August 18, 2025 • 44 mins
CBS Radio Mystery Theater - The Doppelganger
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Come in.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Welcome. I'm E. G. Marshall.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
A gentleman named Frank Richard Stockton, whose name may not
be familiar to you, as I must admit it wasn't
to me, wrote one of the most famous short stories
of all time.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
It was called The Lady.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Or the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I mentioned it only because, in his own curious way,
it reminded me of the story that doctor Felix Brandt
is about to reveal.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
What impulse drives me to put what follows on paper?
I don't exactly know. I suppose it's a need for confession,
or perhaps a prayer for forgiveness to a God I've
forgotten and whose mercy I do not deserve. When I die,
which will be shortly, and I wonder, when they close
(01:13):
my eyes at last, if I shall meet the soul
of Hugh Prentice, and if I too will be condemned
to wander eternally in a vast limble of loneliness as
punishment for my crime, a crime worse than murder for
which I did not have the courage, But I was
(01:37):
determined the death was too easy for someone who had
violated the one person I had held most dear in
all my life, so I dared play God out of
my own special knowledge and exact the punishment to fit
the crime. Whoever reads this make your own judgments. What
(02:04):
has been done cannot be undone.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Our mystery drama, The Doppelganger, was written especially for the
Mystery Theater by Ian Martin and stars Howard da Silva.
It is sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I'll be back shortly with that one. To go back
to the Lady and the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You remember, I'm sure that it was a story of
a man who faced two doors. Behind one of them
was a famished, raging man eating tiger who would devour
and destroy. Behind the other was a love goddess every
man's desire. Now, I'm not suggesting that this story has
anything to do with that story, except in the matter
(03:05):
of choice, something we do every day, select one alternative
or the other. So let's examine doctor Felix Brand's selection
and judge him as you may.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
My name is Felix Brand. I have a doctorate clinical psychology.
I was married, have one daughter. As I've grown older,
although it has been a passionate obsession of mine, all
my life, I've had to fight the tendency to devote
more time to my avocation than my vocation. Parapsychology the
(03:47):
exploration of a psychic, the world beyond the finite world,
a hobby or obsession, if you will, which led to
my unspeakable crime, worse, far worse than murder.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
It was nice of you to meet me at the airport, doctor.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Brand, for reasons deeper than simple courtesy, Hank. I wanted
to have a private chat with you about the woman
we both loved, that daughter of mine. That's why I'm
letting you drive so I can.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Oh, what is it? There's something about.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Brand, not just at this moment.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
Quickly cut over to the right light FASTA yes, sir,
But what.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
My god, Doctor, if you had told me to pull over,
that maniac would have hit his head on.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
There's nothing more we can do, Hank. The police haven't
hand Let's drive on. The man is dead. I don't know.
Probably he used How do you know? I don't. I
only since it he didn't want to live. I don't
(05:08):
know why, heart conditioned, terminal disease for some reason.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Well, how could you know what kind? Well? How did
you know to tell me to pull over so suddenly,
as if you knew in advance there was going to
be an accident.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I'm an old man, Hank, an old man who meddles, perhaps,
and too many things outside my province. I've been looking
deeper and deeper into parapsychology, and some of the things
I've come to believe in were abof what things here
all extrasensory perception esp. If you'd rather, clairvoyance, telepathy, all
(05:44):
sorts of psychic phenomena. I'm thinking of abandoning classic psychology
and switching over to the other side. A matter of fact,
I'm already teaching one course in it, and that's a
little interest to a lawyer or even my perspective. Somon,
tell me what pot you're flying down from law school
for the weekend.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I didn't fran Her hasn't fran said anything to you, doctor,
But what I don't know, I just well her letters
have been very strange lately and not very frequent. I
thought something might be wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I mean, I had a hunch the amateur outflies the expert.
I hope you're wrong. You have me worried. Fred is
everything in the world to me? If anything ever happened
to her.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
She means as much to me, doctor brand And don't
you worry. If anything is wrong between us, we can
set it right.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
It was a relief to have Hank back again. I
had been worried about my daughter friend lately, Friend the
picture of her mother for my loss too soon, bright, open, happy,
reaching out both hands to the world, full of love
to give and expecting the same in return. And yet
I knew had been trying to conceal from myself something
(07:10):
that was very wrong. Something it took Hank, whom she
had loved with all her heart since high school, to
bring out into the open.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
He friend, aren't you trying to do get pneumonia?
Speaker 6 (07:27):
Oh? Hi, Hank? I? And did you do here so soon?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
I'm warming enough huddled out here in the gazebo with
snow all around and the wind whistling of bicycle.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
What's got my pocket to keep me warm?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
How about your loved? Don't I get a welcome kiss,
even if it's a cold one?
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Oh, Hank?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
What am I going to say to you?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Well?
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Something a lot more straight from the shoulder than those
weaseling letters I've been getting recently.
Speaker 6 (08:00):
I know I'm not very proud of myself at the moment.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Hey, you don't have to cut corners with me. There's
another guy right, thank you.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
Please listen to me and try to understand. You See,
Dad has been teaching his regular survey course in basic psychology,
and I am met this this guy there, and I
don't know. I've something crazy happened, something I wasn't prepared
(08:31):
for or even thought about in my well ordered life.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
You fell in love with her, yes, which lets me out.
Please don't put it like that, Hank.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
It's just it's something so sudden, so overwhelming.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Hey, don't I even get a chance to get up
to bath for the ninth Any.
Speaker 6 (08:53):
It's too late, Hank, I'm trying to have his baby.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Well, that's that's right between the eyes. When's the wedding?
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (09:09):
I just found out about me.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I mean I.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Could cheerfully ring that rabbit's neck. Your your father know?
Speaker 6 (09:19):
And this guy I haven't even told him yet?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Why not?
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Well, I just haven't had the chance.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Okay, So it shouldn't be a total loss, and I
don't waste the whole trip down here.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
We'll make a deal.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
I'll tell the doc about it, and you pinned down
your your dream boy. What's his name?
Speaker 6 (09:40):
By the way, I won't tell you that. I'm afraid
to it. I do love you. Hang what something else
like this turn up?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
I'm no oracle. It's just what happens to people sort
of thing shakes faith and makes you wonder about God.
But it's life. It's what we have to live. Come on,
let's both go inside before we freeze to death.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I can't believe what you're telling me, Hank, and you
had better pop. It's true, popped up? Sorry about that,
just slipped out. That's all I always wanted from friending you.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
And we can't legislator play god. It's not the way
it's gonna be. But who's the man. Well, it's friend's secret.
It's her right to keep it that way. There's nothing
either of us can do about it.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I wouldn't agree with that. You'll give her up so easily.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I never owned her. She's her own mistress. But you
won't fight for her. I have have a heart. What
can I do? I can't force her to love and
accept me. The best I can do is be a
good loser. You gotta be kidding, friend. So we were
together a few times you ought to know better than
(11:01):
they get caught. That's all I mean to you.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh, don't knock it.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Look you're a sweet chick. We made great music. It
was all for kicks, though. I mean no tie, here's
no padlocks. Look, don't get me wrong. I'll get your
right guy. I mean, it's all legal now, and I'll
pay the freight.
