Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:38 — 27.2MB)
Out on the streets, our hardboiled detective gets a broken leg that’s bad enough to require a stay in a hospital room. While flat on his back, a dame comes to him with trouble with her gambling brother. This is such an easy job that Marlowe can handle it from his hospital bed… right? Calling in some favors, and street contacts, he soon ends up with body in his room, while shady characters parade through the room, and out the fire escape outside the window.
Is there more going on besides the gambling? Who would want to interfere badly enough to bring murder into the picture? Through the string of folks passing through the room, one after another, dames, bookies, and thugs of all shapes and sizes, Marlowe is finally confronted by the killer, and has to do some fast bluffing to save his life. He is bluffing… right?
Note: I purposely cut my show note short today. I like the concept of solving a mystery, without the need to hit the streets. However, I have some issues with the story. First, where are the nurses? Why did nobody discover there was a body in the room… at all… other than Marlowe who never calls it in. Shouldn’t the nursing staff have been concerned about a ton of people going to visit a patient, but few of them leaving, since some of them went out the window? I get the idea of a window that opens to a fire escape. Though that practice isn’t done anymore in modern high rise buildings, it was common back then. Good try to the story writers, but I felt it was a little over the top.
