What happens
Ken Thurston, the agent known as X, investigates the death of Jules von Elst, a man who died of heart failure in a small Manhattan hotel room that held a list of two million dollars in stolen army machine guns. Following a lead from the dead man's airline ticket and cancelled riverboat passage, Ken travels to Nigeria and up the Niger River. Along the way he meets Captain Mack, a riverboat skipper, and Bacolo, a local king, while plantation owner John Lechner and his men appear to be involved. Peggen, a young man who has joined the trip, and a reporter named Annette Collins are also aboard. The series is The Man Called X, first broadcast on February 15, 1948, with Herbert Marshall in the title role.
New York City, then Nigeria, aboard the riverboat Niger Queen on the Niger River, and the Bantu Landing plantation and jungle settlement
Characters: Ken Thurston, Chief, Peggen, Captain Mack, Annette Collins, Francois, Bacolo, John Lechner
Listen for: Ken's attempt to buy the stolen guns and the drums that signal Bacolo's knowledge of his arrival
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.