Mystery is My Hobby Presented by the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio · Adam Graham Radio Detective Podcasts

Mystery is My Hobby: The Case of 65 Women

·29 min·1 clip

Barton Drake shows the Belladonna bottle actually contains Kernite and exposes Madame Bouvray’s switch.

1. Mystery Is My Hobby: The Case of 65 Women follows Barton Drake, Inspector Noah Danton, and a French dance troupe arriving on the Queen Elizabeth in New York. 2. Barton Drake matters because he notices details about the troupe, the baggage, and the poison bottle before Inspector Danton does. 3. The episode asks how four women on the troupe can die during the voyage and why Yvonne dies at customs. 4. Yvonne collapses as the troupe reaches New York, and Barton and Danton immediately treat the death as poison rather than accident. 5. The troupe’s leader, Madame Annette Bouvray, says Marie, Maxine, Yvette, and Yvonne have all died since leaving France. 6. The case also introduces Burlingame Birdie, a prisoner Danton is taking off the pier while Barton watches the passengers. 7. Barton and Danton inspect Yvonne’s baggage and find a Belladonna bottle that looks like it belongs to a theatrical dressing kit. 8. Barton explains that Belladonna was widely used by stage performers to make their eyes look large and shiny. 9. The autopsy later shows Kernite in Yvonne’s stomach, while the Belladonna bottle contains only a weak solution and fingerprints. 10. The fingerprints on the bottle include Danton’s and unknown prints, which pushes the case toward a substitution rather than a straightforward poisoning. 11. Max Armand tells Barton that he knew the troupe in France during the war and that he was hired because he knew their routine. 12. Armand also says he loved Annette Bouvray once, but now calls her a pig and blames her for choosing Captain Bouvray for money. 13. Armand admits he might have wanted to kill Annette, which gives the investigation a personal motive and a public grievance. 14. Barton later confronts Annette in her room and notices her interest in his eyes while she offers cognac and asks about Max. 15. Barton tests the bottle by smelling it through a handkerchief and realizes the label and contents do not match. 16. He identifies the true poison as Kernite and connects it to the Belladonna bottle switch that happened during baggage inspection. 17. Barton also points to the troupe’s saved clothing from wartime France and says someone in the group had to be a collaborator. 18. He says Annette lied about her St. Christopher medal because a fire hot enough to kill Captain Bouvray would have melted the medal into a nugget. 19. The episode is fast, theatrical, and banter-heavy, with Barton, Danton, and Birdie exchanging jokes while the case moves from the dock to the hotel. 20. Listeners who like old-time radio detective puzzles and poison clues will enjoy it; listeners wanting a slow, modern procedural probably will not.

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