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The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective.Brought to you by Wild Root Cream Oil Hair Tonic.The non-alcoholic hair tonic that contains lanolin.Wild Root Cream Oil.Again and again, the choice of men who put good grooming first.
The detective agency offered me a cool million and a half but I couldn't be bought Oh Sam all the time fooling straight good savvy Oh really Sam why didn't you take it oh but you couldn't of course that's right angel taxes oh you mean it would put you in a bracket the girl's name in case you were going to ask was sugar cane was she sweet
Oh, Effie, you made a joke.
Oh, not much of one, though.
But even though you do seem to be, as you would say, in a jugular vein, I shall be right down, serious and frowning, to dictate a chronicle steeped in the bitter tea of general confusion, brewed in a witch's cauldron of murder, greed, and avarice.
That's what gives it that nutty flavor.What, Sam?Silly girl, I refer to the sugar cane caper on which I will forthwith my report be done to dictate on, uh, it, uh, with, uh, goodbye.
Daschle Hammett, America's leading detective fiction writer and creator of Sam Spade, the hard-boiled private eye, and William Spear, radio's outstanding producer-director of mystery and crime drama, join their talents to make your hair stand on end with the adventures of Sam Spade.
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Again and again, the choice of men and women and children, too.And now, with Howard Duff starring as Spade, Wild Root brings to the air the greatest private detective of them all in the adventures of Sam Spade.
Hello, Sam.How are you, Sam?You were so lugubrious over the phone.Sometimes you're so bucolic, but tonight... What am I?
Lugubrious tonight.Just, just, just bubbling over.
Do you possibly mean I'm being lush with my verbiage?
Well, that's because I've been at work in the environs of Snob Hill. Well, they never use one word if 12 will do.Are you ready for the dictation?I guess it is.I plan to be most amusing tonight.Already I am yet.Look, I haven't even started.
Really, I haven't.All right.Now, pencil.Date.Alan should have such an audience.Date.October 3rd, 1948 to Clifton Cavanaugh Esquire. From Samuel Spade, license number 137596, subject, the Sugar Cane Caper.
On Thursday last, at 11 a.m., as I waited for the traffic signal so that I might legally cross Powell Street in order to board a cable car, a cat rubbed up against my leg.I leaned over to stroke it and noticed that it had six toes.
I wondered if that meant anything.It didn't. Most Nob Hill addresses don't mean much anymore, but yours still does.The house was big, hideous and reassuring.
Oh, are you from Pepper Snow?
No, I'm in business for myself.Mr. Cavanaugh in?
Oh, come on in.I can't understand what happened to that boy from Pepper Snow.Oh, pardon me if I seem a little hungover.
Gladly, but can you ever forgive yourself?
I like you.You got a sense of humor.You'll need it.
You trying to tell me you don't approve of Mr. Cavanaugh?That perfume pothead.What did he do to you?He married my mother.Oh.Stepfather?
Spades, my name.Where do I find him?
Check.I'll give you a clue.Look behind you.I did.I turned and found myself looking straight into your handsome face. You look several years younger than your stepson, with regular aquiline features, dark, widely spaced eyes, and blue-black hair.
Well, so you're the notorious Sam Spain.
Well, I don't want to seem modest.Come into the conservatory.There's just the barest chance that we'll not be overheard.Good.There.Sit down.What's your problem, Mr. Cavanaugh? Problem, indeed.Problems, plural.
Starting with that junior grade lush that collared you at the door.He's very fond of you, too.Well, you can't imagine what a trial that boy's been to me.Both the children.
For some reason, neither Fred nor his sister Eunice ever quite accepted me as their father.You don't say?I suppose my youth counted against me.I think they misinterpreted my motives.When any man marries a wealthy widow twice his age... Yeah.
Why did you send for me, Mr. Cavanaugh? Well, it all started several months back, before my wife, uh, their mother, uh, where was I?Oh, died.The scandal quite literally killed her.You're sure that's what did the trick?
Fred, uh, who, among other talents, was a positive genius for knowing the wrong sort of people, struck up an acquaintance with a hoodlum named Johnny Verona.Nice, clean-cut gangster type, runs a joint on Pacific Street.Precisely.
With the positively hysterical name of the Subtropico. Well, there was a sordid brawl of some sort.A man shot.Obviously, this Johnny Verona shot.Fred had to give testimony before the grand jury.It was all we could do to keep it out of the paper.
