“THE BLACK CAT” by Edgar Alan Poe – Presented by Faces In The Window in 1952! - Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Last Stations Present Escape, Oh Fantasy.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm gonna thank some miss.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
A man us Seal.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Present Suspense. I am the Whistler.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler, and this is retro Radio
Old Time Radio in the Dark, brought to you by
Weird Darkness dot Com. Here, I have the privilege of
bringing you some of the best dark, creepy, and macabre
old time radio shows ever created. If you're new here,
wellcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to
check out Weirddarkness dot com for merchandise. Sign up for

(01:05):
my free newsletter, connect with me on social media, listen
to free audiobooks I've narrated. Plus you can visit the
Hope in the Darkness page. If you're struggling with depression,
dark thoughts, or addiction, you can find all of that
and more at Weird Darkness dot com. Now bolt your doors,
lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with

(01:25):
me into tonight's retro Radio Old Time Radio in the Dark.

Speaker 5 (01:30):
The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents.

Speaker 6 (01:50):
Come in.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Welcome. I'm E. G. Marshall. What is a fairy tale?

Speaker 5 (01:59):
Suppose we say it's a beautiful little story that could
never happen, For instance, Cinderella impossible. Why because of suddenly
materializing fairy godmothers. No, because of pumpkins that turn into
coaches and vice versa. Definitely not all of these are

(02:20):
perfectly reasonable.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
What makes the story a fairy tale is the.

Speaker 5 (02:25):
Fact that royal princes do not marry kitchen maids in
real life.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I want you out of this house at once.

Speaker 7 (02:32):
Please, don't. I have no place to go.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's no concern of mine. Get out before I throw
you out.

Speaker 7 (02:39):
I hate you.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Your feelings are no account to me.

Speaker 7 (02:42):
I wish you a fate worse than death.

Speaker 8 (02:45):
I'm sure you do how you're thinking a low common
ignorance servander, what harm can she do?

Speaker 7 (02:51):
Well?

Speaker 9 (02:51):
I'll find a.

Speaker 7 (02:52):
Way, I swear to you.

Speaker 8 (02:55):
I'll find a way.

Speaker 5 (03:05):
Our mystery drama The Light That Failed was especially adapted
from the Rudyard Kipling classic for the mystery theater by
Sam Dan and stars Mason Adams and Tony Roberts. It
is sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division and Contact
the twelve hour Cold Capsule I'll be back shortly with

(03:25):
Act one. A story is many things to many people.
The truth is that stories have lives of their very own.
Sometimes the finished work may even baffle the author. Let

(03:50):
us consider a work by Rudyard Kipling.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
If he were.

Speaker 5 (03:53):
Alive today, he might say, what's going on here? Well, Rudyard,
going on is what you put in. However, we have
taken the same poetic license with your story that you
took with life. So the time is eighteen eighty two.
The place is what used to be called the Anglo

(04:14):
Egyptian Sudan. The narrator is Gilbert Belling Torpenhow, a foreign
correspondent for a string of British newspapers.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
I first met Dick Heldar and what was supposed to
be the safety of the interior of a hollow square.
You know, that's how the troops line up to repel
an attack from all sides. The war correspondents, the doctor,
all the folk who were useless during combat found themselves
in the middle. But the crazed and fanatic followers of
the Mahdi had broken through at several points, and so

(04:44):
all of us had to pick up weapons and fight
for our lives. I was standing shoulder to shoulder with
a young man about my own age, and both of
us were hacking away. Well, save us put near life.
Look out for him on your left. I see you
don't pull your arm back for waw what to say? Oh?
Hold too much of yourself? Thanks?

Speaker 10 (05:05):
You know when you're right, When you're right?

Speaker 1 (05:09):
What I was too late? The huge tribes, when bleeding
from a multitude of wounds, had brought a heavy sword
down across the young man's head, but only because the
native was mortally wounded, had the sword turned in his
hand so that the young man caught the flat of
it instead of the edge. Azy Maze, who's that? Mazie?

(05:35):
Thank you Mazie for the drink and for tying up
my head. Oh huh, you can thank me for the
drink and the doctor for the bandage. Where where am I?
Where are you? While you're not back in Deer or London?
That's for certain?

Speaker 11 (05:52):
What happen?

Speaker 1 (05:53):
You are in the Anglo Egyptian Sudan near a helphole
entitled Suakin? What are you doing here? Gilbert Belling Torp
and our special correspondent of the Southern newspaper syndicate, Oh
oh is it? Well? Could they have a war without
the likes of me? Huh? Yes, I suppose you suppose so?

(06:13):
Without me. Your British public wouldn't know what was happening,
and what they don't know doesn't exist. There go quote,
they're out demonstratum or whatever. Without me, the war wouldn't exist.
Oh oh, you're the Gilbert belling Torp from how Guilty
as Charged? But you must call me talk? And what
shall I call you? Dick? Dick Hilder. Well, you're not

(06:36):
a soldier, you're not a correspondent. What are you doing
out here? I'm I'm an artist. We're hell. Then why
aren't you back in a studio in London drinking champagne
with nude models. I want to paint the war? Oh,
I hope my head's going to stay on. I wonder
if I can get up. Well, the doctor says you
shouldn't try for a while. Uh there, still there, but

(07:01):
my bag. Look look in sience, you'll find some sketches.
I looked, and I saw for the first time. I
was the first to see the war sketches of Dick Hilda,
and not a credit, far from it. But what I
saw I knew was good, not just good, but great.

(07:24):
The man was a genius because this was the war,
this was the truth. A starshell bursting above the camp.
A slave now being captured by a British gunboat. A
single soldier lying dead in the moonlight with his throat cut,
dozens scores of sketches, drawings, watercolor sanguines. It was the
war and the men who made it, at rest, at work, drinking, fighting, killing,

(07:47):
and being killed. Yes, this was the war. I would
write a thousand words to describe imperfectly what he could
delineate with a single stroke of a pen or a brush.
What what do you think I've seen words? Do you
have any money? No, not too much. My syndicate may
be interested in taking a war artist hood day. I

(08:10):
don't suppose you care much what you get. Well, money
is really very unimportant to fine, because they'll pay practically nothing.
They'll take advantage of you. All I want is my
first chance. Well, I see what I can do. As
soon as I could, I wired the syndicate. I've got
a man here, a great artist. And they replied, with
their usual open hearted generosity, we'll take them on trial expenses,

(08:32):
only send all his sketches. I knew i'd get my talent. Sorry,
it's a little money. Oh, if I come through this
business of how I feel sweat for it. They're all
sweat for it all everybody. What's everybody got to do
with it? But I've worked for nothing all my life.
Your life has only begun. Sometimes I feel as that
I've lived forever, since the beginning of time. I feel

(08:54):
that old. You don't look it as I'll show them everybody.
And I must have lots of money. Why, because it's
no good without it. Money, that's what counts. And what
about art? You worry about art, and I'll worry about money.
And between us we'll carry on to victory. I owe
you a favor the assignment from my syndicates. It may

(09:16):
turn out to be a terrible disservice. Oh no, look,
let's not talk about favors. In all that cutting and hacking.
During the last attack, we saved each other more times
than we can count. But where are you going to
the telegraph office? What for? I shan't tell you. You'd
object to what to what I intend to do. You're

(09:37):
a man of scruples and you are not. I am
an artist, which means what I do what has to
be done. You have a bottle of whiskey. Your uncle
sent you from London. The doctor says, it's too soon
after your cloud across the head for you to think
of which isn't for me, it's for someone else, And
don't ask for who, because I shall not tell you. Well,
then you can't have the bottle. I won't aid or

(09:57):
bet you in committing what I know is going to
be a It will be something sinful. Worry well, you
would consider it sinful, I suppose, But you could prevent
me from committing another sin, that of robbery, because if
you don't give me the whiskey, I shall steal it
from your kit on or you won't because I intend
to guard a day and night. Well, you're no match

(10:19):
for me.

Speaker 6 (10:19):
Talk.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
You see. I was raised in a foster home by
a missus Janet. Jenet isn't a Jenniter kind of a donkey? Yes, yes,
she had the mind and the morals of a female
donkey too, And when she hit you felt as if
you were kicked by one. She was very economical, So
Mazie and lazy Mazie. I've heard that name before, another

(10:42):
little foster girl. We helped each other survive by stealing
food under missus Janet's nose. And what happened amaze, I
could probably steal that bottle of whiskey from your kits
when you're looking.

Speaker 6 (10:55):
At me, all right, take it, I'm doing this for you.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
I shut it to think of him a rather odd one,
that Dick Hiller, But it was a genius and that
sort has to be human. And Mazie Mazie, who was
Mazie hers was the name that he kept repeating while
he was delirious. Well, I'd get that out of him eventually.

(11:20):
But now for the present problem. Why did he want
to bring a bottle of whiskey to the telegraph office?
I decided to see for myself. Hell torp just in time.
He's out cold.

Speaker 12 (11:35):
Why did you.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Want to get the telegraph operator drunk so I could
get these? What? What's a paper's Trelawney's dispatches? The exclusive
interview with Lord Kitchener. We're in luck. Our friend on
the floor hasn't sent him yet read him. It's not
really ethical, it's not ethical, or it's not really ethical

(11:59):
really belonged to Trelawney or what writers Trelawney to an
exclusive interview with the commander in chief? What right is
Trelawney to be here in the first place. Why the
man can hardly write his name but still hit only
because Trelawney Senior is a high muck, a muck in
the war office. Influence, influence. I steal it and say,
Kitshener gave me the don't know, but you can read it,

(12:22):
you can make sense of it, you can extract the
facts from it, and you can send it out as
your impressions of the progress of the war. Now, Dick
and Kitchener will say, who is this torpenhow with his
fantastic insight into my very own brain? If you tempt me,
if Trelawney were actually a war correspondent, if he deserved
to be considered a writer. Besides, all's fair in love

(12:47):
and war. I confess I didn't need too much more convincing.
I thoroughly despised Malcolm Trelawney. I must say, the article
it appeared under my byline the following week, was the
making of me as a correspondent. Till this point I
was young and promising. Now I had arrived, I was mature,
a great practitioner of my art, and heaven forgive me,

(13:10):
I ate it up. But this isn't my story. It's
Dick held a ask. So the war ended, we were
all sent home. Dick had also achieved fame. His war
sketches had caught the public fancy. We took rooms together
in Mayfair. I shall have my share of the rents
before the week's out. Wish you wouldn't worry about it.

(13:31):
You have a reputation. You can sell anything you do.
From here on, you'll make a fortune. I already have
a fortune, you do. All those sketches close to one
hundred and fifty their mine. I can sell them immediately. Well, Dick, Dick,
what I already can count on fifteen thousand pounds? What
do you think fifteen thousand is true optimism? No, it
may even be on the low side. When what are

(13:53):
you're talking about? There's probably some acquaintance server stuffing in
for a drink. Yes, sir, you you you do live
on a high law seven stories high. But seven is
a lucky enough charge. I must say so. Have I
have the honor of addressing mister take helda. The honor

(14:15):
is dubious, as my name is Hubertus Valdemar. I am
the head of the southern newspaper said to get man,
I most devoutly wish to see. Have a chair, mister
Vademar Valdemar v A L. That's what I said, Valdemar,
this is mister torpenhow yes, yes, yes, I also admire

(14:37):
mister torpenh I me and mister Hellda to discuss our
future business relationships. Well, any future relationship must necessarily be
more expensive than the past. Oh, you'll find us most generous.
I hope. So. I haven't up until now incidentally, be

(14:57):
good enough to send my sketches to this suddress. Your
sketches I actually count one hundred and fifty old.

Speaker 11 (15:04):
That cannot be done.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
It cannot since there was no specified agreement at the outset.
The sketches become syndicate properties.

Speaker 12 (15:13):
A matter of course.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Thoir sketches belong to me, but I legal evaluation. The
devil with your legality, mister Vadimar Valdemar. You paid me
the lowest rate in the world. Nothing you can't keep
the sketches? Good lord man there or I have corp.
Can he do it? Well, it's a rather cold run
a sea on his part, but yes, Dick, he can

(15:35):
do it. I'll have his blood first, cafold, Dick. Remember
we're not back in the Sudan. Sir, you will give
me back my pictures. I believe it's time. I was
on my way sip down out there.

Speaker 12 (15:48):
You take your ahead for a week.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
You can't simply I don't know quite what to do
with you, because you're a thief and you want to
be whipped.

Speaker 12 (15:55):
Take your hands off me, I'll shout.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Well you're seven stories high, my goodness talk. You wouldn't
believe the fat on this one. You are going to
steal those things from me which are as my heart's blood. You,
who don't know when you will die, die, die, Write
a note to your office order them to give mister
torpenhow my sketches, every one of them.

Speaker 12 (16:18):
You have no right to steal.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
No, only you do write the note or I shall
strip off your high dick. You can't do I can't
I what closely I learned how I can't let you
do that. Do you want to fight me for a talk? Dick?
This should one of us be compelled to kill the
other just because of this thieving jattel? Who knows?

Speaker 5 (16:46):
But it's precisely on such random, unforeseen twists of fate
that sudden violence and death flare up without warning We're
accustomed to considering the artist as a creator. But in
Dick Heldar do we see the artist as the killer.
Both Dick and Thorpe are young men who have been
subject to the searing acids of deadly hand to hand combat.

(17:10):
What does this do to the soul? I'll continue with
that too shortly. To whom does the work of art
belong to the man who made it or to the

(17:30):
man who bought it? This is a question that has
occasioned considerable grief in this world, and is about to
add a bit more as we resume our drama. Dick Heldar,
the painter wants his pictures. Mister Valdemar, the publisher, claims
he bought them.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
An old argument.

Speaker 5 (17:49):
But a razor sharp knife has appeared in Dick's hand,
and we may have a new solution to the problem.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
He kill me, media, he will kill me. I must
remind you once again, Dick, we're not back in the Sudan,
but always in the Sedan torp Here the violence is
better bred, hidden, deeper, camouflaged, more cleverly. But where is
the wheel difference? Thorpe is a friend. You have to
help me, I God, help you kill him or I

(18:19):
can do that alone quite nicely.

Speaker 12 (18:21):
Thank you, don't kill me, good dor kill me?

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Of course, that had him the pen and paper tone. Now,
mister Valdemar, you will write a note to your office
and order them to give mister thorpenhow my sketches. He
didn't say a word. He looked deep into Dick's eyes,
and there he saw death. He picked up a pen

(18:46):
with a hand that was remarkably steady considering the circumstance,
he wrote the note. I took a cab to the
Southern Newspaper Syndicate's office. I gave it to some functionary
or other, and I surely received a gigantic portfolio. I
brought it back to the flat. Now I do hope
this will be a lesson to you, mister Valdemar. And

(19:07):
should you ever worry me later with any nonsensical actions,
for a thought or whatever, believe me, I'll catch you,
man handle you, and you will die. Now go, vanish,
disappear out. Be sure I have seen the last of you,
mister Bademar. Aldemah, what a lawless bried these people are.

(19:33):
Think of the hideous blackness of that man's mind. You
all the sketches stop exactly one hundred and forty seven.
Now that's close enough, Dick, I must say you begin, Well,
he was interfering with me, torpe. What did the money
mean to him? He's a man of wealth, but this
is my work, It's everything to me, and he was
going to steal them. I'm sorry now I didn't hit him.

(19:57):
I should have killed him a The commissions began coming
in so quickly Dick could hardly keep track of them.
The ladies, especially the ladies, couldn't get enough of them.
He had that way of making their eyes gaze forth
in a kind of dreamy reverie. Yet every female wants
to be known as a woman of mystery, and with
one sure stroke Dick could give them a most unfathomable air.

(20:22):
I caught him finally, and one of the rare nights
when he wasn't being lion eyed somewhere. Well, how does
success taste, Dick? Good? No, delicious? The foon? I want
more more. The lean years are past, gone for good,
but never to be forgotten. Oh I shall wallow in

(20:43):
these fat ones. Careful, my friend, That way lies bad work.
I love the power, the fun, the fuss, and the
above all. I love the money. Hmm, even though the
people who make the fuss and pay the money are
a queer gang. And amazingly he lost. Well, I should
think you have enough money now? Oh no, no, no, no,

(21:04):
where near enough. Well, then, Dick, you must tell me
what is enough. There are those men who have money,
and then there are those men who have a fortune.
And why would you want a fortune for her? For whom?
For Easie? Oh, the mysterious Maisie. She won't have me
until I'm fabulously wealthy and famous. You're famous at any ry? Well,

(21:26):
just a little. We need the test of time for that.
And where is Maisie? I don't know. We were both
boarded children at uh missus Jennet's I fell in love
with Did she fall in love with you? She said
she would in time. If I became rich and famous,

(21:46):
then she would seek me out. I'm surprised she hasn't
so far. Well, that's because I'm neither rich enough nor
famous enough. And how will you know when that will be? Simple?
On the day she seeks me out? Mean while I
must try harder and harder. Tell me telling about Maizie.
She's an angel? And why aren't you good enough for

(22:08):
her now, so you don't understand, all right, all right,
then tell me this Mazie, Mazie, does she really exist?
I couldn't get a rise out of him. He was
doing what he wanted to do, turning out paintings as
if he were a printing press. But it was a
bubble that sulmus bursts. His work was becoming inferior.

Speaker 13 (22:31):
But you couldn't tell.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Him anything, at least I couldn't. But finally somebody did,
someone who never dreamed he was an expert on art,
someone I can only refer to as the unknown Soldier.
The way of it was this, we were out for
a stroll and we paused before the window of a
print shop. There was a reproduction, a good one of
a painting by Dick, one that he had done in

(22:52):
the Sudan. It was the wild, whirling rush of a
field battery going into action under fire. As we gazed
at it, I could hear a voice, and from the
corner of my eye I saw two artillery soldiers, and
one was saying to the other, they've chucked off the
lead horse. He's tore up awful, But they make a

(23:13):
good time with the others. That lead driver drives better
than you. Tom. See how Cunnemy's nurse and his horse.
See how his foot's priced against the iron. He's all right,
a beg of what drew that picture. He knows what's
what he does. Now let's go in and buy it
for the mess. The picture won the complete approval of

(23:33):
the sternest critics in the world. For a long moment,
Dick looked at it, and then he cleared his throat.
He had been moved in a way that I hadn't
seen since the Sudan. We walked home in silence. When
we arrived at our entranceway, there was a girl standing
at the door. She had blonde air, a cheap little
sailor hat, and a rather soiled blue and white dress.
She stood there and gazed at us. Suddenly, Dick shouted, Mathie, Mathie,

(23:58):
are you saying, Dick? You you mean this is Mazie?

Speaker 7 (24:04):
Who do you take me far?

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Mazie? You've come to me? Oh no, no, no, no,
it's not maze. She looks she looks exactly like Mazie.
Who are you? Girl? Who are you? She's going to paint.

Speaker 6 (24:16):
There's no matter, fall h What are we gonna do
with her.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Perhaps we'd better bring her upstairs. A girl and he
saw what sort? Isn't it? Tops, sir? And she must
be drunk, though I'd say she's hungry, she's starved. Oh still,
it's out of the cur all right, Yes, bring her
up shoe model for me? Yes, this is this is
going to be my masterpiece. I won't tackle it, but

(24:40):
Mazie will see it and know who it's meant to be.

Speaker 6 (24:43):
Torp.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
This girl will send from heaven. I must put her
on canvas. Why are you feeling better?

Speaker 14 (24:54):
Oh?

Speaker 15 (24:54):
Yes, thank you.

Speaker 8 (24:56):
There aren't many gentlemen that are as kind as you are.

Speaker 7 (24:59):
Think you?

Speaker 1 (25:00):
When did you leave service?

Speaker 15 (25:02):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (25:03):
How do you know? I was in service?

Speaker 1 (25:05):
When you're scarred and chapped hands?

Speaker 7 (25:08):
Oh I didn't like it?

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Turn your face to the window. What's for? Because I
say so? Listen to me. I am an artist. I
want to draw your head? What for? Because it's pretty?
That's why you shall come here three times a week
and just for sitting still. I shall give you a
three quid each Friday.

Speaker 7 (25:31):
Just for sitting still. Nothing else.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
What's your name?

Speaker 7 (25:34):
Oh Bessy, Bessie Broke stone Broke.

Speaker 16 (25:38):
If you like?

Speaker 7 (25:40):
What's your names. But then no man ever gave me
this real one yet.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
And the next time you come, Bessie, you needn't wear
that paint. I have all the colors you're likely to need.
Now here's a sovereign to keep you.

Speaker 7 (25:55):
What sovereign for me?

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yes? And you'll be here tomorrow, understand, now? Off with you?

Speaker 7 (26:02):
Yes, sir?

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Oh, yes, sir, I think she'll be back. Of course
she smells money and torp. You're not to think of
her as a woman. She's my model nothing. Oh, yes, sir,
I will, sir. I said earlier that this is Dick
held our story. Well it is, but part of it

(26:26):
is mine. Bessie came back the next day unpainted clean,
and when she found out that all she was expected
to do is merely pose, a new light came into
her eyes. And finally, one day she.

Speaker 8 (26:40):
Said, how it's too much money for sitting and doing nothing.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
You just sit there quietly? Now?

Speaker 7 (26:46):
Can I be doing something with my hands?

Speaker 1 (26:48):
And keep them folded in your lap?

Speaker 8 (26:50):
I know how many of socks you're the mister taupenhouse.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
And that's where it all began. She not only mended
our sock, she did our clothes. She dusted the rooms. Indeed,
she hated to go home. She kept finding things to do.
Dick treated her liked she, that is, he never noticed
her except as a model. But I couldn't help noticing
how attractive she really was, how tender, how sympathetic. Dick
would finish painting and go for a walk, but I

(27:17):
would be in my room writing. She would knock timidly
and come in ask me questions. So wanted to improve herself,
and something was happening happening to me. She's only a
girl from the slums, no breeding, no education. Yet I
couldn't help thinking that no other girl had ever really
moved me. She sensed it. One day we were alone

(27:40):
in the house. She brought me my socks, and as
she handed them to me, and her fingers brushed against mine,
for I knew she was in my arms. We were
holding each other tightly, and we kissed. You.

Speaker 8 (27:54):
Oh, sir, sir, it isn't right for me to let
she would I can't help you.

Speaker 7 (28:00):
You're so cindy, I do.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
I do feel great affection for you, sir, But Bessie, I.

Speaker 8 (28:07):
Could never Mister Topenha, I'm not asking you to marry me.
I know my place, But couldn't you take and live
with me till your very own miss right comes along.

Speaker 7 (28:19):
I'm only miss wrong, I know, and I.

Speaker 8 (28:21):
Could never be anything else. But I'd work my hands
to the bone for you. I'm not I'd get to
look at you, know, I'm so lonely. Oh, please say.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
You will all?

Speaker 12 (28:34):
Oh, have any ideas?

Speaker 7 (28:37):
What does he want?

Speaker 1 (28:38):
He wants to see me?

Speaker 7 (28:39):
Tell him, tell him you'll see him later, don't now, please?

Speaker 6 (28:43):
You ruin it?

Speaker 9 (28:44):
That's what ruin it?

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Oh, Bessie, my dear, I'll be right back. No, wait,
what kind of foolishness is going on in here? The
devil right of you? Lord a fear? Doesn't your own
common sense tell you it's impossible? For Heaven's sake or
whatever got into you, Dick, I oughtn't to have seen
her moving about in these rooms like a housewife, and

(29:07):
it gives a lonely mad ideas. Yes, yes, and you've
got to get rid of those ideas. Do you know how, oh, Dick,
I wish I did? When you're going to Germany to
do a series on the army maneuvers tonight. Now you
can't stay and resist the devil. Success requires flight. Immediately
pack your bag.

Speaker 7 (29:25):
Mister trubenhow you're not leaving?

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yes, he has a special assignment. I'm asking him, and
I'm answering. Please you may leave now, Bessie, be back
here tomorrow at eleven shops.

Speaker 12 (29:37):
I hate you, and your.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Feelings are of no account to me.

Speaker 7 (29:41):
You will pay for what you've done to men.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Bessie, Bessie, I do have to leave.

Speaker 6 (29:46):
I do you.

Speaker 8 (29:47):
You took away my only chance for happiness, mister Helder.

Speaker 7 (29:51):
But you'll pay.

Speaker 8 (29:52):
How you're thinking she's only alone? And come and girl?
What can she do to a gentleman like me? But
I'll find something?

Speaker 7 (30:00):
How does something?

Speaker 17 (30:02):
Has?

Speaker 8 (30:02):
Something worse than ever?

Speaker 1 (30:09):
It doesn't matter who or what the woman is.

Speaker 5 (30:13):
If she threatens vengeance, take her seriously, for women excel
at this particular game, and before the third act is over,
she will have found her revenge, a diabolical revenge that
will be something worse than death. Let's all prepare for it,
and I shall return with it in just a few moments.

(30:46):
A fate worse than death. What could be a fate
worse than death? That would depend on who you are.
Before we speculate further, let us remember that the threat
has been made by a very insignificant, low class servant girl.
And while these distinctions may be blurred or even nonexistent

(31:09):
in our democratic society, our story takes place.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
In Victorian England.

Speaker 5 (31:14):
And here is our storyteller, once again, Gilbert Torpenhow.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Well, of course it was madness on my part, complete madness,
a sudden seizure. How could I possibly marry a girl
like Bessie. After a few days I returned home. I
didn't know what to expect. But there was Bessie posing
as if nothing had happened, and there was Dick painting
as usual.

Speaker 12 (31:42):
Dick, Dick.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
It's magnificent class Criss. I have to catch this little shell.
I can't be quiet, I can't why this is Bessie. Oh,
it's amazing, it's amazing. You haven't painted like this since
the sude. You didn't paint like this even in the suit.
And this is a masterpiece. Or confound you talk? You've

(32:05):
broken my concentration. Oh, Bessie, Hello, Bessie, mm be here
eleven shop tomorrow. YEA doesn't say much that she no,
and it's a blessed relief. Oh, how she must hate
us both. It doesn't matter, so you like it? Oh,

(32:28):
this picture will make you. I thought I was made already.
I mean it's a real artist, not just a realistic
painter of war pictures or a smooth society hack, but
an artist. I will be an artist on the day
that Mazie sees that picture, because that's the day she'll
comes to see me, and she'll be mine, I hope. So, dick, damn,

(32:51):
what is it? For a moment I thought I had
a veil cross my eyes.

Speaker 12 (32:56):
A veil.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Oh, it's just the just the m's gouze like veil.
Probably indigestion. Indigestion, does that? Hadn't you better say a doctor,
I don't have time. Fine, sets man, you must make time.
He would never have gone on his own, So I
made an appointment with a doctor, a specialist. After much argument,
I finally dragged into the man's office. He was a

(33:20):
very cheerful doctor. He chirped like a sparrow. Hell, mister, held,
you know, we all need a bit patching now and then,
like ship, exactly like a ship, we must be kept
ship shape. What I think that I have neglected the
warnings of the stomach too long, Hence these spots before
my eyes. Is that what you think? Absolutely? Here, I

(33:41):
was under the impression that two came to find out
what I think. Yes, by all means, go ahead. Thank you.
This wound, this blow you received in the fighting in
the Sudan, that hasn't bothered me in years. Well, there
was damage to the optic nerve and the bright hot
light of the doctor. If there is a verdict, I

(34:03):
want it immediately. Well, I am a painter. I have
no time to waste. Tell me well, there has been steady,
irreversible deterioration of the optic nerve and I'm going blind? Yes, absolutely,
completely totally blind. Yes. How long do I have if

(34:29):
you avoid all strain and anxiety? Perhaps a year? You
must stop painting the strain of the close work it requires.
I see, I must stop painting in order to keep
my sight a little bit longer. Yes, what good is
my sight if I can't paint all the way home?

(34:51):
I didn't say a word. We simply didn't talk about it.
We couldn't. When we arrived at the flat, Bessie was
waiting as usual, silent as usual. Dick picked up his
brushes and began to work. I almost finished with a
Dick Oh, yes, yes, I have just enough time for that.
It's simply a great piece of work. Dick mm, he's

(35:15):
past few weeks. It seems I've never seen color so
clearly and lime so sharply. I suppose it's like a
candle which burns out just before the end. It sputters
and flares for a brief instant. This is my brief moment.

(35:35):
It's beautiful. It's beautiful, and it's Bessie. No, it's mazy.
She'll see it. That's what I live for now. He
painted for a few moments longer, and then he put
down his brushes. His face had become lined with fatigue.

(35:58):
Now I noticed the lines about his eyes. He tired
so easily. He stood staring at nothing for a moment.
And then it will be enough for today, Bessie. I
want you back here tomorrow morning at eleven sharp, so
I think i'll lie down before dinner.

Speaker 8 (36:20):
Have you been, Bessie, huh, as well as can be expected.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
I wonder that you came back after the shabby way.
Both mister Heldar and I have treated you well.

Speaker 7 (36:30):
The wages are good.

Speaker 8 (36:32):
Girl in my position, can't afford to be particular. He's
going blind ain't he. Yes, well, he can thank me
for it. Oh, curse me for it.

Speaker 18 (36:42):
You.

Speaker 8 (36:43):
I wished to it on him as I prayed for
it to happen to him. What else could be a
fate worse than death for an artist. I went to
church and on my knees I prayed for it.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
I'm sorry to disappoint you, Bessie. It wasn't your doing.

Speaker 19 (36:58):
How do you know?

Speaker 1 (36:58):
I was there when it happened in the Sudan, A
blow across the head, damaged the opticle.

Speaker 7 (37:04):
Yes, we all think of something else.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
You had better go, Bessie. I saw her standing there fury,
as her face was ugly. Whenever the spell was you
might have cast over me. It was broken, and for
all time I was free. And soon, in a day
or two or three, Dick would be finished with the
painting and he would be free of her. Two I

(37:30):
must tell you what happened. A week later, I was
writing in my room when I heard him call Tom,
He poor, poor, come in here, quick, looked a look.
It's finished. It's really finished. Oh Dick, Dick, it is marvelous.
It's your masterpiece.

Speaker 12 (37:49):
The colors.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
The colors tell me about the color. See for yourself.
They're remarkably really, I can't see for myself. I stick,
I'm blind, talk, I'm completely blind. I drew the last
stoke and brush as I signed my name, and the

(38:12):
light left my eyes. The light failed, It failed me. Oh, dick,
how can I heltiars only blindness? We've seen worse, haven't we,
old friend? Will you? Will you sort of guide me
to my room and helped me to lie down? I'm
not used to being without my eyes just yet. Oh, Bessie,

(38:38):
we're finished. Talk. Write her a check for twenty pounds
twenty pound? Yes, yes, she was a good model. Come,
I have the check book in my room. Goodbye, Bessie, goodbye,
mister hand Come Thorf. I must lie down. I'm so tired.
Oh that's it. Talk. Oh, I can stretch out. It's

(39:03):
so good to know it's done. And look tomorrow you
have to take it to the Stepson gallery. Yes, yes,
of course, word of it. We'll get amazing, I'm sure.
Then and cover the picture. Yes, wake me for dinner.
We must celebrate champagne. Yes, yes, of course. I left
him sleeping on his bed and walked back into the studio.

(39:26):
I stood in the doorway and looked at the painting
for just a moment, an isolated moment. I refused to
believe what I would, seeing she was standing there with
a bottle of turpentine in one hand and a pilot
knife in the other. She was throwing the turpentine under
the picture and scraping away with a knife. And then,

(39:49):
like one awake, suddenly from the tracks, I ran for it,
but it was too late. Even as I grabbed our
hands and locked away the bottle.

Speaker 20 (39:57):
And the knife.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
If I could see the painting Worth four Scott, a
model of crazy color, I was ready to kill her.

Speaker 21 (40:06):
You raise a hand to me and I'll scream.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Away you sy, I'll scream what I've done to his
precious picture?

Speaker 7 (40:14):
He locked that with me? Why you he must never
found out?

Speaker 8 (40:17):
Right?

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Never?

Speaker 12 (40:18):
How could you sure? Why not?

Speaker 7 (40:20):
I said, I wished him of faith worse than death.

Speaker 8 (40:23):
Well maybe he don't know it, but he's got it.

Speaker 7 (40:26):
He's done it.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
And what have you got, you poor demented creature.

Speaker 22 (40:30):
Oh you call him?

Speaker 1 (40:31):
I come of you. Now. You'll go back to the.

Speaker 7 (40:34):
Gun, he said, you wish to give me twenty.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Pounds, Yes, I will, and when that's done, I'll find
another gentleman, will you I'll still have my looks to you. Luck,
look at yourself in the mirror. Go ahead, look, huh hand.

Speaker 15 (40:55):
What happened?

Speaker 7 (40:57):
What happened to me?

Speaker 6 (40:58):
What happened?

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Said that twisted, ugly mask? Who'd want you laugh or
anything at all? You'll die in a I didn't mean
to have pazy, Dick, Dick, look out your stumble over
that chair. He let me hold your arm. It's Mazy.

(41:21):
She's here, isn't she? Mazy? You've come. I know it's
as soon as the picture was finished, you'd come. You
couldn't keep away, Dick. Let me help you die. Mazy. Oh,
where it's Mazie. I just heard her voice in their mazy.
What do you think of You're fortunate?

Speaker 6 (41:42):
Mazy?

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Dick. No, no, no, no, no, no, Let her think.
Let her regard it. That's what you have to do
with a picture. Regard it, Oh, Mazy. When we were
children and missus Jannet's I helped you, and now you
will help me. Oh, my darling, I have enough money

(42:03):
enough to keep us happy for the rest of our lives. Crazy,
I'll be so good to you, and you'll be so
good to me. Razy, speak to me, say you will
say it, Say that you've come to me at last. Oh, mazy,

(42:26):
I've waited a lifetime for you. I'd all but given
up hope. But I knew if I poured out my
soul over this portrait, you would come to me. Tell
me you've come to me.

