What happens
Richard Thomas Steel, a man who has been reading Emerson and arguing about compensation, decides to test whether a murder can be committed in a moral and emotional vacuum. He buys a knife and gloves and sets out to kill a stranger in a crowd. Afterward he becomes haunted by the act, and his journal records his mounting unease and his search to learn about the man he has killed. The episode is from the radio series Suspense, first broadcast on September 27, 1945, with Joseph Cotton in the lead role.
A hospital and the streets of an unnamed city in high summer heat, including a hardware store, a newspaper reading room, and a subway station.
Characters: Richard Thomas Steel, Elliot, Dr. West, Miss Adams, Miss Rosenberg, Mr. Jeremy
Listen for: Steel's journal entries, read aloud, which trace his plan and growing torment.
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.