Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: January 17, 1946 In Suspense #176, “The Pasteboard Box,” identical twins Jack and Walter Parcell embody Cain and Abel reborn. After staging his own “suicide,” Jack murders Walter and slips into his life—his wealth, his identity, even his fiancée. But while Walter’s body proves hard to dispose of, his head remains an especially grim problem, hidden in a pasteboard box that seems t...

Originally Aired: January 3, 1946 In Suspense #174, “The Angel of Death,” John Forsythe (Paul Henreid) believes his intellect makes him untouchable—even as he manipulates fellow prisoners and boasts of his ability to commit the perfect crime. Convicted for the murders of his wife and best friend despite the absence of bodies, Forsythe serves his sentence smugly, conducting chilling psychological e...

Originally Aired: December 27, 1945 In Suspense #173, “Pink Camellias,” dutiful niece Martha tends her tyrannical Aunt Abby and falls for smooth-talking cousin Neil—then coolly decides murder is the only path to freedom. Arsenic, teacakes, and greenhouse strawberries become instruments of fate as Martha outmaneuvers Neil and the household…until a final, chilling realization turns her triumph into...

Originally Aired: December 20, 1945 In Suspense #172, “Double Entry,” a weary bookkeeper named Sam Crockett discovers that balancing ledgers isn't the only gamble he's made—especially when his friend Eddie tries to bail him out with a bet on a 100-to-1 longshot. As the office audits close in, Sam confesses to years of embezzlement, only to be overshadowed by Eddie’s misguided loyalty and a lucky w...

Originally Aired: December 13, 1945 In Suspense #171, “The Argyle Album,” hard-nosed reporter Harry Mitchell (Robert Taylor) stumbles into the story of a lifetime when famed columnist Alan Pierce dies under mysterious circumstances. Pierce had been preparing to expose the contents of the so-called Argyle Album—a white leather book filled with incriminating evidence of wartime profiteering and trea...

Originally Aired: December 6, 1945 In Suspense #170, “I Won’t Take a Minute,” Kenny waits outside a dingy apartment house while his bride-to-be, Steffie, runs a quick package up to 4B—and never comes back. Minutes turn to terror as the bell rings, the elevator sighs, and a stranger in Steffie’s clothes walks past him without a flicker of recognition. With the police skeptical, Kenny claws through...

Originally Aired: November 29, 1945 In Suspense #169, “A Week Ago Wednesday,” Maud Haskin is just another working woman—until a rainy night and a quarrel with her husband Harry hurl her into a psychological spiral. After seemingly witnessing a future where she is murdered by Harry, Maud wakes to find herself alive, but haunted. Was it only a dream, or a chilling warning? When a series of eerie coi...

Originally Aired: November 22, 1945   In Suspense #168, “Nineteen Deacon Street,” tie salesman Maury Swartz rents a theatrical rooming house in Chicago, only to find himself haunted by the presence of a vanished blonde named Laverne. Her untouched room, her photograph, and his dreams all lead him deeper into a mystery that stretches back ten years. A key marked “9” and a phone number scrawled in e...

Originally Aired: November 15, 1945   In Suspense #167, “Murder Off Key,” Frederick Carlson arrives in New York to stay at a friend’s apartment, only to be tormented by the nightly shrieks of a delusional would-be soprano, Violet Pondecker. But when Violet is found strangled and her jewels stolen, Carlson becomes the prime suspect—trapped by circumstantial evidence, a vanished dog, and a cunning d...

Originally Aired: November 8, 1945   In Suspense #166, “The Bet,” artist Scott Turner accepts a $50,000 challenge from wealthy sugar magnate Paul Barton: to endure two years of monotonous lab work in Trinidad. But Barton’s wife, Ada—a woman drawn to destruction—soon ensnares Scott in a dangerous triangle of temptation and deceit. As rain pounds endlessly on the cane fields, Scott discovers Ada’s p...

Originally Aired: November 1, 1945   In Suspense #165, “The Dunwich Horror,” Dr. Henry Armitage broadcasts from Sentinel Hill as he recounts Wilbur Whateley’s blasphemous origins, a doomed raid on Miskatonic’s Necronomicon, and the ravenous, invisible twin that finally storms loose across Dunwich. As Halloween night peaks, Armitage and Dr. Rice confront the thing with arcane powders and a perilous...

Originally Aired: October 25, 1945   In Suspense #164, “A Shroud for Sarah,” Lucille Ball stars as Sarah Martell, a woman whose ambition knows no bounds—not even murder. As her husband Peter campaigns for governor, Sarah secretly plans to betray him, striking deals with a political rival and a corrupt doctor, and rekindling a romance with an ex-con fresh off a heist. But when her manipulations spi...

