Kidnapped for Sale, Part 8: Nick Carter, Master Detective (April 26, 1944)

“Kidnapped for Sale, Part 8” is an episode of Nick Carter, Master Detective, the old-time radio show, first broadcast April 26, 1944. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Nick Carter rushes to the Phelps estate after learning that a man with a foreign accent—who has been stealing babies and selling them to adoptive couples—plans to visit Randolph Phelps, a board member of the Infants' Hospital. Nick and his assistant Scubby arrive ahead of the suspect and hide to eavesdrop as Phelps meets with the man, who attempts to bribe him for access to hospital adoption records and information about mothers in financial difficulty.

The Phelps estate on River Road in the countryside near Midvale, with focus on Phelps's study.

Characters: Nick Carter, Scubby Wilson, Randolph Phelps, Harry Farr, Danny the Frenchman

Listen for: The revelation of the baby-stealing gang's operation and their attempt to corrupt a hospital official; Nick's recognition of the suspect as Danny the Frenchman from a rum-running gang fifteen years prior.

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.