June 18, 2025 • 52 mins
A suspense series featuring mysterious tales with a twist, ranging from psychological thrillers to eerie supernatural encounters. Each episode is crafted for maximum tension.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The CBS Radio Mystery Theater presents.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Come in or welcome. I'm E. G.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Marshall.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'd like to ask you something. What do you consider
your most attractive feature?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Your hair, your.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Eyes, complexion, your figure, whatever. Each of us is abundantly aware,
though there are some who would deny it of his
or her most captivating attribute and make the most of it,
though there are some who deny that too. Be all
this as it may, we're about to hear of a
woman whose most beguiling characteristic was her smile.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Because of it, the horrible thing that happened.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Yes, I am dying, but I tell you, Ernest, I
tell you will never be rid of me. Even when
I am in my coffin in the family vault.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
You will never be rid of me. Never, Earnest.
Speaker 6 (01:19):
Never I think, Yes, she's gone, Berenice is dead. No, no, Ernest, Ernest,
don't take on now. Don't her mouth. Those lips buried
her teeth.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
She is staring at me with her teeth.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
Anthony, Anthony, in Heaven's name, close her mouth, close her mouth.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Our mystery drama Berenice was adapted from the Edgar Allan
Poe classic, especially for the Mystery Theater by George Loather
and stars Michael Tolan and Norman Rose. It is sponsored
in part by Contact, the twelve Hour Cold Capsule, and
Onenheuser Busch Incorporated Brewers of Buttwise, I'll be back shortly
(02:20):
with at one give your hands.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
We give you a heart cost.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Six three oh one. That's the question. When you catch
the comic.
Speaker 7 (02:40):
Cold, sneezing, trips, congestion, then take twelve hour Contact. You'd
need six cold it's two every four hours, or three
ounces of colds liquid one every four hours, or just
one contact pre up to twelve hours continuous relief for
those Simmons when the gunny time goes to both. The
(03:00):
others contained things for aches and fever. The liquid something
for costs not found in Contact. You'll gold your choice.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Six three or one. Take Contact O. He is directed.
Speaker 8 (03:24):
Who knows how to help you solve your shopping problems.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
You're better business bureaus.
Speaker 9 (03:33):
Sam's third private investigator.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Oh Sam, I'm so glad you called you.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sound ra old Angel.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I'm frankly Sam. I went to buy the carpet for
the office and I got so confused.
Speaker 10 (03:42):
There are too many kinds.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I didn't know what to ask or what to buy.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'll help you, young lady Mercy. Who are you, I'm
the man from the Better Business Bureau.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Now, when you're choosing carpet, make sure you pick.
Speaker 9 (03:55):
A long wearing one that'll go with your.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Walls, draperies and upholstery.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Beware so called fantastic bargains and don't buy a carpet
that doesn't labeled as the fiber content.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Oh samn, Now I know.
Speaker 9 (04:07):
What to look for and ask before I buy a carpet.
You floor me angel, Just another helpful tip for your
Benefitiness trip.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
What we call a fixation and e day FeAs is
one of the most extraordinary and mystifying aspects of the
human mind.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
For example, love.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Young love at least is a fixation for the lover
cannot get the loved one out of his thoughts.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
He thinks of her night and day.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Or she of him. And there is I need scarcely say,
no more wondrous person in all the world. What cure
can be found for a fixation? Well, when it comes
to love, and I don't mean to sound cynical, I
suppose marriage. But when it came to Ernest Montressor and
(05:14):
his wife.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Baronice Uh, well, that's our story.
Speaker 6 (05:18):
Do not tell me, Anthony, what I must do or
must not do. Ernest, Please, you are my friend, you
are my attorney. You have come here to Mangrove manner
to straighten out whatever legal matters attend Baronice's death.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And that is all, Ernest.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
I didn't mean to offend. I am not offended. I
am irritated. You can sit there and say, Ernest, your
wife is dying, try not to hate her as you do.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Let me tell you something, my good friend.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Had you lived one month, one week, one day in
this house with Bereonice, that shrew, that spitfire, you too
would know what hate is.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
But I don't understand.
Speaker 6 (05:54):
I was at your wedding a little over a year ago,
here at Mangrove, and you were deliriously.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
In love with her, not her her smile. What I know.
You'll find it hard to believe, but that is the truth. Oh.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
There were other qualities that attracted me, her charm, her
gentle manner, her warmth, but these vanished quickly once we
were married. I soon learned that her charm was a veneer,
her gentle manner a mask that concealed a vicious temper.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I am sorry. I didn't want to hate her.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
For months, I put all feelings of hate from me,
but while asking myself how and why, I still went
on loving her. That's when I realized was her smile.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I still fail to understand.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Look at Baronye closely and you will see that she's
really very plain, almost ugly. But one doesn't look closely
at first, I didn't, surely because of her smile. Of
what her smile was. Then she had teeth so even,
so white, so perfect, they are as matched pearls. As
for her lips. Nowhere will you find lips so beautifully modeled,
(06:59):
so sent stuously inviting, so absolutely enthralling. I remember, yes,
But Anthony, soon after our marriage, her smile changed too.
The lovely contour of her lips became an ugly sneer.
She no longer smiled.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
She buried her teeth like a vicious animal.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
There must have been a reason, something that impelled her
to I'll give you a reason if you must have it.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Constance, Berenice's younger sister.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Yes, you know, she.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Came to live here at Mangrove when her husband died.
I settled the estate.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
Yes not, I'm afraid that there was much to settle,
he left her penniless.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Precisely why she lived here.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
Bearonice began to think, go no further, Earnest, I am
well acquainted with what is termed the eternal triangle. In
this case, there was no triangle, not then, but there
is now. Constance is what Beveronice pretended to be? Gentle, innocent, loving. Yes,
I have fallen in love with her, and she with me.
(07:58):
But you may believe me asr niece never has when
I tell you that our love is and has ever
been platonic. Neither of us has betrayed Beronice in any way. Yes, come,
oh Constance, my dear, we were just speaking of you.
You remember, Anthony Lamb with pleasure.
Speaker 11 (08:18):
You were such a help and comfort to me when
my husband died.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Mister Lamb, I did what I could. You You look upset, Constance.
Speaker 11 (08:26):
Bearonice wants to see you, and she's in one of
her blackest moods.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I'm afraid is she ever in any other?
Speaker 10 (08:32):
Try not to be harsh on her, Earnest. She's dying,
you know.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
I shall try, if you will excuse us, Anthony. Now,
perhaps I should come along. I have to discuss certain
legal matters with Beeronice, and it will be best if
she knows I'm here. Come then, But I warn you,
my friend, you'll regret every moment spent with her.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Uh it's you.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You wanted to see me, Baronice.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
You not this army you've brought with you.
Speaker 10 (09:11):
Get out of here, constance, of course.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
And who are you?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I've seen you somewhere.
Speaker 9 (09:22):
I remember you.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
I'm Anthony Lambberonice. I don't blame you for not recognizing me.
It's been over a year.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Oh yes, yes, I remember you now, Ernest's friend, the
head of fogging, lawyer, the shyster.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Why are you here?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Well now, I ah, yes, yes, Ernest asked me to
come because well, Bernice, I'm I'm told you're quite ill,
and at such times it's well, it's best to to.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
To make sure that all will be legally neat and
tidy when I'm cold in my coffin. You put it
much the only way it can be put high.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I'm dying, and I know I'm dying.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
And so do you.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
If you don't, you must be blind. And if you
want proof of it, look once my smile was the
most ravishing smile on earth. Look at it now as
the color leaves your face, mister lawyer, you all but
(10:26):
shrink away because it's no longer the beautiful smile of
the living, very nice, but the ghastly grin of the
very nice who'll soon be cold in death.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Stop it, Stop smiling.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Dear husband. What is it you used to tell me?
My smile captivated you, enslaved you, and it mean that
it now repels you. Oh, don't turn away.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I won't look at you when you smile.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I don't look then, for the good it'll do you.
You'll remember soon I shall be dead, But my smile
will never die. It will live on in your brain, Earnest,
wherever you go, whatever you do, it will be with you. No,
(11:16):
this smile, this schoolish grimace, because it was what you married,
what you loved, then came to hate, and you will
hate it till the day you die, Earnest.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
For till that.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Day, awake or asleep, it will haunt you.
Speaker 10 (11:46):
Would you care for more of the shrimp you still lie?
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Well?
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Thank you, No, Constance. Oh and do call me Anthony,
won't you? It'll make me feel so much younger if.
Speaker 10 (11:55):
You wish Ernest, won't you eat?
Speaker 11 (11:58):
You haven't touched a morsel, not hungry. But you must
keep up your strength. If you're not careful, you'll be
having nightmares again.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Nightmares, Earnest, the most horrible you can imagine. Bernice has
all but ruined my health, ruined it.
Speaker 11 (12:13):
Hush now we mustn't talk that way.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
What other way is there?
Speaker 10 (12:17):
No more wine, Earnest.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Another glass can do no harm, No.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
More dear for my sake, for.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Your sake, anything anything except to lie about my true feelings. You, Constance,
you have lived in this house for nearly a year.
You know the hell she has made of my life.
You know that I could not mourn her passing. What
is more, you know that I love only you, Ernest.
Speaker 10 (12:42):
It is not the proper time.
