What happens
The Shadow, the mysterious crime fighter, is drawn into a poisoning epidemic that has struck hospitals across the city. A letter demanding a million dollars threatens that the whole city will be poisoned unless the demand is met. Margo Lane and Lamont Cranston work to trace the poison and the sender of the ransom note, which is typed on a machine with distinctive faulty letters. Their investigation turns to the city's sanitation department and to the chemist Gerber, whose unusual behavior draws suspicion. The poisoning is a Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast, first aired January 30, 1938.
A large city in the 1930s, including its hospitals, city hall, the sanitation department offices, and a water tower in a suburb.
Characters: The Shadow, Lamont Cranston, Margo Lane, Mayor, Commissioner Wynton, Clyde Burke, Gerber, Dan Brinkley
Listen for: The typewriter clue in the ransom note and the search of the sanitation department for the machine that typed it.
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.