Speaker 6 (11:20):
You if you want me to get rid of the baby,
no one else.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I mean you want it, you have it, just don't
try to pin me. Then.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I want to stay loose. That's my thing.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
I can't believe what you're saying. It's a whole new world.
You want to live by old fashioned boxes.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
They shoved us in. That's your option.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
You can't push me in a sleeve, so don't ever try.
I am today baby. You got to take me as
you find me or as I lose you.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, that's the way it runs, and you should come
as you go.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Why was that easy? Oh come on, I didn't say that.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Oh you don't say much.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
You really mean.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Maybe it's best we just split no here, please please.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Look, the kid is out, and don't try to hang
it on me. I'll deny it. All you'll get is
a nice story it to get your.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Old man fired out of the university.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
I can't understand myself how I could how I can
be in love with anyone who's rotten as zole? Not
it off, Rahim, If you look if I did do
something about the baby, would you do alright?
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Hey, now that's that's more like my old woman talking.
Sure if you do.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I mean you and me are a thing again.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I don't know if dad would. I mean, I don't
have any money here.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Well, don't look at me.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I ain't got the bread, but I got something better.
What got a buddy mid student senior?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And he owes me plenty. I mean, we'll do a
little collecting from.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Him, but he's not a doctor.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
He's the next thing to it. Don't get the whimmies.
He's done it before. It's a preeze. Leave it to me.
I'll set the whole thing up. Brand darling. What is that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Baby?
Speaker 5 (13:33):
It's gone?
Speaker 6 (13:34):
But oh I'm pleadings.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
He's not anything I can do.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yes, thankful, doctor my rose, and get here fast. The
numbers of my address book by the phone on my
study deskin.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
I'm on my way.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Who did this to you? Friend?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
The friend?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
The man who made you pregnant. What's his name?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I won't tell her the time.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
But one way or another, our just a friend, and
when I do, I'll find a way to make him
suffer for what he's done to you.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
There isn't much excuse for the man whose name doctor
Felix Brand still doesn't know, Hugh Prentice. The sad thing
about life is they usually get away with things. Being
without a conscience makes life a lot easier. But is
anyone really without a conscience? That's something Hugh Prentice is
(14:33):
about to have to start exploring as a strange and
eerie punishment creeps over him.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I'll be back shortly with that too.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
In the Gilbert and Sullivan's tradition, the mikado's object of
making the punishment fit the crime was co make a
light hearted Here it is deathly serious, in point of fact,
unearthly so. Doctor mont Rose was able to bring the
hemorrhage under control after he arrived, and once it had
(15:13):
stopped and fran was under sedation, he met with his
old friend Felix in the study.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Well she's all right now, Felix, nothing to worry about.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
You don't think we should get her to the hospital.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Under ordinary circumstances, perhaps, but I'd say she's out of danger.
She'll have to be watched closely, but I can handle that.
If I put her in a hospital, it's all out
in the open. You don't want that, do you?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
What do you mean, Jim?
Speaker 4 (15:41):
This is a pretty high bound community, Felix. You're a
good friend, Jim of yours and little fram. I don't
want to see her hurt any Why did she do it?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I mean she and Hank are going to get married anyway,
so I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Oh what would you do about the man who started
all this time.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
If it were my daughter? Yes, I don't know. We're
a little elderly for physical retribution, ain't we in any
other course? And problematical probably hurt Frian more.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Than the man.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Do you know who he is?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
No, friend, won't tell me.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
I suppose the best thing to do is let it go.
Come in.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
How are you feeling today? Friend?
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I'm all right, daddy.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I know.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I mean doctor Monrose has given you a clean bill.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Of health, has he?
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Well? He says you can get up and go back
to college or whatever you want.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Whatever I want. There's one thing I want I may
never have anymore. Didn't doctor Jim tell you?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yes? We can talk about it later. Friend, I was
just wondering, what would you like to well? I mean,
Hank is still here and he would like to see you.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
No, I don't want to see Hank. I'm going back
where I belong if he'll have me.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Are you ready to tell me his name yet?
Speaker 6 (17:37):
No, not till I find out where I stand.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
How can you make yourself so cheap? This man, whoever
he is, has taken all the love of a joy
and laughter out of you? How can you go crawling
back to.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
Him because he's the only one who can give it
back to me.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
And if he doesn't, I just don't want to live.
I was helpless to aid her, to ease anything for her.
All that burned in me was a rage for the
man who had turned my happy child into a hurt
(18:21):
and battered shell, a beggar dependent on a man who
is not worthy of her. And at this moment, even
though I still didn't know his name, I could curse
him and wish him disaster. I could do better than
that if I turned my back on a god that
(18:42):
I felt had forsaken me in mind, and there's an
extension of all my psychic research. Turned to black magic
and called down a curse on a man who had
ruined my child. But first I had to talk to Hank.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
I love Fran and I want it I always will,
But just for her sake, I wish I could break
it up, somehow, get her away from this slimy crud.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
It's as though he has her under some kind of spell.
We both know he'll hurt her again, desert her, humble her.
I think Fran herself knows it, but somehow she can't
help herself. What are you going to do? Doctor?
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Just let her go back to it and leave it alone.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I can't stop Frien anymore than you can't, Hank. She's
not a child, she's of age. Her life is in
her own hands. I have no legal control. If we
only knew who he was, well, that won't be too
hard to find out. I've thought of all kinds of things,
even though I'm not very rich. I could perhaps buy
him off. I'm sure he has a price, but that
wouldn't solve anything for Fran. She loves him, He's what
(19:52):
she wants. He has only to crook his finger and
she'll crawl to him. That's obvious enough. After all, she's
gone through for him.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
So what can we do?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You nothing, go back and live.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Your life, not quite without friend, but maybe it.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Won't have to be without friend. First we have to
clean this man out of her mind and her blood.
But you just said we couldn't one way if he
doesn't exist anymore, if he's dead.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Wait a minute, you can't seriously.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Mean don't worry his son. Even if I had the
means a gun, a knife, a blood weapon, I would
have neither the strength nor the courage to use them,
to say nothing of my lack of nohow No, but
I can wish him dead or worse. I might just
have the power for that.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Doctor, are you Are you all right? I don't understand you.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Of course you don't understand, and I am quite all right.
This is something you will have to leave to me.
To anyone who reads this, it might seem fantastic that
the rights I prepare are solemn and real to more
people around you than you might believe. The ceremonies of
dark magic are very real to those who perform them.
(21:16):
In the attic I had found among friends childhood, dolls,
one in the image of a man. I turned my
study into a chapel of a damned burning sulfur and aesthetics.
Then he recited from my book of ceremonial magic. Oh,
(21:37):
all the ministers and companions, I direct, conjure, constrain, and
command you to fulfill my bequest willingly and straightway, to
accomplish the destruction of this man unnamed, who has beset
my daughter and most grievously harmed uh by whatever means.
