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February 8, 2025 24 mins
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Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Good evening, friends with the creaking door.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is your host to welcome you once again into
Vianna Sanctum. Come on in for the crime of your
life and meet one of the illustrious inmates from our
Who's who.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
This cadaverous cut up?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
It's mister seymour Blade. His wife had a tiff with
him and punctuated it with a kitchen knife through the middle,
which is, of course, one way of making your points
stay all right, Then lend a fear. Now there's some

(00:56):
grim happenings, and hear what kind of profit our star
boris Karloff.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
And the role of Mark Deavers reaped when he put
up death.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
For say, the ashtray in the reception room is stuffed
with half smoked cigarettes. The disheveled man waiting paces his
caged animal steps this way and that, each taking his
eyes out of the door at the end of the
room at the slightest sound. At last, then now turns
the door swings wide open.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, doctor, and your wife is in pretty bad shape. Colavers,
my wife, Oh, I'm sorry, I thought forget it bad shape.
But you're going to pull out of it, right, mister Diavers.
She's not going to pull out of it. Well, it
doesn't look as if she will, but there's a chance,

(01:48):
only a very small one, but still a chance. You're lying.
She's going to pull out of it. She's doctor, We're
doing everything we can. Look even if she has to die.
You would pull her out of it for an hour,
couldn't you? Just an hour so that she could sign
something and devils everything to be doc. You could give

(02:08):
her a shot or something, couldn't you? Good day, mister
dal I'll give you five thousand, good ten thousand dollars, Doc,
and you'll fool You don't understand.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
You've got to do this for me. You've got to know.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
You've got to know you doctor doesn't understand you do
the same in my case, So would you? So would anybody.
Fifty thousand dollars. I was one hour away from fifty
thousand dollars money that belongs to me, my money that
I've waited seven long years for. I won't be cheated

(02:43):
out of it seven long years. It all seems so
simple and so sure. We had a perfect plan for
fifty thousand dollars, and nothing was going to keep us
from it, and nothing dead up to three weeks ago.
That was when Cora called me at the office. I

(03:06):
just thought she was imagining things again, as she had
right along. I told us so, but she said no,
this man was watching her night and day.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
He is Mark. He's outside the house right now.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Oh, come now, Cora.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I tell you he is.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Oh you're just imagining things again. Why don't you try it.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
I'm not imagining anything. He's right outside the house across
the street.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
And if you'll be positive after seven years?

Speaker 4 (03:32):
No, I've been wrong before, but this time I'm sure
Elliot's come back. And what the doorbell just rang?

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Who is it? Evelyn?

Speaker 3 (03:43):
You're supposed to go to the movies together?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Good idea, Thank you?

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Mine of believing everyone you see is Elliot starts.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
You're not coming home?

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Then? Not till I've finished at the office.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
All right, Mark, don't yourself goodbye, darling.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
My best to Evelyn.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oh all right, all right, I'm coming. I was on
the well.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Aren't you going to ask me? In? Of course, after
all these years, you've probably forgotten who I am. Allow
me to introduce myself. My name is Elliott Stalms. Your
beloved husband can's.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
To be dead?

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, I know I'm supposed to be Cora. But as
you can see, I'm very much alive.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I knew it was you this time.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I know it. I think you better ask me in,
don't you? After all, it isn't very often that a
husband comes back from the dead, back from the dead.
That's what he was, all right when ConA call me
this time, I didn't say I couldn't leave the office.

(05:05):
All right, Corner, pull yourself together.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
But Mark, you don't understand.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Oh yes, you've been scared for the last seven years,
and you're going to go on being scared for the
rest of your life.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
He wants five thousand dollars more to disappear again.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, I didn't expect him to come back just to
say hello. Of course he wants more money.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
What are we going to do?

Speaker 4 (05:28):
He knows that we collect that fifty thousand insurance money
three weeks from now. He says, if we don't come
through with his five, he'll go straight to the insurance.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
And be a fool. He's in this thing as much
as we are. He won't do anything to spoil his chances.
All he wants his money.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
The longer he's around, the more chance we take that
somebody might recognize him.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Mark, we can go to Jai.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Waited a long time to get our hands on this money,
and I don't expect to be cheated out of it.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Now you're going to give him the five thoucks.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I don't know. Maybe man do nothing. When did he
say he's coming.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Back night after midnight?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
All right, I'll be here. We'll handle Elliot once and
for all, and after this time there won't be any
coming back. I guess. No matter how carefully you plan,
there's always that one small thing you fail somehow to cover.

