 Broadway's my beat from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesome-est mile in the world. Broadway's my beat with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. When the winter moon dips low over Broadway and hides again behind the scutting mists, Broadway is numbed. The year's ending is too swift. There's too much nighttime in December, as if the dimness of the subway had moved one flight up. As if the lights were not quite lights but yellow things that drain off into shadows. It's a time of the muffler, the hurry up, the time of the wind. The dreams are dying and it's a long while before April comes again. The place where I was also one flight up above the street of the tired apartment houses and hotels. The avenue leased to anybody on the premise that home is any place for the rent is cheap. Hotel Savannah, the man who walked beside me and explained it all to me. After all, Lieutenant, after all the what? The do not disturb sign has been hanging on the front of the door all day and here it is almost midnight. So, so a place like this, rent a room for $3.50, pull out the old pills, leave the world to its own sorrow. Miss Savannah's getting quite a reputation for it. Oh, this is the room. This is the room. And that's how I found her, right there on the bed. I could tell right away she wasn't a suicide. That bullet hole, no gun. Who is she? Took the room yesterday. Registered as Mary Smith. Ah, I keep a straight face as long as the payment is made in advance. Even she didn't have luggage, so what? Quite a few of my friends have not a presentable suitcase to their names. What about her visitors? This is her home away from home. That's our philosophy here, Miss Savannah. Why shouldn't she have visitors? I don't know. People come and go. A regular little world in itself, Miss Savannah. I remark this to myself often as I stand at the desk. Like I was looking at her to a regular little world. That's why I always say... Don't say it, Mr. Burgess. I'll take it from here. And consider the place where a girl lies dead. A room of transience, a cubicle, a lot it sold to the passer-through. The mark of their passing, the scars where cigarettes were grounded at the desktop, the hotel stationery, the postcards of the scenes of gaiety tinted in, ink stained, finger smudged, blank. The sign, please turn off lights when departing, leave key at desk. The bed where passing sleep is sold at the current rate. And in it, Mary Smith, dead by violence. Phone it in. Check other hotel personnel. Be told to the day she'd been there. The girl was quiet, discreet, no trouble at all. Visitors? Maybe, maybe not. Policy, not to notice things like that. And take it home with you, try to sleep against the image, desolate, lonely. Not quite make it. And welcome the coming of day, somewhere to go, someone to talk to. You have a bad night, Danny. You have the look of someone who has slept with rocks in his bed, head to foot. That's your mornings greeting to me, Sergeant Otaglia. You see, other mornings you refer to me as Gino. But this morning, Danny, why is this morning different from all other mornings? You got something for me, Gino. Goes without saying. Sure I got something. We coded that girl's fingerprints, that Mary Smith put them on the wire to the chums of the FBI during the night. You had an answer? Those chums of the FBI are veritable, Johnny's on the spot, Danny. You had an answer. On the spot. According to the info, lately come to hand and now contained in my breast pocket, Danny, this Mary Smith was not a Mary Smith. Honour, not at all. All right, Gino, who was she? A Peg Ramsey, formerly of the women's army corps, which makes her a former wife, which makes it easy for our Washington co-workers to check such things as fingerprints flying through the night. Such things as? As what? As the occupation of the deceased prior to safe. This Peg Ramsey, here at the fore known as Mary Smith, was a member of the publishing firm, Taggart and Ramsey on Lower Madison. It brightens the morning for you, Danny, this info? You tried, Gino, you really did. Thanks. I just can't believe it. Get around to believing in Mr. Taggart. Miss Ramsey was murdered in a cheap hotel named the Savannah. We want you to help us. What was she doing there? Was she registered? Look, Mr. Taggart. I just can't believe it. Let's try it this way. What did Miss Ramsey do here at your publishing house? At our publishing house, Mr. Clover, Peg is as much responsible for the success of Taggart and Ramsey as I am. Of course, I'm directly responsible