Unknown Broadcast | Midnight Apparitions: Six Scary Horror Stories for the Spooky Season

0:09 Ah, my dear, so good to see you. Why, yes, I am a bit jovial still as the witching season continues to be in full swing as it were? Or what's that? Well, Well, of course, of course you shouldn't worry one bit about that. There's nothing of your concern. In fact, all you should worry about, besides avoiding a dangerous stomach ache from too much sweet goods and cider is getting cozy. Now, sit down, relax, put your feet up. The tea is steeping as we speak, my dear, and well, I'm excited to share something chilling with you before we warm back up. It's times like these and company like yours that keeps me from feeling like a very old man.

1:07 Man. Come in, Welcome, I'm e. G. Marshall. Welcome to the sound of suspense, to the fear you can hear. Welcome to the world of terrifying imagination. Our story is about a very old man living just outside a tiny village, a very old man whose long life has been lived close to the soil and close to the people he loved, people still living and people long dead.

2:07 High skill, high still girl, is it very bad? I don't know, She's very dear to me if I should lose his trying to raise her head. She knows I want to help. Do you think you can? Young men? I never said I was a duct, but I thought I mean the William Just an old man, A very old man. Our mystery drama A Very Old Man was written especially for the Mystery Theater by Elsbeth Eric and stars Santos Ortega.

2:49 I'll be back shortly with that one. Look long and carefully at the face of a tiny baby, Look carefully and long into the face of someone who is very old. Do you see the wisdom in both the very young and they're very old? Have wisdom in between? There is only accumulated information.

3:31 Oh your home, good, he's done it again. Who's done? What are you talking about? My father? You know I am. I warned him, I said, Stephan, if it ever gets around, you'll ruin my medical practice. People won't believe in me. The only Manfred comes it down. Now, what's he done? The same thing? Where is he? Isn't he home yet? He went to the cemetery as usual. But you still haven't told me what happened. Anna Brandt came to see me about a month ago. Severe attacks of pain in the upper abdomen. All the symptoms indicated appendicitis. I sent her a car wise for the operation. Of course, he examined her too, and he agreed with me, no doubt about it. Inflamed appendix had to come out for the operator the next day, and that night.

4:17 That same night, she had another attack. So it wasn't how could she have had another appendicitis attack when he'd just taken her appendix out. But he was as flabbergasted as I was. But what's it all got to do with my father? Stephan happened to be in my office the day Anna Brandt first came to see me. You know how he loves to hang around the office. Anna Brandt wasn't ten feet out of the office when he told me there's nothing wrong with her appendix. Oh not again. I can't have my father in law, who's been a farmer all his life, telling me a doctor with a reputation that I don't know what's wrong with my own patient. Source. You can't. For a minute, I did think back to that boy, the one with the asthma what seemed to be asthma anyway.

4:57 The rothbird boy. I was right about him. I know, I know he made a lucky guess. Father went to see him every day, talked to him, rubbed his chest, his throat. In two weeks, boy was all right. The boy was hysterical, over aspirated. Nothing more but this business with Anna Brandt. The day she came to see me, Stephan was asleep in the waiting room. I was explaining to Anna that I couldn't perform the operation, simple as it is, because of my hands, my arthritis. But I would send her to car Wise. But she accepted that everybody knows about my arthritis, and she said something pleasant to Stephan. That was the first I knew that he wasn't asleep. But he didn't answer. He just stared at her as though he'd never seen her before. I reached for the phone to call Carl Wise. Stephan got up, came over to the desk and took the receiver out of my hand and Fred, Stephan, don't.

5:52 It's not so, not so. Have you had a bad dream, old man. It's not so what you said to Hannah brand Nothing wrong with Anna Brand's appendix. Stephan, don't start diagnosing again. You're not a doctor. There's nothing wrong. We had enough trouble after you diagnosed the Rothburg boy. The Rothburg boy never had asthma. All right. It turned out that he didn't. But that was a lucky guess, and it didn't do my reputation any good when word went around that you'd been right. I never told anybody that's what. The boy did and his mother did. People started coming to the house, coming here, all of them, wanting to see you. But I told them to go away. It's not always that I can help. I keep hoping, expecting God knows what miracles. Now are you going to start the whole thing up again with Anna Brandt? There are three of them, Come on, now, get your coat, Stephan.

6:41 Heir dark brown or black and hard heart's getting laid. They're the size of olive pits. Are you talking about, Anna Brandt? I saw them close together. Who were hiring? No body about here? Three of them? You saw them, three of them, the size of olive pits, lying here above the stomach. About here? Have you got X ray eyes? Stephan? Is that it? No? No, My eyes are like everybody's. Well, then, what do you mean you saw them?

7:23 Her body was transparent. I could see right through it, as though the skin had been removed. I could see everything. Carl Wise was as confident as I was before the operation, and he was as confused as I was after. I swear, I don't know what made me say it, but I said it. I said, Carlwise, could it be a stone? A gallstone? Perhaps he was taken aback a little, but he couldn't deny a possibility, maybe a remote one, but a possible. I felt like a fool, but I told him I thought he should go ahead, and he did this morning, and he found golfstones, three of them, the size of olive pits.

8:25 I still, is it very bad? I don't know. She's very dear to me. She turned to raise her head. She's trying to tell you something she knows. I want to help. Do you think you can, doctor, young man? I never said I was a doctor, but the way you I'm just an old man, the very old man. Why I took it for granted, the way you SPA son in law's a doctor, Manfred Godlib I live with him and my daughter birth. Then you know something you've you've learned from him. No, I know nothing, only what I. See, what I feel. When I passed you by the cemetery.

9:08 What were you doing? My wife is bury there? Did I hum? No? No, I even think she said a little better. Her eyes they look brighter, not so full of pain. You did nothing but touch her, struggle a little, and talked to her. Let me look at your hands now, they're just hands. What should they be? Now? Let me. Well? Your hands are warm on a night like this, more than warm, hot, very hot, as though they were burning, burning from inside.

10:05 If it should get around about Anna, Brad, you don't think i'd tell anyone now? These things have a way of leaking out. Look, you're not going to tell father, are you that Carl Weis found the three stories? You think I shouldn't. He wouldn't tell anym He didn't tell anyone about the Rothberg boy. It was the boy's mother who shouted it from the housetops. And look what happened, people showing up here. When he saw them, he hid in his room, And when they left, he went to the cemetery, sat by my mother's grave. Do you think that he's there now? I suppose sometimes he stays for hours. I wish he'd get home before the rain starts.

10:50 Emily, my dear, come to Emily, my precious. I need you. You are my strength. I can do nothing without you. Come to me, my darling, Come to me, my darling. And I don't want him to start thinking that any of this is real. He mustn't think that he has some magical power. List If you treat him as though he were possessed. In some way, he might begin to believe it, and then his mind. Who knows what might happen.

11:35 Bertha, have you thought that, well, perhaps it's already happened, that he is derayed. I won't believe that he's my father. I love him, He's He's old and childish, and sometimes I'm impatient. I am too often, but only the way i'd be with a child. In many ways, he is my child, the only child I have, My. Dear, I thought you'd stop brute about that. Oh I have, I have. I I stopped last year when I turned forty. But that's why, Because I have no child. He's he's twice as precious to me. I understand, I do understand. You know that I'm fond of him. Then let's leave.

12:15 Him as he is. Don't don't let him think he's different from other people. Whatever you say, you know the widow holder has been asking for him. Widow holder, why they keep telling me in the. Village that she has this great swelling on her head, big as an age. Yes, I've heard about it. She's afraid of doctors, Berthie. You don't suppose. The rain started. It's coming down. I'm crazy, Oh. Father, Oh, thank goodness, I made it just in time. You shouldn't take such chances. Why weren't you home for dinner?

12:55 Where have you been? I kept something hot for you? Thank you? Thank you me your coat, I said, Now, where were you all this time? I didn't birtha tell you at the cemetery. You didn't go to see anybody? No, I didn't go to see anybody. Here's a place for your father, nice pot roasting to take. Thank you. I'm sorry. I wasn't here for dinner, and asked track. At the time, I ran into somebody. We talked a little man. Let's go up to bed, father, you'll be. All right, good, she'll be all right, Go to bed. Good night, good night, daughter. Oh memory, How is Anna brand?

13:41 Anna brand? I thought about it tonight in the cemetery. Is she all right? Yes, she's fine. I thought you was. I had a feeling. Good night, enjoy your dinner. Good night. He is asking about Anna Brandt. He hasn't even mentioned her since that day in the office, Bertha. Could he have heard about Carl Weiss finding the gallstones? Oh, he'd have said, so. He always says precisely what's on his mind. There are times when I wish he didn't. Listen. He's talking to himself in the kitchen.

14:21 Sounds as though he's calling someone Nenver. He's an old man leaving me, Please close the door, come to bed. It sounds like Emily. What did you say, Emily? Wasn't that your mother's name? No? No, it was my sister's. Oh, Bertha, I never knew you had a sister. You never told me. It was so long ago before I was born, their first child. She only lived an hour. My mother told me they just agreed on a name. Father leaned over the crypt to kiss her. She was dead.

15:03 But that was forty five years ago. All these years he's never mentioned her. What was that The door opened downstairs before he's gone on. There's only one place he's gone, to the cemetery. When those around us cannot understand, where do we turn when the world is dark. Where do we go to the unknown or to the once familiar, the once well known, the once well loved, to those who have left the dark earth and moved into light. I'll be back shortly with that too. Now come back with me to the story of a very old man and the people who loved him and could not comprehend him, or could not comprehend him because they loved him, or because they tried.

16:18 Too hide. Breakfast on the table, Manfred, Well, did you talk to him? He's still asleep. Oh, let him sleep after last night. Yes, we're lucky if he doesn't come down with pneumonia. He was drenched birth a soaked clear through, lying across your mother's grave with a rain beating down on him, crying Emily, Emily, as though his heart was broken. Emily is buried next to mother Bertha. Are you going to ask him about her? Oh? It's been so long, forty five years, you know, in all that time, I've never heard him say her name. Naturally, I never mentioned it. She died years before.

17:04 I was born. Your mother never talked about her, just at. Once when she told me she wanted to be buried near her, and how she died. Manford she was only one hour old. Yes, crib deaths, they happened. We don't know why they thought of naming me Emily. At first my mother said, it's a pretty name. Who's that so early in the morning? Yes? Is this the Gobleeb house? Yes it is, and you're Manfred Godlieb, doctor Godlieb. Yes, I am, but I don't see patients at home. My office is Oh no, no, no, no, I'm not a patient the patients outside. Well, bring the patient to my office and about it.

17:44 No, no, there's no need. She's quite well, completely cured. Well, what's the point I hoped I could see the old man? Your father in law? Is he Stephan? What's this about my father? Madam? Good morning, beautiful morning, isn't it after last night all that rain? You he wanted to see my father if I may, Well, what about he's asleep? Oh oh, I'm sorry. Well, when he does wake up, would you tell him? The patient recovered and is better than ever, lively, frisky, enjoying life to the full, romping in the fields. What patient is this? You said? She's outside? Yes, right there, Look look the picture of health.

18:25 You don't mean, well, not the horse. Yes, my prize mayor, my favorite. I thought I might have to have her put away. But your father, madam, Oh, yes, it's all due to him. Or when was this? When did you meet Stephan last night, just before the rain started? Didn't he tell you, oh, come inside, have some coffee with us? Oh, thank you, thank you. Sit down, a man, forget another copy? May I introduce myself Otto. Krauss, Well, I'm Bertha Guttlieb. This is my husband. But then my father must have told you he lives with us. Your father is quite a man. Yep, coffee, Oh, thank you, thank you. M Yes, you see. I was returning to the village and I was passing the cemetery. Suddenly the mayor sank to her knees. Her legs seemed to give way completely, and there she lay on her side in the middle of the road.

19:18 I I was frantic. I thought perhaps a stone bruise. But I looked at all four hoofs nothing And there I was half a mile from home, my precious horse stretched out on the road, and a storm coming up. And then I heard a sound coming from the cemetery, someone calling a name. Was it Emily, Emily, Yes, yes, yes, something like that. I shouted for help. In a minute, an old man appeared. Yes, I asked him to help me, but I wasn't sure he even heard. He he seemed very distraught. He went straight to the mayor, knelt down and took her fore leg in his hands and started rubbing it very gently. He knew which one was hurting her, and after a while the pain went out of her eyes.

20:10 Couldn't understand it. It was something about the way he he touched her. I I asked to see his hands, and he held them out, and even before I touched them, I could feel the heat spreading out from them. Heat. What heat? Haven't you ever noticed the extraordinary heat from his hands? I? I can't say that I have. Oh, but it's true his hands give off all warmth. I I can't believe you've never noticed it. But it could have been on such a wet, cold night. It only seemed that way to you. You imagined it. Oh. I suppose that's possible, But I didn't imagine it. When the Mayor got to her feet were she was all right.

20:54 I walked her home. I couldn't quite believe it all. I bedded her down, and this morning all I could think was I must tell the old man about it. There are stories going around about him in the village. Perhaps you've heard some of them. Well, I'm only here on a visit to see my aunt. I don't live here. Well, he doesn't really do anything. He's just around and people love him. They like to think because he's such a sweet old man that he can do things doctors can't do. And because he's such a very old man. We wouldn't want him to start thinking that there was anything miraculous about well, about anything that happened quite naturally. Well, you think it might might affect him, might affect his mind in some way.

21:37 He's a very old man. It could happen. Well, I suppose it's possible. She wasn't really lame, of course, it's possible. Only ask him, will you about his hands, those amazing hands? Yes, yes, we'll ask him. I mean giving off that heat. I felt it, you know. Well, i'll be getting long, my aunts expected. Well, will tell him you stop by? Yes, yes, I wish you would tell him, and please tell him. Thanks, we'll tell him. Do you think we should wake up? Come on, it's time. Yes, we have to tell him about the young man and the horse. But we won't make anything out of nothing at all, Just to say that.

22:19 He dropped by to say thanks, yes, father, Stephan, are you awake. What time is it? Oh, it's almost nine o'clock. Aren't you your office? Well it uh, it seems that a young man stopped by to see us, Stephan. Actually, father, he wanted to see you, but we told him you were sleeping. Why me, Well, it seems he met you on the road last night. Mary. It was. That's right, the horse that is swelling. Do you feel well enough to get up now? Father? I think so, you're sure after last night? I'm all right, all.

23:02 Right now, just let me help you out of bed. Steffan, give your hand, Come on, that's it. Yeah, curious slippers. Yeah, I will splash some water on my fish and then you'll have breakfast. Birtha, birtha. His hands are as cold as mine. Cold that young man did imagine it about his hands? It is if your hands are cold any once, feel warmer, even if they're only a little warmer than you're all. And he'd been riding back from the village on horseback. So of course his hands were very cold. Of course, of course it is clearing, how good I'll go down and have some coffee ready for you and two eggs for mean.

23:44 Your clothes are on the bed, father, thank you Bertha. Father. Last night when Manfred and I came up to bed and you were eating your supper. Anyway, that's what we thought you were doing. It's what I was doing. Well, we heard you talking? Was I talking? Well? You kept saying. We heard you say Emily. I said what, over and over? Father? Were you talking to Emily? But do you know about Emily only what mother told me? What did your mother tell her that Emily died, That she only lived an hour. She was her first child, forty five years ago.

