Speaker 1: Come in.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to Mystery Theater. I am Hymen Brown. You're
a special envoy from a wild and weird country that
exists way down deep.
Speaker 1: In your very own imagination.
Speaker 2: To many people, especially city dwellers, grass is something to smoke,
or perhaps something that has keep off signs on it.
The fact is, grass is the foundation of life as
we know it. All the greens we eat are grasses.
All of the meat we eat is nothing more than grasses.
Transform in many ways, the quality of our existence depends
on the quality of our grass, which means that those
who can change that for better or worse literally hold
our lives in their hands.
Speaker 3: All we need is your confession.
Speaker 4: I didn't kill you.
Speaker 3: You swore you were going there to shoot him.
Speaker 5: I know, but you did go there. Yes, you confronted it.
I did the gun.
Speaker 3: This is the gun that fired the bullet. Can you
identify it?
Speaker 4: I already have. It's mine. I don't deny it. I
tell you I didn't kill him.
Speaker 6: Just look at all the even I don't care.
Speaker 4: About the evidence. I know I didn't kill him.
Speaker 2: Our mystery drama Snake in the Grass was written especially
for the Mystery Theater by Sam Dan and stars Sandy Dennis.
I'll be back shortly with Act one. Her name is
Augustus Sanderson. She's thirty six years old. And while there
are those who say she has never been kissed, we
cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of that statement.
Speaker 1: What does she do?
Speaker 2: She's an agriculturalist, an unusual occupation for a woman.
Speaker 1: Or don't say that.
Speaker 2: We live in liberated times. You'd be surprised at the
things women can do. You might venture to inquire why
they want to do them, but that's another story. Our
story begins in a quiet university town in the Northwest.
Speaker 4: Ma'am, I'll thank you not to patronize me. Well, I say,
I'll thank you not to call me ma'am. Ma'am is
short for madam, and I am neither the mistress of
a household or the keeper of a broth.
Speaker 7: Well, I only wanted to say hello and welcome the
peace for five years and oasis for the thirsty.
Speaker 4: I have a ba an ma and a PhD. I
hold a rank of full professor at the School of Agriculture.
I don't have to be addressed as ma'am as if
I were some fragile Victorian.
Speaker 6: Ladies, well House, doc or prop.
Speaker 4: Now, I intend to become extremely aeviriated. And it's just
as well that I don't make a spectacle of myself.
Let me have a Oh what I don't know? Tell
me what's best to make you forget?
Speaker 7: Well, nothing can ever really make you forget very well,
but it's good for building courage.
Speaker 6: Again nothing, that's not what I hear.
Speaker 7: Well, it's true, you get maybe the illusion of courage, but.
Speaker 6: Not the real thing.
Speaker 4: Well, dispenser of illusions, poor one for me.
Speaker 6: Oh you must be the lady prophet the egg school.
Speaker 4: Huh, the lady Profitt the egg School.
Speaker 6: You know doctor Howell? Do I know Doctor Howese? Yeah?
I was reading about him in the paper.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you how well I know doctor House.
Speaker 6: Not a terrific thing he discovered.
Speaker 4: I know Eugene ever howls well enough to kill him.
Speaker 7: There's new freed grass will mean that millions of starving people.
Speaker 6: What do you say I.
Speaker 4: Said, I intend to kill him? Yeah, well, all I
need is the courage or the illusion of it, And
I'm feeling bolder every minute.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Look, don't you think you're better?
Speaker 4: Don't I think i'd better watch go home?
Speaker 6: Stop talking foolishly.
Speaker 4: That I have every right to talk foolishly. You know why,
because I've been a fool all my life.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I'll get somebody to take you home.
Speaker 4: The article in the paper said that doctor Howells discovered
created the new feed grass. He didn't do it.
Speaker 6: It didn't No, I did you did? Okay, I mean it.
Speaker 4: I really mean it. It's mine. Oh sure, you see,
you don't believe it. In the Himalayan regions in Asia,
the terrain, the climate is almost like what we have here. No,
you have to follow this. They have an economy and
agricultural economy that's based on goats.
Speaker 3: Goats.
Speaker 4: Goats. The goats are actually sacred. The soil is calcareous
like ours, and a red clover grows there, but it's
deficient in proteins and nitrogen.
Speaker 6: You know what you need a nice coup of.
Speaker 4: Now I have been developing a species highly nutritious of
purple clover. It would practically double the output.
