Speaker 1: Come in welcome. I'm e. G.
Speaker 2: Marshall. In spite of all the books the expose as
the articles that make patients think they are more knowledgeable
than the doctors, the greatest mystery in our lexicon of
science is still the human body, murder, visitors from strange planets,
the suspense of spectral visitors from the grave. None can
compete with the simple but electrifying drama of the operating room. Ready,
doctor Shaver, Ready, doctor Marshall.
Speaker 1: Patient, So are you?
Speaker 2: Always said?
Speaker 3: Skeelful McBurney incisions, sir, up to you.
Speaker 1: It's what i'd use. I'm not a surgeon.
Speaker 2: You are doctor Shaver to be afraid of.
Speaker 3: Not on your sweet No, sir, Well, then.
Speaker 1: Why don't you begin.
Speaker 2: Our mystery drama? A Case of Negligence was written especially
for the Mystery Theater by Ian Martin and stars Mason
Adams and Marion Seldis. It is sponsored in part by
sin Off, the Sinus Medicines and en Houser Busch Incorporated
brewers of Budweiser. I'll be back surely with that one.
Time after time I bring stories of death spirits that
rise from the grave, murder in every conceivable form, the
torture of a man or woman knowing they are doomed death.
Speaker 1: Which comes, as it must to all men. The great mystery.
Speaker 2: This story is about those men most concerned with it
and with life, the doctors, in particular, the surgeons.
Speaker 1: And the hidden danger they face.
Speaker 2: It begins appropriately enough in the clinic of a typical
community hospital. Use it right there, but that'll be right
back with a doctor.
Speaker 4: No big deal, I'll meet a hospital.
Speaker 5: Cheer up, it's only an emergency ward.
Speaker 1: What you do, gop hand?
Speaker 5: Is it caught in a cookie jar? Well, I guess
you must have got ruffed up by a tiger.
Speaker 4: Nah, I just got fit by shadow.
Speaker 5: Who's that a black leopard dog?
Speaker 6: Tommy?
Speaker 2: But he didn't mean it.
Speaker 5: Of course he didn't, because dog is man's best friend.
I'm only a little boy boy's best friend too.
Speaker 4: And they won't do anything to him.
Speaker 5: Oh no, why should they when he didn't mean it.
You'll get bit too, No, just indigestion, something old men get.
Speaker 2: I don't like to step out of mind, doctor Downing,
but you know this sort of thing, it.
Speaker 6: Could be I quite understand, mister Pollock. Of course we've
had no cases of Rabi's reported it was a neighbor's pet.
Speaker 4: But just to make sure. Excuse me, are you mister
avenged me.
Speaker 6: Ma'am, I'm doctor downing If you're not in any discomfort,
this little boy's father quite concern old doctor.
Speaker 1: Don't you worry about me.
Speaker 5: I'm used to living with pain after seventy five years.
Speaker 1: You turned to spud.
Speaker 4: And don't be too hard on shadow Shadow.
Speaker 1: Party of the second part the dog, He didn't mean
to do it.
Speaker 6: If you'll take sput into the first booth there, mister Pollack.
Speaker 1: Come on son, we'll get you a fixed up.
Speaker 4: Come on, thanks, mister Clay got a grand sermon home.
Speaker 1: No, just how the boy feels, I'm in no hurry.
Speaker 4: Well, we'll try not to keep you wake.
Speaker 1: I'm all right.
Speaker 4: What happened to him?
Speaker 3: I don't know, friend, the old man just collapsed.
Speaker 1: Why does mister Cray are your patient?
Speaker 3: What's wrong with him?
Speaker 4: And he just lifted slight stomach disorder in the gestion, nothing.
Speaker 6: To suggest an emergency. He certainly didn't act like there
was one. I had this kid with a dog bite.
Speaker 4: In the next boom.
Speaker 2: You stay with a kid, I'll thank you over here.
Maybe he just got a little dizzy. They keep this
place too hot and a not that hot.
Speaker 4: He looks too rugged for anything. That's simple.
Speaker 1: I don't worry about it. I'll check him out.
Speaker 4: Well, thanks for the helping hands.
Speaker 2: Tom's quay, I'm doctor Schaeffer.
Speaker 1: Feel up to a few questions. Sure, I'm all right?
Not quite? You just passed out? Well almost?
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 5: I had a bunch of cherry stones for dinner last night,
Doug and myself muster caught a bad one.
Speaker 1: Woke up with a real billyke.
Speaker 2: Well, let's pin that down, exposed the abdomen. Nurse, But
what kind of ache?
Speaker 7: First off, I thought it was gas.
Speaker 1: It's kind of sharp, then real dough.
