taylor's been telling the truth. Okay, okay. What's in that envelope? Oh, in this envelope, Danny, intelligence from the FBI. Well, if Los Angeles is still operating, it's a wonder they had the time. Let's see it. Yeah, sure. Here. You know, in a corner, we didn't have any data on Jane Darnell and Mary Smith. I wired the prints down to Washington, like I... Well, like you should have. Yeah, yeah. This data you're holding was wired back. Hey, those boys in Washington sure were... Hey, look at this, Tartaglia. Huh? A link. A link between Jane Darnell and Mary Smith. Washington had their prints because they worked in a war plant. That tells you something, Danny? Maybe. Maybe a lot. They both worked for the same outfit, their Westfold Tool Company. A manufacturing firm across the river in Jersey. Get my hip boots, Tartaglia. I'm going to take a boat ride. Let's go somewhere where we can talk, man. What do you want to see me about, mister? I'm Danny Clover, New York Police Department. Oh, glad to know you. I'm Freddie Naye, Punch Press Department. You've been working in this department long, mister Naye? Oh, ten years. Why? Try this in your memory. Jane Darnell and Mary Smith. What does that do to you? Jane Darnell, Mary Smith. Oh, yeah, yeah. That does something to me all right. Yeah, they worked here side by side in my department. Right through the war and after we converted automobile parts. And what else? Well, they quit about a year ago, within a week of each other. Within a week of each other, huh? How would that figure, mister Naye? Well, they were chummy. Jane Darnell and Mary Smith were in a car pool with another girl. All three of them rode to work in Jane's car. This other girl, who was she? I don't know. She wasn't in my department. Does your personnel department keep records of people who ride together in car pools? No, never did. We got all the paperwork we can handle. Yeah. Where's the phone? Right over there. Thanks. Can I get an outside line on this? Sure. I guess that's about all I can tell you about those two, mister Clover. Well, maybe it was enough. Hello? Motor vehicles? Give me registration. Anything else, mister Clover? No, that'll be all. Registration? This is Danny Clover. Want the make and the model of a car owned by Jane Darnell. Yeah, motor number two. You're sure there's nothing else, mister Clover? I enjoy aiding and abetting the police. I said that's all. You can go now. Yeah? Yeah? DeSoto sedan, 1947. Motor number 137596. Yeah, I got it. Thanks. Get the operator to connect me with Sergeant Tataglia at headquarters. A Tataglia? Danny Clover, a detailed Tataglia. A rush job. Fast enough maybe to save a girl's life. Now get this. DeSoto sedan, 1947. Motor number 137596. Registered in the name of Jane Darnell. Find it, Tataglia. Find it fast. Now all there was was to wait. Wait while the life of a girl ticked away. A nameless girl in a nameless place. And the girl without the name watched as she waited. Her face veiled in the gauze of terror and her eyes piercing the veil of hatred because all you could do was wait. There were two that will be free, the note said. And three is a number that can add up to death. And a motor has a number that can add up to... And then suddenly the waiting was over. They traced the number. Traced it to a littered junk strewn yard presided over by a frightened little man wearing a beret. I do not know why suddenly I am a matter for the police. I have done everything as it was told me to. Well, don't worry about it, Mr.... Stern, David Stern. They tell me here in America that there is dignity in dealing with junk, so I deal in it. But with the police, dignity becomes sour. It'll sweeten up, Mr. Stern. Give us a chance. Oh, I did not mean that. I mean, what I mean is not insult, only an analysis of philosophical diagnosis. It's too deep for me, Mr. Stern, some other time. Where's the car? You mean the one that the policeman in the uniform tracked its number on its internal anatomy? I mean the one... Yeah, that's the one I mean. Internal anatomy? It's right here to your left, you see. That heap of junk? The police are interested perhaps in buying from you for us, the hubcaps are still nice and the car... When was this brought in, Mr. Stern? Oh, just about a year ago. I remember because, you see, I remember the personality of machine. Now, this one is the victim of complete nervous shock. It looks like it was in a wreck, a bad wreck. Exactly, that's what brought on this psychosis. But in good hands, with good treatment, this could recover, maybe. Yeah, well, thanks, Mr. Stern, thanks. Maybe