Peter Cornish - Deal With Murder
BBC Home Service: Saturday Night Theatre
Broadcast: Saturday 9th May 1964
Before heading out to meet her fiancé, Lynn Harker, a young portrait painter, receives a death threat over the phone from an unknown
caller. Discussing it with Tom Swain, her fiancé, they try to figure out who would want to kill Lynn. Could it be some sort of extortion?
Lynn does have a rich aunt who raised her after Lynn's parents died but five years earlier, she and her aunt had a terrible quarrel over
Lynn becoming a painter. When Lynn walked out to start her new life, her Aunt Nina disowned her.
At the same time as the death threat, Lynn has recieved a letter from her Aunt Nina, her first contact in five years, urgently inviting her
down to her home to discuss certain business matters that had arisen and that Lynn must be there to discuss them. But after being
called down on the pretext of reconciliation, Lynn finds she has been tricked by her spiteful aunt. After an argument in which her aunt
tells her she has been written out of her will and that she will leave all her money to her companion, Lynn leaves in a huff at 4:40 p.m.,
even though her aunt would not provide her transportation to the train station, more than six miles away, to catch the train back to
London at 5:05 p.m. Five minutes later on her walk back, she is picked up by an American tourist who, on his last day in England, is
taking his hired car back to town. He drops her off in time to just catch her train where she shares a compartment with Mike, a North
Country Traveller, with whom she continues talking with after her arrival at Waterloo Station.
When she finally arrives back at her studio in Regent's Park, she is met by her fiancé and Detective-Sergeant Harvey of the North
Sussex CID, who have been waiting at her studio since 7:15 p.m. The detective tells her that her aunt was murdered at 5:15 p.m. - shot
through the back of the head - and the gun that killed her had Lynn's fingerprints on it. Lynn has been set up and will soon find out that
the two men who can give her an alibi will be extremely hard, if not impossible, to track down.
With Jane Wenham [Lynn Harker, a Portrait Painter], Frank Duncan [Jason Flowerdew, an actor and old Schoolfriend of Tom's], John
Pullen [Tom Swain, a Solicitor, Lynn's Fiancé], Marjorie Westbury [Lady Nina Mathry, Lynn's Rich Aunt / Miss Edith Terry, Nina's New,
Young Housekeeper and Companion], Denis Graham [Inspector Davies], Nicolette Bernard [Miss Lyla James, an Actress Friend of
Jason], Stephen Thorne [The American Telephone Caller / Mike Potter, a North Country Traveller], William Fox [Billy, Nina's
Chauffeur and Handyman], John Ruddock [Mr. Thraill, The Family Solicitor], Frederick Treves [Detective-Sergeant Harvey, North
Sussex CID], Mary Wimbush [Mrs. Cooper, Resident of Elm Cottage], Hamlyn Benson [Mr. Frisby, the Laundry Mat Manager], Eva
Stuart [Mrs. Beasley, Mike Potter's Landlady], Geoffrey Matthews [Bob Hazelrig, a Home-Farm Tenant of Nina's], Garard Green
[George, Attendant at Lynn's Studio], Andrew Sachs [The American Motorist], and Peter Bartlett [The Waiter at the Raven].
Produced by Audrey Cameron
Size: 83,428 kb kbps: 128 kHz: 44 Time: 1 hr. 28 min. 59 sec. (Mono)
You need to be a member of Times Past to add comments!
Replies
Rick -
Thanks for an 'old school' radio mystery from someone who attended the 'old school' when it was just school.
Bob
A real "old school" detective yarn - thanks
This sounds like good stuff, Rick. Set in a less technical age where cerebral policing was to the fore. Thanks very much.