Dramatic Listening... the podcast where you learn English by listening to radio plays

Dramatic Listening... the podcast where you learn English by listening to radio plays


DL044: Unraveling the Mystery

April 16, 2015

Adrienne: And...for all that you've done for me...
The unraveling:
This is where the detective explains what happened and how he figured it out, so if you couldn’t keep up with Marlowe in scene 5, Eureka, then you can at least find out all about it after the fact. When you unravel something, like a sweater, you pull the wool thread until the whole sweater has come apart. In explaining the prime suspect, motives, and details of the case, Marlowe unravels it for us.
Stop the show!
At the end of scene 5, you’ll remember, Marlowe was desperate to stop the trick-riding act. He was sure that if the show went on, there would be another murder. He was desperate to stop Adrienne. Did he want to stop her from riding in the act, or stop her from committing murder? Whatever he knew, stop her he must! So he shot out the lights to end the show.
Adrienne's Last Act:
That was risky, and it brings us to the setting of today’s scene. We’re in a hospital. We have to assume that Adrienne and Micky crashed when the lights went out. Micky has blacked out. Marlowe is telling Hadley the ins and outs of the crimes. Granville is doting on his daughter, Adrienne, who has him wrapped around her little finger. And Pepper? Funny, I don't know where Pepper is.
Key Words:

surgery: a room in a hospital where doctors operate on patients 外科室 , a medical treatment in which a doctor cuts into sb.’s body to repair or remove damaged or diseased parts 外科手術 The patient was in surgery for five hours. The doctor scrubbed his hands to the elbows before doing surgery.
black out: (v) to temporarily lose consciousness 暫時的æ„識喪失 When the two motorcycles crashed, both driver’s blacked out.
fix: to mess with, to fool with, to monkey with; to adjust sth so that it will break or go wrong, to influence the outcome by improper methods 弄 Look! Someone has cut this rung of the ladder half way through. It was fixed to break the next time you used it.
give: to undo 解開; to loosen 放掉; to leak 泄 That’s an old worn out rope you’ve got there tying down your load. If it gives, you’re going to lose everything as you drive down the road.
switch: (v) swapäº¤æ› The twins liked to switch classes to see if they could fool their teachers.
alibi: proof that sb. was not at the scene of the crime at the time the crime was committed; sb.’s story of where they were and what they were doing at the time a crime was committed ä¸åœ¨å ´è­‰æ˜Ž Our suspect says he was alone watching TV at the time of the murder. It’s not a very good alibi as no one can confirm that it is true.
joker: 丑角牌 In cards, the joker is a wild card (è¬èƒ½ç‰Œ). It can be used as any other card. So, a joker comes to mean ‘something or someone whose effect on future events cannot be known’. However, this secondary meaning is archaic. Here’s the joker — Jack gave Mei-Li a beautiful watch, but she took it to mean she would die soon.
a double play: (in baseball), getting two runners out on one hit by throwing the ball to first one baseman and then another while the runners are between bases → two actions taken in quick succession one after another (棒çƒ) 雙殺 Our team lost the baseball game when the batter hit into a double play. The director was shocked that the gun was loaded. While showing the actors how he wanted the scene played out, he shot the gun. Unknown to him, someone had switched the blanks for real bullets. He’d been taken in a double play.
motive: reason å‹•æ©Ÿ The director had no motive for killing the lead actor.
worn: (p.p. of 'wear') having the surface rubbed off 磨壞的 I need a new frying pan. The no-stick coating on this frying pan is worn so the eggs stick.
crown: (slang) hit sb. on the head [å£] 打…的頭部 When she walked into the kitchen, the thief crowned her with a frying pan.
check: (n) (Br. spelling — cheque) a piece of paper that is used to make a payment to someone using the money in a bank account 支票 Who sho