for a book club's choosing four of our novels. Peg only had three, but then... Just tell me what she did. Had final say on what we would publish and what we wouldn't. Along with me, of course. Also, the discovery of talent and so forth and so forth. Friends? Every unpublished author in the world. You must understand, Taggart and Ramsey enjoys an enviable reputation. We publish stuff that others wouldn't even touch. Of course, sometimes we take a lost publishing literature, but we make up for it. Put out a crossword puzzle book. Yeah, but what about special friends, Mr. Taggart? Oh, working on the premise that special friends can be special enemies, huh? That happens in our latest mystery. Kill the murderer dead. It'll be released for publication May. Mr. Taggart. Peg had a very special friend. Who? William Walter. Who is William Walter? A writer. Or do I find him? I don't know. I have no idea. A talent. The once in a lifetime talent. Personally, I've heard that phrase too many times. Last year, after such a talent, we had to publish jumbo crossword puzzle books five, six and seven in a hurry. And that was the relationship between Miss Ramsey and this William Walter. Publisher and writer. I think more. I think Peg had her times to be a publisher and times to be a woman. It's my belief from observing Peg that she mixed the two up for this boy. What else about this William Walter? He was brought here from North Carolina. Brought here? You mean your firm subsidized him? A writer's dream, but no. He was brought here by a Mrs. Janice Kirk, a self-styled discoverer of talent. You, Peg, slightly brought him to her with a couple chapters of a novel. Peg believed in this boy and gave him an advance. Where do I find this Mrs. Kirk? Oh, I can tell you that easily. At the Ruckston Hotel, I've had cocktails with her there. An attractive woman. The way those women from North Carolina can be. Now, will you pardon me, Mr. Clover? And at the hotel, ask for Janice Kirk. Be told she's been seen entering the cocktail lounge. Go there. The head waiter raises his eyebrows. With an effort, tilts a patrician head slightly to the left. And that way indicates the woman sitting alone. Sipping the colorless drink, sipping the colorless music, weaving its frightened way through potted palms. And on her face, the smile of acceptance. For the music, for the bird of cocktail time laughter. For the glances of men, attached, unattached. Hello there, on all that. Mrs. Kirk? I saw Alec tilt his Roman coin head and that brought you to me. Whatever the reason, I'm glad. It's been lonely. I'm from the police, Mrs. Kirk. You didn't have to tell me that. You could have let me believe you'd walked in here and seen a... well, an interesting face sitting alone with her lost thoughts and you took pity on it. You could have let me believe that. I've just come from Alfred Tigard of Tigard and Ramsey. Alfred, you tell him I'm very disappointed in him. He hasn't asked me to cocktails and... well, it must be ours now. You tell him then. He said you knew Peg Ramsey. Miss Ramsey, I've taken notice of her. Talk to her, I remember. I wouldn't call that no in a girl. Now why did he go and tell you I knew her? She's dead and murdered. She gave her name as Mary Smith and was killed in a hotel room. Why? Then did she have a home of her own? I don't see that. Truly, I didn't mean to be flippant over there. Not a death like that. But an empty way to die. Tigard told me something else. I'm sure he did. It was about the boy, wasn't it? He told me about a boy, young writer, William Walden. William, sweet William, sweet sweet William. Maybe you can tell me more about him than Tigard did, Mrs. Kirk. I know I can. I know more about him than I know about myself. Wasn't it I that discovered the burning tree of talent in him? Wasn't it I that beat him, tortured him, soothed him till he put it all on paper? Figuratively, that is. I did that to him, figuratively. Wasn't it I that brought him here so his poetry could cry out across your metropolitan sky? For as he now. I don't know. You said that. I said I don't know. First William stayed here, right here in this hotel, close to me. He took to living in all kinds of places, dismal places, dirty little finished rooms, and tenement, sodded hotels. I mean, just high and dry for months so he could taste your city. Then you haven't seen him in a certain... There is a phone call for you, Mr. Clover. You can take it here. Thank you. Danny Clover speaking. You wanted Danny right away, Savannah Hotel. Why, Gino? A boy shot to death in