Speaker 1: Come in, Welcome, Welcome to mystery Theater. I am Hymen
Brown with another tale of the Macabreough Macabre suggests the
dance of death. Death is a skeleton who leads others
to the grave.
Speaker 2: In this story, a.
Speaker 1: Respected middle aged man, Philip Chambers, becomes an agent for
death because death placed in his hands a temptation he
could not resist, Avarice, one of the seven mortal sins.
Speaker 2: In the short space of three.
Speaker 1: Days, Avarice, an almost physical greed for wealth, brought terror
and disaster to this man and to his family.
Speaker 2: Who are you? Where is it, mister Chambers? What are
you doing in my basement? How did you get in here?
Speaker 3: Let's have it, mister Chambers. You don't want to get
hurt to you. This is a real gun. I've used
it before, I know how to use it.
Speaker 2: Let them have it. Neck.
Speaker 3: Let's get out of here, not until mister Chambers turns
it over to us. How about it, mister Chambers?
Speaker 2: What is it? You want?
Speaker 3: The money? Eighty grand? It's ours and you've got it
someplace down here.
Speaker 2: I'll turn it over warm blow your head off.
Speaker 1: Our mystery drama, The Root of All Evil was written
especially for the mystery theater by Roy Windsor and stars
Norman Rose and Anne Shepherd. I'll be back shortly with
that one. Philip Chambers and his wife Laura live in
a small colonial house in marris Manor, a village thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: From New York.
Speaker 1: It's streets are tree lined and quiet. Families take pride
in their homes and land. It's a wealthy village and
most families have gardeners. But not Philip Chambers. He's an
organic gardener who enjoys grinding up all kinds of refuse
for his compost heap and returning it to the soil
of his acre of land. And that's where the trouble
began one Sunday morning, at breakfasts in their kitchen.
Speaker 4: Now, phil please don't run a shredder of yours before
nine o'clock. Some people like to sleep on Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: I know, I know.
Speaker 4: I'll lick up the kitchen and you'll be back in
time to clean up for church. You want the eggshell, certainly?
Speaker 2: What have you done with the scraps?
Speaker 4: Oh, they're in the place, pastic bag all the week stuff.
I put the bag in the garbage bin. Last night
was beginning to persume in the back porch.
Speaker 2: Get rid of it, my dear Laura. It will be
ground to shreds within half an hour.
Speaker 4: And don't get your fingers caught in that full machine.
Speaker 2: A beautiful morning. Let me see. Yep, it's a pretty
large bag full of garbage. Better get the wheelbap, What
the what the devil? Money? Bags of money? There must
be thousands of dollars at the bottom of the bin.
It's a fortune. It's a fortune. Where did it come
from her? And what do I do with it? Somebody
hid the money there? But why? And whose is it? Phil?
Speaker 4: Yes, Joe Shelson, just telephone, it's in the news. I'm
gonna go across to read the article.
Speaker 2: Well, what's in the new the robbery?
Speaker 4: You were asleep when all the excitement happens. I'll bring
back the newspaper clipping, and I'll tell you all about it.
I'll be right back.
Speaker 2: The robbery, I'll be right now. Robbery, what robbery? I
must get to the basement. Good lord. I've never held
so much real money in my hands in all my life.
Packs of one hundred dollar bills, fifty in a pack.
See ten of those? Oh, I can't believe it. And
fifty thousand dollars and thousand dollar bills, thirty of them,
eighty thousand dollars. Oh I'm rich. I'm rich. No more scrimping,
no more fawning over persons for whom I have contempt,
begging work as a freelance copywriter, people who don't know
as much as I'm forgotten. This money, This money means
I am free. It's got to be hidden. Whoever left
that fortune in the garbage bin, We'll try to get
it back. Laura said, there was a robbery. Maybe the
thief hid the money. Let's see where I put it
small box. First, I'll place the money in his plastic bag,
and then into that box the iris bobes came in.
Let's see. And then where let me see how yeh?
Behind the basement window, under the porch, the siding runs
to the ground. Eighty thousand dollars. That's mine and I
won't give it up.
Speaker 5: Yes, Laura, can you come up here for a minute?
Speaker 2: Why? Certainly come on out on the porch.
Speaker 4: I had that article.
