What happens
Prudence Roberts, a public library worker, finds a page torn from a borrowed copy of Gone with the Wind, with words cut out and pasted in its place. Her colleague Maggie helps her piece the words together into a message that seems to be a ransom note about a girl named Melanie. Prudence brings the note to a police lieutenant, Murphy, who doubts it at first. The episode, from the Suspense series, first aired on September 20, 1945, with Murnaloy in the lead role.
A public library in an American city in the 1940s, and later a rooming house and the surrounding streets.
Characters: Prudence Roberts, Maggie, Mrs. Rudnick, Lieutenant Murphy, Miss Hughes, Miss Baumgarten, Jeanette Craig, Melanie Stevenson
Listen for: The moment Prudence first pieces together the cut-out words and reads the message aloud.
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.