Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quiet, Please, Quiet Please.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
The American Broadcasting Company presents Quiet Please, which is written
and directed by Willis Cooper and which features Ernest Chappell.
Quiet Please for Today is called Calling All Souls.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I tell you what happened last Halloween or all Souls
or all Helloes or whatever you call it. Near part
of the country. I bet you can't guess where I was. Well,
I was a couple of places where I started. I
was sitting in a tight little room in a great
big house. You ever been west, Well, you know, when
(01:14):
you cross the Mississippi River on the Santa Fe from
Illinois to.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Iowa, about four or five hours out of Chicago, Fort Madison, Iowa.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I ever noticed that great big place right alongside the
river bank to your right, the big high walls and
the towers and the big gates.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's right, the Iowa State Prison.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
That's where I was last Halloween, in a little cell, oh,
very comfortable, all by myself, waiting and not much more
time to wait, sure, the death cell. I was just
(01:58):
sitting there, playing solid are edge in my bed, trying
not to think of what was coming up, and thinking
of nothing else about that I was pretending I paid
the house fifty two dollars for the deck. The house
would pay all five dollars for the car, and I
got on the top road. I was thirty two dollars
to the good this particular hand. I didn't hear anybody
come up. I didn't hear anybody except the guard walking around.
(02:22):
So this voice spoke to me.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Red nine on this head of clubs.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Oh, hello, Delby, Yeah, that's right, coming in.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Yeah, how I'm all right so far?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
How are you all right? Sit down?
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
No, so.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Turn this down?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
What do you say?
Speaker 6 (03:04):
Oh, A lot of things? What that's a difference, he said, No,
it's tough, Delbert. When I didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
It's tough on me too. Lewis, Yes, but they're not
going to hang you.
Speaker 6 (03:16):
Beg him to give you a two weeks stay at least,
but I said his conscience wouldn't let him.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Conscience.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
He said, if you felt I could turn up anything
at all in two.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Weeks, he'd be tempted to give you the benefit of
the doubt.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
You've had three stays, now, could you turn up anything?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Louis? Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 6 (03:38):
I've done everything I could, But I didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Delbert, I know you didn't, but proving it, do you
want to play cards? I just dec I.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Didn't want to play there.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Well, I've done my very best. Lewis very level best
I know.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
I know.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It's pretty tough on me, though it certainly is no
hope at all.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I'll hope to no witnesses. Plenty of monive fingerprints all
over everything. I remember, only I didn't do it. Who
did you got an idea loose?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I did it all.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
That's I just opened the door after I knocked a
dozen times. I just opened the door and they were
on the floor. I told you, I know, and I
was so shocked. You know, I couldn't help it.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I tried to. That's how I got the fingerprints all over.
You told me. I admit I didn't like Harris. I
didn't go for Edda very much either, but I didn't
kill him Delbert.
Speaker 7 (04:47):
You told me.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I just went out there to ask him to let
me have however much he could have got. Two thousand
dollars he owed me for the pigs.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
You should have made all those statements about how you
were going to get the money or else.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I know it. You shouldn't have gone through his desk
looking for the money either. I don't know why the
Dickens did that.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, well, I don't know either, but I was I said,
that was shocked. I just thought this was a good
way to get the money. If I could find it,
nobody would know.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I figured.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I knew if I didn't get it, then I'd never
get it. They were lying there on the floor.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
Lewis, Listen, it was pretty hard to convince a jury
you didn't do it with them lying on the floor
and you're going through the desk and blood spots on
your suit and everything.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I know, crazy to do it, but I didn't murder.
I know that, I told you, Delbert. Are they sure
enough going to hang me? Unless unless what they discover
(05:49):
new evidence?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Are they going to discover that? I'll have to do
it awful fast? Where are they going to discover it?
You tell me there isn't any more evidence? Whoever? Really
did it? Cover the tracks too good?
Speaker 6 (06:03):
And I'll say, or you smooched it up, fooling around?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
My gosh, Delbert, I was just trying to see if.
Speaker 6 (06:08):
I could help, seeing if you could find the money,
Harris Ojoy, I know it was fish Honestlee Lewis now
you wouldn't expect anybody in his right mind to believe
your story.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Well, that's true.
Speaker 6 (06:17):
I know it's true, but I couldn't make the jury
believe it or the governor.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
How do you know it's true? Why? How do you
know it's true? Why?
Speaker 6 (06:28):
I just know it, Lewis, I've seen murderers before.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You don't think I'm a murderer, of course not, Delbert.
Don't you really think there's a chancery I'm covering some
new evidence?
