Old Time Radio Blackstone Detective · Ed Jerome

Blackstone Detective - The Reluctant Buzzsaw

March 16, 2026·11 min·1 clip

Blackstone's assistant reveals a bank robbery, but masked men with guns suddenly appear in his magic studio.

1. 'Blackstone the Magic Detective' presents 'The Reluctant Buzzsaw,' in which Blackstone's stage apparatus becomes an inadvertent weapon against two bank robbers. 2. Blackstone and his assistant Rhoda are the protagonists; the antagonists are two robbers named Clipper and Jake, whose names are established through their own dialogue. 3. The episode's central irony is that criminals who choose the buzzsaw as a murder weapon don't realize it is a perfected stage illusion designed for exactly that scenario. 4. After a bank robbery, Rhoda witnesses Clipper and Jake fleeing in a car; she writes their license plate number on a slip of paper. 5. Clipper and Jake follow her back to Blackstone's magic studio and hold both Rhoda and Blackstone at gunpoint. 6. Clipper recovers the slip of paper with the license number from Rhoda's bag, eliminating the written evidence. 7. Clipper devises a plan to strap Rhoda to a board in front of the large buzzsaw, kill her, and let Blackstone take the blame as a magician whose trick 'went wrong.' 8. Blackstone warns Clipper that 'no murder is smart,' but Clipper ignores the warning and orders Jake to start the buzzsaw. 9. The buzzsaw runs; Clipper and Jake believe Rhoda has been cut in half when they hear a scream. 10. Rhoda steps out of the apparatus unharmed — Blackstone had just completed building a genuine 'sawing a woman in half' illusion and was testing it when the robbers arrived. 11. Rhoda retrieves Clipper's gun and covers both men, telling Clipper 'I know how to shoot it too.' 12. Blackstone takes the second gun and holds both robbers while Rhoda goes to call the police. 13. Blackstone tells Clipper he'll have 'about 20 years to figure out' how Rhoda survived. 14. The episode then transitions to a magic lesson segment with two tricks: the coin misdirection puzzle and the six-glasses liquid puzzle. 15. In the coin trick, Blackstone says 'three coins worth 35 cents, but one of them isn't a nickel' — the quarter is the coin that isn't a nickel; the other two are. 16. In the six-glasses trick, six glasses alternate empty and full; moving only one glass is achieved by pouring the liquid from the middle full glass into the middle empty one. 17. The magic lesson format uses Rhoda and a guest (Mr. Hancock) as confused audience members, making the solutions feel genuinely surprising. 18. The episode's tone is brisk and comedic, with Blackstone maintaining calm wit throughout the danger and the educational segment. 19. Fans of classic radio crime-comedy, vintage puzzle content, and stage magic history will enjoy the dual-format structure. 20. Listeners expecting modern thriller pacing, moral complexity, or documentary content will find the episode lightweight by contemporary standards.

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