24:27 Father, she died in the crib. I remember her so well. Why do you talk to her now? Father? Why do you call her? Because because she comes back to me when I call her. Father, you don't mean that she comes back to me, to me, not to anyone else, only to me when I call her. You don't believe in ghosts. Emily is not a ghost. Her spirit comes back to me when I call her. Father, you can't believe I'm the. Only person left on earth. She remembers, her mother is dead, the midwife is dead. When I am dead it will be no one for her to come back to, no reason to come back. You can't believe what I don't have to believe, will not believe.

25:10 I know. I won't let you. You have nothing to say about it. Nothing. We're not stay in this house and listen to you tell me that my Emily will not come when I call. I'm going to her now. Father, Wait, father, come back, Steven. What's the matter my way? Steven? F Oh fuck? He came tearing down the stairs. He brushed right past me. What's what's the matter with him? I talked to him about Emily. I made him angry. Where's he gone? Do you know. Her? To Emily?

25:54 Emily? I need you, darling with me and my darling your father needs I need you, my sweet Emily. Old man, oh my moly, Stefan. No, no, you remember me, don't you? From last night? The man young man with the mayor who's lame. Ah. You should see her now. They told me she's better, better than better. Come come have a look, please, please come.

26:34 Look there. Look look at her. And a sign of lame. I came to your house a little while ago. You were sleeping, and. They told me you were there to say thanks, there was no need for them. Oh, I'd like to do more than just leave my thanks. I'd like to invite you to my aunt's place. Oh no, no, I couldn't. No, no, I'd like you to meet my aunt. Please your end won no, not a bit. Come on, we'll both ride mayor here. I'll give you a leg up. You're sure about your aunt now, Oh. She'll be delighted. She doesn't get out much these days. Is she. Very old? Well, she's not young, but that's not why she stays home.

27:16 She has this disfiguring growth on her head. It makes her shy. You should see your doctor. No, no, she won't, absolutely refuses, won't hear of it, hates them all. Oh it's there. Oh yes, yes, all the money in the world and won't go to a doctor. So she sits in her parlor and reads her bible. Ah. There there's the house, Yes, the big stone eyes. You know the house I've admired since I was a boy. My aunt bought it with my uncle died. My uncle was Fritz Holder. You've heard of him, the manufacturer. I don't think so. Around here, I understand my aunt is known as the widow Holder.

28:03 Some folks are afraid of one thing, some are afraid of another. Everyone who's afraid wants to run and hide. That's natural, most natural thing in the world. But what may be hiding in the hiding place, that's the question. It could be something else to be afraid of. I'll be back shortly. With Act three. A very old man is mounting the steps of a big stone house in the company of a very young man whose aunt is known to the village as the widow Holder.

28:54 Listen now, my aunt is in Uh huh, there you are, just where I knew you'd be. Come in, Come in, stuff. Where have you been all morning? Otto? I missed you at breakfast? Oh you brought someone with you. Yes, this is the very wonderful man I met here the cemetery last night when my mayor went lame Stefan. This is my aunt, missus Holden. How good of you to come by, Madam. I don't have many visitors, not anymore, and I seldom go out because of this. On my head. I don't like to be seen. I hope it doesn't offend you.

29:36 No, doesn't offend me at all. Well, it offends me. Perhaps I'm too sensitive, but that's the way I am. So I sit here and read my Bible. And that bible's too heavy for you'd hold in your lap all day. But it's the family Bible. It's the one i'm used to. All right, all right, sit down, Stephan, I'm all right her. Stand both of you. Sit down, and otto you tell me where you've been all morning and why you weren't at breakfast. I told you last night how the mayor went lame, and how I met Stephan near the cemetery.

30:17 Well, this morning I let her out of her stall and she was dancing on her toes. I couldn't believe it. Stephan hadn't done a thing. But rub her pastern a bit. Is that really all you did? I did nothing. Well, he talked to her, rubbed her fore leg and talked. To her, how remarkable you're a remarkable man. No, no, you're staring at me. I apologize this awful growth. To fetch me my shoulder, I'll cover my head. No, no, please please hit in my bed program. I am not offended. I give you my word. I do don't go.

30:58 No, it's all right, I'll be right now, miss Older. I am not offended. I am sorry. I stared, So I will not stare again. Please forgive me, It's. Quite all right. Please be calm, sit down. I can't Arto mentioned that you live with your daughter ste right, my daughter Bertha, and your son in law Manfred. They have children, no children. Oh sad, here comes otto with my. Forgive me, but I. Must take the Bible from you. Forgive me. I could not help my sonds. Are you all right?

31:41 I think so. I saw him take the Bible off your life. He hit me with it, he brought it down on my head with all his strength. Forgive me. I didn't know what I was doing. I wouldn't hurt you, missus Older, I wouldn't hurt anybody. When I feel this way, I see things, I feel things. The Bible seemed to put itself in my hands. I didn't think what I was doing. I could not think. The feeling was so great that I must smash this this thing on your head. That's all I wanted to do, missus Holder, to get rid of it. And it looks to me as though you've done that stuff.

32:22 And I and go look in the mirror. I know I am not always in control of myself. I do things I don't know why. I see things. I don't know why, but I would never hurt anyone. It's unbelievable that growth is gone. Will you forgive me? There's no blood, no blood at too. All the same. I'm going to get you to a doctor. No doctor's no blow on the head like that. I'm all right. My head is clearing now. It was just a shock, and that awful, ugly thing is gone.

33:06 I don't need a doctor. Let me take you to my son in law. He's a fine doctor, a nice man. Maybe you've heard of him. Manfred Gottlieb. Gottlieb, Gottlieb, you like him. Manfred Gottlieb is your son in law. A wonderful man, good doctor. But you must be Bertha Gottlieb's father. You you cure the roughbird boy, and i've heard talk about Anna Brand. Look what you did for Otto's mayor, Look what you've done for me. Why you're the man I've been trying to find. I've been asking for you. It was God's hand.

33:49 Let you hear. Let me take you to Manfred's office. I don't need him. I only need you. If I've hurt your aunt in any way, we'll soon know oh, I don't want these spellrows that I have. I don't ask for them. Only Sometimes a pain gets so great, what pain, with the pain of living? It seems more than I can bear. I go to the grave of my wife and my baby daughter, my family, and I called to her, my little one who only had one hour of life, and she comes to me and gives me comfort and courage and believe.

34:44 I believe that even though I can do. Nothing about the great pain of living, there are other pains, and I can do something about them. I know I'm not quite myself when I'm like that. I know I'm not really strong courageous. Doing the spell is on me. The people in pain, they become transparent. You you mean you can see through them? I do see through them. How do you explain your hands? Hey, it's just hands. Oh no, no, no. The night you massaged them there, I took hold of your hands, and they gave off a glow, a sort of radiating warmth. I know I felt it. They burned like a steady flame.

35:34 Perhaps they grow feverish when Emily is with me. Now you go home and rest. This is older. Come back in a few days and I'll change the bandage, or you can do it yourself. I'll do it myself. She's all right, doctor, Well what was it? I mean the growth on her head? It was a when a common ordinary win a hard insist. If you'd come to see meanness is older, I might have recommended that you have it removed by surgery. Oh. On the other hand, I might have done precisely what my father in law did, broken it with some heavy object, probably not the Bible. Come at, I'll take you home and thank you, doctor gotire. You may get more of these growths, these winds on your head, missus holder, or someplace else on your body.

36:18 Now if you do call me and I oh, no, no, thank you. I know whom to call, and you'll come, won't you. Stefan, Of course you will. No offense doctor, But I put my faith in Stefan. Goodbye, goodbye, Thank you, goodbye Stefan. No offense, doctor, but I put my faith in Stephan. Why did I bother to become a doctor at all? Why all those years at school? Why did I take examinations get my license? What good is it? If everyone would rather put their faith in a farmer Manfred, I'll never do it again.

36:58 Come in the door's open. Oh you again, a doctor. Those pains are back. Well, of course those pains are back because you've been drunk day and night. What do you expect. Can't you do something, doctor, No, I can't. Only you can stop drinking. You've been drinking steadily for thirty years and you have cirrhosis of a liver. But the paines are off. Stop drinking for a month and then come back and see me, and don't come back before. Silly old fool hasn't been sober for ten minutes since he was sixteen. I can't help him anymore. Then he has an obstruction of some kind. He has a diseased liver, but he has an obstruction in the intestine. You're not starting all over again.

37:39 I saw. I could see it's getting to be more than I can take, Steph, And you're interfering. I saw he was standing in the doorway, and I saw his body was transparent. I could see everything in his intestine. There is an obstruction and that's what gives him pain. But Stephan, I'm warning you saw so clear. I'm not going to stop it if I have to take the hurt of my thought. Stephan, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do. Stepan, really well, let me loosen your shirt. Oh Stephen, I don't know what possessed me. I lost control, all right, Stephan, Stephan, Look look at my hands. Look how they move? My fingers.

38:43 No pain from the arthritis. What does it mean? It means, well, it must mean the arthritis is better. It's gone. Perhaps dreads away. I unbuttoned your shirt so fast, no trouble, no pain as it passed. It's true. Look look how I can move them, Stephan? Who were you used to Stefan? Stephan? I I felt the warmth. Otto was talking about the heat from your hands when you were trying to tear my hands from your throat. I felt it a warm glow you really felt? Yes, a glow, a radiance, Stefan, give me your hands. Yes, there it is. It's a fire, a.

39:45 Fire burther burther please, I think you're wrong. How can I be wrong? Look at these fingers, Look how they move? Watch me on button my coat? Oh Stephan, I had to lose my temper try to choke you in order to touch you. I might have killed you, or you wouldn't care. Birtha birtha Manfred I'm delirious. I can go back to surgery. We'll be rich again. Our lives will change. I don't want my life change, Manpread. It means my daughter thinks me mad. She won't. It's only when my Emily is with me, my little one, that I seem Termily, who gives me the path.

40:29 Bertha, Whether where are you are you upsets. Nothing without Emily. It's her innocent soul that enters into me. What are you doing? Birth? Where were you? I was taking a. Nap, Bertha. Look my hands, Look, Look how my fingers move. What hack you with your father? Your father happened his wonderful hands. Bertha. You remember the young man with the mayor. How Stephan put his hands on the Mayor's foreleg and the mare got up. And we don't know that it's true. It's true. You haven't seen the mayor. It happened to me. To me, believe me, I can't. I didn't believe it either. But then Missus Holder came to the office.

41:10 Missus Hard. Yes, she's the aunt of the young man with the mayor. Stefan went to see Missus Holder. He didn't her nephew took him there. Bertha and Stephan broke the when on her head with a big bible. Oh no, you did right, Bertha. Right, it was only a win, and he was right. He didn't know what he was doing, and he was right. You mussa stop this this talk, Berth. But after missus Halder left, an old patient of mine came in. The man has been a drunk for years. I was sure his liver was enlarged, diseased. But I send him away. And then your father said, Manfred, you are wrong. The man has an obstruction. His intestines are blocked.

41:50 You believed him, though I didn't believe him. I was out of my mind with rage that he would dare to tell me that I was wrong. And I but, Bertha, I took him by the throat. He tried to tear my hands away. And it was then, Bertha, it was it was then that I felt the heat, the blessed heat from his. Hands, entering into mind. And now look, look, Bertha, if he can use his hands, be happy, father. How long will it last? How can I know your moods, your your spells? They bewitched us all. I never meant harm.

42:31 But I've got to stop. I want you to stay away from the cemetery. I'm stay away. I've watched you every minute. If you know, I won't let you out of my sight. I'll treat you like a child. As you were, because you are a child. I am a very old man. You're my child. No, from now on, you will have your own child, a real child, not me. What I can see. The child is growing inside you. Soon you'll know it yourself. Next spring you will bear your child, and it will be beautiful, a little girl, and you will I hope you will give her the beautiful name.

43:26 Of Emily. Father. Then my family can rest. I won't have to call her anymore. She can rest. Did you believe our story? For that matter, did I now? Really? What difference does it make if you believe it? If I do, For the truth is that none of us knows what transpires in the mind and heart of a very old man. I'll be back shortly. Ever, happened to look up the word murder in a dictionary? No, then I'll tell you how. The dictionary defines it to kill with premeditated malice, the wrongful, intentional slaying of one human being by another. But don't let a wee bit of murder upsets you friends. The people on Mystery Theater don't mind being killed, not a bit, because every one of them is a dead head. Our cast included Santas Otega, Norman Rose, Briana Rayburn and Billy Redfield. The entire production

44:57 was under the direction of Hyman Brown. Well, my dear, I feel like we've started things off on the right foot, as it were. What's that, Well, I'm not entirely sure. I haven't considered wearing a costumes. Perhaps I should. I mean, there's no law against it, at least not. Man's law. Hmm. That is something to chew on, of course, no matter how I dress. Sowyn will be, of course, a wonderful time for me, truly, a joyous, fun and terrible night.

46:05 The weird Circle, in this cave with the restless sea, we are meant to call from out of the past. Stories, strange and weird. Bell keeper told the bell so that all may know we are gathered again in the weird Circle, out of the past.

47:04 Sentence of a world gone by, Speak again, the immortal tale. A terrible night. Mm hmmmmm. Silence in the cough. Next witness, please. If you're on a please. The next witness is Charles Gastar, the defendant in this case, Will mister Gasta please take a stamp. Silence in the cour. Place your left hand on the Bible. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.

47:50 I do suppose, mister Gastar, you tell this court your story and your. Own words from the the very beginning. And don't be afraid from the very beginning. Well, I I don't know where to start, to be honest, I feel like a man that's drowning. I guess it started the night my wife Bertha and her brother Dick Linton were helping me to pack my suitcase. Dick and I were preparing to go on a hunting trip in Canada in the Northwest section. When don't forget to put the conference in Charlie, hunting man needs a conference? Sure he does. Keeps him from getting lost. See how bright my wife is, Dick, he knows all.

48:32 Yeah, I didn't mean it that way. I know, Bertha. I know. It's just that when a gal's brother and husband go galavanding off on a hunting trip to the north Woods, a gal wants to know they're coming back. Say do you worry about Charles Berth. You know me, I never get lost. Remember the camping trips we used to take when we were kids. You were a boy, Scott, He's no boys. God. Now kay, Well let's see, darling. Have I got everything packed in here? Yes? They're everything. Well an underwear, lucky man. I have a wife for both guns. The cottages for the hunting gun are in the rear pocket of the suitcase, and for the thirty eight they're in your homestack. Oh, good girl, where's your suitcase stick? Or it's checked at the station? Hey, what time is it? Well it's almost ten pm. Oh we better be going along, Darling.

49:13 I like to catch my trains with ease. I'll have to close the suitcase. Chuv the best suitcase sitter, honner in the world. Yeah, see what you mean? There? That does it. You can get off. Now, have a nice trip. Both of you bring back at least two deer. Or at least says by any bye. Oh, don't forget your muffla, Darling. It's in the closet downstairs. And please please be careful when little boys play with guns. Well, you know how dangerous guns can be. So we left Dick and I we took the Express to Montreal and then traveled by train west of the Hudson Bay to the Northwest Territory, specifically to a small town known as Fort Ray. What equipment we hadn't already purchased, we purchased there, mostly foo visions, some plenty of coffee. Then, on the morning of September third, Dick and I started out on foot. It was a clear, brisk morning and the air was alive with sounds, birds chirping, a constant crunch of leaves underfoot. We were both in high spirits, as Dick said, Ah, this is the life.

50:19 Oh boy, this is what a man needs. Get away from civilization and breathe again, back to nature, Back to Nature's right. You know, there's something the matter with modern civilization. You get all jogged up inside, begin to think all sorts of strange things. Strange, Dick, in what way, Oh, morbid thoughts, Hating yourself, hating everybody else, hating the world. You know that's bad for a ride in his work becomes bitter and he pours the gall out in words, paints the world he sees in gray overtone. You mean, like that last story you sold. Yeah, it was a depressing story, but that was my mood. Both you and Bertha have morbid emotional streaks. Well, Sis and I very much like in many ways. Funny am I marrying brother?