But you did.No.And old Eleanor, my wife, that is, dropped dead when the butler brought in the chronicle.But the worst was yet to come, Sam.Well, don't keep me hanging, Cliff.Well, Fred continued to frequent this bistro, this dive of Verona's.
I understand. I believe the bait is a toothsome little teaser with the unlikely name of Sugar Cane.She likes Fred.No woman in her right mind would look twice at that idiot, even if he were twice as rich and only half a sodden.Where was I?
Oh, yes, this Verona person came here several times on the pretext of pouring Fred through the front door and thereby met my stepdaughter, Eunice.
Well, that's a very interesting story, Mr. Cavanaugh. Maybe you'll tell me what you want a detective for.
Because my stepdaughter has brazenly informed me that she intends to marry this gangster.I want you to help me prevent that marriage.I don't see.Don't see what?I don't see how I can.Perhaps I didn't make myself clear.
When Verona was arrested for that shooting in his club, Fred didn't tell the grand jury all he knew.Now, if you could prove that Verona is guilty, then we'd be rid of him for good.Is it Verona you want to get rid of or your stepson?
Good Lord, you don't, you don't think Fred did it?Do you?Why, no, of course not.OK, supposing Verona did it, then Fred goes up on a perjury rap, maybe accessory.Oh.Well, I have no overwhelming desire to injure Fred.
Look, why don't you tell me what you have an overwhelming desire for?Under the terms of her mother's will, Eunice will inherit three million dollars as soon as she marries.When?When what?When do I meet her?Be serious, Matt.
Now, I will pay Verona $50,000 in cash if he'll stay away from her.Would you take 50 grand as the payoff and a $3 million caper?In this instance, yes.Eunice is not very well, and you may quote me on that.Book, chapter, and verse.To Johnny Verona?
OK.Water's mighty cold this time of the year at the bottom of the bay, but if you don't care, I don't.Thank you.Let me know how it comes out.Don't give it a second thought.You'll know.Don't get up, Mr. Cavanaugh.I know the way out.
Hey, Spade, wait up.Well, you look a little better.Listen, there's something you ought to know.He was my sister's boyfriend before he married my mother.He did it out of revenge because Eunice threw him over.He still wants to marry her.
Oh, my mother put that crazy marriage clause in her will.He's been systematically getting rid of every man who's been interested in her.Bought him off, threatened him off any way he could.Why?
He thinks Eunice will eventually marry him to get her inheritance.But she won't.She'll kill him first, and if she doesn't, I'll do it for her.
Oh, yeah?Fred, what on earth are you saying?Who is this man?
Well, he's the detective.Sam Spade.You're Eunice Blair?
Yes, I want to talk to you.Fred, go and... Yeah.
I know why my stepfather hired you, Mr. Spade.If you need the money, go ahead.But this time it won't work.
You look as if you'd like to be a nice girl.How did you happen to settle for a cheap grifter like Johnny Verona?
Because we understand each other and he can't be scared off.
Any message I can take him from you?
Tell Johnny I'll meet him at the usual place.And tell him I still like my coffee black.No sugar.
I didn't ask her what kind of sugar she didn't want any of.I thought I knew. The only thing wrong with Sugar Cane's dance was her dancing, but the customers didn't seem to mind, and I didn't either.
It was a pleasure to size her up carefully, as I would have felt obliged to do anyway in my professional capacity.She was a black-haired number with affluent features and widely spaced dark eyes.
It was a beautiful combination, and I wondered where I'd seen it before quite recently.I decided
Hey, what's the idea of barging in here after me?Can't you see the sign on the door?
No customers in the dressing room.Then let's go someplace else.I want to talk to you.Beat it.Take it easy.This is on business.Good.I'll fix it up with the boss.
Yeah, sugar.What's the matter?Is Joe giving you trouble?Get in here after me, you cheap masher.
On the pretext of discussing business affairs.
Well?Sorry, I had to give her that bum's rush routine.I don't want to get her excited.She's a nice kid and she doesn't know why you're here.
Yeah.Eunice called me and told me you'd be down.
Okay, Johnny, I'll give it to you fast and get out.Clifton Cavanaugh will pay you 50 grand to leave Eunice alone.He also made a few idle or not so idle threats about what might happen to her if you don't take his money.For example?
