Death Pulls the Strings

A mad puppeteer named "Goriot," who uses the stage name "Ricou," murders a ballerina and comes up with a life-sized puppet which looks just like her. Goriot is a French name (in a story by Balzac), but Ricou sounds like Bela Lugosi. The system cue has been deleted. In an unusual ending to the program, Ken Roberts gives a brief description of a murder committed by Louis Lepke Buchalter (although Buchalter was in a room with "The Shadow" when the crime was committed, how's that for an alibi?). In vivid proof that, "Crime does not pay," the Shadow tells Lepke that he's not going to get away with this murder. In real life, Lepke was convicted of murder on November 30, 1941 and sentenced to be executed on December 4, 1941 (one month before this program). Louis Buchalter's appeals went all the way to the Supreme Court and were eventually rejected. He was finally electrocuted on March 4, 1944, more than two years after this broadcast.