Title: Traffic in Death
Air date: September 25, 1938
Plot summary: A local hospital has been experiencing a rash of patient deaths under mysterious circumstances. In the last month, six patients that did not seem to be in any serious danger suddenly died. Dr. Lee suspects that his shifty Obviously Evil coworker Dr. Hardwick must be mixed up in the mysterious deaths, but he doesn't have any evidence with which to go to the police. So he calls up his old friend, Lamont Cranston.
Lamont and Margo Lane cut their Maine vacation short and hurry back to town. They visit Dr. Lee in his office only to find him dead, having been stabbed in the back just minutes before. With his friend dead, Lamont becomes The Shadow to find out just what Dr. Hardwick is up to.
Notes: This was the first episode of Season 2, although in fact The Shadow had been running nonstop for a full year. Sponsorship of the program returned to Blue Coal home heating coal. Bill Johnstone replaced Orson Welles as the voice of Lamont Cranston/The Shadow. Agnes Moorehead returned to the role of Margo Lane, having left the show during the 1938 "summer series" sponsored by Goodrich Tires.
Tropes:
- Dramatic Irony: Commissioner Weston is in full Inspector Lestrade mode, blustering about how the cops were supposedly onto Dr. Hardwick and were about to catch him. Margo goads him with a comment about how he certainly didn't need The Shadow's help this time.Commissioner Weston: The Shadow? He wouldn't have cracked this case in a month of Sundays. He's just an "amateur criminologist" like you, Cranston.
Lamont: [chuckling] I wouldn't be at all surprised. - Driven to Suicide: Like many bad guys on The Shadow, Dr. Hardwick kills himself rather than be taken alive, once he realizes the jig is up.
- In the Back: Lamont and Margo find Dr. Lee at his desk, dead, stabbed in the back with a surgical knife.
- Ironic Echo: After Dr. Lee says that he'd stake his life on ferreting out the truth, Dr. Hardwick answers, "Yes, I believe you would, even your life." Sure enough, Hardwick murders Lee.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Dr. Lee killed six people—to drain their blood and stock up the hospital's blood bank? Really? A blood drive wouldn't have worked?
- Noodle Incident: How did Dr. Lee and Lamont come to know each other? It seems that Dr. Lee saved Lamont once when he got shot, removing a bullet that was lodged next to Lamont's spine. Margot says "I thought you would die." No such incident where The Shadow got shot was dramatized on the program.
- Telepathy: Dr. Hardwick has escaped with Margo and is about to murder her; Lamont has no idea where in the huge hospital Dr. Hardwick may have taken her. What to do? As The Shadow, he probes the mind of a guard, who then happens to mention out loud that Dr. Hardwick has a lab in a particular location in the basement."It was almost as if someone were asking me where to find him."
- Villain Opening Scene: The episode starts with a montage of patients coming to Dr. Hardwick in shock after the deaths of their loved ones, and Hardwick giving smarmy, obviously phony condolences.
