Speaker 1: Good evening.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the KCBS Mystery Theater, an our original radio drama.
Tonight's episode is sponsored in part by Bank of America,
the Academy of Science, Blue Shield of California, Theater of
the Square, and gold Star Building Maintenance.
Speaker 1: And now for the radio station that.
Speaker 2: Lets you use your mind, Here's the KSECBS Mystery.
Speaker 3: Theater and now Mystery Theater.
Speaker 1: Come in. Welcome.
Speaker 4: I'm e. G.
Speaker 1: Marshall.
Speaker 4: In everyone's life, there's an individual who doesn't fit in
to the ordinary mold.
Speaker 1: Most of the time.
Speaker 4: He's witty, amusing, charming, but always remember the strength of
will or whatever drives such a person to be able
to climb out of the normal rut is a hidden danger.
Disturb his equilibrium, interfere with his own peculiar order of things,
and who knows what sleeping giant or remorseless nemesis might
be awakened.
Speaker 5: Who who's there?
Speaker 6: Hood?
Speaker 7: What are you doing here?
Speaker 1: Bisness?
Speaker 8: Dude?
Speaker 5: What have you got your hands?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 9: No, you God, stay away from me, scream.
Speaker 1: Oh sake.
Speaker 9: Detective Evans, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where you got a big one? Evans?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 9: Suspected homicide, Greenville Hills, U this is that Gerald Willoughby garreted,
you mean strangled? Yeah, like what I just said, suspected lave. Sir,
She's dead, alright, somebody made sure of that.
Speaker 4: Our mystery drama Don't Let It Choke You was written
especially for the Mystery Theater by Ian Martin and stars
Robert L.
Speaker 1: Green.
Speaker 4: Carlton Eisham Nelson Godfrey Fisk is the one and only
issue of the marriage of Beecham Fisk of the Boston
banking family and Amelia Standy of the gross Pointe, Michigan
stand For reasons not important to this narrative, they made
their residence in a baroque limestone just off Fifth Avenue
in New York City. Carlton was brought up strictly to
conform to his double birthright. Born late in his parents' union,
he suddenly found himself at twenty when his parents died
in the flu epidemic, master of their magnificent residence, but
unfortunately without liquid assets. Somehow he has managed to maintain
his lifestyle for the last fifteen years. Just how is
the thrust of our tale?
Speaker 1: By Bascom still up and about?
Speaker 8: Yes, mister Fisk startled me when your cab pulled up
in front of the house.
Speaker 1: What were you doing here in the shop?
Speaker 8: Oh, just dusting a bit, sir. I often do when
you're out for the evening.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't like anyone disturbing my treasures.
Speaker 3: I think you could trust me, sir.
Speaker 1: Of course I can ask him. Few of all people.
Speaker 3: May I take your coat? Sir?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, thank you.
Speaker 8: Oh there's nothing wrong with miss Eliot. I trust No,
not in the sense you mean. On the other hand,
there is a great deal that's not quite right. I
finally had to face it once again this evening, so
I'm home.
Speaker 1: Early for me?
Speaker 3: Is your bed is turned down? Sir?
Speaker 10: I don't feel like retiring yet. This is rather a
special evening for me, Sir. I finally come to an
irrevocable decision. The law is not worth the chase. The
cornering of the hunt brings no exultation. It's all illusion.
There is no woman alive to share my life. I
have decided that I am now a confirmed bachelor, and
to hell with matrimony and the perpetuation of the line.
I am going to stay here in the shop and
sit among my antiques. They offer beauty and permanence, and
they ask nothing in return.
Speaker 3: Yes, would you like me to bring you a drink, sir?
Speaker 1: Of hemlock or the waters of Lester.
Speaker 3: But I take it Miss Elliot will not be here
for dinner tomorrow.
Speaker 1: No, she won't, I'm sorry to say.
Speaker 10: Lucille suddenly revealed herself, in spite of her own riches,
an already unconscionable collection of jewelry. She's acquisitive, greedy, and
totally unprincipled. Ah, the Witching Hour, as sung to us
by the Rosewood Clock.
Speaker 1: No drink, thanks, Bascombe, you can turn in.
Speaker 10: I want to be alone, yes, mister Fisk, goodnight, sir.
Rest well, I will for the next two hobs, and
don't let anything disturb me.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: The Rosewood Clock the key to my existence.
Speaker 10: I crossed quickly to a magnificent seventeenth century armoir that
I have priced so high I hope no one will
ever buy it.
Speaker 1: From a secret recess.
Speaker 10: I drew out the precious dark green bottle and held
it to the light. My heart failed when I saw
how little little liqueur was left. I poured a precious
drop or two into a glass, drank and went to
sit in my Venetian arm chair facing the rosewood clock, waiting, waiting,
the years rushed back once again to the very lowest
point of my life, after the sudden death of my parents.
In this very room, I had sat in the same chair,
drinking from the same bottle, watching the highly polished convex
face of the rosewood clocks pendulum swing back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth, until suddenly, reflected in
its shining brass face, there was Wander smiling at me.
Speaker 11: How to me, Darling, For a little while, You're safe,
and I want to talk.
Speaker 1: To you, But you're dead. You're not alive anymore.
Speaker 11: Always, always, I live on in you, Carlton.
Speaker 10: All those years ago, I did come back, and between
selling some antiques from the house and investing the money
in the market, guided by some incredibly fortunate guesses, I
wiped out my debts and became well to do again.
But I knew where my strength lay and where it
came from, And from time to time I would return
to sip from the square green bottles and watch the
clock that brought me a magic hour with Wander.
Speaker 1: What is this place? Wander?
Speaker 12: Don't you remember that first summer we met and my
father had the farm of.
