Boston Blackie Podcast; Master Detective · Humphrey Productions

A_Boat_Is_on_Montgomery_Street_with_a_Body_in_It

·26 min·1 clip

Blackie ties Arnold to the murders by saying the film's budget and schedule gave him a motive.

1. Boston Blackie Podcast; Master Detective centers on a body found on the Viking, a boat parked on Montgomery Street with no water nearby. 2. Inspector Faraday, Boston Blackie, Mary, Gregory Thompson, Linda Stevens, Jules Arnold, and Eduardo Bernetti drive the case because each one controls a different piece of the Hollywood trail. 3. The episode asks how a publicity stunt for High and Dry became a murder investigation. 4. Faraday learns from Barton that the boat was towed into Montgomery Street and that the police first believed the body came from a morgue. 5. Gregory Thompson says the stunt was meant to advertise Imperial Studios' picture High and Dry and that he paid a medical student five dollars for a corpse. 6. The identified body turns out to be Eduardo Bernetti, the film's director, not the anonymous stiff Thompson described. 7. Blackie and Mary discuss why Faraday released Thompson when the murder charge would not stick and when the medical student backed Thompson's story. 8. Mary brings up a prior fight between Thompson and Bernetti about six months earlier, which gives Thompson a motive. 9. Mary also names Linda Stevens as Bernetti's girlfriend and says she is staying at the Foster Arms apartment. 10. Thompson then demands $10,000 from producer Jules Arnold and takes the money from Arnold's desk as an advance against his salary. 11. A shot is heard at Linda Stevens's apartment on the third floor, and Blackie and Mary find her dead in apartment 306. 12. Blackie notices no gun, no struggle, and a wardrobe full of mink coats, a Persian lamb coat, and evening gowns. 13. When Blackie calls Imperial Studios, Arnold says Thompson has stolen $10,000 from his safe and claims the apparent shot was only a car blowout. 14. Blackie links that blowout sound to Linda Stevens's apartment and tells Mary to call Faraday rather than report the body herself. 15. Faraday later brings in Thompson after his airport arrest, but Blackie says Thompson still does not fit as the killer of both Bernetti and Linda Stevens. 16. Blackie explains that Arnold was outside Linda's back door, then ran to a lobby phone booth and made the studio call while pretending to be in his office. 17. Blackie says the studio operator connected the calls, which let Arnold create an alibi while speaking to him on the phone. 18. Faraday accepts the proof when Blackie produces Arnold's gun and says the bullets match the killings of Stevens and Bernetti. 19. The episode plays as a fast, bantering detective story with studio gossip, phone trickery, and repeated back-and-forth between Blackie and Faraday. 20. Listeners who like old-time radio mysteries, Hollywood settings, and clean deduction will get the most from it, while listeners wanting slow character study may skip it.

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