What happens
Arthur Wilson, a middle-aged businessman, rides a train to Los Angeles and recalls his past as Jack Foley, a convict who escaped prison twenty years earlier. He is travelling to his daughter Sally's wedding to Steven Franklin, heir to the Franklin fortune. At the Franklin home, the family butler, Jameson, recognizes him from prison and begins to blackmail him, demanding twenty thousand dollars. Wilson struggles to raise the money as the wedding approaches and the threat to his family's future grows. The Whistler series, broadcast by Signal Oil, is presented in this episode from 1951-09-09.
A streamliner train bound for Los Angeles, then the Franklin home in Los Angeles, and a Bayview bank and district attorney's office.
Characters: Arthur Wilson, Jack Foley, Sally, Steven Franklin, Mrs. Alice Franklin, Jameson, Hilda, Walter Reynolds
Listen for: Jameson's recognition of Wilson and the blackmail demand, and Wilson's struggle to raise the money before the wedding.
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.