Speaker 6 (06:47):
Really, I think the only people who saw the murder,
the only people who know did.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
It, are Harrison Edit themselves.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
They're dead. That's right, they're dead. Lewis. Look what I
stopped in for.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
You want me to ask Father McIntire to come around
and see you out?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Thirteen steps up with your hands fastened behind you, thirteen steps,
Stop and turn around, the man says, stand here, look
down the thirteen steps of the reporters. The doctor with
a stethoscope hanging around his neck. Feel a man tying
your feet together. Feel a floor, Give a little under foot.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
See how the man stays away from a little.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Trap door, reaching out to make the rope tight around
your ankles. Listen, foto McIntyre's voice in your ear, A
little rustling behind you, and the black hood over your head.
You can't see anymore, but you can feel the rope
(08:05):
as it brushes against you, like a little hairy and
creepy crawley on your skin, and the weight of the
knot nine turns on your shoulder.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Flora gives a little on the foot. No, I can't,
I can't. I thought I didn't do it. I tell
you I didn't do it. All I could think.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
That was what my lawyer said, what Delbert said before
he got up and opened the door and went away.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
The only people who saw, the only people who know did.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
It are Harrison had it themselves, and Harrison.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Eda knew I didn't do it. Maybe they didn't know
who it was they did it, but they didn't know
that I didn't do it. Maybe they didn't, and maybe
they did, maybe they didn't. Hope maybe they could tell me,
Maybe they could discover some new evidence the way del
would put it, Maybe they could.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Tell me who to go, who to look for? Would
I find?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I could tell it all the doubt, but he could
go tell the governor. I'd got to stay wide. The
evidence will be good, and I said, he said.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
They'd let me go. Maybe they wouldn't hang. But Harris
is dead, and that is dead.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I saw them dead on the floor of the house
when I went, and they accused me.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Of murdering them. They fought me guilty. I'm in the
dead cell waiting.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Harris had a don't let me die, don't let them
had a Harris, have mercy on my soul. And when
I heard the bell told me somewhere in the distance,
(09:57):
I remembered. I remembered what night this was. This was
all souls night. This was night when the souls of
the weary dead walked the earth again. I remember when
grave yards yawn and tones give up their dead, and
(10:18):
the sound of the bell rolling away in the darkness
of early evening, calling all souls.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Calling all souls. And they wondered.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
If my soul I had to leave my body when
I walked up the thirteen steps, and after, if my
soul had to leave my body, then why could it
not leave my living body for a while and go
seeking after the others that stepped from the tomb This night,
the souls of the weary dead, the souls.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Of the unhappy dead.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
I murdered the kindly souls that knew. Then I sat
down again quietly. The fit of deadly terror was gone
for a moment. I was exhausted and weak. I closed
(11:23):
my eyes in the sound of a distant bell, stated
out as I thought, I can't it be possible, I thought.
All these things are not mere superstition. There's some foundation
and every belief.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
I thought.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I can't die.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
I'm innocent, I thought, and only those two all the truth,
Calling all souls, I repeated again to myself, calling all souls,
and I stood up. I stood up in a brightly lighted,
(12:05):
sorrowful place. And as I rose, I turned to look
behind me, and there on the bed, still in an
attitude of despair, sat my body, And in a flash
of darkness, the place faded away, the stone walls and
the iron bars, and the bare, narrow bed.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The man in prison uniform seated motionless.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
On its edge, and I stood alone in the darkness
of a place I knew. Tall marble shafts gleaming faintly
in the starlight, Curving gravel roadways hedge boarded, the scent
of molering flowers.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
In the darkness, A dry rustle of a weather beaten
flag at the head of a low mound beside me,
and loneliness, all aloneness, pressing in with up only like
a living.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Leave of all souls, And suddenly, quietly in the cool shadows,
the little whispers of innumerable voices, the voices of the
wandering souls that hastened past.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Me, seeking their.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Dusty desires across the face.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Of the world. They once saw, knew.
Speaker 8 (13:25):
And then a voice speaking to me in the dark,
speaking my name in the darkness, calling me, And another.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Voice lose, And I knew I had rotten, for these
were the voices of the two.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
They said, I murdered.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Well, of course you didn't, glory, of course you did.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And a little child, a little boy ran up in
the darkness and took my hand and laughed to hear
my name.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Do you remember a little Tommy, our little boy that
died when.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
He was sick?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
And I remembered.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And in the darkness I saw many another I'd all
but forgotten. Charlie Cullum that was killed at Romayne.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
And they are gone.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Thirty years ago Albert new House, my boy scout comment
that drowned so many years ago. Grace Williams, who died
at her husband's hand crowds and Crowds are the ones
who had gone before, spending this their brief holiday on
their well ved earth, and I the only living soul
among them, spending my brief moment with them to seek.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
My life from them.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And also z Ev a year ago. And I said,
help me, and Etta answered me.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
What is there we can do now?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Lewis, you know I didn't kill you whether of course,
of course they're going to hang me for it. You
didn't do it. But how can I prove it? Albert said,
if we could find new evidence.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
There's plenty of evidence Lewis to be found. Where how Why?
