This is Orson Welles speaking from London. Here in a grim stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard, there is a warehouse of homicide, a very strange room where everyday objects- a woman's shoe, a tiny white box, a quilted robe- all are touched by murder.
This BBC series was produced in 1951 and aired in the U.S. in 1952. Host Orson Welles would point out an otherwise ordinary item on display and tell its story. Unlike a lot of true crime shows, the suspect wasn't always convicted, whether due to insufficient evidence or because the jury was composed of suckers.
All fifty-one episodes are now summarized.
The Bathtub
A man who secretly has multiple wives in different towns decides to thin out the harem and collect on the insurance policies by drowning them in their baths.
The Brass Button
A reclusive artist is found strangled and the only hint as to who did it comes from the brass button found nearby that is the kind found on Army uniforms.
The Brick Bat
The much older husband of a woman is found near death with his head smashed in. The prime suspect is the youthful gardener with whom she might have been a bit too friendly with.
The Canvas Bag
The body of a young woman is found hacked up and stuffed in a canvas sack from a local grocery warehouse. The police must now comb through hundreds of missing person reports to find out who the victim was.
The Car Tire
Two thieves break into a garage and steal the new Evans inside. While driving off into the night, they get pulled over for speeding. Unable to prove ownership of the vehicle, they resort to shooting the unsuspecting constable.
The Center Fire Bullet
Scotland Yard investigates the botched robbery of a jewelry store where someone was shot. Although they’ve managed to get a good idea of who did it, it’ll be tough to get it to stick unless they find the weapons used in the robbery.
The Chain
A young heiress has had an attempt on her life by someone pretending to be her father's ghost. Naturally, the police suspect her next of kin, but discover that all three of them died within a few days of each other.
The Champagne Glass
A colonel’s wife dies from what seems to be stomach trouble shortly after returning from a sanitarium. Suspicion is aroused when one of his creditors receives a box of candies from him that an analysis reveals contains arsenic.
The Doctor's Prescription
A woman in long-term care decides to leave a sizable chunk of her estate to the nurse who has cared for her. Most curiously, her health then takes a turn for the worse.
The Four Small Bottles
A woman is weary of being stuck with her much older husband. So she has had purchased some chloroform, allegedly to administer to him as a painkiller for his stomach trouble.
The French-English Dictionary
A Frenchman with poor English is staying at an inn where he becomes infatuated with the landlord’s wife. After a while, the landlord dies from what the doctor later determines to be strychnine poisoning.
The Gladstone Bag
A married man who has been seeing another woman is losing interest in her, so he hacks her up at an isolated beach house.
The Glass Shards
A man returns home to find a burglar ransacking the place. He then attempts to take on the burglar on his own, not realizing that he’s armed.
The Hammer
A fellow posing as a repairman kills an elderly woman living alone and ransacks her house.
The Hammer Head
The search for a missing person dredges up a murder. The victim's petty crook husband seems the most likely suspect, but he denies it and the case against him isn't strong enough to go to court.
The Jack Handle
In London during the Blackout, a U.S. Army deserter and his girlfriend go about robbing and assaulting people in the street for thrills.
The Jacket
When a woman disappears while going out to the country to visit her fiancé, it's initially assumed to be just another missing person case. But the manner of the fiancé raises the inspector's suspicions after interviewing him.
The Jar of Acid
A woman staying at a hotel with a friend is concerned when said friend seemingly disappears without a trace after going out with the charming man they had recently met.
Note: This episode is unique in that it prominently features a woman police officer.
The Key
A commercial traveller is found shot in his hotel room with a door key near his body. After it's determined that it didn't belong to the victim, it's used to help pin down the murderer.
The Khaki Handkerchief
After an extensive search, a missing woman is found murdered in the countryside outside the village she lives. Some physical evidence left behind suggest that the killer was from a nearby army camp.
The Lady’s Shoe
The recent marriage of a middle-aged couple is starting to show some strain when the husband starts harassing the maid and making large withdrawals from their joint account. The wife states her intentions of seeing her solicitor in London, but she then vanishes without a trace shortly thereafter.
The Leather Bag
A payroll clerk is found murdered with the payroll cash he was carrying gone. The police manage to build a strong circumstantial case, but there are still a few bothersome incomplete details.
The Letter
An unknown person is writing near perfect check forgeries and having dupes cash them so as to make it more difficult to trace.
The Little Blue .22
It appears that a high society woman had killed her boyfriend in a jealous rage. But when it comes to trial, the case turns out to be not as airtight as first thought.
