Title: Ghosts Can Kill
Air date: January 15, 1939
Guest star: Richard Widmark
Plot summary: A notorious criminal, Ralph Gorman, is finally convicted of murder after beating several previous raps because he had an alibi. But this time he doesn't and he's going to the chair. As he's sentenced he defiantly tells the judge he will come back from the dead and kill three people: philanthropist Oscar Borden and millionaire sportsman Frank Collins just for fun, and then Governor Roberts, if Roberts doesn't give him a pardon.
No one thinks too much of this bizarre threat, including Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane who were in the audience for the trial and heard Gorman give it. Gorman is later fried in the electric chair. But when Ralph Gorman does somehow kill Oscar Borden, The Shadow realizes that something very strange is going on.
Tropes:
- Disconnected by Death: Frank Collins is on the phone, in the middle of asking Commissioner Weston for some police protection, when Gorman enters and kills him.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Margo, marveling at the strangeness of a ghost murdering two people, exclaims "Jiminy!". Instantly Lamont figures out the solution, because "jiminy" reminds him of "Gemini", the twins (Lamont pronounces the words to rhyme).
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: Twice. First, a newspaper vendor hawks an extra reporting Ralph Gorman's execution. Second, another one hawks an extra about the murder of Borden.
- For the Evulz: Why does Gorman kill two people he didn't know who had no connection with him? Just for kicks, really.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Lamont is in the middle of telling Margo that obviously Ralph Gorman's threats were nonsense and a dead man can't kill people, when a newspaper vendor shills a special edition reporting the murder of Oscar Borden.
- Leitmotif: Gorman has a mouth organ that he likes to play, and he says in open court that every time he kills someone, they'll hear the mouth organ first. And indeed the same snatch of music from a mouth organ is heard before every murder.
- Not My Driver: Is that Henry the chauffeur behind the wheel when it's time for Gov. Roberts to go to the club? No, it's Ralph Morgan! (Actually it's Arthur Morgan.)
- Police Are Useless: Commissioner Weston is particularly bad in this episode. Even after Borden is killed, Weston blows off Lamont Cranston's suggestion to put police protection around Gorman's other targets. Sure enough Frank Collins is also killed.
- Twin Switch: The solution! Ralph Gorman was executed, but it turns out he has a twin brother, Arthur, and it's Arthur who's been exacting vengeance. In fact, the reason why Ralph managed to beat all those earlier murder raps was that Arthur was always impersonating him somewhere to give him an alibi, and the only reason it didn't work this time and Ralph went to the chair is that he and Arthur got their times mixed up.
- Villain Opening Scene: The first scene is Ralph Gorman being convicted and sentenced to death, and him making his threat of vengeance from beyond the grave.
