Geranium Plant: Pat Novak, for Hire (May 14, 1949)

“Geranium Plant” is an episode of Pat Novak, for Hire, the old-time radio show, first broadcast May 14, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Pat Novak accepts a seemingly simple $50 job to pick up a geranium plant from a flower stand at Post and Kearney and deliver it to a rooming house on Clay Street. When he arrives at the address, he finds a dying woman in the room, but after he leaves, a man is discovered dead in that same room, poisoned by a needle hidden in the geranium box. Now Inspector Hellman suspects Novak of the murder, and the case spirals into mystery involving a mysterious woman, a suspicious little man with a cane, and a dangerous car chase that leaves Novak wondering who switched the plants and why.

San Francisco waterfront, Noonan's bar, Post and Kearney flower stand, Clay Street rooming house, various San Francisco streets including Union Square and Maiden Lane

Characters: Pat Novak, Inspector Hellman, The Woman (from Noonan's bar), The Dying Woman (on Clay Street), Bo Wievel (florist), The Little Guy with a Cane, Jocko Matigan (ex-doctor), George Langley

Listen for: The clever plant switch that turns the delivery job into a murder trap; Jocko Matigan's drunken wisdom about the case; the revelation about the mysterious flower stand and the poison needle hidden in the geranium box.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.