This episode was a missing episode until it was found in a cache of AFRS discs that a group of collectors purchased in 2023. It is now available for the very first time with this blogpost.
William Conrad plays a ship captain with obsessive compulsive disorder who demands that ship maintenance and operations be performed in alphabetical order. When crew members start to be killed, it is suspected that the captain, himself, may be killing crew members in alphabetical order, too! Crew members are terrified and look to the First Mate to keep the captain in line and perhaps lead a mutiny. Could the captain really be the killer? Or is it a crew member who seeks to use the captain’s quirky habit to hide their vile acts?
This is a second broadcast of the script. John Lund starred in the first production. Details are at these resources:
https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/10/1947-08-21-murder-aboard-alphabet.html
https://archive.org/details/TSP470821 is where recordings can be downloaded or streamed.
The blogpost for the 1947 episode has been updated with more information about the author’s identity and background. This information is repeated here for convenience:
Charles Turrell McNair wrote the script. At age 20 he one of the youngest men to be assigned to a command post in the Canadian Navy. At the end of WW2, he was demobilized, but remained with the Navy and became a public relations officer. He had some journalistic experience but also wrote radio plays that were performed on the CBC. He submitted “Murder by the Alphabet” to Suspense and was paid $350. If that was in Canadian dollars, that would be C$5900 in 2024. The equivalent in US$2024 would be about $3900. He had a successful academic leadership career in the growth of Mohawk College of Ontario. He passed away in 2000. His obituary is at https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/theglobeandmail/name/charles-mcnair-obituary?id=41829405 but it is worth seeking some of the more detailed ones online that were published at that time.
The script was adapted by Antony Ellis.
No network recording has been found. The surviving recording is from the Armed Forces Radio Service and is AFRS#514.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP550106
THE CAST
William Conrad (Captain Godfrey Walker), Vic Perrin (First Mate Marshland), Parley Baer (Higgens), “Tom” Krugman (Second Mate Harvey Goodrem / Priest), Peter Leeds (Chadwick), Jim Nusser (Fitch / Policeman), Howard McNear (Chief engineer Alec McTavish), Larry Thor (Narrator)
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