What happens
Johnny Dollar, a freelance insurance investigator for the Trineweft Life Insurance Company, travels to Eugene, Oregon, to look into a policy whose beneficiary, a man named Jonathan Doe, has vanished. Policyholder Harvey Wakeman, a retired professor, died in his sleep, leaving the money to his close friend Doe. Dollar questions the Wakeman family, neighbors, merchants, and local officials, finding that almost no one has ever met Doe. Mrs. Wakeman and her son Ben seem uneasy, and Dollar begins to suspect a motive behind the arrangement. The series is Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, and this episode, The Really Gone Matter, first aired on CBS Radio on August 30, 1959, starring Bob Bailey.
Eugene, Oregon, and the surrounding farmland, 1959
Characters: Johnny Dollar, Percival Leslie Fairfoot, Pat McCormack, Mrs. Wakeman, Ben Wakeman, Harvey Wakeman, Jonathan Doe, Sergeant Conroy
Listen for: Listen for the moment Dollar learns that Ben Wakeman is the secondary beneficiary of the policy, which changes his view of 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.