Speaker 1: Come in welcome. I'm e. G. Marshall. I don't know
about you, but for.
Speaker 2: Myself, I have never shied away from any story which
involves coincidence, because real life produces many more outrageous coincidences
than the fertile brain of any author can dream up.
History teams with them. If missus Grant had not disliked
Missus Lincoln, the play they would have attended was Aladdin
at Gover's Theater, and the President would not have been
at Ford's Theater to be assassinated. No sense in belaboring
the point. The fact is that coincidence is a fact
of life, and the axle of the wheel about which
this story revolves our mystery drop. The Dead Ringer was
written especially for the Mystery Theater by Ian Martin and
stars Don Scardino. It is posited in part by your singer,
Throwing Center and Buick Motor Division. I'll be back shortly
with that one. It is said that every snowflake under
a microscope has a different pattern, that there is no
such thing as a perfect pair of matching diamonds, that
each ant differs from his fellow ant, and that with
the exception of identical twins, no, two human beings can
be born alike. It may be two. You may like
to believe that. After all, we like to think of
ourselves as individuals. What suppose just suppose that it is
not true. Somewhere every man has a perfect double. Bring
them together, the man and his double, and you have
the perfect coincidence. Let's start off by meeting detective third
grade Bruce Hart.
Speaker 3: You said for me, captain, Yeah, Bruce, come on in.
Close the door, Am I under?
Speaker 1: Copy?
Speaker 3: No, son, you just had it pulled right out from under.
Sit down, thank you, sir. I don't want to stretch
this up. I feel lousy enough as it is. We
got a little something going this thinking year of nineteen
thirty one.
Speaker 1: It's called the depression. You may have noticed, yes, sir captain,
it's kind of hard to miss.
Speaker 3: So they're cutting the force. I've been strugg with my
quota all day.
Speaker 1: You mean I'm getting the bus.
Speaker 3: My hands are tied for my money, still wet behind
the ears.
Speaker 1: You're the best man I got in my squad. I
hate to lose, you do. I turn in my badge
and gun right now, sir.
Speaker 4: No, I.
Speaker 3: I got a little assignment to take some of the
sting house. If you want to take.
Speaker 1: It, what is it?
Speaker 3: Captain A right, you're Pracacchi the persuader. Yeah, only he
ain't doing much persuading. Now, I got to buy bars.
Except even in a maximum security prison like Sing Sing,
he's still running connections. So he's going to be moved
Where the island Alcatraz? Yeah, someone's got to see he
gets there safe.
Speaker 1: You want the job, I'm done right. I figured that
was the least I could do.
Speaker 3: You'll get travel pay per damn in a couple of
weeks left over after you make the delivery.
Speaker 1: Oh, already, get back. Make you die him? Maybe?
Speaker 3: Maybe what sir, Maybe there'll be some changes, something will
open up. My oh, my kidness, all country is going
down the drain. I'll be lucky. If I've got a
dusk to calm my own boy, then good luck, Shun.
I was looking forward to a long association with you.
You'd have made one hell of a coup.
Speaker 2: They turned my prisoner over at Penn Station, manacal to
me selling, hiding behind dark glasses, uncommunicative, avoiding my glance
as much as everyone. It wasn't until we were beyond
Philadelphia that he took off his glasses and even looked
at me.
Speaker 1: Holy mother, what is it for? Cut you? It's the
good luck I took out of you.
Speaker 2: Somebody give me your money a heart right the word
you ain't gonna be p d much longer.
Speaker 1: That's none of your business. That used to say, could
be what do you want? The key to the cuffs?
And what's my take?
Speaker 2: I hate that crude. I know I ain't gonna beat
this lap, so I just sit it down.
Speaker 1: What are you after? Mario?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Just see what do you call it?
Speaker 2: The coincidence is so wild?
Speaker 1: What coincidence? You just spitting image?
Speaker 2: I see look alike, but you I've never seen such
a resemblance to whom how he must and.
Speaker 3: He one of the boys, think of kidding, how he's
like one of the four hundreds are like that?
Speaker 1: Uh huh friend of yours. I know him. I know
lots of guys in the like places. You got something
on him? They like that as a social Look.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to make me some kind of monster. I'm
just a business man like anyone. Oh my heart bleeds
for you. Can you just pick the wrong isn't it?
Speaker 1: What's so bad about booze.
Speaker 2: Under prohibition, the amount of guys who lose their lives
trying to run it and seat Uncle Sahan out of revenue.
