Leaver Brothers Company presents the Capsodent program, the adventures of Philip Marlowe,
starring Van Cuffin.
Capsodent presents Philip Marlowe, Hollywood's famous private effective created by Raymond
Chandler.
Philip Marlowe, tough, cynical, private eye of murder my sweet, the sardonic, case-hardened
detective of the Brasher de Bloom, the Lady and the Lake, and the Big Sleep.
You've seen him in action in all of those top-flight mystery pictures.
Now, in order that you may continue to enjoy this exciting mystery series, Capsodent brings
you the adventures of Philip Marlowe on the air with a cast of noted radio players and
starring MGM's brilliant and dynamic young actor, Van Cuffin.
There was a rough desert wind blowing into Los Angeles that evening.
It was one of those hot, dry Santanas that come down through the mountain passes and curl
your hair, make your nerves jump and your skin itch.
On nights like that, every booze party ends up in a fight, and meek little housewives
feel the edge of a carving knife and study their husbands' necks.
Anything can happen when a Santa Ana blows in from the desert.
I closed up my office early.
I got tired of reading Philip Marlowe, private investigator, backwards in the ground glass
at my office door.
So I opened the door and closed it on the outside and locked it and went out to get a
beer before I went up to my apartment.
Fill her up again, Mr. Marlowe.
Marlowe.
Marlowe is a fish.
Yeah, I know.
Hey, hey, old bastard, come in on a ride.
Drunk again.
What are you expecting this business, autograph hands?
Make it snappy, huh?
Be right with you, sport.
I got to draw this man a beer.
God, these double bums that come in here.
We got another customer back.
Hey, bud, you've seen a lady in the
bar recently?
A lady?
Tall, good looking, brown hair, a printable arrow jacket and a blue silk dress.
No, sir.
Nobody like catspinning.
Ah, straight scotch fast.
I left my engine running out there.
Yes, sir.
This slick looking, sarcastic guy stepped up to the bar and drank his scotch whole.
Then he turned to go out and stopped.
The drunk was grinning at him.
And then without changing his grin, the drunk swept the gun from somewhere so fast it was
just a blur coming out.
Made a couple of hard snaps and a little smoke curl.
Very little.
All right, you other guys, don't move.
So long, Waldo.
All right, don't move, you two.
Poor Waldo, but I made his nose bleed.
So long, boy, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
So long, boys.
Drink up!
All right, get on that phone, kid.
I'll get his license number.
Holy smoke.
Not too late.
He's over the way with this dead guy's car.
Maybe he ain't dead.
He's dead, all right.
Where's your phone?
This is for the police.
The child car boys were there in about five minutes.
Walter was out of business, all right, and nothing in his pockets told who he was,
but he had about $700 on him.
I told the cops what I knew, including about Walter's tall brown-haired pretty girl
in the Bolero jacket.
It was about 9 o'clock when I stepped out of the elevator in my apartment house
and almost walked right into a tall brown-haired pretty girl in the Bolero jacket,
waiting for the elevator on my floor.
Oh, excuse me.
Just a minute, lady.
I said, excuse me.
I'm in a hurry.
I'll have to be getting up.
Look, you better not go outside in those clothes.
Just what do you mean by telling me to go?
This isn't a make.
You're in trouble.
Trouble?
Yeah, the cops are looking for you in those clothes.
But I haven't done anything that's...
I'm in room 41 across the hall now.
I never collected matching in my life.
All right, I'll go with you.
I'll go.
I got to my room and rustled up some scotch and sewed and brought the girl her glass.
She had a small automatic in her hand.
It jumped up at me, and her eyes were full of panic.
I put down both glasses on the table slowly so that I wouldn't be misunderstood.
Look, sister, maybe this wind has got you crazy, too.
Don't move.
Careful.
Don't move.
A man just got shot in a bar down the street.
Before he got it, he'd been asking about a tall pretty girl with a Bolero jacket,
like yours.
What did he look like, this man?
Tall, 5'11", slim, dark, dark brown eyes with a lot of glitter, dark suit,
white handkerchief in the breast pocket.