Originally Aired: October 18, 1945 In Suspense #163, “Summer Storm,” Eddie, a solitary man who talks to himself, finds his world spiraling after a tense altercation with his slovenly landlord, Mr. Waters. Believing he’s accidentally killed Waters during a scuffle, Eddie hides in the attic as paranoia and inner voices begin to consume him. With a thunderstorm raging outside and a murder he thinks h...

Originally Aired: October 11, 1945 In Suspense #162, “Beyond Good and Evil,” an escaped convict named Philip Gentry assumes the identity of a country preacher to hide in plain sight. Taking the name Dr. Howard Pierce, he infiltrates a small-town church, earns the trust of its congregation, and even wins the heart of the paralyzed pastor’s daughter. But Gentry’s plans for a final heist are complica...

Originally Aired: October 4, 1945 In Suspense #161, “Death on Highway 99,” Morton “Speed” Blake pens a final letter to his high school crush Julie—his last confession before the law catches up to him. What starts as a desperate, reflective monologue quickly turns into a chilling narrative of murder, manipulation, and a failed cover-up. When a hit-and-run accident spirals into blackmail and bloodsh...

Originally Aired: January 26, 1943   In Suspense #026, “Death Went Along for the Ride,” George Avery finds himself pursued across the country by mysterious figures after agreeing to help a man he barely knows. What begins as a casual encounter turns into a deadly cross-country chase involving shadowy phone calls, a menacing photographer, and a series of near-misses at carnivals, clubs, and hotels....

Originally Aired: September 27, 1945 In Suspense #160, “The Earth Is Made of Glass,” a brilliant but disturbed intellectual, Richard Steele, attempts to prove Emerson’s concept of karmic justice wrong—by committing a “laboratory murder” without motive, connection, or consequence. But even as he believes he’s escaped detection, his own mind becomes the battlefield, haunted by phantom rhythms, dista...

Originally Aired: September 20, 1945 In Suspense #159, “Library Book,” librarian Prudence Roberts discovers more than just overdue fines when a vandalized copy of Gone with the Wind reveals a hidden ransom note. Her amateur sleuthing leads her deep into a kidnapping plot involving a missing girl named Melanie, a string of cryptic clues, and a sinister pair of criminals. Starring Myrna Loy in a rar...

In Suspense #16, “The Devil in the Summer House,” attorney Joe Parker returns to a shuttered Hudson River home with Captain Burke after receiving a freshly mailed letter—dated 1918—hinting that Major Jerry Kenyon’s long-ago “suicide” was murder. In the vine-choked summer house and lamplit library, they uncover a hidden phonograph record that coolly explains a perfect fake-suicide: a long-range sho...

In Suspense #7, “Philomel Cottage (Part 2),” newlywed Alex Martin begins to fear that her charming husband Gerald is hiding a murderous past—until she turns the tables with a chilling confession over evening coffee. As the clock ticks toward six, a tense duel of wits unfolds on the cottage porch, phone calls are cut short, and Alex’s tale of prior “accidents” becomes a weapon in a battle for survi...

Originally Aired: September 13, 1945 In Suspense #158, “The Furnished Floor,” a grieving widower named Mr. Jennings returns to his former apartment, seeking to restore every detail of his married life with his late wife, Mabel—even down to the canary and the exact placement of the furniture. As the new landlady begins to suspect something is terribly off, Jennings reveals an unnerving truth: he be...

Originally Aired: September 6, 1945 In Suspense #157, “Sorry, Wrong Number,” a bedridden woman named Mrs. Elbert Stephenson becomes the accidental eavesdropper on a chilling murder plot when a crossed phone line connects her to two men planning a killing. As she frantically tries to alert the authorities and reconnect with her absent husband, the line between fear and paranoia tightens with each u...

Originally Aired: August 30, 1945 In Suspense #156, “Nobody Loves Me,” a police precinct is held hostage by an armed man who claims he’s ready to confess. What begins as a chilling standoff quickly transforms into a dark and deeply personal monologue by Joe Reese—a hitman with a trail of bodies and a hole in his soul. But when Joe meets Peggy Stewart, his next intended victim, her unexpected kindn...

Originally Aired: August 23, 1945   In Suspense #155, “This Will Kill You,” factory worker Joe Jordan is fed up with being belittled by his foreman, Charlie Harris. But when workplace slights and romantic jealousy boil over, Joe hatches a chillingly calculated plan—not just for revenge, but to destroy Charlie’s life completely. What follows is a dark, manipulative plot to commit the perfect murder...

Originally Aired: August 16, 1945   In Suspense #154, “Short Order,” Bailey, a proud diner owner, finds his business slowly unraveling after a mysterious, disfigured man begins frequenting his establishment. Though the stranger is polite and quiet, his grotesque appearance drives customers away and triggers a downward spiral of paranoia, misfortune, and desperation for Bailey. As events spiral out...