August 16, 2025 • 43 mins
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was a noteworthy attempt to revive in American radio dramas like Inner Sanctum (1941-1952) and Suspense (1942-1962). Radio dramas were widely considered "dead" 12 years prior to this series. CBS Radio Mystery Theater, or simply Mystery Theater, was created by Inner Sanctum creator Himan Brown and ran on CBS from 1974-1982. The show, much like older radio dramas, was introduced by a host (E.G. Marshall in this program), who steers us through the creaking door to start the episode. Many voices from the golden age of radio were featured, including Richard Widmark, Bret Morrison, Agnes Moorehead and many more.
Hope you enjoy this episode of Mystery Theater! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | iHeart | Amazon
Hope you enjoy this episode of Mystery Theater! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | iHeart | Amazon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Radio Mystery Theater presents, Come in.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm e. G.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Marshall. It's a wise father that knows his own child,
said the great poet. From this, we may also infer
that it's a wise child that knows his own father.
In the same vein, we're also told the child is
the father of the man. If we carry this much further,
we may discover it's impossible to distinguish between the two. Therefore,
(00:49):
when a man dies, does he live on in his son?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Well, now that might all depend on how you define
dying and what you consider living.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
But all your father is dead?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Is he?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Mother? Of course?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Thirty years ago in France, he was killed in action?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You know that? How do I know that?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Mother?
Speaker 5 (01:12):
Oh? Well, what's come over you?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I know it because you tell me so, and I
grew up believing it. But it's true. Then show me, mother,
Show you what something anything. When a soldier dies in battle,
the War Department notifies you it's on record.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Papers.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Show me something, mother, anything that says he's dead. Our
mystery drama Strike Force was written especially for the Mystery
Theater by Sam Dan and stars Michael Wager. It is
(01:54):
sponsored in part by x Lax and true value hardware stores.
I'll be back shortly with that one.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Life is a pattern.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Sometimes it's even cast in a mold. The days slip
by one so much like the other it's almost impossible
to tell them apart, And after a while, why bother.
We like our routine, the well worn grooves that guide
our journey through life. The Watsons are entertaining the Sandersons
(02:34):
at dinner. Predictably, this is Wednesday night. The Watsons are
Andrea and Bob. The Sandersons are Orville and Alice. Andrea
Watson is doctor Orville Sanderson's mother. Bob is Orville's stepfather.
Alice is Orville's wife.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Have you got all that all right? Dinner goes quietly, happily.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
These people know each other, like each other, even love
each other.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
I know nobody should, but will anyone have more than earth?
Where did you get that silver serving spoon, Andrew?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Or do you like it?
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Alice? Here?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, you think I should get back into the market.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
This lovely spoon was a wedding gift, Alice. That is,
for my first wedding, when I married Orville's father. You're
probably wondering why I'm using it tonight since you brought
it up. Yes, well, Bob and I've been married what
old thirty years now weren't doing? And I finally feel
secure enough to use some of the things for my
(03:34):
first marriage. I'll bet you are no the truth of
the matter, Alice, I'd forgotten all about it, and I
was cleaning out one of the cupboards.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Isn't it lovely?
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I even remember who gave it to us Politics Polofax mother,
And why do I remember that name? Because it's such
an odd one, Major Polofax. He was Orville's father's battalion commander.
The man must have had excellent tape. Oh yes, he
was built like a girl, and yet he was a
very aesthetic person. I remember one evening we were also
(04:05):
having dinner some hour that the conversation got around the books,
and I happen to ask Major Politics, what is your
favorite reading? And you know what he answered? The Iliad,
the Iliad, homers Iliad and in Greek no less. Well
he's dead, All of them are dead. May the Lord
rest their souls. And your father, Well, now isn't anyone
(04:30):
going to have more? Bot?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
I have some, Andrea, Bob, you really can't afford the calories. Well,
I know, doctor over, but it's an affirmation of faith
in your mother's fantastic skill.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
A very modest slotest to.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Answer your question? Orville, which question? Should you get back
into the market? You haven't left it?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I did too.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
You soald that all my common stocks and put me
into bonds and treasury notes, and you're still in the
money market when I see some good values in common stocks.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I wasn't questioning you, tab You should always question.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
Your broker's a fun.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well you, bob. You've done a terrific job for me
over the years. Hello, I really don't know where i'd
been without you.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Oh, yes, he's here just a moment.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I hope that's not important.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
At all.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
I see all right about about an hour, darling.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'm gonna make a call tonight. Oh.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
I didn't think you doctors made house calls anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I've got to stop the morgue.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Oh how gruesome.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Now I was deaf. It's a fact of life.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Had hardly a suitable topic for a dinner table. Is
he also this way at home?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Out?
Speaker 5 (05:44):
You get used to it?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Mother?
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Why do you have to stop off at these? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
The morgue? Well, you know, I agree to work for
the Carn's office and duty calls. It's about over at
least soon.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Anyhow, I'll get your coats over.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
You said something very nice to Bob just before, or
did I?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Mother?
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Yes, when you told him he done a terrific job
for you and you don't know where you'd have been
without him.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, it's true.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Bob's always been so self conscious of the fact that
he hasn't been your real father, and he's tried so
hard to make.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Up for it. Well, when he gets down to it,
he has been my real father. Who else did I have?
Speaker 5 (06:26):
Rabil Sanderson Senior was a man of glamour, lived in an
adventurous life, and he died a hero's death.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I think the real heroes in this world of the
Bob Watsons, who plod along and do their job.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
We ought to tell him that more often, Alice.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I'll drop you the house and then go to the morgue.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Sorry to get you over here dark at this hour
of the light.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
It's all right, Benny, And for what look at him,
he's just a burmo't know that he's dead. He may
be an angel, fetchs.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Skin and bones. Hardly anything to him.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Eh, reason they want to have in autopsies.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Because it's a homicide. Yeah, I can see what appears
to be a nasty blow on a head.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah, that must have done him in.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Him and another bomber's having an argument of what over
who knows? Well, bumbs argue about some rat got booze
more lightly?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
You know who he is?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah, he's a bomb And let me see if I
can find any identifying watch.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
Oh, he's got himself, abute?
Speaker 1 (07:32):
What's that?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Well, look it's the greatest tattoo mark I've ever seen here.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Raise up his arm. Look on the inside.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
It's just above the older you see, it's a rattlesnake
all coiled up to strike. And there's a pull of
lightning on either side of them. And that says, uh, hey,
dk dark, what's the matter?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Hey duck? You all right?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I'm sorry, mother, Oh, it's all right. I know it's
very late.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Is is Bob asleep? Yes? Want me to wait him?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
No?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
No, not for this, not for what?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Ordo?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Strike Force? Strike Force? Yes, mother, strike force? You remember
strike Force?
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh, my father's Ranger Battalion.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Yes, yes, I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
In the insignia of the battalion, Remember what I think?
So I saw that insignia tonight.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yes, and not on a sleeve, not on a shoulder patch,
but inscribed on a man's skin. Oh, not to two.
They all tattooed that insignia under their arm.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Who was the man, derelict? What did happened to him?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He was murdered in a drunken brawl, hardly more than
skin and bones, wasted away by too much alcohol, not
enough food. And yet this poor, pathetic bag of bones
was once big and brawny and bursting with vitality in
the peak of condition, the finest fighter in the United
States Army.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Yes, they were the best in strikeforce.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
But Mother, this man, this man must have known my father.
He may have been my father's best friend. He me,
he may have been there when my father died. Poor man.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
All the time I kept looking at him, I kept thinking,
you knew my father, You must have known my father.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
This to see that insignia, it must have been a
terrible shock.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Brother, Mother, we could do something for him, Well, what
is there.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
We can do now?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
But we can't let him disappear into a nameless greg.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
And Potter's feeling he deserves better than a pauper's funeral.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Oh, well, of course he was one of my father's friends.