Speaker 6 (12:43):
I know, I know, But I and you are overwrought.
Speaker 11 (12:47):
It is not you speaking, but your nerves. Listen to me, Constance,
My sister lies upstairs dying. Whatever you think of her
in these last days of her life. Though we cannot
in truth love, we can, in all dignity and honor,
try at least not to hate her. You must try, Ernest,
(13:09):
you must.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yes, and with your help I shall.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
But you will not succeed, Ernice, How did you get
here out of bed? I rang my bell, but no
one came. I called, but you did not answer. We
didn't hear, And so I found the strength, what strength remains,
to come down and tell you I am about to die.
Oh no, when death is near.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
You know it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Full well, you know it.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I have little time left now, perhaps only minutes.
Speaker 10 (13:46):
A glass of wine.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Of course, of course, ha ha ha.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
He hurries to assist me, to comfort me, when in
his heart he would kill me.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
No, no, very nice, I would not.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
Say it.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
You hate me?
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Say it?
Speaker 6 (14:10):
Yeah, the glass of wine you ask.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
For, that's the aggressive wine, sniveling, nightmare ridden fool.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
I had hoped.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I'd at last found a man. When I married you, you.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Were like all the others.
Speaker 11 (14:31):
Let me help you back.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
To you that as for you, did you think I
wasn't onto you and your little tricks? Did you think
me blind that I couldn't see what went on between
you and my husband before heaven?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I swear the liar I saw, I know.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Huh, Little Constance, innocent, saintly, little sister, thinking applause, deeper and.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Deeper into the man who is mine.
Speaker 6 (15:05):
Madam, you address me, madam, you are ill, yet there
is in you a kind of strength I have recognized before.
In I say to you, the worst kind of criminal.
Uh huh, God, I don't know that I can. I
have never understood what made these people what they were,
But this I know. There are angels on this earth,
and there are devils, and you, madam, I say to you,
(15:27):
even in your dying moments, you are a devil. I
don't blame you for looking at me like that. I
spoke on impulse.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I'm ashamed, ashamed.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
You are the first man who is ever very easy.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Stand back, don't touch.
Speaker 10 (15:47):
Me, harly.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Listen, you will be haunted by the magnet that drew
you to me, the weapon with.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Which I ruined your life and will destroy you.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
My smile, Earnest, my smile. No, look at me, sensuous
lips bearing milk, quite perfectly matched teeth.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Look, and she's falling across the table.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I think, yes, she's gone. Bernice is dead. No, Ernest,
don't her mouth.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
She is staring at me with her teeth. Anthony, in
Heaven's name, close her mouth. Close her mouth.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I said at the outset. You'll recall that because of
Baronice's smile. A horrible thing happened. What has just happened
in the dining room mangrove manner is indeed horrible, but
nowhere near as horrible as that which is about to
take place. I will return shortly with that two inside
(17:16):
your fee, inside your pee.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
After all you hear pen of spirit, lack of wild
girths car.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Inside your pee, inside your pee after all, live greve MP.
Speaker 9 (17:37):
If you're driving a car, you knew you were going
to buy the minuture saw it Skyhawk, Buick sky Hawk.
You just knew a car this streamline would be easy
on gas, and you were right and published EPA mileage
test results. Skyhawk got twenty five miles per gallon on
the open road and sixteen in the city.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Buick Skyhork kinda.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Gre did.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
And didre after all, livy living living.
Speaker 12 (18:17):
Sometimes a gentle rain in one place adds up to
a raging torrent in another, a torrent that can uproot
lives as well as trees. To remedy the things that
can be remedied in a disaster, America has a unique
emergency force, the American Red Cross, America's Good Neighbor Red
(18:44):
Cross is on call twenty four hours a day, every
day to cope with emergencies, whether they're on the next
block or a continent away. Most of the help that's
given is from volunteers. The money is from volunteers too,
Volunteers like you. If you need help, join us. If
you can give help, join us the American Red Cross.
(19:08):
Help us help people just like you.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I think it was Sir Winston church Show who said
that when the human brain grabs hold of a thing,
a worry, a concern of some sort and anxiety, it
grips that thing as in an iron fist and will
not let it go.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Clearly, then this.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Is what has happened to Ernest Montresor, who, even while
she was alive, could not get his wife's sneering smile
out of his head. And now that she has been
placed in the family vault on the estate near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, listen, Earnest, Earnest.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
Yes, Anthony, what it's more than half an hour since
everyone left Constance and I are getting chilled to the
bone here in the vault. Let's go back to the house,
not till I'm sure the lid of Breonice's casket.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Is nailed tight, but you are sure it's.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
It's madness, I know, Anthony, but I have the fear
that somehow, in some ways, she'll get out of her
coffin and haunt me.
Speaker 11 (20:23):
You're letting your imagination run away with you, Earnest. You're tired, overwrought.
My sister is dead. She'll not get out of her coffin.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
Come now, Earnest, Yes, let us return to the house,
our close and lock the gate.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
No, I will there.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
She's well nailed down in her coffin, well locked in
two pairs. Now let's no, no, no, wait, no, good man,
what now? I must make sure the lock is strong,
sound and strong.
Speaker 10 (21:04):
Now, Ernest, Dear, that's enough.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Don't tell me what is enough?
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Don't ah, Ernest dearest, what is it?
Speaker 10 (21:12):
Why are you looking at me with such fear?
Speaker 6 (21:15):
Never, Constance, never, so long as you live, smile at
me like that again? You you looked like very nice,
such Earnest.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I My nerves are shaken.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I I need a drink.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Excuse me.
Speaker 6 (21:32):
He's in trouble, Constance. You'd best catch up with him.
But Anthony, nothing to worry about. Really, you You just
upset him a little when you smile, But that's.
Speaker 11 (21:39):
The point what I didn't smile? Will you take another brandy, Anthony?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Thank you? No conscience. As they say, one is as
good as more.
Speaker 10 (21:56):
I wish Ernest thought so.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
See he is drinking a bit too much much, though
he doesn't show it.
Speaker 10 (22:01):
His nerves burn up the spirits quickly.
Speaker 11 (22:04):
I have never seen him in such a nervous condition,
never so exhausted.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Let's hope he's having a good, deep, RESTful sleep.
Speaker 11 (22:12):
Speaking of what is good for Ernest, I hope you'll
be able to stay with us a.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
While, Anthony, I should like to, but I have pressing
business in Baton Room a few days.
Speaker 10 (22:21):
It would be such a comfort to Ernest.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
I'm sure. But the comfort he really needs is is
what you can give him, Constance. May I speak frankly,
of course, in ordinary circumstances, by which I mean, had
Earnest and Baronice still loved each other, I'd not suggest
anything of the sort. But for all things considered, Constance,
I should like to see you marry Ernest as soon
(22:43):
as possible.
Speaker 11 (22:44):
Baronice not yet cold in her grave, and you I.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
Do yes, Constance, You alone can give him me love
and the warmth.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
He's so desperately neat.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I know.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
But oh, Anthony, whatever she was, where Niath was my sister?
How can I, in all conscience marry her husband within
so short a time.
Speaker 10 (23:07):
It would be an act of indecence.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
I know, an act of charity and of love, my dear.
Not immediate decision is needed. To think about it, and should.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Name of heaven.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
It's earnest, all.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Well, earnest, merciful Lord. What is it?
Speaker 6 (23:29):
Huh? Oh, it's you, you good friend and Constance.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Then it was a dream, What was my dearest?
Speaker 6 (23:39):
I I dreamed that I was awake, that I'd awakened
from a sound sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It was also real.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
I I heard the storm outside and saw lightning brighten
the room, and.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Thought, oh good, I I did manage to sleep and
get some rest.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Enough I've awakened.
Speaker 11 (23:53):
Then, yes, and and then.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Then I saw it hang in the darkness of the room,
burning bright in the black pitch of night.
Speaker 10 (24:04):
Saw it gently, my darling.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
Gently now saw what her smile, Berenice's smile, her disembodied smile,
nothing else. It unsuspended in the dark before my eyes,
the lips drawn back, the teeth shining in the blackness, oh, Earnest.
And then and then her teeth, those terrifying white even teeth,
(24:30):
parted as she began to laugh, the most hideous laugh
I have heard in all my life. Her mouth, her
bodyless mouth, as it laughed, had started coming closer to me, closer, closer,
and I I screamed, I screamed.
Speaker 10 (24:47):
Anthony wants to be done.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
We must fetch the doctor and at once.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Ernest, Ernest, stop for a bit.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
Oh, let's rest, of course, my dear, of course, here,
let me help you down.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Oh, thank you, Ernest. There's a log over there. Shall
we sit?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
I would rather stand and hold you.
Speaker 10 (25:23):
Oh you are feeling better?
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Come, let's sit down.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
No, no, wait, Ernest, please listen. Constance. Anthony returns to
baton Rouge tomorrow. I had a talk with him this morning.
He knows I'm devoted to you and you to me.
He urged, not.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That I needed urging that I asked you to marry me.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
Ernest, you say yes, Constance, I beg you say you'll
marry me.
Speaker 11 (25:46):
Ah, that's exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker 10 (25:49):
Once you gave me the chance.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
You you will, You'll marry me.