I ought to start going to night school. Ah, you said something? Danny, welcome to police pen script and record. Your presence is like a shaft of light in a warehouse of darkness. Coslo, will you do something for me and not have it come out an epic? This will take much doing. What's your pleasure, Danny? Open a window. How do you guys breathe in here? Sergeant Downs? Yeah, Coslo. Open a window. Danny can't breathe. Ah, that was thrilling how you did that, Sergeant Downs. You may now go back to your typewriter. Anything else, Danny? I could fan you with this fan, courtesy Huxley's mortuary. Thanks. A little closer, Coslo. Ah, fine. Now get me everything you've got on an automobile accident. This car, about a year ago. Sergeant Downs? You get it, Coslo. I'll hold the fan. Your command is like a caress, Danny. Never mind Downs. I shall get it. Oh, by the way, Danny, there's a gentleman sitting over there. Been waiting for you. Gentleman by the name of Jed Stacey. Shall I present you? Get the dope on the accident now, as in right now. Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir. What do you want, Jed? Oh, it's not what I want, Danny. It's what my syndicate wants. You know columnists, no life of their own. That way you're always around when people die, so you can gloat. I didn't hear you say that, Danny. I'll make like I didn't hear it. Now, Danny, my syndicate is curious whether you've found out who the number three girl's going to be. I bleed for you and your syndicate. You told me about the other two, Jed. How come you don't have a private line on this one? Danny, I got it. It's all by myself. I got it. Now, Coslow, just the words without the hammer. How else? Accident involving this car, May 10th, 1948, crashed into by Mrs. Mildred Quimby. Mrs. Quimby was killed. Who was in the disorder when it happened? Three girls, Jane, Darnell, Mary Smith, and Sally Webb. Now, you got an address on this Sally Webb? No, sir, sure. It's the 417th West 55th. We also got pictures of the whole mess. You may have them if you want them, Danny, without signing. Take back your fan, Coslow. You earned it. Sally Webb, eh? That's the girl my syndicate wants. Do they now? Print this, Jed. Print it, and I'll tear you apart. So long, Jed. I don't believe you, Mr. Clover. I don't believe you. Why should anyone want to murder me? We're dealing with a madman, Miss Webb. A madman who makes his own reasons. But I never heard anyone or anything in my life. Maybe Jane Darnell and Mary Smith were like that, but they were killed. I hardly knew them. I just rode with them to work. We had nothing in common outside of that. You had this in common, Miss Webb. You were in an accident in which a woman was killed. So she was killed. Can't you rise from the dead to murder me for that? Someone who loved her very much might want to kill you because he holds all of you responsible for her death. Then why don't you catch him, put him in a cage, rip him into shreds, and we'll do something. Something. Miss Webb, that picture on your bureau. Who is it? My boyfriend. Why? How long have you known him? A few months. You expecting someone? No. Let him in. Let the men, Sally. The envelope addressed to you in your mailbox. I brought it up. Is it all right? Give it to me, little girl. Huh? Oh, give it to him, Mary, and you'd better go now. Sorry I haven't time to be polite, Sally. Mind if I see what's in the envelope? Thanks. Here. Read it, Sally. And the third is Sally Webb. At eight o'clock tonight at Sally Webb. Spin, Sally. Spin till eight o'clock. Then it's done. The same cheap paper, the same type, the same pattern. Now do you believe it, Sally? Yes. Yes, help me, Mr. Clover. Please help me. If you'll help me. How? Just tell me how. Sally, I want you to spend the rest of the day as you would spend any other day. One of our men will be with you all the time. You'll never see him. You're not to look for him. But I want you back here before eight o'clock. Understand? Before eight o'clock. Oh, I'm frightened, Mr. Clover. I'm frightened. It's the only way, Sally. You wanted him in a cage? That's where you'll be, just like you said, in a cage. So the trap was set. Sally Webb, the bait. New York police department, the hunter. The hunted? Somebody in that jungle city. Somebody crouching now in a dark corner until another time of killing. The man I had tailed, Sally Webb, called in every half hour from a dress shop, a fruit store, from a laundromat. Places like that. Then about seven o'clock the trap began to shape itself. A police cordon thrown around the block