Title: Ghost Town
Air date: October 6, 1940
Plot summary: Lamont and Margot are vacationing somewhere out west. Their guide leads them on a horseback tour to the ghost town of Bad Creek, once a gold mining town but now abandoned, except for Pop Evans, who still maintains a hotel that no one ever visits.
Lamont and Margot are fascinated by the town, but the guide warns them that it's a literal ghost town—it's haunted. He names, among the ghosts, a pair of lovers, El Verez and Carmencita. Back in the day, El Verez caught Carmencita with another man, whereupon he killed them both.
Lamont rolls his eyes at this, and Margot for her part is enchanted by the story and the town, and insists that they stay, even as the guide sternly warns them that it's a bad idea. Lamont and Margot leave the guide behind, and check into Pop Evans's hotel, and soon enough, they start hearing ghosts...
Tropes:
- Abandoned Mine: Why the ghost town is a ghost town in the first place. The Shadow follows his hunch and goes to the mine and naturally finds Margot and the conspirators there. It turns out there's actually still gold in the mine and the bad guys are digging it out.
- Ghost Town: An abandoned mining town, where, as the guide warns Lamont and Margot, there actually are ghosts.
- His Name Is...: Pop Evans is shot and killed just as he's about to reveal to The Shadow the identity of the chief hoaxer.
- Idiot Ball: So if the guide wanted to keep people away from the town, why does he bring them there? Lamont and Margot didn't even know it existed.
- Murder Ballad: There's an old murder ballad about El Velez and Carmencita, one which the ghost of Carmencita sings and which both Lamont and Margot know. It actually leads to the climax, as Lamont guesses that the bad guys will have gone to the abandoned mine like El Velez does in the song.
- No Name Given: Neither his guide nor his female partner, the one who plays the Carmencita ghost, are ever named.
- On the Next: The end has a little preview of next week's program, which The Shadow only did once in a while.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The ghosts are just a scam put on by the guide and his partners to keep people away from the town, after they found a rich gold vein in the abandoned mine.
- Vacation Episode: Lamont and Margot, vacationing out in gold mining country, finding supernatural goings-on in an abandoned town.
- Wolves Always Howl at the Moon: Well, it's coyotes, but the howling makes things more spooky.