51:05 What's so funny about it? You know I engineered it? You did? Why? Well, Bertha and I've always been pretty close, you know, much closer than ordinary brother and sister. I didn't want to see a marry some clark. Well, thanks, Dick, you'll be my roommate at college. I got to know you pretty well. Yes, Sis and I have the same likes and dislikes, and I just knew you were right for her. You mean to tell me I didn't have anything at all to say about it? Sort of sort of. Well, birth is beauty, her chemistry, if you like, and youth took care of the rest. You sound like an old old man airing philosophy. I told you I've been civilized too long. You've been a bachelor too long. I think I'll dig up a nice young girl for you. Marriage is a sensation, Dick, well worth a trial.

51:50 Well, I don't quite like the idea of digging up a girl for me. Sounds like she's been buried already. And here we turned this way to the north. Now, are you sure? Of course, I'm sure. I know these north Woods like a like a book, Yes, like a book. You'll never get lost with me, would be at the next fort by six this evening. I still think we ought to have taken a guide along. All nonsense, nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about, it all. Just stick to Dick Letton and you can't go. Nothing to worry about. That's the way writers are so sure of themselves, except they ought to stick a paper and pencil not to their memories of north Woods. At six o'clock in the evening, there wasn't a fourt in sight, and by ten o'clock that night, even die hard Dick had to admit.

52:38 Well, we're lost. No, yeah, we're lost. I'm sorry, Charles. You're being pretty monosyllabic about the whole thing. Normal under the circumstances. Hey, that wasn't the wind, was it, Dick? No? Wolves, wolves, I'm not afraid of them, are you? No? I love them, especially at night when I'm cold and hungry and they are too. Well, we'll have to sleep in the tree. You'll have to sleep in the trees. I wasn't built that way. You can't sleep on the ground, You'll never live through the night. I'm not sleeping on the ground, Dick. I am walking until we find someplace. We might not find the fort till tomorrow morning. Or tomorrow evening, but whenever it is, I'm going to find it as soon as possible, even sooner than that.

53:22 If that keeps up, you're coming with me? Sure, I'm with you, boy, I'm hungry. Say, wouldn't a nice, thick, luscious steak taste good? You know, one of the charcoal broiled variety, dripping with butter and fried on your stop it? Or want of Breatha's lamb stews with mashed potatoes, rich tomato, grape. If you want to die, just keep on talking. It's the thought of food, and I'm a murdering maniac. Oh, how about a real English roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. You're asking for it? H I wonder just how hungry that wolf is. Maybe he won't mind if his meat isn't cooked. Huh, I'm sure he won't. They can never eye, which means in carnivorous or man eater. Hey, Charlie, look straight ahead of you. You got a light over there. Well, yeah, I think so. Maybe it's the fort. No, it's not the fort here when miles off the beating tray, Oh what is it then? No, looks like a cabin from here.

54:17 I'm not particular. Let's find out. Oh no, you led the way so far. But this time, dick, my boy, I'm leading, Follow Charlie and see some food. Food food. Whoever lives there must eat. Maybe it's not steak, but it's something. It is a cabin, all right? Shall I knock on the door. You can't get in any other way? Who can't? This rickety old shack could be blown down by a good, strong breath. Fine looking place, isn't I'm not amused. Knock on the door, such a timid knock. My hands numb. Yeah, we'll try it again. I hope this guy's friendly h friends are sniffing about again, and I don't look at all. Well and tomato sauce, Oh.

55:08 Good evening. Something I can do for you, gentlemen? Uh we managed to We hope to find some place to stay for the nights, or we're completely off the beaten track. You don't say come in, Come in, gentlemen. Yes, I'd be delighted. To put you up this evening if you don't mind sleeping on the floor in the attic. Well, at this point, we don't mind anything, don't you. My name is Charles Costarser and my friend is Dick Linton.

55:48 How do you do My name is Joel, just Joel? At least they used to call me Joel. Have you eaten yet this evening? No, as a matter of fact, and we're starving. I mean, and sit down and I'll fix you some dinner, that is, if you don't mind my meager rations. Oh, we don't mind anything at this point, do we dig? Oh? No, no, definitely not. There's an whole American saying, you know, food is food. Let's eat. I'll fry some deer steak for you, and I have some wine. Oh wonderful. Tell me, mister Joel, do you live here all alone?

56:31 Unfortunately? Yes, you see, I'm an outcast from your society. But a man be different and automatically becomes an outcast. Yeah, there's something in what you say. Look a little different, or think a little different, or speak a little different. It becomes a marked man. The individual is not allowed the privilege of individuality. Mankind doesn't permit it. Oh, why I don't think so. Really, Tue, I'll just set the table and you can sit down over here and eat. Come along, chance I can prove my point. Look at me, I'm different, larger than most men.

57:15 I unfortunately grew too tall. I'm too ugly for the average man. To the stomach. I was hated, he is hated by your civilization and feared too. Not because I was cruel, of vindictive or dishonest, but because I was different. Yes, yes, I'm a giant and stature. Well, I don't feel badly for me. I've had my revenge on society, and I'll have even more revenge on little people like yourselves.

57:57 Yes, it's quite understandable that you feel that way. Gentlemen, before you sit down to dinner, allow me to hang your hunting guns up here. They will bother you if you carry them around. Oh, well, we really don't mind. Your hunting gun, sir. And your hunting gun, yeah, now I both have Just hang them up here. You say you live alone, Joel, Yes, that shoe in the corner that was never your shoe. It's too small for you. You're very observant, mister Linton. No, that wasn't my shoe.

58:41 I found it in the forest one day and brought it home for the purpose of remaking it like that coat hanging over there. Found a coat and a shoe lying in this outlandish district. Yes, it's a coat and a shoe. Of course they were not a man. But he was dead. He died of h I don't quite know what he died of. His legs had been gnawed off by some prowling beasts. Oh he he must have become a lost out here like ourselves. Exactly like yourselves, gentlemen, exactly like yourselves.

59:23 Dinner is ready. Yeah, Silence in the car, Silence in the car. Go ahead with your testimony, mister Gastar. Well you can see what a spot Dick and I were in. We we didn't truy that man for a second. Believe me, he was well, donnod anyway, The man was unbalanced.

1:00:05 It was well after we finished eating dinner that joe a litle good, warm, roaring fire in the fireplace. And then, well, gentlemen, it's time to retire. I'm sleepy here, and I'm sure you two are. Yes, very sleepy here. But if we take our guns upstairs, I'd like to clean you. Don't need them this evening. You can clean them in the morning. Come along, please, yeah. Come on, Charlie. Right behind you, Dick the. Cable of this step ladder. It's rickety, to say the least, so I notice. I'll go first and get the blankets out as Fortunately I have two blankets up here, although they're musty enough.

1:00:48 Don't worry about us, all right, I'm up now, right away. I'd feel a lot better if I had those hunting guns. And I don't blame you. You can see for yourself. Mister Linton Attic is not accustomed the guests musty and the spiders are troublesome to strangers. Spiders, they are my friends, my only friends, they say. He who shares a roof with you automatically becomes your friend. They have shared this roof with me for many years. Good night, gentlemen, sleep well, Good.

1:01:28 Night, great Scott. What kind of a mess have we gotten ourselves into? I don't know. He's got a cognoose in his mind somewhere, that's very certain. What do we do? I'll tell you one sleeps in the other stands guard. That won't do us any good. Dick, he's ten times our size, And besides, we're unarmed. I've got your thirty eight in my pocket. You forget about it? Huh, yeah, I did look through these boards in the attic. You can watch you all very easily. If by a place throws a nice light on him. How will we arrange the watch? Well, you've got to sleep for an hour and i'll wake you up, give you the gun, and I'll go to sleep for an hour and you stand guard. Okay, yeah, what time is it now? One am? What's he doing down there? Curling up on the floor near the fireplace? About to go to sleep?

1:02:13 I hope he sleeps well, too well to wake. Up a see, doesn't. I hope your gun works, that's all. I'm so sleepy, and I. Mistakes down. Yes, I put my head on the floor and slept, But I slept a troubled sleep, a restless sleep, and my hands kept clawing the floor, a floor that was alive with insect life. Then no sooner had I put my head on the floor than it seemed. Dick nudged me, wake up, wake up? It's two am? Hum? Oh, okay, okay, what happened? Nothing? It's your turn now.

1:02:57 Oh I'm really licked really licked so much walking in all this, he was quite right. All this, He lay down on the floor, and soon he was sound asleep, sleeping like he was drugged. Poor Dick was all in. I sat upright, concentrating on sitting upright to keep my eyes from closing. I was so tired, and my blood ran cold as I kept my eyes glued to the still figure which lay beneath us. The hut was so quiet that my wrist watch sounded like the beating of Tom Tom's in that silence tick, beating off the seconds, perhaps slicing off the seconds left of our lives. And I waited and watched, waited and watched. Then suddenly, the huge thigure beneath me stretched his huge form in front of the fireplace and yawned. His large, expressionless eyes sought mine through the planks of the floor, and I thought for a.

1:03:55 Moment he saw me sitting there. Perhaps my crouched figure in the attic somehow threw a shadow down on the floor of the hot below. Then he rose, keptlike that huge farmer rose gracefully and quietly. He eased himself up and walked to the door, as if listening for someone or something. Then just as quietly, he opened the door and. Yes, yes, yes, come back shortly, shortly, he. Said, come back shortly. Who was he talking to? And what was he talking about? Come back? Come back to murder us.

1:04:39 He shut the door just as gently as he opened it, and then, returning to the place before the fire, he again curled up near the warmth of the blaze. I glanced down at my watch. It was three o'clock. I nudged Dick gently at first, and then harder. Hey, Dick, your turn, Dick, Dick? Wake up? Oh? Oh up so soon? Yes? Here, here's the gun. Okay, I'm awake. Anything happened? Listener, he's got an accomplished that. Somebody was standing outside the door. While back, he told him to come back shortly and explains this small shoe. Maybe maybe I'm so tired. I don't think I can sleep.

1:05:19 I don't think I can sleep. You'll sleep, just relax, I don't think so. Really, I. Come in, come in? Yeah? Are they sleep now? Yes? Fast asleep? The poor fools. One of them thought he could stay awake. I could see them taking turns staying awake. But I put enough dope in their wine and knock them out completely. Have they much money with them? Who knows? But whatever they have we need. Yeah.

1:06:00 Give me that log you brought in here you are no, I'll splinter it and light one end of us. Nothing like this wood burning to dope them completely? What should we do with them? Later? Put them outside for the animals. I'll wait down here for you. You go upstairs. I won't be long. These things never take very long. Dick, Dick, give me the gun. Give me the gun, Dick, Dick. Have you fallen asleep, Dick, Wake up, Dick, of your doped Dick. He's coming at us. Give me the gun.

1:06:41 Give me the gun, please, Dick, give me the gun. There there, I've got the gun. Now come laughing at me, laughing. Time to wake up now for the last time. Take this. There. That's got you, that's got you, that's got you. Where's your friend? Where's the little man? Dick? Help we find the little man? Now? Help me help me, Dick, Dick. I was stunned, completely stunned. The room looked strange to me. The smoking gun in my hand looked strange to me. The whole world seemed to blot out in front of my eyes, and suddenly I looked down at the dark mass lying at my feet, and then I looked up.

1:07:31 My eyes were absolutely level with Joel's eyes as he climbed. Up into the attic. Then, in a voice filled with horror, he said, great. Lord, sir, what have you done? You've killed him and he was just about to wake you. Yes, I killed Dick Linton, my best friend, when he was just about to wake me. I'd been dreaming and I killed him. Thank you, mister Gastar. My next witness is doctor Harding. Now, Doctor Harding, will you please take the stand? Yes, sir, place your left. Hand on the bible. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing.

1:08:15 But the truth? I do. You heard the testimony of the defendant, doctor Harding. I did, sir. Is it possible for a man, a man asleep as he was, to fire the gunload at his best friend because of a nightmare? It was more than a nightmare. It was sound lencia sleep, drunkenness overtired as mister Costair was. Its nerves were over text, and its fears and suspicions had been aroused. This result is perfectly natural and certainly medically sound. The defendant was not in his right mind at the time of the murder. Thank you doctor Harding, gentlemen of the jury to sum up this case. Joel the Giant had told his guests the truth about the shoe. At the time he opened the door, he was just talking to his dog, who had been scratching outside. But to a man mentally exhausted and filled with fear, Joe's actions were certainly those which would arouse us vision. Gentlemen, in behalf of my client, I beg leniency, leniency.

1:09:27 Bertha, Bertha, please, Darling. It was all explained court. This doesn't change anything between us, nothing at all. Doesn't it. I love my brother more than you can understand, Charles. I know the court has ruled you innocent, but a court of law has very little. To do with a woman's heart. If you love me, Bertha, I'll always love you, but I'll never be able to trust you again. There are seven days in a week, Charles. Some of those days I love you and forget this whole horrible affair. But more days my brother's face will loom up in front of me. But Dick would understand. I wouldn't see you because his face would stand between us.

1:10:11 I'd spend those days hating you. So I'm leaving you. Charles, take good care of yourself. I I can't help it. I hope you understand, Bertha. Please goodbye, Charles Brother. I told you, Charles Gustar, I hate civilized society. Don't feel badly for me. I'll have my revenge on society. I'll have even more revenge than little people like you.

1:11:00 M hm hm. H m hmmmm. From the time worn pages of the past, we have brought to you the story A terrible night, Bellkeeper all the bell. M mm hmmm. Mmm.

1:11:48 From the time when pages of the past, we have heard another immortal tale in the weird circle down Keeper told the bell. Well, I would say, a terrible night. Indeed, what's that? Well, of course, don't you worry, your pretty little head. I'm so glad you can join me in these long dark nights. It brings a bit of light to an otherwise shadowy existence.

1:12:30 I've tried very hard to make this place a home, not just the walls and the building, but the reality of it all. And a guest like you certainly makes a difference. So thank you, my dear, very very much. To make a house a hole even if it's a house of murder. Mummurder, the little theater of the air, and all the hermit.

1:13:28 Who stories weird stories and murders till. The hermit knows of them. All turn out your left, turn them out. Have you heard the story the house of Murder scene? Then listen while the hermit tells you the story. Yes, mister Burton, I'd like my wages if you please.

1:14:14 What's that, yes, mister Burton. Familiar you're dressed to go out. My breakfast hasn't been served. That's right, mister Burton. I'm leaving right now, and i'd like my wages if you please. This is preposterous. Well, it's something. Bad or right. You can't go without giving me more notice than this. I'm sorry, but I can't stay. What's it all about this house, mister Burton. It's this house. It's truly haunted. Nonsense, it's just because we've only been in the. House for a few days. It's strange to you. Yet don't get over being strange. It gets worse every night. It's ridiculous. Well, you can see all you want to, mister Burton, but I'm leaving. I'll work for you in the city.

1:14:59 I've been faithful to you for a good many years, and I'll go right out being faithful if you've moved back to the city again. Mellie, I can't run my life to suit those who work for me. I purchased this house in the country in order that I might have peace and quiet for my work. There's a little peace here every night. The sounds last night last night, I I don't wanna talk about it. Please, mister Burton, have gotta be leaving this morning. How are you gonna get into town? I took the liberty of calling one of the stores, and the owners sending his son out. To the car. All right, Milly, won't you give me my wages?

