Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Email | TuneIn | RSS
The police and Blackie are called to a house by a woman. They arrive to find no one in the house listed, and a witness who swears she saw a woman enter the house who was thought dead for the past three years.
Original Air Date: March 9, 1949
Support the show monthly at patreon.greatdetectives.net
Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.
Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715
Take the listener survey…http://survey.greatdetectives.net
Give us a call 208-991-4783
Become one of ourfriends on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter@radiodetectives
RE: EP2970: Boston Blackie: The Dolly Preston Murder
Hi Adam, To answer your question if it was possible to call a number on an old dial phone line by rapidly pressing the “crossbar” (instead of using the dial), the answer is yes. I used to do it myself back in the day. The phone line only has two wires, and the old switching relays at the main office were just in series with the phone line. The dial just interrupted the line (the same as pressing the crossbar) to advance the relays one position at a time. For example, dialing a 7 or pressing the crossbar rapidly 7 times would advance a relay 7 positions.
Besides Blackie surviving being shot with no ill effects (as you mentioned) , the plot has several other gaping holes:
• Why would any criminal in their right mind install a phone (even though it had no dial) in a prisoner’s room, since phones back then were always getting sales calls and wrong numbers (just as now) to which Dollly could have pleaded for help.
• Why would Dolly have called Blackie in the first place. She might possibly have called the police hoping to create a distraction for her to gain entrance to the safe in the cellar, but why alert Blackie, since he would discover her true plans pretty quickly.
Love your show.