A Salute To The Law (Nick Harris) 39-05-30 (x) The Altar of Sacrifice

Summary

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Harold's Old Time Radio – "A Salute To The Law" (Nick Harris)

Episode Title: The Altar of Sacrifice
Original Air Date: May 30, 1939
Podcast Release: September 6, 2025
Theme: The intersection of justice, memory, and conscience in the aftermath of war, told through a dramatized true-life crime story.

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Overview

This episode features Detective Nick Harris in a Memorial Day-themed story, "The Altar of Sacrifice." The narrative centers on a mysterious annual break-in at flower shops, always the night before Memorial Day, where the culprit steals lilies of the valley but pays for what he takes. The investigation leads to a moving wartime story about conscience, sacrifice, identity, and atonement, revealing the complexities of crime, memory, and personal redemption.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mysterious Memorial Day Flower Thief

(01:23 – 03:59)

• Set-Up:
  Every year on the eve of Memorial/Decoration Day, an unknown individual breaks into high-end flower shops, specifically stealing lilies of the valley but always paying for damages and flowers.
• Police Stakeout:
  Captain Blake and Lieutenant Morrison conduct a stakeout at the last untouched flower shop, suspecting this year will be the thief’s next target.
• The Confrontation:
  The thief enters at midnight, collects lilies, leaves money, and is apprehended by the detectives as he exits.

"I'm not doing you any harm." — The Thief (03:30)
"You should have thought of that sooner." — Captain Blake (03:38)

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2. The Thief’s Story: War, Family, and Guilt

(03:59 – 12:02)

• Identity Revealed:
  The thief is John Roberts, who had a twin brother, Jonathan ("Jot"), a pacifist and botanist passionate about lilies of the valley.
• Their Divergent Paths:
  • John: Enthusiastic about enlistment.
  • Jot: Conscientious objector, refuses to volunteer but would go if drafted; scorned by their peers for his beliefs.
• Dramatic Farewell:
  At a farewell party, Jot is ostracized for his pacifism. The moral complexity of war is debated.
• Frontline Tragedy:
  In the horrors of World War I, the brothers are unexpectedly reunited. Jot, serving as a Red Cross worker, risks and loses his life bringing water to an injured John.
• Assumed Identity:
  Wracked with guilt, John swaps identification tags with his fallen brother and returns home under Jot's name, haunted by guilt over an accidental killing during the war.

"If hating war is being a coward, then I am a coward. ... What do any of you know about the horrors of war? ... How many of you here will ever return?" — Jot, at the party (07:09)
"War. The battlefield. The playground of the devil." — Bill, echoing the dark realities of combat (07:57)

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3. Symbolism of the Lilies & Acts of Remembrance

(12:02 – 13:13)

• John’s Ritual:
  Each year, as a way to honor his brother’s memory and find personal peace, John places lilies of the valley on the grave of an unknown soldier.
• Religious Undertones:
  The act is framed in biblical terms—"Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth"—emphasizing humility and secret atonement.
• Universal Atonement:
  The idea expands: Every soldier's grave is seen as an "altar of sacrifice," making the act not just personal but also communal.

"I lay my gift at the feet of the unknown soldier in my brother's name, remembering all that he has been to me." — John (12:59)

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4. Resolution & Aftermath

(13:13 – 13:47)

• Investigation Outcome:
  Captain Blake discovers that the accidental victim ("Bill") was not killed but recovered. John has since lived quietly in a soldier's home, tending a garden of lilies for Memorial Day rituals.
• Reflection:
  The story closes with a note on forgiveness, reconciliation, and the healing of war's wounds through small, sincere acts.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• [03:59] Captain Blake: "Why do you always steal flowers on the night before Decoration Day? And why do you always enter the shop just at midnight?"
• [04:03] John/Thief: "Midnight? That’s the zero hour. That’s when we always went over the top."
• [07:09] Jot: "If hating war is being a coward, then I am a coward. ... You girls, sitting here in your party finery ... What do any of you know about the horrors of war?"
• [07:57] Bill: "War. The battlefield. The playground of the devil. ... Greed, hate, malice, the willing handmaids of the God of war."
• [12:23] John: "Every soldier’s grave is an altar of sacrifice. ... I lay my gift at the feet of the unknown soldier in my brother’s name, remembering all that he has been to me."
• [13:13] Narrator: "He suffered from shell shock and was placed in the sympathetic care of that splendid institution, soldier’s Home, where today he has a little garden and raises lilies of the valley to place every Memorial Day on the altar of sacrifice."