1:15:40 I'll wait outside. I'm afraid to stay inside any longer. Why of all, you miss your value, your life. You'll get out too. Ah, no wind to open that door.

1:16:22 I must have left it unlatched. It was just as if someone was in the room here with me. Oh now, much as if something brushed past me. I could swear I felt to touch my shoulder. Oh ridiculous. Page is turning. The pages of my ledge are turning, just as if a hand moved the pages. Wind couldn't cause it. There isn't any wind in here. Oh, I'm dreaming things. It's utter nonsense, Mammy.

1:17:06 It's got me all upset. Now my test tubes, my experiment, the test tubes not to the floor. I'm not dreaming this, this is too real. I need Karmer yourself this Hello, I want to put in a long distance call. I'd like to speak to Lyman Karmer in New Cotton. Yes, yes, you got it right, Lyman Karmer and New Cotton. The telephone number is.

1:17:47 Much farther. Do we have to drive into the. Wilds young man? We're almost there now, life me. I can't figure why you wants to hide himself away Biles some siphization. This new man ain't been out there but a few days. A few days too many, if you ask me. I drove out here yesterday. I picked up a woman who'd been working out there, wanted. To go back to city. Not Millie, seems like that was the name she give. Well, what's up? I couldn't rightly tell you, mister, just couldn't tell you. She didn't seem to be strangely urgent about something last night. Look, mister, you can see the lights of the house. Now see you about eight ten right away through the tree. Oh yeah, sort of a place, is it.

1:18:29 It's quite a place, mister, Really something in this day old house. M yes, sir, I guess no one's lived in it for years. Old man Chimmer knows it. He's lived in town as long as I can remember. And this is the drive leading up to the house, lying with trees on both sides. House never gets no real daylight into it here, sir, I'll get your beg. Oh, never mind, I can take it. You're young men. Thank you, mister. It's moon. It's worth that's all right. Anything I can do for you, just call the general store and ask for mark. Thanks, I'll do that, Bliman Jim, Hello Jim. I began to think you didn't make The train was forty minutes late. Come on in. Nice of you to come, the old recluse.

1:19:27 The idea of picking a spot no man ever heard of. Bring your things into the sitting room. We'll go upstairs later where nice huh sit down? Thanks? Yes, Millie got it fixed up pretty well before she went back to the city. My laboratory is right off this room. Everything handy. You had dinner, lemon, here's Jim on the train. Good. I'm not much at fixing meals. The young man marked from the general store said that Milly had left her. What's the idea? I'll tell you all about it. That's why I called him. Well, it's nice here, Jim, but I can't see why you chose a place so far away from everywhere.

1:20:10 I like it here. It's the reason enough, I guess, Billy coming back. To take care of you. No, No, I'm afraid not, Lyman. Milly left because she was certain that this house is haunted. Oh, Jim, I called you last night because I remember a story you once told, story of a haunted house. You told it as if you gave credence to the tale. Is that all I remember? Well, that's why I wanted you here, Jim. You don't think, by any chance that this house is haunted. To you, I'm not so sure. But what I do absurd You think it impossible? Naturally, you didn't talk that way when you were telling us that evening of a place off the coast.

1:20:58 You knew that was the That was a fireside tail, quite different from reality. Lyman. It's only a short time until midnight. Will you come into the laboratory with me. Do you sit in there with me for a little while and see if the same things had happened last night? curR again. Of course, if the same things do occur again, I shall be convinced that Billie was right. I shall be quite sure that something does happen, does. Haunt the hub?

1:21:39 Nearly midnight? Jim, did you. Check the door into the laboratory to see if it's closed tightly? I checked it and convinced it securely fastened, dear, just specking midnight? Yes, this was the hour last night. What are we to watch for. The door? First, the door into this laboratory. Okay, listen, it sounded as if someone has his hand on the door.

1:22:20 Knob fucker. But wait, it's opening, yes. Just as it did before. Well, there's no wind night, no last night. I'm a. You feel the presence of someone in this room, someone besides us. No, I don't I do? What is it? Once again, it was as if something brushed past me, touched my shoulder. For what that is?

1:23:05 Look look over on the table, watch my ledger. You see pages of my ledger are turning if a hand. Is on. JEEMI, I can't believe my eyes. It's incredible. Now look on the workbench. See something is moving those test tubes. I'm gonna stop this before all my experimental walks through. What are you going to do. I'm gonna walk over there, put my hands on the rack, Biman.

1:23:51 Something touched my hand. Something I felt like chop nails digging into the flesh. Oh, it's your nerves, burden lyman. Is something in this room, something that moves about in here, some unseen thing that enters the door moves in this room. I'd let your imagination run away with you. Jim. There is a thing in the house beyond scientific explanation. You know it. It's something vital and alive, thing of power and locomotion, and it's up to us to find out. What it is. Well, we might as well look through this room. No use overlooking anything seems silly, doesn't it. I'm not going to find anybody in these rooms.

1:24:37 Didn't you say that Milly heard things upstairs? So she said, She. Complained the very first night we were here that someone entered the room. She didn't see anyone. No, she didn't see any more than we did just a while ago downstairs. Now that the incident of downstairs has past. Seems to me that it never happened. Perhaps it was your power of suggestion that made us both think we saw a movement. Well, nothing out of the ordinary in this room. No, what do you say we forget it and get some sleeping. All right, I'm not going to discover anything tonight. I guess. Did you talk to the man who sold you the house, Jim, Jim, Yes, sure.

1:25:20 He brought me out here after I chanced upon the place. We went off through it together. Of course, he didn't say why the house had stood unoccupied for a long time. Yes, he did. Said that after his wife died, he wanted to live in town, but he was getting too old to keep up a place like this. Uh huh. Said that up to this time he couldn't find anyone who could afford to buy him. Oh, well, we'll go downstairs and get your things and bring him up to your room. Fimon, How was that something downstairs? It came from the laboratory, I know it did. It's the only place where there's. So much class. Don't get up ToxT, Jim.

1:26:02 Great, heaven's look the whole thing. Everything in the room smashed, the equipment that's taken me months to build everything ruined? Jim. Some human has been in here, someone who's trying to stop your experiment by destroying your equipment. Wipe out your work. Oh, ruin, He'll take months to arrive at this point in my experiment. Again, someone has been hiding downstairs here, Jim. We've got to find out where and who it is. Is it a human being who hides in the house intent upon destroying all the Jim?

1:26:45 But who creates in his laboratory? Oh? Is it an unseen force. As Jim said earlier evening, an unseen force with power and locomotion that lives. In the old house. The hermit will tell you before the night is dumb. It is the following night Jim Benton and his friend Lyman. Commas in the laboratory. Just a few minutes ago the clock struck midnight.

1:27:26 Right now, Button is Disley engaged. Building up, step by step the experiment which has been ruined the night before. Lyman Commas is watching him. Jim, don't you think you ought to knock off for the night. He works steadily all day. There's so much time lost that I have to make up Liman. Certainly we aren't going to have any visitor tonight. There's nothing left for them to destroy. Now, tomorrow I'll go into town and inquire around. I think I should go to see old man Chimlin, ask him to tell me something about the place, or maybe he can put us on the right track. I would have gone to day, but I wanted to make sure.

1:28:23 I wanted to see if we'd have the same experience of last night. You uh gonna work much longer leased. An hour, and that's the way he passed midnight. Guess I'll go upstairs. I'm kay. If you want anything, call me all right lyman, thanks a lot for staying over. It's a great help. Yes, if we can find out what it is or who it is is causing this trouble, we'll find on good night, good night. Let's see. Next step is to your night. The two chemicals perform Step B. Where is that ledger? I asked, And the next step I performed was, oh, wait, pages and the ledger page five six. The page is missing from here.

1:29:30 Every step I'd. Worked out and put down is thrown out of this book. Ah, oh, what is it? What is it that dogs might. Trail and won't let me do this? Work. Uh, step by step. I'd have to work it all over again. What someone at the door again? Is that? Jie lyman? Oh no, I know it isn't. Just as before, I feel the presence of some person in this room, if they were standing over me. What do you want?

1:30:22 Where is it? Your brother? Something around my neck? Something joking man, choking man? Jim, Jim, help me? Hell? What happened? Fall on to the floor, Jim. Great, Heaven's face has burned by the stuff he was working with. Hello, Oh, for Heaven's sake, hurry, hello, operator, Send the doctor to the old old Chimlin place right away. Hurry, there's been a terrible accident. Man's face has almost burned away.

1:31:23 Well, doctor, I'm afraid it's quite hopeless. He lives. His sight would be gone, his face horribly scarred. Where Jim, we'd only gotten out of this place last night. Did you call? He said, Chimmelin, as I asked you to do. Yes, he should be here any minute. I'll late then sit down, Docter. After the story you told me about the experience you've had, I think it's up to Chimlin to tell his story. He sound as if it was something very mysterious something that Jim should have been told before he bought this place from Chimlin. If it had been told, it would have saved in the agones he's going through right now. Mister Karma, what I know has given me in professional confidence.

1:32:06 What others in the town might have told you would have been gossip. And no one tells gossip about Asa Chimelin. How so dufty Well, he's the owner of many mortgages, many notes, a man of wealth and power. In our community. I see, Oh, there's a car. Turning in the drive. Mister Karma, must be Chimlin. I'll go up to mister Burton again. Call me. If Chimmelin refuses to speak, I thank you, Hello, sir, Hello, may where's mister Chimlin. He didn't come, sir. He called at our house and got me to drive out and bring you this note. O come in, hy, I reckon. I better not, sir, I reckon, I just as leave stay outside of this house.

1:32:50 If you don't mind, well, come on in just a moment while I read this note. Nothing can harm you in the. Daytime, all right, Just till you read the note. Come in here, sit down. I wanna read the note. Yes. H hm, well, mart what made you say you'd rather not come inside this house so. I can't see? Sir? Really, I can't mister Chimlin to get even with my dad. If I said any more, you see, he about owns our store. I wouldn't tell Chimlin come now.

1:33:32 Huh, Well, sir, h you see the Chimlin's the daughter she wasn't quite right and she died out here, and Missus Chimlin she hanged herself. Folks have always been scared of this house cause of that. I see. Why did Missus Chimlin hang herself? I don't write lyneul, Perhaps the doctor can tell us, Oh my hello, Jock. Chimmelin didn't come sent this note saying he would refund mister Burton's money and take thee back again. Says nothing more. But Marty Hears volunteered to tell me that there were two deaths in this old house. One hanging, that's right, Missus Chimlin, yes, and the girl.

1:34:15 Her case was hopeless eighteen. She had a mind of a child of four. They took her everywhere, but to no avail. Time after time, Missus Chimlin pleaded with me to put the girl to sleep. In her misery, I couldn't do that. She hated me for it. Her hate grew until her mind was unsettled. One day she took it upon herself to when. The girl's life. Then, realizing what she'd done, she hanged herself in the room mister Burton has been using for his laboratory. If mister Chimin knew, we'd told us, no, that's all right, Matt. There is any truth in the fact that an unseen force lives in this house, and you will see how hard it is for me to believe that.

1:34:56 Then why did it seek vengeance on mister Burton. I have never believed in supernatural force any more than you, But remember I've seen it at work in this house. And as for seeking vengeance on Jim doctor, he was working on an experiment to prolonged life, a discovery which might have added untold years to the life of a human being. And this is something that the spirit of the woman who hanged herself did not want. That's why it destroyed the experiments. And that's why it destroyed Jim Burton. He died just before I came downstairs.

1:36:04 The hermits that in the old house, the unseen force was the spirit of a woman who took her own life, the woman who could not rest in her grave, the woman who returned to destroy anything that might prolonged life. Yes, she kills him. Britain, by the power of supernatural force. Stayed on your lege, Turn them on all they pleasant dreams.

1:36:44 Well, well, it is getting late, isn't it. But I suppose it's a special time of year. So what the heck? What's that? Oh well, I try not to say the other thing. Well, it's unwise in my situation. Well let's move on, shall we something more fun and fearful to give you an earful Oh well, I suppose I just don't want to run the risk of somehow crossing paths with well the ghostmaker.

1:37:45 The Seal Book. Once again, the Keeper of the Book has opened the ponderous door to the secret vault, wherein has kept the Great Sealed Book, in which has recorded all the secrets and mysteries of mankind. Through the ages. Here are tales of every kind, tales of murder, of madness, of dark deeds, strange and terrible. Beyond all belief. Keeper of the Book, I would know what tale we tell this time? Open the Great Book and let us read.

1:38:46 Slowly. The great book opens. One by one. The keeper of the book turns the page and stops ah the strange story of two scoundrels who would stop at nothing for money, a tale called the Ghostmakers. Here is the Tale the Ghostmakers, as it is written in the pages of the sealed Book. It is an autumn afternoon in the ancient New England village of Wilton. In

1:40:19 an old stone house a mile from the town, Agatha Wainwright is serving tea to her nephew Ned, and a little man. Ned is introduced as Professor Piedmont, a friend who has come to spend a few weeks with them while he works on a book to be called Old Graveyards of New England. So this is your graveyard, friend, Ned looks like a man who'd be happy staring at tombstones. They may professionally didn't steady, miss Waynwright. Now I'll take your word for it, Professor Piedmont. Myself, I'd rather read about them in a book. The Professor not only writes books any but he's also an expert on psychic phenomena. Psychic phenomena, Oh you mean ghosts? Hmm, foolish fiddle faddle dreamed up by silly people without the brains to know better.

1:41:07 Nor But miss Wingwright, I assure you you are wrong, nonsense. When a person's dead, he's dead, and I see anything I'm willing to call a ghost, I'll know I'm crazy, and I'll admit it. Why, Addie, this very house is supposed to be hearted, You know that rubbish. This is a perfectly normal house. I've lived here a month and i haven't heard so much as a board squeak her. But miss Wingwright, it may be only because you're new to the house and not yet since itized. It takes time to become aware of occult influences. Stuff and nonsense. Who started all this talk about ghosts? Anyway? Here? Now, let's have some tea and no more talk about ghosts.

1:41:57 Well need, Now that we're alone, suppose you tell me a little more than you put in your letter. I'm still not sure where you sent for me. All right, professor, this is the gist of it. Three months ago, aunt Agatha's brother died, leaving her in estate of four hundred thousand dollars, and I'm Aunt's only living relative. I see, yes, light begins to do. No wait, my uncle arranged his will so that aunt Agatha gets only the interest about twenty thousand a year, and this house to live in. On her death, the entire estate goes to charity. I'm cut off about a penny. I see your uncle didn't like you, nid shrewd men, very shrewd.

1:42:40 Yes, she was making sure I couldn't get my hands on any of it. But that's where you come in. If aunt Agatha were to become shall we say ill, mentally ill. So that she was incompetent to administer the estate. You mean exactly. If at Agatha were to lose her mind through shock or fright, who but me her only relative would be the logical one to administer the estate for you would. Then then you'd have the whole income for as long as she lived. As part of the principle too, and no ways to manage it. But I've got to get my hands on some of it before the end of the year. I'm sunk. I owe a little money about twenty five thousand. If I don't get it quickly, well, the people I owe it to are rather short tempered.

1:43:26 I understand, yes, Nate, I remember when I knew you in Chicago. You liked to gamble, didn't you. But that's your affair. Personally, I prefer to stick to my own profession creating ghosts. Yes, I've heard of some of your jobs, Professor, and some of the ghosts you've created to order. Yes, I pride myself on having a unique occupation. Ned. I believe I'm the only ghost maker there is, and the ghost I've created have been effective too. So I understand now. What I want you to do is this. I want a frightened to the point. Where she sa I understand well, Ned, It's going to be difficult. She's a tough minded woman, hard to scare, hard to drive, insane.