Speaker 6: Of milk per fact.
Speaker 4: Think of how many lives this will say.
Speaker 6: That's really great.
Speaker 4: You know, it could have been the supreme achievement of
my career. It could have meant a Nobel prize, perhaps
now there's talk of doctor Howell's winning it. It isn't fair.
It's mine, don't you understand? It's my grass. I created it.
It's mine. Tell me for doing that to me, for
taking it from me. Isn't that enough to justify my
killing him?
Speaker 7: I tell you what you ought to do. Prop you
want to go home and sleep on it.
Speaker 4: You don't believe me, You'll believe because I'm a woman,
I'm incapable of scientific achievement.
Speaker 3: Oh that's not so.
Speaker 6: There's a whole lot of ladies scientist.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Pete. Is that your name, Pete? Thank you
for listening to me.
Speaker 3: Oh, it was my pleasure.
Speaker 4: And I see now, how clearly I see it. Now.
If my life is to have any meaning at all,
I must kill him.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well it's really getting late.
Speaker 3: You'll see.
Speaker 6: You'll feel better in the morning.
Speaker 4: I feel better already. I'm strangely at peace with myself.
I'm quite contented. You've made me see it. His death
will rid me of all my demons.
Speaker 7: Now, you really don't want to kill anyone. You're a lady.
Speaker 4: Good night, Pete, you're a gentleman.
Speaker 7: Look Dame's dames, Well, she's going to be crazy.
Speaker 3: But what if she ain't crazy? Maybe I better.
Speaker 7: I don't know if I tell a story like this,
what't they think I'm Nutstena.
Speaker 3: Novak at all? This is Lieutenant Novak? Come Who's on
the other end of this? Oh?
Speaker 7: No, no, not him? Of all the cops who could
have answered that phone? Definitely not Novak?
Speaker 4: Huh oh? Who who? Someone's at the door some just
a minute? Who could be ringing the bell at this hour?
It's no. How could I have slept on you?
Speaker 2: Just a minute.
Speaker 4: I'll get on my just a minute. How could I
have slept so late? Who is it police? Why would.
Speaker 3: After Augusta Sanderson? Yes, I'm police, Lieutenant Novak? May I
come in?
Speaker 6: Well? Yes?
Speaker 3: Why you are Augusta Sanderson? I am miss Anderson. You're
under arrest.
Speaker 4: What are you saying?
Speaker 3: Jarge's suspicion of murder?
Speaker 4: Murder? Who's murder?
Speaker 3: After Eugene Everett House?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: But you're making you must inform you of your constitutional right?
Speaker 4: But I didn't care. Please please, you can't be serious.
Are you saying Gene Howells is dead?
Speaker 3: That's right?
Speaker 4: But why do you insist that you.
Speaker 3: Said that you would kill him?
Speaker 5: If you're only one now Professor Sanderson, who insisted to
peat Grimes at the Oasis Barn night.
Speaker 4: I was feeling very unhappy. And there are times when
you say things you shouldn't.
Speaker 3: You had a motive. Motive, didn't you say that he
has robbed you of a discovery. Oh that yes, that
a discovery you considered great enough to make you eligible
for the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 4: He didn't exactly rob me, No, No, I gave it
to him. I had to otherwise, Well, it wouldn't be used,
so I said take it. It might as well be yours.
Speaker 3: Why did you give it to him?
Speaker 4: Because they wouldn't take it from me from a woman.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: In that part of Asia, women are considered well, not
exactly unclean. But it's hard for you, as an American
to visualize this. But the fact of my being a
woman would make the grass defiled, unfit for the goats,
which are holy animals.
Speaker 3: According to the way you told the story to Pete
last night, Howell's robbed you of the credit.
Speaker 4: He did, but I no choice. If I was to
save millions of lives, I would have to sacrifice my
own vanity and say to gene. Let it be known
as yours. But afterward, when I saw how Howells was
preening himself, you killed him?
Speaker 3: No, you left Pete Soass at nine pm. The karner
places the time of death at midnight. Where were you
at midnight?
Speaker 4: Here? Right here?
Speaker 3: Can anyone support that statement? According to mister Pete Grimes,
you were acting somewhat strangely.
Speaker 4: You could say that, yes, but I didn't kill him.
