What happens
George Winthrop, a former employee of San Francisco millionaire Henry Drew, attends Drew's birthday party at his mansion and is drawn into a murder investigation. Winthrop had quarreled with Drew over a promised third interest in a Chinese copper mine, and he finds Drew stabbed to death in the dining room, beside a birthday cake with fifty candles. Detective Sergeant Barnes questions the guests, who include Drew's wife Carlotta, his son Mark, and the ship's doctor, Parker, while the house is searched and several accusations are made. The episode is an audience-participation mystery from the Molle Mystery Theatre series, first broadcast on July 25, 1944, and it is written by Earl Derr Biggers.
San Francisco, at Henry Drew's mansion on Nob Hill during a foggy evening birthday party, with earlier scenes aboard a ship and in Shanghai
Characters: George Winthrop, Henry Drew, Carlotta Drew, Mark Drew, Dr. Parker, Mary Telfer, Hung Chin, Detective Sergeant Barnes
Listen for: The clue of the fifty birthday candles on the cake, and the accusations made against each of the guests
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.