(06:33):
Seven years before I was sure we'd covered everything, and
it was clever, really clever. The door says that if
a body isn't recovered after seven years time, a man
is declared legally dead. So we found us a body
corner and Ivy. We found Elliott Stands and sold him

(06:53):
on death for five thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Sure, I'll do it.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
I'll marry Cora and then disappear for five thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
You can sell me on anything.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
He married Cora, and a little while after the policy
was issued, his automobile was found at the bottom of
Ridgeley's pond. All The police dragged the water for days,
but naturally didn't find the body, and the insurance people
exercised their right to withhold payment till Elliott was declared
legally dead.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
I understand, gentlemen, and I don't even care about the money.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
All I care about is that my poor husband is dead.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
It was clever, all right, and Corra put on a
good act. We knew we'd cash in while others have
failed because we weren't anxious. We were willing to wait
for seven years, and wait we did. It was a
perfect plan. Nothing was going to keep us from it.
Nothing except now Elliot had come back. He swore it

(08:00):
never return, and he gone back on his word. But
by midnight I'd made up my mind how to handle Elliott.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
No mark.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
The only way, the only way, this five that he wants.
That's only the beginning. You'll hold us up all the life.
You'll train us dry of every cent.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Of that fifty hours.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
You well, we're in this file. You won't back down.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Now I've got you.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
I never came to return out like this.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Not a few weeks and he'll be legally dead.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
There must be another way.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Only this, believe me. And after it's done, it'll be
you and me and nobody the wiser, go on open
the door for what horror? Do what I say?

Speaker 3 (08:47):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
You've got to all right, I'll be inside telling me
everything is set. How oh, Cora, won't you come in? Elliott?
Thank my dear, don't mind if I do marky yet, Cora.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yes, he's in the living room.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Oh fine, then you and Mark have agreed on the
deal for me.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yes, we have come in Elliott, everything, sir.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Bell, Mark is waiting for Elliott in the you'll pardon
the expression living room. Whatever happens to Elliott actually serves
him right after all, Here in the sanctum, we don't
go for live people walking around as if they were ghosts.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
It's enough to scare the death out of us.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Poor Corra is so nervous she just can't look at
Corpustilicti in the primal facy.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well and a grave philosophy.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Because we let our star Boris Coloff take up our
stock story where we left off.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Everything was said. I planned to kill Elliott with the
knife I held behind me, and I felt absolutely no
compunction about it. Are you you're joking? No, Elliot, you're crazy.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Cora. Stop him. You'll never get away with it now.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I buried him in the back of the house. I
say I did, because Cora wasn't much used to anyone
that night or for several days afterwards. She got over it,
as I knew she would. She got over it when
she realized that I was, that we had gotten away
from it and no one could ever know, and no
one would miss him. She got over it when I

(11:07):
reminded her that in just one more week we'd be
sharing that fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Just one week.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
That's right, Cora, I've been a lot of trouble for you.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
This past few days. I am sorry.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Oh, forget it, it's all over, Yes it is.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
I'll feel a lot better when the money is actually our.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
Somehow, way in the back of my mind, I feel
that maybe we won't.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Oh, darling, it's as good as ours now. There's nothing
left in the way, not a single thing.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
One week.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
That's all now, wouldn't you know? Are you expecting anyone? No,
ely well, whoever it is, get rid of it.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yes, I'll get rid of them. Yes, missus done, Yes,
missus m Eliot's done. That's right. I want to talk
to you. Here's my card. Well, I'm sorry I'm busy
right now, it's too busy to see me. I can
promise you that. Oh no, he's nice card, ain't it real?
Fancy engraving es, Missus Elliot's done. That's right. I'm the

(12:21):
woman Elliot married after he disappeared seven years ago. Now
I don't think you're going to be too busy to
see me after all, do you.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Maybe it's fate. Maybe it's all in the cards. You
work hard, you think out a plan that's let up perfect,
let up pops the unexpected foscing you into the first
desperate step to lick it. First, Elliot Starns himself and
his second wife that we didn't know existed.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
And here's our wedding license, just in case you don't
believe me. Hey, you can look at it.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Take it easy, Cora. We believe you're his wife, Missus Starns.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
And he's got a birth mind.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
He said, we believe you. Now, what do you want?

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Or what does any good woman want? My husband?

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Why come here?

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Where else would I go?

Speaker 1 (13:18):
I'm afraid we don't understand, do we, Cora?

Speaker 3 (13:22):
No, I'm afraid you do.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Well. Look here, I'm afraid.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
You understand awful well Elliott too told you what what
you two were doing. He also told me if he
should fail to come home after.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
A couple of missus Stans, we haven't seen your husband
for seven years.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
No, you don't expect me to believe that, do you?

Speaker 1 (13:40):
I don't see why not?

Speaker 3 (13:42):
I do you see, mister Divers. The other day with
my own eyes, I seen Elliott walk into this house,
but I didn't see him walk out again. The matter,
mister devis you got nothing to say.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
What do you want, missus Stearns?

Speaker 3 (14:00):
My husband? Of course, only since you killed him. I
can't very well have that, can I what? He's the
only man I ever loved, and you killed him. I
never should have let him come here. For days I
begged him not to missus Stearns, and shake letting him
come here. I know that now, but I want him back.

(14:22):
I love him and I want Elliott back.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Do you want your husband, missus Stearns, or a substantial
sum of money?

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Huh?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
How much?

Speaker 3 (14:31):
How can you talk about money at a time like this?

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Five thousands?

Speaker 3 (14:35):
I loved my husband, mister de seventy five hundred?

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Well how much.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Twenty five thousand? What in cash mark? And if we refuse,
then I'll just naturally have to tell my story to
the police. Cora, let's drop all the small talk. Mister Divers,
I want twenty five thousand, and I want it fast.

