Title: Shyster Payoff
Air date: November 6, 1938
Plot summary: The city is awash in crime, and Commissioner Weston is feeling the pressure. Right after facing hostile reporters, Weston is contacted by The Shadow. The Shadow offers to give him an airtight case that will nab three bad guys: Red Doyle, a gangster; Groggin, a "political fixer"; and Rex Tiggert, a crooked lawyer.
Tiggert is an unethical attorney who specializes in getting people off on technicalities; in his first scene he's getting a character off due to a drafting error in the indictment. He also is not above much worse things, like subornation of perjury. In the backstory he got a woman named Ruth Dale to lie on the stand so her brother Harry could beat a murder rap. It turns out that Tiggert is actually a crime boss himself. He takes the people who owe him their freedom and pressures/blackmails them into committing crimes for him.
Tiggert wins parole for a Dr. Lambert, who served seven years in prison for supposedly killing a patient. Lambert was innocent, but he still is without a license, so Tiggert strong-arms him into acting as a back-alley doctor for Tiggert's hoodlums. Soon Dr. Lambert's services are required, as one of Tiggert's goons is shot during a jewel robbery. Lambert meets Tiggert and his gang at their hideout—and The Shadow follows.
Tropes:
- Amoral Attorney: Rex Tiggert, who gets guilty people off on technicalities and then blackmails them into serving in his own gang.
- Artistic License – Law: Left unexplained is why the prosecution couldn't simply indict Harry Dale again. Or for that matter, how Tiggert could get Ruth busted for perjury without himself going down for subornation of perjury.
- Back-Alley Doctor: Tiggert's plan is to employ Dr. Lambert in this capacity. He says it will only be for one year and then Lambert can move away and start over, but The Shadow correctly tells Lambert that this is nonsense and Tiggert will never let Lambert go.
- Blackmail: If carrots don't work to get people to work for him, Tiggert uses the stick. He says that if Ruth Dale doesn't cooperate he'll get her sent up for perjury, and that her brother will be tried for murder again and go to the gas chamber.
- Miscarriage of Justice: There was ones in the back story for Dr. Lambert, who is innocent of malpractice. And there would have been in the case of Harry Dale, who was innocent of murder, if it weren't for Tiggert's underhanded tactics.
- Off on a Technicality: Tiggert's specialty, when he isn't outright falsifying evidence like when he got Ruth to lie on the stand. Lamont Cranston disapproves of seeing people get off on technicalities.
- On the Next: This episode ends with a preview of next week's show, "Black Rock", complete with a brief scene being played out. This was the first time an episode of The Shadow ever had a preview of next week. Maybe the show ran a little short and they needed to fill some time?