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Memorable Moments

• The confrontation between the two brothers at the pre-war party, dramatizing social pressure and the reality of conscientious objection. (06:10–08:13)
• The harrowing reunion on the battlefield and the ultimate sacrifice—Jot’s death to save John. (09:45–10:29)
• John’s annual anonymous ritual, demonstrating how private guilt may find expression through public acts of remembrance. (12:21–13:13)

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Structure & Tone

• The episode shifts between a taut police procedural and a reflective wartime drama, ultimately offering a sober, melancholic meditation on forgiveness, memory, and the personal costs of war.
• Dialogue is earnest and poetic, in keeping with Golden Age radio drama traditions.

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Summary Table of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | Key Events/Quotes | | ------------- | -------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | 01:23–03:59 | The Investigation | Police lay in wait for the flower thief—captivating setup | | 03:59–06:10 | Thief's Identity Unveiled | John reveals his background and hints at deeper motives | | 06:10–08:13 | Family, War, and Conflict | Pre-war party—debate over patriotism, pacifism, and cowardice | | 09:45–10:29 | The Battlefield | Reunion of brothers; Jot sacrifices himself for John | | 12:02–13:13 | Remembrance | John’s atonement and ritual of placing lilies for the unknown | | 13:13–13:47 | Resolution | John's fate post-war and closing reflections |

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Final Thought:
"A Salute To The Law" in this episode is less about law enforcement triumph and more about the moral ambiguities of crime, loss, and memory. The story uses the form of a detective drama to open a window onto the lingering spiritual wounds of war—a fitting tribute for a Memorial Day narrative from radio's Golden Age.

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Transcript

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[Jim Gibson]

Presenting Detective Nick Harris in a salute to the law. Ladies and gentlemen, we again take pleasure in bringing to you the eminent Los Angeles criminologist and president of the International.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Secret Service Association, Detective Nick Harris.

[Jim Gibson]

And another true life story, proving to the youth of today the folly of committing crime. And now, Mr. Harris.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Thank you, Mr. Gibson, and good evening everyone. Today is Memorial Day and I have chosen a story which I will call the Altar of Sacrifice. The facts were recently given me by a retired captain of police of an eastern city and concerned this very day, in fact, for 10 years, just at midnight before Memorial Day, certain flower shops were broken into and all the lilies of the valley were taken. The offender would always leave money on the counter to pay for the flowers and any damage to the property he had made as he gained entrance into the store. As he left no clues and never entered the same place twice, the police were unable to catch him. Until one night the captain of detectives took his assistant, Lieutenant Morrison and drove to a well known flower shop, one of the few that had not yet been entered. They parked their car in the shadow of a large tree. It was almost midnight.

[Captain Blake]

Captain Blake, why do you think this man will choose a particular shop tonight? Because Morrison, he enters only the more.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Expensive places where they sell the rarest flowers.

[Captain Blake]

And this is the only store of its kind that he hasn't already visited. You say you've gotten in touch with the owner of the shop and have had him advertise in the papers and over the radio a special sale of lilies for the Memorial Day. Yes, I figured the man would go to the store that had the most of the flowers he wanted. If you'll look at the window, you'll see a big sign advertising the sale. If you succeed in catching him, it'll be quite a feather in your cap. I'm not doing this for glory. I believe there's something more in this case than the love of flowers. I think a deeper crime is involved. But why does he take lilies of the valley? Those are flowers a woman would choose rather than a feminine choice for a man. I should say that's what I'm hoping to find out. There's a man coming down the street now. He's stopping to look into the window at the sign, and it's just midnight. Wouldn't he get out of the car and question him? No. Wait till we see what he's going to do. He's going around to a side window.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

He crashed it?

[Captain Blake]

Yeah. Let him enter. We'll get him when he comes out. I want to get him with the goods.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Let's go.

[Captain Blake]

We'll wait for him by the window. He's got his arm full of flowers. He's put something on the counter and.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

He'S cutting this way.

[Captain Blake]

That must be the money. Grab him when he starts at the window. Take it easy, young fellow.

[Detective Nick Harris]

I'm not doing you any harm.

[Captain Blake]

Just stop struggling and no one will get hurt.

[Detective Nick Harris]

You're not going to take me to jail, Ida.

[Captain Blake]

What do you think?

[Detective Nick Harris]

Oh, but tomorrow's Memorial Day. I can't spend that day in jail.

[Captain Blake]

You should have thought of that sooner.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Put the cops on him, Morrison, and.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Bring him over to the car.

[Captain Blake]

Okay, sir. Come on, you. Look out.

[Detective Nick Harris]

You're crushing the flowers.

[Captain Blake]

Get in and sit down.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Now, young man, let's have your story.

[Detective Nick Harris]

My story?

[Lieutenant Morrison]

My.

[Detective Nick Harris]

My story?

