Showing results by narrator "The Cape Cod Mystery Players" in All Categories

Strange things are happening in the Cape Cod sand dunes. There have been sightings of an unknown creature in the National Seashore, part African lion, part … something else?

Here is the classic Gothic mystery combining a lurking sense of danger in a strongly atmospheric setting, a Hound of the Baskervilles-style case involving the reawakening of an ancient family curse dating back to the whaling days of New Bedford, and a curse foretelling another death about to take place.

About “The Final Case,” Doctor Scofield, Captain Underhill’s personal physician, comments, “A most interesting case study. It is both sad and ironic that the mental affliction Captain Underhill used to pretend to suffer from: that of being senile, was ultimately the very thing that laid him low. And yet, in the annals of crime solving, if this final case does nothing else, it proves the kind of natural-born sleuth my good friend, Waverly, was.”

A Captain Waverly Underhill mystery.

Captain Underhill and Doctor Scofield recount their very first case.

April, 1961. It is tourist season on Cape Cod … and open season on the President. Having sent its favorite son to the White House, Cape Cod has come under the spell of Camelot. Young police deputy Waverly Underhill meets Doctor Scofield for the very first time, and together they seek to stop an assassination plot that anyone would call crazy.

A meteor explodes in the summertime sky over Cape Cod, and a man is struck dead by a flying fragment. A freak accident, it is supposed, until Captain Underhill and Doctor Scofield, checking into the science and history of meteors, as well as the laws of probability, are led to form a different conclusion. In 1935, James M. Cain wrote the classic insurance fraud mystery, Double Indemnity. Here’s a story that could be titled Triple Indemnity.

For years an anonymous Cape Cod mural painter has been adorning the underpass to the Barnstable Village railroad bridge with images of scantily clad nudes in Classical poses. An activity which, although many in the Village enjoy them and approve, is also illegal and a source of irritation—particularly to nearby neighbor, Otis Narwhal, who feels the paintings go too far. With night-vision binoculars he sits on his porch at night, hoping to spy the Phantom Artist at work and report her to the local police.

A comatose witness in the hospital is stalked by a fiendish killer. A compassionate psychiatrist must use the techniques of hypnosis to reach her in time before the killer does. A psychological thriller uniquely suited for radio. Told from the internal perspective of the comatose patient, it guides us through the twilight realm of the subconscious mind, where the real and the surreal coexist.

A literary flashback combining the creations of Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol) and Erle Stanley Gardner, this courtroom melodrama poses the questions: What if Ebenezer Scrooge was murdered, found strangled in his bed with a bell cord knotted around his neck and a stake of holly driven through his heart? And what if the man charged with the crime was his own employee, Bob Cratchit?

It begins as static ... then, you hear a voice, desperate, frightened, coming from a shack in the Cape Cod dunes, broadcasting his story to anyone who might be listening. He tells an unbelievable tale of missing persons and an unseen enemy that may already have conquered us.

Is he insane? Is he deluded? And most terrifying of all, is he telling the truth?

A mystery lampoon recorded live at the Woods Hole Community Hall, July 15, 1989. Hugo LeGrand, “The Great Hugo,” is determined to defy public opinion and be the first to help himself to the loot from the sunken Titanic. Together with his hapless pilot, Mr. Smalley, they discover a surprise much greater than teacups and saucers.

Lottery winners Henry and Pamela McKnown have their luck stolen from them when their four-year-old daughter, Heidi, is kidnapped. Years pass without a word and the McKnowns, coping with their grief, are slowly rebuilding their lives. Then the cycle of terror begins again, as a carnival psychic shows up on Cape Cod, claiming to have made contact with the spirit of the dead child. Though Heidi’s voice comes through in a séance, Underhill is convinced it’s a fake.

Blind Salvation Army bell ringer, Rosie McGinty, suffers a grievous bodily assault and robbery of her kettle outside Brindle-Halls department store when she is struck from behind by what may have been a boomerang. A concerned Doctor Scofield pits his persistence against Captain Underhill’s initial reluctance in getting him to take up the case. Lacking any eyewitnesses, including the victim herself, Underhill devises a clever plan to entice the mugger, or muggers, into striking again.

When little Anna Gale Storm is abducted by a stranger in a white van, the police — and the media — spring into action. Bulletins are issued. The police swarm. News and police helicopters hover near the twin bridges. Anna Gale’s mother, Betsy Storm, is hysterical but must be questioned. The police are desperate, frustrated by the fact that the only eyewitness is a frightened, easily confused, five year old named Jody Higgins.

The unforgettable villain from “The Caller on Line One” returns. A serial killer records his murders and sends the tapes to the police. A young detective takes charge and enlists the help of a beautiful FBI agent — with a great set of ears — whose specialty is analyzing audio recordings. But will that lead them to the killer before he strikes again?

A premonition of murder leading to violent death…voodoo, séances, automatic writing and psychic messages from the dead are all elements in a strange case that turns criminal. A worried Doctor Scofield calls in his friend, Captain Waverly Underhill, to unravel the mystery.

Lady Kemp is worried. Her granddaughter, Carmeline, is about to marry Victor Fabloose, a French playboy who may be a gold-digger ... or a poisoner.

Captain Waverly Underhill is offered $25,000 to make sure the marriage never takes place. To succeed, he devises a clever scheme involving real buried treasure—a solid-gold statue of a pirate as big as a chocolate Easter bunny.

Dr. Alexander Scofield encounters his friend, retired police captain Waverly Underhill, at a Provincetown art opening. Then they both encounter a murder. The celebrity judge is stabbed in the back upstairs. Downstairs, there are seventy or eighty guests, one of whom must have done it.

Captain Underhill takes charge and quickly devises a simple but ingenious test that will force the killer to reveal himself.

Tanya Macklin is the host of Talk Line, the weekly, advice-on-the-air radio program. Tonight, however, the problems of her listeners are about to take a back seat to one of her own ... a problem so large, it will transform her normally sane world into a nightmarish world of terror.

A real-time suspense thriller in the tradition of Sorry, Wrong Number.

An old man leaps to his death from the Sagamore Bridge spanning the Cape Cod Canal. A clear case of suicide? Perhaps not, once Captain Underhill reads about it in the newspaper. Now, using the same bridge for his own cat and mouse purposes, Captain Underhill takes the killer for a ride…

Menacing mob enforcer, Ricky Rubusto, kidnaps pet and store mascot, Hercules, world’s largest captive lobster, holding it for ransom and threatening to devour it unless radio DJ, Molly Neptune, pays off her father’s gambling debt. Now Captain Underhill must save the lobster before it ‘sleeps with the fishes.’

Bobby Winslow is a hard-on-his-luck, independent Cape Cod fisherman who takes a calculated risk venturing out to the Five Fathom Rip area of George’s Bank. His luck holds until the tide turns ... one man drowns in the net, another is sliced dead-on-the-spot when a winch cable snaps. These accidents prove anything but accidental.