Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: June 12, 1956
In Suspense #654, "A Matter of Timing," a hired killer arrives in town to carry out a carefully planned assassination. Carl Loman has arranged to meet the professional hitman through a chain of contacts, hiring him to murder his business partner Mark. The two men set up in an empty storefront across from Mark's apartment building, with Carl promising an ironclad alibi. However, when their target fails to appear at the expected time of eight o'clock in the morning, the plan begins to unravel. The killer grows increasingly impatient, demanding answers and insisting he must leave town by nightfall.
As tensions mount, Carl reveals his motive: Mark thinks he's smarter than Carl, and eliminating him will allow Carl to take over the business from Mark's widow. When the killer forces Carl to investigate Mark's whereabouts, they discover Mark was delayed by his wife's illness but is now at the office. Carl learns that Mark has scheduled a secret evening meeting in an isolated location to finalize an important property deal. The question becomes whether Carl can redirect his hired assassin to this new time and place before the killer's deadline expires.

Originally Aired: June 5, 1956
Suspense #653, "The Twelfth Rose," presents a chilling murder mystery when Dolores Robbins is found strangled in her New York City apartment at 12:15 PM. The killer's weapon is as unusual as it is intimate: the twelfth rose from a dozen delivered to her apartment, its green support wire twisted around her neck until the stem broke but the wire held. Detectives questioning the maid and Dolores's friend Mildred Butler learn that the victim had mentioned meeting a man named Carl Owens, someone she'd just met but planned to see again. With no fingerprints and few leads, the detectives pin their hopes on one possibility: finding the florist who sold those roses and getting an identification of the buyer.
The investigation leads to Helen Craig, manager of a small flower shop on the east side. Just as her shop closes for the night, a tall gentleman she'd served the previous day returns, claiming to deliver thanks from his mother who received the roses in the hospital. But as their conversation grows increasingly unsettling and Helen finds herself alone with this mysterious Mr. Johnson, it becomes clear that the killer may be thinking several steps ahead of the police.

Originally Aired: May 29, 1956
Suspense #652, "The Flame," follows Andy, a troubled young man who harbors a disturbing obsession with fire. Living with his worried sister Mary Lee, Andy spends his nights wandering the streets, sketching fires in his notebook and admiring the patterns flames make against the sky. When their elderly neighbor Mr. Boyajin, a kindly dry goods store owner, needs help minding his shop while his wife is hospitalized, Mary Lee volunteers Andy for the job, hoping it will give him purpose and keep him off the streets.
As Andy works at the store, Mr. Boyajin confides that he can't afford the special medical care his wife desperately needs, offhandedly wishing the store would burn down so he could collect the insurance money. The comment ignites a dangerous idea in Andy's mind. Convinced he's helping his friend, Andy begins experimenting with plumber's candles and celluloid, planning to set fire to the shop. When his sister discovers him practicing in her cake tin, their confrontation reveals the depth of Andy's instability and his terrifying fixation with flames.

Originally Aired: May 22, 1956
Suspense #651, "Fragile-Contents Death,"
Postmaster Doug Jordan's routine morning is shattered by a chilling anonymous phone call. A time bomb has been mailed to someone in his city, set to detonate at 2:30 that afternoon—less than five hours away. The caller, troubled by conscience, warns that the device will explode either on timer or when opened, but refuses to reveal the intended victim's name before the line goes dead. With thousands of packages flowing through his post office and no way to identify which one contains death, Jordan faces an impossible task. He immediately assembles his team—Fox, Stuart, and postal inspector Ed Williams—to begin a desperate search through the mail.
As the clock ticks toward detonation, Jordan orders all delivery trucks recalled, substations contacted, and every package brought back for examination. The team calls in the state police explosive expert and arranges for a fluoroscope to be flown in, hoping technology can help identify the bomb without triggering it. The memory of a carrier in Bowling Green, Kentucky, nearly killed by a similar device, haunts their efforts as they race against time to prevent tragedy.

Originally Aired: May 15, 1956
Suspense #650, "The Death Parade," Ellen Johnson, a precise and methodical woman who has never missed work in 12 years, finds her routine disrupted when a rude stranger spills coffee on her dress at breakfast. Forced to return home to change, she discovers an unsealed letter on the sidewalk addressed simply to "Sheila Mannix." The letter contains a chilling warning: a man named Jack murdered someone the previous year by pushing them off a building, and he plans to kill Sheila too—at noon during a parade at the corner of Maine and Thomas. Unable to ignore the threat, Ellen becomes determined to find Sheila and deliver the warning before it's too late.
With only hours remaining before the parade begins, Ellen frantically searches for the right Sheila Mannix, tracking down leads and making desperate phone calls. Now sitting in a police station after a young woman has fallen from a rooftop during the parade, Ellen must explain to Lieutenant how her discovery of the letter set these tragic events in motion, and whether she could have prevented what happened on that roof.