Speaker 7 (42:40):
Tell me, yes, stick, I've come to you.

Speaker 5 (42:55):
Taking everything into consideration, would you say we've had a
happy ending. It's a complex situation, almost as complicated as
happiness itself. However, one thing we do seem to provide,
and that is the old saying love is blind.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
I shall return shortly.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
We said this would be a fairy tale, and it
is a handsome prince, and Dick was certainly handsome and
a prince of painting. At any rate, he did marry
the little servant girl, at least I think they married.
Living together unblessed by clergy was in those days a scandal.

(43:52):
I don't know how things worked out. After all, you
have imagination too. Our cast included Tony Roberts, Mason Adams,
Bryna Raeburn, and Jackson Beck. The entire production was under
the direction of Hymond Brown, and now a preview of

(44:12):
our next tale you'll see those bright green spots scattered
thickly over it.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yes, yes, they seem more fertile than the rest. You
might say that, but in reality that's the great grimp
and mire. One full step for man or beast, and
you die slowly and agonizingly in the quicksand an awful place, doctor,

(44:39):
And yet I find my way to the very heart
of it safely. Why would you want to go to
such a place. That's where the rarest plants and butterflies are,
and I have the wit to reach for good?

Speaker 12 (44:52):
Nor what was that?

Speaker 1 (44:54):
The native says, the sound of the Baskervilles calling for
its prey. Don't believe that, do you? Perhaps it's the
mud settling in the bog.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
Radio Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
X Lax Missus E. G.

Speaker 5 (45:10):
Marshall, inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Until next time.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
Pleasant Welcome to Marshport, Maine, a quaint little coastal town

(46:04):
preparing for their annual Winter Wonderland Festival. But beneath the
lights and holiday cheer, something evil is stirring and it's
not a mouse. When a mysterious package arrives on the
doorstep of veteran police officer Matthew Kleine and his family's home.
It seems at first like a harmless holiday gift. However,

(46:25):
there's no tag and no sender. Inside lies an antique
wooden advent calendar with strange engravings and twenty four doors
that each shelter something dark and unspeakable. The line between
reality and nightmare quickly becomes blurred as Matthew races to
figure out the calendar's origin and who scent it. But

(46:48):
as each door is opened and Marshport is thrust into
a sinister nightmare, Matthew realizes the terrifying truth and is
forced to relive the horrors from his past that fuse
to stay buried. The countdown has begun, and once that
first door is opened, there is no turning back. We're

(47:10):
Darkness Presents Advent of Evil, a twenty four episode audio
saga beginning December First. Listen each day for a new
chapter through Christmas Eve, and if you'd like to follow
the story in print. The full novel is now available
in paperback and hardcover editions, as well as on Kindle.
Grab the novel now for yourself or for someone else

(47:32):
and be ready to follow along. December first, and for
a limited time only, you can also grab an Advent
of Evil gift back, including a signed copy of the
novel by the author Scott Donnelly, wrapped up with an
Advent of Evil bookmark, pen, highlighter, hot chocolate, Chai, Tea chocolates,
a candy cane, and some horror stickers. The gift back

(47:53):
is in limited supply, so act fast if you want
to take advantage of it. You can find links to
purchase the book or the gift back at Weird Darkness
dot com, slash Advent of Evil. That's Weird Darkness dot
com slash Advent of Evil, and then be ready as
the first episode comes your way.

Speaker 23 (48:11):
December first, murder by Experts.

Speaker 24 (48:45):
The Mutual Broadcasting System presents Murder by Experts with your
host and narrator, mister John Dixon Carr, world famous mystery
novelist and author of the recently published bestseller The Life
of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Speaker 25 (49:00):
This is John Dixon Carr. Each week at this time,
murder By Experts brings you a story of crime and
mystery which has been chosen for your approval by one
of the world's leading detective writers, those experts who are
themselves masters the art of murder and can hold tensity
at its highest. This time, our guest expert is the

(49:23):
noted mystery novelist Kelly Rouse. From the innumerable fullers he
has read and enjoyed, mister Ruse has chosen a story
by Robert Foster. To quote mister Ruse, the story is
a fascinating study of an ambitious and corrupt man venturing
into the unknown and being caught in a whirlpool of

(49:47):
violence and death. And now we present Carl Weber in
two coffins.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
To fill.

Speaker 6 (50:05):
The scene.

Speaker 25 (50:06):
Nicks Place, a popular roadhouse on the West Coast. It's
early evening and the dimly lit cocktail lounge is empty
save for the bartender and a couple in a corner booth.

Speaker 9 (50:23):
Roger, we can't go on like this.

Speaker 26 (50:26):
Why not, Darling.

Speaker 27 (50:27):
I'm tired of meeting you at discreet places, of seeing
you only when you can get away from your wife.

Speaker 26 (50:32):
You just have to be patient, even patient.

Speaker 9 (50:35):
It's already a year. How long do you think I'll
go on waiting for you?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
What would you have me do?

Speaker 9 (50:40):
Leave her? Forget about the money. We can get along
on what?

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (50:45):
No, what do you think you'll get from her?

Speaker 26 (50:47):
I have plans. It'll take time, but I'm very patient.

Speaker 9 (50:51):
Well, I'm not. I can't go on waiting, Roger. I won't.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 6 (50:58):
I have a drink.

Speaker 9 (50:59):
Nothing fix you, does it? Roger? War, famine or love?
You're a man with only one weakness. Money.

Speaker 26 (51:05):
Why is it that women can never break off without
creating a scene?

Speaker 9 (51:08):
Why are you arrogant?

Speaker 27 (51:11):
What a fool I've been? All right, Roger, I'll break
off without creating a scene.

Speaker 13 (51:18):
Goodbye, Roger.

Speaker 26 (51:21):
I'll have another Steve and put a dash of bitterers
in it. Hello, Thuddon.

Speaker 28 (51:26):
Your friend left in a hurry. You're quite observant, An,
I'm a student of human nature. Nick's having a game
in the bank tonight. Interested a game booker? Yes, since
my dates walked out on me, I'll play a few hands.
Tell me I'll be there. It's amazing how one small

(51:53):
weakness can disrupt an otherwise orderly and well thought out plan.
My wife, Prita's first husband left the manufacturing plant and
holdings amounting to something like four million. That's a comfortable
sum of money. And I'm a man who likes comfort,
or I wouldn't have married Freida. She was forty and
tired and no bargain special in the marriage market. But

(52:15):
I had plans, plans that didn't include murder.

Speaker 29 (52:20):
Not then.

Speaker 28 (52:22):
I was a patient man, patient until a weakness occurred
and I spent the night playing cards in the back
room at Nick's place. That night cost me thirty thousand dollars,
all on my signature. Perhaps that's why Nick's gun happy.
Frand al So insisted. A couple of weeks later, I
was sitting at the bar in Nick's.

Speaker 6 (52:43):
Hurdle.

Speaker 26 (52:44):
Yes, you're busy. That depends. Nick wants to see you
in his office. Wants to see me about what I
didn't ask him. I'll tell him.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
I'll drop back after I finished his drink.

Speaker 26 (52:57):
Make it now what I certain I'll thought?

Speaker 28 (53:01):
All right, all right, let's have it your way.

Speaker 26 (53:11):
Hello Roger, Good evening. Nick sit down.

Speaker 28 (53:15):
Before I said down, let's have an understanding. I don't
like the idea of your man here pushing me around
with a gun.

Speaker 26 (53:21):
A gun.

Speaker 30 (53:22):
I kept it covered, Nick, and we don't want any trouble.
Now nobody's seen me, don't mind al Roger. He takes
his work seriously.

Speaker 26 (53:29):
Perhaps someone will take him seriously someday. I was a
good boy for a price, right, Al that's right. I'm
not interested in the merits of your bodyguard.

Speaker 30 (53:40):
Sit down, Roger. You're getting right in the face. Al
makes us a drink, will you sEH?

Speaker 6 (53:46):
Nick?

Speaker 26 (53:46):
Coming up, Roger? What about that thirty grand?

Speaker 1 (53:53):
You will mean?

Speaker 26 (53:54):
I'll pay you when I get it. That's a poor.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Bed, Roger.

Speaker 26 (53:58):
I've been checking on you. What do you mean checking
on me? You're a punk. That wife of yours has
got all the dough. You haven't got a dime. My
personal affairs don't concern you.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Nick.

Speaker 30 (54:08):
I'm a right guy. I've never given a right guy
a bum break yet about that, Al, that's right. I'm
a gambler, Roger. When I lose, I pay off when
I win. I aim to collect.

Speaker 28 (54:23):
Before you start laying down the law, Nick, that happens
to be an uncollectible.

Speaker 30 (54:27):
Dann, Yeah, yeah, I got a lawyer too. When you
say uncollectible, Roger, you want to figure all the angles?

Speaker 1 (54:35):
What angles?

Speaker 6 (54:37):
Well?

Speaker 30 (54:37):
What do you figure this guy's worth about thirty grand?
Which way?

Speaker 26 (54:42):
Either way? What are you talking about? What do you
mean either way? Tell him an sitting up for lying down.
Now see see here, Nick, I.

Speaker 30 (54:52):
Can see Roger, and I want you to see me
tomorrow with thirty grand I said i'd.

Speaker 26 (54:57):
Pay you tomorrow. I don't know if I can get
That's so. I don't like.

Speaker 30 (55:01):
Punks like you, Roger. You're crummy. With all that door
you're tied up to, you're still crummy.

Speaker 26 (55:07):
I'll I'll do the best I can.

Speaker 30 (55:10):
When I said tomorrow, Roger, I wasn't kidding, was I?

Speaker 26 (55:15):
You sure wasn't.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Nick.

Speaker 28 (55:21):
I didn't like Nick calling me crummy. Whatever I was,
I wasn't nixt kind of tramp. I was furious with
myself becoming so stupidly involved with him in that card game.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
And Frida.

Speaker 28 (55:32):
Frida had me tied down as if I were a child,
making me account for every nickol.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
If I'd had her, then I.

Speaker 28 (55:38):
I could have killed her. I'd have to have a
talk with Frida. When I got home, she was in
the library. You're late, Roger.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
I stopped for a drink.

Speaker 31 (55:48):
Won't you have your cocktails here at home?

Speaker 1 (55:50):
You said you were going to the doctors.

Speaker 31 (55:52):
I did go.

Speaker 26 (55:53):
I thought you'd be late, not this late. Is this
going to be another session?

Speaker 29 (55:57):
Frieda.

Speaker 31 (55:57):
No, no, it's not going to be another Roger. We're
growing apart on Oh now, please, Roger.

Speaker 26 (56:06):
You stopped treating me like a child. Do you know
what someone called me today?

Speaker 6 (56:10):
Do you Freedo?

Speaker 32 (56:11):
No?

Speaker 26 (56:11):
Crummy?

Speaker 28 (56:12):
He called me crummy because I'm well, because I'm tied
to your aprons. Now, how do you think I felt
vice president? I signed my name to half a dozen
letters and that makes me a vice president.

Speaker 20 (56:23):
I'm sick of it.

Speaker 26 (56:24):
I'm sorry, You're sorry. Did you marry me so you
could push a button and have me come running?

Speaker 31 (56:29):
Now? Don't be absurd, Roger.

Speaker 26 (56:31):
Why am I put yourself in my place?

Speaker 31 (56:33):
I have put myself in your place tonight while I
was waiting for you.

Speaker 29 (56:37):
What do you mean, Freda?

Speaker 31 (56:38):
Well, I thought it'd be nice if we could spend
the weekend at the lodge the mountain. Yes, Roger, why,
oh we could we could talk things over?

Speaker 26 (56:47):
Why can't we talk it over now?

Speaker 31 (56:48):
Oh, weekend vacation together would be nice.

Speaker 28 (56:51):
Oh then you didn't have anything to talk over. It's
only a ruse to get me up to the lock.

Speaker 31 (56:56):
No, no, no, it wasn't a roose. You've been wanting
to handle the advertising for the plant. I wanted to
surprise you.

Speaker 28 (57:05):
You mean you're you're turning the advertising over to me? Yes,
I'll control the whole department and everything everything.

Speaker 26 (57:12):
Why, Why that's wonderful, darling. Of course it's a surprise,
a charming surprise.

Speaker 31 (57:18):
Does it make you happy?

Speaker 26 (57:19):
Right, of course it does. I have something to do
or something I can sing my teeth into it.

Speaker 33 (57:24):
Then will you go up to the lodge for the weekend?

Speaker 26 (57:26):
Well, why don't you run up by yourself this time?

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Frida?

Speaker 28 (57:31):
You need the rest, you know, and I have something
important to tend to. I wanted you to go, of
course you did, dear, but er next time, Freda, next time,
I promise you. Frida's act was more considerate than she realized.

(57:52):
Having access to some funds, I could pay Nick right
off to advertising. For a moment, I felt almost kindly
toward Frida. But then, as I stared at her long
and hard, wondering if I could care for her even remotely,
my thoughts were revolted. I hated her for condescending to
place me in charge of the advertising department. I knew

(58:13):
I can no longer tolerate her standing in the way
of everything I was waiting for Not until the next
day did I conceived the plan. I was ready when
Nick's bodyguard Al came into my office. Nick sent me over.
I didn't think it was a social call. I don't
like jokes. You're very business like, aren't you.

Speaker 26 (58:35):
Well, I work for a living. When you work, you
work hard, and when you play, you you play hard?

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Is that right?

Speaker 34 (58:41):
Out?

Speaker 6 (58:41):
That's right?

Speaker 28 (58:43):
And could you use, say, five thousand to play with?
I don't like chiselers. Chiselers, you hurt me.

Speaker 26 (58:52):
Oh you think I'm trying to buy you off because
of the money I owe Nick? What am I supposed
to think? I see? Well, yes, a check for Nick?

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Do you think? No?

Speaker 26 (59:03):
Thirty grand? How do I know this is good?

Speaker 28 (59:07):
You're smarter than that. Al Okay, okay, what's on? What's
five thousand worth?

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Do you well?

Speaker 26 (59:16):
Could be worth anything?

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Maybe?

Speaker 26 (59:19):
Maybe Nick doesn't come in on this.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
No, no, no, this is just between us.

Speaker 6 (59:26):
How hard is it it?

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Maybe a bit a bit difficult?

Speaker 26 (59:31):
But ten grand?

Speaker 1 (59:32):
I might see ten thousand?

Speaker 6 (59:35):
He said, yes?

Speaker 26 (59:35):
Or is it no?

Speaker 6 (59:36):
Well?

Speaker 26 (59:36):
I I don't know yet.

Speaker 28 (59:38):
All I I'll give you a ring tomorrow at Nick's
I have to make some arrangements.

Speaker 26 (59:54):
Freida. Yes, Roger, are you still planning to go to
the mountains for the weekend?

Speaker 9 (59:58):
No, not without.

Speaker 28 (01:00:00):
Well, I've been thinking you do need to rest, you know.
Oh I can rest just as well right here.

Speaker 26 (01:00:05):
Yes, yes, I realized that. But well I thought I
might come up to the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Lodge with you.

Speaker 31 (01:00:10):
Oh, Roger, do you really mean it?

Speaker 26 (01:00:12):
Of course, dear.

Speaker 31 (01:00:13):
Oh, I'm so glad you decided to.

Speaker 20 (01:00:15):
Go with me.

Speaker 28 (01:00:16):
Oh, there's just one just one thing, Freda. Yes, I
won't be able to come up until later Saturday evening.

Speaker 31 (01:00:21):
Oh, I don't mind driving up late.

Speaker 28 (01:00:23):
You don't understand, Freda, I expect you to drive up early. Why, Roger,
you can check over the repair work that needs to
be done on the lot.

Speaker 31 (01:00:31):
Repair work.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yes.

Speaker 28 (01:00:32):
I ran into an old friend of mine today, Freda
carpenter Al Graves. He's well, he's a bit down on
his luck, and you know, the lodge could stand some work.

Speaker 31 (01:00:40):
Oh that's perfectly all right with me, Roger. But must
I go up early?

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Hell?

Speaker 26 (01:00:45):
We don't want him hanging around, do we No? No,
of course, not good.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Good.

Speaker 28 (01:00:50):
Then I'll ride up with Al. Now, when we get there,
we can discuss the repairs. He'll look things over and
then he'll drive on back in his own car.

Speaker 31 (01:00:56):
And you want me to go up early so I
can make a list of the things to be done.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Yes, yes, that's it.

Speaker 26 (01:01:01):
Do you mind about the carpenter on?

Speaker 31 (01:01:03):
Of course I don't mind, Roger. I'm just so happy
that you want to go.

Speaker 28 (01:01:19):
Thanks for the drink, thought you You haven't answer my
question now I'm thinking, thinking, what murder's quite a rap?
Had your proposition? If you want to forget it? I
didn't say that, then they'll do it. Where's the payoff?

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Thousand h nine thousand Saturday night?

Speaker 28 (01:01:40):
You want it done about nine o'clock, just so it
happens before I get there and I get a ride
back with you. Yes, yes, maybe you're trying to pull
something like the coups. I couldn't risk bring the police in.
You're smart enough, all that.

Speaker 26 (01:01:53):
Smarter than you think?

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Thought?

Speaker 26 (01:01:55):
All right now, now it has to look like a
struggle and robbery. Leave that to me. Is everything okay
with her wife? For me to ride her up there?

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
It will be.

Speaker 26 (01:02:05):
Saturday morning.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
The Thornton residence.

Speaker 26 (01:02:30):
Oh, Charles, this says mister Thornton.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Oh, good morning, sir. May I speak to missus Thornton.
Very well, sir, she's out here, Sir.

Speaker 12 (01:02:40):
Roger.

Speaker 26 (01:02:40):
Oh, I was afraid you might have left for the
lodge already.

Speaker 18 (01:02:42):
No, no, not for an hour yet.

Speaker 26 (01:02:44):
Afrida, I wonder if you'd mind doing something?

Speaker 18 (01:02:47):
What is it?

Speaker 28 (01:02:48):
Al Graves, the carpenter who is going to drive me up?
His car is broken down. It's in the garage. Would
you mind terribly taking Al up with you?

Speaker 18 (01:02:56):
Oh, Roger?

Speaker 26 (01:02:57):
Really, he could look over the repairs himself that way.

Speaker 18 (01:03:00):
Well, when will you come up?

Speaker 28 (01:03:01):
As soon as I'm finished working at the office. I'm
working on the new advertising program.

Speaker 31 (01:03:05):
Well, I suppose I could have Richard take Al and
myself up in.

Speaker 26 (01:03:08):
The Sedand oh, you don't have to bother Richard? Why
not take your convertible?

Speaker 18 (01:03:13):
Oh couldn't we have that car fin to come up
some other time?

Speaker 28 (01:03:16):
All right, all right, let's just forget the whole thing
for you. If you wish, you can go on up alone. Now, Roger,
you know things must always go your way.

Speaker 18 (01:03:24):
Well, will you drive up in your car?

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Yes?

Speaker 26 (01:03:28):
Al can use it to return to towny.

Speaker 18 (01:03:29):
Well, all right, where'll I pick him up?

Speaker 26 (01:03:33):
On the corner of Hawthorne and Orange.

Speaker 18 (01:03:35):
Hawthorn and orange.

Speaker 26 (01:03:36):
Yes, I'll tell him to watch for the convertible.

Speaker 31 (01:03:38):
All right, Roger, I'll see you at the lodge tonight, Darling.

Speaker 28 (01:03:48):
Things for the past few days had moved so amazingly
fast and remarkably well, that I had little time to
reflect upon my emotions. Freda's surprising agreement to my wishes,
I knew was merely a new attack and attempt to
draw me.

Speaker 26 (01:04:01):
Closer to her.

Speaker 28 (01:04:03):
Yet as I drove through the lane to the lodge
in the evening, I had an unaccountable fear. The wind
whined through the trees and the earies sound disturbed me.

Speaker 6 (01:04:16):
I parked the.

Speaker 28 (01:04:18):
Car and sat for a few moments, watching the lights
in the lodge. It was ten o'clock. Alf should have
been finished long ago. I got out of the car, walked.

Speaker 26 (01:04:28):
To the veranda and opened the door.

Speaker 28 (01:04:34):
You finally got here, Yes, well, I said, Look you satisfied,
I said, to make it look like a struggle, donet.
I guess it's all right if you got the dough.
Where is she in the bedroom? Go ahead and take

(01:04:55):
a look.

Speaker 6 (01:04:56):
Turn on a light.

Speaker 28 (01:04:56):
No, no, I can see, so that's fine. Thoughting she's
she's partly under the bed.

Speaker 26 (01:05:06):
She got scared. She tried to hide. I had to
follow shut the door, and I just had to shut
the door. You're a funny guy.

Speaker 28 (01:05:18):
Why you figure all this out and can't stomach your
own stuff. Let's sit down, have to drink. Sure you've
got the door, Yes, it's sure. There should be some
glasses here on that shelf. I say, I'll fix the drinks.
When I get that drink, we're gonna blow.

Speaker 26 (01:05:42):
Where's her car garage? Wanna see it?

Speaker 35 (01:05:46):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Here?

Speaker 6 (01:05:49):
You are?

Speaker 26 (01:05:51):
You needed worse than I do?

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Thinking?

Speaker 26 (01:05:53):
But where do you go from here? I'll the trip?

Speaker 28 (01:05:56):
Maybe you have nothing to worry about for me that
I know, Thoughton?

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
How was it? How was it done? Gun? Did you
leave it?

Speaker 26 (01:06:09):
I'll get rid of it?

Speaker 28 (01:06:11):
Well, here's to you, al Yeah, all right, thoughting, Now
let's have the dough.

Speaker 26 (01:06:22):
I certainly said.

Speaker 6 (01:06:22):
I've I've got it right here.

Speaker 26 (01:06:24):
You know I've been thinking about you, Thoughton. I think
Nick's right. You're crummy.

Speaker 28 (01:06:30):
Oh now you shouldn't feel that way. All I had
to do it over? You won't say I'm sick?

Speaker 26 (01:06:39):
What'd you putting that drake?

Speaker 6 (01:06:40):
By? Nothing?

Speaker 33 (01:06:41):
All?

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
You?

Speaker 26 (01:06:43):
You double crossing? I'll kill you?

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Well?

Speaker 6 (01:06:48):
Will you? All?

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
I poured some of the liquorn awl and dipped the
bottle over.

Speaker 28 (01:07:00):
Then I carried him out of the lodge, across the
carpet of pine needles, with the bluffe hundred yards away.

Speaker 26 (01:07:05):
I placed one of Frieda's expensive bracelets in his pocket.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
And almost some money and articles of lesser value.

Speaker 28 (01:07:11):
I dropped him over the bluff and heard his body
strike the rocky stream bed three hundred feet below.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
I went quickly to my car and drove away.

Speaker 28 (01:07:25):
I drove rapidly for an hour till I passed all
Night diner, and I wheeled the car round in the highway,
pointing it back in the direction i'd come, and I
ran the car into a ditch hard. The front fender
crumpled against the wheel, and the tire blew out. I
couldn't have wished anything better. This was it, my alibi.
I walked a mile up the road to the diner.

(01:07:46):
As I opened the door, a car pulled up. When
I entered the cafe, a girl got out of the
car and followed me in.

Speaker 26 (01:07:56):
Well it bee, folks, coffee, Please you mister coffee? Say?

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Is there a tow truck around?

Speaker 26 (01:08:02):
Tow truck?

Speaker 28 (01:08:03):
I blew out a tire and went into the ditch
about a mile down the road. And Jim Parson has
tow truck and him and the missus went into LA.
Won't be back till monday. Here you are, miss mind?
Wreck your car?

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Bad?

Speaker 26 (01:08:15):
Smash the wheel? I don't have a spare. Oh that's
too bad.

Speaker 28 (01:08:18):
Going far my lodge about fifty miles up the Thornton Place,
Roger Thornton.

Speaker 26 (01:08:23):
Maybe you know it Thornton. No, can't say I do.
My wife's there, but I'm sure she's all right.

Speaker 28 (01:08:31):
You don't stand much of a chance of getting a
ride going that way this time and night, I suppose not.

Speaker 26 (01:08:37):
If he was a phone there reverse the charges.

Speaker 6 (01:08:39):
I don't know.

Speaker 26 (01:08:39):
The phone's disconnected up at the lodge.

Speaker 28 (01:08:42):
You might be able to hitch the la once in
a while, there's a car going that way.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
That's an idea.

Speaker 26 (01:08:48):
Anything else for you?

Speaker 6 (01:08:49):
Miss No?

Speaker 9 (01:08:49):
Thanks? How much?

Speaker 26 (01:08:51):
Ten cents?

Speaker 19 (01:08:52):
Thank you?

Speaker 6 (01:08:53):
Night night, I reckon.

Speaker 28 (01:08:58):
The young lady didn't want to passon you, so it
seems say, I think I will use your phone hope self.

Speaker 6 (01:09:12):
Have you got that straight?

Speaker 18 (01:09:13):
Charles, Yes, sir, I'm to call the auto club have.

Speaker 26 (01:09:16):
Them pick up your car.

Speaker 28 (01:09:18):
It's quite a way to the lodge, so I'm going
to try to get a ride back to town, will you.

Speaker 26 (01:09:22):
I'm perfectly all right.

Speaker 28 (01:09:24):
It may be rather late before I get in, so
leave a light in the library.

Speaker 26 (01:09:27):
Very well, good night, Charles.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Is that an al sir?

Speaker 6 (01:09:32):
Bye?

Speaker 28 (01:09:34):
Yes, yes, that's all very well, sir. Thank you for
the use of the phone.

Speaker 26 (01:09:41):
Oh that's okay, misty. Could you use a drink? I
ain't never been known to turn one down.

Speaker 28 (01:09:47):
I got a bottle in my car. Well, that's quite
a walk. It's nice out, and I could use the
drink myself.

Speaker 26 (01:09:52):
Suit yourself.

Speaker 28 (01:09:53):
You don't mind if I sit around after I get back,
maybe I can pick up a ride.

Speaker 26 (01:09:57):
Glad to have you. I'm opening a whole night. God good,
I'll be right back.

Speaker 15 (01:10:05):
Mister.

Speaker 31 (01:10:06):
Yes, did you say you wanted to ride to La Boy?

Speaker 6 (01:10:10):
Yes?

Speaker 26 (01:10:11):
Yes, if you're going that way hop in? Well, thank
you very much.

Speaker 21 (01:10:20):
I would have asked you in there, but I didn't
want to give the counterman the wrong idea.

Speaker 26 (01:10:24):
Mister Thornton, how did you know my name?

Speaker 21 (01:10:27):
He told the counterman.

Speaker 28 (01:10:29):
Oh, oh, of course, I was just going to get
a bottle out of my car.

Speaker 21 (01:10:35):
I already got it?

Speaker 6 (01:10:37):
You've got it?

Speaker 21 (01:10:38):
Sure, nice car, thirsty girl. I had a hunch.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
How long were you with the car?

Speaker 21 (01:10:44):
Long enough to find the bottle and see your name
on the steering post?

Speaker 26 (01:10:48):
I thought you heard me tell a counterman?

Speaker 9 (01:10:50):
I did so. Then I knew you was a gentleman.

Speaker 28 (01:10:54):
Have you you drunk much of that bottle enough? He
shouldn't be driving if you've been drinking too much?

Speaker 36 (01:11:02):
Scared?

Speaker 26 (01:11:02):
Hold No, it h's for your own good.

Speaker 21 (01:11:04):
I'm celebraton.

Speaker 26 (01:11:05):
I might have waited till you got in Los Angeles.

Speaker 27 (01:11:08):
Mister Thornton. Yes, why'd you turn your car around and
run it into that ditch?

Speaker 21 (01:11:13):
What I know all about you? Mister Thornton?

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
Who are you?

Speaker 26 (01:11:18):
What's your name?

Speaker 9 (01:11:20):
Fella?

Speaker 6 (01:11:21):
Nolla?

Speaker 21 (01:11:21):
What just fella?

Speaker 12 (01:11:24):
Look?

Speaker 26 (01:11:26):
Why were you nearly turn it over?

Speaker 34 (01:11:28):
Either?

Speaker 26 (01:11:28):
Stop this car and let me drive her?

Speaker 21 (01:11:30):
Oh what, mister Thornton?

Speaker 26 (01:11:31):
Stop this car.

Speaker 21 (01:11:32):
When we get to.

Speaker 33 (01:11:33):
Nick's, did you.

Speaker 20 (01:11:37):
Did you say.

Speaker 21 (01:11:38):
Nix, I'm Al's girlfriend?

Speaker 26 (01:11:42):
No?

Speaker 21 (01:11:42):
Didn't you think y'all could have a girlfriend?

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Why did you pick me up?

Speaker 27 (01:11:47):
Because I'm not half as tight as you think I am.

Speaker 26 (01:11:50):
What do you want?

Speaker 27 (01:11:52):
I was a punk, a nice punk, But punk's come cheap,
mister Thornton, I want that nine thousand dollars.

Speaker 26 (01:11:58):
Do you think I carry that kind of money around?

Speaker 21 (01:11:59):
And did you think I was stupid enough not to
have somebody cover him at the lodge?

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
You here?

Speaker 12 (01:12:03):
You you saw it?

Speaker 21 (01:12:05):
Yes, I was there and I saw it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
You're a very.

Speaker 26 (01:12:09):
Brave girl, ella threatening me.

Speaker 9 (01:12:11):
I don't scare easy. I know your card you.

Speaker 21 (01:12:14):
This is a gun, mister Thorne, and I'm not afraid.

Speaker 9 (01:12:17):
To use it.

Speaker 26 (01:12:17):
You're a very stupid child.

Speaker 21 (01:12:19):
Do you try anything, I'll wreck this car.

Speaker 37 (01:12:22):
What's that curve?

Speaker 38 (01:12:26):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
Stop the car up till you're stopping? All right? All right,
get out of the car.

Speaker 34 (01:12:40):
Get out.

Speaker 15 (01:12:40):
I'm willing to talk to you.

Speaker 26 (01:12:41):
Get out.

Speaker 9 (01:12:45):
This will be I was over kidding. I wanted to
scare you.

Speaker 7 (01:12:49):
I didn't mean it.

Speaker 39 (01:12:50):
Must type force you.

Speaker 7 (01:12:51):
I won't tell nobody.

Speaker 26 (01:12:53):
My only witness, my only witness.

Speaker 33 (01:12:55):
Please let me tell you.

Speaker 12 (01:12:57):
Let me talk to you.

Speaker 26 (01:12:58):
This will do.

Speaker 12 (01:12:59):
Wait, you've gotta let.

Speaker 22 (01:13:00):
Me explain it.

Speaker 28 (01:13:09):
When the girl told me she'd seen me kill ally,
I went out of my head. I didn't know what
I was doing. I shouldn't have killed her. I'm stupid,
but I couldn't help it couldn't stop. I drove the
girl's car into town and left it on the side street.
I dropped the gun down a sewer and caught a
bus home. It was it was almost daylight. I was

(01:13:29):
tired and sick. It was all over, and it was
all over.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
I unlocked the front door quietly entered the house, my house.

Speaker 26 (01:13:41):
I was too keyed up for sleep, but I needed
it was a bracer, and I went into the library.

Speaker 31 (01:13:48):
Good morning, Roger. Who did you expect?

Speaker 6 (01:13:52):
What are you doing here?

Speaker 31 (01:13:54):
I've been waiting since you telephone. Charles.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
I killed him. I killed them both.

Speaker 38 (01:13:59):
You.

Speaker 31 (01:14:00):
You killed him Hell and the girl.

Speaker 26 (01:14:02):
And you're here, You're right here.

Speaker 40 (01:14:12):
I'm so sorry for you.

Speaker 26 (01:14:14):
If I did, I had Thattman, Al the carpenter.

Speaker 31 (01:14:18):
He told me everything, Rochester.

Speaker 19 (01:14:19):
I had to pay him for you.

Speaker 26 (01:14:21):
You and it was the girl I saw. She was
in the bedroom, pretending to be you, pretending to be dead.

Speaker 6 (01:14:29):
Al famed.

Speaker 26 (01:14:29):
The whole thing is a shakedown. He never intended to
kill you.

Speaker 31 (01:14:32):
Oh, I'm so sorry for you.

Speaker 15 (01:14:33):
You said that, you said that.

Speaker 26 (01:14:35):
Who are you to feel sorry for me?

Speaker 31 (01:14:37):
I'm going to miss you, Roger.

Speaker 26 (01:14:41):
And why did you do something? Why didn't you tell me.

Speaker 19 (01:14:43):
I didn't know.

Speaker 31 (01:14:45):
I stayed home hoping you'd come here and we can
talk things over. Before you did anything rash?

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
You call it rash? Do you know what I've done?

Speaker 26 (01:14:51):
That's why I'm so sorry for you. Say that once more,
once more, Freda.

Speaker 31 (01:14:55):
It was greed, wasn't it, Roger? Greed for my money?

Speaker 6 (01:15:00):
I hate you.

Speaker 41 (01:15:02):
And I love you.

Speaker 31 (01:15:05):
Isn't it strange, Roger? What I wanted to tell you
at the lodge? Roger? Or if I only told you sooner?

Speaker 6 (01:15:14):
Do you do?

Speaker 26 (01:15:14):
What do you mean?

Speaker 35 (01:15:15):
I tell you?

Speaker 31 (01:15:16):
But it's too late now, Roger, You've killed two people
and you'll hang.

Speaker 35 (01:15:23):
I let you.

Speaker 26 (01:15:24):
What are you doing that? Gun?

Speaker 31 (01:15:27):
I haven't any money, Roger, I've been wiped out. That's
what I wanted to tell you.

Speaker 33 (01:15:32):
You needn't have killed them.

Speaker 36 (01:15:37):
No, but I still love you and.

Speaker 37 (01:15:40):
I won't let you hang.

Speaker 31 (01:15:44):
Goodbye, Roger.

