Originally Aired: March 21, 1950
Philo Vance #89, "Jackpot Murder Case," District Attorney Markham brings Philo Vance along to a midnight meeting with an informer named Weeping Willie, who claims to know who killed racketeer Al Laporte. When they arrive at Willie's remote shack in the pouring rain, they discover Willie's body with a knife in his back. Someone got to the informer before he could reveal what he knew. Meanwhile, a criminal named Dave celebrates eliminating both his competition and any witnesses. He's rigged slot machines for a new illegal operation and violently punishes Sam, his educated assistant, when a machine accidentally pays out the jackpot.
The case takes a bizarre twist when fingerprints on the murder weapon are identified as belonging to Al Laporte himself—impossible, since Laporte had been dead for twenty-four hours when Willie was killed. As Sam considers going to the authorities after Dave's brutal treatment, and Millie tends to his injuries, Vance and Markham must solve how a dead man's fingerprints ended up on a murder weapon and unravel the connections between these gangland killings.