What happens
Raven, a hired gunman, collects a ten-thousand-dollar payoff from a blackmailer named Baker, then murders him and the woman with him, leaving a trail of stolen bills behind. Lieutenant Michael Crane of San Francisco police leads the hunt, while Helen Graham, a nightclub dancer, is drawn into a scheme by Senator Burnett's committee to expose Willard Gates, an executive suspected of working for foreign agents. The Lux Radio Theatre presents This Gun for Hire, with Joan Blondell, Alan Ladd and Laird Cregar, and the broadcast was first aired on January 25, 1943. This adaptation of the film opens with the blackmail and murder in a San Francisco rooming house.
San Francisco and Los Angeles, United States, early 1940s
Characters: Raven, Baker, Pearl, Willard Gates, Lieutenant Michael Crane, Ellen Graham, Senator Burnett, Fletcher
Listen for: Listen for Raven's unsettling calm during the blackmail scene, and for the moment Ellen recognises Raven on the train.
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.