What happens
Harry Lime, a self-styled dealer in schemes, becomes entangled with Helen Barrett after her husband Bill is jailed for a bank robbery in which around twenty thousand pounds was taken. Helen had robbed a pub bar of farthing coins, and Harry learns that Bill had hidden the loot using three farthings, which he sent to his wife in a letter with coded hints. Harry sets out to trace the coins, pursuing the housemaid Lily and a rival named Johnny Baxter. The Mercury Theatre on the Air series presents this episode, which first aired on 1951-11-30 with Orson Welles in the title role of the Harry Lime character from The Third Man.
A pub and a hotel in Liverpool, England, a prison, and a shuttered house on Taylor Street.
Characters: Harry Lime, Helen Barrett, Bill Barrett, Lily Johnson, Johnny Baxter, Ellen
Listen for: The clue in the farthings, scratched into the coins, that leads Harry to the hidden money, and the deal with Helen that falls apart.
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.