Speaker 4: That don't feel so good.
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised, and draw some blood, nurse, I want
a w BX stat.
Speaker 1: You feel it here? Here? How about here? That's mighty tender.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get a little history on you. Okay, nurse,
get me that bud count green Life. You live at
seventeen Oakwood Lane, mister Clay, Well.
Speaker 5: That's my home right now. I'm on the Genie, the
one my boat named after my wife.
Speaker 2: God Rest the soul a slope though, to myself.
Speaker 1: How about that you live on it alone? Yep, no family?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, got a son, Dan and his wife Darris
and my grandson.
Speaker 2: They live in the house.
Speaker 1: But who sent you here?
Speaker 5: If you mean a doctor, don't have one, never need one,
never get sick.
Speaker 1: You have a cold now.
Speaker 2: Thought or shook it, but it hangs on, it'll But
you haven't seen a doctor for it.
Speaker 1: Nope.
Speaker 5: Salt and soda, mustard, plasters and the steam kettle got
me over.
Speaker 1: Everyone they ever had this one too. Do you have
a family? Physician told you nope, Yes, that makes you
a doctor.
Speaker 4: We should lay off pressing on my belly.
Speaker 1: Sure does hurt. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised you were able to move around as much
as you did.
Speaker 1: How did you get to the clinic? Drove?
Speaker 2: I was in town for supplies, then driving.
Speaker 5: Back to the boat right near the hospital, I got
a real jim dandy doubled me right over the wheel.
Speaker 2: Figured had better have someone take a look at it.
Speaker 1: You figured, right, you know what's wrong with me, don't you,
young fellow?
Speaker 2: I can make a guess. A cute vermiform appendix.
Speaker 1: That being an operation, and the way it looks, I'd
say yes.
Speaker 2: May I have a phone number at your house. Why
just to notify your son and daughter in law.
Speaker 5: Don't bother them less you think I'm gonna kick off
the appendix.
Speaker 1: Isn't that much of a deal today, even his plush.
I don't think they'd worry anyways.
Speaker 4: Oh, what do you say we get this damn thing out?
Speaker 1: It's beginning to bother me now.
Speaker 6: It's just superficial, mister Pollock. Keep the dandage clean and
dry and come back next Friday.
Speaker 2: But supposing that dog had rabies, dog.
Speaker 6: Will be checked out by the Board of Health. If
there's the slightest chance he has rabies, Spud will need shots.
But there's no need to worry about that yet. But
see you Friday.
Speaker 2: Doctor Ganano in attendance are collecting me and he won't
be out for at least three hours. You better notify
doctor Marshall and have him schedule someone. But I know
that appendix has got to come out, all right?
Speaker 3: Yes, Clay c Lay as in Charlie, which happens to
be his first name.
Speaker 6: Oh so that's what was the matter with mister Cray.
Are you admitting him as award patient?
Speaker 2: I got to he's in through the clinic and he
has no hospitalization. I tried to reach his son.
Speaker 3: He's in court arguing.
Speaker 2: A case, and his son's wife is at a bridge
game somewhere. No family doctor, Nope, says he's never been.
Speaker 1: Sick a day in his life.
Speaker 3: I can believe him.
Speaker 1: The old boys as hard as nails.
Speaker 2: Well, I've got to get a more detailed history on him.
Do you have to know all this guff about me? Well,
you never know when it might come in handy, and
it fills in the time while I'm waiting for your
blood count. Let me see now, all the kids diseases, measles,
German measles, scarlet fever.
Speaker 3: Never had one, any allergies? No, have you ever had
a bad reaction to penicillin.
Speaker 5: As None, unless that's one that you're cold.
Speaker 1: Oh, that ain't what's bothering me some.
Speaker 4: This is the pain in the gut.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: The blood countiners good.
Speaker 2: Then let's see white blood counts fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3: Now that clinches it. You get him undressed and we'll
start to prep him.
Speaker 4: I'll be right back. You look kind of grim, Tom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got any consent forms in your desk?
Speaker 1: Friend?
Speaker 2: Sure, are you going to operate before that appendix pops,
and then are you going to operate me? Are you kidding?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 6: You're a surgical resident now, aren't you sure?
Speaker 2: And I've assisted it enough surgical abdomens to do any
of them in my sleep. But it's oh, it's up
to doctor Marshall to give me a nod. And if
you think that gi ship crack and tough son of
a I forgive my big mouth.
Speaker 1: Ran.
Speaker 3: I gotta remember not to open it around the hospital.
Speaker 4: I hope you remember to forget. Here's your consent for him.
Speaker 6: You better get it signed by a patient because doctor
Marshall wants to upstairs.