Speaker 2: Uh, Laura, there was a robbery read two am Grove
City police raced after three men and a crashed when
they made a sharp turn at McKinley Street and Highland Avenue,
and Marris Man, why that a lot of that's.
Speaker 4: Our corner, and you slept right through the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I must do.
Speaker 4: The sound could have wakened the dead. The police car
was blasting at siren. Then there was a terrible crash
when the robbers car hit old Missus Morris's elm tree
and turned upside down. And one of the men was dead.
Speaker 2: Huh. And the other two you said there were.
Speaker 5: Three must have got away.
Speaker 4: All of us had run outside, doctor Shelton and Joan
and I and the Moors and the mclouds. But the
police told us to get back to our houses. They
had their guns out and they were searching for the
missing men.
Speaker 2: How much do they get away with?
Speaker 4: Thousands, thousands of dollars? As much as seventy five or
eighty thousand. They tied up the night watchmen and broke
into the Grove City Federal Bank. Some alarm went off,
so the police reached the bank just as the robbers
jumped into their car, and they came tearing along this way.
The police were right after them.
Speaker 2: You know that that was a nice elm tree of
missus Morris.
Speaker 4: Is that all you've got to say? That was a
nice elm tree of Missus Moore's. This is the most
exciting thing we've had around here since the Hurricane Esther.
And you're worried about Missus Moore's elm tree. You've got
no adventure in your soul?
Speaker 6: Phil Is that's all right? You did have?
Speaker 4: Now the two of us are staid, old middle agers
getting by and letting the world go by.
Speaker 2: I suppose so, Laura, you're not offended, No, of course not.
My future is behind me. I'm afraid.
Speaker 4: No, it's not. You've done so much, You've written so
many great advertising campaigns. Your skill hasn't worn away.
Speaker 6: You'll see.
Speaker 4: I'm certain it go well tomorrow, I hope, sir.
Speaker 2: But Laura faced, I'm fifty five. My lunch date and
interview tomorrow is with a twenty six year old girl
almost fresh out of college. Laura, I'm old enough to
be her father. Why would she want to employ me?
I'd be an embarrassment to her because I but because
I know too much, I.
Speaker 4: Don't see why. Well, you have to finish with your shredding,
and I've got address for church.
Speaker 2: Well, I decided not to use the shredder this morning.
Speaker 6: Oh not enough garbage in refuse.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, all the excitement about last night has
unnerved me. I'll get to the shredder next week.
Speaker 4: I'll be out of the shower in a few minutes.
Speaker 2: Don't hurry, I have some things to do in the basement.
Speaker 4: Oh look, I've asked doctor Shelton and Joan to come
by at six for cocktails on the porch.
Speaker 2: All right, Oh sure, sure, it's fine. Look a gift
horse in the face. There's an old chestnut. When someone
makes you a present, don't look too minutely into its
intrinsic value. Eighty thousand dollars. Oh that's some gift horse.
Where is it? No, no, no, it's stolen money, which
I propose to steal. I hope it's safe behind that
basement window. I better lock the garage, put that bag
of garbage back in the bin, and then.
Speaker 6: Church Paul glasses empty?
Speaker 3: Doctor, Oh two is my limit on a Sunday night, Laura,
doan or.
Speaker 7: I'm not operating at seven in the morning.
Speaker 2: Phil, Phil, Oh, yes, yes, dear.
Speaker 4: Jan would like refill? Your mind's a million miles away.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry Joe. And now that was with water, right, Ah, Paul.
Speaker 4: What do you think really? I mean about that robbery
and the disappearance of the two men.
Speaker 8: Well, after looking at the car, Laura, I wonder how
they came out of the accident alive.
Speaker 6: But they did.
Speaker 4: It's remarkable, And they disappeared with a little had money
almost one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: Oh, not quite that much, but a small fortune.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 7: Could they have escaped the police? Maybe they're still hiding
right in this neighborhood.
Speaker 5: Here's a drink, John, thank you. They could be in hiding,
don't you think.
Speaker 2: So, Paul.
Speaker 5: I can't imagine where someone's.
Speaker 4: Basement or attic. The wings are away for the month. Yes,
they're a candlestick lake for a month.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 8: Surely they notified the police that they'd be away. Are
there other vacant houses in the neighborhood you know?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The Murrays went away for the weekend to visit their son, a.
Speaker 7: Cast So it's possible that the thieves could be hiding
right around here.