Speaker 3: You went directly home after you left Pete so Aces
at ninevs. Yes, the ballistics lab has established doctor Howe
was killed by a twenty two caliber bullet on a gun.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I have a twenty two caliber revolver which
I carry sometimes when I am in the field, especially
when the snakes are shaddy.
Speaker 3: May I sin?
Speaker 4: You see snakes are very nervous when they shed and
they strike at shadows.
Speaker 3: Thank you. This gun's been fired recently?
Speaker 4: Oh no, not in months.
Speaker 3: You've been smell it. You can see the fowling. Yeah,
five live cartridges and one empty shot that.
Speaker 4: I haven't used. The gun should be empty.
Speaker 3: The lab will determine whether or not this is the gun.
Speaker 4: But what I put the gun away? I didn't even
have any bullets I was supposed to buy.
Speaker 3: I see the shoes you were wearing last night, by man,
what will my shoes show you that the houses having
a sidewalk prepared, there's dirt mud in front of a doorstep.
We have a mold of shoe prints. I'm sure these
shoes were fit them. Has dried mud on these shoes?
Speaker 4: To Professor I, I can explain that can. I was angry,
so I went to his house after I left the
oas which.
Speaker 3: You said, you went directly home.
Speaker 4: I know, I did. I know. I just thought that
it might be embarrassing if I admitted that nothing happened.
I just saw him brief and I left and came here, Professor.
Speaker 3: There are people who get themselves into a highly agitated state.
Then they commit a crime, a serious crime like murder.
That was they forget all about it.
Speaker 4: I am incapable of killing. I am not a murderer.
Speaker 3: What you're saying is you never killed anyone before. That's
who the majority of murderers im.
Speaker 4: But I know who I am and what I believe.
Speaker 3: And that's why you made sure you'd be caught and punished.
Because you were brought up to believe no one should
get away with.
Speaker 4: Murder, but I didn't.
Speaker 3: At first, you were sure to make a public announcement.
Speaker 4: I wasn't making any I was over wrong.
Speaker 3: You were sure to state that you had a powerful motive. Third,
you used your own gud. Why do you insist you
must have been aware of the fact that you were
leaving shoe marks in the dirt. Why didn't you avoid
doing that? Why couldn't you at least wipe off the mud?
Now when now you just think about Nie.
Speaker 4: Detective, I don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: Well, did she or didn't she?
Speaker 2: Even she doesn't know for sure that blacking out of
unpleasant memories is by no means a rare occurrence in
our culture. Well, let's give her an opportunity to collect
her thoughts and see what, if anything, she can come
up with.
Speaker 1: Enact two.
Speaker 2: They say, the wish is the father of the deed,
which is why we have inhibitions. No, after all, if
every time you felt like killing someone you did it,
who among us would be out of jail? And so
here we have Augustus Sanderson, PhD, a knowledgeable professor of
agriculture about to be booked on a charge of homicide,
talk about still waters running deep here is a quiet
brook which apparently has no bottom.
Speaker 4: What are you going to do with me, Lieutenant Novac?
Take you in book, you, lieutenant, please give me a
chance to think. That's not my job, but I have
to get my thoughts together, and how can I think
in jail.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you'll get out on bond, but.
Speaker 4: I'll be a different person. I'll stand accused of murder.
People will look at me in a different way. I'll
even look at myself differently. Please help me, help me
think it through from the beginning. Someone killed Jeene Howells.
If I didn't kill him, who did?
Speaker 6: Professor?
Speaker 4: I need your help, the help of an experienced professional.
Love my job, and once you arrest me, you'll be
through with me.
Speaker 3: I already arrested you. I even told you. You're right.
Speaker 4: I know you said I had the right to counsel
where you're my counselor.
Speaker 3: I'm not a lawyer.
Speaker 4: A counselor is one who advises. Now, please listen and
advise me. Who else could have killed Jean Howells?
Speaker 3: Who else had a motive?
Speaker 4: Let me explain that to you.
Speaker 3: Now we're wasting time.
Speaker 4: You never waste time, You only waste effort. Arrest me
and you'll get further away from the truth.
Speaker 1: Or what is the truth?
Speaker 4: What did happen? What is the chain of events that
led you to my door? The first link among the
exchange students at the university is the crown prince of
a protectorate located high in the Himalayan mountains in Asia.
Speaker 3: I know where the Himalaya mountains are.
Speaker 4: And it occurred to me that I could help the
prince to help his countrymen, who are mostly poverty stricken herdsman.
And so you see, Prince.