He said she hasn't been feeling well, might not live long enough to get married.I don't have to tell you what I think about that kind of talk, and I wouldn't be peddling it if my office rent wasn't due.
That's why when you started giving me that bums rush, I made only, shall we say, a token resistance.Yeah.
About me marrying Eunice. You can tell Clifton to stop worrying.Yeah, Eunice and I got married three weeks ago.You what?Married.You want to see the papers?
I don't want her to get hurt.You're scared of Clifton?No, sugar.She's got a very low boiling point.She's a... Oh, pardon me.Yeah.Yeah, Nick.What is?Go ahead.Yeah, I heard you. No, no, don't touch anything.Don't let anybody in.I'll be right over.
Bad news?Yeah, Eunice.She's dead.How?Well, one of my boys found her in my apartment.She was supposed to wait for me there.How did it happen?He's not sure.He thinks she took poison.
I had to give Johnny Verona one thing.He didn't make any pretense about being grief-stricken.After all, he just inherited three million bucks.
Sugar Cane took it standing up, too, but she just lost a rival and got her man back three million bucks richer.I wasn't with you when you got the news, Mr. Cavanaugh.But the one I really wondered about was Eunice's brother, Fred.
What brought that on was something I picked up in Johnny Verona's apartment when we found Eunice's body sprawled out over a tray of coffee things.It was a medicine bottle with a doctor's prescription number on the label.
The name of the druggist that had put it up was Fefeshnow. I remembered what Fred had said to me when he admitted me to your house that afternoon.Quote, are you the man from Fefeshnells?I wondered if I'd answered yes, would Eunice still be alive?
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The morning papers didn't carry anything new on Eunice's death.Cause was put down to an overdose of a toxic drug.The doctor who prescribed it said she'd requested it for migraine headaches, which he suggested might have driven her to suicide.
He did not explain why she had taken four doses in capsule form and dissolved the rest of it in a decanter of coffee.I thought somebody else had dosed the coffee, and so did you, Mr. Cavanaugh.
Verona did it, of course.He knew she was taking those pills and dosed the coffee just enough to be fatal when added to what she took voluntarily.
You knew all that, too?So did Fred.But you had more reasons.Three million more.
But they were already married.
You know that when you hired me?
Yes.Then how come?I knew she was planning to do away with herself.I thought if we could pin it on Verona, after all, he's guilty of that old murder.Fred's a witness to that.Well, if you were convicted, the money would revert to me.Nuts!
She wasn't planning suicide, and you know it.Well, then?I don't care who takes the fall, but I got less on Verona than I got on you.Then I'll give you something.
Here.Take a look.Verona's lawyer sent this around before her body was cold.A claim for $3 million, notarized yesterday while Eunice was still alive.Well, Mr. Spade?Pardon me when I drop dead.
You did and waited hopefully, but I managed to stay on my feet.I even managed to make it down the hall to the bar where I found your stepson ambushed behind a row of empty bottles.
Fine detective you turn out to be.I warned you, stand up like a man.It's all right, I'll take on both of you.
Come on, sober up, make sense.
Where's my drink?Who took my glass?
Here it is.Give me it.Sure.
Listen to me, this is very important.Important?You were expecting a delivery from a drugstore when I arrived here yesterday morning.Who ordered it?She did.
Eunice, she told me to watch for it and bring it to her.
What did you do with that bottle of medicine?
I'm sleepy.I gotta get some rest.
Wake up!I said wake up!Leave me alone!Now, now, listen.You took that bottle with you when you went out.Where did you take it?I tell you when you let me go to sleep.You took that bottle with you, didn't you?
You're guessing. I know your third degree.
You went to Verona's apartment, didn't you?
Two gentlemen of Verona.Well, at least Shakespeare.
You doped that coffee, didn't you, with the poison that killed your sister?
I didn't mean it for her.I didn't know she was gone there.
I want a lawyer.I know my rights.
Listen, I'm not a cop.I'm not taking a statement.You're too drunk for it to hold anyway, so you can tell me.
Okay.Here's how it happened. She took her four pills and went to bed.Yeah?I sneaked a bottle out of the medicine chest, and I went over to his place.His boy Nick was there making coffee for the boss, he said, when he got home.