(22:08):
So he said, it's great to be swinging with you again, baby.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I wasn't sure you'd want me back. I looked so,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
You look great and my own woman again.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
I'm sorry we got to ride the subway, but it's
got bread for the hacks these days.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Oh, I don't mind where I am, just as long.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
As it's with Hugh. And stick with me, baby, You'll
write first class all the way.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Unlike these types.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Okay, long gone. You and me are special, just waiting
for the right break to choose me. If you choose me,
I buy you all the way down the line.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Take a look at me?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Who is there?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Or could walk in up?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Where is it?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Hugh? Half halfway down the car.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
They you see that guy?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
No, which one?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
And that's what you mean? Which one? How could you
miss him? He said, Come and copy of me. He's
even wearing the same jeans, the embroidered jacket. I see,
you know, I didn't see anyone. Come on, come on,
come on, I got to catch up with him.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Take it easy, I didn't see anyone.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Like you said, he disappeared. He's gone. But he uh,
he's like, he's like, my double let's go stare.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
I've got to get home here.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I just won't take a moment. Yeah, yeah, there he is.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
There he is.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
It's right at the top of the stairs, next to
that fat dame.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
No, the newman.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
There, she's all alone. Are you are you?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
He's gone? He's gone again.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
But he was looking right at me. Oh the devil
you suppose he was?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
What does he want? Hello?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Ram?
Speaker 6 (23:53):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
What's you?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
I gotta see it right away.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I need help. What's wrong?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I can't talk on the phone. Meet me on the
campus by the phone. Something real crazy happened last night.
I don't know who else to ask, what to do.
I was just turning in. I was reaching for the
light to Dell said, when all of a sudden he
was sitting right there in the camp facing me. Who
(24:21):
am the double like we saw on the subway? I said,
how the hell did you get in here? Who are you?
I am your double?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Danger?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Why what your double? Or if you want you're an inheritor?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
What does that mean?
Speaker 7 (24:44):
It's time for you to wonder like me. It's time
for me to return and die as I should have.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
All right, I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
A long time ago, so long you can't even begin
to imagine my sin.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
And because of my sin, I was not allowed to
die in peace, but condemned to wander.
Speaker 7 (25:06):
In infinity until I found a body I could be laid.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
To rest in.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
My time is almost here, and in you I will find.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
A home again.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I don't know what kind of a nut you are, Jack,
but I'm gonna kick your tail out of here so
I can get some sleep.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That won't be necessary. Sleep for you is all I'm
waiting for. Huh.
Speaker 7 (25:32):
When you are safely asleep, you are at my mercy.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
The moment your eyes close, your body will be mine,
and your soul will be left to wander through the
ages alone, waiting endlessly for.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Peace and the blessing of eternal sleep.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Get out, get away from me. You're nothing but nothing
better here.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I mean I could see him playing as I see you.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
But I could see through him too, like a lamp
in backup.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I'm shining through his head.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
The pattern of a cherry was sitting, and it's as
clear as a bell. Throw him. I mean, he was real.
So I throw in some clothes, I ran out of
the house. I spent a night walking. I was afraid
to go sleep to bed ram But nothing like this
ever happened, even on a wildness tripping. I never blew
so wild as this. What am I gonna do?
Speaker 6 (26:31):
Hugh?
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I think you should see my father.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Yeah, oh sure, that'd be great. After everything, I'd be.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Lucky if he didn't try to have me arrested.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
He doesn't know who you are.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
He didn't know you with the one. Yeah, but what
could he do.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
He's a psychologist.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
He didn't help you. Look, you were in one of
his lecture courses. All you have to do.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
Is go up to him and say you have a problem,
that he'd help you.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Ah.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Not a whole thing is crazy. I see some character
in a subway and threads like me. I have a
crazy dream right away, I blow my cool. There's nothing
the matter with me. Come on, let's let's cut out.
I ain't even gonna see your home. I'm going back
to bed and catch some shut up you listen to
non't look at me that way. Don't you turn against me?
Do you think I could after all that happened? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Right you you I could counter on.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yeah, You're my woman, no matter what.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I do to you, right, I love leave you and
don't ever forget it.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Baby?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Come on, blow, I gotta I gotta hit the sack.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
All right?
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Back up, man, I got a knife, get lost. No,
you are the lost one?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Are you talking?
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Oh? Is it?
Speaker 7 (27:57):
You're double ganger, just waiting for you to get tired
enough till your sleep is deep enough thought to take
over your body, so that rivet I may bring myself
to the peace of the grave.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
What is this race that dogs hues path? A figment
of a diseased imagination, a figure of retribution created by
a conscience weighted with guilt? Or is it some ghastly
nemesis conjured from the supernatural, the world outside our comprehension,
summoned up by doctor Felix Brandt through the agency of
(28:45):
the Devil. I'll be back shortly with Act three. That night,
Hugh Prentice fled to his apartment as though the hounds
of hell were at his heels, locked in securely with
(29:08):
every light blazing, riding high on ben Zadren to keep awake,
he paced the two small rooms like a caged tiger,
and everywhere he turned he faced the douppaganga, watching him silently,
waiting patiently, a twisted smile of anticipated triumph on his face.
At last, he could stand it no longer and fled
(29:29):
the apartment with the first light of morning, loaming the streets,
afraid to turn his head, knowing his doubles still followed
on his heels. At last, exhausted, he found a small
restaurant open and sat there, drinking coffee after coffee and
watching the clock till nine o'clock came. Then he crossed
to the public phone to make a.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Call doctor Brown, speaking doctor.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Brandt's vis This is Hughe Prentice. I'm a student of yours,
an electure series.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
It's a large class. I don't place you for the moment.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
What it doesn't matter. What doesn't matter is uh, look, Doc,
I'm in trouble. Can you help me?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Help you?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
How I can't not over the phone. It's like a
matter of life and death. Help me.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Well, if you put it that way, of course I'll try,
mister Apprentice, was it?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Prentice? Hugh Prentice?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Very well? How soon can you be here?
Speaker 4 (30:37):
We're within ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Very well, I'll be waiting. I hung up with the
strangest feeling. My comprehensive basic psychology course has a large attendance,
some one hundred. The name meant nothing to me. No,
that isn't right. I didn't recognize it. What I did
recognize was a a stifling feeling rising in my gorge
(31:04):
of implacable hatred for this hue print is why the
name filled me with revulsion? What connection could? And then
suddenly the pain struck again, sharper than ever? Oh now
(31:26):
where the come?
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Fine? Feel this dropped by a What is it that
the pain does? Where your more bean tablets? Draw?
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Forgot this morning?
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Wait a minute, I'll do better than that. Why must
you be so big headed?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Don't want to establish the habit and.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The habit will hurt you. Lessen the pain right now here,
let let's get one get when I'm out of the coat.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
There, that's better.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Can you roll back your sleeve?
Speaker 6 (32:00):
Well?
Speaker 8 (32:00):
When I prepare the syringes, hurry, let me swab first,
and oh, host Eddy, hold Eddy, ah, and so this
will take hold in a minute.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
But getting worship and more frequent.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I'm sorry. I can't help any more than I can
only treatment medicine has to offer you. If felix is palliative.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I know. I also know I haven't got much longer.
