It is funny to read the newspaper announcements for this broadcast. The original story is written by Arthur Conan Doyle and nearly every listing notes that it’s not a Sherlock Holmes story. That’s true, it’s not. Just managing listener expectations, I guess. This story originally appeared in The Strand in 1898.
Like the prior broadcast of The Most Dangerous Game, this adaptation is by Jacques Anson Finke.
A “special” is like what a chartered bus or plane would be today. It’s not on the regular schedule and paid for privately.
Monsieur Caratel arranges for a private train to go from Liverpool to London. The train leaves without incident. The stations the train passes report on its progress and all is well… until it disappears! The solution to the crime seems implausible because of the number of people and the weight of all of the materials to prepare for the diversion of a locomotive and its car… and the money involved to make it all happen. There’s a conspiracy behind it all and part of the story involves whether or not the identities of the people behind the event will be revealed.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP430930
THE CAST
ORSON WELLES (Franc DeLerniac), Eric Snowdon (Hood / Senator), Lou Merrill (Louis Carotel), Alec Harford (3rd and 4th voices), Joe Kearns (Man in Black / Narrator/ 2nd voice) [unknown actors as James Bland / James McPherson / Matagarko / Ralph]
The text of the original story can be found at the online Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Story_of_the_Lost_Special#The_Story_of_the_Lost_Special
The story was later produced on Escape on 1949-02-12. That broadcast did not use the Finke adaptation but a different one by Les Crutchfield.
An AFRS recording survives, with Howard Duff as the opening AFRS voice. Howard has a difficult time getting “Suspense” to sound exactly right to those familiar with the network opening.
Thanks are owed to disc collector Randy Riddle for providing his recording of the episode.
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