Then we shall give him a decent ary mother.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Mother, do you suppose you could identify him?
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Oh, but he's been so long ago, and the man
must have undergone such drastic changes.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
For mother, if you could recognize him. Oh, I know
it's difficult for you, But if you would.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Why are you so determined to know, dear?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
For my father's sake it it would be doing something
for his memory. But to go to the mall, we'd
better go, Andrew, Bob, I was wakened by someone coming in,
so I got up and I h no, I heard
what Orval said to you, Dear.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I'm frightened, awful.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And I will be with you.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
There's nothing to be afraid of.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Just stand over here, mother, Is this where they're pius? Yes, Mother,
we'll we'll get this over as quickly as we can. Okay, Benny,
we got folks.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Mother?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Oh, Mother, I try try try to remember.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Oh no, I.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Can't seem to Andrew.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Isn't he at all familiar?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Try try to remember?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Mother?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Are you sure you never saw him before? He does
look familiar for Bob. You never know any of these fellows,
did you No? But your mother used to describe it.
What is familiar about this one?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Andrea?
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Didn't you once tell me about that officer, friend of
awful seniors?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Yes, yes, that's right, I remember now with the funny name.
Yes Polifax, it's Mortimer Polyfax. It's Major polit X, the
battalion commander.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Are you sure, mother, are you Andrea?
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Oh yes, yes, it's Mortimer Polyps. You see he used
to visit your father and me very hard.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
But you said he used to look like a gorilla this.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Fellows.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
He must have been handsome at one time, or.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
What I meant was that he he looked tough. Polfax
was handsome, too, ruggedly handsome, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Major Polofax.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yes, Mortimer politics.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Scholar, soldier and my father's best friend. Yes, well, it's
it's hard duty to bury him.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Yes, we'll have Bob make the arrangement.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
It's no mother, These are arrangements I want to make myself.
Speaker 7 (12:39):
Oh well, it's four o'clock in the morning. Are you
still looking at those pictures?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
My father in uniform and here's his friend, Major Polifax.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
I suppose the major change after all.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The drastically he was unlucky. He should have died in glory.
Steady lived in degradation for all these years a bomb.
If another doctor had been on call, nobody would have
ever known. But we'll give him a meaningful service, a
decent cough and a respectable grave. He was my father's brother.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We'll give him a hero's burial.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Of course, you just said it. He deserves more than
just a quiet private service here. He should have a
full military funeral at the Arlings National Cemetery.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Is it possible?
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Of course, this man was Major Pualifax's commander of the
Strikeforce Ranger Battalion.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
If he's not entitled to full military honors.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Who is?
Speaker 1 (13:39):
What a great idea. I'll start making arrangements for the
first thing in the morning.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Bob, why did you insist on my going to the lorgue?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You had no choice, I certainly did. I could have
refused to go.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
He wanted you to go.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Had you turned him down, the question would have haunted
him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
What question?
Speaker 4 (14:04):
You know?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
What question?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
He needed to be told that the man lying on
the slab.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
In the morgue was not his own father.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
But why did you get.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Me to say it was Polifex?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Because it had to be somebody. It couldn't be allowed
to remain a mystery. The book had to be closed
and put away forever. And we've done that, Bob. We'll
have a quiet, dignified, private service, and that'll be the
end of it.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
Yes, yes, that'll be the end of it.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Oh, Bob, I was terrified.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yes, I was too.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
The face it was so changed, so ravaged, that I
recognized him at once, so did I. Then he didn't
die when we when I.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Please, please shoot.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
You mustn't even think about it, Bob.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Do you know what it means.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
It means that we didn't murder him, Henry, You must never.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
We've tried our best, but we did.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Don't even think about Christ.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
His blood was not on our hands. That's something to
be grateful for.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Gratitude comes in many forms, and to learn that you
have not committed a murder is one of them. If
you thought this is going to be a typical family story,
you can see now you'll have to rethink your position
and act too, which I shall bring in a few moments,
becomes even more untypical.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Or maybe it is typical.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Full fathom five by father. Lies of his bones are
coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing
of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea
change into something rich and strange. We're talking today about
dead fathers who were war heroes once long ago, and
(16:09):
about some history that is being rewritten and some identities
that are about to be counterfeited.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Oh hello, mother, Good morning.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Ar Andrew.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You're here early?
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Well have you forgotten, Alice? We're to play tennis this morning?
Oh that's right. And isn't this late for you?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Orville?
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Aren't you do at the hospital for rounds or whatever?
All of it has canceled his appointments to the day.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Oh here, I'm flying out of Washington, mother, what's happening there?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, I have to make arrangements for the funeral, the.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
Funerals Major Polifax. But aren't we having a private little
service here?
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Nope, that's been changed. This is going to be the
full works, full of military honors. But what Well, that's
what Polifax would have wanted.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
He was a professional soldier and that's what he's going
to get.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Oh but how came?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I don't know, But I'm going there to find a
out or the mother.
Speaker 8 (16:59):
I'm to play better.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Hurry to Andrea. We had the tennis court at nine.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Shop, but I should be back by early evening.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Darling, is it important I have this very special client
coming in for lunch.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
He's going to Washington to arrange for an official funeral.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Oh well maybe maybe what I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Ah, he's going to find out. He's going to find out.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
No, he won't, he won't find out anything.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Are you sure?
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, yes, I'm sure. I'm reasonably sure. What, cap'n Ma's impossible.
It's absolutely impossible. You're talking about the late Major Mortem
Polifax too. Well, that's right, commanding officer of the nine
(17:52):
hundred and eighteenth Ranger Raiding.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Battalion, now a stripe force.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Here's single word strike force. Look, cap'n Carry.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I think I know we've absolutely identified the man. I
know he's entitled to a military funerals, that's true, but
he's already headed. Hat what his military funeral? When?
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Where? How?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
He only died the day before yesterday? He's still in
the morgue.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Doctor Sanderson.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
According to the record, I have here Major Polofax Mortimer No.
Middle initial was killed in combat. What he's saying, I'm
reading from his file. He was killed in action in
a town called Celtz in Altaz, Lorraine, on December twenty seventh,
nineteen forty four.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
That's impossible.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
These are the facts.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
He's been positively identified. A major. Polofax has been identified
by Missus Robert Watson in Philadelphia, not according to the
official record, the official record, Captain, carry, how many times
is the body of a soldier killed in combat and
wrongly identified?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Very rarely?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Don't tell me these things don't happen.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Oh they do, but in movies and in novels.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Captain.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Look, I respect European, but I still think my mother
is right and the army is wrong.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
That's possible, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Theoretically anything is possible. But there's a very simple solution
to a whole problem. You know, fingerprints, I'm sorry, or
a vial.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
He did resemble the major.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
No, mother, he wasn't the major. That's been established. And
I wasn't too surprised. Oh, because from the moment I
laid eyes on that man's body, I had stranger sensation.
I had the feeling, was my father your father? You
(19:44):
looked at him.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
You you thought he was this Major Polifax.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Why well, from what I remembered at the Major from
so many years ago, there was a slight resemblance.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
But didn't he look anything at all like my father?
Your father? No?
Speaker 4 (20:06):
No, and and why don't I have this feeling?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Why? Well, well, we'll soon find out if he is
or not.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
How can he be your father? Your father died in France,
he died in the Arden Forest.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
There could have been a mistake.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Oh no, no, not about things like that.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Uh So this Captain's had done in Washington. But they're
willing to check out the fingerprints.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
I thought they already.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Did, yes, against those of Major Polifacts. Now they have
to find out if a match my father's. You don't
tell you something, mother, I'm sure they will. We'll have
to tell him the truth. Bother, Why will we have
(20:55):
to tell him any because.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
He'll only find out for himself.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
What will they find out?
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Bob, I told you, I'm frightened.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Nothing is going to happen.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
He looked at that body in the morguean he knew,
he knew it was his father.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
How How did he know, Henria, just don't lose yourself.
