Ingredient X

Set in the 1950s, this radio play for stage features Charles and Louise Maudesley, a well-to-do husband and wife who become embroiled in a plot to steal a secret formula. Louise becomes involved when the daughter of a professor friend hands her a formula for making plastic as hard as steel - a highly desirable product which her father has discovered - to keep it safe from a vicious gangster. But the women are mugged and the formula stolen.

Meanwhile, the professor is in South Africa trying to secure supplies of a secret substance vital to production, Ingredient X, the nature of which only he knows. The gangster Harry Franks follows him there and extracts the secret from him before throwing him to his death. 

Back home, Scotland Yard have been brought in and the professor’s loyal assistant, Yvonne, discovers that the new material, Paulinex, becomes deadly by giving off poisonous fumes. She then disappears. At a secret location, Franks starts production of Paulinex to sell to the highest bidder. Charles receives an anonymous message telling him to go to a remote farmhouse to rescue Yvonne. But it’s a trap – not by Franks but by a mysterious Russian, Valeria. Far from being in danger, Yvonne is in league with her and has supplied her with the formula, minus the identity of Ingredient X. Charles knows the secret and it is this which Valeria wants.  Charles and Louise are rescued, but both Valeria and Franks have disappeared and time is running out before Paulinex will start giving off deadly fumes, killing anyone who comes into its range. 

Valeria and her men arrive at Franks’ production site. They blow up the plant, and all inside, and escape with both the formula and the Paulinex Franks has already produced. The race is on to find the Russian and the Paulinex before it can kill anyone else. On a visit to Greenwich, Charles realises that one of the ships is the key to Valeria’s disappearance. But as he phones Scotland Yard Louise is captured and taken on board. 

During a police operation to recapture the Paulinex and arrest Valeria, Louise is thrown overboard and Valeria escapes.  All is not lost, though. Louise is rescued from the water, Valeria is caught downriver and Paulinex is out of enemy hands.