And he must have seen you earlier tonight to know how you were dressed.
Am I getting anywhere?
He used to be my chauffeur.
You had an appointment with him, didn't you?
Why?
Listen, he asked for you, didn't he?
Yes, I had an appointment with him.
He'd stolen something from me when he left three days ago.
I was going to buy it back from him.
Why didn't you tell the police?
I couldn't tell them.
It was valuable, wasn't it?
Valuable enough for Walter to steal?
$15,000.
Ah, peanuts.
But it wasn't the value.
It meant something to me.
The man I loved gave it to me, and now he's dead.
He was a flyer shot down over 70.
I'll go back and tell my husband that.
He probably hired you.
He did?
How much is he paying me?
And where is this husband of yours?
He's at a meeting.
This late at night?
He's a very important man.
He's a hydroelectric engineer.
I'll let you know that my husband is one of the...
I'll scare him out, take him out to lunch sometime,
and have him tell me himself.
And about Waldo, whatever he had on you is dead stock now,
like Waldo himself.
He's dead?
Waldo is dead?
Yes, sister, he's dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
Maybe he is dead.
I scream and I'll give you two black eyes.
I'm not going to scream.
What about these?
There's a dressing room behind that door.
Hide there.
Now, don't argue.
It'll be yours.
All right.
And I went to the door making a loud yawning sound.
The backs of my hands were wet.
I opened the door.
Without a gun, that was a mistake.
I certainly knew the gun I was looking into,
a.22 Target Automatic that had already
killed one man that night.
And I knew the bald head and that flat shiny eyes
and the face like a poisonous lizard.
Baldi put the muzzle of his gun lightly against my throat.
I backed into the room and Baldi kicked the door shut.
You alone?
Look for yourself.
I'm asking, not looking.
I'm alone.
Even that dumb bartender saw me dust off Waldo.
What did Waldo do to you?
I was asking.
Just making conversation.
He stood only on a bank job we did together.
Got me four years of Michigan pen.
How is he?
Dead.
I'm still good, drunk or sober.
Tell me why I came here, pal.
You're the barkeeper and me talking.
I told him my name, where I lived.
That's how, pal.
I said why.
Skip the hangman.
We'll ask you to guess why he's there.
You're pretty tough at that, ain't you?
But you're slamming off, pal.
All right, but you could get that gun out of my neck
and try somewhere else.
Oh, yeah, sure.
That's better.
It'll still show around.
So it is my neck.
Save when, pal?
Chill, Baldi.
I leaned against the gun.
The door at the dressing room showed a crack of darkness.
The crack widened.
I began to shake a little.
The girl came quietly into the room,
but there was white all around her iris.
She was scared.
She had her gun in her hand.
But I was sorry for her, dead sorry.
She tried to make the door scream either way.
It'd be curtains for both of us.
You scared, mister?
You worried about any little thing?
I couldn't talk.
The girl floated in the air somewhere behind Baldi,
and her horrified face was drifting toward us.
My mouth was as cold and dry as yesterday's toast.
Well, Ken, how's it feel?
You ready yet?
Go on, say the word.
Well, don't take all night about it if you're going
to do something about it.
Why not, pal?
I like this.
I suppose I yell.
Go ahead, yell.
Go ahead.
Put on your hat!
Hey, look!
Oh!
Thanks, sister.
Thanks.
That buys me.
Everything I have is yours now and forever.
What did he get?
You flatter me no angrily.
I only punched him.
Why not get out of here while I call the cops down on this killer?
Yes.
Good night.
Hey, wait.
Wait.
Leave that blared jacket here.
OK.
So you're going?
What?
Oh, I don't know.
No, I guess not, after all.
Who might be the rival of a dead flyer?
I'll see if the police get Jesse James here.
Good night, Eddie.
Yeah?
You mean me?
Yes.
Please.
Oh, you.
Again, huh?
Sit in.
I must talk to you.
You want to know what happened at headquarters, huh?
Please.
Well, I went down there with the law and gave them a story.
I left you out of it.
Thank you.
