What happens
Ken Thurston, an investigator, travels to Tanganyika after his friend Motavo asks for help against armed tribesmen threatening the white plantation owners. Thurston suspects the unrest hides a smuggling operation in cobalt, a metal vital to defense. Herbert Marshall stars as the Man Called X, in this episode of the series, first broadcast on March 18, 1952. Thurston and his allies follow the clues from a plantation near Cairo V, where a crash and a series of shootings escalate the danger, and then to a silver mine and a shipping operation. The episode centres on Thurston, Jean Thompson, George Gilmore and Motavo as the investigation unfolds.
Tanganyika territory, East Africa, including the city of Dar es Salaam, a plantation near Cairo V and a silver mine
Characters: Ken Thurston, Motavo, Sir Robert Thurston, Jean Thompson, George Gilmore, Pagan, Mr. Wicks
Listen for: The blue elephant statuette carved from cobalt oxide, which keeps appearing wherever there is violence
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.