Title: Sabotage by Air
Air date: March 5, 1939
Plot summary: Margo is over at Lamont's, and Lamont is fiddling with the radio. Why? Because he heard an odd transmission over the shortwave radio the night before, that's why. Lamont fancies that the strange communication he heard sounds like human speech. He plays his recording at a lower speed, and suddenly the speech is intelligible! It's a bunch of spies!
Specifically, the spies are plotting to steal a top-secret military airplane, a plane that can radio-control a bunch of "flying bombs" that follow along with it. They already have stolen the plans, and now they're going to hijack the plane itself, fly it out into the ocean, and destroy it, leaving whatever country they work for as the only nation with the revolutionary plane design.
Lamont immediately notifies the War Department and—no, just kidding, he goes off with Margo. They find the source of the radio transmissions and beam a message from The Shadow back to the spies. When Corbin and Borla, the spies, come out to the radio transmitter to investigate, The Shadow tags along, eventually following Corbin as he steals the plane.
Tropes:
- He Knows Too Much: Joe Ryan, the dimwitted old coot who has been sending out the secret messages without knowing what they were, is murdered by Borla.
- Idiot Ball: Gets tossed around a lot in this episode.
- First there's the spy cell, and Borla's bright idea to transmit messages in clear, without any code at all, other than simply speeding up the message. That allows Lamont to slow it down and hear the message, but really, anyone could have done it. And also, why is Borla relying on some doddering old man to send his messages, rather than doing it himself?
- Special mention also goes to the War Department and how they apparently had only one officer on the scene for the test flight of an experimental aircraft, after the designer was murdered and the plans stolen.
- Plot Hole: Sure, he's rich and well-connected. But how does Lamont Cranston the wealthy playboy know everything about this top-secret, experimental airplane?
- Spy Fiction: The Shadow has to stop a spy cell from stealing an American military plane.
- Ventriloquism: One of many episodes where The Shadow throws his voice, causing a bad guy to think that he shot The Shadow, only to be disappointed. This time it's when Borla meets The Shadow at the old shack where the radio transmitter is hidden.
- Villainous Breakdown: Borla snaps at the end, when the cops show up at the old shack where he is holding Margo hostage and confronting The Shadow. Screaming "I'LL KILL THEM ALL!!!," he goes out and exchanges gunfire with the police, and is promptly killed.
- The Watson: Margo has it pretty bad in this episode. After Lamont slows the record down and the voices become intelligible, she still has to ask how he's ever going to decipher the message. He has to explain to her what she just watched him do.