Speaker 1: And oh our.
Speaker 2: Immediateness, it gives me butterflies in the stomach.
Speaker 1: But look at the hands, huh, steady as a rock.
Speaker 2: Well, doctor schaefferin took your own sweet time about getting
here as fast as I.
Speaker 1: Could, Sir.
Speaker 3: I had to get a consent for him from the patients.
Speaker 2: Did you get a history here.
Speaker 1: Doctor Marshall?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's sketchy. What's the best I could do? This
is red blankets, sir. The patient's already on his way
up and you better scrub.
Speaker 1: And why you're changing?
Speaker 2: You can fill me in? Ah, Yes, sir, how bad
is this chess congestion bad enough to indicate a spinal
at your opinion or the anesthesiologist? He concurred, Sir, I
mean that's what he would have recommended. So he agreed,
and we're all in harmony except for the patient.
Speaker 1: Do you agree?
Speaker 2: He's in a lot of pains, right. I had to sedateum.
He was a bit foggy by the time we got
to deciding on anesthesia. Rather he knew what about the
relatives can't be reached.
Speaker 3: The switchboard will contact doctor Downing if they.
Speaker 2: Call in, and won't hurt to check with her before
we scrub. Some people still have funny notions about spinals,
no matter how safe they are.
Speaker 1: I'd like to have a part of the record, Doctor Downing.
Speaker 2: Is doctor Marshall and this happened. Dec tom me out
of your clinic. Any word yet from his son or
daughter in law? Dot well, Doctor Schaeffer and I are
on our way up to the ready room.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: If they turn up or call before we're out of scrub,
let me know all said, and let's go gloves. Nurse sir, Yes,
doctor Shaffer, excuse me, Doctor Marshall, but you think there's anything.
Speaker 1: Wrong about this case? Not at all? Oh why well,
I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just had a notion you forget it.
Speaker 1: No, you're right in a way.
Speaker 2: When I found we were so shorthanded, I thought this
case might be the perfect one to let you get
your feet wet as a surgeon. Well, i'd like to
if you'll give me the chance. I think you're going
to handle a shaver.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, sir, Yes, sir, I do.
Speaker 1: I can promise you you won't be sorry.
Speaker 2: Very well, the patient is yours once the anesthesioloy just
hands them over.
Speaker 3: May I have the patient?
Speaker 1: Doctor Davis? Thanks, skefl.
Speaker 3: McBurney incisions, sir, up to you.
Speaker 1: It's what i'd use. But I'm not the surgeon.
Speaker 2: You are, Doctor Sheaf. There's nothing you're afraid of, not
on your suite. Announcer, Well, why don't you begin? Jeronimo
plans please, good facios kepel swamp clamps.
Speaker 4: How'd it go? Brian?
Speaker 1: No problem.
Speaker 6: Finally got in touch with mister Clay's daughter in law.
She and her husband are on their way into the
hospital breathing fire. What they felt they should have been
consulted about the operation.
Speaker 4: Before it happened.
Speaker 2: Simple appendix. Whyness, doctor Marshall? Yeah, yes, Doc shame what
respiratory failure? Why didn't you tell me sooner?
Speaker 1: No, I'll be right up. Yes, what I don't know?
Speaker 2: Secondary a result of the operation.
Speaker 1: Perhaps, Oh, poor Tom, his first could be his last.
I just have a miserable haunt.
Speaker 2: Your brother and I are in for a rough time.
Speaker 1: I hope we can keep you out of it.
Speaker 2: What trouble does doctor Marshall anticipate after a simple operation?
Speaker 1: And what does he mean by your brother?
Speaker 2: And why without the threat of murder or violence or
any superhuman agency, does the shadow of death and mystery
suddenly unfold its shadow over the people we have met
and are still to meet. I'll return shortly with that two.
It is late in the day before the two missing
relatives of Charles Clay arrive at the hospital. Doris Clay
is a triumph of cosmetics over nature.
Speaker 1: But if you look closely.
Speaker 2: Enough, the eyes are small and hag it hard, the
turn of the mouth downward and mean. Her husband Dan
is heavy, sets not with muscle but by indulgence. His
air of arrogance and assuredness is the armor he wears
to cover his weakness.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, we had so much difficulty getting in touch
with you both. I was in the middle of a
bridge tournament. I don't know why the message didn't get
to me.
Speaker 2: I was in court arguing a case, and naturally they
didn't want to interrupt.
Speaker 6: And after all, it wasn't anything serious, was it just
a acute appendicitis?
Speaker 2: Well, we don't have to waste any more time talking
about it. I'd like to see my father.
