Originally Aired: January 3, 1950
Philo Vance #78, "Tip Top Murder Case," chorus girl Susan Blake arrives at Philo Vance's office with a chilling typewritten threat: pay five thousand dollars by tomorrow or be dead by tomorrow night. Though she and her roommate Ella Andrews are struggling performers in the Tip Top Review with barely a penny between them, Susie refuses to go to the police, fearing the publicity could ruin her career. Vance notices something peculiar about the threatening note—every time the letter Y appears, someone first struck the Z key before typing over it. When Vance asks if someone might want to put her under obligation to them for that exact amount, Susie realizes there may be such a person and insists on visiting him herself.
That person turns out to be Donald Graham, a big-time operator with mysterious connections and a strong romantic interest in Susie. When Vance later goes to check on her at the apartment she shares with Ella, they discover that Susie has had a visitor—but the outcome of that visit proves fatal, leaving Vance to untangle a web of obsession, extortion, and murder.