Speaker 10 (25:55):
Oh I will, Oh, I will Constant.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
Oh, Constance, let's hurry back and tell Anthony.
Speaker 11 (26:07):
Yes, that dear good friend of yours will be relieved
to know.
Speaker 10 (26:11):
I'm sure here.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I'll give you a hand up.
Speaker 13 (26:14):
Oh, Ernest, high honest, running away, Anthony, I must go up, patience,
good friend.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
The doctor should be done in any moment, but.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
He's been with her for more than an hour. I
knew she was seriously injured. I knew it the instant
I picked her up ther way you described it. It
was a bad fall. The horse running away for what
reason God alone knows, tried to leap a high fence,
failed to make it, and came down, rolling on Constance
as she lay beneath him. Oh terrible, terrible, But no
sense anticipating the worst. Constance may not be seriously hurt
(26:56):
at all. Constance is dying. What she is dying? Oh,
come now, Ernest, you carry even your nerves too far.
There's something I I didn't tell you. When I got
to Constance, she was unconscious. I knelt beside her, got
my arms under her, raised her, and stood up. I
(27:16):
began to carry her to the house, a long distance.
I'm not very strong. I tire easily, and so after
a short time. I stopped for breath and looked at her,
looked into her face. Anthonay. Yes, her eyes were open,
and she was smiling, the lips pulled back, the teeth showing.
(27:38):
Or for an instant she looked like Bereonice.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
For that instant she was Berenice.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Ah doctor, doctor.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
She don't bother him now, Earnest, But.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
I can bear no more of this waiting, this interminable waiting.
Look at her, so deathly white, scarcely breathing.
Speaker 14 (28:03):
If at all, Ah Ernest, she called my name, Constance, Oh,
my own dear Constance.
Speaker 11 (28:14):
Hush now, when when I am gone.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
No, you must not go.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
You cannot leave me. You cannot.
Speaker 11 (28:22):
When I am gone, I say no longer with you.
Remember that it will be only on this earth.
Speaker 10 (28:30):
I am not with you. In spirit. I shall be
beside you always.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
You are not going to die. You will be at
my side, alive and beautiful in my own dear adored wife.
Speaker 11 (28:41):
Oh that is not to be Berenice, has seemed to
that Berenice. She was there just before my horse leaped
the fence.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
I did not fancy it. She was there.
Speaker 11 (28:58):
She stood on the other side of the fence.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Smiling, Oh God in heaven.
Speaker 11 (29:05):
And I knew in the second that I saw her,
the second.
Speaker 10 (29:10):
Before the horse crashed.
Speaker 11 (29:13):
I knew that she is a tormented soul, a soul
that cannot rest until she has forgiven the sins she
committed on earth, the sins she committed against you.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
There is no forgiveness for what she did.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
There is.
Speaker 11 (29:28):
It is in your heart, my darling, if you will
only search for it and find it.
Speaker 6 (29:33):
You you are asking me to forgive her. Yes, never,
I could.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Never, You must, you must for my sake.
Speaker 10 (29:43):
Will you try?
Speaker 11 (29:45):
That is all I ask before I leave.
Speaker 10 (29:47):
You, my dearest.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
Will you try?
Speaker 11 (29:52):
I I will try, and I, in another world will
love you for it more.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Than I have ever loved.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
Feel in this kiss me?
Speaker 6 (30:03):
Oh no, no, not if by saying that you tell
me the time is near. Not if you tell me that.
Speaker 15 (30:09):
Yes, yes, Constance, Constance, I'm sorry, Ernest, she's gone.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Oh no, leave him.
Speaker 6 (30:26):
To me, doctor. You have other matters to handle. Come, Ernest,
sit down here in this chair, Sit and I'll pour
you a.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Brandy dead dead dead.
Speaker 6 (30:43):
I know how you feel, but you mustn't go to pieces.
Think of what she said that you will be with
you at your side always?
Speaker 2 (30:51):
What good is that?
Speaker 6 (30:52):
If I cannot see her, touch her?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
What is he doing?
Speaker 6 (30:58):
The doctor must be done, closing her eyes, straightening her limbs,
placing her hands in repose. When he is finished, I
shall sit with her, and today, of course, and not
leave her a side till we take her to the vault.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
What's that?
Speaker 6 (31:14):
What listen?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Someone laughing? No one is laughing Baronice. It is Bernice.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Huh, she is laughing from the vault, from the vault,
you doubt me?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Here, I throw wide the window.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
You hear you hear?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I hear nothing, laughing.
Speaker 6 (31:33):
In triumph, vicious triumph, because once again.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
She sat at my heart. Laugh, damn you laugh?
Speaker 9 (31:40):
But I shall have done with you yet, I shall,
I say.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Doctor quickly he's fainted dead away.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So, in fevered imagination, in the sickened mental state, brought
on by unbearable grief, earnest fancies, he hears the hideous
laughter of Baronice, pursuing him, haunting him, driving him mad
in death as she did in life.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Or is it fancy?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
We'll know more about that when I return for Act three.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Some beer drinkers have funny ideas about beer.
Speaker 9 (32:32):
They think beer improves with age. Like wine, We'll find
a brewmaster, though you'll find a beer drinker who knows better.
The Budweiser brewmaster says, it all depends on how beer
is aged. Just letting beer sit in lockering tanks makes
it older, not necessarily better. That even goes for keeping
a case around the house for a couple of months.
(32:53):
But there is one kind of aging that's good for beer,
the Budweiser kind, beechwood aging.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
In this kind of aging, something happens.
Speaker 9 (33:02):
It lets all the flavor of the choicest hops and
best barley map that go into Budweiser get food to you.
Sure it takes more time and trouble to brew Budweiser
that way, but brewing their right does make a difference.
Anneiser Busch, Saint Louis. Here's a medical puzzle. A person
(33:28):
has a deadly disease yet leads a normal life. How
is it possible? The answer is chemotherapy. Through this treatment,
thousands of cancer victims regain active, productive lives despite their cancer.
Many of these people can continue in their jobs for
years while the anti cancer drugs, which we call chemotherapy,
(33:48):
control their disease. But many types of cancer remain difficult
to control. Through research, the Chemotherapy Foundation is stimulating the
development of new drugs. Four types of cancers will someday
be controlled. The question is not if, but when. You
can help by contributing to the Chemotherapy That's Chemo Cgmo
(34:11):
Therapy Foundation, Box eight, New York, New York, one hundred
twenty eight. That's the Chemo Therapy Foundation, Box eight, New York,
New York, one hundred and twenty eight. This is a
public service message from the Chemotherapy Foundation.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
From scarcely has the breath of life fled the body
of his beloved Constance than Ernest montresor hears or thinks
he hears the triumphant laughter of his dead wife, Bernice,
(34:51):
even though Ernest's friend and attorney, Anthony Lamb did not
hear the laughter. Can we say the laughter echoed only
in Ernest's imagination? If it comes to that, who can
say that imagination is not reality?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
M Be that as it may.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Let us now join Ernest and Anthony in that family vault.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
It would seem that you're right, Anthony, Vernice must still
be in her coffin.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
The lid is tightly.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
Nailed of course, But her laughter so horribly clear, Ernest,
there was no laughter you imagined, No, no, I heard it.
She murdered Constance, She made the horse run away, fall
and kill her.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Oh, Anthony, how can.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
I rig myself of Berenice?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Can I get rid of her?
Speaker 6 (35:40):
She was vile, vicious, clever, clever, well, clever, that's it. Clever.
We look at this coffin lid, we see it tightly nailed,
and so we think she's still there.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Of course she is, No, don't you see?
Speaker 6 (35:55):
She was clever enough to nail it shut again after
she left it here. Give me that prior you are
not going to I must be sure, I must make
absolutely certain she is still in her coffin. Otherwise I
dare not bring Constance here. Can't you understand? Constance will
lie here in the same vault with Berenice. If Beeronice
has the power to leave her coffin, what might she
(36:16):
not do to the sister she hated as she hated me.
You see, you see you understand?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yes? Yes?
Speaker 6 (36:23):
So then, well are you satisfied? The body seems not
to have moved.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
She is dead, no doubt about it. Beeronice is dead,
no question, My friend, You can set your mind at rest.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
Anthony, would you nail the lid back on. I want
to go to Constance, be with her until until we
bring her body here. Earnest, yes, Anthony, Earnest is two
(37:07):
o'clock in the morning, not for her, not for Constance,
for Constance. There is no time now, Earnest, please go
to bed, to bed, to dream once again, to ride
a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I ask the doctor to give me a sedative.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
For you now, if you'll take it, will do no good,
more harm than good. I've taken them before, and I
I cannot leave Constance alone, not to the awful loneliness
of death.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I will stay with her, No, I will. I must
Earnest hear me. Now.
Speaker 6 (37:42):
You will drive yourself mad if you go on like
this as your friend.
Speaker 13 (37:46):
I ah, what.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
You heard it?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I am not hearing things. Let sigh. It was Constance.
And look, Earnest.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
Look color her cheeks, color coming into her cheeks.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Pulse.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
How do you feel for a pulse? I let me, yes, yes,
there is no pulse, and yet a faint warmth. Her
wrist beneath my hand feels, Ernest. I tell you there
is warmth alive. She is alive.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Oh God, God, in your merciful goodness. I thank you,
thank you.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
And while you're thanking God, I'll fetch the doctor. Thank you, doctor,
I'm sorry to have put you through all this trouble.