[Captain Blake]

Sure, why not? Why do you always steal flowers on the night before Decoration Day? And why do you always enter the shop just at midnight?

[Detective Nick Harris]

Midnight? That's the zero hour. That's when we always went over the top.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

You were in the World War.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Yes.

[Captain Blake]

You always leave money to pay for the windows you break and the flowers you take. Why do you get your flowers that way? Why don't you buy them like anybody else does?

[Detective Nick Harris]

I can't tell you that. It's a secret. But I guess you might as well know the truth. The police were bound to find out someday.

[Captain Blake]

Yeah. So you better come clean.

[Detective Nick Harris]

My name is really John Roberts, and my brother's name was Jonathan. We lived in an eastern city. We were twins. We looked alike, but there the resemblance ended. Yeah, I went in for sports, especially hunting. Jonathan, we called him Jot, was a dreamer. He wanted to be a preacher. In his spare time, he raised flowers, specializing in lilies of the valley. He was quite a successful botanist. He was working on a new species and had almost reached success when the war broke out. Well, he called the flowers bells of Heaven. He said whenever a pure soul went to heaven, the bells chimed. I kidded him a good deal about it, and I was ashamed for anyone to know. He mooned over the flowers like A woman does understand.

[Captain Blake]

Yes.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Well, we were just 19 when the United States entered the war. I was wild with excitement and soon enlisted. Jot refused to enlist. He said he would if they drafted him. But he would not volunteer to go out and kill men like himself. Men who were forced to fight to satisfy the greed of others. Well, we quarreled. Some of the girls gave us a farewell party the night before we left for training. There was lots of fun and singing of war songs.

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

Oh, hello. It isn't me. Guess what is that sitting beside you. What do you mean, May? Well, it certainly isn't a yank or a man. So what is it? Oh, yes, it's a yanker and a man, too. Aren't you, Josh? Then why isn't he joining in the fun? And why isn't he in uniform like the rest of the boys?

[Bill]

Why?

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

Ethan listed me, but he hasn't been called yet. You have enlisted, haven't you, Jot? Hey, John, I was just thinking. It's too bad twin brothers can't be together in the army. It'll be the first time you've ever been separated, won't it?

[Detective Nick Harris]

Yes, but Jot hasn't enlisted. He isn't going. He's a conscientious objector.

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

Why, Jot, you don't mean you don't want to go to war?

[Narrator/Storyteller]

A conscientious objector.

[Bill]

A pretty excuse for a coward.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Bill, that's a lie. Jot is not a coward. Jot, are you going to sit there and let him call you a name like that?

[Bill]

He's entitled to his opinion. Why should I fight him if he calls me a coward? That doesn't make me one.

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

Jot. Jot, I'm disappointed in you. You're the only one of the boys here tonight that's not in uniform. If I'd have known you weren't going to enlist. Why? Well, Bill is right. You're a coward, a worm. A man who won't fight for his country, who won't fight for the right, but. But stays at home while others go to war is unspeakable. If you were ill, it'd be different. But you're big and strong.

[Bill]

But you forget, Helen, Jot is a conscientious objector.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

He just simply can't stand the sight of blood. It makes him so sick and to hurt anything.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Oh, listen to me.

[Bill]

Listen to me, all of you.

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

Listen, I say.

[Bill]

Listen. Yes, I do hate the sight of blood. Yes, it makes me sick. No, I have not enlisted, and I'm not going to unless I'M forced to do so. Phil has called me a coward. And I can see by your manners that you all agree with him. If hating war is being a coward, then I am a coward. But you girls, sitting here in your party finery, and you boys, proud of your spotless new uniforms, playing at being soldiers. What do any of you know about the horrors of war? Martial music, the beating of drums, the goodbyes and the excitement of departure. That is what you mean by war? How many of you here will ever return?

[Narrator/Storyteller]

I will.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Yes, but how?

[Bill]

With broken bodies, sightless eyes and minds clouded by the horrors of war.

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

War. War.

[Bill]

The battlefield. The playground of the devil. Greed, hate, malice, the willing handmaids of the God of war. The lust for blood, crippled bodies and the agony of body, mind and soul. Men turned into fiends filled with the desire to kill, kill and kill again.

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

And for what?

[Bill]

Possessions. Yes, material possessions. That one sweep in the mighty hand of God would make us nothing. That is war.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Just listen to the little psalm singing pacifist.

[Bill]

Why try to hide a craven soul behind a cloak of so called honest objection? Stay at home and play with your pretty flowers while the rest of us go out to bleed and die for the likes of you. You're yelling.

[Detective Nick Harris]

If you take his insults lying down, then you're all he says and more.

[Bill]

Take that, you coward.