one of the rooms. Savannah Hotel, Danny, the same one. I hate your telephones. They interrupt just when... Something bad's happened, hasn't it? And I'll tell you another thing, Mr. Clover. I should have kept my big mouth shut about the reputation of the Savannah. Right down here. Same floor, same hallway as the last time I was here. Not only that. Same room. There he is, Mr. Clover. You know who? Yeah. Registered about noon. Gave his name as William Walter. Said he was a writer. First time we ever had a writer. One sprawled there across the bed. A boy, like a tired puppet, discarded. And the bullet hole in his temple gave him another quality. An attitude suddenly and forever caught in an instant of time. And the gun held in his dangling fist. The end of him. The death of William Walter. You are listening to Broadway's My Beat written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin. And starring Larry Thor in A Clover. A titled Englishman, whined and dined at a Swank Park Avenue address, is then mysteriously murdered. It takes no less than Mr. Chameleon, master of disguises to make a dent in the Hand of Fate murder case. Follow Mr. Chameleon on this engrossing police operation tomorrow. Yes, that's tomorrow on CBS Radio. Mr. Chameleon is now heard at a new time, Sundays, on most of these same days. On the eve of the merry holidays, Broadway treats itself to a ten-cent sprig of mistletoe, stands under it, watches the women walk by. They hug the warm fur close. Let the December wind riffle it against their mouths, their cheeks. Let the wind breathe them away from you. And for background, the music flowing out of the tinseled metallic throats of loudspeakers. It causes, eyeing them, studying them, lifting great puzzled eyes to the grown-up who holds their hand. Good again? Makes you glow, so find the coin, drop it in the pot, pay off for the year that never was. And in a room again, the place of the dead, be alone with it for a little while, be alone with the boy with a bullet wound in his temple. The boy would come to the great city with poetry to offer, be alone with it until Detective Muggerman comes back. I had a little talk with Burgess to manage it, Danny, like you told me. Yeah? Says the boy made a big to-do when he registered. Burgess tell you why? Uh-huh. Seems this kid, William Waller, insisted on having exactly the same room where the girl was killed. Manager tried to talk him out of it, offered him other rooms. Yeah. I guess I've been in it too long, Danny. Here's why he wanted this room. Found it in his pocket. Marriage license. I look at it, Danny. Thanks. This is to William Waller and Margaret Ramsey. That'll be Peg Ramsey, the murdered girl, huh, Danny? Yeah, a place like this probably gonna keep the marriage a secret. I don't know. It's written so fine. Wait, I gotta put out my glasses. Sure, go ahead. Peg, beloved Peg, all of it is done, finished for you, now for me. For someone you breathed life into, then dying, took it from him, done, finished. He wrote this, Danny? And he wrote it. With a gun in his hand like that, this note, how he insisted on the same room. Suicide, huh? Call it in, Muggevin. Come on in, Muggevin. Been down a technical? Yeah, for an hour, more or less. Took me that long to get out of Gordon what he knew as soon as I walked in. Guys like Gordon give mothers a bad name. Gave you a rough time. Yeah, had me looking through microscopes, gave me a short lecture on the theory anyhow, the gun that William Walter allegedly killed himself with also fired the bullet that killed Peg Ramsey. Murder and suicide, huh, Muggevin? I guess so. What do you think? Take a look at this suicide note. I saw it, Danny. I know you saw it, but look at it again. It's a suicide note. Is it? Show me where he says he's going to kill himself. Show me where it says that he... What is it, Gino? This is Kirk. Show her in. This way to see Danny Clover. Thanks, that'll be all, Sergeant. Well, please sit down, Miss Kirk. This is Detective Muggevin. This is Kirk. I'm going to leave town tomorrow, Mr. Clover. I see. Yes. This is a lonely city now. