What happens
Sam Spade is pulled into a case when a printer named Paige is killed in a car accident, leaving behind a gold cigarette case that holds a hidden Dutch banknote. Spade has one hour to unravel the matter, and his search takes him from the scene of the crash to a commercial agency on Montgomery Street run by a man named Van Pelt, who explains the forged currency. Along the way Spade meets Paige's widow and his partner, and he is soon in a violent scrape of his own. The series is The Adventures of Sam Spade, first broadcast on January 4, 1948, on ABC, CBS and NBC Radio, with Howard Duff in the title role.
San Francisco, 1940s
Characters: Sam Spade, Paige, Van Pelt, Mrs. Paige, Ben Sillay, Effie
Listen for: Spade examining the cigarette case and the banknote at Van Pelt's agency
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.