The Sea Horse Jockey: The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (May 2, 1950)

“The Sea Horse Jockey” is an episode of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, the old-time radio show, first broadcast May 2, 1950. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by the ailing Mrs. Lola Demerus to guard a valuable seahorse brooch—a six-inch jeweled figurine worth $50,000—while it's being sold to a San Francisco dealer. When Marlowe arrives at her home, he finds Mrs. Demerus dead, the brooch stolen, and a mysterious new lawyer supposedly hired that day. As Marlowe investigates, he uncovers a second murder: a bearded sailor named Paul Crater shot dead in his Surfside home, setting off a chain of revelations about blackmail, resentment, and theft.

Los Angeles and Surfside, 1950. The investigation moves from a barber shop to Mrs. Demerus's Victorian cliff-side home, a beachfront boatyard, a bar on Front Street, and a cramped house in the Surfside neighborhood.

Characters: Philip Marlowe, Lola Demerus, Gillian Demerus, Bertie Lockfield, Jug Nolan, Paul Crater, Lieutenant Matthews, Helen Crater

Listen for: A clever twist involving mistaken identity and the revelation that the seemingly loyal companion is the real culprit. Listen for Marlowe's methodical piecing together of clues—from a cigarette paper to a beard—that expose layers of deception and hidden motives beneath the surface of this seaside mystery.

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.