Speaker 6: Well, that's why I met you and brought you to
doctor Marshall's office.
Speaker 4: Why what's wrong? We were assured this was a very
simple operation that way at.
Speaker 6: The time, missus Clay, And how does it seem now
with some complications? If you'll excuse me, I'll let doctor Marshall,
the surgeon, and our chief of staff explain. I'll have
him Paige and I'll send him right down.
Speaker 4: Well, isn't this just a dandy little mess?
Speaker 2: Take it easy, Daura.
Speaker 4: You should have been here to talk to your father
before they offered.
Speaker 1: I was in court.
Speaker 2: I couldn't walk out in the middle of a ca
You could have walked out of the middle of a break.
Speaker 4: I'm not his child, you are.
Speaker 6: I couldn't have persuaded him to change his will back,
and even if I could, he'd insisted on seeing you
before he took any legal steps.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 2: No, he didn't consult me when he cut us out
of his will.
Speaker 6: Well, he was angry at us then, Thank Heaven, enough has.
Speaker 4: Happened since that. We're back in his good graces, we hope.
Speaker 6: Well, if we aren't, it's no fault of mine. I
did everything I could to butter him up.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give your credit for that.
Speaker 4: Damn well, right, I did.
Speaker 6: Letting David spend half his time on that smelly old boat,
cooking his clans and his seafood, even feeding that mangy
old dog of his.
Speaker 2: Ugh, I could throw up when I think of this,
but it may prove worth it. Baby, he's in.
Speaker 6: Letting David bring that miserable apology for a dog back
into our nice clean house.
Speaker 4: Because then, my dear you said.
Speaker 6: May may have been worth it. When you had that
talk with him day before yesterday and you said he
was coming home, You said he was going to change
his will again yesterday?
Speaker 1: Did he? I guess he didn't.
Speaker 4: What do you mean you guess?
Speaker 2: His lawyer called me this morning? Why you were still asleep.
He never kept the appointment.
Speaker 4: My lord, you know what that means.
Speaker 7: If anything happens to him, we're again.
Speaker 4: We've got to get to him fast.
Speaker 2: And there was only a simple APPANDIX. What the devil
you're blowing a stack about.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's even better this way.
Speaker 2: We take him home to recuperate, and it'll be a
lot easier to bring him wrong.
Speaker 4: I hope so, because I'll tell you this.
Speaker 6: If he dies and doesn't leave us enough to clean
up our debts, I'm walking out on you.
Speaker 1: Dan Clay, mister missus Clay, yes, will you. I'm doctor Schaeffer.
Speaker 2: Doctor Marshall was concerned about keeping you waiting so long,
ung He asked me to come down and talk to you.
Speaker 6: We don't want to waste any more time.
Speaker 4: Both my husband and I want to see our father.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid you can't for the moment.
Speaker 4: Why not.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to tell you this, but he's gone into
a coma coma. We oh, we haven't been able to
diagnose it.
Speaker 1: Yet, mister Clay.
Speaker 4: The doctors don't even know.
Speaker 2: From what we can see, it has nothing to do
with the operation. It looks like an infection or an
allergy of some kind what time, Well, possibly a transverse smyelitis.
Speaker 1: I mean an inflammation of the spine.
Speaker 6: What's the spine got to do with an appendicitis?
Speaker 2: Your father had a spinal anesthesia. It was necessary since
he had a severe cold and a general anesthesia could
have proven dangerous.
Speaker 6: Are you implying, doctor Schaefer, that the spinal could have
been a mistake.
Speaker 2: Not a mistake, but quite often a post operative reaction
like your father's might.
Speaker 1: Be due to an allergy. Do you know of any
that he had to ask Dad before? You want ahead?
Speaker 2: Yes, but at the time he was in so much
pain and we had him sedated, So that excuse me,
Doctor Shaffer.
Speaker 4: Tom is a friend. Are the Clay still with you?
Speaker 2: Yes, try not to a long but I think you
better bring them up here.
Speaker 4: Bryan asked me to call it's mister Clay.
Speaker 1: What about him?
Speaker 4: He's gone into convulsions.
Speaker 3: I see, Well, thank you, doctor, We'll be right up.
Speaker 2: What is that about my father? Well, yes, Doctor Marshall
just sent a message for me to take you upstairs
to his room, and.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid not not yet.
Speaker 2: Shall we go to the elevator's right outside the door.
If you are asking about allergies, doctor Shaffer a question
because you should have asked my father. I did. He
said he had none, that he'd never been sick a
day in his life, just a big front.
Speaker 4: He kept up.
Speaker 6: He was always getting cold, and he had trouble with
his teeth, but you couldn't get him.