How did he know he'll never be able to prove it.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
He won't have to.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
For him, it'll be enough just to believe it.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
What are we going to do, Darling?
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I keep telling you we don't have to do anything.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Or will you have to get some rest?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I will as soon as this identification things straightened out.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
It can't be your father and Alice.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Why do I feel so sore?
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
I wish I didn't feel this way, but I can't
help it. I keep going to the morgue.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I look at.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Him, and I've become more and more convinced.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I spoke to your mother and to Bob, and they
tell me that your father was killed in the ard
then for it.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It could be a mistake.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
They were notified by the defense to Since wen did
my mother and my stepfather accept things just because some
government official has told them that?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Awful?
Speaker 5 (22:11):
I just have a feeling of a very uneasy feeling.
I'm suddenly afraid of what well these past few days,
ever since you came across that body and.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
The moor, really rather you didn't refer to it as
that body, it's my father, awvil.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Well, let's say you happen to be right. See where
that takes us ask the first questions. If he's your father,
what is he doing in the morgue?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You know that he was killed in a street brawl.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
He was supposed to be in his grave all these
years in an American military cemetery in France. But why
isn't he still buried?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Because he wasn't killed there for the sake.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Of argument, true, and the army made a mistake. So
he's been alive all these years. Where has he living?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Would I know?
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Why didn't he come back to his wife and his
infant son?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Well maybe he maybe he had amnesia.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Darling, that's what they have in the movies. Why did
he become a bum?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
To call a bum?
Speaker 5 (23:14):
All right? What do you want to call him?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Wait a minute, maybe there's someone I can't ask you.
You're feeling all right?
Speaker 4 (23:39):
I'm treating okay? Here who I'm a doctor? Asked me
to look at you. Listen, Doc, it's a bomber rap.
I didn't kill a guy.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You didn't.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's a bomber rap.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Did did you know him?
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
The man you are supposed to have killed?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Doc? There he ain't had a drink.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And so many try to create your head and thinks,
what what was the name of the man? The man
the man may say you killed?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
His name was name? Yeah? What was his name?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Hey, doc, do you suppose you'd give me a drink?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
He had a tattoo on his arm. Would that help
you remember to to cut to.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
With a snake?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Yeah, that was what the fight was about. The snakes,
them snakes on his arms. I could see the snake starting.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
To come after me.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (24:34):
He has this tattoo on his arm, and he had
this this big snake on it. Big snake had become
a lot of little snakes and everyone was out to
bite you.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
That's what happens, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Yeah, yeah, See, the snake should be crawling all over
his arms, and he'd yelled for me to help him.
He hollered, kill him, kill him before.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
They give me.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Well, there was this big stick and I picked it up,
and I'm getting hitting the snakes.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I guess I hit him while.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I had by a mistake, accident. I was only trying
to help him out. The snakes were the poison on
the dirt, and that's how it happens. You try to
help him.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Okay, why why? Because she was my friend.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Well he was your friend.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Surely, surely you must remember his name.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
How long did you know him?
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Hard to You asked a lot of questions. Yeah, you
you asked questions very well. I was good at asking questions.
It was Oh, yes, I could ask what the best?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
What was his name?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You're a doctor.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Take my advice, keep away from the booze.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I was a member of the bar. That's funny.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
He should have heard me cross examined. That's why he
was as good friends, who great, great friends with whom,
old snake? Are you to practice with him? He didn't mind.
Jes See, I may come back one day and I
had a shop in my friend's excuse what's his name?
I would say to him, Sandy, take the.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Stand, Sandy, Sandy. What did you call him sandy?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Because his name was was Alexander Alexander?
Speaker 1 (26:18):
No, no, no, it was or his name was Orbe.
What did you call him sandy?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
What is very simple?
Speaker 4 (26:24):
I call him sandy because his name was Sanderson.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
That's right. His name was Horble Sanderson senior.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Horble Sanderson senior.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And he did not fall in France during the Battle
of the Arden Forest. He came back to America alive
and the Defense Department made a mistake.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Or did they?
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Our story has taken a new turn, but bear in
mind the direction has been set by a half mad alcoholic.
I shall return shortly with Act three. At the very beginning,
(27:17):
we said the child is the father of the man.
Childhood shows the man as morning shows the day. The
father he never knew, the father who died young, lives
in the memory of the sun, in most cases, as
the tragic hero. For this is the image the son
(27:39):
wants to cling to. Perhaps it's the image the son
must have. But an image is only a reflection, how
easily it can be distorted or disturbed. You say his
name was Orville Sanderson.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Oh that's what he said, you see, doctor, It's evidence
that cannot be as stabilish other than by by hearsay.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Why why would he say his name was Oregle Sanderson Senior.
If it wasn't, that's.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
A good point. I don't remember. That's what the booze
does to you. I don't remember anymore. It could have
been someone I knew all my life.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Worse, someone I just met that night, which was he
let me think, try to remember.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
He had tried to remember that's oh, that's what I
kept saying the sandy.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Try to remember, try.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
To remember what?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Oh they are? Who the people are?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
The war who try to murder him?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Someone tried to murder him.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
His wife, her lover. He used to say, if I
camelly remember their names, you and I would be uneasy
street for life.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
What are you saying about a wife and a lover.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
They tried to kill him?
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yes, when I don't know, think no.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
I can't do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I can't think straight. All I can do is drink.
That's all I want. Please get me a drink.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'm sorry, I can't do that.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Then all needs you? Who wants you to get out
of here?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I'll help you all I can.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
God, God get.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Him out of here.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
What am I going to do about what my father?
Speaker 5 (29:32):
I don't understand, Darling.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
This man is derelict.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
He identified my father. That's hardly my father's name.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
According to the Defense Depropmas, your father died in France
more than thirty years father.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You you don't know what he meant to me, but
you never knew him. I knew him. I look at
his picture all those years I was growing up secretly
because I didn't want to make Bob feel badly.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
You never told me this.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I I was a tapuny kid. When I get pushed around,
Bob would say you'll exel and other things. But I'd
look at his picture and my father would say, get
in there, kid and fight.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And I did.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
And after a while, all my life, whenever things were rough,
I remember there were courses in medical school.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I didn't see how I ever passed.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
And I'd look at my father's picture and oh.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
I can't believe what you're trying to tell me. I
can't believe that your mother and Bob tried to murder
actually believe they murdered your father.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
How would he know about it? Who is Jerry?
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Jerry? Who?
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (30:40):
He can't remember his last name, but he can remember
a crazy story.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
It isn't a crazy story, that's right, it is. Well,
then you admit it's true.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
No, I admit it isn't crazy. It's one of the
oldest and best stories in the world.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Or what are you talking about?
Speaker 5 (30:55):
The Iliad? The Iliod by Homer?
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Now what does that have to do with it?
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Just the story that you're telling me. Now listen, the
Trojan war, Agamemnon, King of Athens, commander.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Of the Greek I know that story.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
You're actually living it. Agamemnon's wife, clytemnest had a lover,
a Justus. When Agamemnon came home alive, they murdered oh Alis.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
That has nothing to do with son.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
Arrested the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra avenged his father
and murdered his mother and her lover. Now isn't that
what you're building?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Tore Alice?
Speaker 5 (31:32):
You can now believe that Andrew and Bob murdered or
wanted to murder, or thought they murdered my father. How
can you say that, Aga Morgue.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Didn't you see the look of shock on my mother's face.
Don't you tell me they didn't recognize my father.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
We don't know it's your father, but just because some alcohol.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
We are going to find out. The Defense Department will
match the fingerprints.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
And then we'll know what will we know?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
We will know officially what I know to be true
now that my father didn't die in France, that he
came back, and that they lied to me.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
And what will you do? What he restes did?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I want the truth?