That's what worries me so about Frano. But guy, whoever
he is, I don't want him to wreck the rest
of her life. Oh, that'll be one of my students
wants to see me about something.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
And I have to run anyway. I just wanted to
tell you some good news. I got the tests back
on fran and I was maybe a little hasty on
my first diagnosis. With care, there's no reason she can't
have a child again.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
I don't know if that's good or bad. As long
as that skunk is still alive, whoever he is.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I let your visitor in. Oh, I was looking for
rot your brandy. You have the right office. I was
only visiting.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Shut the door and come in. You're mister Prentice.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, sir, that's right, Hugh Prentice.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Sit down. Oh suppose you're telling me what's troubling you.
Have you ever had any delusions like this before? Not
on your life? Have you done anything recently that you're
that you're sorry for? Ashamed of? No?
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Like what?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I don't know. That's why I.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Asked, No, Why should I be ashamed of anything I do?
I mean, like I free willed, you know, I give
what I get.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
That's that's all evens with me? What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Like it's a tough world, doc, I mean, they're all
against me, like most of them?
Speaker 3 (33:59):
They who are they?
Speaker 4 (34:02):
You know?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
People are your mother and father still love?
Speaker 6 (34:07):
No?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
My old man took off before I was five, and
my mo, well, she horsed around like like she had
to live, make the bread for me like anyone. I
guess she liked a good time.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
What kind of a job did she have you kidding?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Bringing home uncles for me. I must have had one
hundred or so uncles by the time I was fourteen.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
And then then what? Then?
Speaker 4 (34:40):
She left me with an aunt all dried up stick.
I shouldn't kick about her at that when she died
she left me enough dough to go to college like now,
and hey, hey, look what has this got to do
with that? That coon was tracking me.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
I'm trying to get around with her. You don't like
women very much, do you, Hugh? I don't know what
you get man. You like to punish them because of
what your mother did to you, isn't that it?
Speaker 4 (35:10):
Look? I don't have to have you push me around
like them. I mean, all I came here for was to.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Ask for help, and I'm trying to give it to you.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Well, can you just get this hant, whatever the hell
it is off my back?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I want to try if you just.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Help me, anything, doc anything. I gotta get some sleep.
And I'm afraid too.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
You're quite safe here. What's that thing? It's a metronome.
Some people use it to learn to keep time to music.
I'll use it to calm people down. Now, just keep
your eye on the needle as it swings back and forth,
and try to relax and answer my questions as honestly
(35:57):
as you can, and maybe together we can get to
the root of what's wrong with you. Tell me your
name again, Hugh, Hugh, what.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Hugh Prentice? Where were you born? Allentown? Pennsylvania. What was
your father's name, Frank? And your mother's.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Mary?
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I use hypnosis a lot in my work, but never
more deliberately, and I'm ashamed to say callously than today.
Because suddenly, from some deep recess of my being, an
electric wave was sending its knowledge to my brain, our
second sight was born, and I was suddenly sure who
(36:52):
Hugh Prentice really was? Can you hear me? Hugh? Yeah?
You know a girl named friend Brand. Don't you sure?
She's my chick? You know she's my daughter? Yeah? And
(37:15):
you made her pregnant. She was careless, You took her
to someone to get rid of the child. Sure, that's
the way it.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
Is, no sweat.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Don't you know she loves you?
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Man like their buses, not at any minute? Yeah, sure,
that's how chicks are.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Do you love her? What's with all this love jive?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I ain't tying myself down, no way.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I was, like I told you, I free wheel.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
I'm really gonna cut down my style. Keep trying all
the squares, all of them, but I'll show them.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Anyone ties me down, I stomp on him.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Good specially chicks like my mother, all sweet words and
cut your throat the first chance they get only me.
I'm too smart. I cut them down a size first.
Don't you worry about old heels.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
The morphine was wearing off already. I sat back in
my chair, watching the boy whose secrets I had bared,
a schizophrenic classic, already paranoid. Possibly he could be saved
through analysis, chemotherapy, new treatments, what you're being reached every day,
treatments I would never live to see, treatments he would
never willingly seek as he had sought me, because out
(38:59):
of the dark side of my studies and my learning,
I had raised a double ganger. Then, for a moment,
the pain hit me so wildly, so cutely, agonizingly, that
I must have blacked out a moment because.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Don't bring him out of his hypnosis. He doesn't deserve
to live.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I cannot condemn him to the death in limbo like
you live.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
Let me tell you something, old man. You are about
to die.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Two doors face you open one and.
Speaker 7 (39:36):
You let this scourge out to destroy.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
Your daughter as well as himself.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Open the other, and I take his.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Body, and your daughter has our chance to live.
Speaker 7 (39:47):
Our life, our chance to find happiness instead of despair
and degradation.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Which will it be? Which will you choose?
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Choose Jews jew.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Only in sleep can a double ganger take possession of
another body. Looking at the boy frozen in deep hypnosis
across my desk around him, was it my own pain?
A shadowy figure hovered. I knew I could banish the
shadow if I willed, but I had chosen my door.
(40:33):
I rose and left the office to go home to
my study. A very few apprentice or his body two
(40:55):
days after he smashed into the rock wall at Highgate
Turn Poplar, known as Satan's Trap in our neighborhood. Whatsoul
possessed it? I will know very soon I am about
to die and leave this manuscript transcribed through those two
days and exquisite pain for my daughter and Hank to read.
(41:21):
I know it will bring them their own pain, but
I hope it will bring them peace. And if I
am condemned too for my sins to wander as a doppelganger,
I can only pray that what I have done may
be worth it, and what I have brought my daughter happiness.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
This manuscript was read by Hank as executor of the estate,
and in that position he exercised a humane decision perhaps
beyond his powers.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
He did not let frank and read her father's letter.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
He buried it in a safe deposit vault until the
time was ripe, long after they were married and had
children of their own.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I'll be back shortly one.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
This story came to me through accidental channels, long after
the principles were gone. I cannot vouch for the truth
of it anymore than I suppose any of the principles
involved could. It's a story I suppose of retribution and
at the same time a frightening lesson to all of
us who stretched the human relationship beyond normal demands. If
(42:47):
we sin deep enough, in some form, in some way,
I suppose there is a double ganger who will vie
with us for retribution. The only way to avoid that
is to deny him the chance. Our cast included Howard
da Silva, Rosemary Rice, Tony Roberts, and Russell Horton. The
(43:08):
entire production was under the direction of Hymon Brown. And
now a preview of our next tale. How do you
render justice in your country?
Speaker 4 (43:21):
We have court, when we have judges, jury's lawyers? Is
it wise to allow people to judge people?
Speaker 6 (43:29):
It is the best way, the most democratic.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Only the mortal gods may decide.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
But how do you know to get them to make
a decision.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
The gods have sent my people a spring of sparkling
walker the accused us drink.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
At the spring. And what does that prove? The innocent
walk away vindicated, and the guilty the guilty all down dead. Well,
it is hardly the way you will see it. With
your own nights. We shall have a trial to night. Oh,
(44:09):
who is accused you are? This is E. G.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Marshall inviting you to return to our mystery theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dreams.