Thank you, and good night. I'm I'm sorry. Ernest. Strange, strange,
very there was color in her cheeks, warmth in her body.
(38:46):
Yet by the time the doctor arrived, the warmth that fled,
the color vanished. She was once again her corpse. Anthony,
what do you make of it? I cannot say.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
It's one of the the most baffling things I've ever seen.
But then mangrove manner seems alive with strange things, not
so strange. If you had lived a year with Berenice,
if you had come to know her as the devil
she was, I begin to believe you. It's four in
the morning, and I've been up. We both have been
(39:19):
since early yesterday. There'll be much to do tomorrow, when
both of us must get some rest. No, not I
I will stay with Constance, right, Ernest, but be sensible.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
But take that.
Speaker 6 (39:28):
Large arm chair in the corner and see if you
can at least doze for a time.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Very well, I'll go to my room for an hour
or two of sleep, all right, and Anthony, thank you
for all you've done.
Speaker 6 (39:40):
That's nothing, nothing, Constance, my lovely Constance, I'll not leave you.
I shall be there in that chair across the room,
in this chair, Constance, still very near you, still watching you,
(40:02):
waiting with you. Through the long silence of death. Again
it was.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
You again you.
Speaker 6 (40:14):
You are sitting up, You are leading the bed and
coming towards me.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
You are not dead, You live. Oh, let me see
your face.
Speaker 6 (40:24):
I cannot see it, the shadows and burial shroud hiding
it from me. Take the burial shroud from your face.
Let me see you, Constance, beloved, Let me see you.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Why do you laugh, my darling?
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Why is it happiness and finding yourself alive?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Is it joy and knowing you're not dead? After all? Here,
let me take away the shroud, the.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Teeth.
Speaker 6 (40:53):
Barnes, you are Baronie and Constance's buddy.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
No, Ernest, No, it was not a nightmare. I thought
it was.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
I thought i'd had another horrible dream, that I'd gone
to sleep in the chair and dreamed it all. I
might have thought so too, if I'd only found you
lying on the floor unconscious. But my dear friend, I
I cannot describe my shock. Constance's body was sprawled across yours.
Constance's body, but Berenice's spirit.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Don't think about it. Put it out of your head. Impossible.
Speaker 6 (41:31):
It is etched an acid in my memory. I shall
see it in every moment of my life, waking or sleeping,
my lips curled back in that fearful sneer. The teeth,
the teeth, the terrifying teeth. If only I could blot
them from my mind.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
But I can't.
Speaker 6 (41:50):
Perhaps you can, Perhaps there is a way. Why if,
as you think, Berenice is using Constance's body to haunt you,
and she.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Is, she is in. All we need to do is what.
Speaker 6 (42:03):
We must do in any case, very constant in the vault.
But of course I sicken at the thought of placing
my own dear lovely Constance in.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
That cold, moldy chamber.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
And yet it must be done, And with her body
locked within the vault there a nice will be unable.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
To haunt me. But I I must leave. Ernest.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
I have stayed as long as I can, far longer
than I anticipated. And I I do have other business,
pressing business in Baton rouge, the thought of being alone
in this huge and empty house. Is there no way
to persuade you. I'm sorry, Ernest, but there isn't. I've
done all.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
I can for you. You know I have, of course,
I know it.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
There is no better friend in all the world than you,
and I have no right to urge you to stay,
none at all. But I am afraid afraid to be alone,
Afraid of all things. It is a madness, afraid of
Bearonice's teeth.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I suppose it is a form of madness. Baron Nice
is dead and buried.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
Constance is dead and buried, and so Berenice cannot inhabit.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Her corpse to torture you. She'll find a way. She
will not, she will.
Speaker 6 (43:21):
She lies in that vault out there, and in time
her body will rot.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
But teeth teeth do.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
Not, and so long as a tooth remains in her skull, Ernest, at.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Ten o'clock I have a long hard ride ahead of me.
Speaker 6 (43:34):
Tomorrow. I must get to bed and summers to you.
We are both very much in need of rest. Rest.
So long as I live, there will never again be any.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Rest for me. What Barnice that life did? I hear
it or only dream?
Speaker 6 (44:03):
Opened the window and listen. Ah, nothing, nothing, a dream?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Another nightmare too?
Speaker 6 (44:17):
But what is this? I went to the skin my
my night clothes, I drenched.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
My my feet caked with mud.
Speaker 6 (44:26):
Oh wait, wait, it comes back to me now, the dream,
the nightmare?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Was it a dream? Or did I? Anthony?
Speaker 6 (44:39):
Anthony, Anthony, I'm coming.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I'm coming, good thought man? What is it now?
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Come in, come into my room?
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yes, but what is it? What's happened another of your
awful nightmares? Well, I don't know. You don't know if
you had a nightmare or you didn't.
Speaker 6 (44:57):
If it was a dream, then then that's what it was.
But if it wasn't, If I really did the thing
I thought I dreamed, then that, Anthony, I am mad.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
What do you mean?
Speaker 6 (45:08):
I mean that if I really did it, I've done
something so horrible it could only be the work of
a madman.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Ernest, what did you do? I dreamed?
Speaker 5 (45:16):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (45:17):
Make it a dream.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
But look at me, my clothes soaked through, my feet muddied.
I I must have done it. Done what what?
Speaker 6 (45:29):
I left my bed and went outside of the tools
think tool shed and found what I was looking for.
And then I went to the vault in this storm,
you went, Yes to the vault. I unbolted the gate
and went in. And then I pried open Beronicie's coffin.
Oh no, yes, yes, yes, she lay moldering in death,
(45:53):
with the lips drawn back and the teeth, those white,
even perfect, gruesome teeth exposed. I I stared at them,
stared in a horror of fascination, and then, taking the
instrument I brought with me.
Speaker 11 (46:10):
I.
Speaker 6 (46:12):
I did what had to be done to save my sanity.
What what did you do? I dare not speak of it,
put words to it, nor can I bear to look
look to see was.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
It dream or reality? Look at what? When I? When
I had done it, I.
Speaker 6 (46:30):
Returned here to my room. I I placed the instrument
on the mantel. In my dream, I placed it there.
And though it must be a dream, please go to
the mantel, see if the instrument is there?
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Very well, est.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
I I see nothing here but a pair of pliers. Ah,
this this is the instrument you used in your dream?
Speaker 2 (47:01):
No dream, no dream? Can't you understand that now? No dream?
The players are there. I did it, by a merciful God,
forgive them mad, But I did it the table by
bedside table. Look there, now, look.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
They are there.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
They are here on your bedside table.
Speaker 6 (47:38):
All all a farniece's teeth.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Well a Toothsome tale was not something to let your
imagination chew on.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Sorry, couldn't resist that.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Seriously though, this story, as many another, reflects that certain
mystery which is puzzle mankind. Since the first tick of time,
which is the reality of our lives, which the dream
you got me, I'll be back shortly.
Speaker 7 (48:28):
Lots of people come in in play in.
Speaker 9 (48:32):
It's smart to get ahead, start invest in time, to
build a future.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
It's such a good place, a too big in a
room to grow. I getting to know just where you
won't be.
Speaker 13 (48:49):
John, the people who John the army.
Speaker 7 (48:53):
You could start building your tomorrow today, John the people
Joy Army.
Speaker 12 (49:02):
You can go long, long way, long long way.
Speaker 8 (49:08):
And if you want to do something positive for yourself
and your country, take your place with us. Join the
people who've joined the army, John people who. For more
information call eight hundred and five to three five thousand,
toll free.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
John.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
So once again we have you and I, as Will
Shakespeare put it, let our imaginary forces work, coupling them
with the febrile genius of Edgar Allan Pole, bringing to
this strange tale our own vivid and viable fancy and
exercise very much worthwhile good friends for a lively and
(49:59):
dissip clinton imagination can make our mundane lives a heaven
on Earth or a hell. Our cast included Norman Rose,
Michael Tolan, Joan Lovejoy and ROBERTA.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Maxwell.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
The entire production was under the direction of Hymon Brown.
And now a preview of our next tale, Neil, where
is that coffee?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Here's my wife for that? Now, Madam Magna, let may
help you with the tray.
Speaker 5 (50:31):
I don't intend to skip anything if you're in kind,
and I do not ge any little.
Speaker 6 (50:35):
Now stop at the two of you.
Speaker 5 (50:37):
Well, you just tell your girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
You are your tongue Plasi isn't my girl friend, she's
my fiance.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
What's more, what the devil?
Speaker 6 (50:46):
Sorry, sir, I'm very sorry.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
My wife the tray slipped from.
Speaker 6 (50:52):
Magda.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
The cou she's collapsing, Marga, oh my dearess.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Let me keep your hand with a nil.
Speaker 9 (50:58):
No so stand back but no so get back bed,
don't don't come near.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Can't you see.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
See what her face? She's sweating blood. Yes, I'm afraid
she has the Red plague.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
It's worse than that, she's brought it here.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Radio Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
This is E. G.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, Pleasant.