Speaker 5 (32:14):
What will you do with it? Darling, this could all
be in your mind, the iliad. Listen, I remember it
was only two nights ago. We were having dinner with
your mother and Bob and the mention of Major Polifax's
name came up, and somehow the iliad got into the conversation.
(32:35):
Oh yes, I remember. It was the major's favorite reading,
and all that somehow started something.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You're saying that it's all on my mind.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Yes, and when you hear from the Defense Department, they'll
tell you that this man was not your father, and
that will be the end of it, and you will
be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. I tried to talk to
him on.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
The phone, Andrea, he could be busy. He's a doctor
after all.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Oh he's avoiding me. Why he knows he's suspects? Oh?
Speaker 6 (33:08):
Please, don't he knows that Dan is his father.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
Something tells him And it's my fault.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I don't say that.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
The other night I mentioned Major Politics. Why did I
have to bring up that name?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well, it's true, you shouldn't have.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
And that started his mind thinking, why did.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
You mention the spoon as a gift from Major Pop effects.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
It isn't true.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
We never even knew Major polofacts.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Well.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Once you create a falsehood like we did, it becomes
a world of its own. You feel that every now
and then you have to enhance it. I just felt
I had to say that.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
In any event, he would have been called to the Morguean,
he would have seen that strike Force Insignia and we'd
be right where we are.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Now, where are we, Bob?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
I have a feeling it's going to keep on folding
itself until he'll know everything. And then what will we do.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Then we'll have to tell him the truth that we
wanted to kill his father.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
We didn't want to kill him, but we had to.
As it turns out, we didn't do it.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
But he'll never believe us, No one will ever believe us,
and I'll lose my son. I'll lose him forever.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
I'm sorry, mister Sanderson.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Now look here, Captain carry you are saying to me
that this man is not my father.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
That's not what I'm saying, doctor Sanderson. What I'm saying
is I don't know who he is, but his finger prints,
his fingerprints do not match anything in our service fire
and there has been a mistake.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
The file are wrong.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
You have the fingerprints of Lieutenant Orville Sanderson, a member
of the nine hundred and eighteenth Ranger Raiders known as
strike Ford's Doctor. There was no Lieutenant Sanderson in the.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Strike Force Battalion. That's impossible.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
No record, no fingerprints, nothing at all indicate that he
was even in the United States Armed Forces.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I don't believe it, I said.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I was sorry.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I have a picture of him from the morgue.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Here you can see the Strike Force insignia tatoed under
his arm.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Now that is the Strike Force insignia, the snake and
the lightnings he is. Well, doesn't that prove?
Speaker 4 (35:17):
All it proves is that this man, whoever he is
or was, had been insignia tattooed under his arm.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
Oh, well, where have you been?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Where haven't I been? All over Washington, d C. They
all say, I have to accept what's in the official record.
My father was never a member of the Armed Forces.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
But then the man, the darrel, it he's not your father,
he is my mother, and Bob lie to me, my
father was never a soldier.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
He was a bum. They tried to murder him many
years ago, and somehow they didn't. And here he turns up. Now, Well, well,
what I'm gonna face him with it?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Please, alf What good will that do?
Speaker 1 (36:09):
They destroyed my father?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
They'll pay for it?
Speaker 5 (36:12):
What do you mean pay for it?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
How? I I don't know yet? Mother? What are you
doing here?
Speaker 5 (36:20):
We decided to wait for you.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
What for Bob and I?
Speaker 5 (36:23):
We we should.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Talk about what are you lied to me? Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Oh, mother, all of it was a lie.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yes, my father was never in the army. Oh you
made it all up?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Why because you need it?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
You keep out of this.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Don't talk that way to your father.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
He's not my father, please please? Oh we need in
our facts, not emotions.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So think you can smooth talk your way out of this.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
You needed a war hero while you were growing up.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
We thought we'd give you one, someone glamorous, exciting, not
some old nose to the grindstone.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Stick in the mud like me.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
So we read a magazine article about the strike force ranges.
They sounded like the most exciting troops in the world.
So we decided to make your father one of them,
and we used the name of the real major politics
to make it sound more authentic.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Didn't you think I'd learned the truth one day?
Speaker 3 (37:36):
No, we didn't.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
And if you hadn't gone to them mag that night.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
You still wouldn't know he was my father, wasn't he?
Speaker 6 (37:45):
Yes, we recognized him immediately.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
If he wasn't in Strike force? How do you get
that to two?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Why?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Why let's try to kill him? Well, I will tell you,
of course not.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I'll tell you had an affair with with my mother.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
He found out, you had to kill him.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
That's the truth, is no, No, Andrea, place let him
believe that if he wants to.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Orval is dead and can't defend him.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
But he's tried to destroy us while he was alive.
He won't succeed now that he's dead. Your father was
a thief, sut alive it is. You've been checking fingerprints
and looking up old records, but at.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
The wrong place.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
Go downtown to the Hall of Jesse, Andrea, don't don't
look up Orville Sanders and confidence operator, flim flam artist.
You know why he tattooed that insign me on his
arm so he could pose as a Strikeforce ranger and
trade off. I don't believe I married him because I
was young and stupid. He deserted me the day after
(38:54):
you were born.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
You said enough, Andrea, please.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Bob helped me because he loved me.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
Oraville disapp but he came back when you were three
years old, and he was crazy. Something had snapped in
his mind. He believed his own stories. He believed he
had been in the war, and he accused me of
betraying him with.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
Varn It wasn't his fault. He was mentally disturbed and
he had a gun.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
He forced Bob and me into a car. He drove
us up to the mountains.
Speaker 6 (39:23):
He said he was going to kill us, and I
tried to get the gun away.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
There was an accident. We drove off the side of
a hill. We had scratches, Andrea and I, but he
We thought he was dead.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
It was wild country, deserted country.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
We thought that would be the end of it.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Maybe it was wrong, but we wanted him dead because
as long as he was alive, we'd never have a
moment's peace.
Speaker 6 (39:53):
Evidently he didn't die, and now years later he turns.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Up in the morgue and you find him.
Speaker 8 (40:01):
That's the truth.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You you killed my father, No.
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Darling, they didn't kill your father. They killed a man
named Orville Sanderson Senor Your father is Bob Watson. He
always was and he always will be.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
We'd better go to Andrea.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
Awful sunnight.
Speaker 8 (40:22):
I come, Andrea, Yes, mother, Bob, where are you going?
Speaker 6 (40:33):
We this is Wednesday night? Aren't we supposed to have
dinner together?
Speaker 5 (40:41):
That's right? And it's supposed to be at our house. Well,
well we're here.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It's Wednesday night, which means that the Watson's and the
Sandersons are having dinner together. Andrea Watson is doctor Orville
Sanderson's mother. Bob Watson is his stepfather. Alice Sanderson is
Orville's wife. They are such a close knit and devoted family.
Things run so smoothly and comfortably practically everyone envies them.
(41:22):
As you'll return in just a few moments.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Who was really.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Orville's father, Orville Sanderson.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Senior who gave him his body, or Bob Watson, who
gave him his mind. Both men have a very strong
claim on Orville Sanderson Junior, and for a long time
Orville acknowledged both. But in the end, when he had
to choose, he knew which one, because it's a wise
child that knows its own father. For you, wisdom consists
(42:05):
in knowing enough to tune us in seven times each week.
Our cast included Michael Wager, Patricia Elliot, Mary Jane Higbee,
Court Benson, and Gilbert Mack. The entire production was under
the direction of Hyman Brown and now a preview of
our next tale.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Better face the Truth, Katievitch. Better get a new coat
for you're out. No, I've been here so long it's
my life, or she would then he knows I work hard.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
He's a kind man kind. You could sit here to
your hold.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Behind with one big bunyon, and all you getting rewards
your labors would be.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
A badge in your buttonhole.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
I tell you you'd better get that coat.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
So I don't have the money, Better get it.
Speaker 6 (42:51):
Get it from your seventy.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Year old landlady for a wedding gift.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
She's rich.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
What wedding gears? Why isn't she going to marry you?