The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Come in.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Welcome. I'm E. G. Marshall.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
A gentleman named Frank Richard Stockton, whose name may not
be familiar to you, as I must admit it wasn't
to me, wrote one of the most famous short stories
of all time.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
It was called The Lady.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Or the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I mentioned it only because, in his own curious way,
it reminded me of the story that doctor Felix Brandt
is about to reveal.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
What impulse drives me to put what follows on paper?
I don't exactly know. I suppose it's a need for confession,
or perhaps a prayer for forgiveness to a God I've
forgotten and whose mercy I do not deserve. When I die,
which will be shortly, and I wonder, when they close
(01:13):
my eyes at last, if I shall meet the soul
of Hugh Prentice, and if I too will be condemned
to wander eternally in a vast limble of loneliness as
punishment for my crime, a crime worse than murder for
which I did not have the courage, But I was
(01:37):
determined the death was too easy for someone who had
violated the one person I had held most dear in
all my life, so I dared play God out of
my own special knowledge and exact the punishment to fit
the crime. Whoever reads this make your own judgments. What
(02:04):
has been done cannot be undone.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Our mystery drama, The Doppelganger, was written especially for the
Mystery Theater by Ian Martin and stars Howard da Silva.
It is sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I'll be back shortly with that one. To go back
to the Lady and the Tiger.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You remember, I'm sure that it was a story of
a man who faced two doors. Behind one of them
was a famished, raging man eating tiger who would devour
and destroy. Behind the other was a love goddess every
man's desire. Now, I'm not suggesting that this story has
anything to do with that story, except in the matter
(03:05):
of choice, something we do every day, select one alternative
or the other. So let's examine doctor Felix Brand's selection
and judge him as you may.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
My name is Felix Brand. I have a doctorate clinical psychology.
I was married, have one daughter. As I've grown older,
although it has been a passionate obsession of mine, all
my life, I've had to fight the tendency to devote
more time to my avocation than my vocation. Parapsychology the
(03:47):
exploration of a psychic, the world beyond the finite world,
a hobby or obsession, if you will, which led to
my unspeakable crime, worse, far worse than murder.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
It was nice of you to meet me at the airport, doctor.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Brand, for reasons deeper than simple courtesy, Hank. I wanted
to have a private chat with you about the woman
we both loved, that daughter of mine. That's why I'm
letting you drive so I can.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Oh, what is it? There's something about.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Brand, not just at this moment.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
Quickly cut over to the right light FASTA yes, sir,
But what.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
My god, Doctor, if you had told me to pull over,
that maniac would have hit his head on.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
There's nothing more we can do, Hank. The police haven't
hand Let's drive on. The man is dead. I don't know.
Probably he used How do you know? I don't. I
only since it he didn't want to live. I don't
(05:08):
know why, heart conditioned, terminal disease for some reason.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Well, how could you know what kind? Well? How did
you know to tell me to pull over so suddenly,
as if you knew in advance there was going to
be an accident.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I'm an old man, Hank, an old man who meddles, perhaps,
and too many things outside my province. I've been looking
deeper and deeper into parapsychology, and some of the things
I've come to believe in were abof what things here
all extrasensory perception esp. If you'd rather, clairvoyance, telepathy, all
(05:44):
sorts of psychic phenomena. I'm thinking of abandoning classic psychology
and switching over to the other side. A matter of fact,
I'm already teaching one course in it, and that's a
little interest to a lawyer or even my perspective. Somon,
tell me what pot you're flying down from law school
for the weekend.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I didn't fran Her hasn't fran said anything to you, doctor,
But what I don't know, I just well her letters
have been very strange lately and not very frequent. I
thought something might be wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I mean, I had a hunch the amateur outflies the expert.
I hope you're wrong. You have me worried. Fred is
everything in the world to me? If anything ever happened
to her.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
She means as much to me, doctor brand And don't
you worry. If anything is wrong between us, we can
set it right.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
It was a relief to have Hank back again. I
had been worried about my daughter friend lately, Friend the
picture of her mother for my loss too soon, bright, open, happy,
reaching out both hands to the world, full of love
to give and expecting the same in return. And yet
I knew had been trying to conceal from myself something
(07:10):
that was very wrong. Something it took Hank, whom she
had loved with all her heart since high school, to
bring out into the open.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
He friend, aren't you trying to do get pneumonia?
Speaker 6 (07:27):
Oh? Hi, Hank? I? And did you do here so soon?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
I'm warming enough huddled out here in the gazebo with
snow all around and the wind whistling of bicycle.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
What's got my pocket to keep me warm?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
How about your loved? Don't I get a welcome kiss,
even if it's a cold one?
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Oh, Hank?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
What am I going to say to you?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Well?
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Something a lot more straight from the shoulder than those
weaseling letters I've been getting recently.
Speaker 6 (08:00):
I know I'm not very proud of myself at the moment.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Hey, you don't have to cut corners with me. There's
another guy right, thank you.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
Please listen to me and try to understand. You See,
Dad has been teaching his regular survey course in basic psychology,
and I am met this this guy there, and I
don't know. I've something crazy happened, something I wasn't prepared
(08:31):
for or even thought about in my well ordered life.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
You fell in love with her, yes, which lets me out.
Please don't put it like that, Hank.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
It's just it's something so sudden, so overwhelming.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Hey, don't I even get a chance to get up
to bath for the ninth Any.
Speaker 6 (08:53):
It's too late, Hank, I'm trying to have his baby.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Well, that's that's right between the eyes. When's the wedding?
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (09:09):
I just found out about me.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I mean I.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Could cheerfully ring that rabbit's neck. Your your father know?
Speaker 6 (09:19):
And this guy I haven't even told him yet?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Why not?
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Well, I just haven't had the chance.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Okay, So it shouldn't be a total loss, and I
don't waste the whole trip down here.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
We'll make a deal.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
I'll tell the doc about it, and you pinned down
your your dream boy. What's his name?
Speaker 6 (09:40):
By the way, I won't tell you that. I'm afraid
to it. I do love you. Hang what something else
like this turn up?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
I'm no oracle. It's just what happens to people sort
of thing shakes faith and makes you wonder about God.
But it's life. It's what we have to live. Come on,
let's both go inside before we freeze to death.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I can't believe what you're telling me, Hank, and you
had better pop. It's true, popped up? Sorry about that,
just slipped out. That's all I always wanted from friending you.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
And we can't legislator play god. It's not the way
it's gonna be. But who's the man. Well, it's friend's secret.
It's her right to keep it that way. There's nothing
either of us can do about it.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I wouldn't agree with that. You'll give her up so easily.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I never owned her. She's her own mistress. But you
won't fight for her. I have have a heart. What
can I do? I can't force her to love and
accept me. The best I can do is be a
good loser. You gotta be kidding, friend. So we were
together a few times you ought to know better than
(11:01):
they get caught. That's all I mean to you.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh, don't knock it.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Look you're a sweet chick. We made great music. It
was all for kicks, though. I mean no tie, here's
no padlocks. Look, don't get me wrong. I'll get your
right guy. I mean, it's all legal now, and I'll
pay the freight.