Let me see he found the money. That's why you
couldn't find it, Lewis.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
But if he found money, it must be gone by now.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
No, he has some of it left. But how good
does that do? Why there's a list of the numbers
of the bills somewhere.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Look for it. They couldn't find it.
Speaker 7 (15:20):
Cant them look in the bedroom, Lewis, behind the third drawer.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
In my chest of drawers. I know where it is.
It's fell down there.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Oh that's wonderful, But what good will it do now?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Unless we know unless you tell me.
Speaker 7 (15:40):
There's plenty of evidence, Lewis, if you'll just look for it.
He ripped his coat on the catch of the living
room door. There's threads there that could be identified.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
You know who did it? You know who did it?
Speaker 7 (15:56):
Yes, we know, Yes, we know.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Tell me and I'll see, but I'll see that he confesses. Look,
I tell you they're going to hang me for it,
do you hear?
Speaker 9 (16:10):
Tell me?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
And you still hate me and you haven't learned mercy
since since you You're going to let me die because
you hated me while you were arrive.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
You're going to carry it beyond the grave. You're going
to keep it to yourself and let me hang.
Speaker 7 (16:29):
You hated us, Yes, I hated you, and I hate
you now ghost or no ghost?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
So no, so I.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
No no hair, Sam Kitty got me. It's all over
now that there's no use hating me. Don't you hate
the man that cutes you? Don't you?
Speaker 7 (16:51):
No, Louis, No, but.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You hate me. You're going to let me tie you know,
I mean is sin. You're going to let me die
just because we didn't like each other.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
On hurt Louis listened to us. There's no such thing
as hate anymore with us?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Then why don't you give me a chance to live?
Speaker 7 (17:09):
Go back, Lewis, Go back to your body, Go back,
go back to die. Dying isn't so bad, Lewis.
Speaker 10 (17:20):
You don't see any unhappiness among all these souls, do.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I don't want to die.
Speaker 7 (17:26):
You'd rather save your life for a while at the
expense of somebody else's life.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I'm not yoddy, it is.
Speaker 7 (17:34):
Go back, Louis, Go back.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I won't go back to you, probably will kill you.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
Listen to me, Louis. You're tampering with things that things
that you have no right to know. Your soul has
left your body before it's time. You have come upon
secrets that no living man should know. Your body is
waiting for you. Go back to it while there's time.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
While there's time, is only this one night that souls
may walk here.
Speaker 7 (18:06):
And when morning comes, well, when morning comes, if you
are still here, Louis, I can make you no promises.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So that Lewis tell me the man's name.
Speaker 7 (18:22):
No, Lewis, No, it's none of your affair, none of
my affair.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Don't you understand what I said to you.
Speaker 9 (18:30):
They're going to hang me.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
None of my affair.
Speaker 7 (18:33):
Listener, there was no need for you to send your
soul out seeking us, Lewis.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I don't get that.
Speaker 7 (18:41):
We have been waiting for this night.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Lewis. Well tell him hands.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
He will have to come with us now.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yes, that is the law.
Speaker 7 (18:52):
You should not have come here, Louis. There is still time,
but only a little time if you go back.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
No, I want to go back. I won't go back
until you.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
Tell me I have no right here. You know lord
what I hear? And now it is too late.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
You will have to come with us. Where you're going?
Telliam Harris, we are.
Speaker 7 (19:16):
Going to visit the man who murdered us. What I
told you, There was no need for you to come here, Lewis.
We have a way of taking care of this man.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I don't know what you mean.
Speaker 7 (19:32):
Haven't you ever heard of haunting? Come with us now, Lewis, No,
you must come.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
You're really going to haunt him and make him confess.
Speaker 7 (19:50):
We are going to appear to him, Louis. What he
will do we cannot say.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
But when he sees us and I'm going back to
the prison.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
No, I'll go back and.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I'll call a wad and I'll get Robert. Tell him
that there'll be a confession. Dublin will get me a
stay of execution that many confesses.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
I'll be who is it, Harris?
Speaker 7 (20:06):
Come with us and you will see.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
No, I'm going back to the prison. I told you
get things all set up.
Speaker 7 (20:11):
No, you changed your mind too late, Lewis.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Too late.