Speaker 1: Look, how'd you like to argue about to say, yeah,
a hundred grand to let you fly the coop something
like that. Who's the payment?
Speaker 3: If you talk to Hollie Howard Martha, Yeah, one of
the four.
Speaker 2: Hundred best family. So he wants to give me one
hundred thousand green one.
Speaker 1: You am like, just bring you could.
Speaker 5: Be no dice, okay.
Speaker 1: I can't blame a guy to try and pad or
how do we sleep and it's your drawing room and
tied together?
Speaker 2: Man, I'll show your lover no sweat. The only thing
burns me is you get the lower bunk dot com
because you get chained to the inside, snug and tight
and below me when you can't try anything fan see
while I sleep. The next day, Mario didn't bring up
the subject that Howie margin again, except while I read
a book, I'd.
Speaker 1: Be conscious of him studying me. Out of the corner
of his eye. He was shaking his head in a
sort of wonderment.
Speaker 2: After dinner that second night, he brought the man's name
up out of the blue. I met him back in
the twenty seventh he met who oh yaw in Losdon.
That's honey, I don't see you mingling with the four hundred.
It was on the kind of my daughter, and she
was going to this real ritchy colleague. Howie was a
graduate student in law in the same town.
Speaker 1: He had the hearts for Penny. Your daughter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Penelope is the full name, Penelope, quite.
Speaker 2: To who she thought her father was dead? How comes
the only kid I hand the mother? Guy let it
told I'd tell her that she was born. I didn't
want none of what I was to rub off on
my kid to I'm me a nice, good, solid family
to bring her up. Your daughter, It was done to
a clean mouthpiece, nice and legal and all adopted. But
I've seen her with plenty of money, and I watched
everything happened to her like a hawk. She was my
own loman. She He gave her quite a break, No
I didn't.
Speaker 1: Every guy pulled some bonet place sooner or later.
Speaker 2: And the real sucker player that I made was with Howie.
How do you figure he shacked out perfect in every way.
Speaker 1: I knew Penny was nuts about him.
Speaker 2: I agreed to the marriage, but the one mistake I
made was letting him know who I was.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: He tried to put the bite on.
Speaker 2: You, not straight out he started law practice. I had
to a few things his way to help him out.
Look good stuff. But this boy may have had a
social background a mile long, but come to the long glean,
he had the shorts and I loved him in on
a few things a little over the line.
Speaker 1: What the devil?
Speaker 2: He was family in this way like I was an
old client of his. I could see pain and again
and not using my own name. And then what suddenly?
Speaker 1: Heat was on?
Speaker 2: Patina SAIDs were boxing me in. I had some certain
things I wanted to put by faith in case I
hit the slammer.
Speaker 5: So I I t I said enough, I said, here
looking at you and forgetting your crop.
Speaker 1: It's my honest open face.
Speaker 2: It's the baby faces and the double low on you,
except that I got a nice strong hunch you ain't
like allie.
Speaker 1: I thought you said I was a spitting image outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, inside something else?
Speaker 1: Again, what do you think he's flipping you the double cross?
Speaker 2: Look hot at the head right, that's the handle. I
want you should do me a favorite. All I want
you to do is to take my son in law.
Little message from me.
Speaker 5: Five these no go, I'll make it a G one thousand.
Speaker 2: I don't remember you carrying that kind of lettuce sonya
when we boarded the training.
Speaker 1: I don't make jokes.
Speaker 2: I ain't got it, but I'll send you and san
fan or you'll get it.
Speaker 5: Now, this is it all clean? I'll get you the message.
Speaker 1: My word.
Speaker 2: You can see that, no harm in it, and it's well,
it's to protect my daughter.
Speaker 1: You're wasting your time. You read that folder you're carrying
on me. Didn't you cover the cover? We's like a
best sell?
Speaker 2: Then you know what I'm carrying inside my chest? Dometics
light it out, a real bump ticker. I may never
get off that island where heeaded going. Now, i'd give
me a break. Now give my kid that break, would you?
I swear I saint get hurt. Okay, what's the message?
Just remember you can be replaced.
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all. Look, what's the catch? Why me?
Why pay all I do?
Speaker 2: And any of your boys could get the same word
to him and tell a hell of a lot bigger
scaring to him than I could. Oh nobody, that's a
whole point. That's just the point.
Speaker 1: I don't get it. You will when you see Howard Marston.
I'm not going to defend it. I thought it over
that night and I made up my mind, who is
I going to hurt? At least I could maybe help
out an innocent girl.