Speaker 2: Near a dentist. You remember why, Doris four years ago
when he had the tooth pulled.
Speaker 1: I'm not likely to forget.
Speaker 4: Oh, he has a terrible reaction to the novacane. We
thought that do you use novacaine?
Speaker 2: Was spinal no, but we do use a related drug.
And you didn't ask my father if he was susceptible
to mister Clay, your father denied having any allergies, but.
Speaker 4: You didn't check further.
Speaker 2: We tried to reach both of you, but we couldn't,
as you know, and it was an emergency. Seems to
me it still is just looking more and more that
somebody did make a mistake. Damn serious one. Which Dora
is my father's uh number eight fourteen, the one where
my sister, I mean, doctor Downing is standing.
Speaker 4: Your sister's your name is Shaefer. She uses her married
name doctor marshal'sm with your father. Now she wouldn't mind
waiting just a moment. I don't know about Dan. I'm
getting tired of this run around.
Speaker 1: I don't intend to be kept waiting any longer. It's
urgent that I.
Speaker 4: Said, here's doctor Marshall.
Speaker 2: Now this is mister will you do exist well? I
demand that I be allowed to talk with my father immediately.
I am afraid that's no longer possible. What do you mean?
Very sorry to have to tell you, Missus Clay, You,
mister Cray, but your father's just passed away. Impossible. A
fine old man, imperfect health, with everything to live for
us his grandson, old man is in perfect health after
an operation. And besides, but we.
Speaker 4: Were led to believe it was a very simple operation.
Speaker 2: Is Missus Clay, a classic app indect to be done
in less than half an hour, no complications, no rupture.
The appendix was in no way obstructed. The surgeon was
able to see it clearly, detach it and remove it
withoutment that the surgeon. I thought you were the surgeon,
Doctor Marshall, I was the surgeon in charge, But the
procedure was actually handled by a resident.
Speaker 4: Just what is a resident, doctor Marshall?
Speaker 2: A qualified physician who is training in surgery. What you're saying, doctor,
is that you allowed my father to be operated on
by a novice. I'm saying nothing of the sort.
Speaker 1: What his name? I want to know?
Speaker 2: Who are you?
Speaker 1: Why did the operation? Mister Clay?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 4: I think you must be mad, Doctor Marshall? Why this
this boy scarcely looks any older than my.
Speaker 2: Fifteen year old son, Doctor Marshall, I want the answer
to only one question. I want to know, if the
operation was performed so classically, why my father died?
Speaker 1: I wish I could answer that.
Speaker 2: We haven't been able to determine the causes yet. Oh,
you are not willing to admit them.
Speaker 1: We have nothing to hide, mister Clay. Have you just
exactly what is it you are after? Causes? Doctor? Would
you like me to list a few?
Speaker 2: Since you are not a physician, it seems purposeless. Your
opinion wouldn't have much validity.
Speaker 1: I'm an attorney.
Speaker 2: Doctor, in my opinion has considerable validity in a court
of law. Doris at the elevator, Yes, we're leaving now.
The cray. Before you do, there are certain arrangements. You
can trust me to handle those. You'll be notified. I
had wanted you to sign one document. What for all
our sakes, I think a post mortem examination is indicating, well,
my dead body if you want to add that to.
Speaker 1: My father's elevated here.
Speaker 2: I hope it's more efficient than the staff at this hospital.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, doctor Marshall for what? Doctor for?
Speaker 2: Well, if you want me to really be honest, mostly
because a swell old guy I like died for no
reason I can think of it.
Speaker 1: I just hope it wasn't my fault.
Speaker 4: Well, how could it be?
Speaker 1: Speak anaesthetic. We'll talk this all.
Speaker 2: Out later, Doctor Schaeffer, grab a staff elevator and get
down and make sure the clays are off our turf
for the moment, and then meet me in my office.
Speaker 1: Checkster on my way.
Speaker 4: Brian, it wasn't his fault, was it? No?
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: If there is any blame, and it rests on a
lot of shoulders, it has to.
Speaker 1: Do with us all being human beings.
Speaker 4: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: A nice but stubborn old man who wouldn't admit age
or infirmity, a doctor approaching middle age who lost his
wife and fell in love with another man's and a
rapacious pair of people who don't deserve the title of
human being who had little love for a nice old
guy until.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he died mysteriously.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 4: I don't know about them, only about us.
Speaker 6: I'm married to a husband who should have been a
retired racehorse, a natural stud. He won't divorce me, or
allow a divorce. I won't force it because we do
have a daughter who adores.
Speaker 4: Her father, and I'd rather break my heart than hers.
