Get this and get it straight. Crime is a suckers road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.

The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.

The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize.

Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account.

America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.

Yours truly, Johnny Deller. the Hello and welcome to down these mean streets a weekly roundup of old-time

radio detectives and crime fighters.

This week were off to London and the case files of Scotland Yard presented for radio on

Whitehall 1212. Named for the exchange and phone number of the Metropolitan Police, White Hall

1-2-12 boasted a British cast and stories written and directed by Willis Cooper, one of radio's greatest wordsmith. and innovative and eerie shows like Lights Out and Quiet Please, but he single-handedly wrote the complete run of Whitehall 1-2.

Cooper's stories started in the Black Museum, Scotland Yard's infamous archive of artifacts involved in crimes.

Now that repository of infamous objects was the inspiration for another radio show, one that aired around the same time,

the British Import The Black Museum, narrated by no less than Orson Wells.

But the Wells series often dramatized the crimes themselves.

White Hall 1212 focused almost entirely on the perspective of the detectives as they

investigated the crimes and apprehended the criminals.

Willis Cooper's scripts had plenty of humor along the way, usually in the ri-asides delivered

by the men of Scotland Yard.

The show ran from November 1951 to September 1952.

As a show without a sponsor in the twilight years of the Golden Age of Radio for lucky it

lasted as long as it did.

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