Speaker 5: Lutov, Oh, you must call me shorty, Ah, shorty.
Speaker 8: Fabulous joke. You see, I am six feet tall. None
of my countrymen grow that high. You see, my brother
Aliya is barely five feet That is average for our country,
small people with small boards.
Speaker 4: That's why I'm here, Prince, because your countrymen do not grow.
Speaker 8: Fabulous you hear the dali A Lady Professor Ashakiba visits
us because our country people are small.
Speaker 5: There is great wisdom in this country, magnificent one, which is.
Speaker 9: Why we are ali in public. Even you must call
me shorty.
Speaker 4: The staple food of your people is milk, goat's milk.
Speaker 9: The sacred goats of Kambar.
Speaker 4: But the milk is scanty and significantly low in prot.
Speaker 6: Milk is sacred.
Speaker 5: What Thesaiba says is blasphemy.
Speaker 4: The problem can be solved by introducing a new kind
of pasturage, a new clover which I have developed, one
contains more nutrients, one that will double the output of milk.
We would have to arrange for proper plowing.
Speaker 5: And see this, Magnificence wish is to thank you. You
will be informed of his decision in due time. Yeah,
but Ali, what because you are not at home, Magnificence shorty,
does that mean you may act without meditation or counsel?
Speaker 8: Oh, he's right, Professor, He's always right. Maybe my younger brother,
but he has the braves in our family.
Speaker 9: We will communicate with you in due time.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what to think here. I was offering
these people a way to save millions of lives. Now,
how could they be so cavalier about it? And would
you believe? A week later, I received a note from.
Speaker 5: Ali, Dear Professor Sanderson. After considerable meditation and prayer for guidance,
his Magnificence, the Crown Prince Ludoff has determined that your
estimable project is not practical at this time. Why is
it impractical, Ahibe? It is impractical because you are a woman,
And because you are a.
Speaker 3: Woman, you are impure.
Speaker 5: Really in what way in our country you would not
be permitted to come in contact with the goats of Kandar,
which are sacred beasts.
Speaker 4: But I'll have nothing to do with your God.
Speaker 5: You will have provided them with food. The people will
ask this new grass from whence does it come? And
the answer it is the creation of a woman, which
I'll have civil war.
Speaker 4: No one has to know.
Speaker 6: It will come out.
Speaker 5: It will be a major news event hailed all over
the world.
Speaker 3: Many of our people read you mean.
Speaker 4: They would rather starve than accept food created by a woman.
Speaker 5: Madam, this is our religion. It is not to be
forgive me.
Speaker 8: No, we appreciate your concern, professor, but we must analyze
the entire problem.
Speaker 9: Your new grass may save.
Speaker 8: Thousands from hunger, but cause just as many to die
in orions?
Speaker 4: Is this being turned down because I am a woman?
Is that the only reason?
Speaker 5: Yes, it's magnificenty shorty has no choice.
Speaker 4: Well, then perhaps there is something I can do.
Speaker 3: What are you saying, Augusta.
Speaker 4: Jane, this is your discovery.
Speaker 3: But that's not right.
Speaker 4: I've organized over this this thing. What am I supposed
to do? Let people starve because of their prejudices? And
what right have I to call them prejudices? Those are
devoutly held beliefs.
Speaker 3: But this as this thick purple clover. I didn't know
it could be developed.
Speaker 4: I didn't either.
Speaker 8: Well, how did the idea occur to you?
Speaker 4: Perhaps? Well, perhaps it was supposed to occur to me?
Speaker 3: Well what does that mean?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 4: Anything? You'd like it to me?
Speaker 3: Augusta. I'm afraid to take the credit.
Speaker 4: Afraid.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid of what it might do to me. This
will be hailed. You know that, don't you. Yes, it
will earn its discoverer recognition awards. How will I react?
How will my personality change? I've always been content to
do my work quietly.
Speaker 4: Are you talking about life or death or hundreds of thousands,
millions of people?
Speaker 3: And how will you change? Augusta? You'll see me regarded
as a savior. What will it do to you? You'll
start to hate me?
Speaker 4: I could never hate you, Chee.
Speaker 3: It is great. You've been struggling with this discovery for
so long. You're going to regret it.
Speaker 4: I'll think of all the children who'll have a chance
to live. I'll regret nothing.
Speaker 3: I'll regret it.
Speaker 4: I thought and thought, there's no other way.
