Latest / Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas / Mr. Moto: Smokescreen (EP0977)

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Mr. Moto: Smokescreen (EP0977) · Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas

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Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho. This
0:48
is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it
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to me Box thirteen at right Detectors dot net, Follow us on Twitter at
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Radio Detectives, and become one of our friends on Facebook, book Facebook dot
1:00
com Slash Radio Detectives. Today's episode is brought to you by the financial support
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of our listeners. Thanks so much for your support. You can support the
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show at support dot Great Detectives dot net. I'm actually recording this program the
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day it was supposed to air. Somehow or another, we had a bit
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of a mix up where the mister Moto recording didn't get recorded, and yesterday
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people heard Johnny Dowler apologize for that mix up, and I'm doing what I
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can to rectify it. So fortunately I did not have the commentary originally recorded,
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so I'm Marie recording that commentary for mister Moto. Today's episode is called
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Smokescreen, and there was one lost episode in between. So let's go ahead
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and we'll take a lesson. This is mister Moto. Mister I A.
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NBC presents the world's greatest international secret agent, Mister I A. Moto,
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the popular Japanese character created by a Kulater Prize winner John P. Marquan.
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With a straightforwardness of his American heritage and with the subtlety of his Oriental ancestors.
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Mister Motto is fighting the war against communism ruthlessly and bravely. His only
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weapons are his brains, his courage, and his fabulous knowledge of the world,
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from Norn to Cape Horn, from Cape Town to Mrmantz. Tonight's story
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The Smoke Screen starring Mister Motol Mister I A. Moto, the boy unbelievably
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young, writhed on the floor of my New York apartment. His legs convulsed
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in the rope which tied them together, his thin adolescent wrists strained hopelessly at
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the handcuffs. It is impossible not to feel sympathy for a human being possessed
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by such a devil. He had bitten his forefinger almost through. He screamed
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about a white, crippled cat that clawed at him. There were hollows of
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anguish under his eyes, his skin grittened, bloodless, and his ropes wretched
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with supper. Mister Morrow, please please tell me the truth sush not me.
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A canon I will, please, mister Morrow, mont me some of
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God's messy. I can stand it much longer than Usosh, and I have
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plenty of time going crazy, crazy dash. They are out a hundred tons
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of opium somewhere on Manhattan Island, you know where. Now tell me if
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I can't, don't kill me, they won't be will the devils? Please
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mister Morrow. I'm an addict, and I'll give it to me. You
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can break that habit, slush. I'll help you. You can be strong
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again. Because you are young. I can't kick it. I tell you,
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I'm hooked. I'm not young, I'm old. Assignment smoke screen began
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in several cities of a world at once, and at first I was the
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only one in America who knew of its beginning. My information came to a
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friend from Okiu, a Count Takahashi, a man of immense wealth, who
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flew from Japan to New York to have one hour's conversation with me. Immediately
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after my talk, I called on Captain Beresford on an arcotic bureau in his
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New York office. Captain Beresford, he's a quiet, cultured man who seldom
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swears, seldom raises his voice. My story shocked him into a hard faced,
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stunned silence. Mister Moto, I can't believe it. I am afraid,
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Captain beresfaid that it is quite quite true. Tell me about this,
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Count Taka Whatever you said, Count Takahashi, an old Japanese family my house
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once served his house with honor and self sacrifice. He feels he owes me
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a debt. Do you mean to say he flew all away from Japan just
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to talk to you for an hour? He did? You See, he
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knows what opium has done to the aurience, and you're sure his information is
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accurate as I am that the sun will rise in the morning. He is
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an ex addict himself. See, he knows how dangerous a weapon it can
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be. For seven hundred years, this drug has debilitated, weakened, ruined.
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While we may think it is impossible here, the fact remains that at
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one time in history, twenty five percent of the population of the audience either
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smoked opium or addicted to its more fine derivatives. But surely in the United
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States work I wonder if we are we are an erratic, excitable people.
