Quarter Eagle Caper Afrs: The Adventures of Sam Spade (November 28, 1948)

“Quarter Eagle Caper Afrs” is an episode of The Adventures of Sam Spade, the old-time radio show, first broadcast November 28, 1948. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Private detective Sam Spade takes a case from Junius Eagle, owner of three hundred gumball machines throughout San Francisco, to stop vandals who are systematically destroying his equipment and stealing the gumballs. When Spade stakes out a machine and discovers his own secretary Effie smashing it with a hatchet, he learns she's caught up in a scheme involving a valuable Quarter Eagle coin hidden inside one of Eagle's machines.

San Francisco, including Spade's office, various gumball machine locations around the city, a bowling alley, a grill, a newspaper office, and a coffee shop.

Characters: Sam Spade, Effie, Junius J. Eagle, Effie Darling, Mr. Chiselhurst, Merle, Morris L. Higgins, Mr. Zacharias

Listen for: A case involving vandalized gumball machines that leads to murder, a rare coin hidden inside a machine, and the revelation that Spade's trusted secretary is involved in the scheme.

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.