I hung around talking for a while, and I slipped some of the stuff in the percolator while he was getting out the cups, and that's all.
Why did you want to kill Johnny Verona?So Eunice wouldn't have to marry him.What do you mean, have to?
She was doing it for me so he'd keep quiet.
About that brawl in the club, that old killing they tried to nail Johnny for?
Yeah, that's it.The gun that did it.He got rid of it before the cops arrived.That was my gun.
Fred, straighten up.Look, Johnny dictated the story you told the grand jury.How do I know he didn't dictate the one you're telling me now?Who were you covering for?
I didn't say anything.I didn't tell you anything.
Get out of here!What's the matter with you?
The revolver barrel that crashed through the darkened window pane behind the bar spoke twice.I answered it.I looked out into the darkness, making myself a good enough target to draw some fire.I fired back at the flashes.
I was defending more on luck than aim, and luck was what I wasn't having much of.I went back to the place where Fred had fallen.The shots that had dropped him were lucky.He'd been dead before he hit the floor.
What's happened here?See for yourself. Who?Shot through the window.Couldn't see anything but the gun muzzle.Looked like a .45.Johnny Verona, he packs a .45.
Who told you that?It came out of that investigation.One of the reasons they couldn't indict for that old shooting.
There were a lot of reasons they couldn't get that indictment.What are you driving at?Neither one of the leading suspects was guilty.I don't follow you.Sugar Cane did that job.That's wild.
What if I told you Fred made a statement of that effect before he was shot?
You're lying.He confessed.Did I tell you that? Well, he must have.He always talked about it when he was drunk.
All right.All right, I was bluffing.Why?Just a crazy hunch.I thought there might be something between you and Sugar.Now I'm sure there isn't.Of course not.Should have spotted it before.You're too much the same type, even look-alike.
Well, don't try.It's not worth it.You better call Homicide about Fred here.Tell Lieutenant Dundee if he wants my statement, I'll be at my apartment. After I pretended to leave, I came back and did a little eavesdropping of my own.
You didn't phone homicide, but you did spend an hour filing out the barrel of a .45 automatic.Then you went out.I tailed you to an address on Slope Boulevard.A short time after you went in, Sugar Cane came out alone.
I followed her to you-know-the-answer, my apartment.I went in the back way via the fire escape and arrived in time to answer her buzz.
Oh, Mr. Spade, thank heaven I found you at home.
I know it's terribly late.
Forget it.Why don't you take off your coat or something?
Can't stay very long.It's not safe.I may have been followed here.
Sam, you don't mind if I call you Sam?No.I'm so frightened.It's about Johnny Verona.I don't know what he may do.He's convinced that Fred killed Eunice and he's out gunning for him right now.We've got to stop him before he does anything rash.
You've come to the wrong party, sugar.I'm working for the enemy.
Cavanaugh. It's no skin off his nose if Johnny Verona drops Fred Blair or if you all drop.All he does is sit back and collect.He can't be as cynical as that.You ought to know.
Has he told you anything about me?
I'd rather hear it from you.
May we sit down?Well, there's not much to tell.I played along with Johnny for one reason and one reason alone.To save Fred from that old murder rap.
Were you figuring on marrying into that family, too?Oh, Sam.A regular pincers movement, wasn't it?Johnny and Eunice, you and Fred.
All right.It's true, I wasn't in love with Fred.But it wasn't all the money.I was sorry for him.Money's not what I really want.I know that now.
Someone.Someone I can trust.
Oh, Sam, you're what I want.Say you want me, too. Please say it.Don't answer it, Sam.
Johnny may have followed me here.He's insanely jealous.
Well, I got to face it out with him sooner or later.Might as well be now.
Stand out of the way, sugar.
I'm not gunning for you, Spade.
In that case, come on in.
Well, sugar. I didn't believe him that you were coming here.
I had to, Johnny.He got some crazy confession out of Fred while he was drunk.I had to stall him until you and Cliff could talk to him.To save Fred, I mean.
Oh, stop horsing around.We all know that we all know Fred is dead, and we all know that we all know who killed him.
Oh, then Cliff was leveling.You are trying to pin that on me.I don't mean it, but if you want it, you can have it.There's three million bucks in my part of it.I'll split down the middle with you. If you throw in with them, it's a three-way split.