Speaker 5 (51:33):
Dreams CEB has.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Radio Mystery Theater continues with Edgar Allan Pose The Mask
of the Red to Morrow night at ten thirty on
Canon and
The CBS Radio Mystery Theater presents.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Come in or welcome. I'm E. G.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Marshall.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'd like to ask you something. What do you consider
your most attractive feature?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Your hair, your.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Eyes, complexion, your figure, whatever. Each of us is abundantly aware,
though there are some who would deny it of his
or her most captivating attribute and make the most of it,
though there are some who deny that too. Be all
this as it may, we're about to hear of a
woman whose most beguiling characteristic was her smile.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Because of it, the horrible thing that happened.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Yes, I am dying, but I tell you, Ernest, I
tell you will never be rid of me. Even when
I am in my coffin in the family vault.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
You will never be rid of me. Never, Earnest.
Speaker 6 (01:19):
Never I think, Yes, she's gone, Berenice is dead. No, no, Ernest, Ernest,
don't take on now. Don't her mouth. Those lips buried
her teeth.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
She is staring at me with her teeth.
Speaker 6 (01:42):
Anthony, Anthony, in Heaven's name, close her mouth, close her mouth.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Our mystery drama Berenice was adapted from the Edgar Allan
Poe classic, especially for the Mystery Theater by George Loather
and stars Michael Tolan and Norman Rose. It is sponsored
in part by Contact, the twelve Hour Cold Capsule, and
Onenheuser Busch Incorporated Brewers of Buttwise, I'll be back shortly
(02:20):
with at one give your hands.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
We give you a heart cost.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Six three oh one. That's the question. When you catch
the comic.
Speaker 7 (02:40):
Cold, sneezing, trips, congestion, then take twelve hour Contact. You'd
need six cold it's two every four hours, or three
ounces of colds liquid one every four hours, or just
one contact pre up to twelve hours continuous relief for
those Simmons when the gunny time goes to both. The
(03:00):
others contained things for aches and fever. The liquid something
for costs not found in Contact. You'll gold your choice.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Six three or one. Take Contact O. He is directed.
Speaker 8 (03:24):
Who knows how to help you solve your shopping problems.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
You're better business bureaus.
Speaker 9 (03:33):
Sam's third private investigator.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Oh Sam, I'm so glad you called you.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sound ra old Angel.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I'm frankly Sam. I went to buy the carpet for
the office and I got so confused.
Speaker 10 (03:42):
There are too many kinds.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I didn't know what to ask or what to buy.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'll help you, young lady Mercy. Who are you, I'm
the man from the Better Business Bureau.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Now, when you're choosing carpet, make sure you pick.
Speaker 9 (03:55):
A long wearing one that'll go with your.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Walls, draperies and upholstery.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Beware so called fantastic bargains and don't buy a carpet
that doesn't labeled as the fiber content.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Oh samn, Now I know.
Speaker 9 (04:07):
What to look for and ask before I buy a carpet.
You floor me angel, Just another helpful tip for your
Benefitiness trip.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
What we call a fixation and e day FeAs is
one of the most extraordinary and mystifying aspects of the
human mind.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
For example, love.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Young love at least is a fixation for the lover
cannot get the loved one out of his thoughts.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
He thinks of her night and day.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Or she of him. And there is I need scarcely say,
no more wondrous person in all the world. What cure
can be found for a fixation? Well, when it comes
to love, and I don't mean to sound cynical, I
suppose marriage. But when it came to Ernest Montressor and
(05:14):
his wife.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Baronice Uh, well, that's our story.
Speaker 6 (05:18):
Do not tell me, Anthony, what I must do or
must not do. Ernest, Please, you are my friend, you
are my attorney. You have come here to Mangrove manner
to straighten out whatever legal matters attend Baronice's death.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And that is all, Ernest.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
I didn't mean to offend. I am not offended. I
am irritated. You can sit there and say, Ernest, your
wife is dying, try not to hate her as you do.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Let me tell you something, my good friend.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Had you lived one month, one week, one day in
this house with Bereonice, that shrew, that spitfire, you too
would know what hate is.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
But I don't understand.
Speaker 6 (05:54):
I was at your wedding a little over a year ago,
here at Mangrove, and you were deliriously.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
In love with her, not her her smile. What I know.
You'll find it hard to believe, but that is the truth. Oh.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
There were other qualities that attracted me, her charm, her
gentle manner, her warmth, but these vanished quickly once we
were married. I soon learned that her charm was a veneer,
her gentle manner a mask that concealed a vicious temper.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I am sorry. I didn't want to hate her.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
For months, I put all feelings of hate from me,
but while asking myself how and why, I still went
on loving her. That's when I realized was her smile.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I still fail to understand.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Look at Baronye closely and you will see that she's
really very plain, almost ugly. But one doesn't look closely
at first, I didn't, surely because of her smile. Of
what her smile was. Then she had teeth so even,
so white, so perfect, they are as matched pearls. As
for her lips. Nowhere will you find lips so beautifully modeled,
(06:59):
so sent stuously inviting, so absolutely enthralling. I remember, yes,
But Anthony, soon after our marriage, her smile changed too.
The lovely contour of her lips became an ugly sneer.
She no longer smiled.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
She buried her teeth like a vicious animal.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
There must have been a reason, something that impelled her
to I'll give you a reason if you must have it.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Constance, Berenice's younger sister.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Yes, you know, she.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Came to live here at Mangrove when her husband died.
I settled the estate.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
Yes not, I'm afraid that there was much to settle,
he left her penniless.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Precisely why she lived here.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
Bearonice began to think, go no further, Earnest, I am
well acquainted with what is termed the eternal triangle. In
this case, there was no triangle, not then, but there
is now. Constance is what Beveronice pretended to be? Gentle, innocent, loving. Yes,
I have fallen in love with her, and she with me.
(07:58):
But you may believe me asr niece never has when
I tell you that our love is and has ever
been platonic. Neither of us has betrayed Beronice in any way. Yes, come,
oh Constance, my dear, we were just speaking of you.
You remember, Anthony Lamb with pleasure.
Speaker 11 (08:18):
You were such a help and comfort to me when
my husband died.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Mister Lamb, I did what I could. You You look upset, Constance.
Speaker 11 (08:26):
Bearonice wants to see you, and she's in one of
her blackest moods.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I'm afraid is she ever in any other?
Speaker 10 (08:32):
Try not to be harsh on her, Earnest. She's dying,
you know.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
I shall try, if you will excuse us, Anthony. Now,
perhaps I should come along. I have to discuss certain
legal matters with Beeronice, and it will be best if
she knows I'm here. Come then, But I warn you,
my friend, you'll regret every moment spent with her.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Uh it's you.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You wanted to see me, Baronice.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
You not this army you've brought with you.
Speaker 10 (09:11):
Get out of here, constance, of course.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
And who are you?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I've seen you somewhere.
Speaker 9 (09:22):
I remember you.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
I'm Anthony Lambberonice. I don't blame you for not recognizing me.
It's been over a year.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Oh yes, yes, I remember you now, Ernest's friend, the
head of fogging, lawyer, the shyster.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Why are you here?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Well now, I ah, yes, yes, Ernest asked me to
come because well, Bernice, I'm I'm told you're quite ill,
and at such times it's well, it's best to to.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
To make sure that all will be legally neat and
tidy when I'm cold in my coffin. You put it
much the only way it can be put high.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I'm dying, and I know I'm dying.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
And so do you.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
If you don't, you must be blind. And if you
want proof of it, look once my smile was the
most ravishing smile on earth. Look at it now as
the color leaves your face, mister lawyer, you all but
(10:26):
shrink away because it's no longer the beautiful smile of
the living, very nice, but the ghastly grin of the
very nice who'll soon be cold in death.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Stop it, Stop smiling.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Dear husband. What is it you used to tell me?
My smile captivated you, enslaved you, and it mean that
it now repels you. Oh, don't turn away.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I won't look at you when you smile.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I don't look then, for the good it'll do you.
You'll remember soon I shall be dead, But my smile
will never die. It will live on in your brain, Earnest,
wherever you go, whatever you do, it will be with you. No,
(11:16):
this smile, this schoolish grimace, because it was what you married,
what you loved, then came to hate, and you will
hate it till the day you die, Earnest.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
For till that.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Day, awake or asleep, it will haunt you.
Speaker 10 (11:46):
Would you care for more of the shrimp you still lie?
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Well?
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Thank you, No, Constance. Oh and do call me Anthony,
won't you? It'll make me feel so much younger if.
Speaker 10 (11:55):
You wish Ernest, won't you eat?
Speaker 11 (11:58):
You haven't touched a morsel, not hungry. But you must
keep up your strength. If you're not careful, you'll be
having nightmares again.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Nightmares, Earnest, the most horrible you can imagine. Bernice has
all but ruined my health, ruined it.
Speaker 11 (12:13):
Hush now we mustn't talk that way.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
What other way is there?
Speaker 10 (12:17):
No more wine, Earnest.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Another glass can do no harm, No.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
More dear for my sake, for.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Your sake, anything anything except to lie about my true feelings. You, Constance,
you have lived in this house for nearly a year.
You know the hell she has made of my life.
You know that I could not mourn her passing. What
is more, you know that I love only you, Ernest.
Speaker 10 (12:42):
It is not the proper time.
Speaker 6 (12:43):
I know, I know, But I and you are overwrought.