We're all sure she was sweet on you. I want
you torment me, so leave me alone on your brother.
Speaker 6 (43:11):
You won't be long if you don't get that overcoat.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Get it.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Radio Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division.
This is E. G. Marshall inviting you to return to
our Mystery Theater for another adventure in the macabre. Until
next time, pleasant,
Radio Mystery Theater presents, Come in.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm e. G.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Marshall. It's a wise father that knows his own child,
said the great poet. From this, we may also infer
that it's a wise child that knows his own father.
In the same vein, we're also told the child is
the father of the man. If we carry this much further,
we may discover it's impossible to distinguish between the two. Therefore,
(00:49):
when a man dies, does he live on in his son?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Well, now that might all depend on how you define
dying and what you consider living.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
But all your father is dead?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Is he?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Mother? Of course?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Thirty years ago in France, he was killed in action?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You know that? How do I know that?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Mother?
Speaker 5 (01:12):
Oh? Well, what's come over you?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I know it because you tell me so, and I
grew up believing it. But it's true. Then show me, mother,
Show you what something anything. When a soldier dies in battle,
the War Department notifies you it's on record.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Papers.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Show me something, mother, anything that says he's dead. Our
mystery drama Strike Force was written especially for the Mystery
Theater by Sam Dan and stars Michael Wager. It is
(01:54):
sponsored in part by x Lax and true value hardware stores.
I'll be back shortly with that one.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Life is a pattern.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Sometimes it's even cast in a mold. The days slip
by one so much like the other it's almost impossible
to tell them apart, And after a while, why bother.
We like our routine, the well worn grooves that guide
our journey through life. The Watsons are entertaining the Sandersons
(02:34):
at dinner. Predictably, this is Wednesday night. The Watsons are
Andrea and Bob. The Sandersons are Orville and Alice. Andrea
Watson is doctor Orville Sanderson's mother. Bob is Orville's stepfather.
Alice is Orville's wife.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Have you got all that all right? Dinner goes quietly, happily.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
These people know each other, like each other, even love
each other.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
I know nobody should, but will anyone have more than earth?
Where did you get that silver serving spoon, Andrew?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Or do you like it?
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Alice? Here?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, you think I should get back into the market.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
This lovely spoon was a wedding gift, Alice. That is,
for my first wedding, when I married Orville's father. You're
probably wondering why I'm using it tonight since you brought
it up. Yes, well, Bob and I've been married what
old thirty years now weren't doing? And I finally feel
secure enough to use some of the things for my
(03:34):
first marriage. I'll bet you are no the truth of
the matter, Alice, I'd forgotten all about it, and I
was cleaning out one of the cupboards.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Isn't it lovely?
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I even remember who gave it to us Politics Polofax mother,
And why do I remember that name? Because it's such
an odd one, Major Polofax. He was Orville's father's battalion commander.
The man must have had excellent tape. Oh yes, he
was built like a girl, and yet he was a
very aesthetic person. I remember one evening we were also
(04:05):
having dinner some hour that the conversation got around the books,
and I happen to ask Major Politics, what is your
favorite reading? And you know what he answered? The Iliad,
the Iliad, homers Iliad and in Greek no less. Well
he's dead, All of them are dead. May the Lord
rest their souls. And your father, Well, now isn't anyone
(04:30):
going to have more? Bot?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
I have some, Andrea, Bob, you really can't afford the calories. Well,
I know, doctor over, but it's an affirmation of faith
in your mother's fantastic skill.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
A very modest slotest to.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Answer your question? Orville, which question? Should you get back
into the market? You haven't left it?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I did too.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
You soald that all my common stocks and put me
into bonds and treasury notes, and you're still in the
money market when I see some good values in common stocks.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I wasn't questioning you, tab You should always question.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
Your broker's a fun.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well you, bob. You've done a terrific job for me
over the years. Hello, I really don't know where i'd
been without you.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Oh, yes, he's here just a moment.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I hope that's not important.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
At all.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
I see all right about about an hour, darling.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'm gonna make a call tonight. Oh.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
I didn't think you doctors made house calls anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I've got to stop the morgue.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Oh how gruesome.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Now I was deaf. It's a fact of life.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Had hardly a suitable topic for a dinner table. Is
he also this way at home?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Out?
Speaker 5 (05:44):
You get used to it?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Mother?
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Why do you have to stop off at these? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
The morgue? Well, you know, I agree to work for
the Carn's office and duty calls. It's about over at
least soon.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Anyhow, I'll get your coats over.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
You said something very nice to Bob just before, or
did I?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Mother?
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Yes, when you told him he done a terrific job
for you and you don't know where you'd have been
without him.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, it's true.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Bob's always been so self conscious of the fact that
he hasn't been your real father, and he's tried so
hard to make.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Up for it. Well, when he gets down to it,
he has been my real father. Who else did I have?
Speaker 5 (06:26):
Rabil Sanderson Senior was a man of glamour, lived in an
adventurous life, and he died a hero's death.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I think the real heroes in this world of the
Bob Watsons, who plod along and do their job.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
We ought to tell him that more often, Alice.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I'll drop you the house and then go to the morgue.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Sorry to get you over here dark at this hour
of the light.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
It's all right, Benny, And for what look at him,
he's just a burmo't know that he's dead. He may
be an angel, fetchs.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Skin and bones. Hardly anything to him.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Eh, reason they want to have in autopsies.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Because it's a homicide. Yeah, I can see what appears
to be a nasty blow on a head.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah, that must have done him in.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Him and another bomber's having an argument of what over
who knows? Well, bumbs argue about some rat got booze
more lightly?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
You know who he is?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah, he's a bomb And let me see if I
can find any identifying watch.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
Oh, he's got himself, abute?
Speaker 1 (07:32):
What's that?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Well, look it's the greatest tattoo mark I've ever seen here.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Raise up his arm. Look on the inside.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
It's just above the older you see, it's a rattlesnake
all coiled up to strike. And there's a pull of
lightning on either side of them. And that says, uh, hey,
dk dark, what's the matter?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Hey duck? You all right?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I'm sorry, mother, Oh, it's all right. I know it's
very late.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Is is Bob asleep? Yes? Want me to wait him?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
No?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
No, not for this, not for what?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Ordo?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Strike Force? Strike Force? Yes, mother, strike force? You remember
strike Force?
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh, my father's Ranger Battalion.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Yes, yes, I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
In the insignia of the battalion, Remember what I think?
So I saw that insignia tonight.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yes, and not on a sleeve, not on a shoulder patch,
but inscribed on a man's skin. Oh, not to two.
They all tattooed that insignia under their arm.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Who was the man, derelict? What did happened to him?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He was murdered in a drunken brawl, hardly more than
skin and bones, wasted away by too much alcohol, not
enough food. And yet this poor, pathetic bag of bones
was once big and brawny and bursting with vitality in
the peak of condition, the finest fighter in the United
States Army.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Yes, they were the best in strikeforce.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
But Mother, this man, this man must have known my father.
He may have been my father's best friend. He me,
he may have been there when my father died. Poor man.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
All the time I kept looking at him, I kept thinking,
you knew my father, You must have known my father.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
This to see that insignia, it must have been a
terrible shock.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Brother, Mother, we could do something for him, Well, what
is there.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
We can do now?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
But we can't let him disappear into a nameless greg.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
And Potter's feeling he deserves better than a pauper's funeral.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Oh, well, of course he was one of my father's friends.
Then we shall give him a decent ary mother.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Mother, do you suppose you could identify him?