Speaker 6 (11:20):
You if you want me to get rid of the baby,
no one else.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I mean you want it, you have it, just don't
try to pin me. Then.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I want to stay loose. That's my thing.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
I can't believe what you're saying. It's a whole new world.
You want to live by old fashioned boxes.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
They shoved us in. That's your option.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
You can't push me in a sleeve, so don't ever try.
I am today baby. You got to take me as
you find me or as I lose you.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, that's the way it runs, and you should come
as you go.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Why was that easy? Oh come on, I didn't say that.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Oh you don't say much.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
You really mean.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Maybe it's best we just split no here, please please.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Look, the kid is out, and don't try to hang
it on me. I'll deny it. All you'll get is
a nice story it to get your.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Old man fired out of the university.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
I can't understand myself how I could how I can
be in love with anyone who's rotten as zole? Not
it off, Rahim, If you look if I did do
something about the baby, would you do alright?
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Hey, now that's that's more like my old woman talking.
Sure if you do.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I mean you and me are a thing again.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I don't know if dad would. I mean, I don't
have any money here.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Well, don't look at me.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I ain't got the bread, but I got something better.
What got a buddy mid student senior?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And he owes me plenty. I mean, we'll do a
little collecting from.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Him, but he's not a doctor.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
He's the next thing to it. Don't get the whimmies.
He's done it before. It's a preeze. Leave it to me.
I'll set the whole thing up. Brand darling. What is that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Baby?
Speaker 5 (13:33):
It's gone?
Speaker 6 (13:34):
But oh I'm pleadings.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
He's not anything I can do.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yes, thankful, doctor my rose, and get here fast. The
numbers of my address book by the phone on my
study deskin.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
I'm on my way.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Who did this to you? Friend?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
The friend?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
The man who made you pregnant. What's his name?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I can't.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I won't tell her the time.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
But one way or another, our just a friend, and
when I do, I'll find a way to make him
suffer for what he's done to you.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
There isn't much excuse for the man whose name doctor
Felix Brand still doesn't know, Hugh Prentice. The sad thing
about life is they usually get away with things. Being
without a conscience makes life a lot easier. But is
anyone really without a conscience? That's something Hugh Prentice is
(14:33):
about to have to start exploring as a strange and
eerie punishment creeps over him.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I'll be back shortly with that too.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
In the Gilbert and Sullivan's tradition, the mikado's object of
making the punishment fit the crime was co make a
light hearted Here it is deathly serious, in point of fact,
unearthly so. Doctor mont Rose was able to bring the
hemorrhage under control after he arrived, and once it had
(15:13):
stopped and fran was under sedation, he met with his
old friend Felix in the study.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Well she's all right now, Felix, nothing to worry about.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
You don't think we should get her to the hospital.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Under ordinary circumstances, perhaps, but I'd say she's out of danger.
She'll have to be watched closely, but I can handle that.
If I put her in a hospital, it's all out
in the open. You don't want that, do you?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
What do you mean, Jim?
Speaker 4 (15:41):
This is a pretty high bound community, Felix. You're a
good friend, Jim of yours and little fram. I don't
want to see her hurt any Why did she do it?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I mean she and Hank are going to get married anyway,
so I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Oh what would you do about the man who started
all this time.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
If it were my daughter? Yes, I don't know. We're
a little elderly for physical retribution, ain't we in any
other course? And problematical probably hurt Frian more.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Than the man.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Do you know who he is?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
No, friend, won't tell me.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
I suppose the best thing to do is let it go.
Come in.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
How are you feeling today? Friend?
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I'm all right, daddy.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I know.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I mean doctor Monrose has given you a clean bill.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Of health, has he?
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Well? He says you can get up and go back
to college or whatever you want.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Whatever I want. There's one thing I want I may
never have anymore. Didn't doctor Jim tell you?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yes? We can talk about it later. Friend, I was
just wondering, what would you like to well? I mean,
Hank is still here and he would like to see you.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
No, I don't want to see Hank. I'm going back
where I belong if he'll have me.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Are you ready to tell me his name yet?
Speaker 6 (17:37):
No, not till I find out where I stand.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
How can you make yourself so cheap? This man, whoever
he is, has taken all the love of a joy
and laughter out of you? How can you go crawling
back to.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
Him because he's the only one who can give it
back to me.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
And if he doesn't, I just don't want to live.
I was helpless to aid her, to ease anything for her.
All that burned in me was a rage for the
man who had turned my happy child into a hurt
(18:21):
and battered shell, a beggar dependent on a man who
is not worthy of her. And at this moment, even
though I still didn't know his name, I could curse
him and wish him disaster. I could do better than
that if I turned my back on a god that
(18:42):
I felt had forsaken me in mind, and there's an
extension of all my psychic research. Turned to black magic
and called down a curse on a man who had
ruined my child. But first I had to talk to Hank.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
I love Fran and I want it I always will,
But just for her sake, I wish I could break
it up, somehow, get her away from this slimy crud.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
It's as though he has her under some kind of spell.
We both know he'll hurt her again, desert her, humble her.
I think Fran herself knows it, but somehow she can't
help herself. What are you going to do? Doctor?
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Just let her go back to it and leave it alone.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I can't stop Frien anymore than you can't, Hank. She's
not a child, she's of age. Her life is in
her own hands. I have no legal control. If we
only knew who he was, well, that won't be too
hard to find out. I've thought of all kinds of things,
even though I'm not very rich. I could perhaps buy
him off. I'm sure he has a price, but that
wouldn't solve anything for Fran. She loves him, He's what
(19:52):
she wants. He has only to crook his finger and
she'll crawl to him. That's obvious enough. After all, she's
gone through for him.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
So what can we do?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You nothing, go back and live.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Your life, not quite without friend, but maybe it.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Won't have to be without friend. First we have to
clean this man out of her mind and her blood.
But you just said we couldn't one way if he
doesn't exist anymore, if he's dead.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Wait a minute, you can't seriously.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Mean don't worry his son. Even if I had the
means a gun, a knife, a blood weapon, I would
have neither the strength nor the courage to use them,
to say nothing of my lack of nohow No, but
I can wish him dead or worse. I might just
have the power for that.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Doctor, are you Are you all right? I don't understand you.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Of course you don't understand, and I am quite all right.
This is something you will have to leave to me.
To anyone who reads this, it might seem fantastic that
the rights I prepare are solemn and real to more
people around you than you might believe. The ceremonies of
dark magic are very real to those who perform them.
(21:16):
In the attic I had found among friends childhood, dolls,
one in the image of a man. I turned my
study into a chapel of a damned burning sulfur and aesthetics.
Then he recited from my book of ceremonial magic. Oh,
(21:37):
all the ministers and companions, I direct, conjure, constrain, and
command you to fulfill my bequest willingly and straightway, to
accomplish the destruction of this man unnamed, who has beset
my daughter and most grievously harmed uh by whatever means.
