Title: The Firebug
Air date: April 10, 1938
Plot summary: A building goes up in flames. It's arson—the igniting agent was a baby carriage soaked in kerosene—and three are dead. It's the seventh building that has burned in recent days by the same arsonist with the same M.O., but the police have no leads.
They have no leads because they're not as smart as Lamont Cranston. Lamont discovers that the last three buildings all had businesses on the ground floor by the same man, a furrier, an Italian named Verelle. Lamont goes in civilian dress and finds Verelle oddly uninterested in actually selling him a fur. The reason becomes clear soon after, when Verelle is visited by his partner in crime, Hegman. It turns out that Hegman is an insurance broker, and he and Verelle have been committing insurance fraud.
Tropes:
- Fingore: Hegman jabs pencils under Margo Lane's fingernails in an effort to force her to reveal who The Shadow is.
- He Knows Too Much: The Shadow reads Hegman's mind and correctly deduces that he is planning on eliminating Verelle once they make their escape.
- Insurance Fraud: The scam. Hegman is an insurance broker who sells policies to Verelle, followed by setting buildings on fire.
- Jedi Mind Trick: Every so often The Shadow would directly influence a bad guy's mind. In this one he exerts his mind control powers on Verelle to convince him that Hegman will betray and murder him later (it's true).
- Mutual Kill: Hegman shoots Verelle, but he doesn't count on Verelle being Not Quite Dead and having enough energy to fatally stab him.
- Narrating the Obvious: A limitation of radio drama. Hegman has to point out the rag in his hand to Verelle and explain that it's soaked in chloroform.
- Psychic Powers: One of the episodes where The Shadow gets into mind reading. He uses telepathy to figure out, first, the nature of the Insurance Fraud with Hegman being the broker selling to Verelle, and, second, that Hegman is planning to kill Verelle because He Knows Too Much.
- Title Drop: The perpetrator is referred to as a "firebug", although it's not really true because the bad guys are committing insurance fraud rather than being Pyromaniacs.
