What happens
Dr. Messenger and Tony Last explore the Amazon in search of a buried city called Demarara. After a night attack by insects, the river men desert their camp, and Dr. Messenger goes for help in a canoe. He is thrown into the river and drowned, and Tony, feverish, is found later by a man named Mr. Todd. Tony recovers in Todd's village, where Todd proves kind yet strangely possessive. Todd has a collection of Dickens novels, and he asks Tony to read them aloud to him. As the days pass, Tony begins to suspect that Todd is holding him there against his will. This episode of Escape, first broadcast on December 21, 1952, is adapted from a story by John Mitton and stars Terry Kilburn and Joseph Kearns.
The Amazon jungle and a remote Indian village on a savannah beside the river, Brazil
Characters: Tony Last, Dr. Messenger, Mr. Todd, Barnabas Washington
Listen for: Mr. Todd's insistence on Dickens and his unsettling remarks about the previous Englishman, Barnabas Washington
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.