Speaker 2: Well, my guess is that they stole somebody's car and
got themselves lost.
Speaker 4: In the city with eighty thousand dollars of hard earned money.
Speaker 8: Well insurance will cover the bank's loss. Joan, my dear,
I'm afraid it's time for the doctor to.
Speaker 2: Get to bed.
Speaker 7: What time?
Speaker 5: Oh my, it's late. It's ten o'clock. We came over
here for cocktails. We stayed for salad and rolls.
Speaker 4: I'm delighted you did. Phil's been fidgety all day long.
Your visit took his mind off his problems, didn't it feel?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, yes, I'm very happy for she came over.
Speaker 8: Don't work so hard, Phil, You have seen preoccupied? Relax
or has the chatter about the mysterious robbers upset you?
Speaker 2: Oh? For Heaven's no as shut as a house.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the whole light when I get the cover off.
Stick the light inside the can when and then turn
it off? Okay, creepy out here, flash the light in
the bottom of the cat.
Speaker 2: See anything, No scrounged a round. It's not there.
Speaker 8: It's gotta be there.
Speaker 2: Somebody beat us to it. What dirty? Shut up? Mike
dead and eighty grand gone. Someone's got it. Maybe the
god they just stupids. No garbage pick up on Sunday. Well,
maybe the people in the house seeing it and quote
the fuzz.
Speaker 8: Maybe or maybe they kept it. You get kind of
a surprise. You open a garbage can and find eighty
grand right on, I wonder who lives here. We gotta
find out if he's got the money, we'll sweat it
out of him. But if he gave it to the
cop that we find out first, you're crazy. We walk
in and ask if they found the money, we'd be
in the can in five seconds. You've heard of the telephone.
That's how we find out. And when we know, we
come back. Now'll put the light away, I'll put the
cover back on the cat. Right then, let's get out
of here.
Speaker 5: Then, bugs that go croak give me the shakes?
Speaker 4: Phil, Phil? Is is that you?
Speaker 2: What is it? Laura?
Speaker 6: Are you still awake?
Speaker 5: What's what's the matter?
Speaker 4: Can't you sleep? Is it cold on the port? I
guess you're another blank?
Speaker 2: No? No, I'm all right. Go back to bed, Laura.
Speaker 6: Your voice is shaky.
Speaker 4: Let me turn on the light.
Speaker 2: No, please.
Speaker 4: Come into the bedroom, Phil, I'll turn on the light. Phil,
he was soaked with perspiration.
Speaker 6: What is it?
Speaker 4: Let me get your robe? Where do you feel ill?
What is stomach?
Speaker 6: But your head?
Speaker 4: I sit down on the rock.
Speaker 2: Yes, Laura, maybe maybe if I.
Speaker 6: Had a brandy, I'll telephone pole.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, please, he's operating at seven. I'm
just gonna kill or something.
Speaker 4: Wipe your face with a wet cloth and I'll be
right off.
Speaker 2: I've heard them every word. They're coming back killers. Oh
what should I do? Is it too late to call
the police in turn in the money? Maybe not? But
give up eighty thousand dollars because I'm afraid of a
pair of hoodlums. What have I got to be afraid of? Say?
They confront me. I tell them that I haven't got
the money, but they risk shooting me. No, I won't
give up that money. I won't.
Speaker 4: Here's the brandy. Sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks, thanks?
Speaker 5: That helps pl.
Speaker 4: When I walked through the living room to the bar
on the porch, yes, two men were staring from behind
the front heads through the living room window. Phil I'm afraid.
Speaker 1: Philip Chambers is already a harried man. Will his sense
of moral values be strong enough to overcome temptation or
will he persist in holding on to the stolen money.
We'll find out where Mystery Theater returns with Act two.
Philip Chambers and his wife Laura somehow got through the
remainder of the night. After Laura's fright about seeing two
men stare through her living room windows, Philip, in a
brave display, turned on the front lights and walked outside
defiantly a fireplace poker in his hand.
Speaker 2: That assured Laura, but she.
Speaker 1: Insisted on telephoning the police and reporting what she had seen.
Then the Chambers went to bed and to a fitful sleep.
The next morning over coffee, all.
Speaker 4: Right, Phil, they look pretty ragged.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm all right. I'd better be. I'm seeing that
girl at noon and going to lunch.
