What happens
Carl Warner, a quiet man who keeps canaries, is visited late one night by Chester Bruell, a former attendant at Craigmount asylum who was once a patient there. Bruell hints at blackmail, and the next morning Carl learns that Bruell has been found murdered nearby. Lieutenant Greg of the police begins to question Carl, and the search for the killer draws closer to Carl's home. Inner Sanctum Mysteries, first broadcast on February 14, 1949, starring Ted Osborn as Carl and Arlene Blackburn as Elaine.
A house with a bird room (aviary) in a quiet neighborhood, and the nearby Craigmount asylum for the insane.
Characters: Carl Warner, Chester Bruell, Elaine Warner, Lieutenant Greg
Listen for: Bruell's visit and the knife with brown stains, and Lieutenant Greg's questioning of Carl.
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.