The Red Rose: Richard Diamond, Private Detective (March 2, 1951)

“The Red Rose” is an episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective, the old-time radio show, first broadcast March 2, 1951. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Private detective Richard Diamond takes on a desperate client, John Alistair, who once hired a killer through an underworld contact named Gimpy but now wants to call off the assassination after receiving financial help from his brother-in-law. When Gimpy turns up murdered, Diamond must track down the unknown assassin before he completes his job, following only a single clue: the killer wears a red rose in his buttonhole.

A major American city with skid row bars, a dance studio, apartment buildings, a hotel, and police precinct.

Characters: Richard Diamond, John Alistair, Gimpy, Sergeant Walt Otis, Belle DiCanto, Tommy Drago, Giulio Bessotti, Hermann Clipp

Listen for: The clever use of a red rose as the killer's signature, and Diamond's trademark witty banter with Sergeant Otis and his girlfriend Helen; the tense climax on the hotel fire escape.

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.