The Trans-Pacific Import Export Company, South China Branc: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (August 24, 1950)

“The Trans-Pacific Import Export Company, South China Branc” is an episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the old-time radio show, first broadcast August 24, 1950. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Insurance investigator Johnny Dollar is sent to Hong Kong to investigate a $200,000 fire claim from the Trans-Pacific Import-Export Company's South China branch. The fire has been blamed on vandalism, but the insurance company suspects fraud, especially since a similar fire at the company's Shanghai branch resulted in a suspicious death of the previous investigator. Dollar arrives in Hong Kong to find himself under surveillance and begins interviewing witnesses and the company's owner, William Meadows.

Hong Kong in the aftermath of World War II, a crowded city overwhelmed by refugees from the Chinese interior; also references the company's Shanghai branch.

Characters: Johnny Dollar, Mr. Grover, William Meadows, Miss Vadres, Franklin Abbott

Listen for: Johnny Dollar's investigation into whether the fire was accidental vandalism or deliberate insurance fraud; the mysterious surveillance following him around Hong Kong; the connection between this fire and a previous suspicious fire and death in Shanghai.

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.