(22:08):
So he said, it's great to be swinging with you again, baby.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I wasn't sure you'd want me back. I looked so,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
You look great and my own woman again.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
I'm sorry we got to ride the subway, but it's
got bread for the hacks these days.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Oh, I don't mind where I am, just as long.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
As it's with Hugh. And stick with me, baby, You'll
write first class all the way.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Unlike these types.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Okay, long gone. You and me are special, just waiting
for the right break to choose me. If you choose me,
I buy you all the way down the line.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Take a look at me?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Who is there?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Or could walk in up?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Where is it?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Hugh? Half halfway down the car.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
They you see that guy?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
No, which one?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
And that's what you mean? Which one? How could you
miss him? He said, Come and copy of me. He's
even wearing the same jeans, the embroidered jacket. I see,
you know, I didn't see anyone. Come on, come on,
come on, I got to catch up with him.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
Take it easy, I didn't see anyone.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Like you said, he disappeared. He's gone. But he uh,
he's like, he's like, my double let's go stare.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
I've got to get home here.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I just won't take a moment. Yeah, yeah, there he is.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
There he is.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
It's right at the top of the stairs, next to
that fat dame.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
No, the newman.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
There, she's all alone. Are you are you?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
He's gone? He's gone again.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
But he was looking right at me. Oh the devil
you suppose he was?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
What does he want? Hello?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Ram?
Speaker 6 (23:53):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
What's you?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
I gotta see it right away.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I need help. What's wrong?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
I can't talk on the phone. Meet me on the
campus by the phone. Something real crazy happened last night.
I don't know who else to ask, what to do.
I was just turning in. I was reaching for the
light to Dell said, when all of a sudden he
was sitting right there in the camp facing me. Who
(24:21):
am the double like we saw on the subway? I said,
how the hell did you get in here? Who are you?
I am your double?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Danger?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Why what your double? Or if you want you're an inheritor?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
What does that mean?
Speaker 7 (24:44):
It's time for you to wonder like me. It's time
for me to return and die as I should have.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
All right, I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
A long time ago, so long you can't even begin
to imagine my sin.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
And because of my sin, I was not allowed to
die in peace, but condemned to wander.
Speaker 7 (25:06):
In infinity until I found a body I could be laid.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
To rest in.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
My time is almost here, and in you I will find.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
A home again.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I don't know what kind of a nut you are, Jack,
but I'm gonna kick your tail out of here so
I can get some sleep.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That won't be necessary. Sleep for you is all I'm
waiting for. Huh.
Speaker 7 (25:32):
When you are safely asleep, you are at my mercy.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
The moment your eyes close, your body will be mine,
and your soul will be left to wander through the
ages alone, waiting endlessly for.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Peace and the blessing of eternal sleep.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Get out, get away from me. You're nothing but nothing
better here.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I mean I could see him playing as I see you.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
But I could see through him too, like a lamp
in backup.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I'm shining through his head.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
The pattern of a cherry was sitting, and it's as
clear as a bell. Throw him. I mean, he was real.
So I throw in some clothes, I ran out of
the house. I spent a night walking. I was afraid
to go sleep to bed ram But nothing like this
ever happened, even on a wildness tripping. I never blew
so wild as this. What am I gonna do?
Speaker 6 (26:31):
Hugh?
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I think you should see my father.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Yeah, oh sure, that'd be great. After everything, I'd be.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Lucky if he didn't try to have me arrested.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
He doesn't know who you are.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
He didn't know you with the one. Yeah, but what
could he do.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
He's a psychologist.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
He didn't help you. Look, you were in one of
his lecture courses. All you have to do.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
Is go up to him and say you have a problem,
that he'd help you.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Ah.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Not a whole thing is crazy. I see some character
in a subway and threads like me. I have a
crazy dream right away, I blow my cool. There's nothing
the matter with me. Come on, let's let's cut out.
I ain't even gonna see your home. I'm going back
to bed and catch some shut up you listen to
non't look at me that way. Don't you turn against me?
Do you think I could after all that happened? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Right you you I could counter on.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yeah, You're my woman, no matter what.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I do to you, right, I love leave you and
don't ever forget it.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Baby?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Come on, blow, I gotta I gotta hit the sack.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
All right?
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Back up, man, I got a knife, get lost. No,
you are the lost one?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Are you talking?
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Oh? Is it?
Speaker 7 (27:57):
You're double ganger, just waiting for you to get tired
enough till your sleep is deep enough thought to take
over your body, so that rivet I may bring myself
to the peace of the grave.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
What is this race that dogs hues path? A figment
of a diseased imagination, a figure of retribution created by
a conscience weighted with guilt? Or is it some ghastly
nemesis conjured from the supernatural, the world outside our comprehension,
summoned up by doctor Felix Brandt through the agency of
(28:45):
the Devil. I'll be back shortly with Act three. That night,
Hugh Prentice fled to his apartment as though the hounds
of hell were at his heels, locked in securely with
(29:08):
every light blazing, riding high on ben Zadren to keep awake,
he paced the two small rooms like a caged tiger,
and everywhere he turned he faced the douppaganga, watching him silently,
waiting patiently, a twisted smile of anticipated triumph on his face.
At last, he could stand it no longer and fled
(29:29):
the apartment with the first light of morning, loaming the streets,
afraid to turn his head, knowing his doubles still followed
on his heels. At last, exhausted, he found a small
restaurant open and sat there, drinking coffee after coffee and
watching the clock till nine o'clock came. Then he crossed
to the public phone to make a.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Call doctor Brown, speaking doctor.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Brandt's vis This is Hughe Prentice. I'm a student of yours,
an electure series.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
It's a large class. I don't place you for the moment.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
What it doesn't matter. What doesn't matter is uh, look, Doc,
I'm in trouble. Can you help me?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Help you?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
How I can't not over the phone. It's like a
matter of life and death. Help me.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Well, if you put it that way, of course I'll try,
mister Apprentice, was it?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Prentice? Hugh Prentice?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Very well? How soon can you be here?
Speaker 4 (30:37):
We're within ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Very well, I'll be waiting. I hung up with the
strangest feeling. My comprehensive basic psychology course has a large attendance,
some one hundred. The name meant nothing to me. No,
that isn't right. I didn't recognize it. What I did
recognize was a a stifling feeling rising in my gorge
(31:04):
of implacable hatred for this hue print is why the
name filled me with revulsion? What connection could? And then
suddenly the pain struck again, sharper than ever? Oh now
(31:26):
where the come?
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Fine? Feel this dropped by a What is it that
the pain does? Where your more bean tablets? Draw?
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Forgot this morning?
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Wait a minute, I'll do better than that. Why must
you be so big headed?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Don't want to establish the habit and.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The habit will hurt you. Lessen the pain right now here,
let let's get one get when I'm out of the coat.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
There, that's better.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Can you roll back your sleeve?
Speaker 6 (32:00):
Well?
Speaker 8 (32:00):
When I prepare the syringes, hurry, let me swab first,
and oh, host Eddy, hold Eddy, ah, and so this
will take hold in a minute.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
But getting worship and more frequent.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I'm sorry. I can't help any more than I can
only treatment medicine has to offer you. If felix is palliative.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I know. I also know I haven't got much longer.
