Title: The Black Buddha
Air date: September 4, 1938
Plot summary: A Tibetan shop owner, Sun Ti, specializes in selling various East Asian knicknacks. He awaits the return of a Mr. Burton to his shop. When Mr. Burton arrives Sun Ti asks to buy back a particular religious artifact, a black statue of Buddha that was sold to Mr. Burton in error. When Mr. Burton refuses to sell the statue back, Sun Ti kills him.
Cut to a weeping Mrs. Burton asking for help from Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane. Lamont, who is of course an expert on the ways of the East, recognizes the fancy knife that Mr. Burton was stabbed with as a Tibetan sacrificial dagger. When Mrs. Burton says that her husband bought a black Buddha statue from a Tibetan antique dealer, The Shadow and Margo go to investigate Sun Ti.
Tropes:
- As You Know: How do we know that the knife Sun Ti threw at The Shadow instead hit the wall? Because The Shadow says "Your knife quivers in the wood."
- Bookcase Passage: How Sun Ti gets away the first time The Shadow confronts him, by diving through a hidden panel in the wall of his office.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Sun Ti meets Margo Lane and is then confronted by the voice of The Shadow. He decides that The Shadow must actually be Margo, making the voice.
- Idiot Ball: Lamont and Margo have tracked Sun Ti to a boat in the harbor. They know he wants to kill them and they know he brought them there so he could ambush them. Still, Lamont tells Margo to stay in the car while he has a look around. Naturally, Margo gets kidnapped.
- Karmic Death: Soon Tai is killed when a stack of coffins fall and crush him to death; The Shadow gives a short monologue noting that while Soon Tai had sent many to death, for once the dead have been able to take one that deserved it.
- Trail of Bread Crumbs: How The Shadow finds Margo. After Sun Ti gets her out of the car and takes her away, she rips small pieces off the paper with the address on it, and drops them. The Shadow uses this to track the two of them to the boat.
- Ventriloquism: One of The Shadow's go-to tricks. He gets Sun Ti to throw his knife harmlessly away by projecting his voice and making Sun Ti through his knife at the spot where the voice is.
- Villain Opening Scene: Sun Ti greets the "infidel dog" Mr. Burton and kills him when Burton won't sell back the statue.
- You Can See That, Right?: It isn't played for laughs, but still, the first time the voice of The Shadow rings out, Sun Ti asks Margo if she hears it too.
