"The Chinaman Button", from 1974, is widely regarded as one of the best candidates, perhaps the best, for an episode that rose to the quality of the old Golden Age dramas. And while I have not listened to all the episodes of CBSRMT, I would hazard that this probably is correct -- it stands so far above the average CBSRMT episode that at least it could have very few rivals. The episode is a loose adaptation of a short story by Richard Matheson (best known for his novel, I Am Legend), "Button, Button", which was originally published in Playboy in 1970. Matheson is said to have come up with the idea of his original story from a class his wife was taking; the professor used a scenario to stimulate class discussion that originally derived from Chateaubriand's Genius of Christianity, 1.6.2:
Conscience! is it possible that thou canst be but a phantom of the imagination, or the fear of the punishment of men? I ask my own heart, I put to myself this question: "If thou couldst by a mere wish kill a fellow-creature in China, and inherit his fortune in Europe, with the supernatural conviction that the fact would never be known, wouldst thou consent to form such a wish?" In vain do I exaggerate my indigence; in vain do I attempt to extenuate the murder, by supposing that through the effect of my wish the Chinese expires instantaneously and with out pain that, had he even died a natural death, his property, from the situation of his affairs, would have been lost to the state; in vain do I figure to myself this stranger overwhelmed with disease and affliction; in vain do I urge that to him death is a blessing, that he himself desires it, that he has but a moment longer to live: in spite of all my useless subterfuges, I hear a voice in the recesses of my soul, protesting so loudly against the mere idea of such a supposition, that I cannot for one moment doubt the reality of conscience.
"The Chinaman Button" differs considerably from Matheson's original story -- they use the same device, and the one inspired the other, but they are not really the same story at all -- but it goes back to this original inspiration, which is what gives the episode its title. And it is a very good story; one that works well with radio, and probably was easier to do well in the 1970s than in the Golden Age. It is a bit dark, vividly representing ordinary human evil and the terrible results of what happens when a man's morality breaks. Two corrupt businessmen are exasperated by the fact that their schemes have been foiled by the apparent honesty of a colleague, who works in the same firm, although they have never met personally, and take it on themselves to prove what they themselves believe, that people are only moral when they have nothing to gain by immorality: Everyone has a price, for anything....
Because of its popularity, there are lots of versions of it online. You can watch it on YouTube:
It is also available here, here, and here, among many other places.
Incidentally, the same theme to similar effect, although in a different story, is found in G. K. Chesterton's "When Doctors Agree", one of my favorite Chesterton stories.