Speaker 3: So you finally convinced doctor Howell to become a hero.
So what you're telling me, yes, it's very nobloving, very
self sacrificing. So why did you accuse him of stealing
everything in Pizza Oasis?
Speaker 4: Because Jeanne was right. He started to believe after a
little while that the clover was actually his. It was
supposed to be kept secret till we were ready for planting.
But he let out a word here and there, and well,
compliments praise poured in. He started to preen himself.
Speaker 3: And that's when you found out you're a human after all. Yes,
and you gave up without a fight.
Speaker 4: I'm not a fighter. I think it's more important for
the grass to grow.
Speaker 3: Now I have to repeat this vital question, professor, Why
give the credit to doctor.
Speaker 4: Howells because he is an authority on agriculture?
Speaker 3: Yes? Sure, but is he the only.
Speaker 4: One well knows?
Speaker 3: The fact is you could have given it to any
number of people, isn't it true?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, all right, White Howells. Why I don't tell you
why you're in love with him. That's that's one. That's
that's that's either true or false. You see, I listened
every word you said, not only to the words, but
to how you said them. I could never hate you, Gene.
There's a tone in your voice when you say his name.
That's funny. You call him Gene, he calls you Augusta.
Speaker 4: It's kind of everyone calls me Augusta.
Speaker 3: As far as you're concerned, Doctor Howells, wasn't everyone.
Speaker 4: I admit, I confess perhaps why shouldn't I have felt
that I as I was in love with him. We
certainly had similar interests, And so.
Speaker 3: You gave him this uh grass discovery, hoping somehow that
he might respond to you.
Speaker 4: I gave him the credit because of the starving people.
Speaker 3: Sure, and also because he might feel he owed you
something like a proposal of merriage.
Speaker 4: That's a lie.
Speaker 3: Only you know that for sure. All right, Maybe there
wasn't so cut and dried. A few things are, but
there was an element of give and take. Wasn't the yes.
But your generosity didn't change the nature of your relationship
with Howells, did it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: It was no friendship at best. Then yes, and that's
what really infuriated you. No, you were, as they say
in the books, the woman spurned.
Speaker 4: Please believe me, I didn't kill him.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid we have to go to police headquarters, Professor Sanders,
and I admire you. You're a woman who worked hard
against a lot of odds to get where you are.
On the way, you must have missed out on many things.
Speaker 4: Please, I am telling you, I am Inns.
Speaker 3: There was something between you and how No, well, what
did happen? You're giving me a story about some purple grass,
some asiatic prince, some deal you made to give Howls
the credit for something. How do I know any of it?
It's true?
Speaker 4: What are you saying?
Speaker 3: This, misses is about the grass? All I've got is
your word for it.
Speaker 4: I tell you it's true.
Speaker 3: All all right. There's only one way to find out,
isn't there? Yes, how pupil, Prince.
Speaker 9: Shorty, you must call me Shorty.
Speaker 3: I'm a police detective. As I believe this gentleman has
told you.
Speaker 8: Oh yes, my brother Ali informed me.
Speaker 1: It's fabulous.
Speaker 6: You know this lady, this lady, of course they know me.
Speaker 9: Ali. Is this charming lady familiar?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: You must remend them. Me. I was here to tell
you all about my new.
Speaker 6: Grass, grass.
Speaker 9: Ali, what would we have to do with grass?
Speaker 5: We have never seen this lady before in our lives.
Speaker 8: So it is a pity because she is the most
charming lady.
Speaker 4: We talk about the goats, the sacred goats of Kandar,
and you said, because I was a woman, I was
in theory.
Speaker 9: Oh that is impossible. Why should we insult you?
Speaker 4: I told you the discovery would belong to doctor Howells,
and you said, in that case you would accept it.
Speaker 9: Ali, do we know doctor Howan?
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: When I was here, we spoke, Professor, it's time we
were leaving.
Speaker 1: Ever get the.
Speaker 2: Feeling that everybody around you is crazy and that you
are the only sane, sensible person in the room or
even the world. Well, if you ever did, you are
in a perfect position to appreciate what is going on inside,
Professor Augustus Sanderson, this very moment. Well, we still have
the third act, and usually we manage to sort these
things out.
Speaker 1: What do you do when you were accused of murder?
Speaker 2: I suppose you admitted if it's true, and deny it
if it's false. Suppose you are not sure of the answer.