Speaker 2: He could small this guy how he was a wrong one,
whatever he was trying to pull. I had lad that
doctor's report, and Marry I'm sure wasn't coming off that island.
And it was depression time and no job in a
thousand bucks.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of doors. Just go there, like get
dinner time, ling a bell on a mouse. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now the best way would be to go after dark.
And now they could get hat down, their coat, collar
up in case it's a maid or a penny or
whops the door if Exammy has to see Howie, if
he's not there, you'll go back.
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure I like it.
Speaker 2: He's using me to put the fear of God into
this guy. You'd got to marry because I looked like him.
I'm not exactly a fool. You're turning the schools on
the guy.
Speaker 1: You got it? Well?
Speaker 2: Does he deserve it? I ain't quite sure. And I
look hid his go involved with California property lord like
they Uh, he might even want to re not sharing
it with UH.
Speaker 1: Something happened. Tell me I don't trust for gosh, but
you trust me. I come.
Speaker 2: I spent three days ide your wrist and they have
no education. But I can we carry to Yeah, try
fall and die. Were almost there. You know it's putting
on the table and I know better than any one.
I'm dying up the anti all you want, but give
me what may be my last chance to prottack my kid.
Speaker 1: It was just turning dark.
Speaker 2: I went out by cab, but hit him off at
the gate and walked up to the house.
Speaker 1: It wasn't large, but it spelled money and good taste.
I was just about to mount the steps to the
front door when I heard it with a shot.
Speaker 3: I should have taken off running, but my cops and
this thing made me go for my own gun and
run towards the front door. As I got there, the
door was opened violently, and the most beautiful girl I've
ever seen in my life came running out a thirty
eight revolver in her hand.
Speaker 6: Who are you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Please?
Speaker 6: Oh help me?
Speaker 1: Dropped the gun? Who fired that shot?
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 6: My good, lord, Hi, I didn't shoot you?
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 5: How good?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: One good? Look at me? And she passed out.
Speaker 2: I couldn't blame her once I got inside, because the
dead man who was shot and lying on the floor
could just as easily have been me.
Speaker 1: He was more than a spinning image. He was a
dead ringer for me. I promised you.
Speaker 2: Coincidence, and here we have it with a vengeance, except
who's vengeance? A dying crime boss who still might be
able to let a contract, a distracted and unhappy wife, or.
Speaker 1: A person or person's unknown.
Speaker 2: The only way to find out is to wait a
couple of minutes until I return went back too.
Speaker 1: Let me see, now, where were we?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes, a beautiful young woman with a gun practically still
smoking in her hand, not unsurprisingly fainting as she is
caught in the seeming flight, particularly since the man who
has caught her is one a policeman and two as
close in looks to her dead husband as an identical twin.
One further note, before we turn the story back to
the protagonists or antagonists, as the case may be, the
room in which the dead man lies, as indeed we
will later discover the whole house is an utter shambles.
It has been searched desperately for something. Here, Penny, drink this.
Oh no, I says, Okay, it's just some brandy idea.
It'll clear your head.
Speaker 6: Oh what happened?
Speaker 1: That was the question I was going to ask you.
You who are you no one to be afraid of? Yes?
Didn't I did? I didn't?
Speaker 6: You say you were a policeman?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 6: But how did you know my name was Pammy?
Speaker 1: Well, there are other more important questions. First, No, no,
how what are you trying to do to me? I'm
not howling.
Speaker 6: Is gonna be some horrible nightmare? If I could just
wake up?
Speaker 2: If you want something to shock you awake, I suggest
you take a good look at what is your husband
or what's left of them on the floor.
Speaker 1: Oh no, why did you shoot him? They didn't? They didn't.
You didn't fire a shot with this gun?
Speaker 4: Yes? No, yes, I mean not exactly how he would
bad already he would. I don't know what's happened to me.
Speaker 6: How he did on the floor.
Speaker 7: Oh he isn't.
Speaker 6: I mean you're standing in front of me.
Speaker 2: My name is Detective Blushheart. I am not your husband,
although I look enough like him to be.
Speaker 6: Are you going to ask me?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not local police. I came here to bring
a message to your husband and stumbled on this by accident.
When you met me at the door, you had this
gun in your hand. It had just been fired.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 6: He made me.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. We ought to call the police.
Have you called him?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 6: I haven't had a chance. And how would it look
if I did? They'd direct me from murder, wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's some things that have a kilter. It doesn't all jibe.