Speaker 4: You're taking the train five, throwing her a bundle of nerves. Phil,
who I You.
Speaker 2: Keep telling me that, Laura, and that hardly helps. But
I wish you'd just forget about me. I've got a
lot on my mind out if you'll excuse me.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, Phil, I'm sorry, but you worry me. It
is something bothering you that I don't know about.
Speaker 2: Survival.
Speaker 4: Survival. We're not that bad off. We're doing all right.
Speaker 2: But I'll be in the basement.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll drive you to the train.
Speaker 2: Don't bother I'll call a cab.
Speaker 4: But that's foolish. One minute you're talking about survival. The
next minute you're throwing away money out on a cab or.
Speaker 2: Just stop talking, will you please?
Speaker 4: So strange, let's come over you. I'm just wait to
doctor Shelton me he can find out.
Speaker 6: Fo hie seven ah.
Speaker 5: Doctor Schelt's residence.
Speaker 4: Hi, Johnny, Laura, y'all. Look, when does Paul get home
from the hospital.
Speaker 7: This is Monday and he operated early? I say, uh,
ought to be home by four? Why something wrong?
Speaker 6: I think so, but I don't know. Uh, it's Phil.
Speaker 4: Don't you tell you what? He's taking the ten oh
five to the city. Can you come over at ten thirty.
I'll be back then and I gotta talk this out.
Speaker 2: Of course?
Speaker 7: You sound serious?
Speaker 4: I am? I am? Will you come over?
Speaker 2: Of course?
Speaker 7: I see at ten thirty mm.
Speaker 2: There that ought to be safe. Who'd think of looking
behind a basement window and under the porch? Oh? Oh,
I got the shakes. Why don't I take the money
with me into the city. I could leave it in
a locker at Grand Central. Did the police find the
money in my possession? Oh no, no, I've got to
block my way out of this. Eighty thousand dollars dropped
into my hands. I can't give it up now. Look,
I mustn't be afraid. Oh my stomach keeps turning. I
still have that lunch meeting.
Speaker 5: You look as if you hadn't slept a wink last night, Laura.
I didn't.
Speaker 4: At about three o'clock, Phil was awake. He came up
late and slept on the upstairs porch. I heard him stirring,
so I checked on him. He was covered with perspiration,
shaking like a leaf. And how was he this morning? Well,
he looked exhausted, but he didn't have the shakes. He
was all right when I dropped him at the train.
Speaker 5: Well, he has that important lunch today, doesn't he? Could
that be it?
Speaker 4: It could be, but I don't think so. Phil's had
summited meetings before. No, it's something else. I can't find
out what it is. Maybe Paul can.
Speaker 5: Maybe Paul's not a psychiatrist.
Speaker 4: It's so I nobody's a doctor, and Phil might confide
in him. Besides, Paul's his best friend.
Speaker 5: But Phil wouldn't say what was bothering him.
Speaker 4: No, when I persisted in my questions, he said, survival.
Speaker 6: That's odd.
Speaker 5: What did he mean? Continuing to live? To stay alive?
Speaker 4: I think it has something to do with the robbery
or the grocity bank sick.
Speaker 6: Why what's that got to do with Phil?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: Ever since I mentioned the robbery to him, Phil seemed distracted.
When he read the article in the news, he grew tense.
He began to perspire. I didn't think anything of it
at the time, but since what's happened, I've been trying
to reconstruct Phil's behavior. I think it springs somehow from
the robbery. I've never been so frightened in my life, Laura.
I went down for Brandy when he felt so badly.
I didn't switch on the lights. I walked down the
stairs from the bedroom and across the living room toward
the porch, and that's when I almost screamed, good heavens,
what happened? Two men standing behind the hedge in front
of the living room windows and looking in looking.
Speaker 5: Through your windows?
Speaker 7: You think that the stolen money was or is somewhere
around your property.
Speaker 4: I don't know what to think.
Speaker 5: Have you told the police?
Speaker 4: I telephoned them last night and they sent a prowl
car to snoop around.
Speaker 7: What did you mention your theory to the police, I
mean about the money being hidden somewhere around your house.
Speaker 4: No, First, it sounds far fetched. Second, I've got a
feeling that somehow it concerns Phil.
Speaker 5: How could a concern Phil?
Speaker 7: I mean, he may know where the money is hidden.
Speaker 4: I don't know what I mean, Joan.