Speaker 26 (01:15:59):
And so the curtain falls on two coffins to.

Speaker 25 (01:16:03):
Fill, which was chosen by guest expert Kelly Ross, whose
latest mystery is Murder in Any Language. Next week, at
this time, Murder by Experts brings you a story of
intrigue and surprise of a beautiful Hollywood actress and of
a man who died twice, selected for your approval by

(01:16:25):
the famous mystery novelist Miss Helen mcley. Until then, this
is your host, John Dixon Carr, hoping you'll be with
us next week at this time.

Speaker 24 (01:16:42):
In the cast of two Coffins to fill, which was
written by Robert Foster, were Carl Weber, Eleanor Phelps, Jimmy Stevens,
Mariam Wolfe, and Maurice Starplin. Music was under the direction
of Emerson Buckley and was composed by Richard du Page.
Murder by Experts is pretty Us and directed by Robert A.
Arthur and David Cogan. All characters in our story were fictitious,

(01:17:07):
and any resemblance to the names of actual persons was
purely coincidental. This is Phil talkin' speaking. This is the
mutual broadcasting system, and his tribe is part of him.

(01:17:46):
But of course that that tribe over the hill there,
they're no part of him.

Speaker 42 (01:17:51):
Each step, as we grow larger, we find ourselves are
somewhat larger than we thought.

Speaker 43 (01:18:03):
Look out, Charles, read it work now there it is
a fair ahead where the trees stop the rest of
you all, but will better stay back here now.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
It's a girl at the top of the drive. Hello, Anna,
Oh hush, now, no need to be scared.

Speaker 34 (01:18:26):
Who are you?

Speaker 15 (01:18:26):
Do you know my name?

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Police chief in town told me? What's frightening you? Girl?

Speaker 8 (01:18:31):
Nothing?

Speaker 9 (01:18:32):
I mean, I'm not frightened.

Speaker 7 (01:18:33):
What makes you think I am?

Speaker 31 (01:18:35):
Of course I'm not frightened.

Speaker 15 (01:18:37):
You you startled me.

Speaker 31 (01:18:38):
That's all coming up behind me that way?

Speaker 20 (01:18:41):
What do you want?

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
I've come to look at where the media write fail.

Speaker 44 (01:18:45):
Well, I I don't know you.

Speaker 9 (01:18:46):
You didn't phone from town or right. You could be anybody.

Speaker 31 (01:18:50):
You haven't even told me your name.

Speaker 35 (01:18:52):
It's Ethan, Ethan what and then that enormous dog of
yours does he bite?

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
Just Ethan will do. And he's not a dog, he's
a wolf.

Speaker 43 (01:19:02):
A wash easy now you see you won't hurt Give
me your hands, Oh why should your hands?

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
He's easy now just hold onto my hands. I just
hold on. Look at me, Look up at my eyes.
Are you so afraid? What's frightening you? Look at me? Anna?
You can tell me.

Speaker 9 (01:19:25):
I know, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:19:27):
I'm just so scared.

Speaker 13 (01:19:29):
Oh help me, help me.

Speaker 15 (01:19:31):
Please, mister Langman.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
Oh, he's you all right?

Speaker 15 (01:19:56):
In living, mister Langman.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
This is Ethan.

Speaker 15 (01:19:59):
He's come. You had to look at the meteorite too, Well.

Speaker 11 (01:20:03):
How do you do, mister Ethan?

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
Was it just Ethan? Will do Frank and this is
his wolf?

Speaker 35 (01:20:10):
But he doesn't buy well, I'll have to get supers started.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
So you like.

Speaker 45 (01:20:18):
Animals as well as meteorites, uh, Ethan, I like everything
print Well, now that's a very decent attitude. I wish
I had a little more of the milk of universal
charity in my own breast.

Speaker 11 (01:20:35):
But I'm rather the the saw bachelor type. You're not
a science writer.

Speaker 6 (01:20:41):
No good.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
I can't span them.

Speaker 11 (01:20:45):
They like to play with.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
The facts too much.

Speaker 45 (01:20:48):
Geologist, astronomist, chemist, not in particular.

Speaker 11 (01:20:54):
All right, I'll cease my prying. Care to examine the
area now before dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
I think I would well come along.

Speaker 16 (01:21:04):
Then.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
It's just down the hill from the house.

Speaker 29 (01:21:07):
Here. Ah, that's a.

Speaker 26 (01:21:22):
Large junk of michelin. Then I see you've been excavating
around it.

Speaker 45 (01:21:27):
It went in on a slant higher up on the hill,
which is why it's this close to the surface here,
And I've been keeping it pretty much to myself.

Speaker 11 (01:21:35):
Pure luck, I happened to hear about it.

Speaker 45 (01:21:38):
I just happened to be passing through, and I had
hopes of giving it a good going over my shelf
before anyone else with training came along.

Speaker 43 (01:21:46):
Of course, now you're here, I'm not interested in poaching
on your preserves. Friend, that's boud of you.

Speaker 45 (01:21:53):
You just want to look at opris that it? Of course,
if it is, I sha'n't mind the company a bit. Anna,
poor girl, are still he shaken up from her parents' death,
even after four months.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
They got hit by the meteorite, actually by the Shockly
if it seems fantastic, isn't it not a mark on them?

Speaker 11 (01:22:12):
They were walking up the hill coming back from a
visit to the neighbors. By the way, we'd better be
heading back, shouldn't we. I imagine dinners about ready. Listen
to those birds. I've never heard so many of them
around here before.

Speaker 45 (01:22:31):
Partly even I'm just going to walk in front of
you here and your wolf friends and bring up the rear.

Speaker 11 (01:22:37):
I don't think he likes me.

Speaker 43 (01:22:39):
Pet Star and natural friends aren't pets, you knows, and
I wonder about you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
I wonder about you too, friends.

Speaker 42 (01:23:04):
One of the characteristics of a true savage is that, uh,
while he thinks that he is only what's inside his skin.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
He has the conviction that all the world belongs to him.
It's his just all he has to do is take it.
He hasn't gotten around to it yet.

Speaker 42 (01:23:21):
Now, this philosophy of the true savage has nothing to
do with his intelligence, and it has nothing to do
with his technical ability.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
It has nothing to do with his smartness. It has
to do with his utter lack of wisdom.

Speaker 33 (01:23:42):
Well, no, please, don't hurt them.

Speaker 9 (01:23:48):
Mama, dadhy.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
What's that?

Speaker 22 (01:23:54):
Who's there?

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):
Girl?

Speaker 29 (01:23:57):
It's me?

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
Now, I'll let you go, and don't true scream.

Speaker 22 (01:24:00):
Oh Heathan, I was treating. What are you doing here
in my room?

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
I have to talk to you about the media rife?

Speaker 22 (01:24:07):
Oh no, no, please, I don't know anything about it.

Speaker 13 (01:24:10):
I don't want to talk about it now.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
Now easy, you haven't anything to worry about. I'm right
here with you. Nothing's going to get at you when
I'm along.

Speaker 7 (01:24:18):
Oh Heathan, You.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
Know you're safe with me, don't you? Anna? Now? Look
at me. You feel safe now, don't you?

Speaker 12 (01:24:25):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Yes, yes, Whenever you get scared, you just hang on
to me. You'll be all right again. You promise me that,
I promise?

Speaker 11 (01:24:33):
All right?

Speaker 10 (01:24:34):
Then?

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Now I'll get up and get pressed. We're going to
the media. Che Steady now, steady, careful.

Speaker 43 (01:24:52):
Now, don't get under her people.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Oh you can please hold on to Dinna, give.

Speaker 20 (01:24:57):
Me your hand.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
How do you feel better?

Speaker 31 (01:25:00):
Yes?

Speaker 35 (01:25:01):
A little?

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
All right? Here we are.

Speaker 16 (01:25:05):
What do you want me to do?

Speaker 6 (01:25:07):
You know what to do, don't you, Anna?

Speaker 15 (01:25:10):
I don't, I don't, Please, don't make me.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
We have to, Anna for the good of everybody.

Speaker 43 (01:25:16):
You see, I know a lot already about this, even
the parts you aren't free to tell anyone else about,
even the parts you won't admit to yourself.

Speaker 15 (01:25:26):
Is Nothing's nothing?

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
Yes, there is, Anna. Your folks weren't killed by the
media ride, were they? Anna? And it isn't truly a
media ride at all, is it? Poor Anna? Caught up
in something that isn't your fault at all?

Speaker 43 (01:25:40):
You see, Anna, it can be a meteorite because a
nicolaon chunk that large wouldn't have made such a small
crater on impact.

Speaker 34 (01:25:48):
What did he make you do?

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
Anna?

Speaker 6 (01:25:51):
Old sight to my hand, He's made me bring you
mom and daddy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
And then that's all right? Then now I know? And
now Anna, let's open it up.

Speaker 43 (01:26:01):
No I can't, he told you that you can't, But
you can, can't You. When he took over your mind
and made you bring your folks to him, you became
part of him. You are him, and that's what is
hurting you. So, isn't it, Anna?

Speaker 17 (01:26:14):
Oh?

Speaker 15 (01:26:15):
You always always?

Speaker 7 (01:26:16):
I take it away from it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
But I cut you loose, don't I? When you hold
my hand, he can't see.

Speaker 43 (01:26:21):
Through your eyes anymore, or hear through your ears or
feel through your fingers.

Speaker 7 (01:26:25):
Please don't let go.

Speaker 6 (01:26:27):
I won't.

Speaker 43 (01:26:28):
Now we have to open up this media, write this
ship so I can get inside and wreck it so
he can't take off again. We have to hurry on
it because he misses you even in his sleep, and
he can't feel you in his mind.

Speaker 6 (01:26:40):
Now try it all.

Speaker 21 (01:26:43):
You hold one hand and I can reach it with
the other like this, and winch in.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
And turn the thing. It's open enough to let me in.

Speaker 46 (01:26:55):
Now, run, Anna, run quick, We'll go with it and
see that, you say all the way, Ana to the
nearest neighbor.

Speaker 47 (01:27:02):
Run run, Oh, h Hannah, Hannah, what are you doing?

Speaker 26 (01:27:25):
Where are you going?

Speaker 11 (01:27:26):
Anna?

Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
Comercia?

Speaker 47 (01:27:28):
Honah, Joe, I'm.

Speaker 12 (01:27:39):
Not let me in?

Speaker 7 (01:27:41):
Oh wake God, we please?

Speaker 29 (01:27:43):
Is Hannah?

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Let me in.

Speaker 7 (01:27:45):
Let me quick, please let me in, won't you let me?
And he's coming after me?

Speaker 15 (01:27:50):
Help me, please, help Hannah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
Help me.

Speaker 31 (01:27:59):
I won't come back to you.

Speaker 15 (01:28:02):
Well I won't.

Speaker 7 (01:28:04):
No, I won't come back.

Speaker 15 (01:28:13):
What's that?

Speaker 37 (01:28:14):
Who's out there?

Speaker 6 (01:28:16):
Mama? Look mama on our doorstep.

Speaker 1 (01:28:32):
Child while around two three years old. True, he is
a savage.

Speaker 42 (01:28:37):
You see, just as the human race had to grow
up over tens of thousands of years, so each of
us as an individual has to grow up through all
the stages of being a savage, a barbarian, a tribesman.
That's what your adolescent kids are. They like to run
in tribes and so onto our full adulthood. I a

(01:29:02):
small child is a savage, and.

Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
This we can endure, because, after all, he isn't very powerful.
The problem comes when you have someone who is very
powerful and still are sad.

Speaker 6 (01:29:19):
I guess that does it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
I hate to spoil something as fine as this, but
there's no time, no time. How right you are ethan
turn around?

Speaker 45 (01:29:29):
So there you are now, I very well fixed your
ship for you. Thanks, I'll return the compliment. I fixed
your honor for you. Did you think she could make
herself safe just by putting a little distance between my
mind and hers.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
She was always mine to kill or to keep. It
hurts me to hear that.

Speaker 29 (01:29:48):
I believe it does.

Speaker 45 (01:29:50):
I admit I don't understand you, Ethan. When you first
walked on to this place, I had a minute of
high hopes for you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
You forget friend. I'm just as human as the rest
of them?

Speaker 6 (01:29:59):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
Or do you just wish you were?

Speaker 45 (01:30:03):
You're a freak human, Ethan, a sport, a mutation. You
had to identify yourself with this species because there was
nothing better available like your people. We are more like
you than they are.

Speaker 1 (01:30:15):
You'd go back and bring in more of your kind.

Speaker 11 (01:30:17):
Perhaps this earth would be my property now.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
It's living space is valuable, its continents, it's oceans, Its
rocks and soil are valuable. Even its various life forms
are valuable. Well there you see.

Speaker 45 (01:30:33):
I couldn't let you do that because of this warped
concern of yours for the things that live here.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
The word you want is love?

Speaker 11 (01:30:43):
Why should you love them?

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
Why should I fail to love them?

Speaker 43 (01:30:47):
They love back their love, even of the liftless ones,
who warms me like a fire in the coal woods
at night.

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
You said I was an outcast how wrong, how wrong
you are.

Speaker 45 (01:30:59):
I can't argue with an insane personality. I've given you
your chance.

Speaker 43 (01:31:05):
You don't understand this very element of love that you
don't comprehend.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
That is what will defeat you in the end. You
are insane. No, you will take without paying and kill
without counting, and in the end they'll pull you down.

Speaker 43 (01:31:22):
But when you kill, sooner or later, you'll kill someone
deeply loved. And you kill a thing that's loved, then
look behind you for retribution will be there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:32):
I'm wasting time. No, don't move.

Speaker 11 (01:31:36):
I don't need weapons for the common herd.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
But for you.

Speaker 11 (01:31:41):
Feel honored, you'll have to do better than that.

Speaker 1 (01:31:45):
I bless you.

Speaker 47 (01:31:51):
Try again, Never flog.

Speaker 1 (01:32:04):
That's been a.

Speaker 6 (01:32:06):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
Better get rid of him, Bury him back in among
the trees here. Imagine he'd like that. Yeah, did I

(01:32:33):
say that? Odd?

Speaker 11 (01:32:37):
I can't feel strongly taught him.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
Now he had something, no doubt about it, even training
he might even.

Speaker 11 (01:32:49):
It is a lonely life, this world hunting, and when
you get it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
You want to this will do. Makeular Gray dumpinion and
cover him up, back to the ship and close him
up fairly stuck to salvage o that's just certainly busy tonight.

(01:33:22):
I've never heard it like this before. Where did they
all come from? Why didn't I bring the weapon? These
things having the brains were a fund of mine thought.

Speaker 48 (01:33:36):
Get away from me, get out.

Speaker 20 (01:33:40):
What happened?

Speaker 11 (01:33:42):
Thank god, I'll get back to the ship.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
What was that something?

Speaker 11 (01:33:52):
What did he say? That part about love?

Speaker 10 (01:33:55):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
What? What was it?

Speaker 11 (01:33:57):
If you kill something that's love, then.

Speaker 1 (01:34:02):
Behind you, behind me.

Speaker 29 (01:34:06):
No, Ethan was not a savage.

Speaker 42 (01:34:37):
He'd grown considerably bigger than that, and he was quite
aware that he extended far beyond his skin.

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
Now you know, if you step on a man's toe,
it isn't his toe that slugs you. I stepping on
Ethan was far less than sufficient to stop all of Ethan.

Speaker 47 (01:35:08):
And now wait, wait, fall a voice.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
This is Gardine. I come to you from out of darkness,
into a single point.

Speaker 49 (01:35:21):
Of light, from out of the darkness that walks past

(01:35:47):
this turn at midnight and enters the lonely road to dawn.
From this deep darkness, the mind accepts a single part
of concentration.

Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
The senses are sharpened to it. All else is blacked down,
and from.

Speaker 16 (01:36:09):
Any floating form or shifting shape, the midnight mind will
see faces in the window.

Speaker 1 (01:36:23):
The face you see before you is the face of
a man about to die. Yet, for this wildest of
narratives which I am about to tell you, I neither
expect nor solicit belief, Mad Indeed, I would be to
expect it in the case where my very senses reject
their own evidence. Yet, mad mad eye, am not, and

(01:36:48):
very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die,
and to night I would unburden to you, my soul.
My immediate purpose is to place before the world, simply
and without comment, a series of mere household events. In
their consequences. These events are terrified and tortured, have destroyed me.

(01:37:14):
Yet I will not attempt to elaborate upon them. To me,
they have presented nothing but horror, terrible, total horror. My infancy,
I was noted for the humanity of my disposition. My
tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make

(01:37:35):
me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond
of animals, and so with a great variety of pets,
and with these, with these I spent most of my time,
and never was so happy as when I was feeding
and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth,
and in my manhood I derived from it one of

(01:37:57):
my principal sources of pleasure. There is something in the
unselfish and self sacrificing love of a brute which goes
directly to the heart of him who is at frequent
occasion to test the paltry friendship and the fickle trusts
of mere man. I married early and was happy to

(01:38:20):
find in my wife a disposition compatible with my own.
Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity
of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, goldfish,
a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey.

Speaker 35 (01:38:37):
And.

Speaker 1 (01:38:39):
A cat. Yes, this cat was a remarkably large and
beautiful animal, entirely black, and wise wise to an astonishing degree.
In speaking of his intelligence, my wife made frequent allusions
to the ancient but popular notion which guarded all black

(01:39:01):
cats as witches in the sky, not that she was
ever serious upon this point. I mention it now because
at the moment it happens to be remembered. Pluto. This
was the cat's name. Pluto was my favorite pet and playmate.
I alone led him, and he attended me wherever I went,

(01:39:26):
all over the house. It was even with difficulty that
I could prevent him from following me through the streets.
Our frenchip rested for several years, during which my general temperament,
under the influence of the fiend in temperance, experienced a
radical change for the worse. I grew day by day

(01:39:47):
more moody, more irritable man regardless and fears of this,
my wife began to suffer the use of my foul tongue,
and at length even even personal violence. My pets, of course,
were made to feel a change in my disposition. I

(01:40:08):
not only neglected, but ill used them. For Pluto, however,
I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from abusing him.
But my disease grew upon me. For what disease is
like alcohol. At length, even Pluto, who was now becoming

(01:40:29):
old and consequently somewhat peevish, even Pluto began to experience
the effects of my ill temper One night, One night,
I returned home, steeped in intoxication, and fancied that the
cat avoided my presence. I seized him, when, in his

(01:40:50):
fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound on
my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon
instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer I A
fiendish malevolence came over me, throbbed through me. I I
took a penknife from my pocket, opened it and grasped

(01:41:11):
the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one
of its eyes from the socket brush. I burned and
shuddered the mere mention of this damnable atrocity. When reason

(01:41:32):
returned with morning, I experienced to send it an half
of horror, half of remorse of a crime which I
had been guilty of. But it was at best a
feeble feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged
into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of

(01:41:53):
my foulty mean I'm The cat slowly recovered the so
that the loss I have presented it is true a
frightful appearance, But no longer did he seem to suffer pain.
Let about the house as usual, but as might be expected,
fled in terror of my approach. I was at first

(01:42:14):
grieved at this evident dislike on the part of a
creature which had had once loved me. But this feeling,
this feeling soon gave place to irritation, and then came,
as if to predict my final zoom, the spirit of perverseness, This,

(01:42:34):
I am sure is one of the primitive impulses of
the human heart. Who is not a hundred times found
himself committing a vile or stupid action for no other
reason than because he knows he should not have. We
not a perpetual inclination in the teeth of our best
judgment to violate that which is law, merely because we

(01:42:57):
understand it to be such. This hear it of perverseness,
I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this
unfathomable longing of the soul to offer violence to its
own nature, to do wrong for the wrong's sake, only
that urged me to continue and to finally consummate the

(01:43:19):
injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning,
in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck
and hung it from the rim of a tree. Hung
it with the tears streaming from my eyes and with
the bitterest remorse in my heart, hung it because I
knew that it had loved me, and because I felt

(01:43:41):
it had given me no reason for a face hung
it because I knew that in so doing I was
committing a sin, a deadly sin. It would so jeopardize
my immortal soul as to place it, if such a
thing are possible, even beyond the reach of the infinite
mercy of the most merciful, the most terrible God. On

(01:44:08):
the night of the day on which this most cruel
deed was done, I was aroused in my sleep by
the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were aflame,
the whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty
that my wife and I made our escape from the congregation.
The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up,

(01:44:29):
and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair. I am not
trying to establish a sequence of cause and effect between
the aprocity and the fire. I am detailing a chain
of facts. But on the day following the fire, I
visited the ruin the walls with one exception, had fallen

(01:44:52):
in the wall against which rested the head of my
bed still stood. The plastering on this wall had in
great measure resisted the action of the fire. A fact
which I attributed to it having been recently spread about
this wall. A dense crowd were collected, and many persons

(01:45:13):
seemed to be examining the wall with tense excitement. I
approached and saw, as if graven in bar relief, on
the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The
impression was given with an actressy truly marvelous. There was

(01:45:37):
a rope about the animal's neck. When I first beheld
this apparition, where I could scarcely regard it as less
My terror was extreme. But at length I remembered. I
remembered that the cat had been hung in a garden
adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of the fire,
this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd by

(01:45:58):
some one of whom the animal must had been cut
from the tree and throne thrones through an open window
into my chamber, with a view of arousing me from
my sleep the falling, while the walls had compressed the
victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly
spread plaster, the lime of which, with the flames and

(01:46:18):
the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished this This
weird portrt. My reason was satisfied, but not my conscious.
Months months I could not rid myself of the apparition
of the cat, and again I felt that half resentment

(01:46:39):
of remorse. I even began to search for another pet
of the same species and somewhat similar appearance with which
to supply its place. And so it was that one night,
as I sat as Stupi fight in a den of
more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some
black object reposing upon the head of one one of

(01:47:00):
the immense hogsheads of Gin. I had been looking steadily
at the top of his hogshead for some minutes, and
was surprised that I hadn't noticed it. Sooner I approached
it and touched it with my hand. It was a
black cat, a very large one, fully as large as Pluto,
and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto

(01:47:25):
had not a white hair upon any portion of his body.
But this cat had a large, although indefinable splotch of
light covering nearly the entire region of the chests. So
upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred, loudly, rubbed

(01:47:45):
against my hand, and appeared delighted, delighted with my attention,
This then was the very creature of which I was
in search. I continued my caress. When I prepared to
go home, the animal indicated a disposition to accompany me.
I permitted it to do so. When it reached the house,

(01:48:05):
it domesticated itself at once and became immediately a great
favorite with my wife. But soon, very soon, I found
a dislike to it arising within me. I had not anticipated,
but I know now why, and I don't know why.

(01:48:26):
Its funness for me disgusted and annoyed me. By slow degrees,
these feelings rose into bitterness, the bitterness of patrech. I
remembered my crime, and I forced myself not to strike it.
But gradually, very gradually, I came to look upon it
with an unmufferable loathing, and to flee silently from its

(01:48:48):
odious presence. But added no doubt to my hatred of
the beast with the discovery on the morning after I
brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been
deprived before of its eye. With my aversion to the cat, however,
its partiality for me seemed to increase. Whenever I sat,

(01:49:12):
it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees,
covering me with its loathes and caresses. If I arose
to walk, it would get between my feet, fastening its
sharp claws in my clothing, clambered to my breast. At
such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow,
I was withheld from so doing, partly by a memory

(01:49:33):
of my former crime. But chiefly, yes, let me convis
it at once, by absolute dread of the beasts. This
dread was no dread of mere physical evil, but an
absolute terror that the animal inspired in me. I have
told you the character of the white hair, which constituted
the sole difference between this strange beast and the one

(01:49:56):
I had destroyed. You will recall that this mark, although large,
had been originally very indefinite, but by slow degrees degree
is nearly imperceptible. It had at length assumed rigorous distinctness
about lying. It was now the representation of an object

(01:50:17):
I shudder to name. For this above all I low
the monster. It was now, I say, the image of
a hideous, of a ghastly thing, the image of the gallows.
Neither by day no nor by night that I know
the blessing of rest anymore. I started hourly, from dreams

(01:50:40):
of unutterable fears, to feel the hot breath of this
this thing upon my face. Beneath the pressure of these torments,
the feeble remnants of good within me crumbled. The moodiness
of my usual temper increased, the hatred of all things
and all mankind, while from a sudden, frequent and un
governable outbursts of fury, to which I now blindly abandoned myself,

(01:51:04):
my uncomplaining life relaps was the most patience of sufferers.
One day, one day, she accompanied me upon some household
erran into the cellar. The cat followed me down the
steep stairs, and nearly drawing the headlong exasperated me into madness.

(01:51:26):
Seizing a heavy coal shovel and forgetting, in my anger
the dread which had previously stayed my hand, I aimed
a violent blow at the animal, but this blow was
arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded by her
interference into a rage. Towering above blind fury, I withdrew
my arm from her grasp and swung the weapon with

(01:51:48):
full impact against the side of her head. She fell
dead on the spots without a groan. This his hideous
murderer accomplished, and I set myself, with full deliberation, to
the task of concealing the body. I knew that I

(01:52:11):
could not remove it from the house, either by day
or by night, without the risk of being discovered. Finally,
finally I hit upon the perfect plan. I would wall
it up in the cellar. Yes, as the monks of
the Middle Ages are recorded to have walled up their
victims for a purpose such as this, the cellar was

(01:52:32):
well adapted. His walls were loosely constructed and had lately
been plastered throughout the rough plaster, and the dampness of
the atmosphere had prevented the plaster remarking. Moreover, in one
of the walls was a projection caused by a false
chimney that had been filled up and made to resemble

(01:52:55):
the rest of the cellar by means of a crowbaride.
I easily dislodged the brick at this point, and having
carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped
it in that position, while with little trouble, I relayed
the whole structure as it originally stood. I prepared a plaster,

(01:53:16):
a flaster which would not be distinguished from the old.
And with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork.
When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was
all right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance
of having been disturbed my next step. My next step

(01:53:38):
was to look for the beasts which had been the
cause of all this, for I had now firmly resolved
to put it to death. But it appeared that the
crafty animal had been alarmed at my violence and disappeared.
It is impossible to describe the deep sense of relief

(01:53:58):
which the absence of the tested creature brought to me.
It made no appearance that night, So for the first
night since its introduction into the house, I slept soundly. Yes, slept,
even with the burden of murder upon my soul. The

(01:54:18):
second and third day passed, and still my tormentor did
not come. Once again, I breathed as a free man.
The monster in terror had fled the premises forever. My
happiness was supreme. The guilt of my dark deed disturbed
me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but
these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted,

(01:54:42):
But of course, nothing was to be discovered. I looked
upon my future as secures. Upon the fourth day of
the assassination the party, the police came very unexpectedly into
the house and proceeded again to make an investigation of
the remiss. I felt complete security. The officers left no

(01:55:05):
nook or corner unexplored at length. The third or fourth
time they descended into the cellar, I quivered, not in
a muscle. My heart beat, calmly is that of one
who slumbers in innocence. I walked into the cellar with
them from end to end. The police were thoroughly satisfied

(01:55:26):
and prepared to depart. My glee was too strong to
be restrained. I burned to say, if but one word
by way of triumph, to render doubly sure their assurance
of my guiltlessness, gentlemen, I said at last, as the
party ascended the steps, I am delighted to have a
laid your suspicions by the bl gentlemen, this, this is

(01:55:48):
a very well constructed house. In my rapid desire to
say something easily, I scarcely knew that I got it
at all. I may say, an excellently well constructed house gentlemen,
these walls. Why are you going, gentlemen? These walls are
solidly put together. And here, through the mere frenzy of Bravado,

(01:56:09):
I rapped heavily with a cane, which I held in
my hand, upon that very portion of the brickwork, behind
which stood the corpse of my wife. Oh but my God,
shield and deliver me from the fangs of the arch. See.
No sooner has the reverberations of my blows sunk into

(01:56:29):
the silence than I was answered by a voice from
within the tomb, by a cry, at first muffled and broken,
like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling
into one long, loud and continuous scream, utterly inhuman, a
wailing shriek half of horror, half of triumph, such as
might have a missen only out of hell, from the

(01:56:50):
lips and throats of the dams, and their agony of
my own thoughts. It is folly now to speak. I
staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party
on the stairs remained motionless in terror and awe, and
the next a dozen stout arms were working at the wall.
It fell bodily. The corpse stood the erect before the

(01:57:13):
eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended
mouth and solitary eye of fire, set the hideous beast,
whose craft had seduced me into the mortar, and whose
informing voice had delivered me to the hangman. I had

(01:57:34):
walled the monster up with in the two.

Speaker 16 (01:58:04):
The mind that midnight t is lonely, and the senses
are sharp, and so from out of darkness of shape
and form, where a single point of light is focused,
the sharp and lonely midnight mind.

Speaker 1 (01:58:22):
Will see faces in the dark.

Speaker 16 (01:58:32):
You have been listening to a reading of The Black
Cat by Edgar Allan Pole adopted by Marvin David, executive
producer George Hyneman, producer John Hinsey.

Speaker 1 (01:58:45):
Your narrator was Ken Nordene a fantasy.

Speaker 15 (01:59:22):
I am.

Speaker 1 (01:59:25):
The neander tall man. Operator. Are you there, Operator, She's

(01:59:47):
probably gone out for a spot of tea or a
date with one of the music hall boys.

Speaker 35 (01:59:51):
Are people being quiet?

Speaker 1 (01:59:53):
Isn't she pretty when she's excited? Hayes?

Speaker 35 (01:59:54):
Oh quiet, quiet, operator? Operator?

Speaker 17 (01:59:58):
Why would anyone be so anxious to call one's sister anyway?

Speaker 1 (02:00:02):
I can't for the life of me imagine, Will you too.

Speaker 35 (02:00:04):
Please go take a walk or something. Operator, are you there?

Speaker 1 (02:00:08):
You could write your sister a little, you know, instead
of trying to call it on distance.

Speaker 35 (02:00:11):
I'm probably get in touch with her sooner. Are you there? Operator?

Speaker 1 (02:00:17):
Oh?

Speaker 35 (02:00:17):
I head her on the line just a moment ago.

Speaker 17 (02:00:18):
Now, if it were her young men she were calling,
i'd know why she's so very anxious, I say, old man,
it so happens.

Speaker 1 (02:00:25):
I am the ladies. Young man.

Speaker 35 (02:00:27):
Well, I have nothing to do with either of you
if you don't stop teasing me.

Speaker 1 (02:00:30):
What, dear girl, do you really want to get that
call through to your sister?

Speaker 35 (02:00:33):
Oh no, I'm just standing here jiggling this receiver for
the exercise. AJAX says it's good for the arm muscles.
Opread Will you please answer here, old girl, let me
have a try. Reggie go away. Don't bother me to
assist you, Reggie one time Reggie is called important?

Speaker 1 (02:00:49):
Why I'm so anxious to help you? Now? Look here, operator,
we've been tryed.

Speaker 29 (02:00:55):
Eh.

Speaker 1 (02:00:57):
What's that?

Speaker 6 (02:01:00):
Or?

Speaker 1 (02:01:00):
Operator?

Speaker 17 (02:01:03):
Yes, into a telephone transmitter. But I say, now, look here,
my girl, if you want to give me.

Speaker 35 (02:01:07):
That, are you their operator? Yes? I wish to place
a call. We were disconnected. This is Amanda Loveland. Yes,
at Lookout Points. That's right. The artist called me. I
wish to speak to miss Grace Loveland, number twelve Garrett Street, London. Yes,

(02:01:30):
that's right. How soon can you get through the London clue?
Very well?

Speaker 6 (02:01:35):
Will you call me back?

Speaker 35 (02:01:37):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (02:01:38):
There? You see the damsels always come running when a.

Speaker 35 (02:01:41):
Gentleman calls, oh, Reggie, save your humor for some other time?

Speaker 1 (02:01:44):
Will you I say something wrong? Will girl? I don't
know why do you use that tone? Dearly? Well, look here, Amanda,
nothing wrong with your sister is there?

Speaker 35 (02:01:55):
No, it's it's not there.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
But something's wrong. I can tell her the way you've
been acting. Yes, you were certainly never in such a
hurry to call Grace before.

Speaker 35 (02:02:02):
I'm anxious to know where she was today.

Speaker 1 (02:02:05):
Where she was?

Speaker 35 (02:02:06):
Yes, she was supposed to be attaining a tea party
in London, but well I've reason to think she wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (02:02:13):
I's so supposed she wasn't. Why should that upset you?

Speaker 35 (02:02:17):
Perhaps if I tell you you'll understand.

Speaker 17 (02:02:20):
Yes, something wrong. I certainly want to know about it. Yes, Amanda,
by all means tell us what's troubling you?

Speaker 35 (02:02:25):
Yes, because I must tell somebody Reggie, will you please
close the door?

Speaker 1 (02:02:31):
I was certainly darling. Now, Amanda, sit here?

Speaker 35 (02:02:35):
No, no, I'd rather not sit down.

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
See you are upset.

Speaker 35 (02:02:40):
Yes, I had the strangest experience this afternoon. You didn't
where a Nano canyon.

Speaker 1 (02:02:47):
So that's where you were today?

Speaker 17 (02:02:49):
No wonder we couldn't find your Regi and I wanted
you to go up to the falls with her.

Speaker 35 (02:02:53):
I went to the canyon to paint.

Speaker 1 (02:02:55):
We gathered you were off somewhere working. I noticed your
equipment wasn't around any place.

Speaker 35 (02:02:59):
You've been there? Haven't you in the canyon?

Speaker 6 (02:03:00):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:03:00):
Not, I have been planning to go there, though I've
been a couple of times. Why didn't you tell me
you were going into Nana. I have got along.

Speaker 35 (02:03:07):
There's only one way into the canyon from this end,
you know, yes.

Speaker 1 (02:03:10):
Near Flagstone Point. That's twelve miles to the other end.

