Murder Is News

When radio and newspaper columnist Jerry Tracy reports that Pauline Drake, the wife of wealthy industrialist Edgar Drake, is going to divorce her husband and marry his attorney, David Corning, her distraught son, Tony Peyden, calls her and arranges a meeting that night at Drake's townhouse. Pauline's protective secretary, Anne Leslie, informs Corning of the meeting and soon after, a mysterious caller phones Drake to inform him that his wife is at the townhouse with Corning. Drake invites Jerry to join him at the townhouse, but when he arrives, Jerry finds Drake's dead body and then is hit over the head. When Jerry awakens, Drake's body has vanished and only an earplug remains where the body once was. Because Jerry cannot produce the body, both Pauline and Corning claim that Drake has sailed for Europe, prompting Jerry's editor, R. A. Snyder, to refuse to print the story. Suspecting that stock manipulation may have been a motive for the murder, Jerry sends his assistant, Clarence "Brains" McGillicuddy, to question the owner of a brokerage house about Drake's stock. Next, Jerry convinces Fred Hammer, the owner of the Saratoga Club, where Tony plays as a member of the band, to take him to see Tony, who has gone into hiding. After Tony mentions that Hammer wears earplugs, Jerry telephones Anne and asks her to bring Pauline to the townhouse that night, and then he leaves a note for Hammer. At the townhouse, Jerry posts Anne as lookout while he and Pauline enter the building. A short time later, Corning appears and admits that he knocked Jerry unconscious on the night of the murder, out of fear that the revelation of Drake's death would ruin a merger planned between Drake Utilities and another company. After Corning explains that he hid Drake's body in a secret vault, Jerry calls police inspector J.P. Fitzgerald and advises him that Hammer killed Drake. Before Fitzgerald and his men can arrive, however, Hammer appears and admits that he killed Drake to prevent the merger, thus quashing the price of Drake stock and making a fortune on the competitor's stock. As Hammer states that Drake's missing body ruined his scheme, the police arrive, and Hammer locks his hostages in the secret vault. Fitzgerald and his men search the house and fail to find Jerry and the others until Brains comes to the rescue with a blueprint of the house showing the location of a hidden vault. After Hammer perishes in a hail of bullets, Jerry reports the story on his radio broadcast.