The Slow Boat from China: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (February 25, 1949)

“The Slow Boat from China” is an episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the old-time radio show, first broadcast February 25, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Insurance investigator Johnny Dollar arrives in Singapore to determine why the SS Shanghai Wayfarer remains delayed at dock, costing his bonding company $2,500 a day. He discovers that the company's expediter, William Harrison, has vanished from his hotel room, and the ship's chief engineer Frank Moore has been found murdered in the harbor, stabbed to death.

Singapore, 1949. The action takes place at the Crown Colony Hotel, the Collier Key Bar, the Tanjung Pagar Docks where the SS Shanghai Wayfarer is moored, the police morgue, and the Wardlow Bar on Melee Street.

Characters: Johnny Dollar, Fundy, William Harrison, Frank Moore, Chandra, British Chief Inspector, Bartender at Collier Key Bar, Gangway watch

Listen for: Dollar's clever detective work as he pieces together clues from a hotel room, a bartender's gossip, and personal effects. The growing mystery of Harrison's disappearance and Moore's murder, with a woman named Chandra connected to the dead engineer.

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.