(15:04):
Now make up your mind. I'll make your own. Mister Devers,
don't get roughed. I'm not as dumb as my ex husband.
I've taken steps against anything happening to me no more.
Better listen to her.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
You're not getting away with this.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Then you don't get away with Elliott's murders. Oh then
are you put that hand on me? You better have
your lady friend. Look out that window, and it's taxi
across the street for my taxi, and the driver knows
I'm in here. You'd have to kill him too. Elliot's ever,
Eleven's second wife is here to stay. If you want

(15:40):
to get her out of your life, the cost is
going to be twenty five thousand dollars by this time
tomorrow night.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
After she left. I had some work to do one corner.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
It won't be the same way, Mark, not another murderer,
shaid anything like that.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Not the same way.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Oh sure, promise. After all, if we can get away
with twenty five thousand is that.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
So bad, I'd rather settle for none of it. That
money won't do us any good now.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Why it just roll? You're all upset. You'll feel differently
day after tomorrow when you sign those papers in the
insurance office and they hand that fat check over to
your no mark.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
I'll never feel differently about it again.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
I knew I couldn't work care on my way much longer.
But it was just two more days, two more days
to get that fifty thousand, just two things to settle
in just two days. First there was missus tarn When
she came to my apartment the next night. I handed

(16:52):
the envelope over to her.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
It's all here.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
If you could open the envelope and counter if you like,
I don't have to do I And what if I
cheated you, you wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
I could always come back, You could.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Always come back tomorrow anyway.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
What do you think I am?

Speaker 1 (17:09):
That doesn't make any difference now what I think?

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Okay, No hard feelings.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
There are, but they won't bother me for long. Of course.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
Not that money you're collecting will cure that.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
I'll be cured before then.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
That's your business.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
It's yours too. Now. I don't see how now do
you see?

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Put that night down?

Speaker 1 (17:31):
I will you?

Speaker 3 (17:34):
No, don't please?

Speaker 1 (17:36):
A dog blocks you can't get out.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
You can have the money back.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
There isn't any money in that envelope, just strips of newspaper.
Where can I get twenty five thousand dollars?

Speaker 3 (17:47):
You don't care about the money.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
I do. I care about it for seven years, care
enough to murder once and I can do it again now,
missus darn I have no hard feelings towards you, none
at all. Just two things to take care of in

(18:14):
just two days. The first, missus Darns, was taking care
of her. The second was now just an hour away.
The fifty thousand was waiting in the insurance office for Cora.
All she had to do was sign her name on
some papers to get it. You can imagine how relieved
I was as I set next to Cora when she
drove to the insurance office. But it was different with Cora.

(18:39):
Cora didn't say a word.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
There's nothing left to say.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Mark, Oh, money won't make your talk. Corra. You wait
and see after you get your hands on the Hey,
you're taking the wrong street, No, Mark, sure you are.
This is the word.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
It's the only way left for us. Uh, we're driving
straight out of two. We're never coming back. There'll be
no more murder.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
Corla, I know you killed that woman out.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Where did you ever get that idea? And I paid her?

Speaker 4 (19:08):
She I would ask that you're a pertent house last night?

Speaker 1 (19:12):
All right, so you're know now, what did you expect?
I couldn't let it all get down the drain, not
after seven years. Turned the car round. No, you're going
to sign those papers. I want that money. It's too
late for like funny turning this car round. I wasn't

(19:43):
even scratched in the crack. Cora wasn't that lucky. I
rushed her here to the hospital. You heard what the
doctor said. There's a chance, only a small one.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
But still a chance.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
The doctor doesn't understand. There's got to be more than
only one small chance. I was one hour away from
that fifty thousand dollars money that belongs to be money
that I've waited seven years for. I won't be cheated
out of it. Corra's got to live. She's got to
sign those papers. Well, doctor, there's someone waiting for you

(20:25):
down the corridor. Mister devil about corad there's still a chance.
Isn't there no chance at all anymore? You're lying. The
gentleman is waiting. You're lying. She's not dead. She can't be.
The gentleman is from the police. She asked me to
call the lie. She's not dead. Try to understand she is.

(20:46):
It's not true, and I won't listen to you. She's
got to sign those papers. You've only got to.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Keep her alive another hour.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
You're a doctor. You can do that, mister Devers saying yees,
don't you understand, Oh, I can't let seven years go
down to train seven years. It can't turn out that way. No,
she's not dead.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
The marks fifty thousand went down the train after all,
and Mark went down the hatch of a scaffold. You know,
I can't feel sorry for missus Stearns. She should have
known that a rolling widow gathers only moss seleum. Yes, sir,

(21:44):
when you use a dead husband for blackmail, you're bound
to end up face down.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Oh a footnote.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
When you're dealing with life insurance, remember honesty is the
best policy.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Ends.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
It's time once again to close that creaking door until
next week at the same time, when we'll be back
with a little honk of horror.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
You'll be sure to listen. Ro't you until next week?
Then good night, pleasant dreams. Inner Sanctum has come to

(23:03):
you through the worldwide facilities of the United States Armed
Forces Radio and Television Service.
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