The Schemers: Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator (April 6, 1954)

“The Schemers” is an episode of Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator, the old-time radio show, first broadcast April 6, 1954. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Confidential investigator Barry Craig is hired by a businessman named Jip Moody to recover $200,000 stolen five years ago by Johnny Phoenix, who has just been released from Riverhead asylum as a rehabilitated man. Craig stakes out Phoenix's release and attempts to follow him, but is intercepted by state police on a mistaken identity charge involving a woman at the station.

New York City and Riverhead, upstate New York, including a bus, gymnasium, train station, and train car

Characters: Barry Craig, Jip Moody, Johnny Phoenix, Rita Pinnock, Simms

Listen for: Craig's hardboiled first-person narration as he uncovers the connection between Phoenix's release and a scheme to prevent him from being followed; the mysterious woman Rita Pinnock and her involvement in the case.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.