1:44:12 That's got to be done. Got to get my hands on the estate. If you succeed, Professor, there's five thousand dollars in it for you, all right, Ned, I'll try. It won't be easy, But she made Greig suddenly when the time comes that type, does you know? Good settled in? You brought everything you are apt to need. All my apparatus and gadgets are in my trunk to be here tomorrow. I'm not altogether sure I like this job, Ned. I hope you're not going to turn moral on my professor. No, no, no, no, there's something about this place that disturbs me. Though you know, I am psychic at times, not altogether a faker.

1:44:53 Neks to be scaring yourself with your own stories. As we were driving past that old cemetery this afternoon, s only filled the premonition, a chill, kind of chill you're supposed to feel when you go near the place you'll suddenly be buried. Hot was just the wind. We'll have to get you some red flannels. Yeah, there's something that will give you your courage back. Drink it down. A hey, that's me good. All the different kinds of spirits. I prefer those in bottles. I thought you'd like it. Now let's go downstairs again. We won't talk about ghosts anymore tonight, but tomorrow night, who knows what may come knocking it?

1:45:40 And I get this door, SA.

1:47:29 And now to continue the story as it is written in the Sealed book. The following evening ned and the Professor joined Dantagatha by the fireplace, where she sat knitting outside. A cold winter wind blew. O listen to that wind. We may be in for a storm. We're in for an early winter that's what her Snow will fall any day. Now. It's good to have a fireplace to sit by when the wind blows like that. Here's the cider and donuts, ma'am. Very well, emmy, bring it right in. Yeah, cider and donuts just what we need in a night like this. Will you have a glass, mister ned Yes, thank you?

1:48:10 I mean, will you have some cider? Professor Peede, ma'am. Professor, and he's trying to give you some cider. Yah. Oh, excuse me. I was listening. I thought they heard someone knocking on the front door. Someone king, well, there is someone there. Well, they can't be very anxious to get in. That's all the noise they can make. Shall I go see who it is, miss Agatha? Yes, yes, girl, go see, though I can't imagine who'd be calling at this hour of the night. Sounded like someone who didn't expect to get in anyway, a timid child who may be a ghost. Yes, yes, who is it?

1:48:52 Why? Why? Miss? Well? There wasn't anyone there, No one there? Of course there was someone, didn't they? But I opened the door and there wasn't anyone there, And who was knocking? Answer me that I don't know, but that wasn't anyone anyone you can see emmy, I'll stand for no foolishness now. No, ma'am. But just the same, there's nobody at the door. Someone's playing tricks on us, and I'm going to see who it is. I'll come with you. You won't find anybody there. Well, we'll see. Well what is it? What do you There isn't anyone here? Oh but there was. They slipped away into the bushes, that's what they did.

1:49:33 Yes, yes, of course, some small boys playing tricks. I suppose if I catch them, I'll tan their hides. Who was it, miss Wayne Wreck? And there's some boys playing tricks, professor, That's all it could have been. Come on, professor, drink your side here. Well oh yes, yes, of course, professor. You look like a man who was listening to something. Then what was it? Oh no, no, sir, I'm. Too old not to know when a man is lying. Professor Piedmont, What were you listening to? To the truth? I thought I heard voices, what kind of voices? Far away voices crying something I couldn't make up. Oh, but it was just the flames in the fireplace. I'm sure it was of course, that's all it was. Well, what do you say we all turn in this new England are makes me sleepy?

1:50:20 Hmmm? Knocks at the door when there's nobody there, and voices, Yes, it's high time we were all in bed instead of sitting around here imagining such nonsensical things. Highly Pleased with their first effort in creating ghosts that didn't exist, Ned and Professor Piedmont went to bed, but before they retired, they held a brief, low voiced conference in Ned's room. Professor that door knocking act was all right. He did it very nicely. He snead length of blake thread runs through a crack in the window station and it takes the doorknocker. Can create a very setispectory ghost.

1:51:07 Indeed, now tell me what comes next on the program. Well, we can't work too fast. Tomorrow the hired girl Emil spread the story of tonight's happens. The whole town will start talking about it good and then and tomorrow night nothing happens. Aunt Amy is reassured. But tomorrow I'll be busy. I notice today there's an old, hollowed tree in the woods about one hundred feet from the house. And what about it. I'll run wise to it, hiding them under the leaves, and install a small loudspeaker in it. I'll conceal the microphone and batteries behind the drapes in the living room. I see. So two nights from now we'll hear ghostly voices, eh. Exactly, they'll accompany the ghostly knocks on the door. But that won't be all. There will be other surprises on the program.

1:51:53 Professor, remind me to tell you sometime that you're about as unpleasant an old rascal as I've ever met. The next evening, Agatha Wainwright listened nervously for a repetition of the ghostly knocks, but nothing happened, and she regained her composure the evening following that, however, as she and Ned and the Professor sat in the living room around the fire, nine o'clock. The evening may just be starting in New York. Here and Wilton, it's bedtime. Hmm. Seems to be someone at.

1:52:36 The door, so there is Shall I go? No? Emmy can answer the door. She does little enough to earn her money. Emmy, Emmy, there's someone at the door. See who it is? Please must ime Asagatha. Must you indeed answer the door, Emmy, I'd rather not, ma'am. Emmy, see who is at the door. Yes, miss Agatha, I'm going. Who is it? There's no one there. There's no one there. Again, Amy, get control of your but I tell you there's no one there, and it's someone playing tricks. That's all you hear, Emmy, Yes, yes, miss Agatha, I hear, but I don't believe it. Go to your room, yes, ma'am.

1:53:20 I'm sorry, miss Agatha, but there wasn't anyone there. I hope. I'm not going to have to discharge that girl. Shall I go this time? Auntie? Oh? Ned? If the rascals play their tricks, whoever they are, they'll soon stop when they see we pay no attention. I wonder if I could see them from the window, maybe we could trap them, if we were to go quietly out the back door and step around of the front. What was that. Someone calling? Really, I don't hear anyone. It's someone calling to us to let him in. Strange.

1:54:01 I can't hear it. You must have heard it, Ned, It was perfectly plain. There's some voices certain people can hear and others can't. If there's someone calling we better take a look. Come on, addie, we'll see what goes on. Who's there? Show yourself, whoever you are. Yeah, it's perfectly empty. There's no soul in sight. Booths and looking, and the voices seem too stoked. Perhaps we ought to search the yard and Agatha, look down at the edge of the trees. Lights, three balls of light moving around just above the ground. Three spheres of light, and give me luminous spheres of common manifestations of spiritual presences.

1:54:44 Nonsense, they're just too will of the wisps, that's all. Whatever they are, we're going to see. Come on, professor, it's a trick. Will soon know. Yes, Ned, wait for me, don't scare them away. I want to see what they look like. Ned, Ned, they're rising, they're floating away, but the trees. And all right, so I get a doctor for you. What do we want with a doctor? I'm all right, an old fool carrying on like that just because of some will of the whists of whatever it was. I shan't do it again. I promise you you. Need not be ashamed of Wainwright, unless I'm much mistaken. We've witnessed a psychic visitation of a kind unsuppressed in my suspirit. Oh stuff and nonsense. Professor, you may believe in spirits, but I don't. I never have believed in ghosts, and I'm not going to start now. It was just that it was well unexpected.

1:55:45 In the days that followed, Ned Wainwright and Professor Piedmont found it impossible to shake Agatha Wainwright's iron nerves. Emmy, the hired girl, resigned in terror, but Agatha remained seemingly unmoved. Resolutely, she ignored the ghostly knocks, voices, and footsteps that Professor Piedmont's ingenuity devised. The whole town buzzed with tales of her haunted house, but she refused to pay any attention to them. After a month had gone by, Ned was ready to admit defeat. Well, Professor, you're a washout, and Agata hasn't turned a hair at your ghost now, Ned, I. Told you it might take a long time. She's a very strong minded woman. Believe me, anyone else would have cracked by now.

1:56:31 Well, she hasn't, and she's not going to. I still say it may happen all at once. She's nervous and distruged. She doesn't sleep well. Every evening she sits listening for ghostly voices. She won't admit it, but she's made up her mind not to believe in ghosts, and I'm afraid she never will. Well, what do you suggest. It's the middle of December. I've got to get my hands on her money by the end of the year and sunk. We must play our last card, you me. Do you mean she's fond of you? You're her only relative? What are you getting at? How would she feel if you, her only relative, would die and come back here as a ghost? I don't follow you. My plan is simple. We'll say good bye to your aunt and drive off as if we were going away. Then, secretly in the night, we will return to the house. Yes, and then what we'll see to it that she receives a phone call from a friend of mine in Boston.

1:57:22 He'll announce to your aunt that you and I have been in an automobile accident, that we've been killed. I see, yes, I begin to understand. Immediately after the phone call, we'll knock. She'll come to the door and see us standing. There and having just heard that we're both dead exactly. And if that doesn't work, ned we are defeated. But it'll be a strong mind indeed that can withstand such a shock. A strong mind, indeed, ye.

1:59:38 And now to continue the story as it is written in the sealed book. Two days later, Naden Professor Piedmont said good bye to Agatha and drove away. It was starting to snow as they left, so they made their way by a roundabout route to an isolated road house, and there they spent the day waiting. After darkness had fallen, they started back towards Antiagatha's house. By now there was snow feet deep on the road, and the cold blast of the north wind made even the heated interior of the car uncomfortable. Boo, I'll be dead when this is OpenD.

2:00:19 That's the moment. You must be down to zero ns at least, well almost there. We'll drive up to within one hundred yards of the house and wait in the car with a heater on What time did you arrange to have that phone call made from Boston at nine o'clock exactly? We want to knock the instant after she gets it right. Isn't that our turn? There? I think so? This snow makes it so hard to see that Professor look up. We're going up the road. Head. D Are you hurt my ankle? I'll be out of here. Come on, hurry, Ned, I smelled gasoline. Call me catch on fire, all right.

2:01:05 Help me out of the road. Yes, yes, what happened. We skidded down a ten foot bank and turn completely over. If you'd watched where you were going, it wouldn't have happened. I couldn't tell who was ice under the snow. I would never mind that. We've got to get the shelter. And I think my ankle's broken. Yes, I can't step on it. You can lean on me. Where are we a quarter of a mile from aunt Agathus? There'sn't another house within a mile. And then come on, we've got to get there quick. Lean on me. Help while you can. We don't get there soon, we'll freeze to death.

2:01:50 Half an hour later, numb with cold and scarcely able to struggle, on, Ned and Professor Piedmont staggered up to Agatha Wainwright's house. The windows all had heavy wooden shutters over them, shutters they themselves had helped Tagata put in place to keep out anything that might come knocking at the door, and the night, but through the small pane of glass in the front door, light showed as they stumbled thankfully up the steps. Keaven, we're here. We couldn't have gone another hundred George, I'm almost frozen. You've got to get inside, ye help me.

2:02:32 All right? One worship there? Ned? The phone call from Boston? What time is it? Now? Time like it's nine nine o'clock exactly, and not quickly. We've got to get inside before. That phone call comes. Inside. Agatha Wainwright heard the knocking, but before she could go to the door, the telephone rang and she answered it first. Hello, Yes, this is Wilton three one seven Boston calling long distance. Yes, I'll hold on just a minute. Hello, Yes, this is miss Wainwright speaking the Boston General Hospital. My nephew Ned.

2:03:29 What is it? What's happened to him? Dead? An nomobile accident? Both of them killed? No? Oh no, yes, yes, I'm all right. Thank you for letting me know. I'll come in the morning. Ned killed. Oh no, no, no, it can't be. Ned. Let me here, Let me here, Ned. Ned's dead. He's been killed. Thee No, it's dead, it's dead. No, you can't be Ned. Ned was killed. He's dead.

2:04:10 It must be ghost. The professor was right, there are her ghosts. It's Ned's ghosts out there. No, no, you can't come in. You're a ghost, your nets ghost. You can't come in. I won't let a ghost in. Here, I won't. The next morning, Ned and Professor Piedmont were found frozen to death beside the house. But they made a vain effort to pry open the heavy wooden shutters that covered the windows. You see, Agatha never did let them in.

2:04:55 She knew better than to open the door to ghosts. It is.

2:05:54 And now, keeper of the book, before you close the great book, show us the tale we tell next time? This one. Ah, yes, why this is amazing. It's a tale of murder. We're unexpected, fiendish murder, murder of a very different and unusual kind, a tale such as you've never heard before.

2:06:57 My my mind. The weather sure has gotten chilly, very quickly, you know, during this brutal summer of yours. I was surprised how warm it could get, how hot and sticky it would be at times, and at night, sometimes there wasn't even a respite from it. The heat would remain even as the sun was hiding. I would be lying if I said it hadn't made me feel a bit peaked, a bit less than perfect, less than ideal. Whenever I feel a little under the weather, I'm always glad I can head straight to the Snake Doctor.

2:07:50 Suspense, which is usually heard at this hour on Thursday nights, is taking its customary summer holiday suspense returns to the air two weeks from to night. On Thursday September. One, you were standing at the doorway of a cabin on Cashier Creek. Upon the ridge. The bloodhounds have caught your scent, and between you and the fortune, between you and escape you on the white jaws of the deadly Cottonmouth.

2:08:38 We offer you escape designed to free you from the four walls of today, for a half hour of high adventure. Tonight we escape to the worn out acres of a poor farm somewhere in the Southern Mountains, with Irvin S. COB's great tale of vengeance Snake Doctor. Far back in the Southern Mountains, it's quiet and hot and lonely. One pine Scott Hill is very much like the next, and one winding Creek differs little from another.

2:09:22 The area through which Cashier Creek twisted was the same as all the rest, except for the snakes, deadly, venomous, cotton mouths, moccasins. They have probably more snakes along Cashier Creek and anywhere else. Most people lived in constant, deadly fear of these snakes. But there was one man who even seemed to like them, a man they called snake Doctor. His cabin was near the creek bottom where the cotton moles were the commonist, and he earned his megal living by rendering down their soft fetch bottle of the oil and selling it. Snake Doctor seemed harmless enough. There was one man who believed he was a colleague of the devil, who hated him because he wasn't afraid of the snakes.

2:10:11 This man was Jaf Mourner, the snake Doctor's nearest neighbor. Jaff was that dangerous kind of man who suspected, feared, and hated anything he didn't understand, And he understood neither cotton MOUs nor the snake doctor. Jaf was ornerary, ignorant, shiftless. He'd rather shoot squirrels in chop cotton. He'd rather fish and whole corn. And that's what he's doing now, fishing down at the big hole with his son and heir Finney, who's old enough but not quite bright enough to handle the gun, missed him. Dogg any, you blame fool. I told you not to touch my gun. Tromp on him five for he gets in the creed. Huh the cotton MoU tromp on front of you.

2:10:55 Varmit. Honestly you got him. He could put on him with. You. Don't eat to son. He's dead. Now come here, Paul. How'd he hit anything with that rifle? I had a beat drawer right on him, and I dan folk that for Paul. Turn about, filthy snake. Whilst I'm a fishing. Becky was sunning himself not more two feet from you. He was just two feet. Never mind, I kind of talk. There'll be no fish around little Federation after all that racket. Well, come on, let's go home and get.

2:11:35 Us some victuals. Jaf Morner tossed his bait can into the creek and threw a stick after him. He stood there, watching the stick drift slowly toward the big hole, where the creek widened behind a jam at drift boarding. Jaff watched as the eddie caught the stick and sucked it beneath the dawn. Jaff was curious. He moved downstream eroda to and waited, watching the water boil up from under the drift wood. But the stick didn't come up. That was strange. It must have caught under there and a tangle of water soaked and sunken logs. Probably it did stayed there for months. Perhaps stay there always.