Speaker 35 (02:03:14):
Well. I arrived at Flagstone Point about noon, so I
climbed down the path and picked out a shady spot
in the canyon to eat the lunch i'd taken along. Yes,
After that, I looked around a while and then picked
out a.

Speaker 1 (02:03:27):
Scene near the entrance to the canyon to paint. Of
course the paint haze. Oh sorry, go ahead there.

Speaker 35 (02:03:33):
It was a perfect scene. The light was just right,
So I spent most of the afternoon there until the
light began.

Speaker 1 (02:03:39):
To say, did you finish the schedule? Yes?

Speaker 35 (02:03:41):
Filled in a great deal of the color. It was
really going to be quite good. What do you mean
going to be I'll never finish it. Why do because
I never want to go back there again.

Speaker 1 (02:03:54):
What on earth happened?

Speaker 6 (02:03:55):
Oh?

Speaker 35 (02:03:56):
Why doesn't that operate it?

Speaker 1 (02:03:57):
Get that call through the lunchon a manda, tell us
what happened in the canyones? For heaven's sake, it's a spenser.

Speaker 35 (02:04:02):
What happened was like a nightmare, Darling, Yes, like a nightmare.
That's as I was getting ready to pack up my things,
I heard a noise behind me, a low, rumbling noise,
And when I looked around, I saw that the side

(02:04:24):
of the canyon was caving in my word, landslide. Yes,
the whole side of the canyon was falling away, making
a terrific noise about. It left a sheer vertical cliff there.
It had been sloping before. Yes, right where they only
passed down into the canyon.

Speaker 1 (02:04:39):
Had been You mean you were trapped there in the canyon.

Speaker 35 (02:04:42):
I certainly was with night coming on. And you know
the stories they tell around here about Nanol Canyon.

Speaker 1 (02:04:47):
Yes, they say the place is simply oozing with ghosts
at night.

Speaker 35 (02:04:51):
Oh no, really, Reggie, the place does have a reputation
or why.

Speaker 17 (02:04:56):
I've heard the stories. But you don't want to believe
everything you hear. You know, Well, how on earth did
you get out of the canyon?

Speaker 35 (02:05:01):
I had a beastly time of it.

Speaker 1 (02:05:03):
You get out before dark?

Speaker 35 (02:05:04):
I certainly did not. As soon as I saw that
the path was cut off from the landside, I started
walking along the side of the canyon, trying to find
a way out.

Speaker 1 (02:05:12):
But there are no others.

Speaker 35 (02:05:13):
Didn't I find that out? I walked and walked, and
all the time it was growing darker and darker. And
finally the sun went down and a ghostly bloom settled
over the canyon. I began to walk faster, but I
couldn't find any place. It looked like a way up.

(02:05:43):
I've walked for miles. No way out of here, dear,
so dark. All I can do is keep walking.

Speaker 1 (02:05:58):
What's that?

Speaker 35 (02:06:00):
Ah, some some night bird? Yes, that is at all
such a weird sounder I've never heard anything like it before.

Speaker 31 (02:06:12):
A thank Kevin.

Speaker 15 (02:06:17):
It's God.

Speaker 35 (02:06:19):
That's strange, that bird, But they only knew that I've
heard in this place. Now, well, the night nights is
at all.

Speaker 7 (02:06:30):
Good?

Speaker 6 (02:06:30):
Heaven?

Speaker 7 (02:06:31):
What's that up there?

Speaker 35 (02:06:34):
Light shining on a human figure? Am I losing my mind?
It's Grace there in the light.

Speaker 26 (02:06:45):
Oh?

Speaker 35 (02:06:46):
No, well I can't bear Gray.

Speaker 21 (02:06:51):
Gray.

Speaker 35 (02:06:53):
It is Grace standing there in that strange still of light, pointing,
gesturing as they're trying to show me a path out
of here. Yes, if she is directing me out of
the canyon the light, I can see the way.

Speaker 15 (02:07:08):
Out, Gray Gray?

Speaker 1 (02:07:11):
Is that you?

Speaker 6 (02:07:13):
Is that you?

Speaker 1 (02:07:14):
Gray? No?

Speaker 50 (02:07:19):
Maybe the lights fading away, she's gone. There's still that
strange light shining on the way out of this awful case.

Speaker 1 (02:07:41):
Yeah, anything to tell us there actually was a path
leading up out of that canyon?

Speaker 35 (02:07:53):
How else do you suppose I got back here? That
strange light continued to blow until I found the path
and managed to cim him up. When I looked back,
it was pitch dark in the canny game.

Speaker 1 (02:08:05):
Are you certain you didn't dream all of that?

Speaker 35 (02:08:08):
Oh, for Heaven's sakes, ready.

Speaker 1 (02:08:09):
No, I don't think it was a dream of What
makes you say that it must be London?

Speaker 26 (02:08:16):
Are you there?

Speaker 35 (02:08:18):
Yes, yes, this is Amanda loved one. Yes, very might
call the London dancers. Are you that great, darling? This
is Amanda. Oh fine, thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:08:32):
Darling.

Speaker 35 (02:08:34):
Have you been in London all day?

Speaker 12 (02:08:38):
Oh?

Speaker 35 (02:08:40):
Oh no, nothing wrong? Oh no, don't worry, dear, everything's
all right. Yes, I may be coming to London soon.
All right, darling, take.

Speaker 1 (02:08:55):
Care of yourself.

Speaker 33 (02:08:57):
Good lady.

Speaker 1 (02:09:00):
H h.

Speaker 35 (02:09:02):
Face has been in London, all go. Surely they're in
the canyon in that strange light, I saw as plainly
as I see you.

Speaker 1 (02:09:09):
Now, the voice wasn't her? H. How are we going
to account for what happens? There is only one way
to account for it.

Speaker 35 (02:09:22):
You mean, hey, you think you know what happened to me?

Speaker 1 (02:09:27):
I think so. You were guided out of that canyon
by by a swarp. I thought a sword. It's a
name commonly applied to a supernatural spirit with the power
of impersonating some earthly beings. Impersonating you say, yes, there's

(02:09:49):
no explanation except that swarps have often been seen in
these parts. Ah, this particular spirit took the earthly shape
of your sister and help you find the way out
of your temporary prison. You know, I don't believe such
things happen here.

Speaker 35 (02:10:06):
Would you'd certainly believe it if you'd experience.

Speaker 1 (02:10:08):
It like I did this ready, You're wrong. Those things
do happen. Swarves do appear in this facility. But that's
that's that's weird.

Speaker 35 (02:10:16):
Well, it certainly is the one sister appear in a
place in the darkness and speaking of voice, and then
the land she was actually hundreds of miles away at
the time.

Speaker 1 (02:10:26):
Amanda, is this the landscape you were doing? Oh? Yes, mind,
if I have a little.

Speaker 35 (02:10:33):
Bit color and have a look, I know they're our
head that as I left off, that's passing up here.

Speaker 1 (02:10:38):
Hey, you better let me give you a hand.

Speaker 17 (02:10:48):
If you spoil one of Amanda's pain shot. I say, look, Amanda,
have you seen this since you left the canyon?

Speaker 6 (02:10:57):
No?

Speaker 35 (02:10:57):
I told you I haven't.

Speaker 1 (02:11:01):
Look at it.

Speaker 17 (02:11:02):
They're on the right hand corners, strange, monstrous looking creature
lurking in the shadows. Amanda, were you conscious of the
fact you were painting that fantastic creature into the picture?

Speaker 6 (02:11:14):
No, No, I wasn't.

Speaker 35 (02:11:17):
I hadn't even noticed it.

Speaker 17 (02:11:19):
That's very strange. Yes, isn't it If your perspective is correct, Amanda.
That creature is about eight feet tall, a huge, fiendish thing.

Speaker 35 (02:11:31):
But how did it ever become a part of my painting?

Speaker 17 (02:11:35):
Yes, Oh well, we'll find out what you mean, Hayes.
We'll go down into the canyon and have a look.
Oh no, not me, Oh I I mean tomorrow, of course,
when it's daylight.

Speaker 35 (02:12:10):
How much farther, Amanda, we're practically there.

Speaker 17 (02:12:13):
What amazed me is that you couldn't find the way
the swarf pointed out to you last night, Amanda.

Speaker 35 (02:12:18):
Sorry, it doesn't seem to be there today.

Speaker 1 (02:12:21):
Oh well, what's the difference. Didn't take us long to
come in from the other end of the canyon on horseback.

Speaker 17 (02:12:25):
That's the only thing that annoys me is that we
couldn't ride the animals all the way out?

Speaker 1 (02:12:29):
Who held the walk remote virtue? Besides, we've only been
a foot a few hundred yards. Oh, oh, here we are.

Speaker 35 (02:12:35):
This is the spot I was painting. I set up
my canvas over there on that little mound.

Speaker 17 (02:12:41):
M Then, according to the sketch you made, that fearful
creature was lurking about here. Reggie, look here, Boones human
boones down there in that crevice.

Speaker 1 (02:12:56):
Why I say those can't be human bones.

Speaker 35 (02:12:58):
Oh no, they are much too long.

Speaker 1 (02:12:59):
I should say so, wrong, both of you. They are
human bones.

Speaker 17 (02:13:03):
I've studied anatomy enough to recognize the clapical, humorous and
all love, the human arm and the femur amphibila of
the league there. Tues is right. This was some gigantic
prehistoric creature. Heaven knows how many years old.

Speaker 35 (02:13:22):
Could this skeleton have any connection with the ghostly figure
in my paint.

Speaker 17 (02:13:28):
It could, Yes, It's just possible that the spirit of
this prehistoric man is himself a swarf and can take
on a human shape. The spirit I mean precisely, he
saw Amanda sitting there on that mound painting. He assumed
a shape she couldn't make out, but one which her

(02:13:52):
professional brush caught in the sketching.

Speaker 35 (02:13:54):
Then he could have assumed the form of my sister.

Speaker 1 (02:13:57):
If our theory is correct, yes, that's fantastic.

Speaker 35 (02:14:02):
But how can we learn anything about this, this thing
that was buried here in this crevice?

Speaker 17 (02:14:08):
There's one way I know of we can consult doctor Gustav. Right, job,
you're right, doctor Gustav. Staying at the colony.

Speaker 35 (02:14:15):
Who then, let's go get him and bring him here.

Speaker 1 (02:14:18):
Who knows we may have discovered something entirely unknown to
our civilization.

Speaker 46 (02:14:46):
Well, doctor Gustav, yes, your suspicions were correct, my friends.
These are human bones.

Speaker 1 (02:14:53):
Can you identify them? Doctor? And how certainly can this
wasn't the underton man.

Speaker 35 (02:15:01):
Neanatal or the Mianto managed it thousands of years ago?

Speaker 46 (02:15:05):
Room is Loveland from twenty to forty thousand years ago.

Speaker 1 (02:15:10):
There's no mistake about it, not the slightest.

Speaker 46 (02:15:13):
This is the fossilized remains of an ancient man. Per
look look at these peculiarly shaped mole or teeth that's
at one side. Every bone of his body shows some
distinct markings. Many of them are of simian nature, ape
like you mean exactly. Eyebrow ridges were like those of

(02:15:34):
the gorilla. Ruthu's scar was low like theirs, and yet
his brain most probably surpassed the modern Europeans.

Speaker 1 (02:15:43):
In size and ability. How long ago did you say
he existed?

Speaker 46 (02:15:47):
The native His culture may be put down tentatively as
extending from forty thousand to twenty thousand.

Speaker 1 (02:15:54):
We see the undertone man.

Speaker 46 (02:15:57):
Appears to have been the sole occupant of Europe during
the middle of the Peistocene period, throughout the time in
which the Mushtilian culture prevailed. He buried his dead with
great signs of respect. She worked bent implements with great
skills as a iron hunter, lived.

Speaker 1 (02:16:16):
In caves and rock shutters. But Doctor, after all this time,
his remains should be quite deep in the earth, you know,
and he.

Speaker 46 (02:16:26):
On Daaday has been buried deeply through the centuries. But
some subterranean disturbance must have caused this crevice and exposed
his burial place.

Speaker 35 (02:16:36):
Look, did you men see this doctor?

Speaker 1 (02:16:41):
A stone tablet.

Speaker 35 (02:16:42):
There's some sort of strange pictures on it.

Speaker 1 (02:16:46):
Let me see please m h yes, sir, just so,
so what is the doctor Gustav?

Speaker 20 (02:16:53):
Why?

Speaker 1 (02:16:53):
This is the final proof?

Speaker 46 (02:16:56):
This is a picture writing of the Neanderthal men. I
can indeed, and let's see this this person here I left,
that's indeciible. But the rest of it reads, who moves
my bones will surely die as I have died.

Speaker 1 (02:17:24):
Of course, Well then let's take his advice and leave
him alone.

Speaker 46 (02:17:29):
Not on your lives, by way, this is one of
the most amazing finds of the century. These bones must
be removed to the museum and reconstructed.

Speaker 35 (02:17:39):
But the warning on its own table.

Speaker 46 (02:17:41):
Nonsense, mislovedlin nonsense. Do you think a curse can continue
to exist through forty thousand years?

Speaker 1 (02:17:48):
For one hundred centuries? Well, Mandy, this is the museum.

(02:18:11):
Ever been here before?

Speaker 35 (02:18:12):
Right when I was a child, Uncle Reginald brought me.

Speaker 1 (02:18:16):
How long has it been since the Neanderthal man was
brought here? Oh?

Speaker 35 (02:18:20):
At least six weeks.

Speaker 17 (02:18:21):
Doctor Gustav said in his letter that the man had
been completely reconstructed.

Speaker 1 (02:18:24):
The skeleton had been placed in a standing position in
a special room. There's the room, see, yes, the sign
over the door and the Anderton man.

Speaker 35 (02:18:34):
Let's go look before we visit the doctor.

Speaker 34 (02:18:35):
Shall we?

Speaker 12 (02:18:36):
Right?

Speaker 1 (02:18:43):
Hmmm, hey, here we are and do what was opening?

Speaker 6 (02:18:47):
Why?

Speaker 1 (02:18:49):
But this room is empty?

Speaker 35 (02:18:50):
Yeah, but there's a stone base over there. Those thing
might have been built.

Speaker 6 (02:18:55):
Up on it.

Speaker 1 (02:18:57):
That's strange. I've think you're pardon yes, what is it?

Speaker 6 (02:19:04):
I am called Vana?

Speaker 26 (02:19:09):
Could you direct me the doctor gou staffs that day?

Speaker 1 (02:19:15):
Oh? Why yes, it's at the end of the hall.
See his name is in black letters on that crossed door.

Speaker 12 (02:19:19):
Pain.

Speaker 1 (02:19:21):
Oh yes, I thank you so very much. Pardon me
for having disturbed you, Reggie man, that ma'am Joe, what
a giant. At least they'd be tall.

Speaker 35 (02:19:38):
That's bushy eyebrows and no sorry the.

Speaker 1 (02:19:41):
And what was wrong with his neck?

Speaker 17 (02:19:43):
He held his head crooked over the one side, one shoulder,
hump up in a terribly go test position.

Speaker 15 (02:19:48):
Did you see that?

Speaker 33 (02:19:49):
I'm going to do the doctor's off?

Speaker 35 (02:19:50):
You know I didn't, Reggie, if I didn't know better,
I'd make.

Speaker 15 (02:19:56):
That man's.

Speaker 1 (02:20:01):
I know what you say.

Speaker 35 (02:20:02):
Every want imagine who moves my bones will die?

Speaker 18 (02:20:06):
I died.

Speaker 17 (02:20:08):
There in the room on the stone base the skeleton
of a prehistoric man a few months ago.

Speaker 1 (02:20:14):
Good lord, come on into the doctor barst doctor got
doctor GotoP, good health?

Speaker 37 (02:20:27):
Oh reg.

Speaker 1 (02:20:31):
What's happened to him? He's dead? Broken man?

Speaker 17 (02:20:37):
Listen in this day riting writing this port on the
Neanderthal man. Look it just completed one sentence. H is
my finding. That's the death of the Neanderthal man discovered

(02:21:02):
in Manoff Canyon was caused by a broken man go fantasty.

Speaker 14 (02:21:49):
The Curse of the Neanderthal another original tale of dark
Batasay written.

Speaker 1 (02:21:56):
By Scott Bishop.

Speaker 14 (02:21:59):
Done my us was heard as Reggie eleanor Naylor Korran
was Amanda Burillo, Schofield was Hayes, Fred Wayne played Doctor Gusta,
and Daryl McAllister was Banners. Next Friday Night, at the
same time, we'll bring you another story of the fantastic
and the unusual, created by Scott Bishop. Listen for Debt

(02:22:22):
from the Past, a strange, weird adventure laid in modern
America with the flavor of the nineteenth century. The story
of a businessman who was almost too honest and who
found the method of paying a long standing debt of honor.

Speaker 1 (02:22:39):
Although thirty years in his Brave.

Speaker 14 (02:22:43):
Doc Patasy originates in the studios of wk Y, Oklahoma today,
Sam Paxon speaking, this is a national broadcasting company.

Speaker 51 (02:22:53):
Oh Jack p jumpsu high broke his head against the sky,
and when it snowed, and when it rained, Old Jack
Dab came down again.

Speaker 20 (02:23:07):
Memory always makes things better or worse. It never tells
the truth. Yet I remember clearly when it began, the time,
the place that was never the difficulty. It's more why
it's still here and if it will ever go away.

Speaker 51 (02:23:27):
Old Jack Dab was gathered up pettigethering with and tup
and when it snowed, and when it rained, old Jack
Dab came alive again.

Speaker 52 (02:23:43):
Tapping by Colin Hayden Evans, with Chavon Redmond as Jenny
and Mark Bonner as Tom.

Speaker 33 (02:23:58):
I don't see there now. You came round the side
of that hill first time I saw you nine years.

Speaker 20 (02:24:06):
You always say that each time we come up here.

Speaker 33 (02:24:08):
I like to say it.

Speaker 20 (02:24:10):
It came to be your mown with no more than
sandwiches and a building Society account, and found a wife,
and you always say that.

Speaker 33 (02:24:19):
Anyway, it was me that found you. You wouldn't recognize
a wife if she were jumping up and down wave.

Speaker 20 (02:24:24):
That's more or less what you were doing.

Speaker 33 (02:24:26):
I was stacking hay young man.

Speaker 20 (02:24:28):
There was no one else to do it. It was
a good day, Jeannie for me.

Speaker 33 (02:24:41):
I'll make ban nexst tomorrow.

Speaker 15 (02:24:43):
You like them.

Speaker 20 (02:24:45):
Look you can just see the ferry. Screw your eyes up.
We might get that seed catalog. Why do you never
want innocent to lover better on our own?

Speaker 33 (02:25:01):
I don't care for people turning up when you don't
know they're coming.

Speaker 20 (02:25:04):
We don't know anyone, Tom m.

Speaker 33 (02:25:13):
It started again, hasn't it?

Speaker 20 (02:25:19):
Nothing's started. It's not been away.

Speaker 33 (02:25:26):
Better though, recently it seemed that way to me.

Speaker 20 (02:25:33):
It's got louder like before. It's the same, it doesn't change.

Speaker 33 (02:25:42):
You need to let it out more. I've always said
that what should we do then? When on our anniversary?
What should we do? Panics with butter and.

Speaker 20 (02:25:54):
Jam isn't too much we can do?

Speaker 1 (02:25:57):
Is that?

Speaker 20 (02:25:58):
There's only going for walks.

Speaker 33 (02:26:01):
You don't mind living here, Tom.

Speaker 20 (02:26:06):
It's everything I want, miles from things.

Speaker 33 (02:26:12):
It's better, isn't it?

Speaker 20 (02:26:14):
So you said easier? I forgot to get your present.
Oh that doesn't matter. I wanted to though, You've got
me something.

Speaker 33 (02:26:25):
You've been watching in this at all winter.

Speaker 20 (02:26:27):
I meant to when I was an all pool.

Speaker 33 (02:26:31):
I have an idea for a gift.

Speaker 20 (02:26:35):
Well go on. Then you have to make a promise.
I never like it when you do that.

Speaker 33 (02:26:39):
It could be the best thing you could ever give me.

Speaker 20 (02:26:41):
Well, there's only what's left of the sheep money that
wouldn't go far. This is is not costing money last,
all right, I promise, come on in. That isn't fair, Jamie.
It's more.

Speaker 33 (02:26:59):
It's never been not on you, not on me.

Speaker 20 (02:27:01):
It was a trick.

Speaker 33 (02:27:03):
It was a way of asking, a way of helping
anyway you promised.

Speaker 20 (02:27:09):
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 33 (02:27:12):
If I can it can go away, then I know
it will believe that.

Speaker 53 (02:27:18):
Now's b say her name out loud, No, her first name,
then start with just her first name.

Speaker 33 (02:27:28):
Came down, and.

Speaker 20 (02:27:32):
I'm stroud?

Speaker 13 (02:27:35):
How old?

Speaker 33 (02:27:37):
How old was she?

Speaker 13 (02:27:38):
Tom?

Speaker 20 (02:27:39):
Older older than me? I was six thereabouts. Well, i'll
tell you how it sounds. I'll tell you that, but
not any more than that, please, Jenny'll let me just
tell you how it sounds.

Speaker 33 (02:27:55):
Right right, just how it sounds.

Speaker 51 (02:28:00):
Puttickgethering with gent tap, and when it snowed, and when rained,
Oh that Dad came alive again.

Speaker 20 (02:28:12):
My father loved the workshop, the wood, the smell of things.
I was only allowed in when he was there. It
was only a game, meant to be climbed through the window,
they said, the other boys at night with supper over.
I bet you damn't. So I did did what they

(02:28:34):
dared me. I knew she was there, but I was
trying so hard not to think about it. It was
difficult to know what it all meant.

Speaker 1 (02:28:46):
Then.

Speaker 20 (02:28:47):
Anyway, A soft tapping, it wasn't loud, it seemed louder
at night. It was her all right, and oh, there's
no point to all this. There's no point, is there?

Speaker 13 (02:29:04):
You know that you're talking about it.

Speaker 20 (02:29:06):
Tom.

Speaker 33 (02:29:07):
It's coming out, even if it's on tiptoe, and that's good.

Speaker 20 (02:29:10):
I don't want it out, for Christ's sake, woman, I
don't want it out. The wood, the smell of things

(02:29:30):
moving down the wall, hung chisels, hammers like fingers along
my back, and then they're like turning a small corner
and finding a world the size of a box, dark,
and the thinking I was alone, quickly turning to the

(02:29:51):
knowing I was not.

Speaker 33 (02:29:57):
Oh there, now there. I'll keep you safe.

Speaker 20 (02:30:03):
It's more than just being frightened, Jenny, I.

Speaker 1 (02:30:05):
Know it is.

Speaker 13 (02:30:08):
Do you hear it now?

Speaker 44 (02:30:12):
No?

Speaker 33 (02:30:13):
When it starts, squeeze my hand. I won't let anything
harm me.

Speaker 41 (02:30:19):
You know that.

Speaker 20 (02:30:24):
It was why I first came to this place, to
lose the harm. I love the skies, big and always moving.
Lying on my back in the grass, it seemed as
if there was no real edge to things. The clouds
fell over the rim of the eyes, and if I
didn't follow and held the comfort tight, I could easily

(02:30:46):
pretend that's all there was, or ever could be, Everything
endlessly passing she wasn't pretty. Jenny didn't need to be
on our wedding night, she said, I've been waiting for
you so long, my man, And never did I feel

(02:31:06):
a place so much a home. But it didn't stop that.
It didn't stop that I had thought it might.

Speaker 33 (02:31:23):
You learned to get out for the Merchant Marine, young Tom.

Speaker 20 (02:31:27):
Did you know that it had crossed my mind?

Speaker 33 (02:31:30):
You should always have been doing what you are now,
should have come home sooner.

Speaker 20 (02:31:34):
I didn't know I had at home, never felt a
hard anyway.

Speaker 33 (02:31:38):
It was waiting for you. I was waiting for you.
Didn't know what you look like, but I knew you'd
come one day.

Speaker 20 (02:31:45):
Isn't that what the woman's magazines say?

Speaker 33 (02:31:50):
Why did your father not want you to take over
the family business.

Speaker 20 (02:31:53):
I've told you about that. He knew I'd make a
mess of it.

Speaker 33 (02:31:57):
Oh be good at Burian people.

Speaker 13 (02:32:00):
You've got the look.

Speaker 51 (02:32:04):
Jack was gathered up pretty togethering with and tap, And
when snowed, and when rained, all that bab came alive again.

Speaker 33 (02:32:24):
Eat your cake?

Speaker 20 (02:32:31):
Why did you never marry before I came along?

Speaker 53 (02:32:35):
Only one fair inquired, and he was daft. I didn't
want to make do I wanted the right one, and
you would come, and you did, didn't you?

Speaker 20 (02:32:49):
How did you know, though? How did you know I
was the right one?

Speaker 1 (02:32:53):
Oh?

Speaker 53 (02:32:54):
I saw this young boy with eyes hard, staring, running,
running as fast as his small legs could go, then
hiding on a hill over the house, waiting for the
morning that would make it all seem.

Speaker 33 (02:33:15):
Changed and good again.

Speaker 20 (02:33:19):
How did you know all that?

Speaker 53 (02:33:22):
You talk in your sleep? Something dreadful. It's difficult not
to know, though, I'd rather have the rest myself.

Speaker 20 (02:33:30):
You're very strong, Janey, but not strong enough to help.
You never see that?

Speaker 33 (02:33:36):
Is that a fact?

Speaker 20 (02:33:36):
Then you can't help? No one can.

Speaker 53 (02:33:40):
That's why you married me, la, Oh, yes, that's why
you wed all right. You needed sanctuary, forgiveness at someone
else's hands. You could never do it for yourself.

Speaker 33 (02:33:52):
You sought me out.

Speaker 20 (02:33:55):
What do I say? And must sleep?

Speaker 33 (02:33:59):
They're not bedtime stories, tom.

Speaker 53 (02:34:03):
It all starts the same, The rest sometimes changes your
father's workshop, I think, would.

Speaker 20 (02:34:10):
That be right?

Speaker 53 (02:34:12):
You go on a bit about that, tools and things
on the walls. You seem always to be holding on
to the walls. You never rightly cross the room. It's dark,
but you know where you're going, so it feels as
if you don't don't want to maybe.

Speaker 22 (02:34:32):
After that.

Speaker 33 (02:34:33):
I can't be sure.

Speaker 1 (02:34:37):
It was a.

Speaker 20 (02:34:39):
There your father, no kids friends. I was never allowed
in the workshop, and that's where my father they made
the boxes.

Speaker 1 (02:34:53):
There.

Speaker 20 (02:34:54):
They dared me to go on at night.

Speaker 53 (02:34:57):
The coffins used the proper word, tom coffins. They'd buried
the girl and they were going to the next day.

Speaker 20 (02:35:08):
She was still there. She was in a box, a coffin.

Speaker 13 (02:35:14):
Who killed her, then killed her.

Speaker 20 (02:35:19):
No one killed her. No one killed her, Jenny, she
had that. I think it was meningitis. They may not
have called it that. I don't remember. It all happened
so long ago. One day she was at school and
then no one killed her.

Speaker 33 (02:35:38):
And then you heard it happened.

Speaker 20 (02:35:42):
Well, it needn't have been a box. It might have
been in your sleep.

Speaker 15 (02:35:47):
She calls you.

Speaker 6 (02:35:50):
No.

Speaker 20 (02:35:51):
She never does that, Jenny, I swear she never does that.

Speaker 6 (02:35:55):
She dies to No.

Speaker 18 (02:35:57):
Never.

Speaker 33 (02:35:58):
I'm trying to hell. You'll knock it to the door.
Not this time, you'll face it, do you hear me.

Speaker 20 (02:36:07):
Jennie, For God's sake, be he cann only take the
ones you see. No, I'm sorry, Jennie, shouting and all
that dafty, I shouldn't have.

Speaker 53 (02:36:27):
Who else is there a ball at them? We're on
our own, and we, you and me together, we hurt
ourselves long before we get round to doing it to others.

Speaker 22 (02:36:38):
I reckon, how else would we know?

Speaker 34 (02:36:40):
How?

Speaker 53 (02:36:42):
You were shouting at yourself? The Tom you keep locked up,
The Tom you'll never let me see.

Speaker 33 (02:36:49):
He's the one.

Speaker 20 (02:36:52):
I want him seen. No, you don't, Jeannie, I do.
I swear it.

Speaker 33 (02:36:58):
Swear on what though, Swear on.

Speaker 53 (02:37:00):
What tom on wishes and babies and what tomorrow might bring.
You're always doing that, and you're good at that, putting
things off. Swear on what is most precious to.

Speaker 1 (02:37:13):
You, then.

Speaker 20 (02:37:16):
On your life. I swear on that.

Speaker 33 (02:37:21):
That'll do.

Speaker 20 (02:37:27):
Oh, I can't go down there.

Speaker 33 (02:37:36):
It's only the root celler you're putting. I won't in there.

Speaker 1 (02:37:42):
I won't.

Speaker 33 (02:37:43):
I know, I won't to your ten, that's all.

Speaker 20 (02:37:47):
But why lock it?

Speaker 28 (02:37:49):
I mean.

Speaker 33 (02:37:52):
This thing it's only going to come out of you
the same way it went in Tom.

Speaker 53 (02:37:56):
Do you understand what I'm saying. You've got so much
shame about all this. You don't rightly know where you are?

Speaker 37 (02:38:04):
Am I wrong?

Speaker 1 (02:38:06):
Look?

Speaker 33 (02:38:07):
You say you hear that.

Speaker 20 (02:38:08):
That's happen each night, Will you know, a dude? But
I don't. I don't hear it at all.

Speaker 53 (02:38:14):
So what does that mean then, Tom? It means it's
on the inside, doesn't it in your head? Has to
be otherwise I would hear it.

Speaker 17 (02:38:23):
Tom.

Speaker 33 (02:38:24):
You can't go on running, not for a whole life,
not and expect me to keep up with you. I
won't do it. Now's the time to stop and let
it come to you.

Speaker 20 (02:38:36):
By doing this, put.

Speaker 33 (02:38:37):
Yourself in her position.

Speaker 53 (02:38:40):
Feel as she must have trapped with someone out there
able to save her life, and then hearing the door
slam as they run, and if she came through that night,
Feel what it must have been like the next morning,
the sound of the earth and the lid above her
face the last thing you would ever hear. Go through it, Tom,

(02:39:04):
it's only your own blame. You have to face what's done.
It's done. Maybe somewhere she'll come to see how you
felt too. It's charity we're talking about here. Lad you
for yourself.

Speaker 20 (02:39:20):
I can't see how it can work, that's all. It
makes no sense.

Speaker 33 (02:39:26):
And run when you're in there, that's the sense.

Speaker 41 (02:39:31):
Go on.

Speaker 20 (02:39:34):
I won't be able to stay down there long it's
too small.

Speaker 33 (02:39:37):
It don't take long. I'll be here.

Speaker 20 (02:39:41):
I'll be here all the time.

Speaker 2 (02:39:45):
Oh all right, you let me out.

Speaker 20 (02:39:51):
If I say so.

Speaker 33 (02:39:52):
It's in your head, Remember that's all. There's living down
there with you, Tom, only yourself.

Speaker 10 (02:39:59):
I'll be here, are all the time, Jenny, Jenny, are
you there?

Speaker 33 (02:40:18):
Of course I'm here, you're mushing.

Speaker 15 (02:40:20):
Where else would I be?

Speaker 10 (02:40:23):
What'd I do?

Speaker 6 (02:40:23):
Now?

Speaker 33 (02:40:25):
You tell me?

Speaker 20 (02:40:27):
What did I say?

Speaker 33 (02:40:29):
What happened that night? Everything as it was.

Speaker 39 (02:40:35):
I'll tell you what I can.

Speaker 33 (02:40:38):
Everything, Tom on my life. Remember this time?

Speaker 15 (02:40:43):
You swore.

Speaker 39 (02:40:48):
I thought she was dead.

Speaker 54 (02:40:51):
That's why they dared me to go into the workshop
when there was a dead one. I'd never done that before.
The doctor said she was I don't understand how he
She must have heard me. It was just that it happened.
They'd screwed the lid down. They always did that the

(02:41:13):
night before. At first I thought it was the lads
outside trying to scare me. I thought that all along.
I wanted to really until I heard her, only just
heard the doctor had said she was dead. It wasn't
my fault. I ran caught my head in a line

(02:41:36):
of washing my mother had left out. Ran all the
way to the hell above the house. You couldn't hear
anything there. I thought, if you can't hear it, it
can't be happening. I kept wishing everything would stay dark.
Then the morning came. I told my mother I fell ill,
and she told my father I was upset and I
shouldn't go to the funeral.

Speaker 39 (02:41:59):
I couldn't go.

Speaker 20 (02:42:00):
Oh, I couldn't be sure had stopped.

Speaker 39 (02:42:04):
Did you see Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, I'm here. I thought

(02:42:26):
you weren't. Why didn't you say something?

Speaker 33 (02:42:35):
You could have let her out, saved her.

Speaker 12 (02:42:40):
You could have.

Speaker 33 (02:42:42):
Easily. What was it you wanted me to say?

Speaker 6 (02:42:47):
Then?

Speaker 10 (02:42:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 39 (02:42:52):
Say it's getting better, that I won't hear it again.
I only believe it when you say it.

Speaker 33 (02:43:00):
You'll never hear it again.

Speaker 15 (02:43:05):
Jennie.

Speaker 33 (02:43:07):
Oh, dear man, it's not Jennie. It was never Jennie.
I swear to you. It will not take long, though
it will only seem that way. There's really nothing.

Speaker 18 (02:43:28):
I can do.

Speaker 6 (02:43:38):
On h.

Speaker 20 (02:44:02):
No.