on West 55th Street where Sally lived. In a few minutes before eight, I was standing in a doorway next to the address, and the trap was ready to be sprung. How about Desert Lieutenant? How about North and South at 55th Street? They covered? Yes, sir. No one gets through when they eat the night. Except the girl. Except the girl, Sergeant, and whoever might be following her. How about our boy, the one you assigned to Taylor? He's got orders to drop out of the corner at 9th and 55th. Now get this, Sergeant. I want your men in uniform to stay out of sight. Plain clothes as inconspicuous as possible. No noise. Yes, sir. That's what I told the men. Who's that? What chowderhead was stupid enough to use a siren? I hope he's going to be happy pounding the cement and flushing. That girl who just came out of the subway entrance. That's her. Sally Webber. She's walking off of Sloane. She's scared. Scared. She's inside. See? The lights just went on. Let's go, Sergeant. Miss Webber, it's Danny Clo- Lieutenant. Yeah. She's dead. She's dead, Sergeant. Close your eyes and try real hard to believe it. She's dead. But I don't understand how could she- The coroner will call it a long, sharp weapon. The coroner's jury can blame me for it. What are you talking about, Lieutenant? The subway. The one place I forgot about. The one place where she'd be with a thousand people and still be alone. She was stabbed on the subway. She had just enough strength to get inside her door. What are you doing, Sergeant? Oh, this stuff must have spilled out of her purse when she keeled over. Just junk, though. Lipstick, cigarettes. What's that? The piece of paper you're holding. Nothing against this piece of paper. Oh, wait. Something's typed on it. Huh? Read it. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of his country. I love you, I love you, I love you. Let's see that. The letterhead says Ridley's department store furnishings for your every need. Get me a squad car, Sergeant. I got a feeling Ridley's has gone to furnish my every need. Interested in the typewriter, Mr. Oh, I didn't know you worked here, Mac. Mac Taylor, isn't it? The indignant border who lived across the hall from Jane Donnell. Yes, this is my place of business. The typewriter department. Yeah. I've got a time card, employee's number, everything. I sell them. You want to buy one? Some other time. Which corona did you type those murder notes on? Huh? What do you mean? Sally Webb really loved you, didn't she, Mac? I got proof positive of that. She put your picture on her bureau and she hung around here and wrote love notes on your demonstrator typewriter. So? Tell me something, Mac. When did you change your name from Quimby to Taylor? We've got a doctor in this department, Star Clover. Maybe you need to see him. I have a picture of Mildred Quimby, Mac. Was she your wife? What do you know about Mildred Quimby? I said I have a picture, Mac, here. When she was killed in an automobile accident. Look at it, Mac. Go on, look at it. I'll kill you. I'll kill you. Like they killed my wife. Like I killed all of them. I'll kill you. Mac, put away that gun. This place is filled with people. What do I care about people? There's only one way to get you, Mac. Clover, you can't miss. A madman lying in the blood of his death isn't much different from any man who dies in violence. There was a kind of furious serenity on the face of Mac Taylor or Quimby, as though all at the same time he rejected and embraced the peace that a tearing bullet had offered his brain. They took him away. Then someone swirled a mop over the bloodstained tile of the floor. And that was the requiem for a madman. Broadway is a street of sounds. The hissing sound of the neon. The sweet sound of the girl's laugh. The harsh, rasping sound of the light deep inside the earth. And the other sound. The sigh. The painful sigh no one hears. It's Broadway, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway, my beat. Broadway is 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. The launching of a promising career as a singer, a bunch of yellow roses from an admirer, a single sniff of their aroma, and sudden death. These are the events that launch Mr. Keen, himself a promising career man, as sleuth in one of his most fascinating cases tonight. Mr. Keen's latest adventure, the yellow rose murder case, follows immediately over most of these same stations. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System. We hope you enjoyed this program from RadioClassics.com. Programs are copyrighted or respective owners. All rights reserved.