You saved my life, so no one knows a thing about you.
Well, incidentally, needed a ride.
Well, my name is Mrs. Stank Bosserly.
212 Seaman Place, Olympia 24596.
Is that what you want?
I guess so.
Well, there is.
Why did you already come back?
I wanted my pearls.
Pearls?
Yes.
Pearls, too, huh?
All right, tell me about the pearls.
You got a murderer and a beautiful mystery woman
and a sadistic killer and heroic rescue.
Now we will have pearls.
I was surviving back from a man called Waldo.
Well, I saw the thing that came out of his pockets
and I went in his pearls.
Could it be hidden in his apartment?
It's possible.
Waldo lived on the same floor you do in his apartment house.
Why didn't I know him, at least by sight?
He moved in last week and managed to get a sub left.
Great, a sort of an amateur magician on the side, huh?
It's getting rather late.
What about your husband this hot, mysterious night?
He had to leave his meeting.
You could have brought him along.
You could have sat in the back seat working out a problem
in hydroelectric swap.
While what?
Well, I didn't have any answers.
They wouldn't sound cheap or just ridiculous.
They're from the sophomore class, right, Martin?
I had an unlit cigarette in my hand.
I threw it out of the window.
I took a hold of her and kissed her.
She said, very still.
I was shaking when I let go of her.
Her voice crumbled a little when she spoke.
I mentioned it to her.
I wasn't always that way.
Only since Johnny Dormous was killed in the wall,
he gave me those pearls,
and I thought I'd already won them perfectly matched
with a diamond propeller cloth.
I'd have loved them if they'd been wooden beads
because he gave them to me.
I loved Johnny the way you loved just one time.
You understand now?
Hmm. What's your name?
Lola.
Lola, how did you explain a $15,000 pearl necklace
to your husband?
I told him I was impatient when I bought it for myself.
How did Walter latch onto them?
I'm an Argentine, and Walter and I go for long drives.
I was worthless and wretched because of Johnny.
Sometimes Walter and I had a little drink together,
but that's all.
But you confided in Walter about his pearls.
How the fool.
And when your husband came back,
Walter stole the pearls and offered to sell them back to you
or he'd tell Papa.
That was a fool.
And now you think the pearls are upstairs
in Walter's apartment?
I suppose it's a lot to ask.
No, sweetheart, huh? I've been paid.
I'll go up.
Wait here.
Is it a gallant, Lola?
No. Pearls?
No.
No pearls?
No pearls.
Oh.
There was a man in Walter's room.
Man who?
You know a man named Leon Bustanus?
Not by name. I don't know.
Mexican-South American, about 45, small, iron gray hair,
very neat, fawn-colored, st. wine-colored tie.
No, I don't think I know such a man.
He could have been in Walter's room?
Yeah.
What do you have to say?
Very little. He talked nothing.
He's dead.
I sat with Lola Barsley in a car,
listening to that jittery, infuriating desert wind
gallop around in the midnight streets.
I just told her about the Latin-looking man
I'd found in Walter's room in a very dead condition.
I held her hands until they stopped trembling,
and I gave her the few remaining details.
He had a gun and a shoulder holster,
but someone had strangled him before he could use it.
Someone? Walter?
Maybe.
You see that convertible coup de car that has?
Been there for hours.
He was there before I parked it away for you.
Leon, the man in Walter's room, came in that car,
but according to the key containers he had carried,
that isn't his car.
Whose car is it? Does it matter?
Well, it belongs to a lady, according to the tagline.
A lady?
Well, anyway, a woman, if you're going to split hairs.
Eugenie Cochinko.
Hmm? In West Los Angeles?
I've never heard of her.
Uh-huh.
All right, well, you go home now, huh?
What are you going to do?
Drive that flossing convertible around,
wave at my friends and pass people.
You're on your own now.
Now you've got another date.
Yes? What is it, please?
Miss, uh, Eugenie Cochinko?
Yes? What is it?
Did you lose or misplace a pigeon gray convertible coup?
What are you saying?
Now, don't be alarmed.
I found it and I brought it home to you.