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Oh, but he's been so long ago, and the man
must have undergone such drastic changes.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
For mother, if you could recognize him. Oh, I know
it's difficult for you, But if you would.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Why are you so determined to know, dear?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
For my father's sake it it would be doing something
for his memory. But to go to the mall, we'd
better go, Andrew, Bob, I was wakened by someone coming in,
so I got up and I h no, I heard
what Orval said to you, Dear.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I'm frightened, awful.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And I will be with you.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
There's nothing to be afraid of.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Just stand over here, mother, Is this where they're pius? Yes, Mother,
we'll we'll get this over as quickly as we can. Okay, Benny,
we got folks.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Mother?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Oh, Mother, I try try try to remember.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Oh no, I.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Can't seem to Andrew.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Isn't he at all familiar?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Try try to remember?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Mother?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Are you sure you never saw him before? He does
look familiar for Bob. You never know any of these fellows,
did you No? But your mother used to describe it.
What is familiar about this one?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Andrea?
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Didn't you once tell me about that officer, friend of
awful seniors?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Yes, yes, that's right, I remember now with the funny name.
Yes Polifax, it's Mortimer Polyfax. It's Major polit X, the
battalion commander.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Are you sure, mother, are you Andrea?
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Oh yes, yes, it's Mortimer Polyps. You see he used
to visit your father and me very hard.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
But you said he used to look like a gorilla this.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Fellows.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
He must have been handsome at one time, or.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
What I meant was that he he looked tough. Polfax
was handsome, too, ruggedly handsome, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Major Polofax.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yes, Mortimer politics.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Scholar, soldier and my father's best friend. Yes, well, it's
it's hard duty to bury him.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Yes, we'll have Bob make the arrangement.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
It's no mother, These are arrangements I want to make myself.
Speaker 7 (12:39):
Oh well, it's four o'clock in the morning. Are you
still looking at those pictures?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
My father in uniform and here's his friend, Major Polifax.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
I suppose the major change after all.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The drastically he was unlucky. He should have died in glory.
Steady lived in degradation for all these years a bomb.
If another doctor had been on call, nobody would have
ever known. But we'll give him a meaningful service, a
decent cough and a respectable grave. He was my father's brother.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We'll give him a hero's burial.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Of course, you just said it. He deserves more than
just a quiet private service here. He should have a
full military funeral at the Arlings National Cemetery.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Is it possible?
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Of course, this man was Major Pualifax's commander of the
Strikeforce Ranger Battalion.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
If he's not entitled to full military honors.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Who is?
Speaker 1 (13:39):
What a great idea. I'll start making arrangements for the
first thing in the morning.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Bob, why did you insist on my going to the lorgue?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You had no choice, I certainly did. I could have
refused to go.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
He wanted you to go.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Had you turned him down, the question would have haunted
him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
What question?
Speaker 4 (14:04):
You know?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
What question?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
He needed to be told that the man lying on
the slab.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
In the morgue was not his own father.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
But why did you get.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Me to say it was Polifex?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Because it had to be somebody. It couldn't be allowed
to remain a mystery. The book had to be closed
and put away forever. And we've done that, Bob. We'll
have a quiet, dignified, private service, and that'll be the
end of it.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
Yes, yes, that'll be the end of it.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Oh, Bob, I was terrified.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yes, I was too.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
The face it was so changed, so ravaged, that I
recognized him at once, so did I. Then he didn't
die when we when I.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Please, please shoot.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
You mustn't even think about it, Bob.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Do you know what it means.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
It means that we didn't murder him, Henry, You must never.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
We've tried our best, but we did.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Don't even think about Christ.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
His blood was not on our hands. That's something to
be grateful for.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Gratitude comes in many forms, and to learn that you
have not committed a murder is one of them. If
you thought this is going to be a typical family story,
you can see now you'll have to rethink your position
and act too, which I shall bring in a few moments,
becomes even more untypical.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Or maybe it is typical.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Full fathom five by father. Lies of his bones are
coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing
of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea
change into something rich and strange. We're talking today about
dead fathers who were war heroes once long ago, and
(16:09):
about some history that is being rewritten and some identities
that are about to be counterfeited.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Oh hello, mother, Good morning.
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Ar Andrew.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You're here early?
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Well have you forgotten, Alice? We're to play tennis this morning?
Oh that's right. And isn't this late for you?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Orville?
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Aren't you do at the hospital for rounds or whatever?
All of it has canceled his appointments to the day.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Oh here, I'm flying out of Washington, mother, what's happening there?
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, I have to make arrangements for the funeral, the.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
Funerals Major Polifax. But aren't we having a private little
service here?
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Nope, that's been changed. This is going to be the
full works, full of military honors. But what Well, that's
what Polifax would have wanted.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
He was a professional soldier and that's what he's going
to get.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Oh but how came?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I don't know, But I'm going there to find a
out or the mother.
Speaker 8 (16:59):
I'm to play better.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Hurry to Andrea. We had the tennis court at nine.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Shop, but I should be back by early evening.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Darling, is it important I have this very special client
coming in for lunch.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
He's going to Washington to arrange for an official funeral.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Oh well maybe maybe what I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Ah, he's going to find out. He's going to find out.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
No, he won't, he won't find out anything.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Are you sure?
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, yes, I'm sure. I'm reasonably sure. What, cap'n Ma's impossible.
It's absolutely impossible. You're talking about the late Major Mortem
Polifax too. Well, that's right, commanding officer of the nine
(17:52):
hundred and eighteenth Ranger Raiding.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Battalion, now a stripe force.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Here's single word strike force. Look, cap'n Carry.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I think I know we've absolutely identified the man. I
know he's entitled to a military funerals, that's true, but
he's already headed. Hat what his military funeral? When?
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Where? How?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
He only died the day before yesterday? He's still in
the morgue.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Doctor Sanderson.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
According to the record, I have here Major Polofax Mortimer No.
Middle initial was killed in combat. What he's saying, I'm
reading from his file. He was killed in action in
a town called Celtz in Altaz, Lorraine, on December twenty seventh,
nineteen forty four.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
That's impossible.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
These are the facts.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
He's been positively identified. A major. Polofax has been identified
by Missus Robert Watson in Philadelphia, not according to the
official record, the official record, Captain, carry, how many times
is the body of a soldier killed in combat and
wrongly identified?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Very rarely?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Don't tell me these things don't happen.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Oh they do, but in movies and in novels.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Captain.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Look, I respect European, but I still think my mother
is right and the army is wrong.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
That's possible, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Theoretically anything is possible. But there's a very simple solution
to a whole problem. You know, fingerprints, I'm sorry, or
a vial.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
He did resemble the major.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
No, mother, he wasn't the major. That's been established. And
I wasn't too surprised. Oh, because from the moment I
laid eyes on that man's body, I had stranger sensation.
I had the feeling, was my father your father? You
(19:44):
looked at him.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
You you thought he was this Major Polifax.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Why well, from what I remembered at the Major from
so many years ago, there was a slight resemblance.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
But didn't he look anything at all like my father?
Your father? No?
Speaker 4 (20:06):
No, and and why don't I have this feeling?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Why? Well, well, we'll soon find out if he is
or not.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
How can he be your father? Your father died in France,
he died in the Arden Forest.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
There could have been a mistake.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Oh no, no, not about things like that.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Uh So this Captain's had done in Washington. But they're
willing to check out the fingerprints.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
I thought they already.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Did, yes, against those of Major Polifacts. Now they have
to find out if a match my father's. You don't
tell you something, mother, I'm sure they will. We'll have
to tell him the truth. Bother, Why will we have
(20:55):
to tell him any because.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
He'll only find out for himself.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
What will they find out?
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Bob, I told you, I'm frightened.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Nothing is going to happen.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
He looked at that body in the morguean he knew,
he knew it was his father.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
How How did he know, Henria, just don't lose yourself.
How did he know he'll never be able to prove it.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
He won't have to.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
For him, it'll be enough just to believe it.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
What are we going to do, Darling?
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I keep telling you we don't have to do anything.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Or will you have to get some rest?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I will as soon as this identification things straightened out.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
It can't be your father and Alice.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Why do I feel so sore?
