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

Mystery is My Hobby: Thief and the Paintings

·34 min·2 clips

The road to Hurricane Manor runs through Everglades swamp roads, barbed wire, traps, and an alarm bell.

Laura wakes with the room already in motion. Casey and the Inspector get her onto a couch, try to quiet the alarm bells, and wait for her to come around. She is not grateful. Laura opens her eyes asking where she is, then quickly turns furious, confused, and ready to keep everyone back with a gun. The room goes still. Casey and the Inspector back off while Laura warns them not to move and leaves in a panic. Nobody chases her. Casey thinks that would not help much, and the Inspector starts to see that the gun may matter more as a clue than as a threat. If one bullet had been fired from that gun, they might be able to learn what Laura saw and why she was so frightened. Casey is not impressed by the idea. He treats the shot as a trick, but he does not think Laura was faking the fear she showed in the room. Something else is wrong. They begin looking around and notice the setup is stranger than it first looked, with the organ, the paintings, the alarm system, and the windows all part of the problem. The wiring is obvious. The burglar alarm lines run plainly by the windows, and the windows themselves are bolted shut from the inside. That is not a small detail. Once the hardware starts contradicting the story, the room stops looking like a simple theft scene and starts looking like evidence. The case sharpens. What looked like a frightened woman and a loud alarm becomes a tighter puzzle about who was in the room, who got out, and what Laura knows.

As heard by us

A gun, a fainting woman, and a mystery that keeps refusing the easy answer.

"Thief and the Paintings" starts in a room that is already falling apart: alarm bells are going, a gun is on hand, and two men are trying to keep Laura steady after she wakes in panic.

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Why you'd press play

A thief, some paintings, and one room that will not stay simple.

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