What happens
Leonard Snell, a small-time insurance agent and compulsive gambler, learns his wife Celia has discovered he is short eighteen hundred dollars of company money. After a violent quarrel, Leonard finds himself caught in a run of strange luck. He sells a large policy, receives a winning sweepstakes ticket in his wallet, and must decide what to do next. The story follows him through one long day in New York, as events move quickly and each stroke of fortune seems to tangle him further. This is the drama Suspense, broadcast on September 28, 1944, starring Gene Kelly in the title role.
New York City, 1940s: a home in Brooklyn, an insurance office, a city park, and a bus and cafeteria in Manhattan.
Characters: Leonard Snell, Celia Snell, Mr. Martin, Mr. Mothley, Floyd Houston, Jerry Malone
Listen for: Leonard's shifting luck as the day unfolds, and the mounting evidence of his past actions.
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.