Inner Sanctum Mysteries: The Silent Hands

The movie star Mary Astor lends her vocal talents to this episode of the Inner Sanctum radio series. Astor, who is best remembered for her role alongside Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941) plays a young lady named Nina who becomes a suspect in a murder case.

The Silent Hands begins on a bluff overlooking a west coast harbour, where police cars are making their way through the night-time fog. The police are looking for a mysterious woman in white who has already strangled three men and pushed their bodies over the cliff.

Nina is out in the fog as well. She’s walking with her friend Michael and the lady is wearing a white evening dress. Nina is feeling a little cold though and wants to return home to the big house she shares with her sister Caroline.

When Nina realizes she has lost her bag, Michael tells her to return to the house alone, while he looks for the missing bag. Nina’s parting words are, “Don’t be long” but Michael does not make it back to the house at all because he is strangled and thrown over the cliff.

Moments later the reporter Brian Barnes receives an anonymous phone call and the woman at the other end of the line tips him off that the woman is white has claimed her fourth victim. Not one to miss out on a scoop, Brian rushes to the scene of the crime, taking his partner McGraw with him.

Barnes and McGraw do a bit of snooping and find themselves at the home of Nina and Caroline. Nina tells Barnes that she has been home all evening, but the reporter does not believe her and is soon busy trying to pin the murders on her.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries: The Silent Hands

(Listen to the Full Episode)

(Listen to the Full Episode)