Title: The Night Marauders
Air date: October 1, 1939
Plot summary: Someone attacks Margot Lane in her bed! In fact, two people. One, described as a short and very broad man with long arms, put a hand on Margot's neck, while the second ransacked her apartment.
She calls her boyfriend-but-the-show-won't-admit-it Lamont Cranston, who tells her it sounds like the Night Marauders, a pair of burglars who have been getting press coverage. The next night, the Night Marauders strike again, and this time their victim is killed. Lamont sets about investigating, since naturally Commissioner Weston and the cops are clueless. He realizes that the scenes of the burglaries all seem to be roughly the same distance from the city park. Lamont and Margot go to check out the park and hear a strange cry coming from the zoo—and that cry is the same cry that Margot heard as her home was being invaded. So who are the Night Marauders? A gorilla and a chimp, of course, trained by a deranged zoo guard named Joseph Jankro.
Tropes:
- Broken-Window Warning: While The Shadow is questioning Henry Burns, someone throws a rock through Burns's window telling him not to talk. (Left unexplained is how Jankro the zoo guard knew that there was a witness, or why Jankro bothered to threaten and eventually murder Burns when Burns can't tell anything the cops don't already know.)
- Dramatic Irony: Commissioner Weston meets Lamont in the park and tells Lamont that he thinks The Shadow is in the park and that he, Weston, is going to catch him.
- For the Evulz: Jankro the guard isn't even selling the jewelry and other items that his simian burglars are stealing. He seems to be doing it for thrills, with vague plans to "rule the world".
- His Name Is...: Burns, dying after he was attacked by the Night Marauders, gasps "The Shadow" before he croaks. This is because The Shadow was there just before asking Burns about what he saw, but the cops jump to the conclusion that The Shadow was the killer.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After The Shadow uses his psychic powers to undo Freddy's training, Jankro decides it would be a good idea to come into the cage with a whip and force Freddy to kill The Shadow. Freddy kills Jankro instead.
- Killer Gorilla: The murderer is Freddy, a gorilla, who is one of the Night Marauders along with Jocko, a chimp. They were trained by a deranged zookeeper named Joseph Jankro.
- Laughing Mad: Jankro turns out to be a complete loon, cackling madly as he tells The Shadow of his nonsense plans to "rule the world" through fear, by use of, uh, two monkey thieves.
- Narrator: Since the opening moments of the story have no dialogue, the announcer has to set the opening scene, describing two mysterious figures creeping into an apartment in the dead of night.
- Officer O'Hara: The bumbling cop who has to tell Commissioner Weston that The Shadow actually called him from inside police headquarters has a strong Irish accent.
- Perception Filter: A smug Jankro tells The Shadow that while he can "cloud men's minds" and make himself invisible to Jankro, he can't do so to a gorilla. The Shadow says that's true, but he can override Jankro's training so that Freddy won't answer Jankro's commands to kill.
- Police Are Useless: The usual idiot cops who can't solve the case, but the police are even dumber in this episode. When Lamont calls the station, the person who picks up the phone doesn't even know who "Commissioner Weston" is. When The Shadow calls Weston, the commissioner orders the call to be traced, only for an embarrassed officer to tell him that the call came from inside the station.
- A cop is stationed downstairs to guard Mr. Burns, the witness. Naturally, Burns is killed anyway.
- Weston doesn't connect the "Lamont Cranston=Shadow" dots, despite the fact that Lamont offered to help with the Night Marauders before The Shadow intervened, or that both Margot and Lamont were on the scene when The Shadow had his confrontation with Jankro.
- Weston and the cops conclude that The Shadow is the killer, based on Burns's dying words, even though The Shadow has helped them out innumerable times.
- Commissioner Weston also doesn't even bother to have the threatening note to Burns analyzed, writing it off as a fake by The Shadow. Overall, this is a pretty bad episode for the cops.
- Villain Opening Scene: Two shadowy figures creep into an apartment, which turns out to be Margot's.
