What happens
Brit Reid, publisher of the Daily Sentinel, learns that writing bureaus Ryder and Cross are taking money from amateur writers while promising publication. His secretary Kato helps him study the racket, and he decides the law alone cannot stop the operators. Posing as a naive writer named Green, Reid sends Ryder and Cross a story already printed in the Sentinel. Meanwhile, Michael Axford, a would-be author, confronts the bureau over his lost fee and discovers his own story has been republished. The transcript breaks off before the scheme plays out, so the outcome is not shown here.
Mid-1940s-era city; the offices of the Daily Sentinel, the Ryder and Cross Writers Bureau, and Tomkins' house library.
Characters: Brit Reid, Kato, Michael Axford, Casey, Katie, Tom Tomkins, Ryder, Cross
Listen for: Reid's plan to beat the writing racket through a fake manuscript sent under the name Green, and how the bureau's own use of Axford's story turns against them.
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.