2:12:17 Let's get some bills, Paul. They thought about this, and an idea began to form in his slow mind as he and Finnish started for home. How much are your reckons in this? And Paul, Daddy, what you john about this old cotton man? How much all your wrecks? Ow it down? Throw it down? Why far? I'm throw it down, like I say. Oh, I was aiming on rendering the old cotton mouth's fat like the snake doctor does. I was in the selling make myself some money. I don't like a squirm of things around me. But it's dead. Leave it word dropped? You scared on cotton mouths, Paul, I know better get myself bit by him?

2:13:01 Hip Bailey. Know the fella got hisself bit one. We're in a draft of liquor from mines. He goes to work, and he cuts open a life chicken, and he put on his leg where the butte was. Bella lived too. Reckon Mister Rives ever gets herself bit, I mean handling cotton maths. Like he does. Who mister Rives. Who mister Rives. That's old snake Doctor's real name. Ma says, I out and call him snake doctor. Never mind what your mos says. Nobody in my family's calling those snake loving scum. Mister Rives. Heck, that's what I say, all right, So made myself some money renting the cotton mouth fat down in the oil.

2:13:44 How at your wreckon old snake Doctor makes out and all he sells. I don't know, Hip Bailey says, Old snake doctors got more than thousand dollars hit away. Somewhere is in his cabin more than that, most likely cussing old miser. Don't spend nothing, ain't got nothing. They've that rack of bones mass. Tip Bailey says, whenever Old snake Doctor sets foot out in his place, he's got the granddaddy of all cotton mouths. And he leaves out in the cabin to stand God over his money. Tip Bailey says he'd seet old snake doctor put him in his pocket. Live ones too. Snake doctor ain't fitting to be live hisself. Ma says he ain't so bad, says he don't mean nobody harm. Yr Mar better be careful who she's associating with.

2:14:25 She says he just don't have good sands had the fever too much. Baddy, you ever been in snake Doctor's place. I don't have nothing more and I have to to do with that snake loving hohodoo. Dip Bailey says he better. It wouldn't be no task at all for some no good to poke around the snake doctors shack and maybe find all the money and make off with it. Blame the son's during there, rendering me doing look my head full of sweat, Look daddy, see full of sweat? During near God full of sweat? Come on, why turning down that way? Paul coming on noon dinner? Be most ready.

2:15:11 I'm gonna tell the snake loving hoodoo that there's some of them cotton males on the quick side of it, doesn't it. Yeah, he knows that I'm gonna tell him. He's got my leave to catch him. You don't need to come. Along if you're going over there his place, I'd kind of like to see it for my own. Saying, go on there, Paul, he ain't a home else. Why is he to show himself by? Now? I reckon?

2:15:51 Can you see any sneaks? I told you to keep an eye out for I bet it's in one of them chinks, Paul, Paul, bet the money's in one of the. Honey must be a dang snake itself living in a place like it. I know you ain't looking for any money, Paul, But ifing you was, wouldn't you look at at the chink right up there? Where right there? Second log brother fireplace on the right. You see that the hole? Yeah, I reckon, I would look up there. Since we're here, I might as well see for myself, Paul, I wouldn't be my surprise if old snake doctor had him.

2:16:32 Huh, pau Bo, Was you looking for something, Jake mana snake doctor? Yeah? Huh, I was looking for you. I won't here, Yeah, yeah, uh, look here your hudo? What's side here? Sneaking up on? Folks? Who's tooking trouble to come all the way down here to do you a favor? Huh? Eh, Come on Finny, we're getting out of here, yes, like as not.

2:17:16 They had a dang old marcus in scratching around in his pocket whilse he was talking. To you, daddy. Do you mind how his eyes was when he come in? Do you mind how I kept looking up at the wall where I said, I bet he had the money between the chinks. Nny, what don't you say nothing to you more about us being at the snake doctors? Please you understand why I should just don't? And don't you go night again? Cuss old vomits. You thought we was proud as way active? Yeah, prowleus Ma said about already your Paul with your time. Yeah, I got time up for dinner.

2:17:58 And go down the spring. And if you tell you stumps you can. Catch innoc and Jeff, how you think I can catch fish with fetty fine off my gun and cut miles all the time. Hint his heat on. The buddy can bear in a corner of the creek. Uh had poured on Miss Rives, come buy here, spell of gold? My knight shook the pieces. With a chill. Uh Uh he come by? Did he? What did he come in just for men? Just for a minute? What do he want he.

2:18:39 Wanted to, could have given some furze ailment, jezbu. I could drag one sorr fort for the other many could make it up here from his place. I'll give him my dost out now butler's egga drops water, give him a little smidge and liquor on him. You would, please don't, Jeff, don't walk me, don't Jeff, don't want me just poured on mister? Mister, mister, how many times I gotta tell you that Hudo's name is snake doctor. You don't mean nobody know. He made his skin of last? What's hide?

2:19:19 And tell her you call her him mister Rives. Mmhmm, you'll be calling him honey and sugar next with that. Lot you call please Jeff, please bad names? Eh? Why I aimed? What's his name? Now? Well, what's your poor mister Rives name? Now? Snee God.

2:20:06 Kiss him. Morna rubbed the ugly red weld on her scrony arm and gave the frying pan full of sizzling side meat a hopeless nudge. She prayed that time and food might take the edge off Jae's temper. Phinneys slouched in from the spring, saw the mark on her arm. Hab been wamping you again, mau. What'd you do this time? She silently dished up the hog back and corn bread for her two men. While they sat at the table, She ate on her feet, serving them between bites, as was the custom in the morning household. After dinner, Finny stretched out under the chinabered tree. Kissy sat on the porch, fanning herself and dipping snuff with a peach twig, scourring it back and forth on her gums. Jave took his ease on the floor of the back room, but he didn't sleep. This was stirring in him and his hatred of the man. He couldn't understand, the man who'd got rich off a cotton mosk. His mind was working on something he'd seen that day and another thing he'd heard.

2:21:13 He was adding them together. That stick could have disappeared under the log jam and the snake doctor's money. It was four o'clock before any of moved, and then Jave spoke to his wife for the first time since noon. It where is that the violet drinking liquor by the window? He took it out in your pocket before you lead down. I ought to carry a bottle of liquor with me, I might get bit by a moccasin. Suis Paul Wood better, none of them may kitch you find a day. I just remembered, I won't be needing to told no special along with me while I'm going. I wouldn't take no chance. Dave just one cotton married by gott mouse.

2:21:54 Doll down the slashers. Else along a creek where I'll be all this evening's up along Bailey's Ridge and a high ground. You're xing the ghost sugar and the gummy chancey young square switch non Dutch time red and bucking al Rami this morning, reckon, I come along. You staying here, son, Oh dang it, you'll be steaming in the place when the rain comes down, or you. Might be neathing me. You stay here, dang killy, You set me up a snacker col sep on the chef right laire. We'll get back to this plumb duck.

2:22:41 In just a moment. We'll return to the second act of escape. But first, that wonderful variety show with a Purpose CBS is one hour long program. This is Broadway will be round again tomorrow night on most of these same stations, comedian a Boroughs Broadway play right, George S. Kaufman, Master of Ceremonies Clifton Fatiman, will all be here playing host to the top stars of show business. Here are these top stars and their top acts. Then listen closely as the expert showman on this has Broadway helped them with show business problems. And now we returned to the second act of Escape and tonight's story. Snake doctor.

2:23:22 Jaf Mourner turned north to his struggling corn rolls, and in a minute he was lost from sight. He kept on for nearly a mile till he came to a wild red mulberry tree. Where there are mulberry's, there are bound toby squirrels. Very neatly, he shot two young graves right through the head. Jaffe was a master marksman and unsuspected by any who knew him. Jave had another quality, one that made him more dangerous than the rest of his kindness. Jave had an imagination day. It was an excellent working order. He tied the brain squirrels together and swung them over his shoulder. If needed, they'd be his alibi.

2:24:07 And then he sat down under a tree for a while got plenty of time. Don't need to get down the snake doctor's place will about dust and when he comes out to feed that sway back mare, hisn't. Misty ride. He sat out two brisk thundershowers and the influence between them. Then he set off in a wide arc down Bailey's Branch, along the skirts a little cypress slash down to the sunken flats. Edge in Cashier Creek. It took more than an hour a careful traveling before he came to his destination, a screen of how bushes less than fifty yards behind the snake Doctor's cabin.

2:24:55 No matter how healen he is, you get up and come out to feed that rackaboons man mysteries, we'll I learned him to go call. He get around another man's. Woman jaff morning lady's jealousy heat him the white hatred. At this moment he was a vengeaneer's honor. Didn't admit even to himself, but the real reason he was here was a snake doctor's money. Hitt him behind the line by the fireplace. Home wrecking snake loving varment round ten minutes from now, I'll chunk him down a big hole in a creek. Like I did that stick this morning, and he'd go down and never come up, and nobody will miss him. Nobody, you know. He's gone for leastwise a week, maybe a month, and maybe if I can get around to it, might come back this way someday. Look around that cabin at hisn' just to see if it's true he's having all that money hid away.

2:25:53 Jaff Morning's speculations were cut short. The cabin door opened and a figure stepped out into the growing dusk and walked toward the stable. He saw the snake Doctor's loppy, old straw hat and his dog coat drawn over a pit. At this distance he couldn't miss, and he didn't. The figure jerked backward and then one face forward. Jae started for him. Then he stopped. His eyes bugged, his mouth formed a scream that he couldn't utter. His rifle dropped to the ground. He had just killed a snake doctor, killed him. Dead with a thirty two caliber slug through the head. And there on his door still stood snake doctor hole and sound staring at him. Jee MANA, what have you done?

2:26:36 The scream came at last for Jaf Morner had seen the devil. The snake doctor who arose alive from his bullet riddled body. Jeaff whirled and ran into the deep dock in the woods, whimpering like a whip puppy as he tore through the brush. Escape. He must escape this thing. He must get under the shutter of a sound roof. He must have the protection of four walls around him. He ran and ran for hours. It was close to midnight when he came out on a dirt road a short distance southeast of his own land. Beyond the next bend, they'd be in sight of home.

2:27:17 And then he stopped. Around the bend. Coming toward him was a joggling lighter landing hanging on a buggy. Jake flatted himself in a clump of brush to hide until the traveler passed, and then, just as the rig was opposite him, he heard a call coming from the other direction. Oh joy, oh there, oh Stity boy me, Davis, ware that you tip Bailey? Yeah, get that from the junction. Carrible tide? What brings you out this time of night? Davis? Somebody's sick, sick. Nothing. It's been a postl of trouble of popping in these bottoms tonight, Stity or. What do you mean a killing? That's what I mean.

2:27:58 You don't see who got killed? My fixing to tell you it happened just around dusk time at down an old snake doctor's place. Yeah was it? He was killed? Give me a time tip. It seems like snake doctor has been a chilling lately. It was pretty bad off today, so miss Kissing Morna she footed it down from her place to his, and fetching some physic with her and a plate of hot bittles. Am I have thought it? Miss morning Mighty, you want to hear this? He go out, Oh boy, Well, pretty soon after she got there, it seemed like he was tired, and he tried to get up out of his bed to go and feed that old crowbait nagotism. It started in again by then, pouring down hide. So she made him stay where he was, and she put on his old hat and throwed his old coat around her, and she wanted to keep out of the wet and no more. And she got outside and a shot came from the age of the woods, and down she went with a bullet, though brains killed it.

2:29:01 This is a dog. It was. That low flung husband or hers done it. That's who they shot him. Sure thing, Oh boy, sure thing, that's certain. Snake Doctor jumped up when he heard the shot, and he catched a quick look at Chafe. Over the fence. There wasn't no long streak and kiss his arm where he must have whopped her during the day. Why hanging just shot you? Good? Did they kitch him? No? But they're going to shef get they gig. But he's due any minute with his pack of hound dogs. A lot of lay good ground being damp the way it is, share, old snake doctor. He's just saying, the lord's going to strike the murder down in his track. But Nia, I'm gonna put my main dependence on their bloodhound.

2:29:48 Poor miss Mona. She always was a good hearted, heart working woman. Kissing might. Stuck shut kissy, j Did you hear something just there? See I did? Oh, probably a rabbit breaking through the breash And listen. And sheriffs are coming. You can hear them. Hounds are Hisn't I gotta hurry? Yeah, I'll see you back in the marner. You're sure real. Jeff didn't waste no time more than his dead wife. He had a chance against a pack of bloodhounds if he started right away, But Jake's imagination went to work again, as if backtracked along the creek, but him in the spotty MOONLIGHTE.

2:30:38 Gotta throw those dogs off the trail. He got a way to creak, even if it is full of cotton. Mountains must be all around me. Now, folks say, don't strike no water hoping folks is right. I've gotta get back to the snake ductors his money while he's still up at my place. Who kisses remains, get his money and the rest will be easy. Make for the deep timber cross country to the river. Make it for tomorrow sundown. I mean a shanty boarder to ferry me to the arkansaus side, will get me your haircut and catch me a train for someone's else. I got to get snake Doctor's money first.

2:31:26 Snake Doctor's cabin was dark and empty when Jay reached it, only a few dull embers in the fireplace. But he knew where the chinkhoss. He'd find it. In the dark, he scrabbled the logs, felt some bark, He felt the clay more to crumble under his fingernails. There it was a hole big enough for a man's arm. He plunged his hand into it, touched something slick and smooth, and then something sharp plunged into his thumb. At that moment, the fire flickered to life. Jay yanked his hand out of the hole, saw two tiny bleating punctures in his thumb. At the mouth of the hole stretched the wide open jaws of a cotton mouse. It worked fast. He felt the pain leaping from his thumb to his hand, seeping up his arm. If only he had some liquor, if he had a fresh kilt chicken to slap on the wound, but he had nothing. Then a sharp, horrible pain wrenched his heart, and in a second, and there, in the firelight, the huge cotton mouth poised in its crevice.

2:32:17 Jay fleaped out of the shack, started blindly for the temper. His stagger tumbled. Then he pitched forward on his face, his open mouth full of weeds and muddy grass stems. The cramping fingers of his outstretched right hand almost touched a reddish black smear on the wet, trampled grass. Written by Gravy. I'd call it that one't you, doc? I reckon. There's a sort of rough justice in the way he died. Look his hand reaching out just about touching the blood where his woman fell. Read In all my life, I I've never known but two or three people actually was bitten by water moccasins, And until the night, I've never had personal knowledge of anybody dying from the bite of any kind of snake.

2:33:10 Is a fact. I'm working it right for off. I'm gonna kill the dang repertilent, kill my mourner's boy kicking up the first yeap, no good like his paw, Call me, boss man, what's the trouble? Tip Finny Hears went out and he's Hey, I'm to kill a snake that bitten my paw. Then I'm nigging that snake doctor humping for keeping a repertile. In this place. Your paw, God, what was his do? Finney? Snake doctor ain't to blink. He's a who double Look here, Barr, mister Rives, give me all his savings, nearly one hundred dollars to pay for billing your mother decent. That's how much he thought about. Now go on home, behave yourself.

2:33:51 I'm in ther on, Finny. There ain't no reason for your hanging around here. Some of the hoard to killer reptile. Doc, just a minute ago, you started to say something about snake bite, not killing, about them two marks on his thumb, then snake's gashes like some I've seen. Oh, that dude explains, it's finny morning. He's in the cabin, a fool kid. Come on, doc, he's probably shot. There were too far. Let's go get me like you got my what said. He shot at something in the cabin. Come on, doc, let's go see. All right, I don't see anything.

