What happens
Phil Martin, a novelist whose creative gift has dried up, finds a yellowed manuscript in a battered steel box in London. Believing it to be an unpublished Edgar Allan Poe story, he copies its new mystery technique and publishes it as his own novel, Markham's Death. Suspense presents the story with Kirk Douglas in the lead role, and the episode first aired on October 2, 1947. Martin's success brings him an award at a mystery writers' banquet, but he is soon approached by a collector of American letters who knows the truth. The episode covers Martin's dealings with the collector and the complications that follow.
New York and London, in the years after the Second World War
Characters: Phil Martin, Anne Fleming, Dr. Selgrove, Kid Gloves Fleming, Lieutenant John Kirkland, Mrs. Corrathas, Henry
Listen for: Martin's careful planning of an alibi, and the way a stranger's claim threatens his secret
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.