What happens
Five members of a New York artists and writers club, including Quenny, Rankin, Stangal and Peters, argue over whether detective puzzles are inexhaustible. Peters offers a story from his own experience: a hostess, Mrs. Kildare, discovers her sapphire ring missing after a dinner party at her apartment. She locks the doors, has the guests stand in the dark and counts to one hundred, promising a search by police if the ring is not returned. The episode is from Suspense, first broadcast on the Columbia Network on September 30, 1942. Eric Dressler plays Mr. Peters and Alice Frost plays Mrs. Kildare.
A New York artists and writers club, then Mrs. Kildare's bachelor studio apartment near Central Park West in New York.
Characters: Peters, Quenny, Rankin, Stangal, Mrs. Kildare, Mr. Flanders, Mrs. Cheever, Mr. Harris
Listen for: Peters's story of the missing sapphire ring and the hundred-count in the dark, told within the club discussion about detective puzzles.
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.