The Mallet
A flaming car is found with a body burnt beyond recognition. Tracking the license number, it is learned that the car belonged to a man with four wives, each in a different town.
The Mandolin String
A woman's husband dies when he falls down the basement steps. When her second husband dies in the same manner, a neighbor gets suspicious and sends an anonymous letter to Scotland Yard.
The Meat Juice
In 1892, the wife of a hypochondriac twice her age with whom relations have become strained plots to poison him by extracting arsenic from flypaper and putting it in one of his tonics.
The Notes
Three murders have been committed, and the linking factors are that a note saying "Kilroy was here" was left at all three scenes and the victims had all associated with a copyright solicitor.
The Open End Wrench
A woman is found dead in a car wreck. What initially looks to be a case of drunk driving becomes murder when the coroner discovers bruise marks caused by a wrench.
The Pair of Spectacles
A city girl disappears in a suspicious manner when she visits the rather worthless chicken farmer she's in love with.
The Pigskin Glove
A maid comes across the scene of a triple murder which appears to have occurred during a tea party.
The Postcard
When a man finds his recently wed wife in her bedroom with her head severed, the investigation reveals a double life she had been leading which may have been behind her death.
The Powder Puff
A murderer about to be executed recounts to the warden the deeds that led to his sentencing, as well as a couple that were never tied to him.
The Raincoat
An insurance salesman returns from attempting to track down a call for an appointment to find his wife brutally murdered. However, his account comes across to the police as an attempt to make sure he had an alibi.
The Receipt
A constable pulls over a speeding car that was stolen and gets shot almost immediately. The superstitious perp also shoots out both eyes, believing it’ll keep him from getting identified.
The Sash Cord
A set carpenter from a travelling troupe is found with a bullet through his heart. The issue is further confused when the autopsy reveals that the victim died from strangulation and that the shot was fired afterwards.
The Service Card
A ne’er-do-well who was recently hired to a jewelry shop obtains a key to the store safe and consorts with some unsavory sorts to arrange a break-in. When it turns out that only the cheap stuff is kept in the safe to misdirect burglars, his confederates assume that he’s cheating them and it goes downhill from there.
The Sheath Knife
A couple arriving home after a night on the town get a nasty shock when an assailant pops out and stabs the husband. Statements from the neighbors suggest that the wife just might have been in on it.
The Shilling
The brother of the owner of a sleazy night club has just been released from Dartmoor after serving a sentence for a crime he claims his sibling framed him for. When the club owner is found dead shortly thereafter, his brother is immediately suspected, but the amount of hard evidence is scant.
The Shopping Bag
The mind of a junk shop owner snaps one day, and he goes on a killing spree by smothering his victims with a canvas shopping bag.
The Silencer
Some nutter is killing the residents of a housing development seemingly at random using a military rifle fitted with a silencer.
The Spotted Sheet
On a liner heading to Southampton, an actress turns up missing. There are hints of foul play when the cabin is found with the porthole open and the bedsheet stained with blood and an unknown black substance.
The Straight Razor
A family doctor is suspicious when the wife of a tavern owner dies under curious circumstances. Not only does a post-mortem reveal traces of poison in her stomach, but a bit of digging reveals that their suspect had two other wives die in a similar manner.
The Tan Shoe
A normally suspicious courier gets talkative with a fellow passenger on a train and gets thoroughly shot and his packet of cash stolen.
The Tartan Scarf
A professional criminal who specialized in burglaries and car thefts finds himself a bit out of his league when he kills the driver of a postal truck he had been attempting to hijack.
The Telegram
The body of a dead woman is found on the side of a country road and the only solid piece of evidence for the police is a telegram she was carrying notable for its atrocious spelling.
The Trunk
A trunk is found left at Charing Cross Station containing the corpse of a woman devoid of any form of identification.
The Twin .45s
A brief life of crime for two boys begins when one of them develops an unhealthy fascination for firearms.
The Walking Stick
A doctor of questionable repute is under the scrutiny of the police after they receive an anonymous letter about the curious deaths of his wife and mother-in-law.
This incident was also adapted on Suspense under the title The Diary of Doctor Pritchard.
The Weed Killer
The rumor mill in a village suggests that a recently deceased woman was killed by her husband. When an autopsy reveals weed killer in her system, a full-scale investigation is called for.
The White Boxes
The police of Glasgow attempt to prove to a Victorian jury that a young socialite had poisoned a French clerk who had been secretly courting her.
This case was also adapted on Crime Classics under the title Madeline Smith, Maid or Murderess: Which?.