Paul Temple and the Conrad case

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Paul Temple and the Conrad case is an eight-part radio play from the Paul Temple series by Francis Durbridge , which WDR produced in 1960 and aired for the first time from January 13 to March 3, 1961. The total playing time is 328 minutes.

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The individual episodes of the earlier multi-part series were still provided with separate subtitles. From the Lawrence case onwards, with the exception of the Geneva case , the WDR evidently refrained from doing this.

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When the writer and private detective Paul Temple and his wife Steve come home from a charity ball, Sir Graham Forbes from Scotland Yard and his Munich colleague Inspector Heinz Ullersberg are already waiting for them. They report the disappearance of a young girl named Betty Conrad from a girls' boarding school in Unterwies in Bavaria, which is run by Elizabeth Weldon from England. On the day in question, she told her roommate June Jackson that she had been invited by the writer Elliot France, who was visiting Countess Decker at her castle. But she never got there. Neither the Countess nor Elliot France knew of the invitation. Betty was friends with the English bank clerk Denis Harper, who disappeared at the same time but then reappeared. He supposedly had no idea about Betty's disappearance. Ullersberg found a cocktail stick in the girl's room that was decorated with the head of a wolfhound. Such chopsticks are only made for a very specific hotel in Oberammergau .

Temple is initially not particularly interested in collaborating on this matter. The next day, however, the Temples drive near Maidenhead to meet a man who mistakenly pretended to be Elliot France on the phone. At the specified hotel Paul only receives a letter from the man in which he mentions a different meeting point and also two cocktail sticks of the type Ullersberg described. The new meeting point is a cottage owned by the father of Betty Conrad, a well-known London neurologist and psychiatrist . In the house, which, like the entire property, looks shabby, the Temples discover the body of a man who has apparently been stabbed to death. In the mail you will find a card to Mrs. Ruth Conrad from a tailor's shop, stating that a certain blue coat can be picked up on Friday the 18th after next. Sir Graham Forbes finds out that the dead person is the man who pretended to be France. The Conrad couple cannot give the police any useful information.

The following day the Temples fly to Munich with Ullersberg. In Unterwies, Steve discovers a postcard from the Brenner fashion studio in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Betty's room , which contains exactly the same text as the card from Dr. Conrad. American girl June Jackson says Betty didn't get along very well with her stepmother and father.

On the way to Countess Decker and Elliot France, the Temples' car is pushed into a side ditch by a sports car. Denis Harper, who happens to be passing by, helps the Temples recover the car. A short time later, Steve observed Dennis Harper and a woman Klein in a pastry shop, whom she met that morning while buying a blouse in the Brenner fashion salon. Elliot France tells Paul that he used to be a patient of Dr. Conrad was. Dr. Conrad, who has come to Garmisch, reports Temple that France for a while in a severe case of paranoia suffered, and his fear of young women almost took an aggressive form.

When the blouse is delivered from the fashion salon, Paul finds another cocktail stick from the Oberammergau Hotel Römer in the package . Steve suggests that the saleswoman Gerda Hollmann might have put the chopsticks in there. In the Römer , the temples are already expected, even though they had not registered. From the owner of the hotel Fritz Günther, a former actor, they heard about a call from a woman who spoke with an American accent. She asked the Temples to tell that they really want to come to Innsbruck , Dammelstadel 37. June Jackson, who is conspicuously nervous, denies to the Temples that she was the caller.

On the day before the Friday indicated on the pick-up card, Paul Temple fears that the body of Betty Conrad, wearing a blue coat, could be found. On the same day June Jackson disappears from the boarding school without a trace. As it turns out later, it was Temple himself who, with the help of an American friend, got the girl to safety.

Arriving in Innsbruck, the Temples meet Denis Harper by chance. When they arrived in front of the Florianhaus in Dammelstadel, they were shot at from a moving car, fortunately only with blank cartridges .

The next day, the conscious 18th, the Temples drive to Oberammergau again, as Paul is interested in a certain photograph from an English film studio that hung on the wall of the small salon in the Römer . But the photo has disappeared. In the afternoon, Ullersberg reports that Betty Conrad's body was found near Schreidenstein, Countess Decker's estate, wearing a blue coat. Shortly thereafter, Sir Graham Forbes calls from London and tells the perplexed detective that Betty was picked up safe and sound in Hyde Park . However, she does not provide any information about what has happened since she disappeared from Unterwies. On the basis of a tip from Ms. Klein from the Brenner fashion studio, the dead person can be identified as the saleswoman Gerda Hollmann. Ullersberg finds a membership card of the Albatros Club in Soho in the girl's handbag . Fritz Günther's wife Joyce warns Paul Temple about a man who calls himself Captain Smith. He is supposed to try to get in touch with the Temple couple in London in order to get them out of the way.

