"A Razor in Fleet Street" by John Dickson Carr (radio script for the first episode of Cabin B-13, which aired on July 5, 1948 on the Columbia Broadcasing Company; a revised/edited version of the script was published in London Mystery Magazine, February/March 1952, under the title "Flight from Fleet Street;" the original script has been reprinted in The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casebook of Cabin B-13, edited by Tony Medawar and Douglas Greene, 2020)
A ship's horn sounds four times...atmospheric music...then...
"From his notebooks of the strange and sinister, Dr. Fabian brings you tonight's tale...another great tale of mystery and murder writen by the world-famous bestseller mystery author John Dickson Carr."
The announcer says, "Cabin B-13." Another musical flourish as we hear actor Arnold Moss as Dr. Robert Fabian say:
"My name is Fabian.. ship's surgeon of the luxery liner Maurevania. Tonight, as we lay alongside the docks at the great port of Southampton, the ship is ghostly, deserted. Our passengers on this world cruise have gone to London. And as I sit here in my cabin, B-Thirteen, I am reminded how the tides and storms of a thousand voyages have wrought nothing more strange, more sinister than man's desire for adventure in the strange ports and lands we touch. I remember Bill and Brenda Leslie -- it was yerars ago, before the war -- and the effect on their characters of the mortal terror that overtook them in London."
Music: fades out.
Bill, and American, and his wife, British, have beeked into a quiet, somewhat dingy, hotel. Bill has been in the diplomatic service for seven years and has been stationed at three capitols, but has never been to London. In a week, he will be headed to a diplomatic post in Lisbon. But for now Bill feels he is in the true London, not the ritzy London of Claridges or some other fancy htoel, but the London of his imagination...Sherlock Holmes! Dr. Fu Manchu! Hansom cabs rattling theourgh the fog...
Then an inspector from Scotland Yard show up and shows Bill and Brenda a photograph of Bill, except the man in the photograph is not Bill. It is a lookalike named Flash Morgan, a murderous "ripper" -- one who slashes throats with a razor -- hoping to escape capture. If Morgn can forge documents and pose as Bill on the trip to Lisbon, he will have a false diplomatic immunity and be free from capture. and, of course, if this came to pass, several unpleasant things could also happen to Brenda.
It was known that Morgan used to hang out at 96 Fleet Street, just above a barber shop. Rather than stay safely i n his room for the next week, Bill decides to go to Fleet Street to see if he could nab Flash Morgan by himself. Diplomats may not be the sharpest crayons in the box.
(Note that the Fleet Street address, in real life is the address of a well-known public house, and has been since the 1830s. However, a few doors down, at 152 Fleet Street, is the fictional address of Sweeny Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A little lagniappe that Carr included. The barber in Carr's story was named Henry M. Jenkins; the editors of London Mystery Magazine joyfully changed the name to Henry S. Todd when the story was reprinted.)
Bill goes to the Fleet Street address and believes he has locked Flash Morgan in a closet. when the police open the closet, sure enough there's Morgan. However, he is dead and his throat has been cut...
How has this happened and how can Bill clear himself?
Cabin B-13 got its title (and little else) from an episode that Carr wrote for the radio show Suspense. Cabin B-13 ran for two seasons on CBS Radio, for a total of 23 episodes, all penned by Carr. For many years, the details of the show were believe to have been lost; only a few episodes survived and it was not even known how many episodes were aired. In the early Ninties, however, the scripts were discovered within the depths of the Library of Congress. The complete scripts along with extensive "Notes for the Curious" are now available in The Island of Coffins and Other Mysteries from the Casefiles of Cabin B-13.
Fans of old-time radio and fans of John Dickson Carr should rejoice.
Not quite remarkable how many CF writers were doing a lot of radio drama when the latter was at its most popular...but always glad to be made aware of one I hadn't heard at all.
ReplyDelete