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid of it because so many things... William Walter? Yes. Thank you. Mrs. Kirk, one thing I'd like to ask you. The way you said Mrs. the little glance that just happened between you you and this other gentleman the Mrs. means I was once married, my husband is dead. I see. And just what interest I had in William. He was a great writer. I said I was lonely. Now that William's dead, the world's a little bit more lonely too. Though it'll never know it. Just why did you come here? I want to ask something of you, may I? I want to take him home. I want to bury him. We've already sent notification in North Carolina to his next to kin. But in this case, don't you see, it should be me who should take, well, call it responsibility. Call it whatever. I'm sorry, Mrs. Kirk, until we hear from the next of kin we have no authority to... I loved him. Is that what you wanted to hear me say? Go ahead, exchange your glances again. Snick a little bit behind your hands. Mrs. Kirk, what the lieutenant said For a moment, consider her fury at being deprived of the dead boy and understand it. Understand it because of the sudden statement of love for him. Blurt it out, bitter, explosive, no longer to be contained. But let it also open a door on a new questions. The finding out of why a boy's life must be taken. A boy of talent. A boy who was about to be married. A boy who had apparently scrawled a note against the insistent calling of death. Murder. Suicide. Make sure which... ought to take you to a place you'd been before, to a man you'd talked to before. Can't tell you how glad I am. You came back to me, Mr. Clover. I just can't tell you how glad. Why, Mr. Taggart? Well, this is perhaps an uncalled-for thought after those dismal doings at the Savannah Hotel. Even tragic, you might say, pig in that boy. Just tell me, Mr. Taggart. Well, I was wondering, just a fleeting thought, mind you, did you happen to find the man you scripted, the boy's novel? Did he perchance die with it there in the hotel room? No, no, we didn't find it. Why? Well, you must forgive me for this rather scavenger-like idea I've had, but not that we won't take care of the boy's estate, mind you, but it seems a provocative publishing stunt that... You want to publish the work posthumously. A boy kills himself, leaves a novel, that would make a splash in the literary world. Yes, I would have tried to put it more tastefully, but that's it, exactly. Sorry, I can't help you. Then I can't for the life of me imagine what else we have to talk about. The boy killed himself. He was going to marry Peg Ramsey, did you know that? Marry? No, I didn't. Imagine. You said you met the boy when he first came here that you would... Quickly, a quick introduction from Peg. As I said, his work impressed her, so I okayed in advance for him. That's why if you find the manuscript, I feel it rightfully belongs to me. And that's all you knew of him, the advance. Peg Ramsey's interest in him, sponsoring of that, and the money I've already expended on him. For advanced publicity on Peg's newfound genius, I even hired Tonto Jones. Who? Tonto Jones, ace blurbist. The Guy de Mopassant of book jackets. Told him to stick with Walter and get to his marrow, find out everything about him, and write in a hundred words to fit the back of a book jacket. I'd like to talk to a man who knew all about William Walter. Do you have his address? Greenwich Village, somewhere. The girl will give it to you on your way out, Mr. Clover. You were going, weren't you? So, downtown now to Greenwich Village. Turn off 11th Street on the bank. Pass the bargain basement bars where the floor shows chuckle at the customers. And the local color is prefabricated. And find an address and other basement where the door is a painted mural of pink and satyrs with a motto in French over the brass knocker. When the door opens, the man puts a finger to his lips. Shh. It's the last side. Schoenberg bought the records today. Come on. Come on, everybody's inside. All right. Grab yourself a hunk of floor and sit. If you don't mind, I'll stand. What did you bring? What? I told Barbette to tell everybody to bring a record. I brought a badge. Hey, who are you? Aren't you one of Barbette's... Police, I'm looking for Donald Jones. Why? Where is he? Me? What do you want me for? The papers gave me the name affectionately. It's stuck. Now tell me what you can about William Walter. I was going to do his dust jacket for him. You mean that stuff on the cover of a book that tells how good it is? What do you mean, stuff? Just tell me about William Walter. I could have done it, too. Have somebody to support me. I could have written a novel. Did William Walter finish his? About a week ago. Pretty good, too. I've approached his subject matter that way. Then you read it. Parts of it. Other parts he read to us. To us? People who drop in from time to time. We had varied opinions as to the novel's significance. Of course, if you're the type who's satisfied with