Suppose the charge could be true or false. Suppose you
reached that point where you just don't know.
Speaker 1: Is such a state of affairs possible?
Speaker 4: But I was here, I spoke to you both.
Speaker 8: Oh would we forget so delightful a lady as you.
Speaker 5: Ya Sahiba is mistaken. I can't be German.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry we bothered you.
Speaker 8: Oh it was no bother. Just think Ali. When we
returned home, we can say we had to visit from
a real American detective or fabulous.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Professor Sanderson. The trainers come to the end
of the line last time, all out.
Speaker 4: What what does one bring to a jail?
Speaker 3: Well, a toothbrush, a change of clothes? Like I say,
you've got a good chance of being out on bond.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Lieutenant Novak. I can prove that I gave
the credit for the discovery to doctor Howell's well, I
suppose you did, and that would prove that those two
are lying.
Speaker 3: No, it will only prove that you gave the discovery
to not the house for reasons.
Speaker 9: Of your roll.
Speaker 4: What reasons would I have?
Speaker 3: Personal reasons? That's why you killed him?
Speaker 4: I still say I didn't do it.
Speaker 3: Well, No, that's your stories. Stick to it.
Speaker 4: I didn't someone stole my revolver.
Speaker 3: Professor, You'll have to convince a jury.
Speaker 4: You don't believe it.
Speaker 3: What I believe right now doesn't matter at all. I'll
just packed a small bag.
Speaker 9: Elie.
Speaker 3: Yes, magnificence till me brother.
Speaker 8: Why did we have to engage in that sharade with
the police, detective?
Speaker 5: I thought it would be instructive, instructive. Why have we
come to this most democratic of all countries.
Speaker 6: You were the one who insisted.
Speaker 8: I know, I know, I wanted to live like an
ordinary common member of the people and.
Speaker 5: Desire I could never understand well the common people, whether
they be ignorant shepherds or sophisticated Americans, act alike as
far as the police are concerned.
Speaker 9: Is that true?
Speaker 5: When questioned by police? The common people in America do
exactly as our people do.
Speaker 4: But they have the most factorisque phrase for it?
Speaker 8: They clam up, climb up, how beautifully descriptive.
Speaker 6: In both countries one simplate as not.
Speaker 5: They come involved with the police. And so when I
heard the an officer at at all, I decided to
act in our best interests.
Speaker 6: Who knows a thing like this could lead glum up.
It is, after all, my duty to advise you.
Speaker 9: Fabulous Are you.
Speaker 3: Ready, Professor? As I said, you don't have to pack
too much.
Speaker 4: Lieutenant Lutof and his brother Ali were lying.
Speaker 3: It's all in the hands of the jury. Now, well,
what do you want me to say? Look, I want
to know something. I like you.
Speaker 4: Please don't don't want don't say meaningless words in an
attempt to make me feel better.
Speaker 3: I like you because you're a woman who's smart, who well,
who's good looking.
Speaker 4: If you really liked me, you'd listen to my story.
Speaker 3: Because I like you, I'm advising you to change it.
You to beat this. Don't you tell the truth? The
truth is always the best defense, no matter how bleak
it looks. The jewelry responds to the truth. They feel it,
they respect you for it.
Speaker 4: But I am telling the truth.
Speaker 3: No, it was a lover's quarrel. I have your lawyer.
Get women on the jury. They eat that up.
Speaker 4: If you're going to arrest me, get it over with, Okay,
I just wish it'd listen. The truth is someone came
here stole my gun. My gun, you have it. I
want a receipt for it.
Speaker 3: You'll get it will be an exhibit at the trial.
One twenty two caliber revolver, five cartridges, one empty shell.
Speaker 4: I don't care about those. They don't belong to me.
I wouldn't keep a loaded gun in the house. I
don't even have any bullets. I told you, Why can't
you believe?
Speaker 3: Because if I believed you, I'd have to believe in
Sada Claus. And furthermore, Hey, maybe I do what these cartridges,
these contridges, they're not American maid. Look at what it
says on the rim of each cantridge. Yeah, yeah, but
the manufacturer has his name. That's not American writing post letters.
Speaker 4: It's a different alphabet. They could be.
Speaker 3: Hindi foreign shells made in India. Nobody sells them around here.
Speaker 4: It was the younger brother Ali.
Speaker 3: Hold it.
Speaker 4: I know why it was Ali. Let me tell you
from the very beginning. He was the one who was
a post I'll.