There's no split at all if you take the rap for Eunice's killing, and you will if you throw in with me.It's their word against mine, two witnesses against one, and all I've got is a confession by a drunk who is now dead.Sam.
Oh, Sam, I was sure for a moment you'd... Get away from me.
Sam, I... Go on.Go to work on him.I should have given you a little more time.That wasn't fair, was it, sugar?I hate you.I hate you both.
I never want to see you again.
Get back in that room, sugar. What happened, Sugar?Why were you running away?
Johnny double-crossed us.Now, Sam knows everything.
What does he know?The whole caver.Part of it I wasn't quite sure of until I saw you and Sugar standing side by side.
That blue-black hair, the same eyes, plus the fact that the bell on Sugar's apartment on Sloat Boulevard reads, Kane, parenthesis, Cavanaugh.You took a crazy chance when you knocked off Fred with me right there in the room.
The kind of a crazy chance a brother would take to keep his sister clear.I could have told you that.It would have helped a lot, Johnny, but you didn't.
A man lets his sister go on dancing in a joint like yours after he's in the chips and she goes on liking it, you can be sure they're both playing for big stakes and for nobody but themselves.Where do you think you were supposed to wind up, Johnny?
I'll tell you. drinking that poison coffee that Eunice got hold of by mistake.
That isn't true, Johnny.I never told Fred a thing.He thought you really loved Eunice.I don't know how he found out you were forcing her into that marriage.
Did you also neglect to tell him that he was innocent?That you pulled the trigger in that old killing and shoved a gun into his hand when he was too drunk to know what he was doing?I've heard enough.Watch it, Johnny.
I winged you a split second before you fired.Your aim went wild.All I saw at first was that it missed Johnny.Then I saw him move forward in her direction.
She was leaning against the wall, a puzzled expression on her face, her hand plucking nervously at a spot of red that was spreading against the white of her dress.He caught her as she pitched forward and carried her over to a couch.
She didn't speak again.You and Johnny knelt beside her until the cops arrived.If you were aware of each other's presence, neither of you showed it. Period.End of report.
That was a sad ending, Sam.
I'm sorry it ended so sadly.
Well, it was bound to, one way or the other.There wasn't anybody in the whole gallery that thought about anybody but himself.Except poor Fred, I guess, and his... his only friends arrived in bottles and left in the ash can.
All those millions and millions.We'll get the money now, Sam.
I'm glad you asked that.It leaves me cold.Go tight that up while I nip myself a sweater.
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Well, here it is, Sam.Goodness, what a terrible group of unfortunates.As you say, it just had to end badly.
If you hope to get back in my good graces by quoting me to trick me into agreeing with you, you have succeeded.
There you go, Sam.Some lugubrious.
Effie, what is this?What means lugubrious?
Oh, Sam, it's wonderful.It's my new habit. Every time I read a book now, and you know, like you read a book and there's a word you don't know what it means or you're not sure.
Well, I make it a practice now to write down and learn three new words per day and learn the definitions to use them in conversation.You know, like, uh, desultory.
Yes, that's one of my three for the day.You see, lugubrious, right?Here it is.To talk a great deal.Um, you colleague, state of being sorrowful and verbose to be out in the country.
I see, I see.Very praiseworthy.Enlarging your vocabulary.Love it, love it.Yes, I am.
But I don't expect to be really a lugubrious for, oh, for the month.
Look, Effie, why don't you go verbose for the weekend?It's the best cure for the bucolic.Oh, Sam, look what I've done.What have you done?
I've clipped the wrong definitions to the right words.For instance, lugubrious, well, it isn't that at all.And bucolic, oh, let me see. Oh, Sam, I've learned them wrong.
I wasn't going to tell you, Effie.It's better to find out for yourself.It's more, uh, Effie cases.
My new habit.Oh, good night, Sam.
The Adventures of Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's famous private detective, are produced and directed by William Spear.Sam Spade is played by Howard Duff.Lorene Tuttle is Effie.
The Adventures of Sam Spade are written for radio by Bob Tallman and Gil Dowd.Musical direction by Ludd Gluskin with score composed by Rene Garrigan.
Join us again next Sunday when author Dashiell Hammett and producer William Spear join forces for another adventure with Sam Spade.Brought to you by Wild Root Cream Oil.Again and again, the choice of men who put good grooming first.
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