2:34:36 And he's had enough happened to him yesterday and today to upset even a bright boy, so we can't. Oh there it is what that cotton mouth up there in that hole in the log. Sneak doctor told me about that vombit look at him close, Sir David, No, sir, not me, Go ahead, it's. Just a stuffed sneak stuff. Snake Doctor believes in precautions because that holes where he hides his money. That snake would scare away anybody who didn't know it was stirred. But just to be sure, old snake Doctor lined the hole with coils of barbed wire. I see you mean them marks and Jeff's thumb.

2:35:16 Was got off to barbed wire. That's right, sir, lots strong our hearts and Jeff mourners would stop beating at a scare like that. I'll be switched. Old. Snake Doctor is a cute one any. Escape. Produced and directed by Norman McDonald. Tonight brought You Snake Doctor by Irvin s. Carb adapted for radio by Fred Howard, starring Bill Conrad as jaf with Paul Freeze's Finney featured in the cast, where Ira Grossell is a narrator, Bill Lally, Ruth Parrot, Wilms Herbert, and Edgar Barrier. Music is conducted by Wilbur Hatch.

2:36:09 Next week, you are groping through the midnight dimness of a gigantic department store, and suddenly you realize that a hundred eyes are staring at you from the shadows, and a hundred hands are reaching for your throat, and your most urgent desire is to escape. This time of year often makes me consider some unfinished business, if you will. I try not to lurk in the realm of the past, but it's often easier said than done, my dear, But I certainly do try and try and try, But sometimes it's hard to let go. It's hard to let by guys be by guys, especially when the trespass is not up to debate or interpretation. No, no, when you've been wronged clearly and deliberately, and it's all written in blood red ink.

2:37:48 In they are they agreed, driving on the collar. And interestine philosophers and psychologists have told us that the one desire that remains with us after everything else is burned to ashes, it is the need for recognition. It is the compulsion to make the world recognize our work. Socrates, Galileo, Einstein have left their increase on the pages of our history, and. The world is better for their having been here. On the natuive side of the ledger and blood red ink, we find the same driving ambition in the names of our Tilever, hun Jack, the Ripper, Adolf Hipper. This is a tale of ambition. It is for you to judge on what side of the ledger it is to be recorded. Huh, of course, is wye a drink your mind? Hey, look, mister, I came in here of ance quiet.

2:38:54 Harry Blash is my name? Blas, That's right, you know me? Yeah? He take your free drink and. Squat, mister, get your grubby pays off me cover. I only thought you could use a little running. He beat it pump. You'll becoming the Maiberg begging for my help. Maybe then I won't want to listen, mister Dramma. The Black Red Ink was written especially for mystery theater by Sydney Lane and stars Fred Green. It is sponsored in fact by Katspa here.

2:39:37 And so I'll be back shortly with act one. Mick Gilbert wasn't. In a very good mood that evening when he came home to supper. It had been a long and tiring day full of dull police routine. The meeting with Harry Glaus upset him. Glass was a small time rocketeer mixed up in a dozen of more dirty beer, but thought later that perhaps he should have played along with him, found out what how his angle was. But he was too worried to play corp. There was something else in the back of his mind that bothered him. He had recently taken the examination for detective. As yet he had received no.

2:40:22 Word on it. I'll have the food on the table in a minute for don't get. Himpatient, okay, okay, No hurry. To what another beer? Were you waiting? Uh? No, thanks, might drop me off at the pub when we finished our tour. A wondered why you were late. I was only twenty minutes later coming on the door. I mean, and I got a right to relax after a day driving around in a squad car. A super I'm sorry. I didn't mean to criticize you. Here's the beef stew your favorite, eh, beef stew. Eh. Thanks, Helen, That's just what I needed. Get past me your plate. I'm I'm sorry I yelled at you.

2:41:08 Forget it. You feel better out to dinner? Yeah, I've got to be a better couldn't be a worse thinking about that exam. Why have I heard? Oh? Oh, I just remember you have a letter from the board. Came this morning. What where is it? Is it right where you are? I'll get it? Uh? Yeah, here it is. There you are, Brady. So what does it say? Yeah? You read it? Ah, urch what don't be discouraged?

2:41:51 Discouraged? I gotta jump up and down with joy. Huh open the windows and tell the whole neighborhood. Right next year, you can take it again. I'm thirty five. I've been in the four seven years. I haven't moved one inch of the latter since I graduated from the Academy. Thirty five isn't Oh yeah, it's when you're not moving ahead. Come on, eat your dinner. It's getting cold. You'll be in a better mood after you've eaten. Yeah, I'll get it. Sure wants me to play bridge with the girl Wednesday our club day. Hello, myrna, Helen. Oh, I'm sorry, Mike. I thought you're there. Yeah, he's here.

2:42:31 Bert, it's Mike. Okay, Okay, I'm coming, Yeah, I might. What's up for me? I'm up. I've got it. You're talking to Mike Cullagan, Detective third Class. Hey, Mike, congratulations you deserve it. And congratulations to you, old buddy. Bert Gilbert and Mike Cullagan together Defenders of the bab Spoilers of Crooks. Mike, I didn't get it, what I washed out. What you couldn't have You coached me. You were the one who knew all the answers. You think you should have been on top of the list. There should have been here. I'm still flat for Mike.

2:43:12 Come on, you can't let it get you down. Look, why don't you and Helen come out with Gretchen and me. And we'll celebrate. Thanks, Mike, but I don't think tonight i'd be good company. Hello. Yeah, there's patrol in thirty four twenty ninety seven book, Gail. But I'm calling Captain Sullivan. Yeah right, I'll hold what No, it's a personal matter. No, no, no, I'd like to tell it to Captain Sullivan Himselfie, okay, okay, I'll put it in writing to him. Thanks, he talked to you, No, Mike.

2:44:03 His secretary says for me to put it in writing to him. Yeah, well but sure, sure, he's a busy man. Yeah right, busy man, Mike, all right, put it in writing here. Well why not? I'll tell you why not? Because I wanted to see him face to face and ask him why I got passed over Seven years, Mike, seven years out of my life and I can't get in to see the boss and ask a simple question. Come on, you're making too much out of this, Bert, you're a fine one to talk. In seven eight days, you'll be out of this dull rat race. No more writing around the squad car for you, no more dull routine. You'll be wearing playing clothes, getting detectives. Look, come on, get back in the car. You're making your scene out here on the street.

2:44:45 So what do I care? You get back in the car and leave me alone. I can't leave you, hear me. We haven't completed a tour of duty. To a duty. I hate that coppling of. This. Nobody you complete our tour of duty? Huh? I need a drink? Fairy? You a sleep? No? Can I get you something in a glass of warm milk? No? No, no, Helen? Thanks, you keep tossing and turning. You've got to get your rest. What for?

2:45:26 You won't be sick for work tomorrow if you don't get some sleep. Helen, I've been suspended? What suspended? You know what the word means? How long? Five days? What for? I quit work a little early last Tuesday? So what? I just felt like I couldn't work a minute more so early thirty five minutes. I don't understand. Yeah I do. I'm tired and I'm fed up. But you could have applied for a leave if you weren't feeling well. I'm sure they'd have given you time to get yourself together. Yeah, well I got the time. Five days suspended without pay? Oh, Helen, don't get upset. It got me what I wanted, what I wanted to see Captain Sullivan. Ask him why I got passed over when the commissions were being handed out.

2:46:22 He finally saw me and I had a chance to tell him what I thought of the whole business. You didn't see anything in selting, No, no, no no. I didn't insult them, but I got a little hat up. Well. He listened to everything, and he sat down his desk and said he thought I needed a vacation without pay. Oh, birch, it's going to be on your record. So what up to now? Towing the line hasn't got me much, Helen, What if I got to lose? Huh? What's the idea I didn't know? Another buying you a drink? Copper, Listen, I told you the last time what you could do with your drink.

2:47:05 Mister Blash is the name Copper Harry to my friends? Why do I always find you calling up my battle Copper. I'm not gonna stop calling me Copper, But you are a cop a you're ashamed of you get lost. I know a lot about you. I had my eyes on you for a long time. I'm beginning to lose my patience. Now wait a minute. I can help you. And you watch something from me in return. Huh, listen, come to the wrong guy. I have just spent suspended. I know. How do you know that? I got friends in the right places. I'm getting you back to work and the suspension wiped.

2:47:48 Off your record? Big time operator. Uh yeah, I just. Like to do your favor. What one hand washes the other? Who writes your material? Many writes my wife together. Look, I'm serious. You want to shake on it? Look, Harry, if I shake hands with you, I count my fingers afterwards. You gotta sentire you where I like dad, or we're going to get along. I'm gonna make you glad. I'm your friend. I got great plans for you.

2:48:30 Cut up, yeah where I'll be there in ten minutes. Who is that Bert? Uh? Friend wants me to come up with a bowling alley for an hour or so. You don't mind? You you never bowl? I just took it up. Uh say a pool there to it? If we get tired of bowling, we can show a little pool. He didn't like you. Do you realize this is the third time this week you've had some reason to go out after dinner. Third time. Huh, I really wasn't counting, Helen. How many weeks have I just sat here reading the paper or looking at the boottoo? How many times?

2:49:13 All right? All right, I don't mean to argue, so go out. It don't be too late. Got to be out of here tomorrow morning at seven. Remember, Look, it just occurred to me that you might have something on your mind. You don't think I'm running around with another woman, dear bird. That never entered my mind. Yeah, well good, I'm not chasing around Helen. You're still my girl after eight years. Don't you forget it? I know, Darling, I know that. Now. Who can that be? High stranger? Hey, Mike, where in the well have you been?

2:49:55 I haven't heard from you or seen it over two weeks. That's why I came over. You know, there's you, big shot. The Tectives don't cross our paths too often. You're too busy with important assignments. Come on, hold by, are you putting me on? Aren't you gonna ask me in? Mike? Come in, please come in. Bert's only kidding, but I'm not kidding. Look. The reason I came over was to ask you guys to go to the movies with us. Gretchen's waiting in the car and we might. I've got another another engagement, but maybe Helen would like to go. But I've got a run right now. I'm teminously. Can't you break that other engagement? I wanted to see you, talk to you. Can't gotta go? Bye, see leader, Helen.

2:50:38 Mike. Oh, well, that's what I call kind of abrupt. I'm sorry, Mike. I'm sure Bert didn't mean to be rude. I was a good invitation. Well, hu, what about it? Do you want to go to the movies with us? Uh? No, thank you, Mike. Good. Please forgive Bert. He's upset because he didn't make Detective with you. Yeah, yeah, I know, and I'm worried. Well, he'll get over It isn't what I'm worried about, Helen. I'm going to tell you something I shouldn't. Bert is my best friend, and well, look, Helen, he's in trouble, or he will be if he continues as he's going.

2:51:24 I don't understand he's hanging around being palsy Wolsey with a slimy character by the name of Blast. Mike. I'm sure you're wrong. Hey, I wish I was This Harry Blast guy's mixed up with a thousand crooked deals, and he manages to slip out and around the law every single time the police catch up with him. And you think Bert is involved with this man, I know. He is. As a friend. I'm asking you to get him to stop seeing blasts immediately. Oh good lord, Please remember I know ever said a word to you. He mustn't know that I talked to you.

2:52:06 Okay, Mike, your friend, a real friend. Bert Gilbert has taken a dangerous stake. His association with Harry Blast can only lead to dishonor in prison. He seems to believe that he can beat the law by jumping in, getting what he wants and then quickly getting out. In his frustration and disappointment, he is forgetting the irreparable damage he will be doing to himself and his wife, who will be back shortly with that too. When Helen Gilbert heard that her husband was associating with Underworld characters, she couldn't believe it. Bert had been an honest, hardworking police officer until he met with a big disappointment. He had junk his e domination for detective despite the fact that he had worked hard and knew all the answers well enough to coach his friends and fellow officer Mike Tulligan, who passed.

2:53:12 He's out, cheated, angry and reckless. I tell you it's a piece of cake. I got it all laid out, only one hit you gentle minute, Hold, I'm blessed. Aren't you making a big mistake spelling all this to me? I'm a cop? So what you wouldn't like to grab off your pension money with one little job? Pension money? Look, you gotta wait thirteen more years before you begin. To collect, right, How do you know how long? I know? So you wait thirteen years and you get your dough. They dribble it out through you and crumbs a little piece of bread each month. Eh, and you're away big pieces of bread now three or four times, and you're rich.

2:53:53 In six months or last. You'll retire from the force. You can forget the pension. Yeah, you got more. Money than yet ever thought you would have in your dreams, and you got it nice and safe when. No one can touch it in a private Swiss bank of town. You make it sound easy, it is, and it pays big. That you said there was a hitch, A little one, little, a little someone has got to walk out with the stuff in his pocket. Stuff diamonds burnt a bag form, uncut, big expensive diamonds, impossible to trace. Look, uh, you know forty seven Street between fifty six.

2:54:36 Right, she's the biggest diamond center in the world. Maybe Amps Damps the biggest. But here's the layout. You will be in the neighborhood in your squad car. How come I explain my being there. Well, it's in the general area. You're patrol, right, it's in the area. Well, you will get a call on your car radio sending you to the scene of the crime. Call, a phony call. It'll be on our own own short wave transmitter, right in the neighborhood. No one will be hearing it but you. It'll sound official. We got it all set up and we've tested it. It can't be heard in the next block. Yeah, it'll be hard to explain. Later. That's where your partner comes in.

2:55:16 You're not gold include him in the deal, of. Course not, but he becomes your alibi. You get it. You'll swear the call came from the official police dispatcher. He will think it's the real thing. So how do I get the loot? You go in, you catch the thief, arrest him. He slips the diamonds into your pocket. You get him outside and push him into the police car and call in and tell him you made an arrest. What about the thief? He's clean as the snow. They got nothing on. Him, can't be identified, fake wig eyeglasses, He won't have the loot on him, no evidence. The wigging glasses get dumped into the garbage before you hit the street with him in cuffs. He's got the record. He spends the night in the slammer. Next day his lawyer springs him and you turn the.

2:56:03 Diamonds over to me. Oh, there'll be a hot dog stand in front of the precinct station. You slip it to him as you pass. We'll take care of your cut as soon as we dispose of the diamonds. How do I know that I won't be the fall guy? Do all the dirty work and then get the blunt end of the stick. For You've gotta trust me. We're a big organization. We do business in a legitimate way. We got help in the right place in case of trouble. Okay, but listen, blast, yeah, don't try to pull a fast one on me. Hello, Helen, I won't be able to make it home for supper. I'm I'm gonna be a little late. Don't ask me any questions. I'm with a friend. We're talking business.

2:57:07 But do you want me to hold supper till you come? No? No, I said no. Don't you understand me? Yes? Bert? So when will you get home? When you see me come in the front door, Helen. Are you still on the line, Yes, you crying. I'm all right, Helen. I'm sorry. I short with you. I'm a little tired. It's okay, I understand. Yeah, okay, I'll see you later. Bert. Yeah, Mike was here about twenty minutes ago. He called twice before to talk to you. He said for you to call him and meet him someplace.

2:57:49 He said it was urgent, good old Mike. Huh So what's he doing playing Sherlock Holmes. He's your friend, you said it yourself, your best friend. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, I'll call him, Helen by see you later. Hey, bird, I thought you were just going to call your wife. That's what I did. Took you an awfully long time. You checking up on me, Because if you are the whole deal's off. How do you trust me? You might? You got a short fuse, Take it easy. We'll stop reading down my back. Uh. I said we had a deal, and I meant.