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Opium has an enchantment that is difficult to resist. That is why it is
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so terribly dangerous. Yes, I know, Count Takahashi has reason to believe
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that four months ago a shipment of fifty tons of raw opium or dumped on
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the market in Hong Kong. From there it went to Tokyo. In Tokyo,
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it disappeared, how it vanished, as completely as if it had been
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swept into the sea. Five days ago, an additional two hundred tons did
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the same thing, vanished, disappeared from sight as completely as a tea bug
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in the heart of a puppy. Four hundred tons of opium, Captain Darrisforth
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would supply the entire medical needs of a world for two years, the whole
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world for two years. But frankly, I just can't believe the four hundred
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tons of anything could get into this country without the customs department getting wind of
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it. Somewhere the drug will smuggled to America aboard a submarine owned by the
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Chinese Communist Navy. It was taken a short night on Stuart Island, the
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San Juan Island in the state of Washington. From there it came across the
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continent in trux as a shipment of can salmon, and your friend believes it
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has international implication. Count Takahashi assures me it is another tentacle of a communist
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octopus. Spread the door puppet, devour the blood of America's young men and
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women, lower the birthrate. You know, of course, that prolonged drug
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addiction frequently results in sterility. Certainly, I know, Motho. We've got
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to work fast, exactly, Captain Dresford, I have asked that this be
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made my personal assignment. Two weeks later, the resolution condemning the Chinese Communists
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for pubmitting an international profited book Him was adopted by the United Nation. The
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next month, the Kiffa Committee was informed that large quantity of the DUG would
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be routed through Japan to America. Captain Beresford was getting alarmed, Moto,
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I'm getting stepped on from higher up in what way? There were twenty six
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rejections yesterday from one one Army recruiting center. The draftees claimed exemption on the
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grounds of dope addiction. There's been forty three cases in the last week of
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teachers discovering addiction and children as young as ten ten snet sickly man's in humanity
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to his brothers. A lot of people are getting excited. I've been given
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two weeks to break this case. We've got to work through the children.
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I have exhausted every possible alternative. Yet for me, the children are difficult.
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What remain for the Japanese bachelor To make friends with teen agers is more
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difficult than it sounds. Boys as well as girls, are suspicious of older
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men who attempt casual conversation, very such. But I've had an idea.
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Jeffrey Allington, who say? I read in the paper yesterday that he had
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recently been appointed chairman of the board of trustees of Halsey College. You know
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him. I knew him casually in the audience. We were never close friends,
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but I would have no hesitation in California. What for he might invite
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me to the school to lecture on Japanese culture. That doesn't sound too hopeful,
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But we're at the end of our rope. What's he like? I
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should say he is one of the most charming men I have ever met.
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He was born in the Audient. His father, an Englishman, left him
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fostate holdings in the South Pacific, which he sold to the British government for
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something over two million pounds study. He lives in New York, Yes,
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in a vast house on Fifth Avenue. He's a little aged now and he
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his time to philosophy and his money to charity. He ended his leg as
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a boy. He has difficulty working, and as a result he's intensely interested
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in young people and youth work. Wants to see them get every opportunity for
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self development. With that attitude and two million pounds, he might be very
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useful. I shall telephone him immediately and invite myself to luncheon. Yes,
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but motto, I don't quite understand why or suddenly so interested in meeting young
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people, Jeffrey May, I'd be very rude and not tell you, oh
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your work, I see. Well, as a matter of fact, you've
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chosen a good time in what way? Oh, do you mind if we
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have allkers at the table instead of in the drawing room? My legs acting
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up a bitch today at all? Did I mention I have just recently been
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elected chairman of the board of trustees for Halsey Coror. Yes, I read
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about it. Time beginning to center my ambitions in the coming generation. I'd
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like them not to lose faith in their elders. I would like them not
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to lose faith in themselves. Then you may count on my complete cooperation.
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The reason I say you've chosen a good time is that tomorrow night I'm giving
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a sort of graduation party for Halsey students. Be about two hundred of them.
