Title: Fountain of Death
Air date: November 27, 1938
Plot summary: Lamont Cranston gathers up Margo Lane and races to an emergency summons: his old friend Dr. Anne Marler has reported that there's going to be a murder!
It turns out that Dr. Marler, who is a gifted scientist, was basically bullshitting and wanted Lamont to be a witness to her experiment. Dr. Marler has invented a potion for eternal youth! As Margo and Lamont watch, Dr. Marler gives an injection to a 95-year-old woman. Before their astonished eyes, the old woman grows young.
Unfortunately for Dr. Marler a foreign agent, a man called Gorlin, has gotten wind of her experiment. (Maybe the subject talked?) Gorlin pulls a gun, Dr. Marler gets shot in the struggle, and Gorlin makes off with the formula. However, Dr. Marler is still alive when Lamont Cranston arrives, and she whispers Gorlin's name before she expires. Cranston, and The Shadow, give chase.
Tropes:
- Almost Dead Guy: Dr. Marler is still clinging to life when Lamont returns to her office. She manages to whisper Gorlin's name before she croaks.
- City with No Name: Dr. Marler speaks with a German accent and talks about how she was forced out of Europe by "force and hate" but never actually says where she was from. Gorlin says he will harness her formula to build a race of super-soldiers for "the state" but doesn't say which state. They're both obviously talking about Germany.
- Driven to Suicide: Gorlin, believing that he has ingested a fatal dose of de-aging potion courtesy of The Shadow, flings himself out of the window of his cabin on the blimp, to his death. The Shadow was bluffing.
- Fountain of Youth: Dr. Marler has invented a de-aging potion. She means it only for good (although she does not stop to consider what would happen in a world where nobody died), but Gorlin steals it, intending to make a super-army.
- Gun Struggle: How Dr. Marler dies after Gorlin demands the formula, although in all likelihood he would have killed her anyway.
- Herr Doktor: Dr. Marler, who has a vaguely Germanic accent and who has left Europe because it is dominated by "force and hate" (that is, the Nazis). She has made a major discovery.
- Noodle Implements: Dr. Marler, giddy with excitement over her formula, says that she figured out that she can reverse the aging process "by injecting extract of—". At that point she gets interrupted.
- Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Subverted. After The Shadow sensibly refuses to drink Gorlin's wine, Gorlin says that he dumped a bunch of de-aging potion into it. The Shadow then says, whoops, he switched the glasses around so Gorlin drank the possibly fatal dose of potion. A panicking Gorman throws himself out of the blimp to his death—but The Shadow reveals to Margot that he was bluffing. All he really did is put a little stimulant in Gorlin's cup to freak him out.
- We Can Rule Together: After learning of The Shadow's powers of invisibility, Gorlin makes this offer, suggesting that with invisibility and the de-aging potion they can rule the world. The Shadow declines.