I don't understand your husband, Howard Marsden, the man on
the floor. Yeah, the bullet I heard fires couldn't have
killed him. How do you know there was another bullet
fired from this gun. I can't vouch that that was
the one that did kill him. I can only tell
you that when the second bullet was fired from this gun,
Howard Marsden had been dead. You said he made you
fire it.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 6: Couldn't we just get out of this room? It makes
me sick.
Speaker 1: Okay, though we haven't much time lead the way, missus Marston.
Speaker 6: I still don't understand how you know me.
Speaker 1: This is the kitchen.
Speaker 2: Looks like a cyclone hit this, as well as your
living room, and they'll take a long bet the whole house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you grab care, sit down and tell me fast
what happened.
Speaker 6: Well, well, Howard hasn't been living here for quite a while.
This evening I was out.
Speaker 1: Visiting his friend, boyfriend.
Speaker 6: Man, I know he's a lawyer.
Speaker 2: Well, which way you're visiting the last friend? The lawyer
both And while I was living there was a phone
call from Howard. He he was, well, I don't know
if I should be talking to you.
Speaker 1: Missus more than a level with you.
Speaker 2: I really am a detective. I had a valid reason
for being here tonight. I think I'm probably the only
person in the world who can really help you. But
course I have to know your whole story. It's a gamble.
You want to trust me, Okay?
Speaker 6: It was howard voice on the phone.
Speaker 7: He said he said he'd been thinking.
Speaker 6: Things over and that he thought he'd been wrong, and
that he'd be back at the house at seven point
thirty and could I meet him there alone so we
could talk.
Speaker 1: The boyfriendly heard this my lawyer.
Speaker 6: Yes, I mean he heard money. End of the conversation.
Speaker 1: Well, didn't you want to go with you? Yes?
Speaker 6: But judge, huh, judge, ready, that's my lawyer. Oh he
had another appointment he couldn't put off.
Speaker 1: With whom I don't know didn't So what did you do?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 6: Well, I wanted to think about a lot of things.
I took a cable cart, a fisherman's dwarf, and just
wandered among the crowds here and then I came back
over the hill and it drove back and arrived here
just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: Before you did. Well, tell me what happened then?
Speaker 6: Well, the lights were on in the living room, and
when the doors of the patio was open, I just
walked in and one look was enough to freeze me
with terror. By well, you see the way everything is
ripped apart. And then I saw Howie lying on the
floor and the blood well, and I went to him. This,
this revolver was lying beside him. Then stupidly I picked
it up, and suddenly, before I knew what was happening,
somebody called me from behind, and one arm locked around
my throat until I could hardly breathe, and the other
hand closed over mine and made me fire. That tongue,
and then I was thrown by let me forward before
I could get to my feet.
Speaker 1: Whoever it disappeared, man or woman, couldn't tell.
Speaker 6: You don't believe me to you.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you something, missus Martin. My being here is
an accident. Count me out for the moment. Either you
killed your husband and tore this house apart looking for something,
or you were frayed set up. But who would I
don't know. But if we want to get you off
the hook, we're going to.
Speaker 1: Have to move fast.
Speaker 2: What do you mean if you're supposed to be caught
red handed, someone must bother that they've called the police.
Speaker 1: You didn't go could pass for your husband?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 6: It's hard for me even to look at you and
think that, Holly is I mean if I can't tell
the different talk that anybody else.
Speaker 2: I'll give you twenty four hours. You'll have to brief me,
prompt me, cover for me. But for those twenty four hours,
your husband isn't dead.
Speaker 1: You got me. You gotta freezer downstairs? Is it full
of food?
Speaker 6: No? Simly, bet cop it perfectly, hooky.
Speaker 1: I think we can fit your husband's body in there.
Speaker 2: I can't, Okay, then we better move fast and get
rid of him and that bloodstained rug before those cops arrived.
We barely had time to dispose of the late mister
Marsden and get our stories straight. But I was really
mister Morrisden and not just the stand in for the corpse.
Then the police were there, and after some milling and
jockeying about, Penny and I were alone with the Lieutenant Roper.
Speaker 1: And you say you will have no.
Speaker 2: Idea what the perpetrator was looking for, mister Marsden. Not
the slightest you figure they found what it was, I mean,
is very missing, missus Marsdon.
Speaker 6: I don't think so. I haven't had time to check.
Speaker 2: Well, if you should find anything missing or that the
guy might have been looking for, you would let me
know at the department. Maybe If nothing turns up, I
would like to check back here with you by tomorrow night.