Speaker 1: And my wife is dead.
Speaker 2: I thought i'd never love another woman, and now I do.
There's nothing I can do about him, Darling, Darling, let
us go for a moment.
Speaker 6: The other thing is more immediate, isn't it. Those two
awful people they're going to sue, aren't they.
Speaker 2: I'd guess that's what they have in mind.
Speaker 6: And if they ever got wind of us, they could
crucify Tom and us and the hospital.
Speaker 4: Perhaps, how can we stop them?
Speaker 2: An autopsy is the best answer. We can force that.
If it's been the case what Tom and I have done,
that's that. And if it doesn't, we could all be
up the creek without a paddle. The doctor's dilemma. There
is no more demanding or exacting and exhausting preparation for
any profession, but there is still a small percentile of accident.
Speaker 4: No human being can possibly foresee.
Speaker 2: Or devise against man proposes, but God still disposes. I'll
return shortly with Act three from flood, famine, death or whatever.
Doris Clay rises late in the morning. It is one
of her completely selfish indulgences. She allows nothing to interfere
with even this morning, which could well be one of
the most important in her life. She is coming to
with the help of black coffee popped up in the
big bed with the satin sheets, as Dan, who is
an early riser, comes to join her.
Speaker 1: Just before noon. Oh, you look like a wrath of God.
Speaker 2: I feel like my nose isn't any good. I got
the Chapman Dad's lawyer, fat ole fool. But I've seen
the will, and the bulk of his estate is left
in trust for David hedged and so tied.
Speaker 1: We couldn't even.
Speaker 2: Borrow begs, steal off a nakel and nickel and the rest.
It might be ironically funny.
Speaker 1: If if we weren't personally involved.
Speaker 2: The rest of it goes to the hospital, a gift
from someone who didn't believe in doctors. He hurt us
Dan not a penny, not unless we break it. Can
we It's a fallback position. I don't know if it's
worth the investments. There's a much easier way out of
our troubles. There's got to be some way or in
debt up to our ears, and we can't hold it
off any longer. I know. I think we have a
good chance for at least a settlement. We're going to
sue for malpractice, but doctors, of course, at least Marshall
mustap insurance. But most of all because clinic and a
resident physician are involved the hospital, that's where the real
though is come in doctor Marshall, you know mister Clay, Yes,
mister Watt. Mister Clay is here at my instigation to
see if we can't smooth out our differences amicably.
Speaker 1: I see no reason why we can't.
Speaker 2: I'm certainly reluctant to damage the reputation of this hospital
for just one tragic mistake.
Speaker 1: If we can keep things client, what are you getting at? Well?
Speaker 2: Until he sold out a little over a year ago,
my father was pioneer furniture. Were the wealthiest and most
influential men in the state. If the papers should pick
up any hint that his death was headlines sell newspapers
pick up what. There's no story for them here, isn't there?
Even you doctors admit my father's death as an enigma.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2: If you want to runder more than lip service?
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Give us permission to perform an autopsy?
Speaker 1: Haven't you mutilated him? Enovel?
Speaker 2: You say you don't want to hurt any reputations, but
you don't want to protect them either. I want my
father to rest in peace, mister Clay, we're both lawyers.
Why fight an autopsy? You know under the circumstances any
court would grant in order to perform one. My object
in come here today was to keep us out of court.
Meaning you want a settlement, Well, wrong has been done.
You can't prove that without an autopsy.
Speaker 1: It is the truth you want, isn't it? Of course?
Speaker 2: All right, give me the paper and I'll sign it.
How soon will we get results?
Speaker 1: By tomorrow morning? Now? All right?
Speaker 2: Well then we'll know exactly where we all stand.
Speaker 4: Come in, good morning, Brian.
Speaker 1: You got one of these two friends.
Speaker 4: I never had one before.
Speaker 2: You got one of your company. You meet Tom, doctor
Davis and hospital the moment the results of the post
mortem were in.
Speaker 6: But it was negative, I mean because of death unknown.
It didn't prove any of us response.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it didn't prove that any or all of us weren't.
Speaker 1: There's one easy way out of this.
Speaker 2: What I resign as chief of staff, take the blame
and make the best settlement of Clay that I.
Speaker 1: Can out of court.
Speaker 6: But why would you do a thing like that?
Speaker 4: No, never is guilty of anything.
Speaker 2: He has no case, Darling.
Speaker 1: The danger here is you and me.
Speaker 4: We haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 2: No, I'm rather sorry to say, no sin of commission.
But a hospital is like a school or a small village,
and the grapevine trembles in the slightest wind. If Dan
Clay got any notion that you, a married woman, have
any concern for me, and that I because tom As
your brother, made any special consideration to allow him to operate.