Speaker 7: Talk about imagination, Laura, you're as bad as Phil with
his talk about survival.
Speaker 5: He has a bad case of nerves and survival. He
said he was worried about survival. Now, isn't that the
word you said?
Speaker 4: Yes, that's the word he used. I thought he meant
our survival. What if he meant he was afraid literally
of his own survival? That would mean he knows something
about the robbery that he's not telling.
Speaker 7: But you don't believe that he found the money, do you.
I don't know that if he did. Knowing Phil the
kind of man he is, you'd just have called the police.
Speaker 4: No question about it, and he would have told me, Oh,
excuse me, back door bell.
Speaker 5: I'll be right back, Joan, take your time. I'll be
out on the porch.
Speaker 2: Morning. I'd like to read the water meter.
Speaker 4: Oh uh, down the steps to the basement and watch
your head.
Speaker 6: The ceilings low.
Speaker 5: The garden looks wonderful.
Speaker 6: Laura, Yes, it does.
Speaker 4: Phil takes such great pride in it, Laura.
Speaker 7: If Phil meant he's afraid about his own survival, and
I think he knows something.
Speaker 5: Either he saw the men.
Speaker 7: Who stole the money and can identify them, or he
knows where the money is hidden.
Speaker 4: Glad, I can't believe if Phil knew that I'd know it.
And you just said Phil, being the kind of man
he's always been, would return it.
Speaker 7: Yes, Well, maybe Paul can drag it out of him,
whatever it might be.
Speaker 6: I'm worried, sick.
Speaker 4: I have a premonition of danger or to a tragedy,
something in the air, sense of impending evil.
Speaker 5: Hello, Laura, something's occurred to me.
Speaker 7: What June, I was on your porch at ten thirty
and the doorbell rang.
Speaker 4: Who was it with the man who reads the water meter? Why?
Speaker 7: Well, he didn't come.
Speaker 9: To my house.
Speaker 7: And when a man comes from the water department, he
reads the meters at all the houses in the neighborhood.
Speaker 4: Yes, he does.
Speaker 2: And another thing.
Speaker 7: I went shopping at noon and as I drove out
of my driveway, a man walked out from the back
of your house. Did someone else call on you?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: You mean that the man who read the meter was
in my basement from ten thirty until noon.
Speaker 7: Some man was, but he wasn't a man from the water.
Speaker 2: Department with him.
Speaker 4: We're right the stolen he's around here someplace. And the
man who is one of the thieves.
Speaker 7: Has Phil returned from New York.
Speaker 4: No, No, And it's after five when you.
Speaker 5: Shouldn't be in that house alone. Until we get to
the bottom of this strange situation. Paul got stuck with
another emergency operation.
Speaker 7: He won't be home until quite late, but I'll send
him by after I tell him everything.
Speaker 4: We think. Oh, but the poor man will be exhausted.
Speaker 5: Why do I exhausted?
Speaker 7: He'll be by to see Phil, and then you come
across to see me.
Speaker 4: All right, Phil, thank you, Joan. There's the front door. Phil.
Speaker 2: Yea, all in one pieces.
Speaker 4: It's Phil. He sounds a little tipsy. I'll see you later,
Johan to go by.
Speaker 2: I'm on the porch. Honey. You'll excuse me for having
had one more than I should have had after lunch.
Speaker 4: Well, you don't have to explained early. I'd take it
to you didn't get the assignment.
Speaker 2: How did you know that you've got second siders of me,
no or something?
Speaker 4: Was it unpleasant?
Speaker 2: No? No, about as I expected, nice girl, young enough
to be my daughter. She had white wine and I
had a few martinis. Oh dear, yeah, oh dear.
Speaker 4: So you proceeded to lord it over the young woman
who SIPs white wine.
Speaker 2: Lorded over? No, that's not so. We got talking about
what I'd be doing as a consultant and copy. Now
I know something about copy, Laura, Yes, you do me
begging for a job. I used to run that joint
before that kid was out of doctor Denton's camp. Be
twenty six. I was about thirty when she was born.
Speaker 4: Let me fix you a cup of cors I don't.
Speaker 2: Want to make coffee. You say that I'm bumbed, Laura,
Well I'm not. I never felt better. I just had
lots of things on my mind.
Speaker 4: Including the robbery of the Grove City bank robbery. Do
you know who the men are who robbed the bank? Phil?
