Title: Death from the Deep
Air date: April 3, 1938
Plot summary: As the episode opens, a merchant ship is torpedoed at sea, even though there's no war on. The captain scrambles his men into life boats, only for the ship that fired the torpedoes, a submarine, to surface. Someone from the submarine ruthlessly machine guns the survivors.
The mysterious war on shipping continues, with eighteen vessels sunk. No one can figure out what is going on, but they can tell that it doesn't appear to be the work of a nation's military, as ships from all the great powers have been sunk. Lamont Cranston deduces that the person behind the sinking must be someone rich enough to build their own submarine, and further, that there's a pretty short list of people with the tech know-how to design and construct a submarine.
Lamont focuses on one Joseph Hart, a naval architect discharged for misconduct. When The Shadow arrives, Hart is meeting with Barry Vinton, a super-rich Great White Hunter. It turns out that Vinton is the man behind the ship sinkings, and he isn't a pirate, not really; instead, he's sinking ships with his private submarine just for the thrill of it. When Vinton takes his submarine out for another murder cruise, The Shadow comes along.
Tropes:
- Driven to Suicide: After telling The Shadow the truth, a guilt-ridden Joseph Hart shoots himself.
- Eccentric Millionaire: An extremely dark version of this trope, as Barry Vinton has decided to use his fortune to build a sub and sink ships For the Evulz.
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: "Extry, extry," call the newspaper vendors who announce another ship sinking.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Barry Vinton sinks ships with his own submarine, just for the thrills.
- Laughing Mad: Barry Vinton starts doing this when his sub gets within firing range of the next ship.
- Leave No Survivors: In the opening scene, the submarine surfaces and machine guns ever life boat. Not one person has survived 18 ship sinkings.
- Sink the Lifeboats: Barry Vinton just machine-guns anyone who makes it to the lifeboats.