sheer entertainment value... Where is the novel? Manuscript? Oh, he left it here for me to look over. A couple of days ago, Janice picked it up. Janice Kirk? She said, will he send her for it? Hey, Tonto. We're disturbing your guest, Tonto. Go back to him. I'm just leaving. Hello, Mr. Clover. May I come in, Mrs. Kirk? Well, you don't want to talk to me now. I've been crying. I look a mess. It'll only be a few minutes. You promise? Yes. Well, then come in. You wait right here. I'll go in the next room and do my face. That's right, Tonto Jones. No, I don't. I do. How do I look better? Of course I look better. Can you tell I've been crying? No. Now we'll talk. Did you like the novel? I'll be more explicit, Mr. Clover. I'm always reading. What novel did you mean? William Walter's novel. You know something? I told you I love the boy. He told me. What about the novel, Mrs. Kirk? Well, that's what I mean. He didn't even let me read it after all I did for him. Maybe you didn't understand me, Mrs. Kirk. I said I saw Mr. Jones down in Greenwich Village. Well, he's a liar. About what? About anything he told you. He said you picked up Walter's novel a couple of days ago. I don't think he lied. Nobody else has that manuscript. And I suppose nobody will ever read it. I suppose not. Yeah. You told me how hard you worked to foster the boy's talent. How you brought him here to New York. How everything was wrapped up in that boy in his novel. Isn't it bother you that the manuscript is missing? Well, I... Do you have it? No, no, I don't. Did you destroy it? Did you? What difference does it make? I'm just curious to know what the novel is about. I burned it before I read it. As soon as I got it here, you destroyed somebody you loved. How can you say that? You loved him all right. Only he was going to marry Peg Ramsey. Did he show you the marriage license? We were never going to marry that girl. He just wanted his novel published, that's all. No, no. Marriage license usually means marriage. They were going to keep it secret, but they told you because you deserved to know. Deserved to know? Do you know why they told me to be cruel to me? To laugh at me, to slap me in the face with it? So you killed her. Could you blame me? But the boy you said you loved him. Him, sitting there when I came into the room. I was ready to forgive him everything. I walked over to him, put my hands around his back. He shrugged him off. Kept writing. Writing a note to a girl he would see. Did you ever hear anything as crazy as that? Note to a dead girl. We thought it was a suicide note. He went over to the bed and he sprawled out. Put his hands behind his head and he stared at me. He stared hate at me. Because you'd killed Peg Ramsey? That made me think he still loved me. Why didn't he go to the police? Because he... I'd crawl back to him. He wanted me there so he could tell me how much fate he had for me. How much he despised me. You didn't give him a chance. You destroyed him. Everything that he touched, you destroyed. The final thing to ride on the train. And he'd be back there with a baggage. The litter and the animals. Let's go, Mrs. Kirk. No one's going to do that to me. Not to me. Who did he think he was? Let's go. Night bursts open like a sudden flame on Broadway. The crowd swarmed dances between the silhouettes of a thousand buildings. Dances its fury away against the time of morning until the night soaks up the sound and pain and color. And turns it into dawn. It's Broadway. The Gaudiest. The Most Violin. The Lonesomeest Mile in the World. Broadway. My Beat. Broadway's My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover with Charles Calvert as Tortaglia and Jack Krushan as Muggevin. The program was produced and directed by Elliott Lewis with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage. In tonight's story, Betty Lou Gerson was heard as Janice Kirk featured in the cast were Stan Waxman, Steve Roberts and David Wolfe. Sing the praises of Running Brooks, Babbling Brooks and He Who Brooks Know Evil. But you'll sing the praises yourself of Our Miss Brooks starring Eve Arden Sunday nights on most of these same CBS radio stations. As Connie Brooks, Eve Arden is sometimes running after a man often babbling about men. And she Brooks Know Evil that interferes with her pursuit of a man. So maybe the poets should sing her praises too. Our Miss Brooks is fun to hear Sunday nights on CBS radio. Speaking and remember, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy open fire on your funny bone Sunday nights on the CBS radio network.