What happens
Lamont Cranston, a wealthy amateur criminologist who secretly works as The Shadow, investigates the disappearance of Dr. Waldeck, a psychiatrist, after Waldeck seems to send him a telepathic call for help. Cranston traces the call to the freighter Star of Zealand, where Waldeck is being pressed by Countess Sara and her associate Victor to extract a secret explosive formula from the captive inventor Professor Hardy. Margot Lane waits in the car on the dock as Cranston boards the ship alone. The Shadow's enemies have trapped him inside the vessel. The episode is from the Mercury Theatre on the Air series, first broadcast on 1938-07-03, and features Orson Welles in the lead.
New York City, a club lecture hall, a waterfront pier, and the freighter Star of Zealand
Characters: The Shadow, Lamont Cranston, Margot Lane, Dr. Waldeck, Countess Sara, Victor, Ivan, Professor Hardy
Listen for: Waldeck's telepathic appeal to Cranston and the ship's sealed steel door trap
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.