What happens
Drama critic Archer Atkins and playwright Edward Clayton, once close friends, become bitter rivals after Atkins savages Clayton's new play, The Whirlwind, in the New York Globe. Atkins then praises a book of poems by a fourteen-year-old immigrant boy, only to learn they are a hoax by Clayton, and his public humiliation follows. The Whistler series, first broadcast on February 12, 1947, presents the story in narration that traces how their feud escalates step by step, with Atkins's resentment growing as his reputation suffers.
New York City, 1940s, including the offices of the New York Globe, the Stratford Club coffee shop, and a hotel suite.
Characters: Archer Atkins, Edward Clayton, Barbara Ross, The waiter
Listen for: The narrator's account of the seven steps leading from professional rivalry toward a murder.
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.