Mystery - Sleepy Radio · Various Authors

Leonidas Witherall - Murder on the Train

April 2, 2026·27 min·2 clips

Witherall realizes the real victim is in the coffin, leading to a daring plan to open it.

1. Mystery — Sleepy Radio presents 'Murder on the Train,' an episode of The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall on WOR, starring Walter Hamden. 2. Leonidas Witherall, a New England schoolmaster and part-time detective, is traveling with housekeeper Mrs. Mullet to an educators' convention in Chicago; both characters are played by Walter Hamden and Ethel Ramey respectively. 3. The episode's central hook is an unusual murder-concealment scheme: a murder victim is hidden inside a legitimate funeral coffin loaded into the baggage car, while a natural-death corpse replaces the victim in his train compartment. 4. Before boarding, Witherall overhears criminals Danny Randolph and Sparrow arguing on the platform about payment for a manuscript Danny claims to have written but Sparrow intends to publish as his own work under the title 'The Big Shot.' 5. 'The Big Shot' contains 'every racket and every job' of an unidentified powerful criminal, making its publication a fatal threat to that criminal's freedom. 6. A second overheard conversation in the neighboring compartment reveals that Margie McIntosh helped Sparrow steal the manuscript from Danny, giving official testimony that Sparrow wrote it, in exchange for a promised partnership that Sparrow later abandoned. 7. At 2:30 AM near Cleveland, porter George cannot wake the passenger in compartment six; when he forces the door, he finds a dead man — later identified as Thomas Bridges, with a return ticket from Chicago — who was clearly not the original occupant. 8. Witherall notices the bedroom slippers left in compartment six don't fit the body of Bridges, confirming that the original passenger — Sparrow — had been alive and wearing pajamas before being killed and replaced. 9. Witherall and Mrs. Mullet locate the baggage-car guard, a man named Benny, who was posted to watch the coffin as part of the murder plot; Mrs. Mullet knocks him unconscious with a grappling hook while Witherall distracts him with Shakespeare quotations. 10. Inside the coffin, Witherall finds Sparrow stabbed, explaining the scheme: Sparrow would be buried in the legitimate funeral while Bridges's coroner ruling of heart attack would erase any trace of murder. 11. Hidden behind mailbags, Witherall and Mrs. Mullet eavesdrop on Danny and Margie discovering the open coffin; both deflect blame onto 'His Royal Highness' — the Big Shot — who had the strongest motive to suppress the book. 12. Witherall devises a distraction: he sends Mrs. Mullet to scream at one end of the train car, creating confusion that gives him three minutes to search Danny's and Margie's luggage for the manuscript. 13. Witherall finds the manuscript in Danny's briefcase, identifying Danny as the killer and the Big Shot as a secondary conspirator whose name appears in the manuscript's pages. 14. Confronted at gunpoint, Danny confesses: Sparrow had refused to pay him, they fought over a knife in the compartment, and Danny won. 15. Witherall then reveals that Mr. Lear, the mild-mannered butterfly collector who had been chatting pleasantly about his collection throughout the journey, is the Big Shot named in the manuscript. 16. Benny, the hired body-switcher, is exonerated of the stabbing because he did not possess the manuscript — Witherall's logic being that only the killer would have secured it. 17. The episode maintains a comedic register throughout: Mrs. Mullet's horror at opening the coffin, Benny's pride in having read two Shakespeare plays ('Romeo and Juliet — two'), and Witherall quoting Macbeth as he finally falls asleep. 18. Roger Bower's direction keeps the pacing crisp through multiple scene changes — platform, train compartment, baggage car — with Howard Merrill's script delivering the reveal cleanly in the final five minutes. 19. Best for listeners who enjoy 1940s American radio mystery with comedic interludes, train-journey atmosphere, and Shakespearean allusions. 20. Listeners seeking non-fiction content, modern crime formats, or extended character depth will find the format too breezy.

As heard by us

A Chicago-bound murder mystery, a Shakespeare-bearded schoolmaster, and a brisk vintage-crime setup.

A schoolmaster with a Shakespeare beard, a neighborhood housekeeper who keeps every detail in line, and a death that upends a Chicago-bound trip give the story its spark.

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Why you'd press play

You want a train ride that turns into a murder problem fast.

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