I'll have to take the gun that was fired, but
I can arrange to leave you another for protection.
Speaker 1: If you want. I think Penny ought to have one
just one question.
Speaker 2: You are certain that neither of you caught even a
glimpse of the perpetrator.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I so neither of you know whether it
was a man or a woman, even that's right?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I'll arrange about the gun and leave you alone,
mister and missus Marsden. I was surprised at the weight
of the gun enought with us, A big heavy forty five.
It looked like was surplus, but I was glad he
didn't ask too many questions. I already had my next
stretched way out and there was a lot to do
as fast as possible. As soon as he left, I
got a few things straight with Missus Martin.
Speaker 6: Under the circumstances, wouldn't it be easier to just call
me Penny?
Speaker 1: Okay? And my name is Bruce Penny. Her daughter is
a big question. How do you know it is?
Speaker 6: How do I know who had?
Speaker 1: How do you know my name is Bruce? Oh?
Speaker 2: How do you know I'm not the guy who whipped
up the house, the guy who made you fire the gun?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 7: Well, I don't know, all right.
Speaker 6: I haven't thought about it.
Speaker 1: Everything has been so what are you doing here anyway?
Speaker 2: Has it happened? I came to bring your husband a message?
Oh from whom your father? But my father's dead, not
your real one. But that's gonna have to wait. If
you're worried about me, you have a gun for protection.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I'm not worried about you. Okay,
put it. I'm worried.
Speaker 2: I'm way out on a limb unless we can figure
out who really killed your husband. So first off, what
was the person looking for?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I have no idea.
Speaker 6: Would your boyfriend, though he's not my boyfriend, he only
wants to be well.
Speaker 1: We'll ask him. Did your husband have a girlfriend all
the time?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Glad to feel did he?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: But not totally.
Speaker 6: Promiscuous, just one at a time.
Speaker 7: His last one seemed to have him sewed up pretty well.
Who honey, child?
Speaker 2: Cos then you should pardon the expression, let's strip it home.
Speaker 1: The first thing have to be what they were looking for.
It's still got to be there.
Speaker 7: How do you know?
Speaker 2: Because if it had been found, the damage would have stopped, couldn't,
So that means it wasn't found. Whoever was rooking was thorough,
which means it isn't here or else. Howie was one
smart cookie. Let's see if we can be smarter.
Speaker 1: I tried all the trick places, the bottoms.
Speaker 2: Of drawers and back of the stiles between the drawers
under the top of the toilet tank, A thousand other
gimmicky little hiding places people dream up.
Speaker 1: Finally, the corpse itself.
Speaker 2: The polls have been searched, pockets turned outside in linings,
ripped out, trouser cuffs torn apart. There was one last
final possibility, Bull's eye. His left armpit was shaved and taped.
Underneath it was a safe deposit key number two eight
two four.
Speaker 7: I'd never seen it before, snapped mine.
Speaker 1: I wonder what did your husband bank?
Speaker 7: A first underlighted we both have accounts there. Oh, I'm sorry,
I am so tacket.
Speaker 2: Well you have time for let's see about a four
hour nap. We can't do much else but wait until
the morning. But nine o'clock you and me are going
to be waiting for the bank to open up. Oh,
before you hit the sack, can you show me something
with your husband's signature on it? Of course, But why
now I'm in this bar, I might as well go
all the way. I'll have to practice it so we
can get that safe deposit box open.
Speaker 1: In the morning.
Speaker 2: It all went just as easily as if i'd been
Howard Marton himself alone in a bank room with penny,
we opened a large box. It contained only two things,
a sealed letter addressed a penny or to whom it's
may concern, and go wads of it in old bills,
mostly hundreds, but some packages of thousands. It had to
be at least a million dollars.
Speaker 7: I've never seen so much money.
Speaker 1: Not many of us. You here better open this letter.
I'm I'm too nervous. Why don't you one?
Speaker 2: Because it definitely says to whom this may concern, but
mainly because it's addressed to you, you better check it.
Speaker 1: See what it is.
Speaker 2: If, as Bruce suspects, there's a million dollars in currently
acts some nice, healthy motive for murder, But whose money
is it? Where does it come from? And does the
note tell who it is intended for? Though our questions
we can answer when I return with Act three.
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving is a day of tradition like Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade,
exciting football rival.
Speaker 1: And of course family and peat.