Speaker 3: Me?
Speaker 2: How? And I know I never saw him in my life?
Say what is all this?
Speaker 4: Remember the two men I saw looking in through the
living room window this morning at three am?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What were two men doing looking through the window? Fill?
Speaker 2: Well? Search me?
Speaker 6: We think they.
Speaker 4: Had hidden the stolen money and we're looking for it.
Speaker 2: We Laura, who is we?
Speaker 4: Joan and me?
Speaker 2: Have you been talking this over with Joan?
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 6: She's my best friend and Paul is yours.
Speaker 2: You and Joan turn amateur detectives. Huh haven't the two?
Have you got anything better to talk about than that robbery?
Speaker 4: Frankly no, because ever since you heard about it, you
haven't been Philip Chambers and who have I read a
nervous wreck and you're making a nervous wreck out of me.
Tell me, honestly, Phil, do you know anything about the
men who committed the robbery? Do you know who they are?
Do they hide the money on our property? Are you
in danger of survival?
Speaker 2: That's a questions.
Speaker 4: Give me some answers, Phil.
Speaker 2: What are you so worked up about? Laura? This is
a police matter. Just just leave it to the police.
Speaker 4: I've notified the police. Last night and again today. A
man came to the house and said he wanted to
read the water meter. He wasn't from the water company.
He was in our basement for almost an hour and
a half.
Speaker 5: I see what what.
Speaker 4: Do you see?
Speaker 2: Barah? Well, maybe you're right. I don't know anything about
any of this, but you just might be right. Maybe
the thieves did hide that money around here. I gotta check.
Speaker 6: Let's have the police do the checking.
Speaker 2: Don't you worry about me.
Speaker 5: I'll just look.
Speaker 4: Around, Phil, Are you in danger now?
Speaker 2: Nothing's going to happen to me. He's getting dark outside,
starting to rain.
Speaker 6: I'll be across the street with Joan.
Speaker 3: Hello, mister Chambers, who are you? Where have you got it?
Mister Chambers?
Speaker 2: What are you doing in my basement? How did you
get in here?
Speaker 3: Let's have it, mister Chambers. They don't want to get
hurt to you. This is a real gun. I've used
it before, I know how to use it.
Speaker 2: Let him have it, Nick, Let's get out of here, not.
Speaker 3: Until he turns it over to us. Now, how about it,
mister Chambers?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: You want money? Eighty grand? It's ours, and you have
it someplace down here. I'll turn it over. I'll blow
your head off.
Speaker 1: Avarice is like quicksand once you've taken the first risky step,
you cannot save yourself from its grasp. Philip Chambers may
lose his life unless he gives up what is not
rightly his. He has everything to lose, nothing to gain,
or has greed so infected his mind that he will
look down the barrel of a revolver and believe that
he can stop a bullet with his beautiful dream of
a fortune, and the security will give him mystery. Theater
will return shortly with Act three. Philip Chambers found eighty
thousand dollars at the bottom of his garbage bin. Despite
a lifetime of ethical exactitude, mister Chambers didn't hesitate a
minute before deciding that fate had dropped a rich token
into his deserving hands. He kept the money stolen from
the bank in Grove City, but the thieves also.
Speaker 2: Want the money. I'm waiting, mister Chambers. I don't know
what you talking about it, and I want you out
of here. He's gonna be tough, stud. You want me
to soften him up. Not yet. Stud here is pretty
good at making a guy talk, mister Chambers.
Speaker 3: Now, we don't want to hurt you, so just turn
over the money and we'll run along.
Speaker 2: I haven't got your money. We'll wasting time there. You
got it all right.
Speaker 3: We hit it in the garbage can last Saturday night.
You found it Sunday morning and hit it because when
we came back for it.
Speaker 2: It was gone. Now where have you got it? If
you think that there's money down here? You're crazy? If
there were, why didn't you find it? You went down
here for an hour and a half this morning.
Speaker 3: I'm getting impatient, mister Chambers. You don't turn over that
money in one minute, stud he'll go to work on you.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't get away with it. You think I'm gonna
stand here and do nothing while that gorilla comes at me. Now, look,
I've got a pair of pretty good fists and I'll
yell my head off. Let me get at this hold it.
Speaker 3: I have a better idea. We'll kill his wife. How'd
you like that, mister Chambers? You wouldn't mind killing you.