Speaker 11 (12:47):
It is not you speaking, but your nerves. Listen to me, Constance,
My sister lies upstairs dying. Whatever you think of her
in these last days of her life. Though we cannot
in truth love, we can, in all dignity and honor,
try at least not to hate her. You must try, Ernest,
(13:09):
you must.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yes, and with your help I shall.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
But you will not succeed, Ernice, How did you get
here out of bed? I rang my bell, but no
one came. I called, but you did not answer. We
didn't hear, And so I found the strength, what strength remains,
to come down and tell you I am about to die.
Oh no, when death is near.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
You know it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Full well, you know it.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I have little time left now, perhaps only minutes.
Speaker 10 (13:46):
A glass of wine.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Of course, of course, ha ha ha.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
He hurries to assist me, to comfort me, when in
his heart he would kill me.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
No, no, very nice, I would not.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
Say it.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
You hate me?
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Say it?
Speaker 6 (14:10):
Yeah, the glass of wine you ask.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
For, that's the aggressive wine, sniveling, nightmare ridden fool.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
I had hoped.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I'd at last found a man. When I married you, you.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Were like all the others.
Speaker 11 (14:31):
Let me help you back.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
To you that as for you, did you think I
wasn't onto you and your little tricks? Did you think
me blind that I couldn't see what went on between
you and my husband before heaven?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I swear the liar I saw, I know.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Huh, Little Constance, innocent, saintly, little sister, thinking applause, deeper and.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Deeper into the man who is mine.
Speaker 6 (15:05):
Madam, you address me, madam, you are ill, yet there
is in you a kind of strength I have recognized before.
In I say to you, the worst kind of criminal.
Uh huh, God, I don't know that I can. I
have never understood what made these people what they were,
But this I know. There are angels on this earth,
and there are devils, and you, madam, I say to you,
(15:27):
even in your dying moments, you are a devil. I
don't blame you for looking at me like that. I
spoke on impulse.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I'm ashamed, ashamed.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
You are the first man who is ever very easy.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Stand back, don't touch.
Speaker 10 (15:47):
Me, harly.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Listen, you will be haunted by the magnet that drew
you to me, the weapon with.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Which I ruined your life and will destroy you.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
My smile, Earnest, my smile. No, look at me, sensuous
lips bearing milk, quite perfectly matched teeth.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Look, and she's falling across the table.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I think, yes, she's gone. Bernice is dead. No, Ernest,
don't her mouth.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
She is staring at me with her teeth. Anthony, in
Heaven's name, close her mouth. Close her mouth.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I said at the outset. You'll recall that because of
Baronice's smile. A horrible thing happened. What has just happened
in the dining room mangrove manner is indeed horrible, but
nowhere near as horrible as that which is about to
take place. I will return shortly with that two inside
(17:16):
your fee, inside your pee.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
After all you hear pen of spirit, lack of wild
girths car.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Inside your pee, inside your pee after all, live greve MP.
Speaker 9 (17:37):
If you're driving a car, you knew you were going
to buy the minuture saw it Skyhawk, Buick sky Hawk.
You just knew a car this streamline would be easy
on gas, and you were right and published EPA mileage
test results. Skyhawk got twenty five miles per gallon on
the open road and sixteen in the city.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Buick Skyhork kinda.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Gre did.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
And didre after all, livy living living.
Speaker 12 (18:17):
Sometimes a gentle rain in one place adds up to
a raging torrent in another, a torrent that can uproot
lives as well as trees. To remedy the things that
can be remedied in a disaster, America has a unique
emergency force, the American Red Cross, America's Good Neighbor Red
(18:44):
Cross is on call twenty four hours a day, every
day to cope with emergencies, whether they're on the next
block or a continent away. Most of the help that's
given is from volunteers. The money is from volunteers too,
Volunteers like you. If you need help, join us. If
you can give help, join us the American Red Cross.
(19:08):
Help us help people just like you.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I think it was Sir Winston church Show who said
that when the human brain grabs hold of a thing,
a worry, a concern of some sort and anxiety, it
grips that thing as in an iron fist and will
not let it go.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Clearly, then this.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Is what has happened to Ernest Montresor, who, even while
she was alive, could not get his wife's sneering smile
out of his head. And now that she has been
placed in the family vault on the estate near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, listen, Earnest, Earnest.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
Yes, Anthony, what it's more than half an hour since
everyone left Constance and I are getting chilled to the
bone here in the vault. Let's go back to the house,
not till I'm sure the lid of Breonice's casket.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Is nailed tight, but you are sure it's.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
It's madness, I know, Anthony, but I have the fear
that somehow, in some ways, she'll get out of her
coffin and haunt me.
Speaker 11 (20:23):
You're letting your imagination run away with you, Earnest. You're tired, overwrought.
My sister is dead. She'll not get out of her coffin.
Speaker 6 (20:33):
Come now, Earnest, Yes, let us return to the house,
our close and lock the gate.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
No, I will there.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
She's well nailed down in her coffin, well locked in
two pairs. Now let's no, no, no, wait, no, good man,
what now? I must make sure the lock is strong,
sound and strong.
Speaker 10 (21:04):
Now, Ernest, Dear, that's enough.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Don't tell me what is enough?
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Don't ah, Ernest dearest, what is it?
Speaker 10 (21:12):
Why are you looking at me with such fear?
Speaker 6 (21:15):
Never, Constance, never, so long as you live, smile at
me like that again? You you looked like very nice,
such Earnest.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I My nerves are shaken.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I I need a drink.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Excuse me.
Speaker 6 (21:32):
He's in trouble, Constance. You'd best catch up with him.
But Anthony, nothing to worry about. Really, you You just
upset him a little when you smile, But that's.
Speaker 11 (21:39):
The point what I didn't smile? Will you take another brandy, Anthony?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Thank you? No conscience. As they say, one is as
good as more.
Speaker 10 (21:56):
I wish Ernest thought so.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
See he is drinking a bit too much much, though
he doesn't show it.
Speaker 10 (22:01):
His nerves burn up the spirits quickly.
Speaker 11 (22:04):
I have never seen him in such a nervous condition,
never so exhausted.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Let's hope he's having a good, deep, RESTful sleep.
Speaker 11 (22:12):
Speaking of what is good for Ernest, I hope you'll
be able to stay with us a.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
While, Anthony, I should like to, but I have pressing
business in Baton Room a few days.
Speaker 10 (22:21):
It would be such a comfort to Ernest.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
I'm sure. But the comfort he really needs is is
what you can give him, Constance. May I speak frankly,
of course, in ordinary circumstances, by which I mean, had
Earnest and Baronice still loved each other, I'd not suggest
anything of the sort. But for all things considered, Constance,
I should like to see you marry Ernest as soon
(22:43):
as possible.
Speaker 11 (22:44):
Baronice not yet cold in her grave, and you I.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
Do yes, Constance, You alone can give him me love
and the warmth.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
He's so desperately neat.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I know.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
But oh, Anthony, whatever she was, where Niath was my sister?
How can I, in all conscience marry her husband within
so short a time.
Speaker 10 (23:07):
It would be an act of indecence.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
I know, an act of charity and of love, my dear.
Not immediate decision is needed. To think about it, and should.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Name of heaven.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
It's earnest, all.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Well, earnest, merciful Lord. What is it?
Speaker 6 (23:29):
Huh? Oh, it's you, you good friend and Constance.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Then it was a dream, What was my dearest?
Speaker 6 (23:39):
I I dreamed that I was awake, that I'd awakened
from a sound sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It was also real.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
I I heard the storm outside and saw lightning brighten
the room, and.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Thought, oh good, I I did manage to sleep and
get some rest.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Enough I've awakened.
Speaker 11 (23:53):
Then, yes, and and then.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Then I saw it hang in the darkness of the room,
burning bright in the black pitch of night.
Speaker 10 (24:04):
Saw it gently, my darling.
Speaker 6 (24:06):
Gently now saw what her smile, Berenice's smile, her disembodied smile,
nothing else. It unsuspended in the dark before my eyes,
the lips drawn back, the teeth shining in the blackness, oh, Earnest.
And then and then her teeth, those terrifying white even teeth,
(24:30):
parted as she began to laugh, the most hideous laugh
I have heard in all my life. Her mouth, her
bodyless mouth, as it laughed, had started coming closer to me, closer, closer,
and I I screamed, I screamed.
Speaker 10 (24:47):
Anthony wants to be done.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
We must fetch the doctor and at once.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Ernest, Ernest, stop for a bit.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
Oh, let's rest, of course, my dear, of course, here,
let me help you down.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Oh, thank you, Ernest. There's a log over there. Shall
we sit?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
I would rather stand and hold you.
Speaker 10 (25:23):
Oh you are feeling better?
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Come, let's sit down.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
No, no, wait, Ernest, please listen. Constance. Anthony returns to
baton Rouge tomorrow. I had a talk with him this morning.
He knows I'm devoted to you and you to me.
He urged, not.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That I needed urging that I asked you to marry me.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
Ernest, you say yes, Constance, I beg you say you'll
marry me.
Speaker 11 (25:46):
Ah, that's exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker 10 (25:49):
Once you gave me the chance.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
You you will, You'll marry me.
Speaker 10 (25:55):
Oh I will, Oh, I will Constant.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
Oh, Constance, let's hurry back and tell Anthony.