Originally Aired: May 8, 1956
Suspense #649, "The Phones Die First," presents the harrowing final hours of Frank Brunner, a condemned prisoner awaiting execution. As four o'clock arrives, Sergeant Bradley and Captain oversee Brunner's final afternoon on death row. Before being moved downstairs, Frank says goodbye to fellow inmates Whitey, Shaker, and a defiant young prisoner known as Kid, giving away his possessions—law books, a dictionary, and a copy of Tom Sawyer. The captain grants him a final visit with his sister Ruthie in an unusual departure from routine. During their emotional meeting, Frank makes a desperate request: he wants Ruthie to contact the family of Alice, the woman he killed, to explain that he murdered her not from hatred but from the unbearable pain of losing her to someone else.
As evening falls and Frank is moved to the death cell, the reality of his situation becomes inescapable. The warden is expected at nine o'clock with potential news from the state capitol, though Frank harbors little hope for a reprieve. He requests a phonograph with classical music and asks to see the chaplain, acknowledging he doesn't want to face the morning alone. Meanwhile, up on death row, the inmates discuss Frank's fate and wait to see if the phones will die first.

Originally Aired: May 1, 1956
Suspense #648, "The Waxwork," Raymond Hewson, a struggling freelance journalist desperate to support his wife and family, strikes a deal with the manager of Mariner's Waxworks to spend a night alone in the notorious Murderer's Den for a story. The manager warns him that the cellar filled with wax figures of history's most appalling killers creates an oppressive, sinister atmosphere that would unnerve anyone. Despite his own revulsion, Hewson needs the money from selling his article to the Morning Echo, plus the five-pound bonus the manager promises.
As the manager escorts Hewson through the dimly-lit chamber, they pass figures of infamous murderers: Crippen, Armstrong, Charles Peace, and others frozen in their waxwork poses. But one figure particularly disturbs Hewson—a small man with waxed moustaches and piercing eyes behind spectacles. This is Dr. Baudette, a French physician who killed for pleasure with a razor, mesmerizing his victims before slashing their throats. Though Baudette disappeared before capture and is presumed dead, his lifelike effigy seems unnervingly real as Hewson prepares to spend the long night surrounded by these silent, staring murderers.

Originally Aired: April 17, 1956
Suspense #646, "The Seventh Letter," a postman named Henry R. Gilligan is found murdered during his early morning collection run in a quiet Southern California suburb. Lieutenant Joseph Carter arrives at the scene to find Gilligan's body near an open mailbox with six letters scattered on the sidewalk. As Carter examines the evidence, he develops a compelling theory: seven letters were mailed in that box, but only six were recovered. Someone desperate to retrieve their letter must have confronted Gilligan, and when the postman refused to return it—bound by postal regulations—the confrontation turned deadly.
Working with Sergeant Saul Morris, Carter begins investigating the neighborhood residents who had access to that mailbox. The question becomes urgent: what could someone have written that was worth killing for? As the detectives compile a list of potential suspects and piece together the events of that fatal night, they race to identify the person who mailed the missing seventh letter before the trail goes cold.

Originally Aired: April 10, 1956
Suspense #645, "The Lonely Heart," centers on the baffling disappearance of Esther Leach two years earlier. Chief Inspector Finch brings in her husband, Stanley Leach, a gentle-seeming elderly bird shop owner, for questioning about his wife's vanishing. Despite suspicious circumstances—a violent quarrel overheard by neighbors the night before Esther disappeared, her ownership of the shop before their marriage, and destroyed postcards supposedly sent from her travels—Leach maintains his innocence and claims his strong-willed wife simply left to wander. With no body and insufficient evidence to make an arrest, Commissioner Blaine demands results, though Finch worries that bringing Leach in prematurely has put their suspect on guard.
As Finch investigates further, he interviews Esther's nephew Richard Cade, who insists his stubborn aunt would never have left London and points the inspector toward a new lead: Ada Willis, a beautiful young woman who works at Selfridge's toy department and may have been involved with Stanley Leach. The case deepens as Finch begins pursuing this unexpected connection, hoping it will finally lead him to the truth about what happened to Esther Leach.

Originally Aired: April 3, 1956
Suspense #644, "Game Hunt," professional hunter R. Cross leads American businessman Babson on a safari in Kenya country, tracking a magnificent black-maned lion. When Babson fires prematurely against Cross's orders, he wounds the lion but fails to stop it. The animal escapes into eight-foot-tall elephant grass, transforming from trophy into one of the most dangerous threats in Africa: a wounded, enraged predator. Cross and his native tracker Charlie must now pursue the lion into dense cover where it holds every advantage.
As they follow the blood trail deeper into the treacherous grass, Cross reveals a troubling secret to Charlie: for the first time in his career, he feels hatred for the trophy hunters he guides, and something about this particular hunt has shaken his nerve. The professional hunter who Babson hired for his courage suddenly finds himself lacking that essential quality. With a storm approaching that will wash away the blood trail, Cross must confront both the wounded lion and his own failing resolve before the inevitable charge comes.