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
I wish I didn't feel this way, but I can't
help it. I keep going to the morgue.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I look at.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Him, and I've become more and more convinced.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I spoke to your mother and to Bob, and they
tell me that your father was killed in the ard
then for it.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It could be a mistake.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
They were notified by the defense to Since wen did
my mother and my stepfather accept things just because some
government official has told them that?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Awful?
Speaker 5 (22:11):
I just have a feeling of a very uneasy feeling.
I'm suddenly afraid of what well these past few days,
ever since you came across that body and.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
The moor, really rather you didn't refer to it as
that body, it's my father, awvil.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Well, let's say you happen to be right. See where
that takes us ask the first questions. If he's your father,
what is he doing in the morgue?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You know that he was killed in a street brawl.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
He was supposed to be in his grave all these
years in an American military cemetery in France. But why
isn't he still buried?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Because he wasn't killed there for the sake.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Of argument, true, and the army made a mistake. So
he's been alive all these years. Where has he living?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Would I know?
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Why didn't he come back to his wife and his
infant son?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Well maybe he maybe he had amnesia.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Darling, that's what they have in the movies. Why did
he become a bum?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
To call a bum?
Speaker 5 (23:14):
All right? What do you want to call him?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Wait a minute, maybe there's someone I can't ask you.
You're feeling all right?
Speaker 4 (23:39):
I'm treating okay? Here who I'm a doctor? Asked me
to look at you. Listen, Doc, it's a bomber rap.
I didn't kill a guy.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You didn't.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's a bomber rap.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Did did you know him?
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
The man you are supposed to have killed?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Doc? There he ain't had a drink.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And so many try to create your head and thinks,
what what was the name of the man? The man
the man may say you killed?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
His name was name? Yeah? What was his name?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Hey, doc, do you suppose you'd give me a drink?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
He had a tattoo on his arm. Would that help
you remember to to cut to.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
With a snake?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Yeah, that was what the fight was about. The snakes,
them snakes on his arms. I could see the snake starting.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
To come after me.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (24:34):
He has this tattoo on his arm, and he had
this this big snake on it. Big snake had become
a lot of little snakes and everyone was out to
bite you.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
That's what happens, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Yeah, yeah, See, the snake should be crawling all over
his arms, and he'd yelled for me to help him.
He hollered, kill him, kill him before.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
They give me.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Well, there was this big stick and I picked it up,
and I'm getting hitting the snakes.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I guess I hit him while.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I had by a mistake, accident. I was only trying
to help him out. The snakes were the poison on
the dirt, and that's how it happens. You try to
help him.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Okay, why why? Because she was my friend.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Well he was your friend.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Surely, surely you must remember his name.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
How long did you know him?
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Hard to You asked a lot of questions. Yeah, you
you asked questions very well. I was good at asking questions.
It was Oh, yes, I could ask what the best?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
What was his name?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You're a doctor.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Take my advice, keep away from the booze.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I was a member of the bar. That's funny.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
He should have heard me cross examined. That's why he
was as good friends, who great, great friends with whom,
old snake? Are you to practice with him? He didn't mind.
Jes See, I may come back one day and I
had a shop in my friend's excuse what's his name?
I would say to him, Sandy, take the.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Stand, Sandy, Sandy. What did you call him sandy?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Because his name was was Alexander Alexander?
Speaker 1 (26:18):
No, no, no, it was or his name was Orbe.
What did you call him sandy?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
What is very simple?
Speaker 4 (26:24):
I call him sandy because his name was Sanderson.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
That's right. His name was Horble Sanderson senior.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Horble Sanderson senior.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And he did not fall in France during the Battle
of the Arden Forest. He came back to America alive
and the Defense Department made a mistake.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Or did they?
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Our story has taken a new turn, but bear in
mind the direction has been set by a half mad alcoholic.
I shall return shortly with Act three. At the very beginning,
(27:17):
we said the child is the father of the man.
Childhood shows the man as morning shows the day. The
father he never knew, the father who died young, lives
in the memory of the sun, in most cases, as
the tragic hero. For this is the image the son
(27:39):
wants to cling to. Perhaps it's the image the son
must have. But an image is only a reflection, how
easily it can be distorted or disturbed. You say his
name was Orville Sanderson.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Oh that's what he said, you see, doctor, It's evidence
that cannot be as stabilish other than by by hearsay.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Why why would he say his name was Oregle Sanderson Senior.
If it wasn't, that's.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
A good point. I don't remember. That's what the booze
does to you. I don't remember anymore. It could have
been someone I knew all my life.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Worse, someone I just met that night, which was he
let me think, try to remember.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
He had tried to remember that's oh, that's what I
kept saying the sandy.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Try to remember, try.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
To remember what?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Oh they are? Who the people are?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
The war who try to murder him?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Someone tried to murder him.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
His wife, her lover. He used to say, if I
camelly remember their names, you and I would be uneasy
street for life.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
What are you saying about a wife and a lover.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
They tried to kill him?
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yes, when I don't know, think no.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
I can't do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I can't think straight. All I can do is drink.
That's all I want. Please get me a drink.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'm sorry, I can't do that.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Then all needs you? Who wants you to get out
of here?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I'll help you all I can.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
God, God get.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Him out of here.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
What am I going to do about what my father?
Speaker 5 (29:32):
I don't understand, Darling.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
This man is derelict.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
He identified my father. That's hardly my father's name.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
According to the Defense Depropmas, your father died in France
more than thirty years father.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You you don't know what he meant to me, but
you never knew him. I knew him. I look at
his picture all those years I was growing up secretly
because I didn't want to make Bob feel badly.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
You never told me this.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I I was a tapuny kid. When I get pushed around,
Bob would say you'll exel and other things. But I'd
look at his picture and my father would say, get
in there, kid and fight.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And I did.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
And after a while, all my life, whenever things were rough,
I remember there were courses in medical school.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I didn't see how I ever passed.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
And I'd look at my father's picture and oh.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
I can't believe what you're trying to tell me. I
can't believe that your mother and Bob tried to murder
actually believe they murdered your father.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
How would he know about it? Who is Jerry?
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Jerry? Who?
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (30:40):
He can't remember his last name, but he can remember
a crazy story.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
It isn't a crazy story, that's right, it is. Well,
then you admit it's true.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
No, I admit it isn't crazy. It's one of the
oldest and best stories in the world.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Or what are you talking about?
Speaker 5 (30:55):
The Iliad? The Iliod by Homer?
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Now what does that have to do with it?
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Just the story that you're telling me. Now listen, the
Trojan war, Agamemnon, King of Athens, commander.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Of the Greek I know that story.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
You're actually living it. Agamemnon's wife, clytemnest had a lover,
a Justus. When Agamemnon came home alive, they murdered oh Alis.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
That has nothing to do with son.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
Arrested the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra avenged his father
and murdered his mother and her lover. Now isn't that
what you're building?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Tore Alice?
Speaker 5 (31:32):
You can now believe that Andrew and Bob murdered or
wanted to murder, or thought they murdered my father. How
can you say that, Aga Morgue.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Didn't you see the look of shock on my mother's face.
Don't you tell me they didn't recognize my father.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
We don't know it's your father, but just because some alcohol.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
We are going to find out. The Defense Department will
match the fingerprints.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
And then we'll know what will we know?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
We will know officially what I know to be true
now that my father didn't die in France, that he
came back, and that they lied to me.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
And what will you do? What he restes did?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I want the truth?
Speaker 5 (32:14):
What will you do with it? Darling, this could all
be in your mind, the iliad. Listen, I remember it
was only two nights ago. We were having dinner with
your mother and Bob and the mention of Major Polifax's
name came up, and somehow the iliad got into the conversation.
(32:35):
Oh yes, I remember. It was the major's favorite reading,
and all that somehow started something.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You're saying that it's all on my mind.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Yes, and when you hear from the Defense Department, they'll
tell you that this man was not your father, and
that will be the end of it, and you will
be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. I tried to talk to
him on.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
The phone, Andrea, he could be busy. He's a doctor
after all.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Oh he's avoiding me. Why he knows he's suspects? Oh?