[Detective Nick Harris]

I'm ashamed to call you brother.

[Bill]

Oh, Josh.

[Narrator/Additional Announcer]

Aren't you going to stand up like a man and fight back? Are you going to let John get away with that slap?

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Why not?

[Bill]

If thy brother smites be on one.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Cheek, turn the other and that'll be.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Enough from you, Bill.

[Bill]

Is that so? And what do you propose to do about it?

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Just this.

[Bill]

Don't kill me. Don't kill me. Easy, Yank.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Here to help you, not hurt you.

[Detective Nick Harris]

I thought you were the enemy. Come to polish me off all that dirt.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Are you badly hurt, Obed? Can't help.

[Detective Nick Harris]

I've been lying here for hours in this shell hole. It's my right arm. I will eaten to death.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

So dark in here. I may have to bandage the arm up as best I can. All right. I can stand here. I know you.

[Detective Nick Harris]

My name is John Roberts.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

My John.

[Bill]

My brother.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

What?

[Detective Nick Harris]

I didn't even know you'd enlisted.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

I joined the Red Cross.

[Detective Nick Harris]

I shoot them and you save them. Boy, I'm glad this water.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Water?

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Mine is empty.

[Bill]

Or is yours?

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Mine's empty too. There's a dead man over there a little ways. I'll get his. He won't need it. You can't go out there.

[Detective Nick Harris]

You'll never make it. They'll get you.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Is that you, Judd?

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Yes.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Here is the water, John.

[Detective Nick Harris]

You're bleeding.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Yes. Shell had my name on it. I'm going west. No, no, no.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Just lie quietly. It'll soon be morning and you'll come out to look for no judge. Are the police still looking for me, please?

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Yes.

[Detective Nick Harris]

For killing Bill.

[Bill]

War.

[Lieutenant Morrison]

Death. Blood feels soaked with human blood. To satisfy the greed of man. See how they grow. Field is covered with lies. I stole his blessings. You can hear the bells, child. Goodbye. Until we chuck. Chuck my brother dead.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Goodbye, old man. I'll be seeing you sometime. And that is my story. I knew the police would be looking for me when I returned home. So I switched our identification tags, letting them believe that it was I, John, who had been killed.

[Captain Blake]

And your brother went to certain death to get you a drink of water. And you repaid him by stealing his identity.

[Detective Nick Harris]

Scott knew that I did not intend to kill Bill. He knew it was an accident and that I struck the blow to defend him against Bill's insults. Jock would have wanted it this way.

[Captain Blake]

So you're still hiding from the police. And that's why you get the flowers the way you do to put on your brother's grave.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

You're afraid somebody will recognize you.

[Detective Nick Harris]

No, that isn't the reason. Let not your left hand know what your right hand do with. My brother is buried somewhere in France. I put the flowers on some soldier's grave. I don't even want to know who he is. Every soldier's grave is an altar of sacrifice. And our Lord said, therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave thy gift before the altar and go thy way. First be thou reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift. I have been reconciled to my brother and he has given me so. I lay my gift at the feet of the unknown soldier in my brother's name, remembering all that he has been to me.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

So John made his peace with his twin brother, John. Investigation Captain Blake found that Bill had not been seriously hurt and soon recovered. John was in another branch of the service and the rest of the boys who had attended the party that night, he never learned the truth. As he was afraid to inquire. He suffered from shell shock and was placed in the sympathetic care of that splendid institution, soldier's Home, where today he has a little garden and raises lilies of the valley to place every Memorial Day on the altar of sacraments.

[Jim Gibson]

Thank you, Mr. Harris. For that very beautiful true life story. Ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard Detective Nicholas B. Harris, chief of the internationally known Los Angeles Detective Agency bearing his name, in another true life drama entitled the Altar of Sacrifice. Fictitious names and places have been used throughout this narrative and any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. The story was dramatized for radio presentation by A Dial A Comer and is a Carolyn Carroll Production. Mr. Harris wishes me to thank the following cast of characters. Charles E. Bender as John George Ford as Captain Blake, Sidney Keane as May Aldine Bremerman as Jonah Vivian Vaughn as Helen Siandre Folk as Morrison, Bob Holton as Bill Wesley Turtle App was at the organ. Mr. Harrison will again be heard next Sunday afternoon at 12:30 over this same station in the seventh of his new program series entitled the Penalties of Crime with Bob Palmer and his Utah Trail Boys, Frank Lorris, Vi Del Ortez and Clarence Cutburst. Mr. Harris and company will be heard again next Tuesday night at 8:15 in another most intriguing drama entitled the Phantom River. Jim Gibson speaking.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

This is KECA Los Angeles.