Come in, please.
It is a reward you wish. Shall we say...
Snap out of it, Dragon Lady. Who was he?
Who was who?
That little guy, Leon.
You loaned your car to him. He's dead. Who was he?
Oh, no, no.
Oh, yes, yes.
Eugenie.
Darling, darling, come here, please.
What's the matter, honey?
Who is this man?
I came about Miss Cochinko's car.
What about her car?
The gentleman who borrowed it couldn't return it on account of he isn't alive.
He's dead. Darling, he's dead.
Well, that's putting it more bluntly, of course.
Dead, huh?
Completely.
Who are you?
Philip Marlowe, private investigator. My card.
Uh-huh. You told the police yet?
Never do at once what can be deferred pending negotiations.
He's something.
I'm not negotiated.
No. Peachy.
What do you know, Marlowe?
A man named Walter was shot in the bar tonight.
I happened to have the inside as to who he was.
And when I visited his apartment tonight, I found this Leo Balsanos dead.
He wouldn't have had $500 in 20s on him, would he?
No, but this Walter had over $700 on him when he was killed at that cocktail bar, mostly in 20s.
Oh. Is there a basis there for negotiation yet?
Very well, Marlowe.
I'm a married man.
There are certain unpaid bills, but some stuff Miss Cochinko here had charged to my account.
But you told me I might charge to your account.
All right, so I wasn't very bright.
That might be the understatement of the decade, but go on.
I had the unpaid bill safely in my briefcase.
Somehow this Waldo had a chance to steal the briefcase.
I hired Leon and gave him $500 to buy back those bills from Waldo.
Instead Waldo took Leon's dough and was forced to kill Leon in the process.
Then he went out to keep another date and accidentally walked into an old pal hostile enough to bow him down.
And someone still has those bills.
Not in for a divorce, sir.
The man who shot Waldo got away in Waldo's car with your briefcase in it.
Yeah, it could be.
The cops caught him.
Oh.
Then the police have to be, please.
Maybe.
But the police are interested in solving crime, not in tossing mud for the benefit of sensation eaters.
Look, I've got to find it to a headquarters. Let me see what I can do.
It's about $500 to me.
Well, then that's what it'll cost you.
Well, good luck. And thank you, Mr.
Marlowe. Philip Marlowe, remember?
My name is Frank Bossolay.
Boss?
Bossolay.
Oh.
What does that mean?
The big hydroelectric engineer?
Yeah.
How did you know?
My voice is telling me.
Who?
Darling, this man is mindlessly insane.
It's the heat, Miss Kolchink. It's the Santa and it's the desert wind.
May I use your telephone?
Someday I must tell you about Iberra.
Sol of the Earthy Bear, Detective Lieutenant over Central Homicide.
I phoned Iberra from Miss Kolchink's house and told him where he could find a well-dressed cadaver named Leon.
He furnished a few small details.
I gave Iberra time to check my tip and then I went down to see the good lieutenant.
And told him why I'd been up in Waldo's room, only to find Leon instead of a certain lady's string of pearls.
Pearls, eh?
Well, I thought Waldo might have them up there.
Whose pearls were they?
Her ladies.
Go on.
Boy, they might have been in Waldo's car that Waldo's killer drove away in.
Mmm, yeah.
What yeah?
They might have.
Also a batch of unpaid bills charged to the account of a certain Frank Barcellay.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Well, now the police aren't interested in domestic scandal.
They want to prevent or to solve crime, right?
So?
So I've got $500 for the police fund if those pearls and those bills are returned to their rightful owners.
Oh, thank goodness.
Pretty cute.
No, no, it's a valuable necklace.
Yeah?
There's your necklace.
That's it.
41 pearls, perfectly matched diamond propeller clasp.
That's it.
That's the one.
Take it away, Mauro.
On the level?
Just tell me straight what it's all about, all right?
Sure, sure.
Well, this Waldo was blackmailing a wife with the pearls and her husband with the bills.
He got the name of Barcellay.
Well, Barcellay sent Leon to get the bills from Waldo.
Instead, Waldo killed Leon.