Speaker 53 (02:44:04):
No, I had waited all those years for him to

(02:44:32):
come to tell me of that time time heard but
never seen. I died because he pretended, and so did
not properly die at all, if there is no proper release,
then at the passing of your breath there is no release. Ever,

(02:44:58):
I do not say, I understand, only that that is
how it is. His time will come in some future
he will snare another as I did him, and they
do in turn. Who then, is not ever tapping on

(02:45:19):
a box? If someone else's making, and who is it
that is not pretendingly cannot hear? Already I find it
difficult to remember his face. The screaming stops. First, the
throat closes around it, cutting it off. Something else takes

(02:45:43):
its place, quieter, less like a person. That's how it
would be now. His hands twice their size, nails, ragged,
black arms, spent through begging pity from the wood, and

(02:46:05):
in the end the fingers trembling against the floor, as
if tapping.

Speaker 51 (02:46:23):
Old Jack Dab. He jumped so high he broke his
head against the sky. And when it snowed, and when
it rained, Old Jack Dab came down again.

Speaker 52 (02:46:40):
In Tapping by Colin Hayden Evans, Yvonne Redmond was Jenny Mark, Bonner,
Tom and Alison Pettitt the little girl. The director was
David Blunt.

Speaker 51 (02:46:56):
Old Jack Dab was gathered up Pittick gather in the
wind and top and when it snowed, and when it rained,
old Jack dab came alive again.

Speaker 55 (02:47:12):
Another five minute mystery.

Speaker 6 (02:47:51):
Hello, Eily, it's you that's reassured to see that you
haven't forgotten.

Speaker 15 (02:47:57):
Me, My dear where have you been all of your.

Speaker 6 (02:48:01):
Frankly, Emily, I've been trying to lose the memory of
our ten years of marriage, but I must admit I
haven't succeeded.

Speaker 7 (02:48:08):
We leave this house this time, never come back.

Speaker 6 (02:48:12):
I have no intentions of returning after this visit, my
dear wife. You see, I'm going to kill you, you mad,
I really can't resist the situation. That's all the yelements,
a woman alone in a house in the country, a
summer storm, a perfect motive, and a ingenious alibi.

Speaker 7 (02:48:33):
Stay you away from me, car, don't touch.

Speaker 6 (02:48:35):
Me, don't run away, Emily.

Speaker 1 (02:48:37):
Come here.

Speaker 55 (02:48:46):
You must have had quite a ride here in the storm.

Speaker 6 (02:48:48):
Yes, Inspector, but I wanted to report my wife's death
as quickly as possible.

Speaker 55 (02:48:53):
I understand you've been away several years.

Speaker 6 (02:48:55):
My wife and I separated ten years ago.

Speaker 55 (02:48:58):
How'd you happen to come back?

Speaker 6 (02:48:59):
Well, that's rather a strange story. Inspector. It seems that
my wife is quite frightened of doctors and refuses to
consult them out. Five days ago I received a letter
from her that she felt she was dying. Oh, my
wife has always been a strange sort of woman. Hesitate
to say it so bluntly. I'm certain you're aware of

(02:49:20):
the reputation she had here in the village.

Speaker 56 (02:49:23):
No disrespecting tenant, of course, but she was known as
being slightly eccentric.

Speaker 1 (02:49:27):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (02:49:28):
By the way, when can you come out to the
house to write a report on the suicide.

Speaker 56 (02:49:32):
I'm afraid we'll have to whitle a storm subsides of that.
But uh, I realize you want this whole embarrassing affair
disposed of as quickly as possible, So if you'll allow
me to have the details, I can begin my report.

Speaker 6 (02:49:43):
Good well. I arrived at the house about eight o'clock
to night. I found my wife in her bedroom. She
was bleeding from several small wounds. She told me that
they were self inflicted or didn't you stop the bleeding? Yes,
but she only laughed and said there was nothing I
could do. You see, she revealed to me that she
suffered from hemophilia. It would be impossible to stop the

(02:50:04):
flow of blood. There were too many.

Speaker 56 (02:50:06):
Wounds, and storm seems to be letting up by I
think we'll be able to make it to the house.

Speaker 1 (02:50:10):
Now.

Speaker 56 (02:50:12):
I must warn you that anything you say will be
used against you on your trial. I am accusing you
of the murder of your wife.

Speaker 26 (02:50:22):
What flaw did the inspector find in Carl's story?

Speaker 55 (02:50:25):
In just a moment, we'll know.

Speaker 45 (02:50:26):
But first.

Speaker 55 (02:51:09):
And now back to our story.

Speaker 26 (02:51:11):
Call.

Speaker 56 (02:51:11):
You murdered your wife, and with one of the most
rusome methods I've ever encountered. Your story stamped itself as
a lie when you told me your wife said she
suffered from hemophilia. For your information, my friend, women never
suffer from the affection of hemophilia. They may transmit it
to male members of their family by means of heredity,
but they themselves are never affected by it.

Speaker 55 (02:51:33):
The blood on your hands won't wash off easily.

Speaker 57 (02:52:15):
It was a dismal night, wet and thundering. A loud,
crashing noise startled Annie as she sat alone watching television.
Shrugging it off, she returned to her show. Just then
the phone rang, and Hee had been expecting a call

(02:52:35):
from the parents of the two children she was babysitting,
so she quickly answered the phone Parker residence. There was
not a word from the other end of the phone. Hello,
is anyone there? Repeated Annie. Just as she was about
to lay down the receiver, a man's voice strangely asked,
how are the children? Any inquisitively replied excuse me. The

(02:53:00):
creepy voice repeated, how are the children? Annie was puzzled,
but not alarmed. Who is this, mister Parker?

Speaker 6 (02:53:10):
Is that you?

Speaker 57 (02:53:12):
Silence? The voice disappeared as the sound of the phone
hanging up was heard through the receiver. Annie put the
phone down and walked toward the dark hallway to the
foot of the stairs. She looked up the side of
a steep banister to the open door of the children's room,
wondering whether or not she had left it ajar. Just

(02:53:33):
as she started up the stairs to check on the children,
the phone rang. She picked up the receiver.

Speaker 1 (02:53:39):
Hello.

Speaker 57 (02:53:40):
There was no sound but the sound of her own breath.
Annie spoke again, who is this? Silence? Suddenly, the frightening
voice was heard again, do you know how the children are?
Annie hung up the phone and dialed the police. The
officer assured her that it was It was probably nothing

(02:54:01):
more than a prank, but as a precaution, the police
ran a trace on the call. Annie was slightly apprehensive.
She was fidgeting and pacing back and forth in the hallway.
From the living room, came noises from the TV. Annie
stared at the phone. She tensely walked past, watching it.

(02:54:21):
She began checking windows and doors throughout the house to
make sure they were locked.

Speaker 1 (02:54:27):
As she turned on a.

Speaker 57 (02:54:28):
Light perched on a table, she jumped at the sound
of the loud ringer of the phone next to the light.
Her eyes widened as her fist tightened. She slowly reached
for the receiver, then picked it up quickly forcefully as
she spoke, listen you, I've already called the police, so
stop calling here. Annie was about to slam the phone
down when she heard the shrill sound of laughter echoing

(02:54:51):
through the receiver. Annie yelled into the phone, who are you?

Speaker 1 (02:54:55):
What do you want?

Speaker 57 (02:54:56):
The voice replied, I've already got what I want, checked
the children. Annie slammed down the phone. She ran through
the dining room to the study, continuing to check the windows. Suddenly,
Annie stopped and shrieked at the sight of a face
staring through the window in the study. It was a
man with piercing black eyes, like the eyes of a shark,

(02:55:19):
sinking his teeth into his victim. She jumped back from
the window and ran out of the room, through the
house to the front door. She flung open the door
and gasped. A giant figure loomed over the doorway. He
grabbed her by the arms. She struggled to push him away.
It was Officer Dow. Annie finally realized who it was
and calmed down slightly. She hysterically led him back into

(02:55:43):
the house, crying about the face in the window. Dow
instructed his partner, Officer Keith, to check the upstairs. Annie
showed Dow the window where she saw the man's face.
Dow inspected the windows and hesitantly told her, Annie, I'm
afraid the calls were traced to a line inside the house.
We came as quickly as possible. Pausing before finishing his

(02:56:05):
bad news, dal continued, this glass is tinted. What you
saw was not a man looking through the window, but
a man's reflection in the glass. Annie shook her head
in horror. Do you mean he was behind me? Just
then Officer Keif yelled from the upstairs for Dow to
come quickly. Dal told Lanny to stay put, but she

(02:56:26):
refused to be left alone and chased him out of
the kitchen. Slowly, Dow walked up the long flight of stairs.
His flashlight lit the path as Annie followed closely behind.
They walked into the bedroom. Dal flashed the light throughout
the room. Annie flipped down the light switch. Annie's painful

(02:56:47):
screech sounded like an alarm. The children's beds were empty
and the sheets were pulled off. Officer Keith came running
into the room and announced, I've searched the house. There's
nobody here, and you turn to have quarified by these
names and asked what about the children? Keith replied they're gone.

(02:57:09):
It's been ten more years now, but the children have
never been back.

Speaker 58 (02:57:16):
Go away from my window, go away from my dog.

Speaker 59 (02:57:24):
No way, way way from my bedside, and bother me
no more, and bother me no more.

Speaker 58 (02:57:40):
I'll go tell all my brothers. I'll tell all my
sisters too. Now the reason why my heart is broke
is on account of you, is on on account.

Speaker 22 (02:58:04):
Why did I become friends with missus Faulkner. Good question,
because we were enabled.

Speaker 13 (02:58:14):
I suppose I introduce myself, Hillary Fault. Now I just
moved in next door.

Speaker 22 (02:58:19):
Wasn't as if we had much in common. She was
twice my age, over seventy.

Speaker 13 (02:58:23):
She said, time for a change. I told myself that
my offer passed away a few months ago.

Speaker 22 (02:58:29):
She missed her husband.

Speaker 33 (02:58:29):
You could tell.

Speaker 13 (02:58:30):
But life goes on, doesn't it. I've got my children
and grandchildren to think about it.

Speaker 22 (02:58:36):
You know, the type, A bit old, bit soft, But
there was still something sparky about her. She wouldn't let
things get her down anyway. The house next door been
empty for about a year. Well it would be when
nobody likes death that kind. Then missus Faulkner came even.

(02:58:59):
I had to admit it was good to have a
neighbor again. You know how isolated our two houses are.
I was digging up some long dead flowers in the
garden a few days after she moved in.

Speaker 13 (02:59:10):
Do join me in a cup of tea, and you
might do me a very small favor. I'm trying to
open a jar of jam that I've got a touch
of arthritis in my hands.

Speaker 22 (02:59:19):
Could you possibly she smiled in that persuasive way. I
went in and opened a jar of jam. That's how
it started.

Speaker 13 (02:59:30):
I have a scone, dear, May I call you Christine.
They were worn from the oven. My chest isn't too good.
I don't like to go out in damp weather.

Speaker 22 (02:59:41):
Very pleasant. There was something about her. She was sort
of comforting to be with. She let you talk and
really listened. I told her things I've never told anyone,
but I didn't want to get too close. I always
thought of her as missus Faulkner, not Hillary. Kept that
little distance between us. All the same. I think you

(03:00:05):
could say we were friends. She wasn't always putting herself
forward trying to impress.

Speaker 33 (03:00:08):
You, not like some people.

Speaker 13 (03:00:10):
Marty.

Speaker 22 (03:00:12):
Please, you've made the house very nice.

Speaker 13 (03:00:17):
It was very nice when I moved in, just a
be neglected around the edges from standing empty so long.
I can't understand why such an attractive house didn't sell
straight away.

Speaker 22 (03:00:27):
They didn't tell you.

Speaker 13 (03:00:28):
This didn't explain about the isolated position. He did want me,
but I fell in love with it. I had to
have it.

Speaker 22 (03:00:34):
It's very large, just for me.

Speaker 13 (03:00:38):
I chose this time to be equidistant from all my children.
I've got three you know, and seven grandchildren. Yes, so
I need a big house. There I go, talking too
much about myself. Didn't they tell me?

Speaker 6 (03:00:51):
What?

Speaker 33 (03:00:52):
It's? Nothing?

Speaker 1 (03:00:53):
Really?

Speaker 13 (03:00:53):
Come on, Christine, you've roused my curiosity. Now, perhaps I
shouldn't say or something wrong with the house. No, nothing
at all? Is it haunted? Oh I'm not afraid of ghosts.

Speaker 22 (03:01:05):
There are no ghosts.

Speaker 6 (03:01:07):
What they so?

Speaker 13 (03:01:10):
I died here? Not exactly in the garden, on.

Speaker 22 (03:01:16):
The road, on the hill that leads down to Thornton,
a traffic accident.

Speaker 13 (03:01:21):
Oh, dear, who is the person who died?

Speaker 15 (03:01:23):
Eleanor?

Speaker 22 (03:01:25):
She lived here with her husband and little boy.

Speaker 13 (03:01:29):
How sad a child needs its mother? So they moved away?
Oh Christine, you're trembling. Let me take your cap. What
you sorry?

Speaker 22 (03:01:40):
I can't better talk about it.

Speaker 13 (03:01:41):
I'm stupid, an't I? You must have been friends? How
long had she lived here?

Speaker 22 (03:01:46):
Five years?

Speaker 13 (03:01:47):
A long time?

Speaker 22 (03:01:49):
Long enough. I felt shaken up inside, being reminded like that.
I told myself to forget about Eleanor about the Harrisons.
Settled into a pattern of getting but it was like
twisting kaleidoscope. A new pattern emerged and I couldn't find
the old one again. I thought, how would it be

(03:02:10):
if I could talk about it? It wouldn't change anything,
but it would be an end.

Speaker 1 (03:02:15):
Full stop.

Speaker 13 (03:02:16):
Oh Christine, it's you.

Speaker 12 (03:02:18):
Come in.

Speaker 13 (03:02:20):
I just put the kettle on.

Speaker 22 (03:02:22):
How are you today?

Speaker 13 (03:02:23):
Legs are a bit stiff.

Speaker 22 (03:02:25):
I saw Belman's van.

Speaker 13 (03:02:26):
I asked them to deliver my grocers. I haven't got
round to unpacking them yet.

Speaker 33 (03:02:30):
I'll help you god Send.

Speaker 13 (03:02:33):
It was a nice enough young An't mind you very
chetty on one legs in here next to the sugar idea?
Do you know what he said? What he said he
wouldn't fancy living here.

Speaker 18 (03:02:46):
It's very quiet.

Speaker 22 (03:02:48):
Everyone likes that.

Speaker 13 (03:02:49):
Then he asked me if I got nightmares?

Speaker 33 (03:02:53):
What about these biscuits?

Speaker 13 (03:02:54):
Rather an odd remark.

Speaker 22 (03:02:55):
Don't you think I'd put them on this shelf? They'll
be easier for you to read?

Speaker 13 (03:02:58):
Why would I get night wonder?

Speaker 33 (03:03:01):
I've always slept there?

Speaker 6 (03:03:02):
His hand.

Speaker 22 (03:03:03):
I'll put the washing up liquid by the seat, Christine.

Speaker 13 (03:03:06):
Why was this house empty for so long?

Speaker 20 (03:03:08):
Not that again?

Speaker 47 (03:03:10):
Just as you like.

Speaker 13 (03:03:13):
The car crash, the one you told me about. Perhaps
the young man was referring to that.

Speaker 22 (03:03:18):
Probably it was in all the papers.

Speaker 13 (03:03:20):
It was an accident, wasn't it.

Speaker 22 (03:03:23):
I didn't say that.

Speaker 13 (03:03:25):
Arthur used to reckon. I had only one weakness, my curiosity.

Speaker 22 (03:03:29):
You mean you're going to keep on at me until
I tell you?

Speaker 13 (03:03:32):
I'm afraid it's a possibility. I did try to question
the delivery man, but he was in a hurry. Ask anyone.
He said, everyone knows about the Harrison case around here.
Then he drove off.

Speaker 22 (03:03:44):
I should take his advice.

Speaker 13 (03:03:45):
Then I don't get hut much. Now there's only you
I can ask Christine.

Speaker 22 (03:03:57):
All right, it wasn't an accident. He messed about with
Eleanor's car that breaks failed and she was killed. He
Martin Harrison, Eleanor's husband.

Speaker 13 (03:04:06):
I knew there was something. Let me get this straight.
Eleanor was killed by her own house.

Speaker 22 (03:04:12):
He's in prison for it. Are you satisfied now? Oh,
I've got you.

Speaker 13 (03:04:18):
Let me sit for a minute.

Speaker 22 (03:04:22):
Your hands are quite clummy.

Speaker 13 (03:04:24):
It knocks the stuffing out of you. I'm living in
a house where a murderer once lived. He ate in
his kitchen, he touched these steps as worked off. Did
he sleep in my bedroom? I'm seventy two years old,
and I don't think I ever felt quite like this.
It's it's a shock, of course, but you know it's

(03:04:46):
rather exciting too. You'd better tell me all about it.

Speaker 22 (03:04:51):
Is this a good idea, Miss Vaughn.

Speaker 13 (03:04:53):
I'm probably the only person in this town who doesn't
know the story, and I think I shall.

Speaker 22 (03:05:00):
Like I told you, it seems Martin cut something on
Eleanor's car, the brake pipe. I think she went to
see her friend every Tuesday. And there's this steep hill
on the Thornton Road.

Speaker 13 (03:05:10):
I've heard about it, a real black spot.

Speaker 22 (03:05:13):
She died in hospital a day or two later. Martin
was found guilty of murder.

Speaker 26 (03:05:16):
That's all.

Speaker 13 (03:05:16):
Imagine that.

Speaker 33 (03:05:19):
You're not upset?

Speaker 13 (03:05:20):
Good heavens No, it's over now, nothing to be done
and nothing to do with me, Thank goodness.

Speaker 31 (03:05:25):
No, it's you.

Speaker 13 (03:05:26):
I'm worried about.

Speaker 26 (03:05:28):
Me.

Speaker 13 (03:05:29):
What a terrible thing to happen right next door. You
never had a chance to talk about it, have you?

Speaker 1 (03:05:37):
No?

Speaker 13 (03:05:38):
They say talking is the best therapy. I'm sure it's
still a painful memory, isn't it. I've realized how much
it helps to talk and share things since Arthur passed away.
Tell me about the Harrisons.

Speaker 22 (03:05:51):
I was curled up on missus faulkmle'svelvet's sofa. I was warm, safe,
full of tea muffins. I was so comfortable except for this.

Speaker 35 (03:06:00):
Ache.

Speaker 22 (03:06:02):
She could massage it away just by listening. I began
to talk. I can remember the day Eleanor and Martin
moved in here. Oh yes, I made a flask of
coffee and some sandwiches and took them round. And there
they were, Eleanor and Martin, eating their lunch on an
empty tea chest, French bread patty, and a bottle of wine.

(03:06:23):
She thanked me, but I felt stupid. That was Eleanor
all over, terribly well organized, not like me. She was
pregnant at the diamond looked marvelous. What did you help
the boy? Ben shot for Benedict?

Speaker 13 (03:06:39):
He was gorgeous, poor child.

Speaker 22 (03:06:41):
We saw quite a lot of each other, Eleanor and mean,
mainly here in this house. It's sunnier than mine. Have
you noticed? I would keep an eye on Ben while
Eleanor got on sewing or cooking. She was a fabulous cook.
Each time I came there seemed to be some improvement,
something to admire, like these stripped pine doors. She had
a lovely taste. I mean, our house is nicely decorated.

(03:07:04):
John CEY's to that two rooms every year. He makes
a very good job, Like Eleanor had style. That's something
you're born with, isn't it. I never felt comfortable when
she came round to.

Speaker 13 (03:07:16):
Our It's a charming house.

Speaker 22 (03:07:18):
I did try to make it nice at first, but
it never quite came off, even when I copied one
of Eleanor's ideas. And of course John didn't notice. So
I rather gave up on the house after a while.
He and Martin were forever doing up old cars by
that time. We hardly ever saw them. Eleanor and I
used to laugh about it. Men are so childish, she'd say,

(03:07:39):
give them food and love in a pleasant home, and
they're as happy as boys. They need a joke now
and then to get them out of their rut and
make them realize they're grown ups. What do you think, Well,
she understood about men.

Speaker 13 (03:07:50):
I miss having a man about the house. And what
did John think about it? All about what the Harrison's about?
Eleanor's hospital. Oh you don't mind my talking about it?

Speaker 22 (03:08:02):
No, he was stunned when Martin went to prison. They
were good friends.

Speaker 13 (03:08:07):
John probably knew Martin as well as anyone apart from Ellen.
Of course, didn't he notice something in this? Do people
commit murder on the spur of the moment must have
been planned exactly, and John noticed nothing odd about him.

Speaker 22 (03:08:24):
Martin loved his wife. They seemed a normal, happy couple.

Speaker 13 (03:08:28):
Oh, dear, what is it that makes it worse, doesn't it?

Speaker 33 (03:08:35):
I'm glad you've come to live here.

Speaker 13 (03:08:37):
How nice of you to say so, Christine. I realize now.

Speaker 22 (03:08:39):
How much I hated living next door to an empty house.

Speaker 13 (03:08:42):
It frightened you.

Speaker 22 (03:08:43):
Sometimes.

Speaker 13 (03:08:45):
I thought the house was.

Speaker 22 (03:08:46):
Breathing like a sleeping giant. One day it would wake
up good heavens, and empty house is more menacing than
an occupied one.

Speaker 36 (03:08:56):
Why is that?

Speaker 39 (03:08:57):
I'm sure?

Speaker 13 (03:08:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 22 (03:08:59):
I think it's because our imagination fills the spaces. I'm
afraid you've lost me, dear, I have too much imagination.
That's what John always says. Head in the clouds, he
tells me. He likes to keep his feet on the ground,
down to earth.

Speaker 13 (03:09:17):
That's him.

Speaker 22 (03:09:19):
He doesn't believe in anything he can't touch. But there
are other things. You can't touch them, but they're real.
They live inside your powerful things. People like John don't realize.
I wish I was one of those balloons filled with helium.
Let me go, and I'd float away, far up, and
I'd look down on all this. After all, what is

(03:09:43):
there to keep me? Asked bound? It might have been
different if we'd had children.

Speaker 13 (03:09:50):
Whatever happened to the little boy Ben?

Speaker 22 (03:09:54):
He lives with his grandmother. I missed my lot. He
was the image. Martin was not a bit like Eleanor.
I suppose that's a shame, because she was the one
with the looks. It's all gone now, that beauty snuffed out.
I used to babysit when Ellen and Martin wanted to
go to the theater, dinner with friends. It was wonderful, stories, games,

(03:10:18):
everything I could think of. Way past Ben's bedtime. I'd
bring crisps and lemonade around, but Eleanor never knew about
that or how he loved them. I had to sweep
up all the crumbs and salty bits off this carpet
and rinse hat his cup. Eleanor didn't believe him junk food.
I suppose she was right, but I was only giving
him a treat. Of course, I didn't do him any harm.

Speaker 13 (03:10:41):
I'm sure you didn't.

Speaker 22 (03:10:42):
I never see him now. In fact, I hardly saw
him during that last year before Eleanor died. She didn't
want me to look after him anymore. Why was that
she joined a babysitting circle?

Speaker 13 (03:10:51):
Do you think she found out about the critic?

Speaker 1 (03:10:53):
It wasn't that.

Speaker 22 (03:10:54):
Oh, I can't tell you the real reason. If you don't,
I really couldn't.

Speaker 13 (03:10:59):
I hope you don't think I'm marry. If I'm honest
with myself, I have to say I find the Harrison's
rather fascinating, the idea have a murder planned right here? Please,
I'm sorry that was tactless. That's all right. Perhaps we
shouldn't talk about it.

Speaker 22 (03:11:18):
Oh no, honestly, I don't mind. I'm sure it's done.

Speaker 13 (03:11:22):
Me good, I do hope, so it's not me good too,
having someone to talk to. Now, tell me more about Elenor.

Speaker 22 (03:11:30):
Why did I keep on saying, Missus Faulkner, I told
you she listened. I think it became a kind of convulsion.
Some people need drugs to feel right. I needed this contact,
this spilling of myself bit by bit into Missus Faulkner's
willing ears excitement. Possibly huh. We hedged round the nastiness

(03:12:01):
of Ellinor's death, never dwelling on the broken limbs, the
smashed face. I know the soil in his body, but
I've imagined it many times. I felt safe with missus Faul.
She held my hand while I trod on the thin
ice of the past.

Speaker 33 (03:12:22):
I needed.

Speaker 22 (03:12:22):
It was much else in my life.

Speaker 13 (03:12:25):
Didn't you find the time hangs heavy on your hands? Christine?
I mean no offense, but you haven't any children or
even a job.

Speaker 22 (03:12:32):
I keep busy and I have these chats to look
forward to, missus Faun.

Speaker 13 (03:12:38):
I've always needed something practical to do. Children give you
that you don't understand.

Speaker 22 (03:12:45):
I wanted children, That's why we bought such a big house.
I've had all the tests. There's nothing wrong. We were
just unlucky.

Speaker 13 (03:12:54):
What a shame for you? Still think of their Lena.
People must have thought she had all the luck. She
seemed to have everything, and look what happened to her?

Speaker 22 (03:13:01):
He had everything?

Speaker 13 (03:13:03):
Was money a problem? By any chancel? Did she have
their too?

Speaker 22 (03:13:06):
Never seemed short of money, Not like us. We've always
had to scrimp on John's teaching salary.

Speaker 13 (03:13:11):
What did Martin do?

Speaker 1 (03:13:12):
Oh?

Speaker 22 (03:13:13):
He was the manager of a big garage, but he
liked nothing better than getting his hands Oily.

Speaker 13 (03:13:17):
And Eleanor stayed at home and looked after Ben.

Speaker 2 (03:13:20):
Quite right.

Speaker 22 (03:13:21):
I did have a job once in a close shop
in term, but I had to leave in the end
to dreamy. They said unpunctual. I let the stock get
in a messon the other girls upset me. They were crude.
Was talking about the sex and birth control and accidents,

(03:13:42):
and they're insides. Terrible things are there were any dreadful
things in the world. Nothing clean or good.

Speaker 13 (03:13:50):
Set me. I can see it would more clean idea.

Speaker 33 (03:13:54):
Thanks he had let me.

Speaker 13 (03:14:00):
But seems to be getting heavy every day.

Speaker 22 (03:14:04):
Is your arthritis worse?

Speaker 13 (03:14:05):
Just a bad patch? Be as writer's reign in a
few days. That first part of the doctor wants to
give me tablets and injections.

Speaker 22 (03:14:12):
You should have them now.

Speaker 13 (03:14:13):
I'll manage and I can still move about just a
bit slow, that's all. I hate to admit it, Christine,
but I'm beginning to feel this house is too much
for me.

Speaker 22 (03:14:24):
You're not thinking you're moving.

Speaker 13 (03:14:26):
I'm not sure I would miss you. Well, don't you
worry about me? Why don't you finish off the ghetto?
You're so pale and thin, Christine, we can't have you
wasting away.

Speaker 22 (03:14:40):
And I would lie there thinking about missus Faulkner all
Oblivia's on the other side of our bedroom wall, probably
snoring gently. Eventually had drift away. There was a lot
of red in my dreams, fire blood?

Speaker 33 (03:15:01):
Does that mean something?

Speaker 1 (03:15:03):
You should know?

Speaker 22 (03:15:06):
A woke, sweating, terrified that somehow infected her dreams?

Speaker 33 (03:15:09):
What do they call it?

Speaker 22 (03:15:10):
Telepathy? And it is there such a thing? I half
wanted her to share my terrors. It would make a
kind of bond between us. Each session together became precious,
even if bit desperate. Would I be able to spill

(03:15:32):
myself out before she went? Would she ever understand me?
I thought, If anybody could, it would be missus faun.

Speaker 13 (03:15:40):
I've had a letter from my daughter.

Speaker 12 (03:15:43):
Listen to this.

Speaker 13 (03:15:45):
She's pain to have an extension built, she says, a
sort of gram new flat, but all on the ground
floor to save my legs. Look, she's just drawn a diagram.
I've been near my grandchildren, but independent too. I insisted
on that.

Speaker 37 (03:16:00):
How long?

Speaker 13 (03:16:01):
Oh, a few months yet? That nice mister Hargreave is
from the estate agents is coming to value the house
to morrow. Don't look so worried, Christine. You soon have
some new neighbors, a family perhaps, and some one you
can be friends with like you were with Ellama.

Speaker 44 (03:16:18):
No, that reminds me.

Speaker 13 (03:16:21):
No Onrman sent my groceries this morning. Do you know
that delivery boy is a font of knowledge? He told
me what Martin Harrison is being moved to a different prison,
somewhere more lenient, He said, How gossip gets round in
a small attain man.

Speaker 22 (03:16:39):
Who murdered his wife be kept some more safe? What
if he escaped?

Speaker 13 (03:16:41):
They must be sure he isn't a danger to any one.
Most murders are domestic.

Speaker 22 (03:16:46):
Ah, jealousy, what you it's jealousy often, I know it was.

Speaker 13 (03:16:49):
How can you be sure it must have been?

Speaker 20 (03:16:52):
Was she meeting other men?

Speaker 13 (03:16:54):
I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry.

Speaker 22 (03:16:57):
I must go lots to do, busy, very busy.

Speaker 13 (03:17:02):
But Georgie I wanted to tell her.

Speaker 22 (03:17:04):
Why couldn't I she would understand how dreadful it had been.

Speaker 1 (03:17:10):
I went home.

Speaker 22 (03:17:12):
I sat on the floor of my kitchen and I
spoke aloud, just as if Missus Faulkner was there, Oh,
Missus Faulkner. It was one afternoon. Missus Faulkner about a

(03:17:33):
year before she died. Yes, dear, I popped around as
usual and found the door locked. Eleanor never locked her door.
I knew she was in her car was outside, and
I could hear Ben singing away to himself in his
cot upstairs. Then I noticed the front room curtains. They
were drawn, but not very carefully. I peered through the
gap and saw Eleanor sprawled on the carpet with the man.

(03:17:56):
It wasn't Martin. A dress was pulled right up, and
she was wearing black stockings like a fool.

Speaker 13 (03:18:05):
I just stared.

Speaker 22 (03:18:06):
Eleanor saw me, You see, missus Faulkner. She looked at
me quite coolly, and then she began to smile.

Speaker 13 (03:18:14):
Poor Christine, what on earth did you do?

Speaker 22 (03:18:17):
I backed away from the window. I remember feeling angry.
Why couldn't you pull the curtains properly? My cheeks were
burning as I ran home. It was me who felt guilty,
and that's why you fell out with Eleanor. I kept thinking,
how could you dig disgusting with some stranger and Ben upstairs?

Speaker 33 (03:18:35):
That was the worst thing.

Speaker 22 (03:18:37):
If people can't look after their children, they shouldn't have them.

Speaker 13 (03:18:39):
I quite agree.

Speaker 22 (03:18:41):
I didn't go around anymore. She got other people to
look after Ben. We can't impose on you any longer,
she said, I've joined a baby sitting circle. Why should
I be punished? Then I began thinking what I'd hardly
seen him just ahead a back of white shirt. Knew
it wasn't Martin. He's got fair hair. This man was dark.

Speaker 1 (03:19:03):
Like John.

Speaker 22 (03:19:06):
John wore a white shirt that day, and I checked
his timetable a double free period that afternoon. Then I knew,
no wonder she was so Palaine. No wonder he didn't
talk to me anymore, But she already had everything. Why
did you have to take what was mine?

Speaker 33 (03:19:20):
So much on happiness?

Speaker 22 (03:19:22):
Then something funny happened. The less I saw of Eleanor,
the more oppressed by her I became. And that was
when John started getting at me about the state of
the house.

Speaker 13 (03:19:33):
So much John happiness.

Speaker 22 (03:19:35):
I never told him that I knew we went on
as usual.

Speaker 13 (03:19:38):
It might have been somebody else. You can't be sure.

Speaker 22 (03:19:41):
I told myself that often, But in my heart I
knew they treated me as though I wasn't there. Oh,
I got up off the floor to answer the phone.

Speaker 60 (03:20:00):
It's hell hot, but Are you all right? Yes, I
was worth about going off suddenly like that.

Speaker 22 (03:20:11):
I'm all right now.

Speaker 1 (03:20:13):
It was true.

Speaker 22 (03:20:14):
I felt calmer, I had more energy. I felt she
understood me better. We were closer. I had to keep
seeing her to keep spilling out the truth in drops.

Speaker 13 (03:20:31):
Oh, dear, let me, mother bought one. I'm afraid. I
can't take any more of these silly stiff fingers.

Speaker 18 (03:20:38):
Afraid.

Speaker 33 (03:20:38):
And now I'll make something and bring it round.

Speaker 13 (03:20:41):
But you don't like cooking.

Speaker 22 (03:20:42):
I can be technical, you know when I need to be,
when there's a purpose in it.

Speaker 13 (03:20:47):
That's a kind offer. If you're sure. I'm quite sure
you've restored my faith.

Speaker 22 (03:20:53):
Has something happened when.

Speaker 13 (03:20:54):
I got my meat delivered this morning from that butcher's
on Field Street? And do you know both the amazing
stake and the lins were short weight?

Speaker 22 (03:21:02):
Wickedness is rife. That's what the judge said at the trial.

Speaker 13 (03:21:05):
At Martin Harrison's trial. Yes, I thought, I mean no, no,
I won't ask. I don't want you getting upset again.
I wasn't upset all the same. I think we should
avoid the sub.

Speaker 22 (03:21:16):
There's no need. You know, it does me good to
talk about it. Talking is the best therapy, that's what
you said.

Speaker 13 (03:21:23):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 22 (03:21:24):
Well, if you don't want to know about it the trial.

