The Devil in the Summer House: Suspense (November 3, 1942)

Suspense, old-time radio on Stupid Potato

“The Devil in the Summer House” is an episode of Suspense, the old-time radio show, first broadcast November 3, 1942. Listen free on Stupid Potato: no sign-up, no app.

Listen to Suspense free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

Lawyer Parker and Captain Burke of Homicide return at dusk to a house near Tarrytown where Major Kenyon died in a summer house more than twenty-five years earlier. Parker has received an anonymous letter claiming the death was not suicide and pointing to a drawer in the library desk. Inside the house they recall the people who lived there, including Kenyon's wife Isabel and the household staff, and the afternoon of the death. The two men search the desk for the hidden item, which proves to be a record that may explain what happened. The guide does not reveal the outcome.

A modest house with a summer house in its garden, near Tarrytown along the Hudson, in the present day of the story.

Characters: Parker, Captain Burke, Major Jerry Kenyon, Isabel Kenyon, Joe Parker, Diane Fisk, Paul Kenyon, Kitty

Listen for: The anonymous letter and the search of the library desk, and the recording that is found in the drawer.

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.