Speaker 3: Traditionally, the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving are great sale
days at Macy's and Bamburgers, two days of tremendous savings
on furs, fashions, and accessories for the whole family, marvelous
home furnishings, TV stereo appliances, and a matchless selection at gifts.
The Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving traditionally two great days
for everyone to shop and save.
Speaker 1: At Macy's and Bamberger's, a.
Speaker 3: Fisher matched stereo system featuring the famous Power Pact one
ninety B receiver, two waying Fisher speakers, and BSR changer.
If purchased separately, these components would cost you five hundred
and twenty dollars. This great system is now just three
hundred dollars. During Macy's and Bamberger's Thanksgiving weekend sales.
Speaker 2: Bruce proved to be incredibly accurate in his guests. The
contents of that safe deposit box added up exactly to
a million dollars, but they mattered far less to Penny
than the stunning content of the letter, which read substantially
as follows, My dearest Penelope, someone is trying to kill me,
most probably someone your father has provided for the dirty business.
If I'm lucky no one will ever read this, I
shall have my divorce from you, and shall quietly steal
away with this fortune your father gave to me for
safe keeping. If Mario Kocacci even suspects I dream of
double crossing him, I know my death warrant is signed.
I wonder who my executioner is?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: You did sweet Penelope know all the time who she
really was? And when the moment came? Was it like
father like daughter?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: As I say, if this is being read, what the
hell's the difference? I'll see you there someday in hell.
Speaker 1: Howie, my PERCUTI that that bast.
Speaker 7: Is my father?
Speaker 1: No, No, he didn't bring you up, and he.
Speaker 6: Was responsible for my being got into the world.
Speaker 2: If he was, he was also responsible for seeing to
it that you and your foster parents never wanted for
anything in all your life.
Speaker 6: Of course you were the messenger, weren't you. Well you
must be a great friend of my father. Hardly And
I suppose you think you have me in the perfect spot.
Now you can blockmail me into silence by threatening to
expose me. And how he's murderers?
Speaker 2: Are you No?
Speaker 1: Can you prove it? No?
Speaker 2: Well, then there's still a lot of work to be done. Incidentally,
for you, I was no friend of your father's. I
was and still am, a police officer who was assigned
to escort him safely from Sing Sing.
Speaker 1: To Alcatraz Architrave.
Speaker 2: My last job for the police department was to deliver
your father safely to where he is. But there's no
time to talk about me now. I've got to get going.
Speaker 1: Can I go with you? No, I do this by myself.
Speaker 7: I am not going back to that house.
Speaker 1: Don right, You're not.
Speaker 2: We're checking you into a hotel, and just for everyone's safety,
I'm providing an old ex cop friend of my father's
to stand guard over you, to protect me or watch me,
maybe a little.
Speaker 1: Of both till I check out some loose ends.
Speaker 2: The lawyer boyfriend was first, and although I didn't know
him from Adam, he certainly thought he knew me, Mister
George reading Attorney, just as obviously.
Speaker 1: Didn't like who he thought.
Speaker 3: Why should I tell you, Howie, where I was between
five thirty and seven thirty last night.
Speaker 1: You were with my wife last night at five thirty.
Weren't you?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: Don Well?
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: You called me here at my office and I answered
at my office. Note that so don't think you can
start any kind of divorce action on the basis of that.
Speaker 1: Were you to get it from five thirty until she
came to meet me at the house.
Speaker 2: No, I was not.
Speaker 1: I had business to attend to. We parted after your call.
Where did you go?
Speaker 2: That is none of your business, but I'm going to
answer you before you go digging for your information. During
that time, I was doing what Penny was apparently doing,
thinking about you.
Speaker 1: And her in the future.
Speaker 3: I rode all the way out to Monterey and sat
looking at the sea, trying to figure out an acceptable
or even unacceptable way to get rid of a toad
called Howard Marsden. I didn't get back and go after
a weapon. I didn't stop to eat or for gas.
I didn't see anyone on you.
Speaker 1: That's not much of an alibi.
Speaker 2: I don't need any alibis. I guess you don't, George.
If you did, I'm sure you'd have set one up.
It wasn't enough to strike George off the list altogether.
But my hunch was he wasn't my man. If he
was a murderer, he was the best actor I'd ever seen,
because when what would have been a corpse to him
walked in unannounced, he hadn't even turned her hair as
he greeted me. My greeting from honey, child Cox was
something else again. When she opened her door and grabbed me,
she smothered me. She was a big woman, a lot
of women, but she had all the strength of a man.