Speaker 6 (33:08):
Please, don't he knows that Dan is his father.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
Something tells him And it's my fault.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I don't say that.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
The other night I mentioned Major Politics. Why did I
have to bring up that name?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well, it's true, you shouldn't have.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
And that started his mind thinking, why did.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
You mention the spoon as a gift from Major Pop effects.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
It isn't true.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
We never even knew Major polofacts.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Well.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Once you create a falsehood like we did, it becomes
a world of its own. You feel that every now
and then you have to enhance it. I just felt
I had to say that.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
In any event, he would have been called to the Morguean,
he would have seen that strike Force Insignia and we'd
be right where we are.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Now, where are we, Bob?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
I have a feeling it's going to keep on folding
itself until he'll know everything. And then what will we do.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Then we'll have to tell him the truth that we
wanted to kill his father.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
We didn't want to kill him, but we had to.
As it turns out, we didn't do it.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
But he'll never believe us, No one will ever believe us,
and I'll lose my son. I'll lose him forever.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
I'm sorry, mister Sanderson.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Now look here, Captain carry you are saying to me
that this man is not my father.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
That's not what I'm saying, doctor Sanderson. What I'm saying
is I don't know who he is, but his finger prints,
his fingerprints do not match anything in our service fire
and there has been a mistake.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
The file are wrong.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
You have the fingerprints of Lieutenant Orville Sanderson, a member
of the nine hundred and eighteenth Ranger Raiders known as
strike Ford's Doctor. There was no Lieutenant Sanderson in the.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Strike Force Battalion. That's impossible.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
No record, no fingerprints, nothing at all indicate that he
was even in the United States Armed Forces.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I don't believe it, I said.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I was sorry.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I have a picture of him from the morgue.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Here you can see the Strike Force insignia tatoed under
his arm.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Now that is the Strike Force insignia, the snake and
the lightnings he is. Well, doesn't that prove?
Speaker 4 (35:17):
All it proves is that this man, whoever he is
or was, had been insignia tattooed under his arm.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
Oh, well, where have you been?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Where haven't I been? All over Washington, d C. They
all say, I have to accept what's in the official record.
My father was never a member of the Armed Forces.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
But then the man, the darrel, it he's not your father,
he is my mother, and Bob lie to me, my
father was never a soldier.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
He was a bum. They tried to murder him many
years ago, and somehow they didn't. And here he turns up. Now, Well, well,
what I'm gonna face him with it?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Please, alf What good will that do?
Speaker 1 (36:09):
They destroyed my father?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
They'll pay for it?
Speaker 5 (36:12):
What do you mean pay for it?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
How? I I don't know yet? Mother? What are you
doing here?
Speaker 5 (36:20):
We decided to wait for you.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
What for Bob and I?
Speaker 5 (36:23):
We we should.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Talk about what are you lied to me? Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Oh, mother, all of it was a lie.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yes, my father was never in the army. Oh you
made it all up?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Why because you need it?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
You keep out of this.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Don't talk that way to your father.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
He's not my father, please please? Oh we need in
our facts, not emotions.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So think you can smooth talk your way out of this.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
You needed a war hero while you were growing up.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
We thought we'd give you one, someone glamorous, exciting, not
some old nose to the grindstone.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Stick in the mud like me.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
So we read a magazine article about the strike force ranges.
They sounded like the most exciting troops in the world.
So we decided to make your father one of them,
and we used the name of the real major politics
to make it sound more authentic.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Didn't you think I'd learned the truth one day?
Speaker 3 (37:36):
No, we didn't.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
And if you hadn't gone to them mag that night.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
You still wouldn't know he was my father, wasn't he?
Speaker 6 (37:45):
Yes, we recognized him immediately.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
If he wasn't in Strike force? How do you get
that to two?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Why?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Why let's try to kill him? Well, I will tell you,
of course not.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I'll tell you had an affair with with my mother.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
He found out, you had to kill him.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
That's the truth, is no, No, Andrea, place let him
believe that if he wants to.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Orval is dead and can't defend him.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
But he's tried to destroy us while he was alive.
He won't succeed now that he's dead. Your father was
a thief, sut alive it is. You've been checking fingerprints
and looking up old records, but at.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
The wrong place.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
Go downtown to the Hall of Jesse, Andrea, don't don't
look up Orville Sanders and confidence operator, flim flam artist.
You know why he tattooed that insign me on his
arm so he could pose as a Strikeforce ranger and
trade off. I don't believe I married him because I
was young and stupid. He deserted me the day after
(38:54):
you were born.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
You said enough, Andrea, please.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Bob helped me because he loved me.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
Oraville disapp but he came back when you were three
years old, and he was crazy. Something had snapped in
his mind. He believed his own stories. He believed he
had been in the war, and he accused me of
betraying him with.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
Varn It wasn't his fault. He was mentally disturbed and
he had a gun.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
He forced Bob and me into a car. He drove
us up to the mountains.
Speaker 6 (39:23):
He said he was going to kill us, and I
tried to get the gun away.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
There was an accident. We drove off the side of
a hill. We had scratches, Andrea and I, but he
We thought he was dead.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
It was wild country, deserted country.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
We thought that would be the end of it.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Maybe it was wrong, but we wanted him dead because
as long as he was alive, we'd never have a
moment's peace.
Speaker 6 (39:53):
Evidently he didn't die, and now years later he turns.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Up in the morgue and you find him.
Speaker 8 (40:01):
That's the truth.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You you killed my father, No.
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Darling, they didn't kill your father. They killed a man
named Orville Sanderson Senor Your father is Bob Watson. He
always was and he always will be.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
We'd better go to Andrea.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
Awful sunnight.
Speaker 8 (40:22):
I come, Andrea, Yes, mother, Bob, where are you going?
Speaker 6 (40:33):
We this is Wednesday night? Aren't we supposed to have
dinner together?
Speaker 5 (40:41):
That's right? And it's supposed to be at our house. Well,
well we're here.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It's Wednesday night, which means that the Watson's and the
Sandersons are having dinner together. Andrea Watson is doctor Orville
Sanderson's mother. Bob Watson is his stepfather. Alice Sanderson is
Orville's wife. They are such a close knit and devoted family.
Things run so smoothly and comfortably practically everyone envies them.
(41:22):
As you'll return in just a few moments.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Who was really.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Orville's father, Orville Sanderson.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Senior who gave him his body, or Bob Watson, who
gave him his mind. Both men have a very strong
claim on Orville Sanderson Junior, and for a long time
Orville acknowledged both. But in the end, when he had
to choose, he knew which one, because it's a wise
child that knows its own father. For you, wisdom consists
(42:05):
in knowing enough to tune us in seven times each week.
Our cast included Michael Wager, Patricia Elliot, Mary Jane Higbee,
Court Benson, and Gilbert Mack. The entire production was under
the direction of Hyman Brown and now a preview of
our next tale.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Better face the Truth, Katievitch. Better get a new coat
for you're out. No, I've been here so long it's
my life, or she would then he knows I work hard.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
He's a kind man kind. You could sit here to
your hold.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Behind with one big bunyon, and all you getting rewards
your labors would be.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
A badge in your buttonhole.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
I tell you you'd better get that coat.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
So I don't have the money, Better get it.
Speaker 6 (42:51):
Get it from your seventy.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
Year old landlady for a wedding gift.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
She's rich.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
What wedding gears? Why isn't she going to marry you?
We're all sure she was sweet on you. I want
you torment me, so leave me alone on your brother.
Speaker 6 (43:11):
You won't be long if you don't get that overcoat.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Get it.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Radio Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division.
This is E. G. Marshall inviting you to return to
our Mystery Theater for another adventure in the macabre. Until
next time, pleasant,
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