Speaker 13 (03:21:29):
Well, of course i'd like to hear. I had no
idea you were there. Didn't you find it awfully distress?

Speaker 20 (03:21:35):
I had to go.

Speaker 22 (03:21:35):
I was a witness. No, it's true. My evidence was important.
You could say it helped to convict Martin.

Speaker 13 (03:21:40):
I'm not sure I want to hear this after all,
now you're not.

Speaker 22 (03:21:43):
I heard them arguing the night before it happened. It
was a terrible row. They were shouting and screaming at
each other. He must have found out about her, found
out what about her men?

Speaker 13 (03:21:51):
She was shameless? Didn't I tell you about that?

Speaker 22 (03:21:53):
Thought I heard? Of course I did last week, you remember,
and the day after they are he killed her. I
had to tell the truth, didn't I.

Speaker 13 (03:22:01):
Of course.

Speaker 22 (03:22:02):
The worst part was before the trial, all the questions.
There was one Inspector Mologneux.

Speaker 13 (03:22:06):
He was called.

Speaker 22 (03:22:07):
He had no feelings, no sensitivity.

Speaker 33 (03:22:09):
Do you know what he did?

Speaker 22 (03:22:10):
He searched our shed.

Speaker 13 (03:22:11):
They didn't suspect you, Inspector.

Speaker 22 (03:22:13):
Molineu didn't care how much he upset me. Endless questions
at home at the police station, John and me together,
then separately, a waste of time and money. They knew
it was Martin because of the rabbit. That plus the
fact they found his overalls buried in the garden. They
had break fluid on them. There were traces of fluid
on the secreturs and his shed to it all came
out at the trial.

Speaker 13 (03:22:30):
And now little Ben has no mother and his father
is a convicted murderer. Sadness of it, It's terrible.

Speaker 22 (03:22:38):
Don't missus Faulkner. It's all over now here.

Speaker 13 (03:22:41):
Thank you, dear. It's a sort of compulsion, isn't it,
this desire to talk about dreadful things like the girls
in your shop. Perhaps we are just as bad.

Speaker 22 (03:22:53):
No, it's not the same, surely it's not.

Speaker 13 (03:22:56):
Will you got it off your chest?

Speaker 1 (03:22:58):
Now?

Speaker 13 (03:23:00):
Honestly, Christine? I think the best thing is to put
it behind you and start forgetting it.

Speaker 12 (03:23:04):
You think, so?

Speaker 13 (03:23:05):
No more talk of Eleanor Harrison? It finished, agreed, all right,
it's finished.

Speaker 22 (03:23:15):
No more talk of Eleanor. But I was nearly empty,
just a few drops left. I went home feeling cheated.
I wandered about aimlessly watching I was back in front
of Missus Faulkner's electric fire, soaking up the waves of warmth,
easing the.

Speaker 33 (03:23:30):
Ache.

Speaker 22 (03:23:32):
I remembered other lonely afternoons, I remembered being aware of
Eleanor's presence beyond the wall. Sometimes her friends came and
I could hear them laughing. There had been a time
when I was welcome, even to her dinner parties. There
were relaxed, stylish affairs I couldn't hope to imitate, And
afterwards John would ask why couldn't I cook like Elenor
why didn't I talk myself up with it like Eleonna did?

(03:23:55):
Sometimes my head felt like it burst when he went
on at me like that. And then I found them
sprawled on the floor together. I spoke a loud as
though missus Faulner was sitting opposite me, nodding and smiling
and encouraging me to go on. She added, all you see,
missus Faulkner, Martin's love, and little Ben, her beauty and

(03:24:18):
a smart.

Speaker 13 (03:24:19):
Home, so much unhappiness.

Speaker 22 (03:24:21):
But she wanted more, and she took it. Never mind
my feelings. I had no existence in her eyes. I
wasn't important.

Speaker 13 (03:24:29):
She took John, are you sure you aren't imagining this?

Speaker 22 (03:24:33):
Then she took the child from me.

Speaker 33 (03:24:36):
I loved Ben.

Speaker 22 (03:24:38):
I know he loved me, of course he did.

Speaker 33 (03:24:40):
It was your fault, Elena.

Speaker 22 (03:24:42):
You made me jealous. I thought you liked me. I
thought we were friends.

Speaker 13 (03:24:45):
But you used me.

Speaker 22 (03:24:47):
You wanted John, and our friendship counted for nothing. Perhaps
it never had any meaning. Perhaps I was always the
sounding bored for your many perfections. When you stopped letting
me play with.

Speaker 13 (03:24:58):
Ben, I began to see you different.

Speaker 1 (03:25:00):
She you skew.

Speaker 22 (03:25:02):
You corrupted my friendship into envy. You were so smug,
so prosperous.

Speaker 13 (03:25:07):
You sucked me dry.

Speaker 8 (03:25:09):
You fed on me like a lah.

Speaker 13 (03:25:11):
She sucked you dry.

Speaker 22 (03:25:12):
You were all substance, and I was a shadow. I
caught sight of himself in a mirror. My face was
drained of color, drained of everything.

Speaker 1 (03:25:22):
Accept disgust.

Speaker 22 (03:25:24):
I just wanted to give you a joke, make you
feel a bit of pain. I didn't mean to kill you.
With one blow, I smashed it. Fragments of silvered glass
tumbled to the floor.

Speaker 33 (03:25:37):
You hate it that much?

Speaker 6 (03:25:40):
Hate?

Speaker 22 (03:25:42):
How could I hate? Eleanor perfectionist to be admired, not hated.
But it had to go somewhere, all that feeling blowing
me up weighing me down until I was a balloon
filled with lead.

Speaker 1 (03:25:59):
I understand now you understand?

Speaker 33 (03:26:03):
Yes, she made me hate my.

Speaker 1 (03:26:17):
Hm hm m hm.

Speaker 22 (03:26:28):
Are you still lomit? Missus Waunner?

Speaker 13 (03:26:30):
I'm here, don't go.

Speaker 15 (03:26:35):
Hm.

Speaker 22 (03:26:39):
Did you know that broken glass is beautiful like cracked eyes?

Speaker 1 (03:26:50):
What about the car? Christine?

Speaker 61 (03:26:55):
Oh?

Speaker 33 (03:26:55):
That it was easy?

Speaker 22 (03:27:00):
John had borrowed one of Martin's Calm annuals the weekend before.

Speaker 33 (03:27:03):
I stayed up.

Speaker 22 (03:27:04):
Late, studied the diagrams, saw where I could cut the
flexible brake pipe. I'd heard about such things. Men talk
as though women are incapable of understanding. I did it
in the morning while Eleanor took Ben for a walk.
I wore Martin's overalls and used his secondars. Harrison's never
locked their shed. She went to see a friend every Tuesday,

(03:27:25):
while Ben was a playgroup. There's this steep hill.

Speaker 13 (03:27:31):
What about the row they had the night before?

Speaker 22 (03:27:34):
There was no row. John was out at a parent's evening.
So it was Martin's word against mine. I got away
with it. I'm not always in a dream. I can
think and plan if I want to, If I really
want to, Eleanor couldn't have done it better.

Speaker 13 (03:27:53):
You killed I didn't mean to, and the boy.

Speaker 22 (03:28:00):
I'm sorry about. Then afterwards, I had a wild idea
we could adopt John, so put an end to that.

Speaker 13 (03:28:13):
Does John know what you did?

Speaker 22 (03:28:15):
I doubted he hasn't the imagination. You're the only one
who knows, Missus Vauner. Inspector Molneu, with his hard face
and his endless questions, he couldn't get it out of me.
You don't hate me. I've told you because I thought
you'd understand. I had to tell someone. It was too

(03:28:38):
much to carry alone. It's always better to share things,
isn't it, Missus Faukner. Isn't it, Missus Faulkner, Missus Fauner,

(03:28:59):
There's no answer. I crumpled to the floor and lay
there a long time. Eventually I went upstairs to the bathroom,
but the mirror reflected a ghost. I smashed that too, too, Kay,
just to clear up all the broken gloves, he gave

(03:29:19):
me something to do. Pieces a mirror like flints raise
a sharper. Cut my finger several times, tiny splits that
sprouted blood. Four affetch my gardening gloves. I threw the
shards into the dustbin. They made a noise to wake
the neighborhood. Only there's no one else in our neighborhood.

(03:29:41):
Just missus Faulkman me. She didn't come back until night.
I was waiting for her, lying stiff and straight in
my bed.

Speaker 13 (03:29:59):
There, missus Faukner, what about Ben. He's safe with his
Grannite child needs its mother.

Speaker 62 (03:30:09):
I know you killed her.

Speaker 22 (03:30:11):
There were reasons she pushed me. I thought you understood.

Speaker 13 (03:30:15):
What about the row they head? What about the car?
Why did you hate her so?

Speaker 22 (03:30:18):
Why did I explained it was me?

Speaker 12 (03:30:21):
I'm no good.

Speaker 22 (03:30:21):
I know that I destroyed her. I should have destroyed myself.

Speaker 13 (03:30:27):
Forgive me that traffic accident. Sorry, you planned it in
col don't go come back.

Speaker 37 (03:30:35):
Where are you?

Speaker 20 (03:30:37):
I can't hear you.

Speaker 39 (03:30:39):
Shall I tell you?

Speaker 1 (03:30:40):
No?

Speaker 33 (03:30:40):
Don't tell.

Speaker 22 (03:30:43):
I only wanted you to know. You understand me, don't you?

Speaker 13 (03:30:48):
Poor child only five years old.

Speaker 9 (03:30:51):
I never meant to her.

Speaker 13 (03:30:52):
You took his mother.

Speaker 37 (03:30:54):
A child needs it mother.

Speaker 1 (03:30:56):
Don't tell me what poor child?

Speaker 33 (03:30:58):
I know, Miss fault.

Speaker 22 (03:31:09):
Speak to me, please, oh, speak to to me. Next
day I went for a walk. The sky was thin
and clear and far away. I felt empty in light.
I walked to the top of the hill above Thornton.
I thought, if only I could run fast enough, I

(03:31:29):
could probably take off and fly up into that glassy dome.
Of course, a fellow, I didn't care. Nothing mattered. Now
I had told someone, I'll go tell all my brothers.
I'll tell all my sisters. I told her hunter.

Speaker 13 (03:31:50):
She had spoken to me.

Speaker 22 (03:31:52):
She must have all How could I feel so different?

Speaker 33 (03:31:54):
So unbaddened?

Speaker 22 (03:31:58):
After that, I like to sit at her feet and
rub the swollen joints when they hurt her. I made
him a rings and Brandy Snapson filled them with cream.

Speaker 1 (03:32:09):
Delicious.

Speaker 22 (03:32:09):
Have another one, oh Christine, I mustn't. I'm having another one.

Speaker 13 (03:32:13):
Will you have nothing to worry about? In fact, I
think you're thinner than ever. Any less of you and
you'll be a shadow.

Speaker 22 (03:32:19):
Shadows gonna be strong?

Speaker 34 (03:32:20):
What here?

Speaker 22 (03:32:21):
I was a ghost?

Speaker 13 (03:32:22):
You're talking about my head again?

Speaker 22 (03:32:23):
You know what I'm mean?

Speaker 1 (03:32:24):
Do I?

Speaker 22 (03:32:26):
You know everything?

Speaker 1 (03:32:28):
Now?

Speaker 13 (03:32:29):
You are flattering me, she smiled.

Speaker 22 (03:32:32):
But I thought I saw a touch of steel and
her blue eyes. Was she playing some sort of game?
What does she really think of me?

Speaker 13 (03:32:42):
Would you massage my shoulders for me?

Speaker 1 (03:32:44):
Now?

Speaker 6 (03:32:44):
Do you?

Speaker 13 (03:32:45):
Of course?

Speaker 18 (03:32:46):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (03:32:47):
Oh, such a relief, Oh oh more please.

Speaker 22 (03:33:02):
I massaged her pain away, her body, despite its bulks,
quite frail. Under all that flesh, there was no strength
in her. Oh, thank you, that's much better anything else.

Speaker 13 (03:33:20):
You made me sound like a hard taskmaster. Well, since
you ask, A fresh pot of tea would be lovely.

Speaker 22 (03:33:28):
The more I did, the more she seemed to want.
The blue eyes watched me, piercing metals. There was a
subtle balance of power between us, and it tipped, and
I began to slide down. She knew everything. She might
keep it to herself and let me pander to her,

(03:33:51):
or she might tell someone, Inspector Mollynea.

Speaker 1 (03:33:56):
Perhaps.

Speaker 22 (03:33:57):
Each day I waited for the door bell to ring,
a policeman on the doorstep, but no one came. She
was biding her time. At night, I whispered to her
through the wall.

Speaker 13 (03:34:08):
What are you going to do? I haven't decided yet.

Speaker 22 (03:34:11):
You're enjoying this on you.

Speaker 13 (03:34:13):
What do you mean You've got me where you want me.
I'm like a rabbit hot in your head lights. Shall
I run you over?

Speaker 1 (03:34:19):
It's up to you.

Speaker 13 (03:34:20):
You destroyed her. What do you mean to I'm sure
about you was an accident, accidentally on purpose? Not to go,
don't tell you're so pale and thin, Christine, like a shadow.

Speaker 63 (03:34:33):
You're a waste away.

Speaker 13 (03:34:34):
I'll come back and haunt you. I don't believe in ghosts.

Speaker 22 (03:34:37):
Wickedness is rife. That's what the judge said. All right, punishment,
do it. Tell someone, but don't leave me like this
not knowing.

Speaker 13 (03:34:49):
I haven't decided yet.

Speaker 22 (03:34:51):
And one night it came to me for the first
time since I looked in that car manual and saw
a way to make Eleanor suffer.

Speaker 33 (03:34:59):
I felt substantial.

Speaker 22 (03:35:03):
I knew what I had to do. After John left
for work, I got what I needed and set off
down Crab Lane. It's not far into town. I went
into the butcher's on Field Street, and remember to make
a scene. Complained loudly. Make sure it's full weight, if
you don't mind. There's a narrow alley of Field Street.
It peters out into a rough path, and soon after
that it's very overgrown. I carried on down the thorny path.

(03:35:26):
It's rarely used. I don't think many people know about it.
It goes along the back of our houses in Crab Lane.
There's some loose slats in Missus Faulkner's fence. They moved easily,
and I squeezed through crouching. I ran the length of
the garden. I stopped at the back door, opened it.
I took the long nylon scarf which always hung there,
ledged into the kitchen. It was empty. Afterwards, I would

(03:35:48):
miss the place up, make it look like Burglars. The
hall was deserted too. Where are you, missus Faulkner.

Speaker 13 (03:35:57):
Up stairs.

Speaker 33 (03:36:04):
In the living room?

Speaker 20 (03:36:05):
I think.

Speaker 22 (03:36:08):
I pulled the scarf tort in my hands, used mail
but to open the door. The handle came up smoothly,
without a click. How well I knew that house better
than mail.

Speaker 20 (03:36:19):
I went in.

Speaker 22 (03:36:23):
She was sitting in an armchair, half turned from me,
staring out at the front window. I stood quite still.
A ripple, almost a laugh, came up in her throat.
She was too stiff to move quickly, too weak to fight.
If I crept round behind hers, she need never know.
Perhaps I wanted her to know, to acknowledge I too

(03:36:44):
had power and knew how to use it.

Speaker 33 (03:36:47):
What do you think.

Speaker 22 (03:36:50):
Anyway? I hesitated a moment too long. She turned round,
smiling when she saw me, Christie, have.

Speaker 13 (03:37:00):
You come to help me for the backing? How kind
I've been sitting here listening to the radio, thinking how
lucky I've been to have lived in this house, if
only for a talt while, and have had such a
good neighbor. I've treasured our meetings, and I just wanted
you to know that sometimes these things don't get said

(03:37:21):
and you regret it. Would you give me a hand up,
my dear.

Speaker 1 (03:37:26):
Thank you?

Speaker 13 (03:37:28):
Is that my scarf? I must have dropped it in
the hall. I'll hang it up later. Now where should
we start?

Speaker 1 (03:37:35):
Do you know, Christine?

Speaker 13 (03:37:37):
You look paler than ever. Now, promise me you'll get
out in the sunshine more often. Is that something you
wanted to tell me?

Speaker 22 (03:37:47):
I've told you you have.

Speaker 13 (03:37:49):
We must be getting deaf as well everything.

Speaker 1 (03:37:52):
What do you know?

Speaker 13 (03:37:54):
Whatever it is, I'm afraid i've forgotten. Perhaps you'd like
to remind me when I saw through the China, I
really ought to make a start. The teachers are coming
to MOK and I I can't take it.

Speaker 22 (03:38:05):
Forgotten about Eleanor and Martin, the trial, the police. You've forgotten?

Speaker 13 (03:38:12):
No, I remember all that?

Speaker 20 (03:38:13):
But were you agree?

Speaker 13 (03:38:14):
You're just too upsetting to talk about It's nothing to
do with eyes us, not anymore.

Speaker 22 (03:38:19):
You weren't listening, of course, But you didn't hear me
at night through the walls.

Speaker 13 (03:38:25):
Not a sound. I always sleep like a log.

Speaker 22 (03:38:28):
You mean I imagined it?

Speaker 13 (03:38:29):
What sounds like it? I'd like you to have these plates, Christine.
They were my mothers here, you were ideal.

Speaker 22 (03:38:42):
Oh, it's still inside me like a stone, like a
stillborn child.

Speaker 13 (03:38:50):
Don't be upset.

Speaker 22 (03:38:51):
It was just an accident, accidentally on purpose.

Speaker 13 (03:38:54):
But they were my mothers.

Speaker 22 (03:38:56):
Can't carry it any longer. It's too heavy.

Speaker 13 (03:39:03):
Sometimes I don't understand you, Christy.

Speaker 22 (03:39:06):
I went home and found the police.

Speaker 1 (03:39:09):
Huh.

Speaker 22 (03:39:11):
I like missus Faulkner. Perhaps she was the only person
I ever really liked.

Speaker 13 (03:39:16):
But that was the idea.

Speaker 22 (03:39:17):
Wasn't it who planted her next door?

Speaker 18 (03:39:19):
Was it you?

Speaker 22 (03:39:20):
Or was it Inspector Molonneue? Yes, he knew all along,
didn't he bother me?

Speaker 1 (03:39:28):
No?

Speaker 6 (03:39:29):
Mo his mother?

Speaker 22 (03:39:31):
I supposed. Of course she must have been. She must
have been a Missus Mollynu before she married Arthur.

Speaker 33 (03:39:35):
Huh.

Speaker 22 (03:39:36):
She was a good listener. I'll give her that, nearly
as good as you, doctor. I shall miss those cozy afternoons.
But perhaps she never really liked me at all. Perhaps
it was all an act neither reason why my heart
is broke.

Speaker 16 (03:39:59):
So you.

Speaker 22 (03:40:05):
Just wait, Missus Faulner, just wait till I get out
of here.

Speaker 58 (03:40:09):
I'll go tell all my brothers, tell all my sisters too.
Not the reason why my heart is broke is on
account to you, is on account Harvey you.

Speaker 64 (03:40:39):
Maurene O'Brien played Christine and Margot Boyd Missus Faulkner in
Black Stockings and Broken Mirrors by Bernadette Crosswait Go Away
from My Window was sung by Melanie Hudson and the
director was Martin Jenkins.

Speaker 61 (03:40:56):
Right fro that man's plays, tip, Sir, hear bigdown on
the headline story of the faith o joke ex drawing gonic.

Speaker 18 (03:41:09):
Right, there's a hot tip, one hundred grand payoff.

Speaker 38 (03:41:14):
All right, let's have it.

Speaker 1 (03:41:17):
Be careful, wise guy babes tread of fear? Is it you?

Speaker 63 (03:41:23):
She can hardly wait to let you have a load
of legs with the can.

Speaker 44 (03:41:29):
Keep on something that can about that like nothing happened, but.

Speaker 40 (03:41:36):
Plenty happens in this five star story of big Town,
brought to you by Leber Brothers Company, makers of Life
Boy Help So the headline drama of fighting editor Steve Wilson,
whose newspaper. Creed stands for freedom and justice against the
forces of intolerance and evil, the.

Speaker 65 (03:41:53):
Power and the freedom of the press, to the claiming
sword may be a faithful servant of all the people.

Speaker 38 (03:41:59):
Use it must, we hold it high. Got it well now,
Big Town and.

Speaker 40 (03:42:08):
Steve Wilson's story captioned the Fatal Joke. All practical jokers
are a menace, but when they are also gangsters and racketeers,
they can be deadly even after death. And such as
the background of the Fatal Joke that began as Babe Barton,
widow of Joker Barton, walked out of woman's prison having

(03:42:29):
finished a three year stretch.

Speaker 38 (03:42:32):
Solon, We'll be seeing your babe.

Speaker 44 (03:42:35):
Oh yeah, the pigs, bye you will.

Speaker 41 (03:42:39):
Hi, naddie, Hi, babe, You're like a million palin the heap.

Speaker 44 (03:42:43):
Thanks for nothing. Theyve a line for the lollies and
but by pretty lousy years in the can ohle this job,
out of sight of this joint.

Speaker 32 (03:42:51):
Okay, babe, some jill up hot a cold like ice
on hose. Do oh, A couple of odd jobs.

Speaker 44 (03:43:09):
Somebody got plenty of sugar for finger in the Joker.

Speaker 41 (03:43:12):
Not me, babe, not me.

Speaker 44 (03:43:14):
Don't put on shoes that ain't made for you, Natty.
They're liable to pinch.

Speaker 66 (03:43:19):
I just wanted it on the record, babe, in case
you forgot I was your husband's pal and bodyguard.

Speaker 44 (03:43:25):
I ain't forgotten nothing. Yeah, I bet, including the newspaper
plug that thick the cups on joker and got in
the chair, and you three years in the henpen weaning
my waistland on a wash tub and a steam laundry.
Come on, come on, step onto the best beauty paul
in big town.

Speaker 41 (03:43:42):
Then what, babe, I want to see the bride lights?

Speaker 44 (03:43:45):
Maybe after I settled a couple of guys and a dame,
which ones Wilson of the Press, an EMI reporter named
Kilbourne on a musical bump called mosa Hey.

Speaker 41 (03:43:57):
An order like that, it's liable to send you back
for big stretch, babe.

Speaker 44 (03:44:01):
Not the way we're gonna work it.

Speaker 41 (03:44:03):
Not me, babe. I never pulled nothing except for dough.

Speaker 44 (03:44:08):
Yeah, I know you don't. This will get your plenty
of dough.

Speaker 66 (03:44:12):
Pleady's kind of bag, babe. I like round figures in
the lettuce and the ladies.

Speaker 44 (03:44:19):
Okay, Nattie ten grand to do? What if Deeve Wilson
a Killbourne twisted Joker's old place tonight?

Speaker 41 (03:44:28):
What I use for bait?

Speaker 44 (03:44:30):
A hundred grand joker gotten a big shake down the
gut in the hot seat?

Speaker 41 (03:44:34):
Oh yeah, what happened to that hundred geez?

Speaker 44 (03:44:37):
Send wilfon a tip. He may find out about it
and get a hot school if he comes to jokers
joint tonight.

Speaker 41 (03:44:43):
What if he brings the cops?

Speaker 44 (03:44:44):
He won't call it copstillly sure he's got a right
to allows is a good nose, and I gotta hand
him that.

Speaker 41 (03:44:50):
What are you gonna do if you get in there?

Speaker 44 (03:44:52):
Say one of the Joker's jokes on him and that
lippy laurel ie dam what about.

Speaker 66 (03:44:57):
That piano thump promote that he's still running waterfront dump
called the Harbor Cafe.

Speaker 44 (03:45:02):
Never mind mosat who suckle Wilson and Kilburn. Until that's
set up, I'll personally take care of that Ivory Ike.

Speaker 62 (03:45:17):
Day boss.

Speaker 67 (03:45:18):
As Harry the Hack would say, if you weren't down
with the grip, say.

Speaker 65 (03:45:21):
A la la and close the door on those infernal teletypes,
as I am prone to say.

Speaker 67 (03:45:26):
How's your calendar?

Speaker 1 (03:45:27):
Pretty crowded? That's on your mind?

Speaker 67 (03:45:30):
The date March first remembers, I circled it on your head.

Speaker 1 (03:45:33):
Oh yes, Now, don't tell me it's your birthday.

Speaker 67 (03:45:36):
Oh heavens no, I stopped counting birthdays. But I'll give
you a long list of my desires when the day comes.

Speaker 65 (03:45:40):
Yes, but what's so important about this first day of March?
The month of IDEs, lions, lambs, and income fax returns.

Speaker 67 (03:45:49):
Today marks the returns to freedom from prison of a
lady known as the Babe. The babe who three years
ago swore she'd get even with you for helping convict
her racketeering her husband, Joker Barton remember.

Speaker 65 (03:46:02):
Good grief, Yes, and I remember correctly. She She also
promised to scratch your eyes.

Speaker 67 (03:46:09):
Out slight, and I don't make a habit of forgetting
threats of hard boiled women with one track mind.

Speaker 1 (03:46:14):
All right, but are you suggesting we get out of
town and hide.

Speaker 67 (03:46:17):
No, just remember the lady in question and keep out
of dark corners.

Speaker 1 (03:46:21):
She probably forgotten the threat, and thus you've.

Speaker 67 (03:46:24):
Probably forgotten a little matter of one hundred thousand dollars
rotten nest egg the Joker salted away before.

Speaker 36 (03:46:29):
He died in the chair.

Speaker 65 (03:46:31):
Oh that's right, and Babe Barton might come back to
get it, see Wilson.

Speaker 1 (03:46:37):
Other sort of press.

Speaker 18 (03:46:38):
Hey Wilson on a hot tip?

Speaker 38 (03:46:40):
Who are you?

Speaker 18 (03:46:41):
Never mind? Want a good hot tip?

Speaker 1 (03:46:45):
Well, what do you want for the tip?

Speaker 6 (03:46:46):
I want to get even with the dame?

Speaker 1 (03:46:49):
What dame?

Speaker 18 (03:46:50):
Remember Joker Barton's wife, the babe, the.

Speaker 65 (03:46:53):
Babe, Yes, I remember her. Just a minute, get a
loaded this violin, you get a she devil.

Speaker 18 (03:47:01):
This is a payphone call, and I'll be long gone
before you can trace it.

Speaker 38 (03:47:03):
All right, what's the tip?

Speaker 18 (03:47:05):
That com cookie is out of a hen pen.

Speaker 38 (03:47:07):
We keep track of such events, but you don't know.

Speaker 66 (03:47:10):
She's going to try to get our myths on jokers
salted hundred, cheese and breeze tonight.

Speaker 38 (03:47:15):
Logical and interesting, but not very helpful.

Speaker 18 (03:47:17):
She's opening jokers flat on Water Street when about now
would be a good time to drop around.

Speaker 38 (03:47:24):
What did she do to you to bring on this
double cross?

Speaker 18 (03:47:27):
Plenty of plenty.

Speaker 38 (03:47:30):
Thanks to you? Better paid. I'll take it.

Speaker 67 (03:47:32):
See that was downright ungrateful of that raft is a.

Speaker 38 (03:47:35):
Liar, a lie.

Speaker 65 (03:47:36):
If he wanted revenge on the babe, he wouldn't call
on us to keep her from getting away with.

Speaker 67 (03:47:40):
Joker's hundred thousand, granted, but what's the catch that was
baked for?

Speaker 65 (03:47:43):
Some kind of trap that could include Mozarts, who also
testified a joker's trial.

Speaker 67 (03:47:48):
Oh golly, yeah, we better phone Mozart about this trap.
And let's go get Dusty and drive down the water
Street and take a closer look at the cheese.

Speaker 44 (03:48:13):
Not that Ivy sump I ever do anything but beat
out the blues. Hello, most don't turn around?

Speaker 63 (03:48:34):
Is that round thing in my back of lipstick? Or
the muzzle of a gun, lady?

Speaker 44 (03:48:38):
A gun he found with the melody and I'll give
you the lyrics.

Speaker 67 (03:48:45):
Your song plugger lady lost the laughs, or I'll plug you.

Speaker 1 (03:48:51):
What can I do for you? Baby?

Speaker 68 (03:48:53):
Huh?

Speaker 44 (03:48:55):
Now you know you ain't turned around?

Speaker 1 (03:48:56):
Oh liken eyes in the back of my head.

Speaker 44 (03:48:59):
Put holes in the back of your head. You don't
laughst to laughs and listen.

Speaker 1 (03:49:02):
Oh yeah, that's right, your ex hubby.

Speaker 63 (03:49:04):
The Joker never liked anybody stealing his taglines either.

Speaker 44 (03:49:08):
That's why I'm here. When'd you get out today? You
didn't waste any time except for the beauty shot. He
you know, I've been to the hairdresser. You're a mind
rader or something.

Speaker 63 (03:49:22):
Doesn't take a mind rader to read your mind, babe.
It rolls in a rut as old as a lady
named Delilah.

Speaker 44 (03:49:28):
Whose is Dame Delilah?

Speaker 1 (03:49:30):
Oh?

Speaker 63 (03:49:31):
She uh, she got sore and a strong guy named
Samson didn't like to go to the barber.

Speaker 1 (03:49:37):
And she wanted his head.

Speaker 44 (03:49:38):
Did she get it?

Speaker 11 (03:49:40):
Yeah, yeah, she got it.

Speaker 1 (03:49:41):
And then she went to a dance route.

Speaker 44 (03:49:45):
That's for me. What louse the musical laughs and lay
off the keys.

Speaker 6 (03:49:50):
I get the idea.

Speaker 1 (03:49:52):
Okay, where do we go from here?

Speaker 44 (03:49:55):
You got the rats? Jill up outside. You're driving us
the Joker's old headquarters.

Speaker 63 (03:49:59):
It's throwing of coming out. Yeah, and how anybody else
say no coming?

Speaker 44 (03:50:04):
A newspaper panel, Wilson now Killbourn Damer invited? Never mind
the phone?

Speaker 63 (03:50:09):
What makes you say they'll come? Dear housewardly a.

Speaker 44 (03:50:12):
Hot tip on one hundred grand story. If they don't come,
I'll take my three years over a handpen wash tub
out on you.

Speaker 40 (03:50:29):
Thus, Steve Wilson and Laurel I and Mozart are headed
for a dangerous trap and for the exciting developments of
the fatal joke. We'll return to big town in a moment.
Life Boy get Skin Cleaner.

Speaker 36 (03:50:42):
Life Boy, Get skin cleaner.

Speaker 40 (03:50:44):
And the cleaner you get your skin, the surer you
are of being fresh and attractive. So remember, Life Boy,
with its purifying ingredient, Get Skin Cleaner stops b o
as no other leading salt can. Here's what the doctor's proved.
In one undred and twenty scientific tests, people took daily
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(03:51:06):
more than just remove the grime and perspiration. You can
see Life Boy's purifying ingredient makes it more effective than
any other leading soap against the invisible dirt that brings
on bo.

Speaker 36 (03:51:19):
Life Boy's milder too, save even for baby's tender skin.

Speaker 40 (03:51:24):
And you'll like the way Life Boy, made with costly
coconut oil, bursts into quick white lather even in hard water.

Speaker 36 (03:51:31):
Life Boy, Get Skin Cleaner.

Speaker 40 (03:51:34):
Life Boy, Get Skin Cleaner, keeps you fresh and attractive,
protects you as no other leading soap can. Fathe with
Life Boy every day. Get the big new bath size
by Life Boy right away. Now back to big Town

(03:51:57):
and to Steve Wilson and Lorelei, one of his crime reporters,
as they drive to Mozart's Cafe on the way to
the old headquarters of a dead racketeer in the press
car of Dusty the press for talking, say Steve, Lorla.

Speaker 67 (03:52:11):
Say it Dusty, but get it's to Mozart.

Speaker 36 (03:52:13):
I don't understand.

Speaker 67 (03:52:14):
It's not answering the phone at the Harbord calf pain.

Speaker 55 (03:52:16):
The same here.

Speaker 69 (03:52:17):
And if it means tangling with that mad madam called
the babe, deal.

Speaker 1 (03:52:21):
Me in with my speedy graphic.

Speaker 65 (03:52:22):
Thanks Rosteve, but we hope this can be settled without
the help of your camera.

Speaker 69 (03:52:25):
Hey, what about this mysterious telephone tips to you've been
talking about.

Speaker 65 (03:52:29):
I think he hopes to have us pull his chestnuts
out of the fire, and we're going to go through
the motion of doing it.

Speaker 69 (03:52:34):
Is a kind of a risky occupation, no matter how
Thina slice it, Steve, not as bad.

Speaker 67 (03:52:38):
As waiting for a vengeful lady to take a pot
shot at one of us some dark night.

Speaker 69 (03:52:42):
Okay, Mozart's place coming up? Is he also a clay
pigeon in the ladies proposed shooting galling.

Speaker 65 (03:52:48):
Yes, pull up and stop at the side entrance to
the cave, Dusty, he should be in the.

Speaker 1 (03:52:52):
Back this time of night.

Speaker 69 (03:52:56):
Okay, here you are and there's a light shining through
the frosted glass of what he used to be the
family entrance.

Speaker 1 (03:53:01):
Yes, right here, Dusty, We'll only be a moment.

Speaker 67 (03:53:03):
Yeah, we just want to find out if Mozart has
had any calls, tips or warnings about jokers.

Speaker 69 (03:53:08):
Not so gentle with it, okay, Laura La, I'll find
my camera and be ready to take you to a
rendezvous with that doll.

Speaker 67 (03:53:17):
I don't hear Mozart at the piano.

Speaker 1 (03:53:21):
And he usually beats off the blues when business is slack.
Let's go in.

Speaker 36 (03:53:28):
He isn't here in the back room, h the there's
no one at the bar.

Speaker 1 (03:53:33):
He's teeth.

