Noose for a Lady

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 755, 8 January 1954, Page 21

Noose for a Lady

’ QNE night before going to bed John ~ Hallam drank his usual glass of whisky and milk-and died of barbitone poisoning. His wife Margaret, who gave him the drink, is tried for murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death. But Margaret Hallam is an openhearted, hot-tempered person; not at all the kind to use poison. In spite of damning evidence against her, three of her friends refuse to believe her a murderer, What these friends accomplish in the six days before Margaret Hallam is due to be hanged is told in a new NZBS serial to be broadcast shortly. The feature, entitled Noose for a Lady, will have its first broadcast from 2XA Wanganui, at 9.30 p.m. on Saturday, January 16. In eight weekly half-hour episodes, listeners will be able to follow the efforts to track down the real murderer. Those who believe in the condemned woman’s innocence are Simon Gale, his brother Martin, and Margaret Hallam’s step-daughter Jill. Simon, the brains of the trio, is a portrait artist of some renown, whose interest is at once personal (he is an old friend of Margaret’s) and artistic. His own judgment of character he finds more revealing than the most conclusive materia] evidence. And it is a form of psychological warfare which he wages against his handful of suspects. The suspects are the forbidding Mrs. Langdon-Humphreys and her niece Vanessa Lane, a vicious village gossip, Miss Ginch, a neurotic widower, Robert Upcott, a clever doctor named Evershed, and a retired soldier, Major Fergusson. All of these had some reason to hate John Hallam, and, indeed, it is not surprising that a man who read the Marquis de Sade for pleasure should make enemies rather than. friends. Noose for a Lady will be heard later from other Nationa] stations.