We don't care about you, but we care about the money.
And with you dead, we still haven't got it. But
we intend to get it because you're going to give
it to us.
Speaker 2: Now. You'll have it for us by midnight.
Speaker 3: We leave it next to the garbage bind we'll pick
it up and then missus Chambers will be all right
and you'll be all right.
Speaker 2: Otherwise you'll have only yourself to blame. Or what's to
prevent me from calling the police? You won't do that,
mister Chambers.
Speaker 3: If you don't have the money outside by midnight, I'll
tell the police you have the money.
Speaker 2: You think they'd believe you your tip against my word
and my reputation.
Speaker 8: We got confidence in a police at wait that's right,
Well they'll break you down, mister Chambers. We have our way,
they have theirs, and you'll slip up, maybe not right
away but soon.
Speaker 2: But it won't get to the police.
Speaker 3: You know why, because if the money isn't there tonight,
we take care of your wife tomorrow.
Speaker 2: He ain't kidding, miss that. So why don't you give
us the money now and save all the sweat. If
I had the money that you're talking about it, I
would see you in hell before I gave it to you. Studdy.
He's still pretty fast, stud my boy, he was wide open.
Now let's get out.
Speaker 3: Of here and we'll watch the house. It might be
an interesting few hours. Good night, mister Chambers.
Speaker 7: Laura is inconceivable to me that Phil might have all
that money. Phil My impression is that Phil's the kind
who always returns the change if a waiter's made a mistake.
Speaker 4: He is, but jon't imagine having not changed. But eighty
thousand dollars in your hands. No, Phil's always been scrupulously honest,
but he thinks about money all the time, the expenses,
where's the money coming from to pay them? He reviews
our situation almost every day.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's sure, of course it is.
Speaker 4: But he's only fifty five. We have money, not much,
but enough to get by on. So once in a
while Phil manages to relax, not for long. There's always
an unexpected expense. It throws his calculations out the window,
and then he starts to fret. And when he frets,
he begins to feel sorry for himself.
Speaker 5: I never realized he was that upset.
Speaker 4: Well, he'd never show it to his friends. He's too
proud for that. Imagine what he must have felt when
a fortune drops into his hands.
Speaker 5: You've convinced yourself that Phil does have that money, haven't you.
Speaker 4: It's the only explanation I can give for his weird behavior.
If anything happened to Phil.
Speaker 5: I know, I know.
Speaker 7: Wait minute, I think I hit the car. If it's poor,
we'll send him across the street to feel right away.
Speaker 4: Oh, give the poor doctor a few minutes to relax
and relax.
Speaker 5: After he questions Phil, then.
Speaker 7: Maybe all of us will be able to relax.
Speaker 2: Tell me about it, Phil, I'd rather not.
Speaker 7: Poor.
Speaker 8: I find your front door open, I walk in and
call hello, no answer. I find you in the basement,
sitting with your head in your hands, covered with perspiration,
shaking as if you had a fever, and you won't
tell me about it.
Speaker 2: After all, I am a doctor, Phil, I just can't.
Your face is swollen.
Speaker 8: You've been crying, But that doesn't entirely account for the
swollen face, does it? No?
Speaker 2: Did you fall down, walk into something? Poor, I got
knocked out? Ah? Interesting, ready to spill the beans. I
don't know how I can bring myself to it, Paul.
Speaker 8: I'm a good listener, mind, if I fix myself a drink?
Speaker 2: No, no, of course not. Forgive me for not offering
you one. You want one? Yeah? Small? And I had
enough at lunch in this afternoon to the shrivel my
liver to the size of a raisin. And what was
your excuse? Well, I didn't get that consultant's job here.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, thanks, Well that's hardly the end of the world.
Speaker 2: Film. Oh what isn't imagine being interviewed or approved of
by a twenty six year old girl with stringy hair
and no brazier. See, I felt like a captive of
the youth army.
Speaker 8: So it wasn't the lunch and the unpleasant interview that
put you into a stube.
Speaker 2: Oh, it wasn't unpleasant, the stupid So your annoyance drove
you from.
Speaker 8: Lunch where built more bar?
Speaker 2: Your club? The club. I sat at the bar and
the bartender.
Speaker 9: Listen, ah, poor man, here's to all bartenders, the unlicensed
psychiatrists or priests, to an unending line of confessors.