Speaker 3: Hold it a minute. Ah, this is Lieutenant Novak. I
need something in a hurry. You got that crown friends
going to the college and his brother. All right, get
the phone number, call him, say it's a routine annual
inquiry about guns. Ask if he has one? What kind?
All right? Call me right back of this number. Uh
two two seven eight three h eight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the bullets have to belong to Ali.
Speaker 3: Only if he has a twenty two of his arm.
Speaker 4: It was Ali, I know it.
Speaker 3: How can you be so sure?
Speaker 4: He came here? He stole my gun? But it was empty,
It was nighttime, the stores are closed. Where can he
buy bullets? He can't, So he goes home, he gets
his own.
Speaker 3: He would only have those bullets if he owns a
twenty two.
Speaker 4: He has to, he must. It's the only thing that makes.
Speaker 3: Sense, all right, all right, Even if we can prove
these are his cartridges, you know what he can say.
He can say you stole them because you're trying to
construct the case against him, and you are.
Speaker 4: I just know he killed Jean Howells.
Speaker 3: Let's examine your whole story. They won't take the grass
seed from you because you're a woman.
Speaker 5: All right, Fine, you give it to doctor Howells. Now,
Now what's the objection?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 3: It's plain sanding?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 3: Plant the new grass? Feed all a hungry people? What's wrong?
Speaker 4: Alie? He hits Ali. When I saw Jeane howls last night,
he was terribly depressed and very frightened.
Speaker 3: No, tenna nova. Yeah, oh he does, Okay. Ben Sally
has a twenty two pistol registered.
Speaker 4: In his name, which means these are his bullets.
Speaker 3: You said doctor Howells was depressed?
Speaker 4: Why why? Why let me think? I was so angry
and upset when I went to see him. I know
I went in there hating him, and I left feeling
feeling sorry for.
Speaker 3: You haven't told me. Why what did he say to me?
Speaker 4: Let me try to remember exactly what he said to me.
Speaker 3: I wish i'd never heard of that clover of yours.
Speaker 4: Really fast time I read the papers, it was that
clover of yours.
Speaker 3: It's mine only because that's how you'd have it. I
told you this had happened, you'd have second thoughts and
the height have a guilty conscience.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, it is all my fault.
Speaker 1: And it may have been all for nothing. Why they
don't want the grass?
Speaker 3: They didn't realize it was purple in color?
Speaker 4: What's wrong with purple?
Speaker 3: Allie explained that purple is an unlucky color, and so
the time wasn't right, but perhaps in the future was
supposed to happen.
Speaker 4: In the future, if purple is unlucky, it will always
be unlucky.
Speaker 3: I became angry. I told Ali somehow I would let
his people know about this grass and how badly they
need it.
Speaker 4: And what was his answer?
Speaker 3: Nothing? He looked at me, just looked those funny eyes.
Well you think they're funny, but they can be frightening.
Speaker 9: Augusta, Why did you.
Speaker 1: Have to tempt me with this?
Speaker 4: Please, Jean, try to be calm.
Speaker 9: It's going to end badly.
Speaker 3: I know it.
Speaker 4: We tried. They won't take our help. This is all
we can do. Prince Lutov was willing to go along,
and it was Ali who raised the objection, And when
that objection was removed, it was Ali who found a
new one the color.
Speaker 3: Well, why would Ali want his people to go on starving?
Speaker 4: Because wait, wait, Jean said. Ali had told him that
the time wasn't ripe. Perhaps in the future when it
could do Ali himself some good?
Speaker 3: Are you saying Ali has ideas of his own.
Speaker 4: If Prince Lutov is overthrown, and he could be, if
the people get hungry enough.
Speaker 3: Does Ali get the top spot and then.
Speaker 4: As the new ruler, Ali can claim Heaven showed him
a new grass, and henceforth purple will be the color
favored by the gods. But there's one thing. Where would
he get the grass with Jean.
Speaker 3: Dead when he could come to you with a brand
new story.
Speaker 4: No, No, the woman thing is too deeply rooted.
Speaker 3: Well as it stands right now? Well, what is the grass?
Where does it exist?
Speaker 4: The grass is a box full of seeds, plus volumes
of notes detailing hundreds of experiments, how it's formed, how
it should be played.
Speaker 3: Where is all the stuff?
Speaker 4: I turned it over to Gene. It should all be
in his files at home, and I'll bet it's gone.
