Boston Blackie Podcast; Master Detective · Humphrey Productions

Murder_in_the_Music_Room

·26 min·1 clip

Blackie plays five notes from Dick Altman’s manuscript and identifies Mary Rutley as the murderer.

1. Boston Blackie and Mary Wesley are pulled into a murder case centered on Joe Hendricks’s music-publishing office and the songwriting team of Dick Altman and Bill Rutley. 2. Dick Calmer as Boston Blackie is the detective figure, Joe Hendricks is the publisher, and Mary Wesley brings the cousin’s song that starts the visit. 3. The episode asks who killed Dick Altman and whether a bad song, a quarrel, or money explains the crime. 4. Blackie takes Mary’s cousin’s song, titled "In a Blue Canoe with You," to Joe Hendricks, who rejects it and points to Altman and Rutley as the real writers. 5. Hendricks says Dick Altman and Bill Rutley have written "nothing but bad songs for the past year," and Blackie heads down the hall to find them. 6. A scream from the piano room interrupts the office scene and leads Blackie and Mary to Dick Altman’s body. 7. Inspector Faraday arrives, treats Mrs. William Rutley as the initial suspect, and books her after she faints over the body. 8. Blackie pushes back on Faraday’s accusation and begins checking the Rutley family, the bank, and the Rio Club for a motive. 9. Bill Rutley tells Blackie that he and Dick Altman carried a "partnership insurance" policy worth "$100,000." 10. Bill also mentions gossip that Dick Altman may have been involved with Joe Hendricks’s wife about six months earlier. 11. Faraday later learns that Mrs. Rutley entered the building only seconds before she found the body, but the coroner says Altman had been dead at least half an hour. 12. Blackie tells Faraday that Mrs. Rutley is now free because the elevator timeline does not fit the time of death. 13. A bank check search shows that William and Mary Rutley had a joint account, that large sums were drawn in the past month, and that every check was endorsed by Edward Stone. 14. Mrs. Rutley visits Blackie, thanks him, and leaves behind a matchbook that says "A Rio cafe." 15. Blackie uses the matchbook clue to trace the Rio Club and the downstairs room connected to Edward Stone. 16. Blackie later gathers Joe Hendricks, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Rutley, and Faraday in Hendricks’s office to test the clues together. 17. Blackie plays five notes from manuscript paper found near the body and matches them to George M. Cohan’s "Mary." 18. He uses that lyric clue to name Mary Rutley as the killer and explains that the real motive was gambling losses and pressure over the joint account. 19. The episode is fast, joke-heavy, and built around back-and-forth sparring between Blackie and Faraday, with music-business banter throughout. 20. Listeners who like classic radio mysteries with song clues and bank-led detective work will like it; listeners wanting low-comedy, modern pacing may skip it.

As heard by us

A brisk mystery with dry banter, partnership insurance, and a case that keeps changing shape.

The episode keeps circling a murder case that has enough moving parts to stay lively: quarrels, partnership insurance, alibis, and Blackie's dry little jabs.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you like a murder case with a sting in the alibi.

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