Speaker 8: All right, my friend, stop eating around the bush.
Speaker 2: Do you have that stolen money? Yes, we thought so.
I found it Sunday morning in the garbage bin. I
was going to use my shredders, so I went to
the garbage bin and well there it was. And you
decided to keep eighty thousand dollars. Paul, you don't know
what that could mean to me and Laura. Sure, I
do fear guilt, self destruction.
Speaker 8: Look what's happened to you, Paul in just twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: You're a bundle of nerves.
Speaker 8: You lost the possibility of a good job, and you've
been knocked on your can by a hoodlum who probably
wouldn't hesitate to shoot you down like a mad dog. Oh,
they meet business poor, I don't doubt it.
Speaker 2: Where is the money, Well, it's it's in a box
wrapped in a plastic bag behind that basement window that
opens out under the porch. Get it for me? What
bring me the box of money?
Speaker 4: You me?
Speaker 8: I want it, and I want it now. I'll get
my car and turn the money into the police.
Speaker 2: What do they think? You see? I've held out on them.
Laura will be disgraced. I can't face my friends after
they hear that I held the money for two days.
Speaker 8: I'm your friend, and you faced me. The others don't
need to know I found the money in my garage.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't know, Paul. He's a tough guys. They
may try something on you. You mean, mugby or worse.
They said they'd be back for the money at midnight.
If it wasn't outside by the garbage bin, they'd get Laura,
dirty thugs. Look, maybe I should do what they asked.
Speaker 8: Let berman like that get away with an eighty thousand
dollars theft. Never that money belongs in the hands of
the police and then the bank. You get the box
I'll get my car, and don't dawdle.
Speaker 6: It's pool.
Speaker 4: He's not coming to the door. Where's he going? Driveway?
Speaker 6: What in the world is he's backing out?
Speaker 4: What's going on? He's parking in front of the house
and walking to the door.
Speaker 5: Or are you?
Speaker 4: I don't know what's going on. If Phil has the
money made, maybe he'll give it to Paul. And don't look.
Phil's handing Paul some kind of package. That must be it,
and Paul's returning to his car.
Speaker 7: Laura, two men have come out from behind your head.
Look they're sneaking up on Paul.
Speaker 5: What if there's a gun.
Speaker 4: The package?
Speaker 2: Okay, he's in his head. Come on, I didn't that's
gonna wake the whole town.
Speaker 9: Well, where are you?
Speaker 2: I'm on the back poles. What's all the excitement?
Speaker 4: Two men? One of them?
Speaker 6: One of them?
Speaker 4: Shut Paul?
Speaker 2: Paul.
Speaker 4: Paul'sman shot. He's lying in the street. He'll wake up.
Can't you get it through your head? A man and
shot Paul.
Speaker 6: They stole his car and got away.
Speaker 4: Do something, Call the police.
Speaker 2: Paul shot. He was here. We had a good talk.
Paul's my friend, my best friend. He's a good doctor. Too.
Nobody shoots a good doctor. Nobody shoots a doctor. Paul
shot Darling.
Speaker 6: You look so lod.
Speaker 4: Your eyes they're blank, like those of a statue. Jude,
he's lost his mind. Phil sit down?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 6: Phil?
Speaker 4: What? What was in the package?
Speaker 5: M h?
Speaker 4: I know what was in it?
Speaker 6: But I don't. I don't want to know. It may
have left one man?
Speaker 4: Did my husband worse off than did?
Speaker 1: I'll be back in a moment with a final thought.
The phrase the root of all evil has echoed down
the corridor of time because this man covets what another
man has.
Speaker 2: Civilization has never been.
Speaker 1: Able entirely to constrain greed. Philip Chambers almost cost his
best friend his life. Almost Doctor Sheldon had been shot
in the back, but he survived. Philip, however, became an
instant vegetable and weeds overgrew his mind, choking out any
hope of a return to normal life. When so well
educated a man as Philip Chambers can succumb to greed, beware.
Our cast included Norman Rose and Chefford, Elliott Reid, Marion
Seldy's and George Petrie.
Speaker 2: Associate director Marlon Swing.
Speaker 1: This is Hyman Brown, producer director, inviting you to return
to our mystery theater for another adventure in the macabre
until next time.
Speaker 2: Then pleasan