"A Passage to Benares" -- Suspense, 1942

The other day Judy and I drove to Houston. On the way we tuned the XM radio to channel 164 and listened to "A Passage to Benares," an episode of Suspense from 1942. When I was a kid, my family listened to Suspense every week, and after hearing this show, I can see why. Paul Stewart plays Professor Henry Poggioli, who's in Port au Prince when a gruesome murder occurs. Poggioli, a psychologist, has spent the night in a temple. When he awakens the next morning and returns to the home of his host, he discovers that there was a gruesome murder in the temple. As the show goes on, it becomes clear that Poggioli is one of the main suspects in the crime. I won't say any more about the story, except that it has a great surprise ending.

"A Passage to Benares" was originally a short story written by T. S. Stribling. Richard Moore, a T. S. Stribling fan, has a nice review of the author's biography in Mystery*File, along with some commentary, and he mentions this story as well as the others in the Dr. Poggioli series.