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Would you like to come? You can meet every single one of them
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if you want to. I should like that very much. Fine for faith,
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supper and dancing. Come anytime you like. After nine o'clock the next
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night, the huge house blazed with light. Two hundred young people were dancing
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and dreading champagne. In a way. They were representative of the young of
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our country, please decent, honest. Watching them well around the big ballroom,
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I felt proud, yet sadly nostalgic. These are troubled times for the
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young. They live in the threat of war. The drafs tangs over their
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career than their manches. Tonight there is a desperate quality to their merriment,
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And though they were snatching one last hour of dancing before settling their bill with
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a piper yourself, how are we not, both at the age everywhere enjoyment
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to be really favored should be taken in small doses. Yes, I suppose
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we are personally. I wonder where they get the vitality that boy there is
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getting us from a sauce other than the young ladies laughing eyes of what the
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one dancing with the girl in the white captain, the big blondo. Have
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you noticed his eyes? Oh? What do you mean? The pin point
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bring in pupils. I was introduced to him. When I shook hands with
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him, I was shocked, shocked. Oh boy, the skin temperature is
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at least a hundred and two se loto, what are you getting? I
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am suggesting that the young man is a more fematic. Yes, a rather
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recent addiction for you. Your joke on the contrary, Jeffrey, I'm deadly
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serious, don't. Addiction in adolescence is all I think about these days.
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I'm working on it constantly. Would you care to tell me about it?
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Certainly if you are interested, But come along up to my day. It's
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upstairs, away from the rest of the house, and the party will run
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quite smoothly without then, by all means, you lead the way through that
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door. I had a small elevator in stalled from the garage to the ball
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floor after you go ahead. The elevator is automatic. Thank you. H
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how wonderful to be able to afford private elevators. And my leg bothers me
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quite a bit stals difficult for me, motto, are you sure about this
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dope buitness business? Right? Shan? This is my own private hideaway.
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In here, I can be quite cut off from the rest of the house.
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Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Thank you. Would you like a
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drink? Yes? Thanks? Good good. I have some very special rye
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whiskey Hanfield Royal art. I believe it sells in the shamboard for twenty five
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dollars a pony, really, and you'all wasting it on me, not at
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all. I only serve it to my very special friends there you are.
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Thank you? What superbooky you'll forgive me if I don't join you? My
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doctor forbidsess certainly, now tell me about this dreadful business. Oh excuse me?
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What of this? Phone neverings unless it's something important? Hello? Oh
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yes, Senator, I'm afraid I can't tell you yet, but I can
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let you know by tomorrow noon. But yes, of course I'll call you
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tomorrow then. Oh, not at all, good night, forgive the interruption.
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Now you were saying, I have been working without success for some time
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now on the problem of dope prediction among teenages. I have readen to believe
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that, Jeffrey, how'd it suddenly gotten very warm? Here? Oh go?
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What what is it? Are? You will help me up? Quickly?
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What's the metal motor? I don't know? Don't joo moto? I
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do rapop? Get over here quickly. I found the thought of our interference.
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Use the garage entrance in the elevator and hurry, will you? M
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oh? What a pity that Japanese haven't learned to mind their business. Well,
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it's about time I got here as soon as I could. Mister Rington,
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who's that? His name is a motto? And don't underestimate him tripping
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a bout? Ask? Can you do it tonight? Sure? And get
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him out of here? Anybody see you'll come in. I drove into the
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garage took the other day. They'll pick him up and get him out of
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here. What did you give him? The usual? You'll be unconscious for
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at least three hours? Good? Okay, he's small, isn't he?
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Saw rattlesnakes? You come in? Yesk ahead, all right, don't worry,
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mister Rington. Everything's okay. Anything to report, Yes, in the
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car. I don't want peddlers who are addicts themselves. It's dangerous. Sage's
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okay. Take him to the house on Long Island tomorrow. No, we've
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drawl. He'll kick at cold turkey. No, doctor Hollison cut him off
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cold. That's an order, all right, mister righton anything else? Yeah,
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Nick got folly new pedlan in the last week. Get young ones,
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really young, fourteen thirteen. The younger the better, Okay, Will I
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put our friend in the back sheet? Yeah, he'll be out for three
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hours and those are hi. He's just hitched up the monkey. He's floating.
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I mean a trip off. He kicks it tomorrow. Okay, boys,
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Now what about the chink? Oh? Listen, boys, Now I
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react to that kind of word. It's bigger than discusting. He is not
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Chinese. He's actually an American of Japanese decay. I didn't mean anything.
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What are you? What are you so touchy on that stuff? Someday I'll
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tell you. All right, take mister motor up in the boat, shoot
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him and dump an overboard as far off short as you can get and still
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be back by do and take Zosh out to the Long Island house and report
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back here to me. All right, boys, and trip off yas this
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dragon. Tell the good doctor Holliston that I'm quite aware of the process involved
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in developing morphine from opium. Tell him I expect him to do much better.
