Title: Dead Men Talk
Air date: September 24, 1939
Plot summary: The unnamed city where Lamont Cranston and Margot Lane live is peaceful. There are no spectacular heists, no mysterious murders, no colorful criminals. Lamont Cranston is bored! He goes to the morgue, a mortified Margot in tow, and asks morgue attendant Mr. Tuttle if there have been any interesting new arrivals, but no: Mr. Tuttle tells them that the only new customer in the morgue is an old tramp who died of natural causes. Desperate, Lamont asks a banker acquaintance of his if there have been any robberies. Nope. Lamont reads the newspaper hoping for lurid crime stories. Nothing.
Finally Lamont hits on an idea: if he can't find any crime to tackle, he'll just flush a criminal out. His target is Grant Flynn, a developer and philanthropist who is also completely crooked, although the cops haven't been able to nail him. The one interesting news story in the paper Lamont reads mentions that a hoodlum named Joe Gordon disappeared three weeks ago and remains missing. Lamont knows that Gordon was Flynn's partner in crime and believes Flynn had him killed, but the story reports that Flynn is serving on a task force dedicated to finding Gordon. Lamont deduces that Flynn isn't sure of Joe Gordon's whereabouts. So Lamont, as The Shadow, calls Flynn and tells him that Gordon is alive and after him.
Notes: First episode of Season 3. Marjorie Anderson took over the role of Margot Lane, replacing Agnes Moorehead who originated the role.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gun: The John Doe corpse that Mr. Tuttle shows Lamont and Margot in the morgue. Turns out that's the body that Grant Flynn used to fake his death.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Mr. Tuttle, the weird but seemingly harmless morgue attendant who creeps Margot out. He is revealed to be part of Flynn's plot to fake his own death.
- Creepy Mortician: The creepy guy in the funeral home who seems strangely unconcerned about catching Lamont and Margot breaking into the funeral home, speaks with a creepy accent, is happy to let them peek at a body late at night, and says of Flynn's corpse that "I haven't gotten to know him yet."
- Drowning Pit: Flynn threatens to open a valve and flood the tunnel, drowning Lamont and Margot. In fact he does open the valve before Gordon kills him, but it's a bit anticlimactic as Lamont and Margot escape easily.
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: A newspaper vendor hawking the evening edition prompts Lamont to stop and look for headlines. Unlike most of the many, many times this trope was used on The Shadow, this instance neither provides exposition nor moves the story along, as Lamont can't find anything good in the paper.
- Faking the Dead: It's not hard for Lamont to figure that Flynn faked his death when the newspaper reports that Flynn died of pneumonia 15 minutes after The Shadow called him. Flynn got a body from the morgue and passed it off as him.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Margot mistakes a flapping curtain in the funeral home for a movement and Lamont scoffs, saying "Nothing can possibly—", and he's cut short as they both hear the footstep of someone approaching.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Lamont identifies Grant Flynn as a civic leader and sarcastically calls him "the poor man's friend, benefactor of little kiddies", before noting that Flynn is a crime kingpin. Evidently this is known by the police as Margot says they've tried and failed to make a case against him, but publicly he's held in high esteem.