Speaker 1: Highly baby.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, sweetie, wait you, babe, I thinkured east
winded I ever, Oh lord, it's so good to see.
I could eat your ice for her. The poor little
southern gale thought some of those lawful boys had gotten you.
Speaker 1: Come on, a sugar, come on in.
Speaker 7: Why didn't use your key?
Speaker 1: I forgot it when you've.
Speaker 6: Been all the long night, I've been fretting.
Speaker 8: Myself half to dare it didn't stack up again with
that two bit little wife for yours.
Speaker 1: Oh honey, nothing like that. You're just better nodded or
Honey's live o. That ployer is a nobody two times me.
You'd think I would, oh not with.
Speaker 8: My vegas connection, sweetie, No, I don't think you would
run out on the little honey.
Speaker 1: Cha how well you still want you?
Speaker 6: And while you're still in to me for all the.
Speaker 8: Hardered door, I was silly enough to lend you to
keep those iron those boys from breaking.
Speaker 1: My darling's legs. Did you make a day with your
wife to get yourself from.
Speaker 6: Me off the hook.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you, honey, child.
Speaker 8: Who told me who's brought that skinny little runt wash?
You promise you could get it to pay off, so
you could pay me back and get the leg as
bunch off your back.
Speaker 1: Okay? Did she come through?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Did I tell you I could wind you around my
little finger? Let the money talk, or I will in
a moment say where.
Speaker 1: Were you last night? From five to thirty on? So
that I couldn't reach you? Why did you call? Sure?
But I couldn't get any answer.
Speaker 8: Oh, that's because I was beat after my last performance.
I figured I wouldn't see you till around by midnight,
so I took some pills and I slept me practically
around the clock.
Speaker 1: You were all alone? Didn't go out? Baby? Would I
cheat on you?
Speaker 7: Do?
Speaker 6: We have to go back to the house.
Speaker 1: It would look.
Speaker 2: Funny if at least one of us wasn't there when
Lieutenant whatever his name is, Okay, that's right anyway, when
he checks back. Besides, there's the little matter of your
husband's body. The impression I've been getting around is that
he was a gambling, cheating welsher. Are you all that
sorry to see him dead.
Speaker 7: And say you can see anyone dead?
Speaker 1: Are you a penny or is that justice phony? A mask?
Speaker 2: As honey Child's southern accent? What do you mean process
of elimination? Your lawyer, George could have killed Howie honey
Child could have I don't think they did.
Speaker 7: He don't think.
Speaker 2: I dis you were the only logical one left. But
here's why I'm gambling.
Speaker 1: You didn't.
Speaker 2: Planets didn't, I said, I dropped back tonight. Yeah, I've
been expecting you. Shall we go in the living room?
Speaker 1: Sure you are. You've been a pretty busy guy today. Really,
how come? Well?
Speaker 2: Like when I'm following up a case, it's always a
surprise to find someone going before me. How George reading
honey Child Cox in the connection with the attempted.
Speaker 1: Robbery or whatever? Here I followed them.
Speaker 2: Up at Leeds that I got to lie on the bank.
I'm not surprised. And why not just call me Howie?
Speaker 1: Why Well? Like you said, you know me? We alone,
don Wright. What's the gun for, Howie? The one you
were stupid enough to give me the protection.
Speaker 2: The one that looked something like this, that's right now?
Who the devil are you anyway, where's Howie? What did
you do with him after you killed him? Okay, okay,
you want me to say it?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 5: After I killed him.
Speaker 1: To try to frame his wife? Why not?
Speaker 2: He swore the safe deposit key was at the house.
I made him call Penny, then we drove there. When
we got in, he tried to jump me and I
killed him by accident. It didn't matter. I was going
to anyway once I had the key.
Speaker 1: You knew about the money Howard had hidden from Mario.
Speaker 2: I was part of the whole setup, and you Mario
had his stake put away and I got overextended.
Speaker 1: My payoffs were gone with Mario and jail. So I had.
Speaker 2: Already made situation to set up a pigeon and get
away with murder.
Speaker 1: That's smart. Only you couldn't find the key. You to
do that for me? So what did you do with Howie?
He's in the freezer? No good, What doesn't matter? What
do you mean?
Speaker 5: I can dump Howie's body and we'll just do it
all over.
Speaker 1: Again, with you doubling for him. The guns are.
Speaker 2: All set up, yes, but you're not afraid I might
fire this one first? You think you stand a chance
It floaded with blanks.
Speaker 1: Very clever.
