Shirt Mix-Up at the Laundry: Pat Novak, for Hire (May 7, 1949)

“Shirt Mix-Up at the Laundry” is an episode of Pat Novak, for Hire, the old-time radio show, first broadcast May 7, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Pat Novak picks up the wrong laundry bundle and sets out to find Earl Hayes to exchange shirts, but the simple mix-up leads him into a deadly web of violence, smuggling, and murder on Telegraph Hill.

San Francisco waterfront and Telegraph Hill, 1949

Characters: Pat Novak, Earl Hayes, Max Stoffer, Roto Warren, Inspector Hellman, Jacko Madigan, laundry clerk

Listen for: Novak's hard-boiled narration, the mysterious missing shirt with coded collar markings, and the twist involving the laundry clerk's true identity

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.