Speaker 11 (26:07):
Yes, that dear good friend of yours will be relieved
to know.
Speaker 10 (26:11):
I'm sure here.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I'll give you a hand up.
Speaker 13 (26:14):
Oh, Ernest, high honest, running away, Anthony, I must go up, patience,
good friend.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
The doctor should be done in any moment, but.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
He's been with her for more than an hour. I
knew she was seriously injured. I knew it the instant
I picked her up ther way you described it. It
was a bad fall. The horse running away for what
reason God alone knows, tried to leap a high fence,
failed to make it, and came down, rolling on Constance
as she lay beneath him. Oh terrible, terrible, But no
sense anticipating the worst. Constance may not be seriously hurt
(26:56):
at all. Constance is dying. What she is dying? Oh,
come now, Ernest, you carry even your nerves too far.
There's something I I didn't tell you. When I got
to Constance, she was unconscious. I knelt beside her, got
my arms under her, raised her, and stood up. I
(27:16):
began to carry her to the house, a long distance.
I'm not very strong. I tire easily, and so after
a short time. I stopped for breath and looked at her,
looked into her face. Anthonay. Yes, her eyes were open,
and she was smiling, the lips pulled back, the teeth showing.
(27:38):
Or for an instant she looked like Bereonice.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
For that instant she was Berenice.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Ah doctor, doctor.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
She don't bother him now, Earnest, But.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
I can bear no more of this waiting, this interminable waiting.
Look at her, so deathly white, scarcely breathing.
Speaker 14 (28:03):
If at all, Ah Ernest, she called my name, Constance, Oh,
my own dear Constance.
Speaker 11 (28:14):
Hush now, when when I am gone.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
No, you must not go.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
You cannot leave me. You cannot.
Speaker 11 (28:22):
When I am gone, I say no longer with you.
Remember that it will be only on this earth.
Speaker 10 (28:30):
I am not with you. In spirit. I shall be
beside you always.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
You are not going to die. You will be at
my side, alive and beautiful in my own dear adored wife.
Speaker 11 (28:41):
Oh that is not to be Berenice, has seemed to
that Berenice. She was there just before my horse leaped
the fence.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
I did not fancy it. She was there.
Speaker 11 (28:58):
She stood on the other side of the fence.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Smiling, Oh God in heaven.
Speaker 11 (29:05):
And I knew in the second that I saw her,
the second.
Speaker 10 (29:10):
Before the horse crashed.
Speaker 11 (29:13):
I knew that she is a tormented soul, a soul
that cannot rest until she has forgiven the sins she
committed on earth, the sins she committed against you.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
There is no forgiveness for what she did.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
There is.
Speaker 11 (29:28):
It is in your heart, my darling, if you will
only search for it and find it.
Speaker 6 (29:33):
You you are asking me to forgive her. Yes, never,
I could.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Never, You must, you must for my sake.
Speaker 10 (29:43):
Will you try?
Speaker 11 (29:45):
That is all I ask before I leave.
Speaker 10 (29:47):
You, my dearest.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
Will you try?
Speaker 11 (29:52):
I I will try, and I, in another world will
love you for it more.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Than I have ever loved.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
Feel in this kiss me?
Speaker 6 (30:03):
Oh no, no, not if by saying that you tell
me the time is near. Not if you tell me that.
Speaker 15 (30:09):
Yes, yes, Constance, Constance, I'm sorry, Ernest, she's gone.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Oh no, leave him.
Speaker 6 (30:26):
To me, doctor. You have other matters to handle. Come, Ernest,
sit down here in this chair, Sit and I'll pour
you a.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Brandy dead dead dead.
Speaker 6 (30:43):
I know how you feel, but you mustn't go to pieces.
Think of what she said that you will be with
you at your side always?
Speaker 2 (30:51):
What good is that?
Speaker 6 (30:52):
If I cannot see her, touch her?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
What is he doing?
Speaker 6 (30:58):
The doctor must be done, closing her eyes, straightening her limbs,
placing her hands in repose. When he is finished, I
shall sit with her, and today, of course, and not
leave her a side till we take her to the vault.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
What's that?
Speaker 6 (31:14):
What listen?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Someone laughing? No one is laughing Baronice. It is Bernice.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Huh, she is laughing from the vault, from the vault,
you doubt me?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Here, I throw wide the window.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
You hear you hear?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I hear nothing, laughing.
Speaker 6 (31:33):
In triumph, vicious triumph, because once again.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
She sat at my heart. Laugh, damn you laugh?
Speaker 9 (31:40):
But I shall have done with you yet, I shall,
I say.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Doctor quickly he's fainted dead away.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So, in fevered imagination, in the sickened mental state, brought
on by unbearable grief, earnest fancies, he hears the hideous
laughter of Baronice, pursuing him, haunting him, driving him mad
in death as she did in life.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Or is it fancy?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
We'll know more about that when I return for Act three.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Some beer drinkers have funny ideas about beer.
Speaker 9 (32:32):
They think beer improves with age. Like wine, We'll find
a brewmaster, though you'll find a beer drinker who knows better.
The Budweiser brewmaster says, it all depends on how beer
is aged. Just letting beer sit in lockering tanks makes
it older, not necessarily better. That even goes for keeping
a case around the house for a couple of months.
(32:53):
But there is one kind of aging that's good for beer,
the Budweiser kind, beechwood aging.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
In this kind of aging, something happens.
Speaker 9 (33:02):
It lets all the flavor of the choicest hops and
best barley map that go into Budweiser get food to you.
Sure it takes more time and trouble to brew Budweiser
that way, but brewing their right does make a difference.
Anneiser Busch, Saint Louis. Here's a medical puzzle. A person
(33:28):
has a deadly disease yet leads a normal life. How
is it possible? The answer is chemotherapy. Through this treatment,
thousands of cancer victims regain active, productive lives despite their cancer.
Many of these people can continue in their jobs for
years while the anti cancer drugs, which we call chemotherapy,
(33:48):
control their disease. But many types of cancer remain difficult
to control. Through research, the Chemotherapy Foundation is stimulating the
development of new drugs. Four types of cancers will someday
be controlled. The question is not if, but when. You
can help by contributing to the Chemotherapy That's Chemo Cgmo
(34:11):
Therapy Foundation, Box eight, New York, New York, one hundred
twenty eight. That's the Chemo Therapy Foundation, Box eight, New York,
New York, one hundred and twenty eight. This is a
public service message from the Chemotherapy Foundation.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
From scarcely has the breath of life fled the body
of his beloved Constance than Ernest montresor hears or thinks
he hears the triumphant laughter of his dead wife, Bernice,
(34:51):
even though Ernest's friend and attorney, Anthony Lamb did not
hear the laughter. Can we say the laughter echoed only
in Ernest's imagination? If it comes to that, who can
say that imagination is not reality?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
M Be that as it may.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Let us now join Ernest and Anthony in that family vault.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
It would seem that you're right, Anthony, Vernice must still
be in her coffin.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
The lid is tightly.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
Nailed of course, But her laughter so horribly clear, Ernest,
there was no laughter you imagined, No, no, I heard it.
She murdered Constance, She made the horse run away, fall
and kill her.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Oh, Anthony, how can.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
I rig myself of Berenice?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Can I get rid of her?
Speaker 6 (35:40):
She was vile, vicious, clever, clever, well, clever, that's it. Clever.
We look at this coffin lid, we see it tightly nailed,
and so we think she's still there.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Of course she is, No, don't you see?
Speaker 6 (35:55):
She was clever enough to nail it shut again after
she left it here. Give me that prior you are
not going to I must be sure, I must make
absolutely certain she is still in her coffin. Otherwise I
dare not bring Constance here. Can't you understand? Constance will
lie here in the same vault with Berenice. If Beeronice
has the power to leave her coffin, what might she
(36:16):
not do to the sister she hated as she hated me.
You see, you see you understand?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yes? Yes?
Speaker 6 (36:23):
So then, well are you satisfied? The body seems not
to have moved.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
She is dead, no doubt about it. Beeronice is dead,
no question, My friend, You can set your mind at rest.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
Anthony, would you nail the lid back on. I want
to go to Constance, be with her until until we
bring her body here. Earnest, yes, Anthony, Earnest is two
(37:07):
o'clock in the morning, not for her, not for Constance,
for Constance. There is no time now, Earnest, please go
to bed, to bed, to dream once again, to ride
a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I ask the doctor to give me a sedative.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
For you now, if you'll take it, will do no good,
more harm than good. I've taken them before, and I
I cannot leave Constance alone, not to the awful loneliness
of death.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I will stay with her, No, I will. I must
Earnest hear me. Now.
Speaker 6 (37:42):
You will drive yourself mad if you go on like
this as your friend.
Speaker 13 (37:46):
I ah, what.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
You heard it?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I am not hearing things. Let sigh. It was Constance.
And look, Earnest.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
Look color her cheeks, color coming into her cheeks.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Pulse.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
How do you feel for a pulse? I let me, yes, yes,
there is no pulse, and yet a faint warmth. Her
wrist beneath my hand feels, Ernest. I tell you there
is warmth alive. She is alive.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Oh God, God, in your merciful goodness. I thank you,
thank you.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
And while you're thanking God, I'll fetch the doctor. Thank you, doctor,
I'm sorry to have put you through all this trouble.
