I\'ve said my favorite William Griffiths (little trivia...many of the RMT actors were New Yorkers, but he apparently was an alumnus of Beverly Hills, CA HS...they\'ve got a little bit of a theatre program there) episode is \"The laughing maiden\". I still rate that his #1, but this is my new #2 favorite episode of his.

This one, like \"maiden\", is somewhat formulaic, 2/3 of a \"whodunit\". By that I mean a usual whodunit has a murder, an investigation, and a solution. One of the things isn\'t quite present here due to the interesting RMT twist in the third act.

What makes it more like \"maiden\" is that everything is well used...there\'s not a wasted space, musical interlude or sound effect in the play. (If you\'re still reading these...as a fellow railroad buff did you ever get annoyed when you\'d hear a steam train whistle in an episode that was supposed to take place in modern day America? This one has a diesel air horn of a train.) In fact, the train is the central place of the play.

Griffiths plays a conductor who observes a series of high-stakes poker games in the fancy club car at the end of a commuter train coming into NYC from the outer suburbs somewhere beyond New York State. Earl Hammond, Russel Horton and Larry Haines are the guys in the game...Horton has lost his shirt (and his wife and family) to previous gambling but Haines asks him a strange, special favor...to play poker one last time in a game against the others. If Horton\'s character wins, he keeps the money, but if he loses, Haines will reimburse him.

Well, Haines goes to get some cups of coffee...the porter gives it to him on a tray, and just as he\'s passing Griffiths on his way back to the game the train rounds a curve and both men almost lose their balance. Griffiths takes the tray, reverses its position without thinking and hands it back to Haines, who goes back to the game.

Later in the game, Haines takes a drink of his beverage, then a few minutes later dies of poisoning from a strychnine-like substance.

Very much worth a listen on this one...
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