Speaker 67 (03:53:34):
Look at that smoldering cigarette in the ash tree at
the end of the keyboard.

Speaker 36 (03:53:38):
That's funny.

Speaker 1 (03:53:39):
Yes, he may have stepped out for more.

Speaker 67 (03:53:41):
Oh no, Steve Mozart's never taken a lighted cigarette out
of his mouth, so it's down to a body even
to flick the ash.

Speaker 1 (03:53:47):
That's right. And there's this inevitable beer glass half empty.

Speaker 67 (03:53:51):
And he wouldn't leave the place wide open. He doesn't
care about his worldly goods, but his particular who gets.

Speaker 65 (03:53:56):
There's something Wait a minute, Laura, l I'm afraid we're
too late.

Speaker 19 (03:54:01):
What do you mean?

Speaker 36 (03:54:02):
What are you staring here?

Speaker 1 (03:54:03):
Look at the dust on the top of the piano
of our line?

Speaker 36 (03:54:05):
What the finger mark?

Speaker 1 (03:54:08):
Yes, look spelling out the baby.

Speaker 44 (03:54:20):
All right, mote make yourself at home while we wait
for Wilson and Kilbourne the show.

Speaker 63 (03:54:27):
Well, so this is the place where Barton pulled his
practical jokes on the public, the law and rival mobs.

Speaker 44 (03:54:34):
Yeah, just the way he left it. I say to that,
even while I was in the handpin kill sentiment? What's
the what?

Speaker 63 (03:54:42):
Sentiment's attack of an old French joke? You wouldn't understand.

Speaker 1 (03:54:47):
Piano. It wouldn't be in tune after three years?

Speaker 44 (03:54:50):
Would it better be the tone of down the street?
Will get it?

Speaker 40 (03:54:54):
But good?

Speaker 63 (03:54:57):
Well, what'll it be while we wait?

Speaker 44 (03:54:59):
They're just but don't try anything funny.

Speaker 63 (03:55:06):
And thoughts are all some of us said to stand
between us and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Speaker 1 (03:55:16):
The quote disclosed and by a posy end them, Or
play the coward and the piano like a clown.

Speaker 44 (03:55:28):
Keep on playing, you, I read, I like it.

Speaker 63 (03:55:32):
The guests arrived, Let the wine flown at the games begin?

Speaker 44 (03:55:35):
Shut up, just play.

Speaker 63 (03:55:38):
The hostess wore red and insisted the guests check their
guns at the door while she used her as to
keep order. I can see the account in the society
page of tomorrow's paper.

Speaker 44 (03:55:47):
You should live so long.

Speaker 15 (03:55:49):
How is it.

Speaker 18 (03:55:51):
Open up, babe?

Speaker 44 (03:55:52):
Just a minute? Come on in.

Speaker 41 (03:55:57):
Well, so you got the ivory?

Speaker 44 (03:55:59):
I care, Yeah, and I figured you'd come hold till
don't turn around.

Speaker 41 (03:56:06):
Hey, what's the idea of the gun in my back?
I'm on your side, wrong, Naddy.

Speaker 63 (03:56:12):
No, nobody plays on the team of the babe on.
The prize is one hundred grand? What is this, babe,
the double cross?

Speaker 44 (03:56:18):
Pull your gun out of that tail. Im a shoulder
host you're so proud of Natty. Pull it out slow
and easy. I'll shoot your backbone into vest buttons.

Speaker 1 (03:56:28):
She will, Naddy, Okay, okay, babe.

Speaker 44 (03:56:34):
I'll get over there with the motes.

Speaker 1 (03:56:36):
Yeah'll sit down, Naddy. Let's take it a do it.

Speaker 41 (03:56:38):
Listen, Babe, you can't pull this thing alone. You need me.

Speaker 44 (03:56:42):
I don't need Noboddy.

Speaker 66 (03:56:43):
I did like you said. Wilson and the Kilburn and
Dame are coming. We ought to be here any minute now.

Speaker 44 (03:56:48):
Well, I don't need you anymore, but listen, you.

Speaker 41 (03:56:51):
Need me to keep me in lying while you get
jokers dough.

Speaker 44 (03:56:54):
This gun, I'll keep me in line.

Speaker 41 (03:56:56):
Where where is the dough, babe?

Speaker 44 (03:56:59):
Right in this room in one of the walls. That
was the joker's last good joke on the cops and
everybody else, including you in How come me? Because he
told me you crossed him up to get it. When
he told me where.

Speaker 41 (03:57:14):
It was, I didn't.

Speaker 40 (03:57:15):
I stuck to black a h.

Speaker 66 (03:57:18):
So this whole setup was a trick to get me here,
same as Wilson, Mozart and Kilbin.

Speaker 44 (03:57:24):
He wasn't invited, but I knew you'd come.

Speaker 41 (03:57:27):
You had it all figured out.

Speaker 44 (03:57:31):
You got a lot of time to figure things in
three years and the.

Speaker 63 (03:57:34):
Pen careful, Maddy, don't bunch yourself. You'll bust the scenes
of that nifty suit babes trigger thing is itchy. She
can hardly wait.

Speaker 41 (03:57:44):
Yeah, neither cam.

Speaker 44 (03:57:51):
Dope. I was waiting for him to pull that spare
rod out of his hip pocket.

Speaker 26 (03:57:57):
Go.

Speaker 44 (03:57:57):
I'm playing modes like nothing.

Speaker 63 (03:58:01):
But nothing nothing has happened, that's any lost anyone in
this wacky veil of tears?

Speaker 1 (03:58:09):
When do I get mine?

Speaker 44 (03:58:11):
Keep playing? I'm keeping you around the left.

Speaker 63 (03:58:16):
And you want my music to sucker Steve Wilson and
Laura Lae into this booby trap.

Speaker 1 (03:58:20):
No thanks, no more.

Speaker 44 (03:58:23):
Play music boy, make like you're a mechanical piano.

Speaker 1 (03:58:28):
Sorry, babe.

Speaker 63 (03:58:30):
The cold steel of a gun muzzle on my neck
makes my fingers stiff.

Speaker 44 (03:58:33):
Play sucker play, go on, sucker play.

Speaker 1 (03:58:40):
Huh? Saved by the bell?

Speaker 44 (03:58:42):
That's what you think they put on that piano bench.
Don't move, Hello, Wilson, come in, Hello missus Barton, thanks
for the indirect invitation. Where's Kilbourne She's right here, Laura
lay I told you to straight down.

Speaker 1 (03:59:00):
I'm down on the street.

Speaker 44 (03:59:01):
But Steve, you're all through telling anybody anything. Wilson, get
in here, both of you.

Speaker 67 (03:59:06):
I'm sorry, Steve. I couldn't let you go through this alone.

Speaker 36 (03:59:11):
Hello motor.

Speaker 69 (03:59:14):
Huh uh?

Speaker 36 (03:59:15):
Who's the body on the floor?

Speaker 1 (03:59:18):
Oh?

Speaker 63 (03:59:19):
A character called Natty, the flashiest looking Kadaba. The meat
wagon boys will get any of.

Speaker 44 (03:59:24):
The pipe down mote. I don't need you anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:59:26):
And watch for that tagline, Steve. That's what she told
Natty just before she let him have it.

Speaker 65 (03:59:31):
Yes, I heard the shot and got to the door
just in time to hear her trying to make you
play a come on to get me in here, Mozart,
thanks for.

Speaker 1 (03:59:40):
The stall and the try.

Speaker 44 (03:59:42):
Don't you make a try? Wilson? I got an extra
special gripe on you.

Speaker 65 (03:59:47):
All right, it looks like it's your party, babe. You
arranged it the other hostess. But why go to all
this risks in trouble?

Speaker 44 (03:59:57):
I want to play a good joke on you dopes,
one good one for Joker's sake?

Speaker 65 (04:00:01):
Are you quite sure your late husband, the Joker, hasn't
pulled a good one on you, one that will give
him the last laugh even after death.

Speaker 44 (04:00:11):
Sure, I'm sure I'm gonna let you dope see the
payoff with your own eyes.

Speaker 67 (04:00:16):
Well we're honored, aren't we.

Speaker 44 (04:00:19):
Steve Motor, shut up your lippy twist you had your
saying your loves the Illustrated Press. You flap your left
and tap your type right and put you away For
three years, I couldn't get my hands on Joker's though.
Now it's my turn.

Speaker 67 (04:00:30):
Too bad you won't get out of this rat trap
to enjoy it.

Speaker 44 (04:00:33):
Hut up, Kilban, I'll bet your teeth with a barrel
of this rod.

Speaker 6 (04:00:36):
Yeah, the babe's got a strictly one track mind and
you lay off that thumping motes.

Speaker 44 (04:00:43):
Just sit there and not stolen twitter your thumbntil I
get to you.

Speaker 65 (04:00:46):
You're wasting precious time, babe. You better get that money
and get out of here before the police come and
take you away on the big count for killing.

Speaker 1 (04:00:56):
Your pal Maddie.

Speaker 44 (04:00:57):
Maddie was no pal of mine. He lied, that joker
about me playing around. That's another reason I fixed his wagon.

Speaker 65 (04:01:04):
So you better get going before a judge and jury
fixes yours for murder.

Speaker 44 (04:01:11):
Don't kid me, Wilson. You never call in a cop
to your share of the facts.

Speaker 65 (04:01:15):
Thanks for the compliment, But circumstantial evidence made me fairly
sure of the facts in this case, and the police
are being notified.

Speaker 38 (04:01:21):
Yeah, how that's my little joker.

Speaker 1 (04:01:24):
Well let's see how yours turns out.

Speaker 44 (04:01:26):
Yeah, I've had my fun with you dopes. I've waited
long enough to get my met on one hundred grand.

Speaker 36 (04:01:33):
Who is it baby?

Speaker 44 (04:01:34):
Right behind you, Kilboe and that wall behind I picked
youre a joker. Turn around and take it down.

Speaker 1 (04:01:39):
Take it down.

Speaker 44 (04:01:42):
Get over there at the piano with modest I told
you to take it down, Kilburn.

Speaker 67 (04:01:46):
All right, joker looked almost lifelike if you were enjoying
the results of one of his endless practical jokes.

Speaker 44 (04:01:55):
I think he is shut up. Wilson left it on Killbourn.

Speaker 67 (04:02:01):
Okay, come on, joker, old boy, I'll put you down
here on the floor. You can get a good look
at Natty that ought to amuse you no end.

Speaker 36 (04:02:12):
You might even laugh out loud.

Speaker 44 (04:02:13):
Hurry up, killed Burn, save the wise cracks. Now get
out of the way.

Speaker 67 (04:02:17):
All right, But I don't see anything but a blank wall.

Speaker 44 (04:02:20):
That's all the cops could find. Now back up, Killbourn.
Get over there by the piano with Wilson and Motes.

Speaker 65 (04:02:26):
Yes, come away from that wall, Laura. I, having known
the joker, I have a feeling he wouldn't have been
able to resist one last game.

Speaker 44 (04:02:35):
I'll show you it's a gag.

Speaker 35 (04:02:37):
And watch what happens when I twist this picture once
to the right, twice to the left.

Speaker 67 (04:02:47):
Look at it, Wilton, Look at that wall, roll back.

Speaker 1 (04:02:50):
No wonder the cops couldn't find the conboy. It's very ingenious, babe.
But now can you open that safe? Yeah?

Speaker 44 (04:02:56):
Without taking my eyes off of you, dope, watch and
see what happen.

Speaker 65 (04:03:01):
We're watching beame steady, all I get back. The next
few minutes will tell tell what whether the joker's faithful
joke is on.

Speaker 1 (04:03:10):
You or on us.

Speaker 40 (04:03:20):
Thus, Steve Worley and Mozart are caught in a strange situation,
and for the dramatic payoff, we'll return to big town
in a moment. Life Boy Gets Skin Cleaner.

Speaker 36 (04:03:31):

Speaker 40 (04:03:34):
And the cleaner you get your skin, the surer you
are of being fresh and attractive. So remember, Life Boy,
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as no other leading soap can. Here's what the doctor's proved.
In eight hundred and twenty scientific tests, people took daily
baths with different soaps. Doctors found that Life Boy does

(04:03:56):
more than just remove the grime and perspiration. You can
see Life Boy's purifying ingredient makes it more effective than
any other leading soap against the invisible dirt that brings
on BeO.

Speaker 36 (04:04:09):
Life Boy's milder, too, staves even for baby's tender skin.

Speaker 40 (04:04:14):
And you like the way Life Boy, made with costly
coconut oil, bursts into quick white lather even in hard water.

Speaker 36 (04:04:21):

Speaker 40 (04:04:24):
Life Boy, Get Skin Cleaner keeps you fresh and attractive
protects you as no other leading soap can bathe with
Life Boy every day. Get the big new bath size
by Life Boy right away. Now back to Big Town

(04:04:47):
and Steve Wilson, Lorelei, and their musical friend Mozart into
night's tense and dramatic story of the fatal Joke.

Speaker 44 (04:04:56):
All right, Wilson and the rest of your dot I've
had my fun with you. When the cuffs put me
away for three years, I'm gonna get jokers one hundred
grand and scram.

Speaker 38 (04:05:04):
Be careful, babe.

Speaker 6 (04:05:05):
Your late husband spent his life thinking up practical jokes
to play on his friends and enemies.

Speaker 1 (04:05:10):
He may have arranged one for you.

Speaker 67 (04:05:12):
Yes, babe, especially if his bodyguard Natty Ever sold him
on the idea you were playing around up Kilbourne.

Speaker 44 (04:05:18):
Joker trusted Be enough to tell me about the secret
panel in his office. He gave me the combination to
this safe.

Speaker 1 (04:05:23):
But is it the right combination? That's one hundred grand question, man.

Speaker 44 (04:05:27):
Stay putnall show you just like I showed you. He
told me how to open the flatting panel that cous
couldn't find. Key, I'm playing modes like we're having a
party there now.

Speaker 38 (04:05:39):
Watch even so I'd be careful, babe.

Speaker 44 (04:05:42):
Yeah, carefully, you dopes. Don't any of your move while
I get in here and get that dough out of
Joker's big tin box.

Speaker 65 (04:05:48):
That gun makes you boss for the moment, babe, but
I still say you better be careful in that vault.

Speaker 38 (04:05:53):
What do you expect he the back of me, Laura Lili.

Speaker 65 (04:05:56):
If that money isn't in there, the babe is lable
to go crazy with disappointment, start shooting.

Speaker 44 (04:06:02):
Yeah, so don't get the ideas, Wilson. Don't stop making
any plants to rush me. I'll cut you down now.
Just hold everything. I'll show you joke. It didn't no
joke on me.

Speaker 39 (04:06:13):
Yeah, look at it.

Speaker 38 (04:06:15):
Look look at it from here.

Speaker 1 (04:06:17):
It looks like the Macaura, look at it.

Speaker 7 (04:06:19):
Your lugs looks like the joke's on us.

Speaker 44 (04:06:21):
Your back, look at it, your lugs, packets and packets,
the hundred grand and easy spreend in tens and twenty.
Wait a minute, I'll show.

Speaker 18 (04:06:29):
You some more.

Speaker 44 (04:06:31):
The box is full of my hundred.

Speaker 36 (04:06:32):
Bread on nothing less.

Speaker 1 (04:06:41):
Laura, Laura.

Speaker 9 (04:06:46):
I think I'm all right.

Speaker 36 (04:06:47):
Steve the bless knocked me down me too.

Speaker 63 (04:06:52):
Okay, see it's almost knocking off the piano.

Speaker 41 (04:06:55):
Betch what about?

Speaker 36 (04:06:57):
What about the baby.

Speaker 1 (04:06:58):
Smoking explosion was clearing? Don't look, don't look. It must
have been in the box she was holding under the money.

Speaker 35 (04:07:09):
How horrible.

Speaker 1 (04:07:11):
Yes, she never knew what She died in a fool's
paradise of blood money.

Speaker 65 (04:07:20):
Steve, Lord of Eyes, Steve, that's a minute, Jesse, We're
okay and unlocked the door.

Speaker 40 (04:07:27):
Holy chap, what happened in here?

Speaker 1 (04:07:31):
Steve?

Speaker 65 (04:07:31):
A dead man played a practical joke, Dusty, get a
good shot for page one?

Speaker 1 (04:07:36):
Did you call Callahanavanas? Yeah, and he's on the way.

Speaker 40 (04:07:39):
But it looks more like you need the boys from
the morgue.

Speaker 65 (04:07:42):
Yes, I see, thanks to the joker, a dead man
who had to wait three years for the payoff on
his last fatal joke. Friends the night, you've heard an

(04:08:03):
unusual story from the front pages of the Illustrated Press.
I hope it has your interest, for behind the violence
and excitement is the sober all important fact that all
crimes hold the seeds of violence of even murder, and
a closer and a greater danger to the life and

(04:08:24):
happiness of you and yours than most of us realize.

Speaker 67 (04:08:27):
And next week friend, We'll bring you another vicious racket
expose that pulls no punches. Its headlined the Crooked Eye,
and is the story of a blackmailing private detective such
as any of us might mistakenly hire if we were
in trouble.

Speaker 65 (04:08:44):
Yes, lrla And now here's our narrator, DWIGHTE weee for
the message for right now.

Speaker 40 (04:08:51):
Yes, Remember doctors have proved it. Life Boy, with its
purifying ingredient get skin cleaner in your daily bath stops
b O has no other leading soap.

Speaker 36 (04:09:01):
Great right right.

Speaker 67 (04:09:03):
I want to tell the women about that purifying ingredient
of Life Boys.

Speaker 36 (04:09:07):
That's what makes Life Boy milder, so safe jettle.

Speaker 40 (04:09:10):
Yes, And as the reason Life Boy Health Soap keeps
you fresh and attractive, protects you as no other leading
soap can keeps you secure. It's one more reason why
today Life Boy is you to the homes of forty
million Americans by Life Boy Health Soap right away. In
Tonight's dramanization, all night names, times and places are fictional.

(04:09:31):
Big Town features Edward Paulia, Steve Wilson, fran Colin ha
laylide As written and directed by Jerry McGill.

Speaker 70 (04:09:40):
Lever Brothers Company have amazing news new nineteen fifty Rinso
with sodium.

Speaker 38 (04:09:45):
It's here a year ahead of time.

Speaker 70 (04:09:47):
New nineteen fifty Rinso has three times the whiter washing
action of any other soap. The sensational new washing action
of nineteen fifty Rinso gets white clothes whiter than you,
washable colors brighter than you, and keeps them whiter brighter
than any other soap.

Speaker 1 (04:10:03):
Rinso is so safe for clothes. So kind to hands.

Speaker 70 (04:10:06):
Get new nineteen fifty Rinso at your dealers now, be
sure to be with.

Speaker 40 (04:10:10):
Us again next Tuesday, at the same time when Leber
Brother's company will again present Big Town.

Speaker 3 (04:10:45):
Excuse me, I say, excuse me, Yes, sir, have you
seen mister Clayton anywhere?

Speaker 22 (04:10:50):
Mister Clayton, sir, he was here a minute ago.

Speaker 13 (04:10:54):
Oh there is, sir, the window seat in the corner.
Oh yes, sorry I didn't see.

Speaker 20 (04:10:57):
And thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:11:08):
There I was standing with me cause ready, Ah, Sunderson,
there you are at last.

Speaker 37 (04:11:16):
Oh boy, wish hello.

Speaker 2 (04:11:19):
I'm terribly sorry being so late.

Speaker 37 (04:11:20):
I thought you weren't coming.

Speaker 2 (04:11:22):
I really am truly sorry. I had trouble with the car,
not an accident. I have no nothing like that just
a mechanical fall.

Speaker 3 (04:11:27):
Serious nothing I couldn't sort out myself, fortunately, but it
held me out for over an hour.

Speaker 2 (04:11:31):
I had my people with practical minds. It none the
worse for wear anyway.

Speaker 3 (04:11:37):
Well, I've been up to my room to clean up
and change where you put your clubs there? Left them
in the car, so I picked them up as we
go out. I didn't know whether you might be out
on the course already start without you, Sanderson? What kind
of chefs you think we are? Your later arrival gave
us an excuse for another drink. Clayton is determined to
in today's Addison, even if he has to resort to
getting the competitors.

Speaker 2 (04:11:55):
Tipped boy, the most unsportsmanlike Jerry coming, sir, same again?

Speaker 15 (04:12:03):
Please?

Speaker 2 (04:12:03):
What do you want? Suders?

Speaker 3 (04:12:04):
Look as I was late, let me get the more
and said don't please? I'd like, won't hear of it?

Speaker 2 (04:12:08):
Old boy?

Speaker 1 (04:12:09):
What want?

Speaker 18 (04:12:10):
Well?

Speaker 3 (04:12:10):
Pink Jenn if you don't mind, and a pigeon Jerry
large one out look steady on? Wats the matter? Suderson?
With one of those inside, you'd be able to hold
in one? Marka words, who's the last club member to
hold in one? Don't tell me you've forgotten wish weather.

Speaker 37 (04:12:26):
Be Stanley Weatherby. That's right.

Speaker 2 (04:12:30):
Hold In One didn't buy a solar drink, not even
his partner. Hold In One didn't even set foot.

Speaker 19 (04:12:37):
In the bar.

Speaker 71 (04:12:38):
I remember now clearly, no gentleman I was here the
day had happened. I saw it in the old eyes.
News spent like wildfire. He came back, look at his watch,
mumble something about being in a hurry, acknowledged members who
were applauding him, got into his rolls, drove after that
was a cat owned half of Yorkshire, half of Yorkshire.

Speaker 2 (04:12:59):
Clayson alright, sons well, certainly several villages around the middle.
Of course, if he didn't remain a member for loss.
It was put to him tactfully, of course, that it
simply wasn't done, not engulfing circles or any other circles
frequented by a gentleman. As he wasn't considered a gentleman,

(04:13:21):
he was told to leave forthwith. I was on the
management committee at the time. He cried, Oh come on, Clayton,
I tell you, he cried.

Speaker 1 (04:13:32):
Well very nearly.

Speaker 2 (04:13:35):
Eyes were moist. Gentlemen, Thank you, Jerry, thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 (04:13:42):
On my tab.

Speaker 2 (04:13:44):
It's for heaven's sake when you stop arguing on a
lot of old women. This is my treat. Thank you, Jerry,
sir cheers.

Speaker 1 (04:13:55):
Then about.

Speaker 2 (04:14:01):
Listen to me.

Speaker 37 (04:14:02):
I feel lucky today.

Speaker 2 (04:14:04):
I'll put a fiver in the kitty for anyone who
gets three under part. How about it? Three under?

Speaker 1 (04:14:12):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (04:14:12):
Come on, wishure man. You can play jolly well when
you put your mind to it, and money has a
way of concentrating the mind.

Speaker 37 (04:14:19):
I'm game.

Speaker 2 (04:14:20):
I thought you might be Evans. What about you, sir Anderson?
All right, right, we'll down this lot and then TF
I've ordered roast duck for dinner tonight.

Speaker 1 (04:14:34):
How's that?

Speaker 2 (04:14:35):
I think you should have made some contribution here bound.
I tell you, my friends, I feel lucky. I'll be
taking that fifteen pounds off you later on when I
went out a little bit, so you'll be paying for
dinner anywhere.

Speaker 1 (04:15:16):
Well, you were true to your word.

Speaker 13 (04:15:19):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (04:15:20):
We ended up paying for the meals.

Speaker 2 (04:15:23):
I knew you would just feel lucky. That's all more brandy, anyone,
thank you? Just a little priestly we can finish this
to count it together A wish old chapel. I don't
know about that. I can't move as it is. You
don't have to move to enjoy, brandy, ol boy, just
lie there, soak it up like a Christmas buddy.

Speaker 1 (04:15:49):
There.

Speaker 2 (04:15:50):
Thank you, thank you poke the fire someone getting low,
I've held it, thank you, wish our boy. H No,
it's better. You know I stayed here last night.

Speaker 1 (04:16:10):
No neither did I.

Speaker 2 (04:16:12):
I was absolutely alone in the place, or not absolutely?

Speaker 29 (04:16:15):
I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (04:16:16):
What about the domestics. Oh, well, of course the domestics
were here, wish. But they sleep in the other wing. Well, yes, hmm,
you were going to say nothing, Yes, yes, you were, Clayton.
Something happened last night? Well, I uh, I caught a ghost,

(04:16:40):
actually caught a ghost?

Speaker 6 (04:16:44):
Did and.

Speaker 1 (04:16:47):
Where is it?

Speaker 37 (04:16:48):
Caught a ghost?

Speaker 2 (04:16:50):
You must tell us about it? And you don't seem
in the least bit surprised, Evans. I suppose you're four
weeks in the great spaces of America have made you
impervious to such a pronouncement.

Speaker 72 (04:17:00):
All, old boy, I'm interested to see whether your story
matches the size of some of those The Americans have
a habit of telling it the drop of the hand.

Speaker 1 (04:17:08):
Or an oil.

Speaker 2 (04:17:08):
Well, I see, wish, old chair yes, len close the door,
will you. I know no one deliberately eavesdrops in the club,
but I wouldn't want to upset our very excellent service
with any rumors of goats. Well, it wasn't a normal ghost.

(04:17:32):
I don't think it'll come back again ever, You sillious
those the door wish.

Speaker 1 (04:17:40):
Right?

Speaker 2 (04:17:43):
You mean to say you didn't keep it? Are you
actually taking him seriously?

Speaker 37 (04:17:50):
The truth is I hadn't the heart to you, hadn't
the heart to do what keep it?

Speaker 2 (04:17:55):
You are serious?

Speaker 1 (04:17:56):
Yes?

Speaker 11 (04:17:58):
A ghost?

Speaker 2 (04:17:59):
Yes, come aunt Clayton, you've drunk too much brandy. The
fact is it really was a ghost. I'm sure of
it as sure I'm talking to you now. I'm not joking.
I mean what I say.

Speaker 30 (04:18:12):
Well, I think I will have a little more brandy,
if you don't mind, please wish Oh.

Speaker 2 (04:18:17):
Yes, yes, it's the strangest thing that's ever happened to
me in my life. You know, I never believed in
ghosts or anything of the sort before ever, and then
I bag one in the corner. You you talk to it, Yes,
for the space of an hour or more, I suppose
chatty poor devil was in trouble, sobbing was he if

(04:18:37):
you must know. Yes, poor fellow, I I never realized
the poor sort of thing a ghost might be.

Speaker 3 (04:18:46):
I took an advantage. Look, Clayton, I I don't understand you.
You're having his own, aren't you. No, don't you understand yet? Look,
a person remains just the same person even though he's
dism bodied. That's the thing we too often forget people
with a certain strength and fixity of purpose. Most haunting ghosts,

(04:19:09):
you know, must be as single.

Speaker 2 (04:19:11):
Minded as monomaniac said, as opposite as mules to come
back again and again. This poor creature wasn't like that.
Good God, I say it in all kindness, but that
is the plain truth of the case. Even at the
first glance he struck me as being weak. Well, I dun'no,
you don't know what evans, I don't know what to say.

(04:19:34):
Don't say anything, my friend, just listen. I came upon
him in the long passage. His back was towards me,
and I saw him first right off. I knew him
for a ghost. He was transparent and whitish, cleaned through
his chest. I could see the glimmer of the little
window at the end, and not only his physique but
his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked as

(04:19:57):
though he didn't know what to do. But what sort
of physique lean, you know, that sort of young man's
neck that has two great flutings down the back here
and here, and a little meanish head with scrubby hair
and rather bad ears, shoulders baddened narrower than the hips er,

(04:20:20):
turned down collar, ready made, short jacket, trousers baggy, and
a little afraid at the heels. I came very quietly
up the staircase and I saw him. I stopped dead
at that, taking him in. I wasn't a bit afraid.
I think that in most of these affairs, one is

(04:20:41):
never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one
might be. I was surprised and interested.

Speaker 57 (04:20:48):
Hum.

Speaker 2 (04:20:49):
I thought, good Lord, here's a ghost at last. And
I hadn't believed for a moment in ghost during my
whole life. M hm as was, I wasn't on the
landing a moment before he found out I was there.
He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face
of an immature young man, weakness, scrubby, little mustache, and

(04:21:14):
a feeble chin. So for an instant we stood he
looking over his shoulder at me, and and we regarded
one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling.
He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised
his arms, spread his hands in approved ghost fashion, and
came towards me. As he did so, his little jaw

(04:21:37):
dropped and he emitted a faint, drawn out.

Speaker 6 (04:21:42):
Boo.

Speaker 2 (04:21:44):
And it was to be dreadful boo. I said, you
don't belong to this place. What are you doing here?
Are you a member? I said, And just to show
him I didn't care a pin for him, I stepped
through a corner of him and made to light my candle.
What are you doing here?

Speaker 1 (04:22:02):
I said?

Speaker 2 (04:22:04):
He dropped his hands and stopped his going. And there
he stood, abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly,
aimless young man. I'm haunting, he said. You haven't any
business to I said, I'm a ghost. He said, well
that may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here.

(04:22:26):
This is a respectable private club. If I were you,
I wouldn't wait for cock crow. I'd vanished right away. Well,
he looked embarrassed. The fact is, sir, I can't, He said,
you can't. I said, no, sir, there's something I've forgotten.
I've been hanging about here since midnight last night, hiding

(04:22:47):
in the cupboards of empty bedrooms and things like that.
I'm flurried. I've never come haunting before, and it seems
to put me out.

Speaker 37 (04:22:56):
Come on, Clayton, you can't be SERI here.

Speaker 2 (04:23:00):
Let him continue. Let's hear the end of it.

Speaker 37 (04:23:02):
It mean put you out?

Speaker 62 (04:23:04):
I said, yes, sir, I've tried to do it several
times and it doesn't come off. Some little thing has
slipped me and I can't get back.

Speaker 2 (04:23:15):
Well, that rather bowled me over. He looked at me
in such an abject way that, for the life of me,
I couldn't keep up quite the high hectoring vein that
I'd adopted. Oh that's queer, then, I said. And as
I spoke, I fancied I heard someone moving about down below.
Come into my room and tell me about it. I said,
So we did, sit on the arm chair and tell me,

(04:23:37):
old Chap, and how you got yourself into this awkward position.
I said, are you telling us that you sat together
in your bedroom upstairs? No, he said, he wouldn't sit down.
He'd preferred to flit up and down the room, it
was all right by me, and so he did. In
a little while. We were deep in a long and
serious talk. He hadn't a particularly honest face, but being transparent,

(04:24:01):
of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth. Eh, I
A and and what what what's that?

Speaker 1 (04:24:06):
What?

Speaker 2 (04:24:06):
What's that?

Speaker 1 (04:24:07):
Wish?

Speaker 2 (04:24:07):
Being transparent couldn't avoid telling the truth. I don't see it.
I don't see it, but it is so I can
assure you. I don't believe he got once a nail's
breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he'd
been killed. He went down into a London basement with
a candle to look for a leakage of gas.

Speaker 1 (04:24:27):
For a wretch.

Speaker 2 (04:24:28):
That's what I thought. And the more he talked, the
more I thought it. There he was purposeless in life
and purposeless out of it. He talked of his father
and his mother, and his schoolmaster and all who had
ever been anything to do with him in the world.
He'd been too sensitive, too nervous. None of them had
ever valued him properly or understood him. He said he'd

(04:24:50):
never had a real friend in the world. I think,
never had a success, shirked games and failed examinations, And
where are you now, I asked, and what did he
say to that? Well, he wasn't clear on the point
at all. The impression he gave me was of a
sort of vague intermediate state, a special reserve for souls,

(04:25:15):
too nonexistent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue.

Speaker 1 (04:25:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (04:25:22):
He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me
any clear idea of the kind of place, the kind
of country there is on the other side of things.
Wherever he was, he seemed to have fallen in with
a set of kindred spirits, ghosts of weak Cockney young
men who were on a footing of Christian names. And

(04:25:45):
among these there was certainly a lot of talk about
going haunting. Things like that, going haunting. They seemed to
think haunting a tremendous adventure, most of them funded all
the time. And did you think this haunting of theirs
to be a tremendous adventure for you? Clayton, You still

(04:26:06):
don't believe it to you? Go on, Clayton, you see Sanderson.

Speaker 3 (04:26:09):
It appeals to the actor ies, But wish here is
a professional actor. You're not now at the moment I
can see clear through you.

Speaker 2 (04:26:17):
Anyway, These are the impressions he gave me. Oh, I
may of course have been in a rather uncritical state,
but that was the sort of background he gave to himself.
He kept flitting up and down with his thin voice,
going talking about his wretched self, and never a word
of clear, firm statement. From first to last. He was

(04:26:39):
thinner and sillier and more pointless than if he'd been
real and alive. Only then, you know, he wouldn't have
been in my bedroom here. If he had been alive,
I should have kicked him out. Of course, there are
poor mortals like that, and there's just as much chance
of their having ghosts so as the rest of us.
What gave a sort of point to Milo was the

(04:27:01):
fact that he did seem within limits to have found
himself out. The mess he'd made of haunting had depressed
him terribly. He'd been told it would be a lark.
He'd come expecting it to be a lark, and here
it was nothing but another failure added to his record.
He paused and stood regarding me. He remarked that strange

(04:27:22):
it may seem to me nobody had given him the
amount of sympathy I was giving him, now, don't you
prood on these things too much, I said. The thing
you got to do is to get out of this.
Get out of this sharp you pull yourself together and try.
I can't, he said, You try, I said, and try

(04:27:42):
he did.

Speaker 1 (04:27:43):
Try.

Speaker 2 (04:27:43):
How a ha, a gleam of interest from Sanderson here
at last? Well, well, well, passes passes? What do you mean? Passes?
A complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands.
Now that's how he'd come in, and that's how he
had got to get out again. Lord, what a business

(04:28:06):
I had. But how could any series of passes? Dear man,
you want everything clear. I don't know how. All I
know is that you do that. He did, after a
fearful time. You know, he got his passes right, and
suddenly he disappeared. Huh And did you observe these passes this?

