What happens
Art dealer's clerk Flannoy and collector Mason are drawn into the grim history of a painting called Portrait of Death, which shows a woman in black beside two graves. After Mason buys the portrait at auction, his wife dies suddenly, and he becomes convinced the painting is changing, with a third grave appearing in the background. Mason himself is later found dead in his car, and the painting becomes the focus of Miss Snyder's determined pursuit to acquire it. The series is Inner Sanctum Mysteries, first broadcast on June 12, 1945.
An art gallery and the homes of art collectors in a city, with a misty, dim atmosphere in the 1940s.
Characters: Mr. Mason, Flannoy, Parker, Mary, Miss Snyder, Mr. Davis
Listen for: The changing details of the painting and the mounting sense of a curse surrounding its owners.
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.