Forty-Five Minutes to Murder
Description
A rich businessman named Emmett Martindale kills his wife Emma with poisoned birthday cognac from a business enemy, then tries to frame the maid to hide his money troubles from Emma.
The poisonous cognac was a birthday gift from a business rival to the wife of Emmett Martindale, a wealthy businessman. The death of Emma Martindale finds a web of deceit that ensnares the maid and shows Emmett as the murderer, who had schemed to keep his wife from discovering his financial ruin.
On his birthday, Emmet Martindale, vice president of Carroway Chemicals, receives a $200 bottle of cognac from a disagreeable business associate, Jim Raglan. Martindale believes it is a reconciliation gift from Raglan, who for many years has coveted both Martindale’s position and his wife, Emma. Emma’s first swallow kills her, though, and all clues point to Raglan as the murderer until Lt. Cooper discovers a 45 minute time lapse when someone else could have poisoned the cognac.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater is a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS Radio Network affiliates from 1974 to 1982, and later in the early 2000s was repeated by the NPR satellite feed. In New York City it was not aired by the then all-news WCBS but by its originating station, WOR, which produced and announced it as simply Radio Mystery Theater.
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