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I want five thousand decks a day out of that lab and I go
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now, yes, and I'm sorry I struck you. Some day I'll explain
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why I feel so strongly about well, good night, trip off. I
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think meat here? Does he think he's pushing around all I get overs?
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I should stay awake. Hi, boy, I tell you they cat swinging
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higher than I. I don't way with anybody. This is Fifth Avenue,
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gentlemen, I am quite capable of shooting you both. And don't turn around,
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mister Trepoff. Just drive my apartment if you please left down seventy seconds
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and didn't you don't do as I tell you, I will blow your head
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off. Keep quite still, top off, I'm warning you. Come in
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cappen I got here, sim as, Hey, what's first? This is
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a man named Trepof. He was commissioned by Jeffrey Arrington to kill me.
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Arrington incredible, isn't it. Arrington tried to rub me with claul hidbrak and
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whiskey. He made a slight error, which I will explain later. I
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wish to have been taken out of the boat. I overheard enough information to
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send Harrington and he's going to jail for twenty years. Take this man and
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book him for felonious assault, attempted murder. Whatever you like. All right,
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what's the matter with the boy hire Copper having fun? That is Rush?
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He's ragging morphine a million miles away. Okay, now, come on
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you you can make a steak Capper. Never leave me your handcuffs? Will
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your captain? What are you going to do? Perform an experiment, Say
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thank you and come back here as soon as you can. And then began
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the heart breaking vigil. The boy dozed down the floor alone in a world
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of bunting chances. I tied his feet together, restrained the thin wrists with
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Bresfa tancuffs. By the time the captain got back, Dash was conscious normally
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the fight and belittle thing. I've got a spell anything. You guys are
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nuts. We've got lots of times. By five in the morning, he
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was white face stand pleading. Listen what I've got two decks with me,
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so three of us can jump together. Come on, Captain, there's an
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eagle in a box in my pocket. Please no, sash no. By
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seven he was crying. Why. Ten he was screaming. I knew he
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was suffering. Unbelievable. The packing attics cooff rapped at his fai lungs.
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A thousand devils start at every whit blashed quickly, nuf, I'm dying.
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I tell him, I'm dying, Die and dying. At one in the
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afternoon, he talked names, and this is everything. Captain Barrison took it
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down, and then, because we were afraid complete withdrawal might kill him,
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we called the doctor. The doctor gave him two grains in his right arm,
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as always the results of Polly. As the morphine hit, his eyes
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became doing bright, the glow of health returned to his cheeks. He went
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quite happily with the doctor to Bellevue. I wish every kid in America could
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have seen that. They knew what it could do. They's so rotten.
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Yes, well, take twenty men to the Long Island House. You will
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catch doctor Holliston doing at them. Thuty send another detail to bathe the warehouse
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in the box. Right. Oh, and what about Errington? Mister Errington
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I shall deal with personally in the fift Avenoe house. Yes, he really
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moves quite slowly. He injured his hip as a boy. I shall step
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out of the elevator with a gun in one hand and this in the other.
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What is it at night? In Japan? It is the national form
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of honorable suicide. Literally translated, it means bellicutt. You know it better,
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perhaps as a chilly but I'm a cripple. I I sign it.
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No, I take that knife away from my eyelid. Pennington, There is
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no time for discussion. I have a right to a trial and a free
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democratic trial. You have no right at all. This morning I watched a
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voice of aragonists. But what is the use of telling you? You know?
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In five seconds I shall go to work with this knife. I believe
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me you will not enjoy it. Listen too, go in saying your free
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alright, alright I will, I will if I haven't say, picked that
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night away from my eyelids. Frank it. Thank you. And now before
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I take you to Captain Barriss at one question, why what is behind this
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monstrous in your manage. You have no idea sort of that's the logical insanity.
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None. Hi, I'm a your age. You know what. Yes,
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I'm surprised you didn't guess. I really look very white, don't.
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I gifted? Educated? But I committed an unpardonable sin. My mother was
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a singerly is peasant. I knew it. I knew there must be something
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quite Daisiatics forbid my cleaning toilets. They also forbid me the answered their clubs
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or their homes. Neither white nor yellow black. I'm not a European,
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I'm not an Asiatic. What I might tell me it is so useless to
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beat it useless. It's health for nothing, the wandering, hopeless, marginal
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man. Outside of a barefoot, savage peasant girl, there isn't one woman
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in Asia who would marry me. I marry a white woman here and take
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it a Singapore. What do I let her in for? Insults? Heartbreak,
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misery. I want to live in the East. Singapore is the only
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civilized city in the world. But I can't. I can't. I can't
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join the spinky bullswork club. But angine democracy, democracy, I spill at
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it. I hate it. I hate the world, don't you see?
