Written by JOHN McGREEVEY  Directed by  WILLIAM WITNEY  Guest Cast JOHN CARRADINE as Prof. Smythe DEFOREST KELLY  as Dr. David Ingram TOM SIMCOX as Shamus McCloud VIRGINIA CHRISTINE as Agnes Halsey LARAINE STEPHENS as Barbara Halsey KAY E. KUTER as Ernie Venner HARRY LAUTER as Spence Gillis TIGER JOE MARSH as Quitch

The script for this episode was reworked from a “Wagon Train” script [“The Trace McCloud Story” 3-2-64].  The hero's name is now Shamus McCloud, a sailor who comes to town looking for his brother who died in the Laredo Hotel.  There’s little action; it’s something of a western version of an English drawing room murder mystery.  The Rangers are almost superfluous to the plot:  Joe is a not-very-convincing suspect.  Chad & Reese play boy detective and bumbling detective respectively.  First down is a dog belonging to the doctor who treated McCloud’s dead brother, then a crooked gambler who held Joe’s IOU’s, the hotel proprietess and a blacksmith.  An attempt is made on the assistant to the owner of a traveling “Museum of Horrors”.  McCloud insists the Rangers lock him up so he won't be a suspect in the next murder.  As he, Joe & Chad play cards in jail, they figure out that each victim was doing something involving high pitched noise — howling, whistling, making tea, filing a metal wheel, playing a horn.  They remember that the knife grinder used ear plugs to keep out the noise of grinding and rush to his wagon where they are just in time to save the hotel keeper’s daughter who was watching Reese use the grinding wheel.

NiteOwl Review:  Not one of our favorite episodes.  The script was better-suited to the Wagon Train series with Charlie Wooster playing the bumbling detective and an unknown passenger playing the suspect played here by above-suspicion Joe. Cast Notes:  Tom Simcox costarred with William Smith and Peter Brown in Piranha, Piranha. Deforest Kelly guested in many westerns prior to joining the Starship Enterprise as Bones McCoy.