What happens
Attorney Grant Forbes is walking with his friend, Lieutenant Driscoll of homicide, when a holdup erupts and a patrolman captures the robber, leading Forbes to muse on the unexpected chance he calls element X. Weeks later, a client named Floyd Markham summons Forbes to his Malibu cottage, where Forbes finds him dying from a gunshot wound. Markham whispers the name Lydia before dying, and Forbes sets out to learn what is behind the killing. The Whistler series, broadcast by Signal Oil on the radio, presents this story; the transcript does not give its original network or actors beyond the cast named in the closing credits.
Los Angeles and the Malibu coast, 1950s
Characters: Grant Forbes, Lieutenant Driscoll, Floyd Markham, Lydia Markham, Ralph Leonard
Listen for: Forbes's theory of element X, the unexpected chance that undoes criminals, and the whispered name Lydia at the Malibu cottage.
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.