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It is this? Do you know how I was crippled a gang of males
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beat my hip to a pump in a Singapore street fight? Eight moto,
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You don't know them meaning of the world? And if grain of morphine in
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the veins of an American boy means one less enemy for Communism and I don't
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care who the boy is. You must I don't not even thus is my
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son? Well, no, you can know, you know, you can
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take me down to your busby's station and introduce me to justice. Do you
27:22
know why she's pictured with a bandage over her eyes because of justice? Could
27:27
see she'd throw up. Mister Motow, we've died twenty six indictments and charging
27:47
conspiracy to one port opium. We've got every single one them angry cover the
27:49
opium, over five hundred tons of it. Good, then the smoke screen
27:53
has lifted. I have one of my own. But surely everything is quite
27:59
quite clear that whiskey Arrington gave you the night of the party. Why didn't
28:03
you drink it? He had to be dramatic. He told me it was
28:06
Hanfield Royal arc special rye. It so happens, it is distilled in England.
28:12
During the war, the warehouse was bombed. All but five cases of
28:15
Hanfield Royal arc were destroyed. They never manufactured that particular blend again. But
28:22
Arrington is wealthy. Wasn't it impossible? No, no, no. Of
28:26
the five remaining cases, Sir Graham Hanfield gave three to King Farouk of Egypt
28:30
as a wedding gift on the occasion of his first match. Don't tell me
28:33
that the other two were yes, in return for a trifling service some years
28:37
ago, Sir Graham gave them to me. You're incredible. Don't you ever
28:42
make a mistake? Sometimes sometimes I winced and lash out in sight when people
28:49
call me a dirty chap. I was born in San Francisco. I am
28:55
as American as you are. But surely these people are well, that is
29:00
true. They are ignorant to now, and their number is decreasing. Yes,
29:04
I think we're growing up slowly, maybe, but growing I hope it
29:11
is not too slowly. I hope we achieve maturity before it is too late.
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That is one way everybody can fight communism, simply by growing up and
29:22
out of prejudice. It is a battle in which every one of us can
29:27
be a soja. You have just heard the world's greatest international secret agent,
29:49
mister I A Moto in Smoke Screen. James Monk starred as mister Moto.
29:56
The script was written and directed by Harry W. Junkin, produced by Carol
30:00
Irwin. Others in the cast were Ross Martin, Bob Haig, Bernard Grant,
30:04
and Edwin Bruce. The music was transcribed This is Fred Collins speaking,
30:10
and here were the preview of next week's story. Is mister I a mortal
30:22
point? Fine Chua has written A man who lives a falsehood must each day
30:32
die a little. Next week the story of Truth Twisty, A journey into
30:40
horror made by a gracious woman and the desperate sun, both caught in a
30:45
sickening wed of Blackney. And now may sleep fall upon your eyes as softly
30:56
as puppy petals on a plastic pool. May your sould be blessed with repose
31:00
your dreams with enchantment. Welcome Back. Definitely a very dramatic episode and it's
31:29
touched on a lot of hot Biden topics. It's pretty rare, I think
31:33
for a Golden Age drama to you know. In the same half hour program,
31:40
to touch on drug the drug trade, communism, racial prejudice, a
31:45
pretty strong style for nineteen fifty one. Mister Motto perhaps already emerging as one
31:52
of radio's most ruthless and terrogators, which isn't far out of line from some
32:00
of the nineteen fifties or the Mister Moto movies when you think about it,
32:07
right, Well, that'll do it for today. Join us tomorrow for Sherlock
32:09
Holmes, and hopefully we'll be back on track next Tuesday, another episode of
32:14
Mister Moto. In the meantime, send your comments to Box thirteen at Great
32:17
Detectives dot net, follow us on Twitter, Radio Detectives, and become one
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of our friends on Facebook, Facebook dot com. Slash Radio Detectives from Boise,
32:27
Idaho. This is your host, Adam graham Son and Off