Speaker 6: But you've done just the opposite. You've almost held him
back because of that conscience of yours.
Speaker 2: I know that you know, but does the rest of
the world. Long before all of this happened, I haven't
tried to face the fact that I should go away
and leave you to.
Speaker 6: Alec in and out of any other bed he can find.
Speaker 4: Oh no, you don't walk out because of me.
Speaker 6: Maybe it's time to get it all out in the
open anyway. I can't protect my daughter much longer. She's
getting old enough to know about her father.
Speaker 4: And we can take it as long as we know
we're right. We are, aren't we dying?
Speaker 2: As God is my judge.
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 4: So then what killed that poor old man?
Speaker 1: Nothing we did, I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure of it. The question is how can I pull it?
Speaker 1: Doctor Marshall.
Speaker 2: Yes, mister Watt, I know, yeah, yes, yes, of course
I can't promise that we can't.
Speaker 1: I know, sir much better. I have doctor downing with me.
Speaker 2: Now I'll round up the others and join you in
your office.
Speaker 4: What was that?
Speaker 2: Mister Wyatt wants us Tom and doctor Davis.
Speaker 1: Up in his office.
Speaker 2: He's gotten Clay to agree to a pre for hearing
beforth to try to keep this thing from getting out
of hand. Just a quick explanation of what an examination
before trial consists of. This is mister Cooper, who's a
court stenographer. He will take a complete transcript that everything said.
He had justice in a court of law, though there
is no judge present here. Everyone will receive the full transcript,
and you will be bound by oath to whatever statements
they make. All right, mister Clay, thank you. Mister Watt
doutor Downing, you admitted my father to the clinic.
Speaker 4: I signed it in Yes.
Speaker 2: Did you bring a copy of the roster for that
evening as requested?
Speaker 4: I did?
Speaker 2: Was there a patient named Spud Pollock on that roster?
Speaker 1: Yes, but according to this he was on the fourth.
Speaker 2: In order, after Charles Clay, and yet he was taken.
Speaker 4: Ahead of him with a child been bitten by a dog.
Speaker 2: It was an emergency, and an acute appendix is no
time I wasn't aware of.
Speaker 3: How could you be?
Speaker 2: Since you hadn't asked? I submitted it was gross negligence.
Egligence has not been established. Let it also be noted
that Charles Clay did have an acute appendix and subsequently
died the very next day. Now, as I understand that,
doctor Schaeffer, you were the one who diagnosed acute appendix,
I did, and you recommended an immediate operation, correct for
which some form of general anesthetic is used.
Speaker 1: Not in this case.
Speaker 2: The patient appeared to have an upper respiratory infection, so
doctor Davis, the anesthesiologist, and I agreed that his spinal
was the safest to use. Did my father sign a
consent for the operation? Yes, and he was told about
the spinal At the time he signed the consent, it
had not been decided on, so he was never well.
He was in great pain and under sedation by the
time it was agreed on. Were you aware that mister
Clay was allergic to Nova King? I asked him if
he had any allergies.
Speaker 3: He said no, just general allergies or what.
Speaker 2: There wasn't time to go into it in detail. There
was risk of the appendix rupturing. And the appendix ruptures,
is it usually fatal?
Speaker 1: Not by any mean? In this case it didn't. Still
the patient died.
Speaker 2: Why do you know you know, we don't, doctor Marshall.
I received a copy of the autopsy report. Quote death
by respiratory failure and or cardiac arrest due to cause
or causes unknown unquote. That doesn't rule out an allergic
reaction to the anesthesia, does it No? But and when
my father was examined before the operation, there was no
indication of any other serious condition other than the inflamed appendix.
Speaker 1: Assentially correct.
Speaker 2: So what will you say in court doctor, when I asked,
would Charles Clay have died if there had not been
an operation? Don't answer that, doctor Marshall. We'll wait till
or if we get to court to argue that you
are married. Mister Clay, I am any children, one a boy, David.
Are you and your father close?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: We were a very close family. So your only reason
for bringing suit is to punish the parties you deem
responsible for the death of your father, correct, and any
money you might be awarded a secondary course, no object.
I see your father didn't live in the same house
with you. No where did he live in an old
boady built?
Speaker 1: Why that kind of.
Speaker 2: Life, even in a freezing winter he thought was too
much for his dog to stand.
Speaker 1: Dad was getting old.
Speaker 2: We like to indulge his whims.
Speaker 1: That's what he wanted, so we gave it.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be that he was tired of indulging your
whims and paying your debts.
Speaker 1: Did you follow me the will?
