What happens
Returning from Spain, John McKittrick learns that his old friend Louie Lepetino, a police detective, died after falling from a window, and he refuses to accept the death as an accident. Inspector Tobin warns him off, but John begins asking questions among Louie's acquaintances, including Bobby Taviton, Abe Parker, and the singer Whitney. At a refugee dinner he meets Doctor Scott and his nephew Otto, and he speaks of the torture he endured in a Spanish prison. The story follows John as he tries to link the people he has met to Louie's death. This adaptation is the Lux Radio Theatre production of Dorothy Hughes' novel The Fallen Sparrow, broadcast on February 14, 1944, starring Robert Young, Marina Herrera, and Walter Slezak.
New York City, 1940, with a stay in Arizona and flashbacks to a Spanish prison
Characters: John McKittrick, Inspector Tobin, Louie Lepetino, Bobby Taviton, Abe Parker, Whitney, Doctor Scott, Otto Scott
Listen for: The conversation at the refugee dinner about Doctor Scott's theories of torture, and John's account of his imprisonment
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.