When the Temples are on their return flight to London the next day, the plane has to return to Riem because of a bomb warning . No bomb was found during the search of the machine, but Paul is certain that the warning was meant seriously.

Hardly back home when Elsa Decker calls Temple. She has also come to London and wants to tell him everything she knows about the case. When they arrive at the hotel, the Temples learn that the Countess has been shot at. Before she passed out, she pointed Temple out about the Albatross Club and about Captain Smith. In the Albatros the couple meet Denis Harper, who has been ordered back to London from his bank. Paul asks him and a man who calls himself Paddy about Betty Conrad after her father suggested that she might be a member there, but neither of them confirmed this. When the Temples notice that their car's tires have been cut, Paddy offers to drive them home. After casually mentioning that he is also known as Captain Smith, he leaves the car on a pretext. Paul notices that something is wrong and gets out with Steve too. Shortly afterwards the vehicle explodes.

Temple manages to persuade Betty to come to his apartment to talk about everything. There he drugged the girl and let Steve and the servant Charlie bring her to a friend of his wife to safety. Ullersberg, who came to London along with Elliot France and Elizabeth Weldon, reports that Gerda Hollmann was a drug addict. Apparently a drug ring has been up to mischief in Bavaria for some time . Temple mentions that June Jackson, who is now at home with her parents, also used heroin regularly .

Sir Graham believes that Smith is responsible for the murder of his accomplice Dale Black, the fake Eliot France. While Denis Harper is at the Temples, a man calls who claims to be Harper and who manages to imitate his voice in a deceptively realistic way. He meets Temple in an old, isolated warehouse on the north bank of the Thames . In the hall, Temple and the police find the dying Captain Smith, who has been brutally beaten. Then a fire breaks out. Temple and Ullersberg can only save themselves by jumping into the Thames.

Temple has found out that Fritz Günther had acted as a voice impersonator before his acting career and is now active as a blackmailer and agent of a drug organization. He is also the murderer of Gerda Hollmann. Ullersberg can confirm that, as he received a report from Ms. Klein, an Interpol agent. Joyce Günther doesn't seem to be involved.

Dr. Conrad meets Elliot France in a hotel room in Maidenhead because he suspects Elliot France has kidnapped his daughter again. Too late he discovers the trap set up for him: Temple and the police, who overhear the entire conversation, learn that Conrad was blackmailing France with his medical records and trying to win him over to his organization. With the apparent kidnapping of Betty, Elliot and Countess Decker were able to force Conrad to hand over the files. Conrad tries to escape, but ends up with his car in the Thames. A little later, Fritz Günther was also arrested in London.

Conrad had Gerda killed because she was ready to pass on everything she knew about the organization to Ms. Klein. It was himself who killed Captain Smith for screwing up the attack on the Temples.

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Further German production

A year earlier, Bayerischer Rundfunk had already produced this Durbridge template under the slightly modified title Paul Temple and the Conrad Case . With a playing time of just under 304 minutes, it was around 24 minutes shorter than the later WDR production, which is due to the significantly lower background music. The eight-part radio play was first broadcast from November 26, 1959 to January 21, 1960. The individual episodes were provided with additional subtitles.

  • 1. A gentleman comes from Munich
  • 2. A strange patient
  • 3. Late visit
  • 4. Drive to Innsbruck
  • 5. Cocktail in the Hotel Römer
  • 6. Captain Smith
  • 7. Coffee for Miss Conrad
  • 8. Picture in the newspaper

The music was written by Joachim Faber . Marianne de Barde, together with John Lackland, was responsible for the translation . Directed by Willy Purucker . The recording is still fully preserved at BR and was released on an MP3 CD in 2014.

Occupation:

Remarks

The radio play was first produced by the BBC in 1959 under the title Paul Temple and the Conrad Case . The Temple couple were voiced by Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury .

After Paul Temple and the Gregory affair in 1949, this is probably the ninth multi-part series that WDR and its predecessor NWDR Cologne produced in its Paul Temple series. The ARD radio play archive, however, has another multi-part series entitled A case for Paul Temple from 1950, which is said to be the Valentin case . The WDR in Cologne could not confirm this information on request.

Peter René Körner had his last appearance here in the Paul Temple series. Since 1949 he has been part of all the multi-part series in changing roles.

Jürgen Goslar was the only speaker who participated in both the WDR and the BR production. Ernst Ginsberg, who already played a bigger role in the Gilbert case at WDR, this time took on the role of Dr. Conrad at the Munich broadcaster.

Publications

  • Paul Temple and the Conrad case has been published by Audio Verlag on CD and MC. ( ISBN 389813329X )
  • Paul Temple and the Conrad Case was also published on an MP3 CD under the title Paul Temple and the Conrad Case in the Pidax Radio Play Classics series . (EAN 4260158195195)

References

  • Radio play (plot)
  • The internet database of the ARD radio play archive, accessed on February 19, 2011 (all information about the productions).