That's what worries me so about Frano. But guy, whoever
he is, I don't want him to wreck the rest
of her life. Oh, that'll be one of my students
wants to see me about something.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
And I have to run anyway. I just wanted to
tell you some good news. I got the tests back
on fran and I was maybe a little hasty on
my first diagnosis. With care, there's no reason she can't
have a child again.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
I don't know if that's good or bad. As long
as that skunk is still alive, whoever he is.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I let your visitor in. Oh, I was looking for
rot your brandy. You have the right office. I was
only visiting.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Shut the door and come in. You're mister Prentice.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, sir, that's right, Hugh Prentice.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Sit down. Oh suppose you're telling me what's troubling you.
Have you ever had any delusions like this before? Not
on your life? Have you done anything recently that you're
that you're sorry for? Ashamed of? No?
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Like what?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I don't know. That's why I.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Asked, No, Why should I be ashamed of anything I do?
I mean, like I free willed, you know, I give
what I get.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
That's that's all evens with me? What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Like it's a tough world, doc, I mean, they're all
against me, like most of them?
Speaker 3 (33:59):
They who are they?
Speaker 4 (34:02):
You know?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
People are your mother and father still love?
Speaker 6 (34:07):
No?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
My old man took off before I was five, and
my mo, well, she horsed around like like she had
to live, make the bread for me like anyone. I
guess she liked a good time.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
What kind of a job did she have you kidding?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Bringing home uncles for me. I must have had one
hundred or so uncles by the time I was fourteen.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
And then then what? Then?
Speaker 4 (34:40):
She left me with an aunt all dried up stick.
I shouldn't kick about her at that when she died
she left me enough dough to go to college like now,
and hey, hey, look what has this got to do
with that? That coon was tracking me.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
I'm trying to get around with her. You don't like
women very much, do you, Hugh? I don't know what
you get man. You like to punish them because of
what your mother did to you, isn't that it?
Speaker 4 (35:10):
Look? I don't have to have you push me around
like them. I mean, all I came here for was to.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Ask for help, and I'm trying to give it to you.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Well, can you just get this hant, whatever the hell
it is off my back?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I want to try if you just.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Help me, anything, doc anything. I gotta get some sleep.
And I'm afraid too.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
You're quite safe here. What's that thing? It's a metronome.
Some people use it to learn to keep time to music.
I'll use it to calm people down. Now, just keep
your eye on the needle as it swings back and forth,
and try to relax and answer my questions as honestly
(35:57):
as you can, and maybe together we can get to
the root of what's wrong with you. Tell me your
name again, Hugh, Hugh, what.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Hugh Prentice? Where were you born? Allentown? Pennsylvania. What was
your father's name, Frank? And your mother's.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Mary?
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I use hypnosis a lot in my work, but never
more deliberately, and I'm ashamed to say callously than today.
Because suddenly, from some deep recess of my being, an
electric wave was sending its knowledge to my brain, our
second sight was born, and I was suddenly sure who
(36:52):
Hugh Prentice really was? Can you hear me? Hugh? Yeah?
You know a girl named friend Brand. Don't you sure?
She's my chick? You know she's my daughter? Yeah? And
(37:15):
you made her pregnant. She was careless, You took her
to someone to get rid of the child. Sure, that's
the way it.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
Is, no sweat.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Don't you know she loves you?
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Man like their buses, not at any minute? Yeah, sure,
that's how chicks are.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Do you love her? What's with all this love jive?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I ain't tying myself down, no way.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I was, like I told you, I free wheel.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
I'm really gonna cut down my style. Keep trying all
the squares, all of them, but I'll show them.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Anyone ties me down, I stomp on him.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Good specially chicks like my mother, all sweet words and
cut your throat the first chance they get only me.
I'm too smart. I cut them down a size first.
Don't you worry about old heels.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
The morphine was wearing off already. I sat back in
my chair, watching the boy whose secrets I had bared,
a schizophrenic classic, already paranoid. Possibly he could be saved
through analysis, chemotherapy, new treatments, what you're being reached every day,
treatments I would never live to see, treatments he would
never willingly seek as he had sought me, because out
(38:59):
of the dark side of my studies and my learning,
I had raised a double ganger. Then, for a moment,
the pain hit me so wildly, so cutely, agonizingly, that
I must have blacked out a moment because.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Don't bring him out of his hypnosis. He doesn't deserve
to live.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I cannot condemn him to the death in limbo like
you live.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
Let me tell you something, old man. You are about
to die.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Two doors face you open one and.
Speaker 7 (39:36):
You let this scourge out to destroy.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
Your daughter as well as himself.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Open the other, and I take his.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Body, and your daughter has our chance to live.
Speaker 7 (39:47):
Our life, our chance to find happiness instead of despair
and degradation.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Which will it be? Which will you choose?
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Choose Jews jew.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Only in sleep can a double ganger take possession of
another body. Looking at the boy frozen in deep hypnosis
across my desk around him, was it my own pain?
A shadowy figure hovered. I knew I could banish the
shadow if I willed, but I had chosen my door.
(40:33):
I rose and left the office to go home to
my study. A very few apprentice or his body two
(40:55):
days after he smashed into the rock wall at Highgate
Turn Poplar, known as Satan's Trap in our neighborhood. Whatsoul
possessed it? I will know very soon I am about
to die and leave this manuscript transcribed through those two
days and exquisite pain for my daughter and Hank to read.
(41:21):
I know it will bring them their own pain, but
I hope it will bring them peace. And if I
am condemned too for my sins to wander as a doppelganger,
I can only pray that what I have done may
be worth it, and what I have brought my daughter happiness.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
This manuscript was read by Hank as executor of the estate,
and in that position he exercised a humane decision perhaps
beyond his powers.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
He did not let frank and read her father's letter.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
He buried it in a safe deposit vault until the
time was ripe, long after they were married and had
children of their own.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I'll be back shortly one.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
This story came to me through accidental channels, long after
the principles were gone. I cannot vouch for the truth
of it anymore than I suppose any of the principles
involved could. It's a story I suppose of retribution and
at the same time a frightening lesson to all of
us who stretched the human relationship beyond normal demands. If
(42:47):
we sin deep enough, in some form, in some way,
I suppose there is a double ganger who will vie
with us for retribution. The only way to avoid that
is to deny him the chance. Our cast included Howard
da Silva, Rosemary Rice, Tony Roberts, and Russell Horton. The
(43:08):
entire production was under the direction of Hymon Brown. And
now a preview of our next tale. How do you
render justice in your country?
Speaker 4 (43:21):
We have court, when we have judges, jury's lawyers? Is
it wise to allow people to judge people?
Speaker 6 (43:29):
It is the best way, the most democratic.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Only the mortal gods may decide.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
But how do you know to get them to make
a decision.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
The gods have sent my people a spring of sparkling
walker the accused us drink.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
At the spring. And what does that prove? The innocent
walk away vindicated, and the guilty the guilty all down dead. Well,
it is hardly the way you will see it. With
your own nights. We shall have a trial to night. Oh,
(44:09):
who is accused you are? This is E. G.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Marshall inviting you to return to our mystery theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dreams.
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