Speaker 20 (04:28:26):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (04:28:26):
Yes, yes, it was very strange. I can't, he said.
And suddenly he sat down a little chair at the
foot of the bed and began to sob lor What
a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed. You pull yourself together,
I said, Try to pat him on the back, and
and my confounded hand went through him.

Speaker 12 (04:28:46):
Puh.

Speaker 2 (04:28:47):
By that time, you know, I wasn't nearly so massive
as I'd been on the landing. I got the full
strangeness of it all. I remember snatching my hand back
out of him, as it were, with a little thridle,
and walking over to the dressing table. You pull yourself together,
I said to him, and try. And in order to

(04:29:09):
encourage him and help him, I began to try as well.
What the passes, Yes, the passes, I tried them as well.
It wasn't that rather, No, No, this is interesting. Oh
it's interesting now? Is it soundless?

Speaker 3 (04:29:21):
You mean to say that this ghost of yours gave
away did his level best to give away the whole
confounded barrier?

Speaker 2 (04:29:27):
Yes, he didn't.

Speaker 1 (04:29:29):
Though he couldn't.

Speaker 37 (04:29:30):
Oh, you would have gone there too.

Speaker 2 (04:29:32):
And that's precisely it. That is precisely it. But at
last he did it, at last, he did it. Yes,
I had to keep him up to it hard, but
he did it at last. Rather suddenly he despaired.

Speaker 1 (04:29:47):
We had a scene.

Speaker 2 (04:29:48):
Then he got up abruptly and asked me to go
through the whole performance slowly so he might see. I believe,
he said. If I could see, I should spot was
wrong at once, And he did. I know he said
what dear, No, said I I can't do it if

(04:30:09):
you look at me. I really can't. It's been partly
that all along.

Speaker 13 (04:30:13):
I'm such a.

Speaker 2 (04:30:14):
Nervous fellow that you put me out. Well, we had
an argument. Naturally, I wanted to see but he was
as opsolate as a mule, and suddenly I'd come over
as tired as a dog. All right, I said, I
won't look at you, and I turned towards the mirror
and the warder by the bed. He started off very fast.

(04:30:38):
I try to follow him by looking in the looking glass.
Wrong with his arms and hands, so and so, and
then with a rush he came to the last gesture
of all. You stand erect and open out your arms
like this. Just like this, he stood, and then he didn't.

(04:30:59):
I wheeled around from the looking glass to him.

Speaker 13 (04:31:02):
There was nothing.

Speaker 2 (04:31:03):
I was alone with the flaring candles and a staggering mind.

Speaker 13 (04:31:08):
What had happened?

Speaker 1 (04:31:10):
Mmm?

Speaker 2 (04:31:11):
Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? And then, with
an absurd note of finality, the clock upon the landing
discovered the moment was right for striking one. So bink,
that's all that happened.

Speaker 37 (04:31:31):
And then you went to bed?

Speaker 1 (04:31:33):
What else?

Speaker 73 (04:31:34):
Was there to do, and the passes m M. I
believe I could do them, now, could you really? Yes,
they won't work, But if they do, I'd rather you didn't.
Why I rather he didn't, that's all.

Speaker 3 (04:31:48):
But he hasn't got them right all the same, I
just rather he didn't. You don't, in all honesty, true,
not to go through those gestures and passes. But well
it would be mocking a serious yes, yes, but you
just can't believe.

Speaker 2 (04:32:01):
Why shouldn't I believe.

Speaker 29 (04:32:02):
What he told us?

Speaker 12 (04:32:03):
None of us.

Speaker 37 (04:32:04):
There's what happens after.

Speaker 2 (04:32:07):
Well, it's possible, that's all Clayton. You're too good a
lie for us.

Speaker 3 (04:32:12):
Most of it was all right, but that disappearance tell
us it's a tale of cock and bull, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (04:32:17):
You watch me, sir Anderson, just you watch me? What
are you doing? He's going through the passes?

Speaker 37 (04:32:24):
So I don't think. Look, Clayton, it was a good telle.

Speaker 2 (04:32:35):
That's very good, Clayton.

Speaker 3 (04:32:38):
But as a freemason and a member of the Lodge
of the Four Kings, I know many of these gestures,
and there's one little detail left out.

Speaker 1 (04:32:44):
I know.

Speaker 74 (04:32:45):
I believe I could tell you which, well, this one right, yes,
that you know was what he couldn't get right?

Speaker 3 (04:32:59):
How do you look most of this business, and particularly
how you invented it? I don't understand at all, but
just that phase I do now. These happen to be
a series of gestures connected with a certain branch of
esoteric masonry known only to a few, including myself. And
I do not see I can do any harm in
telling you just the proper twist of the hands. After all,

(04:33:19):
if you know, you know, and if you don't.

Speaker 1 (04:33:21):
You don't.

Speaker 2 (04:33:21):
I know nothing except what the poor devil let out
last night. And then watch me. Now the party you
got wrong should go.

Speaker 1 (04:33:32):
Like this.

Speaker 2 (04:33:33):
There you see now I can do the whole thing, right,
can I not? If you want to? Yes, I imagine
you can. I wouldn't begin, Clayton if I were you.

Speaker 37 (04:33:45):
It's all right, natter is indistractable.

Speaker 72 (04:33:47):
You don't think any jiggery pokery of this sort is
going to snatch Clayton into the world and shade not it.
You may try, Clayton, as far as I'm concerned, until
your arms drop off at the shoulder. I don't believe
that Klitton. You've made me half believe in that story. Somehow,
and I don't want to see the thing done. My goodness,

(04:34:08):
So you're afraid wish. I believe that if he goes
through these motions, right, he'll.

Speaker 3 (04:34:12):
Go No, no, he'll not do anything of the sort, because,
as we all know, there's only one way out of
this world, and Clayton is thirty years from that.

Speaker 2 (04:34:20):
Clayton, you're a fool, A damn fool. I declined to
argue further. Let the thing be tried, here goes No,
please wish, Please leave me alone. Supposing, Oh my god's sake,

(04:34:44):
we shut up. It's up to him.

Speaker 13 (04:34:46):
Be quiet, both of you, don't you see?

Speaker 2 (04:34:49):
Are you all so stupid? He's just having us on?
Its another of his jokes?

Speaker 37 (04:34:53):
You think so Sounderson, of course I do.

Speaker 2 (04:34:56):
Look at him?

Speaker 13 (04:34:58):
His face.

Speaker 2 (04:35:00):
What's happening to his face?

Speaker 33 (04:35:01):
Oh my god, he's changing his face is It's as
if he were frozen.

Speaker 37 (04:35:07):
I don't look out. He's falling, all right, I've got him,
has fainted.

Speaker 2 (04:35:15):
Oh what's happened?

Speaker 12 (04:35:18):
Is he all right?

Speaker 2 (04:35:24):
It wasn't a joke, was it.

Speaker 49 (04:35:29):
No?

Speaker 2 (04:35:31):
He's dead.

Speaker 1 (04:35:59):
M hm h.

Speaker 6 (04:36:37):
M hm hm.

Speaker 34 (04:36:48):
No, No, stay where you are. Do not break the
stillness of this moment. For this is a time of mystery,
a time in imagination, and is free and moves forward swiftly, silently.

Speaker 1 (04:37:07):
This is.

Speaker 19 (04:37:10):
The haunting hour unidentified body.

Speaker 34 (04:38:27):
A simple situation can become quite intriguing when fate steps
in and adds the necessary twists. Take the case of
the notorious gang who put a crime reporter on the
spot because his articles were dangerous to them. Now add
this twist the fact that the gang has never seen
the reporter. And add this twist the fact that the

(04:38:49):
gangsters flee from a gunfight, carrying with him the unconscious
form of a stranger, a man they do not know,
a man who happens to be Jim Briggs, the newspaper reporter.

Speaker 1 (04:38:59):
They would like to lay their hands.

Speaker 6 (04:39:04):
Who am I? Who am I?

Speaker 18 (04:39:08):
Is he on the level?

Speaker 6 (04:39:09):
Fred? I think he is Chief? If you can only
teach Smid to keep his hands to himself. I don't
do nothing.

Speaker 75 (04:39:13):
I only said shut up, which where you're driving and
you still see the cops beating.

Speaker 6 (04:39:20):
I think we lost him, Chief. It was a close call.
Too close.

Speaker 75 (04:39:23):
The town isn't safe for us, not as long as
that guy Briggs hounds us in the daily Hill. All
do we do well, we've got to get rid of him.
I won't be so easy now.

Speaker 6 (04:39:30):
It's either him or Schmidt.

Speaker 75 (04:39:32):
Yeah, take the next turn and head back to the
hotel in town along route seven. Let me tell you, Fred,
this was briggs fault. He just got the cops worked
up about us.

Speaker 6 (04:39:41):
He's got to go. But how where where am I him?
How do we do with him? Are we? Things?

Speaker 26 (04:39:48):
Are?

Speaker 6 (04:39:48):
We can't risk taking him to a doctor.

Speaker 68 (04:39:50):
We'd better say, wait a minute, I think I can
handle them now by myself, better than a doctor.

Speaker 6 (04:39:55):
What do you mean just that with trigger doing a
disappearing act and lying low for the time being. You
I mean maybe this guy? Yeah, you get it. We
can use him. Go ahead and then he's all yours.
I don't want me interference. I don't worry.

Speaker 75 (04:40:06):
I'll see that these monkeys clam up, You too, Schmidt.

Speaker 6 (04:40:09):
I didn't say go ahead, Fred. What's the matter, fella?
My head hurts? How did it happen? I don't know.
I I don't know, I I don't know anything. Who
are you?

Speaker 29 (04:40:22):
You know?

Speaker 1 (04:40:22):
Me? And Fred Booth?

Speaker 6 (04:40:24):
Fred Booth, I don't remember. Now, Look fella, I'm gonna
help you help me. Look at me. Now, look right
at me. It's hard to hold my head that way hurts.
Try all right, I will. I don't remember anything. No,
I'll see about that. Where do you live? I I
don't know what was your father's name? His name was? I?

Speaker 26 (04:40:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 68 (04:40:47):
Look, fella, you're in a bad way. You've lost your memory.
You've got a lot of things to learn again about yourself. Yeah,
I understand. I'm gonna start off with your name, and
then later I'll tell you all we know about you.

Speaker 6 (04:40:58):
Thanks, Thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 (04:40:59):
Fred.

Speaker 6 (04:41:00):
Your name is Trigger Martin, real name Henry.

Speaker 68 (04:41:02):
But we've always going to trigger that sound familiar Trigger,
Trigger Martin? Remember now you ever heard the name?

Speaker 1 (04:41:10):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (04:41:12):
Somehow it seems familiar. Trigger Cragi? Wake up?

Speaker 1 (04:41:27):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (04:41:27):
How I how's your head? How it's better?

Speaker 1 (04:41:31):
Friend?

Speaker 68 (04:41:31):
You've been sleeping since we got here about three hours ago?

Speaker 6 (04:41:34):
Why is here?

Speaker 38 (04:41:35):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (04:41:36):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (04:41:36):
I remember the hotel? That's right, the Crescent Hotel, Creston Hotel.
What else do you remember?

Speaker 29 (04:41:42):
Well?

Speaker 6 (04:41:42):
Everything that you told me? Anything else come back to you? Oh?

Speaker 57 (04:41:46):
Are you sure?

Speaker 6 (04:41:47):
Yeah? That's all?

Speaker 1 (04:41:48):
Now?

Speaker 6 (04:41:49):
What did I teach you? My name is Trigger Martin.
You're Fred Booth, So I'm chief is hell, Drake, I
was driving, was George Schmidt? Now about the little fellow
he's called p d Fred?

Speaker 1 (04:42:01):
Yah? Trigger?

Speaker 6 (04:42:03):
What what do we do we? Yeah? I mean you're
the brains, aren't you.

Speaker 1 (04:42:11):
Oh?

Speaker 68 (04:42:11):
Yes, I'm the guy who figures things out for hour
and Schmidt. Schmid's good at safe cracking and some of
the heavy work. Pete used to be a dip, a pickpocket.
He's got light fingers, nervous, but good to have around sometimes.

Speaker 6 (04:42:23):
Oh what a what about me?

Speaker 68 (04:42:26):
The rest of us have pulled some pretty rough stuff. Trigger,
but we've all kept our hands clean off.

Speaker 6 (04:42:30):
You're lying. What is my line? It's murder?

Speaker 1 (04:42:35):
Trigger?

Speaker 11 (04:42:36):
Murder?

Speaker 6 (04:42:47):
How's he getting along? Fred? Trigger?

Speaker 1 (04:42:49):
Okay?

Speaker 6 (04:42:50):
Your treatment? Well, what's wrong with it? Risky? Nah? He'll
be all right. He'd better. We need him but soon.

Speaker 68 (04:42:57):
I told him just now that he was a killer. Yeah,
and he questioned, Now he just wants to learn all
about himself.

Speaker 1 (04:43:02):
Great.

Speaker 48 (04:43:03):
Would you be letting your rooms clean now, mister Drake.

Speaker 75 (04:43:05):
Sure, anytime, missus Calder, But since window you open doors
without knocking.

Speaker 48 (04:43:10):
Well, if you're not up at this time of day,
you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Speaker 68 (04:43:12):
No, it's not that missus caller, but sometimes we have
business conferences and can't be disturbed.

Speaker 42 (04:43:17):
Business is it?

Speaker 48 (04:43:18):
Well, I've got a couple of dollars put away.

Speaker 6 (04:43:21):
I'd like to invest, Missus c you're a great kidder.

Speaker 48 (04:43:23):
Then why should I be kidding? I'd like to live
in style like you and mister Booth and the other.

Speaker 75 (04:43:29):
Gentleman finances hard work. Missus Calder, you better stick to cleaning, and.

Speaker 48 (04:43:33):
That's just what I'll be doing if you gentle let
me and I'll start in this inside room.

Speaker 68 (04:43:37):
And missus Caller, I don't think you better go in there,
not for a couple of days. One of our associates
is in there sleeping. Mister Smith no all, a new associates.
He was hurt a little in a hunting accident.

Speaker 6 (04:43:49):
He's got to have rest.

Speaker 48 (04:43:50):
You I'm thinking you'd just like to be living in
a dirty room. Well i'll be back later then.

Speaker 6 (04:43:56):
I think you'd better. And remember, don't go in there forgetting.

Speaker 1 (04:44:02):
Chief.

Speaker 6 (04:44:02):
We ought to get out of town, really hide out.
They can't pin anything on us yet, be SAIDs. I
like to live nice. I like to live.

Speaker 75 (04:44:08):
What's eating you? You don't have a murder rap against you,
so what trigger is the only guy in this mom
whoever had the chair to worry about.

Speaker 68 (04:44:16):
Now out calm down, you saying something about me chief
a trigger. You ought to be taking it easy in
your own rule.

Speaker 6 (04:44:22):
I tried, but every time I lay down, my head
started something hurting your trigger not exactly hurting. But then
this business what you told me before about my my
killing people are I don't like it. What's a matter
of trigger? You're going soft?

Speaker 1 (04:44:38):
Maybe I am.

Speaker 6 (04:44:39):
You know what happens to pells of mine that goes soft?

Speaker 1 (04:44:42):
No?

Speaker 75 (04:44:43):
No, I don't nothing much, nothing much that you'd get
to hear about. And we don't even notify their families.

Speaker 6 (04:44:51):
I don't know as that'd make much difference to me.
I can't even remember my family. You can't remember lots
of things, but they happened, so what So I want
to quit trigger. I want to quit you hear. I
don't know what I did before or how I felt before,
but I know I couldn't go around knocking off guys
just because you put the finger on them.

Speaker 1 (04:45:05):
Not now.

Speaker 6 (04:45:06):
Maybe the sock on my head softened me or made
me yellow, or reform me, or whatever else you want
to call it. But I just couldn't kill a guy,
and I know it not. Now there's something inside tells me.
What are you gonna do about it?

Speaker 1 (04:45:18):
Trigger?

Speaker 6 (04:45:19):
There's nothing to prevent me from walking out of here.
You take it easy, ow Look, Trigger, how many guys
have you knocked off? I don't know. I can't remember.
I can't remember anything except what you told me. Now
listen to me, and listen carefully. I know of six
me six murders. Yeah, and I don't know how many

(04:45:40):
before you started working for rap I heard you've done plenty. Sure,
sure you can walk out of here if you want to,
but it won't do you no good. I don't get it.

Speaker 68 (04:45:49):
Six murders rctically, every cop in the country's got orders
to drag you in, dead or alive, and with your
rappers a cop killer, they're gonna shoot first.

Speaker 6 (04:45:57):
Now you want to walk or do you want to?

Speaker 1 (04:46:01):
I'll stay.

Speaker 6 (04:46:04):
I have to stay, Katie. Will you stop jumping from
one chair to another. I can't have a trigger. It
makes me nervous to stay in one place and then
get out of it. I can't. I will do sick
like that. They're not doing me any good. Why don't
you get out of hi? Chief Trigger.

Speaker 75 (04:46:26):
I see you've quieted down, not so independent like there
were a couple of hours ago. I'm okay, now I suppose, Paity,
you can take a few minutes off.

Speaker 6 (04:46:35):
I'll stay with the Trigger. Thanks you. Now I gonna
work for me? Or do you wanna be plugged by
a cop? I said I was staying. Make sure you
mean it. I've got a little job for you.

Speaker 1 (04:46:49):
Oh who is it?

Speaker 75 (04:46:50):
There's a little squirt of a reporter on a daily
herald in his town and he's out to cause trouble.

Speaker 6 (04:46:55):
What's he done? Shut his mouth off about me every
day for the last week in his paper. He knows
too much? What's his name? Jim Briggs? Where can I
what can I contact him?

Speaker 75 (04:47:07):
I don't know where he lives and what he looks like?
Proking My outside man is trying to get some dope
on him before you go to work, right, Okay, see
you later, Pete. Atchie, Fred Schmidt and me are going
out in some business. You stay and keep Trigger company, sure, Chief?

Speaker 6 (04:47:24):
So on, so on, Pete, how long have I been
working for?

Speaker 1 (04:47:30):
Three years ago?

Speaker 6 (04:47:32):
Why? It's funny me not remembering who'd I worked for before?
I don't know he never told me. Do have any friends?

Speaker 1 (04:47:39):
You know?

Speaker 6 (04:47:39):
Outside the mine? I don't know. You didn't talk much.
How about family? I guess you got him? Where do
they live? I don't know. Do you ever see me
with a girl or anything? Why are you asking all
these questions on? Pete?

Speaker 1 (04:47:49):
Tell me?

Speaker 44 (04:47:49):
I don't know nothing.

Speaker 6 (04:47:51):
I don't understand, Pete. Can't you tell me anything about myself? Quick?
Pestern meat, Pete? Did I ever serve time?

Speaker 1 (04:47:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (04:47:58):
Yeah, I think it is?

Speaker 1 (04:47:59):
What?

Speaker 6 (04:47:59):
Pray?

Speaker 1 (04:48:00):
Stop it?

Speaker 39 (04:48:00):
Stop it?

Speaker 12 (04:48:01):
Will?

Speaker 6 (04:48:01):
You don't ask me no more? I only asked you why.
I can't stand it. I can't stand it. I just
shut up.

Speaker 18 (04:48:05):
Questions, questions, questions. I gotta get out of here.

Speaker 6 (04:48:08):
I gotta get out of here. Kay, it's the matter
with that?

Speaker 19 (04:48:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (04:48:15):
Come in?

Speaker 36 (04:48:17):
Excuse me, sir?

Speaker 48 (04:48:18):
You mind if I do a bit of destiny?

Speaker 6 (04:48:19):
No, not at all.

Speaker 34 (04:48:20):
Come on in.

Speaker 18 (04:48:22):
Here.

Speaker 48 (04:48:23):
Mister Drake told me not to disturb you, but are
there at your room? Kind of get you down when
you have to stay in it, don't it?

Speaker 1 (04:48:28):
Yeah? It does.

Speaker 48 (04:48:31):
That's a nasty knock you've got on your.

Speaker 6 (04:48:33):
Head, sniffing. I just bumped into a door, And if you'd.

Speaker 48 (04:48:38):
Like, I'll send doctor Eisner up, he's the hotel doctor.

Speaker 19 (04:48:41):
Very good.

Speaker 6 (04:48:42):
He is better by itself, just as you.

Speaker 35 (04:48:45):
Say, sir.

Speaker 48 (04:48:47):
Well, I'll be on my way now, just to look
in the promise. But i'll do there a job tomorrow.

Speaker 6 (04:48:51):
Thanks. Oh, just pick up that piece of paper in
the door, will you?

Speaker 31 (04:48:55):
This will?

Speaker 6 (04:48:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 18 (04:48:57):
You want it?

Speaker 1 (04:48:58):
Yes?

Speaker 15 (04:48:58):
Please?

Speaker 6 (04:49:00):
Pete dropped it. I'll give it to him.

Speaker 1 (04:49:02):
Thanks, Yeah, goodbye, So long. P D.

Speaker 6 (04:49:10):
Tell al everything's set for Trigger's burial, use supply of
body coging. So are they're going to get rid of me?
I will see about that tigger. Trigger. Did you happen
to see me drop a little piece of paper? Piece
of paper?

Speaker 1 (04:49:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (04:49:26):
When I went outside? No, no, I didn't.

Speaker 34 (04:50:10):
Our story is about a mind, a mind from which
all memory has been erased. Its owner was brought to
the headquarters of l. Drake's notorious gang in the Crescent Hotel. There,
his history was taught him by Fred Booth, brains of
the gang.

Speaker 6 (04:50:25):
There, he was told that.

Speaker 34 (04:50:26):
He was Trigger Martin, Trigger Martin, who had killed many men.
Even though he felt he could not go on with
his murderous career, he knew he was bound to it
by his past. But then he intercepted a message that
indicated he was to be killed.

Speaker 6 (04:50:45):
Everything set for Trigger's burial. You supply body? Why do
they want to kill me? The cops I can understand,
but me their own pal. I've got to get out
of here. I've got to escape, heep, Trigger, What do
you want? Snap out of it? I wasn't doing anything, Schmidt.

(04:51:08):
Ya sitting there thinking, I don't like it. What do
you want me to do?

Speaker 1 (04:51:11):
Talk?

Speaker 6 (04:51:12):
Talk? I don't feel like talking. Pete says you drove
them nuts. What you're talking now? You're quite like a boneyard.
Come on, talk all right, I'll talk. Do I have
any family, Schmidt? I didn't say for you to ask questions.
That's all I've got on my mind. We'll keep me yourselthing.
You don't like staying here with me, do you? I'll

(04:51:33):
tell me though. He said you shouldn't be left alone.
I'll be all right. I won't try to get away.
I didn't ask you. I'll go ahead, Smid, I'll be okay.
Play some of the records. Hey don't want to get
into no trouble with that. You won't go on? Go on,
take a little time off. Thanks, Thanks, Trigger, I'll see it.

Speaker 76 (04:51:55):
Uh pick a good line record starist Saint Louis no
barkdown Steen is born.

Speaker 6 (04:52:05):
Look at this Personal Recording Studios Boardwalk, Atlantic City, regards
to l and all the gang from Gloria and Trigger.
Guess I gotta hear Gloria?

Speaker 18 (04:52:25):
Are you having a.

Speaker 44 (04:52:26):
Great time here?

Speaker 48 (04:52:27):
And we just thought we'd said you like regards from
the boardwalk?

Speaker 44 (04:52:32):
Come on for you say something?

Speaker 67 (04:52:33):
It won't hurt you a dope, Say hello, say anything?

Speaker 77 (04:52:38):
Well, I just wanna send out regards. Al I mean
me and Gloria. How long do I have to talk?

Speaker 1 (04:52:43):
Loria?

Speaker 77 (04:52:47):
Well, I just wanna send out regards. Al I mean
me and Gloria. How long do I have to talk?

Speaker 26 (04:52:53):
Loria?

Speaker 18 (04:52:56):
Say hello? Say anything?

Speaker 77 (04:53:00):
Well, I just want to send out regards. Al I
mean me and Lawyer? How long do I have to talk?

Speaker 6 (04:53:10):
I'm not triggered that I'm not who am I? But
they know who I am? Why are they trying to
tell me I'm Trigger?

Speaker 1 (04:53:18):
Martin?

Speaker 6 (04:53:25):
He's a sleeping now Chief Pete standing outside the door, right, Yeah,
I don't like it? Why not? It's too smart? It
won't work. Oh, what's worrying you? Someone's gonna miss him?
That means trouble. Maybe he don't know anybody in town
that chance. Get him out of here tomorrow. Kill him,
not me.

Speaker 68 (04:53:39):
I don't like murder buck chief. The guy has sold
completely on the idea that he's triggered.

Speaker 6 (04:53:43):
Gives me the willis a trigger waiting to be buried,
and this guy thinking his hand or.

Speaker 68 (04:53:48):
Stop acting like pe d fuck. The guy gets in
our way when we're doing a job. Schmid knocks him
out with his clumsy mits. We can't leave him around.
None of us wants to bump him off on us.

Speaker 18 (04:53:56):
We have to.

Speaker 6 (04:53:57):
Then I come to the rescue. We should have left
him there.

Speaker 68 (04:54:00):
If I'd known he'd lost his memory, then I would have.
But this way he's gonna bump off breaks and we'll
be in the clear. It's a perfect setup, you hope.

Speaker 1 (04:54:07):
Sure it is.

Speaker 6 (04:54:07):
I'll figure it out for yourself. I don't know, Fred,
I only wish I knew who he was trigger. How
you feeling oh much better today?

Speaker 1 (04:54:24):
Fred Head?

Speaker 6 (04:54:25):
All right? Oh sure? AL told me he had a
job for me. Yeah. I think I could do it today.
You better do it today. That's what I came to
talk to you about. Al said. The guy's name is
Jim Briggs.

Speaker 1 (04:54:37):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (04:54:38):
And if you know what's good for you, Trigger, you're
gonna get him but fast.

Speaker 68 (04:54:42):
But what he says in today's paper, The most flagrant
flatter of the law in this gang of hoodlums is
a vicious gunman who goes by the name of Trigger Martin.
Of all the members of this organized crime syndicate, he
should be the easiest to convict, for it is rumored
that he is responsible for at least six cold blooded murders.
About some action, mister police commissioner, what.

Speaker 1 (04:55:02):
Do you think about that? Trigger?

Speaker 6 (04:55:03):
Let me see that? Do you want to say it?

Speaker 1 (04:55:05):
For?

Speaker 6 (04:55:05):
I read you the part about you. I want to
see it. Okay, here, punish yourself. The most flagrant flutter
of the law and this gang of hoodlums is a
vicious gun lamber the name of Trigger Martin. And how
do you like that?

Speaker 68 (04:55:19):
That guy's going to see that you're burn unless he
gets shut up? Hey, what's eating you?

Speaker 6 (04:55:24):
Fred? Did I ever see this article before? Now?

Speaker 68 (04:55:27):
You couldn't have just come out today. For a second,
I thought you've got no time to think.

Speaker 1 (04:55:32):
Trigger.

Speaker 6 (04:55:32):
The only thing that will do you any good now
is they get ahold of that Briggs. Yeah, yeah, you're right,
Fred Breaks, he's my man. Listen.

Speaker 75 (04:55:51):
Now I've been waiting three hours. I can't stand it.
I got to get into acts. Take it easy, Trigger,
let me track the guy down.

Speaker 6 (04:55:57):
That's Peter's job. As soon as he's got the fi'll
give the Ghost. But now I'm a dead duck if
I don't nail Briggs and so here you will be.
We can't afford to make any mistakes.

Speaker 68 (04:56:06):
That's what I've been telling him, Chief, But he got
all worked up about those newspapers.

Speaker 6 (04:56:09):
Save it Trigger until but I must repeat he open
up Smith. Okay, Frett, well, pity any luck.

Speaker 1 (04:56:19):
I just get a line on this guy.

Speaker 6 (04:56:20):
Briggs, go ahead and out rush me. Chief makes me nerve.

Speaker 75 (04:56:23):
Come on, Herald got him in from Chicago to do
this job at us. He's new to town. That's why
we don't know him.

Speaker 6 (04:56:30):
Yeah, yeah, I guess. So where does he live? He's
got his office set up in his rooms in the
same place. Sends his stuff to the Herald over the phone. Pity,
where does he live?

Speaker 75 (04:56:37):
Chie chieftainn can you forty one McDougall Alley in the
basement one then got an apartments?

Speaker 6 (04:56:42):
Did you get that trigger.

Speaker 75 (04:56:44):
Sure forty one McDougall alley in the basement. Okay, that's right,
and here's your gun. I get going.

Speaker 6 (04:57:01):
Uh mcdougalalley forty seven, m forty five one eighty three,
uh forty one.

Speaker 1 (04:57:21):
Baseball.

Speaker 6 (04:57:27):
Careful maybe a trap. Don't forget that. I'm lying all along. Careful, careful.

Speaker 13 (04:57:40):
What's the door?

Speaker 6 (04:57:43):
Go to his apartment. Maybe he'll help me if he
doesn't shoot me first. I'll try the door, but it's
not locked. It's dark. Let him match.

Speaker 12 (04:58:05):
Jump up again. Oh, let me go, will you don't, buddy?
Watch to begue.

Speaker 6 (04:58:12):
He's got a gun. I see, good work right on
the head.

Speaker 1 (04:58:17):
He's out.

Speaker 6 (04:58:18):
Well, that'll take care of him for a while. It
was a close call, those as I've had since I
joined the force. Yeah, that gun ain't no toy m.
He's coming around and to snap the cups on.

Speaker 1 (04:58:30):
Him, all right.

Speaker 6 (04:58:32):
I wonder what his angle is on the case question. Hey,
come on, come on, snap out of it. Wake up
you my head, Come on, come on, come on out
of it. Hey, who are you? What are you doing here?
That's just what we were going to ask you. What

(04:58:52):
this is my apartment? My name is Briggs. Jim Briggs.
Jim Briggs disappeared three days ago. We're working on the case.
If you're Jim Briggs, maybe you can tell us where
you've been.

Speaker 78 (04:59:02):
Half the police force has been looking for Briggs.

Speaker 6 (04:59:05):
I don't know. I can't remember. All I know is
that I'm Jim Briggs and this is my apartment.

Speaker 15 (04:59:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 78 (04:59:15):
Do you usually come into your apartment with a gun
in your hand?

Speaker 6 (04:59:20):
I don't know. All I remember is I remember watching
a gun battle. You sure you weren't in it? And
then yeah, I remember now a little. I was in
a hotel somewhere in town with some men named Drake
and Booth and Schmid and Petie. He cried, that's how

(04:59:40):
Drake's mom.

Speaker 78 (04:59:41):
Yeah, this guy is one of them. He must be
that Trigger Martin character. You know, we never got pictures
of any.

Speaker 6 (04:59:47):
Oh, I'm Jim Briggs, I tell you, but give me
a chance. I think I can lead you to their hideout. Please.
I think I remember where it is. Okay, Fred, this
was your idea. He'll come back now. I got that
guy completely bamboos. Oh, listen, chief, I don't want to

(05:00:08):
stay here be trapped.

Speaker 44 (05:00:09):
They'll get us.

Speaker 6 (05:00:10):
They get us for sure, pity, shut up what I
tell you?

Speaker 15 (05:00:15):
He's back?

Speaker 6 (05:00:15):
Okay, open up, Smid, Well triggering, Did you do it?

Speaker 75 (05:00:21):
He told me to kill him. Didn't you stop the dramatic?
Except course I told you well, I did it. I
found the guy in his apartment. I was working at
a desk. He looked up and I gave it to him.
Let's have your gun? Trigger my gun?

Speaker 1 (05:00:35):
What for?

Speaker 6 (05:00:35):
Come on? Hand it over? I threw it away. I
don't believe you Smith trapping. I'll tell you don't. Smid.
Put up your hands all of her trigger. No point
in getting jumpy. How long do you think you'll get
away with it?

Speaker 75 (05:00:48):
You know I'm not triggering a line or whoever you are,
and whatever your game is, no one person doesn't stand
a chance against four. You won't get out of here alive.
I think I will pity open that door, yeah right away,
Come on in crater.

Speaker 6 (05:00:59):
Alright you guys.

Speaker 78 (05:01:01):
One leaves hoodlums into the wagon.

Speaker 6 (05:01:02):
Do you get what you wanted? Credit?

Speaker 78 (05:01:05):
Direct evidence tying great attempted murder. We've been trying to
get that for years.

Speaker 6 (05:01:09):
Great work with Griggs Booth, you idiot. We had the
guy all the time. Sure you had me I didn't
know it and you didn't know it. Hey, that'll make
a swell feature story. The Case of the Unidentified Body,
written by the corpse itself.

Speaker 34 (05:02:47):
From shadows and stillness, Mystery weaves a spell of strangest fascination,
charging the mind with doubts and fears. For mystery is
a companion, a living memory in the handing Hour.

Speaker 4 (05:03:28):
Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, be
sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If
you like the show, please share it with someone you
know who loves old time radio or the paranormal or
strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do.
You can email me and follow me on social media
through the Weird Darkness website. Weirddarkness dot Com is also

(05:03:49):
where you can listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, get
the email newsletter, visit the store for creepy and cool
Weird Darkness merchandise. Plus, it's where you can find the
Hope in the Darkness page. I or someone you know
is struggling with depression, addiction, or thoughts of harming yourself
or others. You can find all of that and more
at Weird Darkness dot com. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for

(05:04:10):
joining me for tonight's retro radio, Old Time Radio in
the Dark

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“THE BLACK CAT” by Edgar Alan Poe – Presented by Faces In The Window in 1952!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}“THE BLACK CAT” by Edgar Alan Poe – Presented by Faces In The Window in 1952!