Thank you, and good night. I'm I'm sorry. Ernest. Strange, strange,
very there was color in her cheeks, warmth in her body.
(38:46):
Yet by the time the doctor arrived, the warmth that fled,
the color vanished. She was once again her corpse. Anthony,
what do you make of it? I cannot say.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
It's one of the the most baffling things I've ever seen.
But then mangrove manner seems alive with strange things, not
so strange. If you had lived a year with Berenice,
if you had come to know her as the devil
she was, I begin to believe you. It's four in
the morning, and I've been up. We both have been
(39:19):
since early yesterday. There'll be much to do tomorrow, when
both of us must get some rest. No, not I
I will stay with Constance, right, Ernest, but be sensible.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
But take that.
Speaker 6 (39:28):
Large arm chair in the corner and see if you
can at least doze for a time.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Very well, I'll go to my room for an hour
or two of sleep, all right, and Anthony, thank you
for all you've done.
Speaker 6 (39:40):
That's nothing, nothing, Constance, my lovely Constance, I'll not leave you.
I shall be there in that chair across the room,
in this chair, Constance, still very near you, still watching you,
(40:02):
waiting with you. Through the long silence of death. Again
it was.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
You again you.
Speaker 6 (40:14):
You are sitting up, You are leading the bed and
coming towards me.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
You are not dead, You live. Oh, let me see
your face.
Speaker 6 (40:24):
I cannot see it, the shadows and burial shroud hiding
it from me. Take the burial shroud from your face.
Let me see you, Constance, beloved, Let me see you.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Why do you laugh, my darling?
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Why is it happiness and finding yourself alive?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Is it joy and knowing you're not dead? After all? Here,
let me take away the shroud, the.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Teeth.
Speaker 6 (40:53):
Barnes, you are Baronie and Constance's buddy.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
No, Ernest, No, it was not a nightmare. I thought
it was.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
I thought i'd had another horrible dream, that I'd gone
to sleep in the chair and dreamed it all. I
might have thought so too, if I'd only found you
lying on the floor unconscious. But my dear friend, I
I cannot describe my shock. Constance's body was sprawled across yours.
Constance's body, but Berenice's spirit.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Don't think about it. Put it out of your head. Impossible.
Speaker 6 (41:31):
It is etched an acid in my memory. I shall
see it in every moment of my life, waking or sleeping,
my lips curled back in that fearful sneer. The teeth,
the teeth, the terrifying teeth. If only I could blot
them from my mind.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
But I can't.
Speaker 6 (41:50):
Perhaps you can, Perhaps there is a way. Why if,
as you think, Berenice is using Constance's body to haunt you,
and she.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Is, she is in. All we need to do is what.
Speaker 6 (42:03):
We must do in any case, very constant in the vault.
But of course I sicken at the thought of placing
my own dear lovely Constance in.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
That cold, moldy chamber.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
And yet it must be done, And with her body
locked within the vault there a nice will be unable.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
To haunt me. But I I must leave. Ernest.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
I have stayed as long as I can, far longer
than I anticipated. And I I do have other business,
pressing business in Baton rouge, the thought of being alone
in this huge and empty house. Is there no way
to persuade you. I'm sorry, Ernest, but there isn't. I've
done all.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
I can for you. You know I have, of course,
I know it.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
There is no better friend in all the world than you,
and I have no right to urge you to stay,
none at all. But I am afraid afraid to be alone,
Afraid of all things. It is a madness, afraid of
Bearonice's teeth.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I suppose it is a form of madness. Baron Nice
is dead and buried.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
Constance is dead and buried, and so Berenice cannot inhabit.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Her corpse to torture you. She'll find a way. She
will not, she will.
Speaker 6 (43:21):
She lies in that vault out there, and in time
her body will rot.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
But teeth teeth do.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
Not, and so long as a tooth remains in her skull, Ernest, at.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Ten o'clock I have a long hard ride ahead of me.
Speaker 6 (43:34):
Tomorrow. I must get to bed and summers to you.
We are both very much in need of rest. Rest.
So long as I live, there will never again be any.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Rest for me. What Barnice that life did? I hear
it or only dream?
Speaker 6 (44:03):
Opened the window and listen. Ah, nothing, nothing, a dream?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Another nightmare too?
Speaker 6 (44:17):
But what is this? I went to the skin my
my night clothes, I drenched.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
My my feet caked with mud.
Speaker 6 (44:26):
Oh wait, wait, it comes back to me now, the dream,
the nightmare?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Was it a dream? Or did I? Anthony?
Speaker 6 (44:39):
Anthony, Anthony, I'm coming.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I'm coming, good thought man? What is it now?
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Come in, come into my room?
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yes, but what is it? What's happened another of your
awful nightmares? Well, I don't know. You don't know if
you had a nightmare or you didn't.
Speaker 6 (44:57):
If it was a dream, then then that's what it was.
But if it wasn't, If I really did the thing
I thought I dreamed, then that, Anthony, I am mad.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
What do you mean?
Speaker 6 (45:08):
I mean that if I really did it, I've done
something so horrible it could only be the work of
a madman.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Ernest, what did you do? I dreamed?
Speaker 5 (45:16):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (45:17):
Make it a dream.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
But look at me, my clothes soaked through, my feet muddied.
I I must have done it. Done what what?
Speaker 6 (45:29):
I left my bed and went outside of the tools
think tool shed and found what I was looking for.
And then I went to the vault in this storm,
you went, Yes to the vault. I unbolted the gate
and went in. And then I pried open Beronicie's coffin.
Oh no, yes, yes, yes, she lay moldering in death,
(45:53):
with the lips drawn back and the teeth, those white,
even perfect, gruesome teeth exposed. I I stared at them,
stared in a horror of fascination, and then, taking the
instrument I brought with me.
Speaker 11 (46:10):
I.
Speaker 6 (46:12):
I did what had to be done to save my sanity.
What what did you do? I dare not speak of it,
put words to it, nor can I bear to look
look to see was.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
It dream or reality? Look at what? When I? When
I had done it, I.
Speaker 6 (46:30):
Returned here to my room. I I placed the instrument
on the mantel. In my dream, I placed it there.
And though it must be a dream, please go to
the mantel, see if the instrument is there?
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Very well, est.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
I I see nothing here but a pair of pliers. Ah,
this this is the instrument you used in your dream?
Speaker 2 (47:01):
No dream, no dream? Can't you understand that now? No dream?
The players are there. I did it, by a merciful God,
forgive them mad, But I did it the table by
bedside table. Look there, now, look.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
They are there.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
They are here on your bedside table.
Speaker 6 (47:38):
All all a farniece's teeth.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Well a Toothsome tale was not something to let your
imagination chew on.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Sorry, couldn't resist that.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Seriously though, this story, as many another, reflects that certain
mystery which is puzzle mankind. Since the first tick of time,
which is the reality of our lives, which the dream
you got me, I'll be back shortly.
Speaker 7 (48:28):
Lots of people come in in play in.
Speaker 9 (48:32):
It's smart to get ahead, start invest in time, to
build a future.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
It's such a good place, a too big in a
room to grow. I getting to know just where you
won't be.
Speaker 13 (48:49):
John, the people who John the army.
Speaker 7 (48:53):
You could start building your tomorrow today, John the people
Joy Army.
Speaker 12 (49:02):
You can go long, long way, long long way.
Speaker 8 (49:08):
And if you want to do something positive for yourself
and your country, take your place with us. Join the
people who've joined the army, John people who. For more
information call eight hundred and five to three five thousand,
toll free.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
John.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
So once again we have you and I, as Will
Shakespeare put it, let our imaginary forces work, coupling them
with the febrile genius of Edgar Allan Pole, bringing to
this strange tale our own vivid and viable fancy and
exercise very much worthwhile good friends for a lively and
(49:59):
dissip clinton imagination can make our mundane lives a heaven
on Earth or a hell. Our cast included Norman Rose,
Michael Tolan, Joan Lovejoy and ROBERTA.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Maxwell.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
The entire production was under the direction of Hymon Brown.
And now a preview of our next tale, Neil, where
is that coffee?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Here's my wife for that? Now, Madam Magna, let may
help you with the tray.
Speaker 5 (50:31):
I don't intend to skip anything if you're in kind,
and I do not ge any little.
Speaker 6 (50:35):
Now stop at the two of you.
Speaker 5 (50:37):
Well, you just tell your girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
You are your tongue Plasi isn't my girl friend, she's
my fiance.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
What's more, what the devil?
Speaker 6 (50:46):
Sorry, sir, I'm very sorry.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
My wife the tray slipped from.
Speaker 6 (50:52):
Magda.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
The cou she's collapsing, Marga, oh my dearess.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Let me keep your hand with a nil.
Speaker 9 (50:58):
No so stand back but no so get back bed,
don't don't come near.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Can't you see.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
See what her face? She's sweating blood. Yes, I'm afraid
she has the Red plague.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
It's worse than that, she's brought it here.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Radio Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
This is E. G.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, Pleasant.
Speaker 5 (51:33):
Dreams CEB has.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Radio Mystery Theater continues with Edgar Allan Pose The Mask
of the Red to Morrow night at ten thirty on
Canon and
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