Speaker 2: Only this time, how do you get Penny's fingerprints on
the murder gun as cleverly as you did the last time.
I'll figure that out, He'll say, goodbye, smart stuff, you're
about to take a long ride.
Speaker 6: Is a gun atenant and it doesn't have blanks?
Speaker 1: And leave him blink.
Speaker 2: Right fire And the gun I've been holding has been reloaded.
It's just as lethal two to one as a payoff
cop who always knew the odds. Why fight him when
they're against you?
Speaker 6: How he fooled me? I was young, and he looked
awful good, and he fooled my foster parents as well.
But the last couple of years I finally start through
him for what he was.
Speaker 7: If he'd ever been honest with me, he could have
had all the money.
Speaker 6: I didn't even know.
Speaker 2: What's that?
Speaker 7: All I wanted was my freedom. What's going to happen now?
Speaker 2: We have a lieutenant, a long complicated form of police
procedure confiscation of the money. Except for that nice ten
thousand dollars reward for recovering it, Lieutenant Roper will get his.
Speaker 1: And that we'll both try as best we can to
start new lives. I guess. I guess, well, as long
as we're celebrating, would you like some brandy or something.
Speaker 7: No, I wouldn't like some brandy or something.
Speaker 6: Okay, what I might like is the message my father
sent to Hollie that was supposed to save me.
Speaker 1: Nothing, just a warning quote just remember you can be replaced, unquote.
Speaker 6: That's the exact message.
Speaker 1: Honest.
Speaker 7: Sure, maybe I'm going to have to meet that father
of mine someday. Like you said, he made some mistakes,
but you didn't figure him all bad.
Speaker 1: Like how you said, he said.
Speaker 7: You can be replaced.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 7: Well, maybe he was smarter than Bounce of Aspers, considering
who you are and what you are now he has
stumbled on the truth.
Speaker 2: It was an entangled legal web. Lieutenant Roper was tried
for murder and found guilty on an interesting technicality. The
murder gun, which he had recovered, was discovered to have
been wiped clean of any fingerprints, and on this basis
was eventually traced to have been purchased by him.
Speaker 1: The money in the.
Speaker 2: Safe deposit box was identified by the accident of one
bundle of bills as part of a bank robbery, and
was returned to the bank with the reward paid to
bruce Hart. All's well that ends well. How better to
climax a story. I'll be back shortly. As with all
good stories, there is a sequel from the reward and
his conscientious handling of the case, Bruce Hart did establish
a successful and beyond reproach business in a difficult field.
Better than that was a happy marriage that eventually took place,
joining Penelope and Bruce. Fate had decreed that Mario Kococci,
sometime before the marriage died on a lonely island which
no longer exists, a victim of a heart attack. A
cast included Don Scardino, e Edjester, Leon, Jenny, and Jackson Beck.
The entire production was under the direction of Hyman Brown Radio.
Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Anheuser Busch Incorporated,
Brewers of Budweiser.
Speaker 1: This is E. G.
Speaker 2: Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre.
Speaker 1: Until next time, Pleasant dream.
Speaker 3: The preceding program was furnished by CBS Radio and I
Said for News with John Scott, w R New York
and RKO General Stison Police Locate two bombs and jet
at Miami Airport shortly before the plane was to take off.
Tex And John Connolly says he might run for the
presidency on a third party ticket. Holiday traffic death toll
in New York State stands at four. It's fifty degrees
in partly cloudy mid Manhattan. The mansay is mostly clear
tonight below from thirty five to forty, sunny and mild tomorrow,
the high in the middle fifties. This is John Scott
with the eight o'clock edition of the News. What probably
would have been almost certain death for all aboard a
Bahama's air jetliner was averted today when first an airline
employee and then specially trained police dogs found two bombs
aboard a plane at Miami International Airport. No one was
hurt and the bombs were disarmed safely before the plane
eventually made its scheduled flight to Nassau and the Bahamas
with more than forty persons on board. Authority said to
the man identifying himself as ERNESTO of an organization and
known as Cuban Power seventy six had called a warning
about the bombs to a Miami wire Service office. W
o r's Roger Skibbiness asked Dade County, Florida Public Safety
spokesman Ralph Page, while the Cuban Power said seventy sixth
group had selected the Bahamian Airline who as the target
for their bombs currently, according again to the callery, was
in protest over or involved the issue of lobster rights
in the Bahamas. There has been a Cuban exile. Fishermen
had been expelled from the Bahamas by the Bahamas Bahamian
government and that