What happens
Painter James Dorrance meets Elmer Krebs, a petty criminal, and makes a sketch of him for a portrait. When Krebs fails to return, Dorrance finds him in a squalid hotel room, covered in blood after a robbery and killing. Dorrance offers to help him escape the police in exchange for finishing the painting. The episode is from the Suspense series, first broadcast April 11, 1946, and stars Vincent Price.
A waterfront dive, a squalid waterfront hotel, Dorrance's studio, and a city in the 1940s.
Characters: James Dorrance, Elmer Krebs, Jeannie Baker
Listen for: Dorrance's increasingly unsettling justifications as he becomes entangled in Krebs's crime.
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.