I delivered the seeds and the notes to him myself.
The only place he could keep them would be in
these files.
Speaker 3: Are you sure they wouldn't be anywhere else?
Speaker 4: I'm positive. Besides, look at the notation on this drawer
PC purple clover and the drawer is empty.
Speaker 3: Huh that's that?
Speaker 4: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: We have a very good hypothesis but no evidence so far.
You are still the best suspect.
Speaker 4: But you know I am innocent. There must be some
way we can prove that Ali is uh. I have
an idea. I'll go to see Prince Ali and I'll
confront him with what we know that will force him
to threaten me, perhaps to try to kill me. You
can save me at the last minute.
Speaker 3: It's why because this is a country of laws. What
you're suggesting is illegal. Why is it illegal because it's
considered entrapments.
Speaker 4: But you see it all the time in the movies.
Speaker 3: And those movies all end up before the judge throws
the evidence out of court. But you did give me
an idea. It's a very simple routine idea. Now you
go home. Wait then what are you going to do?
Just police business? Just go home and wait.
Speaker 4: But I can't wait.
Speaker 3: You'll just have to.
Speaker 8: No, so you will really quite and better.
Speaker 4: Younger brother is plotting against you.
Speaker 9: Ali. Oh, that is impossible.
Speaker 3: The woman is mad.
Speaker 4: Ali wants your people to starve so they will revolt.
You will be killed. He succeeds you, and then he
gives them the purple grass.
Speaker 5: That's a lie, fabulous, that's true.
Speaker 4: He has discouraged you from accepting the clover. Why he
wants to give it to the people himself.
Speaker 9: She's mad. Oh what a woman.
Speaker 8: Look at the fire in her eyes. You may think
I'm young for you, professor, but I value an older woman.
Speaker 4: Don't you understand the implications of what I am saying
to you be my first wife.
Speaker 8: The others don't matter. They're only concubines. You will rule
and with fabulous wisdom.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you about your brother.
Speaker 8: Oh, I know he's plotting against me. It is expected
a brother. You know, didn't I plot against our older brother?
Speaker 5: Then you should have done something about me when you
had the child.
Speaker 9: What are you doing with the pistol?
Speaker 6: She'll be blamed.
Speaker 5: She'll be thought mad because of her purple grass. She's
already killed her mother, and now you, because you made
her give up her discovery.
Speaker 3: It's not gonna work that way.
Speaker 2: All.
Speaker 3: Just lower that gun. That's nice. Why don't you come here,
Augusta because you didn't think I can help you?
Speaker 9: Well, I thought.
Speaker 3: I just went back for a search warrant. All we
have to do is find the scenes and the notes
in his possession. Will we find them?
Speaker 7: All?
Speaker 9: They are in his trug? No, of course I knew.
I plan to take care of.
Speaker 8: You as soon as we return to our own country.
Here I am restricted by all kinds of legalities French.
Speaker 3: I intend to arrest your brother when you claim any
diplomatic privilege.
Speaker 9: Mom At all the law is secret. It was be observed.
Speaker 3: Smedie go get his trunk, well said, take him to
the station house.
Speaker 8: You will, Professor Sanderson, shall you consider my proposal?
Speaker 3: You can't do that. She has to come along with me.
Speaker 4: Where are we going?
Speaker 3: That's way, ma'am?
Speaker 4: Where are you taking me? Surely I'm not under.
Speaker 3: Arrest, Amerson? You'd consider going off to Asia with that?
That character?
Speaker 4: Oh, I have to take it under very serious consideration.
Speaker 3: Why it's the first.
Speaker 4: Time anyone at all made me a proposal?
Speaker 3: Or relax, you're about to get another one.
Speaker 1: I'll be back shortly.
Speaker 2: With a final thought, how slender a thread holds up
the world. If a million goats can give an extra
pint of milk a day, that can mean the difference
between life and death for thousands of children.
Speaker 1: So the true heroes are the overlooked.
Speaker 2: And unknown heroes who daily solve the really great mystery
how to get an acre to yield another few bushels
or the hen to lay another egg. Our cast included
Sandy Dennis, Ralph Bell, Robert Dryden, and Arnold Stang.
Speaker 1: Associate director Marlon Swing.
Speaker 2: This is Hyman Brown, producer director inviting you to return
to our mystery Theater for another adventure in the Macawbreo
until next time. Then pleasend dream