Then stepped out and happened to get shot by that guy at the bar.
Now, if Barcellay's name stays out of the paper, I get $500.
And that goes to the police fund.
We'll keep him out.
Well, I'm not in this case for money.
I just want to get back the bills and the pearls.
As you say, Mauro, the police sound in business to sling mud.
Well, you can deliver the pearls to the lady yourself if you like.
No, no, no, Mauro.
You better take them to her.
You see, except for the diamond propeller clasp on them, they're, they're phony.
Phony?
But it's all with the clasp, Mauro.
All with the clasp.
I see it in the guy.
So the fire, Johnny Dalmers, the great lover, had given Lola a string of fake pearls.
Well, I didn't know how to tell her, but I called her up and told her to meet me at the beachcomber.
As it too was, in a slip of the baton and slowly.
I'm glad you asked me to meet you here, Mr. Mauro.
I had to have someone to talk to.
Go ahead. I had to talk. I'm listening.
Now, Mr. Mauro, now more than ever, I must have those pearls.
Why? Money trouble?
Oh, no, no.
It's just that everything's gone wrong.
Miss Manny, my husband told me where to separate.
Oh, I'm sorry, Lola.
But if I had Johnny's pearls, it would be a link with the past.
And with Johnny, that's all he meant to me.
It's how a woman feels, Mr. Mauro.
I wouldn't blame you for not understanding.
Maybe I do, though.
So please, Mr. Mauro, please, you try to find my pearls.
Lola, look, I...
Even if it isn't all of them, any part of them, any single smallest one, it'll be Johnny's.
Look, will you meet me here again around four o'clock?
I'll be here.
Okay, I'll see what I can do.
There was only one earthly, decent thing I could do.
I took Lola's glass pearls to a jeweler, and I had him take off the diamond clasp,
put her on one of those strings of so-called simulated pearls
that they send you for three bucks, tax included.
Then I went back to keep my four o'clock date with Lola at the beachcombers.
Well, Mr. Mauro, anything new?
Yes, the police found some pearls in Waldo's car.
They found my pearls?
No, no, not exactly.
Not exactly.
Waldo was getting set to juggle Lola.
He had the diamond clasp of your necklace attached to a string of cheap imitations,
and then he sold the real pearls.
Oh, how...
These are the imitations, here.
Yes, but it is my clasp.
The clasp is real.
Is that all right?
Yes, it's the clasp that Johnny Domas gave me.
Of course, of course it's all right.
Oh, that's well.
Thank you so much, Mr. Mauro.
Forget it.
I won't. Not ever.
But is this goodbye?
Yeah, I think so.
You never get over Johnny Domas, Lola.
If anybody ever bothers you again, they'll let me know.
Name's Philip Mauro.
I drove almost to Malibu and then to Parks and looked out on that rock cliff.
Then I reached in my pocket and I got the string of Bohemian glass pearls
that Lieutenant Ibarra had found in Waldo's car.
I cut the knot at one end and slipped the pearls off one by one.
One by one, I flipped them into the water.
Bells swooped down on them, and they clapped up against screaming indignity.
I was so happy to see them.
The phony pearls had fooled Waldo and Lola Barsley, but they couldn't fool a sea gull.
I said to myself, to the memory of Johnny Domas, just another four flusher.
I listened a while to the wheezing seagulls.
All at once I realized that the wind had died to send Anna Boon itself off.
The red wind was done.
The wind was gone.
The wind had blown itself off.
It was over.
You have just heard Van Heflin starring in the first of a new mystery series,
Raymond Chandler's The Adventures of Philip Marlowe,
produced by the Lieber Brothers Company, makers of Pepsodent.
Tonight's story on The Adventure of Philip Marlowe is based on Red Wind.
It was written by Raymond Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe,
the screen's most famous cyberdececive.
It was adapted for radio by Milton Geiger.
Heard with Van Heflin was Lorraine Pappel as Lola Barsley.
And this is Wendell Niles inviting you to listen again next week at this same time
to another exciting story on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe starring Van Heflin
with a distinguished cast.