2:58:29 It just naturally. Careful bird, sit down. You know you do look a little wearied. Maybe my old partner Mike Callaghan. Yeah, he's caught on that. You and I seen a lot of each other. Yeah. So now he's a new detective, So you want to look like one. You talked to him? Why not? Oh? Nothing about our business? You sure, because if you did, he wouldn't like it. He who is? He never murdered? Look bless If you want me in on this thing, don't hold out of me. Eh, I got to know who's involved. I thought I was working with you.

2:59:17 Now you let me know. You got a boss. I can't tell you that Bert. He'll let you know who he is when he feels the time is right. As for your buddy, Mike, I'm leaving it up to you to keep him out. He's my friend. You wouldn't spill it if he didn't know. You're sure of him. Absolutely? Have you settled on the date. There's a big shipman coming in from South Africa on the twentieth. We'll give him two days to check it out. The twenty second, Yeah, definitely. So how's your man going to get into the place. It is pretty tough in that business. We've been in. Touch from San Francisco. Phony set up from out there with a fancy letterhead. I will be arriving in New York on the night of the twenty first.

3:00:03 The next morning, he will arrive at dead door with all his forged credentials and go ride in. And so when do I come? When you answer the call from the police's. Dispatching, the one that you got set up? The fake right? Like I told you the other day, I just want to be sure. Keep checking. Then, Hey, keep an eye on your old buddy, Mike. Another cup of coffee, birth No, No, I've had all the coffee I want. I got a run. What time is it? My watch slow?

3:00:44 About four minutes to seven. That gives me four minutes to get down the stairs. Another car. My new partner, Pete will be picking me up. Good Bye, Darling, I have a good day and try to come home early. Okay, darling. If you say something hello, Bert, imagine meeting you on the stairs. Mike what's up, detective. I don't know what you're up to, Bert, but I can make a good guesser. Mike, you're my friend, my good friend, and I am now going to ask you to butt out of something that is no business of yours. Look, I think it is my business. Number one, I'm a cop, a detective.

3:01:28 Look are you sor at me? Because I got it you didn't, not at all. I'm your friend. Once you said your best friend, Mike, I know you're mixed up in some rotten business with Blast, and I swear to you, friend or not, I'll get you. You're even getting to talk like a detective. Hey, you're terrific, good hunting Sherlock. All right, what I told you never to come here? You left the telephone message with my wife. I didn't want to meet you here at the bowling Alley, I told her, Yeah, I.

3:02:10 Know, but I wanted to see your place, see how the better class lives. Hey, I'm joint you got here. Blast a little flashy, but quite elegant, all in great tastes. Okay, Okay, you've seen and I'll get out. I'll meet you in five minutes. I'll let you out through the cellar. Door in the back. What's all this cloak and dagger stuff? Hey you jumpy here? Yeah, I'm jumpy, and you want to know why your buddy Mike Culligan has got a tap on. My phone and yours a tap. You must be kidding. It's hard to get permission for a tap. How do you how do you know? Never mind? I know? Oh that's right, you have connections.

3:02:52 Still, it's hard to believe it's real. I got it from a source I can trust who don't ask questions, and you'll live a lot longer. Funk. Are you threatening me? No, but I ain't threatening you. You're important. The scam won't work without you. But don't ask me to tell you things that I can't give out. I told you that before. When it's the right time, you'll meet the key man. Okay, that all you got to say that you think our phones have been tapped? No, think it's for sure. Now there is one other little thing, recover what Detective Colorgance. Okay, I'll handle it.

3:03:34 Be sure you want to take care of it. Wait a minute, what does that mean? Well, he's getting too close, But to blow the whole thing. I told you I'll take care of him. How talk to him, cut him into a small piece. It won't work. He's straight, he won't pray, he's my friend, he won't do anything. Yeah, he's got a bug on your phone. I tell you it doesn't know other way. But listen, blash Bert, we don't take chances. I'll get to him, talk to him. Nor there's only one way to stop him. Okay, that's it. I'm through. You're asking me to be party to a murder, the murder of a man I have known. So let me tell that wasn't what I agreed to.

3:04:20 And I don't want it. Find somebody else, all right, all right, And look, personally, I ain't so hot about that kind of business either. It could be trouble. The boss wanted it, I didn't. You don't like we should take chances. Look, I respect your feelings, Bert, it's it's something that's we're kind of hard to. Live with after you know what I mean. You talk about murder as though you were planning a little fix on a horse race. I tell you it's out or I. Am okay, okay, it's out. Bert? You sure my word? I give you my word, your word. I've been on the up and up with you. You know it, Harry, I'm gonna take your word and I'm going to hold you to it. You and your boss both, you know what I mean?

3:05:09 Sure, Sure, no problem. All I got to do is tell the boss. Tell him how you feel. You'll go along, Hey, Bert, he needs you. Despite the fact that everything was working out as he had wanted it to, but it was nervous. He had never in his life got involved in anything so upsetting. Even though he'd been on the police force for seven years and had faced dangers so regularly that it was almost commonplace. This was different. He was mixed up in a dirty business. Something that all his moral values found repugnant. Nevertheless, he seemed determined to see it through. I'll be back shortly with Act three. It is the night before the day set for the rubbery. Bert met Harry Blast on the street corner, and he held a cap. Since Harry knew that his phone and Bert's were tapped, he varied his meeting place with Bert to make it impossible to set up any kind of trap.

3:06:21 They ride in silence for some minutes, and then Harry. Begins to give Bert his final instructions. Now burned at eighteen minutes before eleven tomorrow morning, you will be turning off Fifth into forty seventh Street. I understand you will get the call on your radio at exactly sixteen minutes before eleven, the one were setting. Up the funny one. Yeah, it will come in maybe five minutes before the official car will come in. Five minutes that it's not much time with traffic before we answer it. Get up the elevator. It might might take ten minutes or more. It's gotta be five minutes, no more or the rest of them. The police will be right in. There with us.

3:07:02 Okay, I'll try to move. I want to warn you you'll have a different partner in your car tomorrow. Wait a minute, what about Pete. He's been Mike's replacement. He's off on another assignment. Uh, I see you manage that. What for? I thought it might be better if you got a temporary new partner just out of the academy. Just got a badge and her revolver. We could go Friday her. Well, you don't mind, do you? Oh A good look of Dame twenty seven twenty eight? Uh huh? And we got her through your friend. Yeah, I told you I have connections in the right places, and she. Knows what's going on. She ain't in on nothing. Oh yeah, yeah, something else.

3:07:44 Your friend Mike Culligan won't be around when all this happens. What do you mean, Relax? We got a good break. Culligan is in Arizona. Left this afternoon extradition business. He was sent to pick up a can out of Arizona State prisoner. Won't be back till monday. That's good. Yeah. Thanks, Hey, don't thank me. Just coincidence. Yeah, yeah, I bet. Okay, Yeah, give the Cabby your address and the word. No, no, no, no better drop me at the pub. I'll have a beer and I'll have an excuse for coming home late. Oh, Helen, I am sorry for being so late.

3:08:26 There, I'm all right. Bert, I'm getting used to. It, Helen, don't take that kind of tone. I waited dinner for you. Then Mike arrived. Mike, he came here, but he couldn't have He left for Arizona. As a change of plans, Bert and Mike. I called the warden in Arizona and told him I was delayed. I hope my change of plans hasn't disturbed you too much. Change of plans, uh, what plans drop it? Bert? You know I was scheduled to go to Arizona, and you know why I was being sent out of town. No, no, why e book. I didn't invite you into my home, Detective Collagan, but I'm inviting you out right.

3:09:14 I don't say anything you're going to regret. Staarut of this, Helen, you Clagan out. Please pardon me, Detective. I forgot to ask if you had a warrant to enter my house, have you? Albert? You know I have no search warrant, no warrant for my arrest. Bert, Then what are you doing here? The door is open, mister Cullaghan. Good night, Helen. Bert. You know you once said to me nothing worse than a dirty cop. Well you were right, friend.

3:09:57 Turn into forty seventh place again, But we just came around the brock. Come on, come on, come on, turn before the light changes out. Okay, that's what you want. Traffic so heavy you'll take us ten minutes to get to sixth again. You're doing piece work, race or you work by the day. I'm working by the day. This is certainly a dull business. What time you got, Gracey and fifteen minutes to eleven you're fast. I've got nineteen minutes. A little too early for lunch. Brot. Don't you say check? You're able twelve sect diorable twelve. You have a ten to thirty three? Hey, he do's it? Ten thirty three Robbery and property.

3:10:39 You learned your lessons, good Officer Street twenty five eight. West tenth fall. Hey, hit the lights in the siren. That's just right ahead. He hit the bricks. You stay in the car, Call in and tell them where we spond. Hey, you'll keep her. Come on, come in, come in, come in only five minutes. You gotta do it. Okay, he went that way. Office up, he got a gun. Okay, okay, stay away, are stay out of the hall. Oh yeah, out of the hall.

3:11:20 Hey, hey, hey, come here right here in the closet. Oh yeah, money, come on, he shut the door. Okay, put the cuffs on. Here, let's go. Hey, where'd you fetch the wicking glasses and garbage can? Garbage will be picked up by the morning. Not to worry. Come on, let's go. Wait a minute, Wait a minute, where's the loot? You're supposed to give it to me and I Hey, you the signals changed. The stuff is already mailed in four pre stamped mental envelopes. Wait a minute, Wait a minute. Plass told me he got to change where's mind. He didn't want to put you in any trouble. Look, if you don't have the stuff and I don't have it, we're in the clear. So so where was the mail to where? I don't know. I didn't look at the address. Yes, I just filled the ambulose like I was told to seal them, drop them in the mailbox at the end of the hall, goes right out down on the first floor. Three o'clock mail pickup. I see what are we waiting for?

3:12:09 Copper? Kick me out of here, Throw me in the slammer. Come on, I'm your prisoner. Come in. Oh, come in, Bert, Yeah, come on in. I'm on a long distance to San Francisco. I'll be within a minute. Hello. Yeah, Yes, I was over here. You got them? How many six Good Jewels International Limited? Eh? Fancy name? And then now we want you to send us all you've got on them, and we'll send you what we've. Got right now, by inspector.

3:12:50 Yeah, sit down, sit down, Bert, Thank you, captain, And I want to tell you I think you've done a superb job. Thank you. Best kept secret in all the years I've on the force. Had to let Lieutenant Mcinernie in on it at the last minute, Mike Culligan's new boss, you know, to get his cooperation on the Arizona thing. But outside of that, leaving your wife didn't know thought you were in trouble. She was about to divorce me. When I spoke to her just ten minutes ago, she sort of broke down. Well, then she laughed and came immediately to your defense and said she never believed you were anything but good and decent. It sounds like I did give her a bad time, though, And I think.

3:13:33 We have the whole case wrapped up. You heard my conversation with San Francisco. Your thief is going to get a little surprise when his lawyer gets here. We found the wagon glasses and there'll be no trouble getting absolute identification. Postal authorities cooperated and found the envelopes containing the diamonds, all seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth. Well I help. You're proud of your efforts, yes, sir, But I still have one worry, sir. Maybe we jump too quick and the big shot. Blass's boss will be won and take off. No, no, no, Your idea to flush him out worked. Sending out word that Mike was going to Arizona trapped him. He immediately got that information back to Blass. What he didn't know is that we had suspicions he might be the leak and put the arm on him right after he got the word out.

3:14:32 Who was it? A man but the name of Reach works for the company who handles our electronic maintenance sear at headquarters. He had access to all our information and he yielded to temptation. Then he wasn't the big boss. No no, I'd say a small but important cog in Blass's operations. Blass is the big man, and we'll have him within the hour. He doesn't know that he's in any trouble, not an inkling. Everything was done so swiftly and without fuss that Blass couldn't possibly know. Lieutenant mcinnern. He sent Mike Culligan to make the pinch.

3:15:13 Mike, oh, any backup? Mag didn't think he needed any. Blass would be taken by a surprise and no, no, no, no, he's dangers captain. He just assumed kills someone has talked to them. Who's there? Open up, Harry, it's me right, my y quick. Look I told you that we had to stay away from each other. Hey, I see you got yourself all packed like you're going away. Hmmm. Shame to leave this gorgeous appartment.

3:15:53 Yeah, yeah, warriors from the boss. What's up, trouble. Look, don't be worried about your cuts. See you'll get it as soon as they get the stuff in Frisco and you dispose of it. I'm not worried. You know it went off perfect. Look, I know how you feel about the bread. I can give you a kind of down payment on your share. Yeah, I got some cash right here. Yeah, don't touch that drawer. Blast, turn around nice and slow with your hands up. What's the matter with you? Bert? Mike Culligan came here, not more than ten fifteen minutes ago, came here. Why don't give me up performance, Blast. He came here to pick you up.

3:16:35 What happened? Look, but you were me, we're partners. Whatever gave you that idea? Punk? You walked into a setup. We've got all of you, including your plant. You're moral at headquarters. Now, where's my colleague? Mike? Colagan. How should I know? A little while ago somebody came to the door. He banged on it, but I didn't answer. He went away. He would have never gone away. He is in this apartment. Oh yeah, well go ahead, look around here. He isn't here. What's in this other room? Nothing? Take him? Look, don't move. I'll open the door. Oh Berth, Brian hit, I'm hitting Mike Blast. He's gonna get away. Get him, birth Mike. I can't leave you like this, but I'll call for him. You're a cop, vert, get him for me.

3:17:26 I'll be all right. Okay, my. Blast, I say, yeah, down the stairwell stop or a shoot. Stop. Mh Mike, Come on in Bert, I'm awake, Doctor says I can only stay a few minutes. Boy, you a big apology? Man, Was I wrong? Captain Sullivan, Well, he was in this morning. He told me you made detective Yeah, the slow way. You got a big citation too. Mayor is going to present it in front of city Hall with everyone watching.

3:18:12 Yeah. That's something I tried to get out of, but Helen said I got her. You know what the mayor is going to say to you, nothing's worse than a dirty cop. No Bert. He was here today and I talked to him. He's going to say, there's nothing better than a clean cop. Detective third Class brit Gilbert stood on the steps of City Hall with his. Head slightly bowed while the. Mayor of reg the citation. He was embarrassed by all the ceremony. Then he danced up and coffee look in Helen's eyes as she watched her husband being honored, and he knew then that the look was worth all the embarrassment in discomfort.

3:18:57 I'll be back shortly, so ends that tale. The blood Red ink. Bert Gilbert and Mike Hullagan had the fire and ambition in them to make something of their lives, to gain recognition from their fellow men. Their names were not to be found on the negative side, the blood red side of the ledger. Their names, in great block letters could be found. On the positive side. They had achieved what most men want, the knowledge that they had received the recognition for a job bring down. Our cast included Fred.

3:19:38 Grinn, Terry Keane, Rode Baptista, and Bob Caliban. The entire production was under the direction of Heinen Brown. Well, my dear, another night has come and gone again again. But I got to be here with you, so no loss, only gave. And of course I'll be right here, waiting, same place, same time, whenever you care to join me. The witching season is now in full bloom. It's only half way over, so please make sure I'm not the only one having a special time. Enjoy yourself, find something scary to love, and I'll be right here. But please, if you could do me just one kindness, as you make your way home, as you go through the threshold of your front door, as you lay your head on your soft yet cool pillow, take one moment and be thankful for what you have, and I'll be seeing.

3:21:00 Surrounding sundling mumbling private things of rage. Ou