Speaker 7 (20:16):
Why I know, Lewis, you have neverled too much.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
You have gone too far.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
The souls of the living have no place here, but
you have come. We told you to go back while
there was time, Lewis, Yes, But now you must come
with us.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
No, no, I want to go back.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Come Louis, high high up over the face of the sleeping,
stolid world, with the tiny lights of the living.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Far be Lewis, the.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Broad, peaceful fine lands, the sleeping cities, the blood breast
of the great river, fabulous, the universe throbbing with strange,
compelling song, and above us, around us, the sense of
a million souls, a million merely in the countless multitude,
returning joyously to their single night upon the earth they loved.
(21:24):
And I looked up in the clearness of the haunted knight,
and above me the endless pathway of the milky Way
glowed with a strange.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Splendor, and had to pluck my sleeve. The pathway of
the souls, Lewis the way we all return.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
And I saw the features of the ones I have loved,
of strangers, of men.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Women and little children, the boys in ragged uniforms, of bearded.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Ancients, and smiling babes in their mother's arms, and on
their faces in a sparkling night, and expression of awful
eagerness have long awaited realization of this night they would
once again rest upon them mortal earth? Can I even
I have the only living soul amongst all them at
the goude of the bed eve? And I have had
(22:11):
an overpowering desire to set my feet again this moment
upon the reality of earth.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
And I closed my eyes for a moment? Can I
opened them?
Speaker 4 (22:25):
We three were in the room, and on a.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Bed there was a sleeping man. Where are we? Is
this the man?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
This is the man? This is the man?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Who is he? Go and look? Hi?
Speaker 7 (22:52):
No, go and look. I don't want to go and look, Lewis,
You must go and look.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
He lay there, sleeping as innocently as any child.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
The covers were drawn up about his face, as if
he were shutting out some childish fancy, a bogeyman in
the dark, but I knew him for a wicked, guilty man.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
The man who held my own life in jeopardy.
Speaker 10 (23:16):
Look at him, Louis, Look at him, Louise, and I
lifted up the comforter that hid his face and bent
down to look at him.
Speaker 9 (23:28):
Delbert, Albert, my friend, the man who had defended me
in the courtroom and lost, The man who had gone
to the governor or Paddy, gone to plead.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
For my life. Albert, the man who told me, of
course I know you didn't do it. Of course he knew.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
He alone, martle Man knew the murderer, for the defender
of the acute used man was the murderer himself.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Wakeim, Lewis, no, wakem.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Delbert, Delbert, Delbert, wake up, Lewis.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Louis.
Speaker 7 (24:24):
Here he came with us, Delbert.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Harris Harrison, your ghosts.
Speaker 7 (24:32):
We are human souls. Delbert, come to hear your testimony.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
I won't tell you anything.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
You've heard of them, didn't you, Delbert?
Speaker 7 (24:41):
You murdered us. Delbert, No, I did do it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You didn't do it. You Lewis.
Speaker 7 (24:49):
You can't be here. Well, Lewis must hear you dels noise,
I did do it. The Lewis I them how you
like proba? Blame on you? Are you?
Speaker 4 (25:04):
I can get your convicted. I can save myself.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I hated them toos.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Oh give me if I.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Give you, Delbert, ask Harris and Eda to forgive you, Herge.
Speaker 7 (25:23):
We have already forgiven you, Delbert. But you have done
a great wrong to Lewis. You will be punished.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
All prison. I'm going back to my body now in
the prison.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Than give me, thank you, Harris at her I'm going back.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
Oh, Harris, Lewis, hu lord the quiet murderer. But Harris,
you can't go back.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Lewis, I can't go back. Why what about what? You
must stay?
Speaker 6 (25:56):
Stay?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Stay? Why must I stay? My body's back down the
prison waiting for me. I've got to go back and live.
Speaker 7 (26:02):
No, why tell me why everything's out?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
What's them up? You tell him?
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Delta Lewis, Well.
Speaker 7 (26:22):
Lewis, they hanged you half an hour ago.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
M h.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
The title of today is Quiet Please, story is Calling
All Souls. It was written and directed by Willis Cooper.
The Man who Spoke to You. Ernest Chapel and Kermit
Murdoch played Albert Harris and Ada were respectively, Ralph Schulman
and Mary Patton. Miss Cooper and I are very grateful
(27:14):
for the superb efforts of Albert Berman, who was always
responsible for our quiet accusic. Now for word about next week,
here is our right director Willis Cooper. Thank you for
listening to client.
Speaker 11 (27:28):
Please again next week I have a story for you
called Adam and the Darkest Day, and.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
So until next week.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
At the same time, I am fively yours, Ernest Chapel.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Now a listening reminder, David Harding.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
COUNTERSPI is a name that means action, excitement, drama. Each time,
here's efficient law enforcement organization exposes another racket.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
Here counterspire this afternoon over these ABC stations.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
This is ABC, the American broadcasting Company, WJZ, New York's
first station, WJZAM and FAM