Speaker 2: Don't you know?
Speaker 1: He did?
Speaker 2: You subpoena a copy of it, but he was going
to change it.
Speaker 1: A blow for the hospital.
Speaker 2: It would have been, wouldn't it to lose all that bequest.
I won't even dignify that with an answer. I want
to read only one part. I bequeath in trust to
my grandson David, all the rest of my property, real
or otherwise, you see, And I charge him and or
his trustees to maintain until his death. My friend Whiskey,
He and David have given me the only love I
ever knew.
Speaker 1: Whiskey my father's dog.
Speaker 2: We've been taking care of him better.
Speaker 1: Than your father.
Speaker 2: I hope Whiskey was old and sick. She had to
be put away a deliberate act, counselor not like my
father who was lost through negligence.
Speaker 4: What is it, Brian?
Speaker 1: Oh you alone? Yes, I just came from a long
talk of the WIAT.
Speaker 2: I've handed them my resignation.
Speaker 1: Oh no, why the only way?
Speaker 2: Wyatt had Clay backed against the wall at one point,
and he really opened up and threatened to fight Dirty.
Speaker 1: He's so desperate.
Speaker 2: He'd ruined Tom's career, and you always mine.
Speaker 1: His wife prize.
Speaker 2: Hard and also something of a swinger, apparently knows your husband.
In return for all the phony Dirty could hand her
about us, she promised to make sure they discredit you
enough in an open trial so he could get custody
of your child.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself for me
and tell me it isn't only that the old man
did go into convulsive seizure before he died.
Speaker 1: With that in the books, and considering.
Speaker 2: The Vicious Rabbit prosecution, Dan Clay would put on in
court the press coveragual.
Speaker 1: Rabbit.
Speaker 4: What is it that kid with the dog bite.
Speaker 2: Charles Clay's old dog, Francis. Maybe I just found the answer.
We've got to have another postmartem the second autosi, mister Clay,
when we knew what we were looking for. List's final
proof in the Cornea moonas the characteristic conclusion, bodies of
Nagri were found. In Lanman's terms, your father died of rabies,
which he got from his dog, Whiskey. The dog never
had convulsion. There are two forms, the furious and the dumb,
and the second. The dog is just lethargic and comatose.
Speaker 1: He looks old.
Speaker 2: My father never was the saliva of the dog when
someone finaled him. If there was any break in the
skin whatsoever, would have been enough to infect him. You're
just lucky you had that dog. Put away before he
infected your sundawn. Now get out of here before I
give you a valid case to prosecute as salt and battery.
Speaker 1: Well that's the.
Speaker 4: End of that, and at the beginning of us.
Speaker 6: What you mean, Oh, I'm just realizing that I'm the
one who's really guilty of gross negligence.
Speaker 4: Brian, my darling, you think you can forgive me?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'll spend a lifetime trying. No gothic tale of horror,
no murders, no horrendous Richard spirits rising from the grave,
but a mystery story and a story of jeopardy more
important than most for a doctor's good name, must, like
Caesar's wife, always be above reproach. I'll be back shortly.
A few footnotes to a compelling story. First, that the
doctors were vindicated. Second, to applaud the depth of a
surgeon's knowledge that enabled him to make such a rare
diagnosis once he had the facts. Last, a word about
old Charles Clay. Though today rabies, if caught in time,
can be cured. Once the symptoms develop, death is inevitable.
So somewhere Charles can perhaps take heart knowing his death
achieved one thing it brought a happy life to two
people who might have let it slip through their fingers.
So at the end this was a love story. Our
cast included Mason Adams, Marion Soudi's, Bob Calaban, Alan Hewitt,
Hetty Galen and Gil Mack. The entire production was under
the direction of Hyman Brown. And now a preview of
our next tale was Shaking Hands.
Speaker 7: I measured a very small portion in a cup of
hot water and took it down the hall to my
uncle's bedroom.
Speaker 2: All right, I'll just say for a little while.
Speaker 1: But you'd see it sooner or later.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't believe I was saying it. In The walls
and floor were black, and so is the big bed
with a prowl like a Viking ship. My uncle looked
like a ghost propped up against those white pillows. And
John had warned me a casseire on one side of
the bed with that coat wreck thing from which dangled
a full size skeleton.
Speaker 2: Don't be frightened, my dear, You'll soon get used to
everything around here. Radio Mystery Theater were sponsored in part
by Enhuzer Bush Incorporated, brewers of Budweiser and sign Off
The Sinus medicines. This is e. G. Marshall inviting you
to return to our mystery theater for another adventure.
Speaker 1: In the Macobres.
Speaker 2: Until next time, Pleasants dreams,