Speaker 1: Course, a bright blue sky, not a cloud.
Speaker 12: And we wandered hand in hand down to the mill street.
Speaker 13: There were daisies a whole field days, and you told
me you loved me, and afterwards you lay.
Speaker 12: With your head in my lap, and we said it
would last for eternity.
Speaker 1: Only it didn't.
Speaker 10: The bottle is almost empty, our visits grow shorter and shorter.
Speaker 1: What can I do believe?
Speaker 10: Believe me, cynic of the cynics, with all romance buried,
bachelor of bachelor's no wonder, it's too late.
Speaker 5: It's never too late.
Speaker 1: Spare me the cliches, or even you.
Speaker 12: Or even I might turn out to be less than perfect.
I never claim to be. You are the perfectionist.
Speaker 1: Are we quarreling?
Speaker 12: Never just speaking as openly as we may? Oh, my darling,
you're getting to be a hard shelled old.
Speaker 10: Crustacean environmental protection. My reputation is enviable. I'm a cynic
with a waspish sense of wit and an infallible instinct
how to penetrate the armor of others.
Speaker 1: It's been quite alife lately.
Speaker 10: I've had to learn to kill not only the enemy,
but those who tried to take advantage of the love.
Speaker 1: I seem to be able to bring no one wonder
why did you leave me?
Speaker 5: It wasn't my choice, and I haven't.
Speaker 1: Yet what you mean yet.
Speaker 12: Well, I won't be forever. You know that, Carlton. You
will find someone else. Perhaps there will be a lot
of me in her, even if you don't recognize it.
Have faith, my darling. Perhaps she's closer and nearer than
you think. You are due for a surprise beyond anything
you could imagine. It's time to forget me, and time
to stop killing everyone you love.
Speaker 1: I've led for Europe and a long buying trip.
Speaker 10: Three months later, I returned to be awakened the following morning, well.
Speaker 1: With jetlag by.
Speaker 8: Come a telegram for you, sir. Let me see it.
It was phoned in, Sir. I took it thinking it
might not be important enough to wake.
Speaker 1: You, and since you have I may assume that it was.
Speaker 8: Yes, Sir, your cousin Ralph has died rather suddenly cirrhosis
of the liver. No doubt, the course was not mentioned,
but he has left you something.
Speaker 10: Ralph he owed everyone, including the local minister. I've always
suspected the only reason he was an inveterate churchgoer was
to pilfer from the offer.
Speaker 1: Tory left me.
Speaker 8: What something you apparently agreed to sometime in the past.
Speaker 10: Let me see that, good lord, so he did flat
out of cash on my way, signed Jerry.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're apparently a guardian of some.
Speaker 10: Junior citizen named Jerry. And I thought I was a
free man. My mother said, some sort of a cousin.
And now his child is my responsibility, legally or morally, sir.
Morally is enough. But what am I going to do
with this young man when he gets here?
Speaker 3: Well there are plenty of guest rooms.
Speaker 10: I suppose, so make up whatever seems reasonable, and let's
pray he's not pimply faced or actmeat.
Speaker 1: Excellent Bascombe.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't normally open it, but I'm just a little
afraid of this year poor me a little, so I
may taste it.
Speaker 3: Enough, sir.
Speaker 10: Now let's see, hmm, a naive little wine, but with
its own slight urgency. It's a sort of invitation to
the dance, as one might say, pardon, sir, literary illusion
alice in Wonderland, the whitings of the snail. We are
having whiting tonight.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, sir, with so special man.
Speaker 10: Excellent, And now for the wine. The rothschild Lafitte, not
the sixty nine. Of course, the seventy three will do
a middling year. But my nephew is young enough not
to be able to detect our little deception.
Speaker 3: Says seventeen. Did you say, sir, just.
Speaker 1: About yes, sir, I know quite how you feel.
Speaker 10: There really is no room at all in this well
ordered existence of ours for some young high school boy.
We shall have to pack him off to school somewhere.
Speaker 8: Oh yes, yes, mister Fisk, But I am sorry about
your cousin's death.
Speaker 1: We don't have to dwell on that.
Speaker 3: What time will the young gentleman be.
Speaker 1: Here, sir? Any moment?
Speaker 10: According to the second telegram, arriving by car seventh thirty tonight,
right on, Uncle Carlton, see you then, right on the
language of our times, an expression of approval, Vogally stated.
Speaker 8: Well, let's hope the young gentleman will meet with your approval, sir.
Speaker 10: I'm not sure. I don't like stones thrown in my life.
Speaker 8: Cool unexpectedly, I'd better go down and check on the
besher mal.
Speaker 3: It needs tender care.
Speaker 8: Oh what is the young gentleman's name?
Speaker 1: Sir, my cousin's name was Forbes.
Speaker 10: The offspring is Jerry short for Gerald, I suppose, or
possibly Jerome.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 8: I'll have everything in readiness for an eight o'clock dinner
right on.
Speaker 3: I beg your pardon, sir.
Speaker 10: Blank the insidiousness of slang. One can never be too careful. Yes,
at eight, precisely right answer. Come, mister Fisk, your relation
has arrived.
Speaker 1: Well see his bags to his room and show him
in bascom.
Speaker 8: Yes, sir, begging your pardon, sir, there is another person.
Speaker 1: In a companiment, dear me, male or female?
Speaker 8: Well, it's so hard to tell these, says sir male.
I believe, but that's only a speculation.
Speaker 1: Long hair, but facially non her suit.
Speaker 8: The writer neither is bearded, blue jeans, I suppose, yes, sir,
not leather jackets with the studs and decals, I hope.
Speaker 3: Exactly, sir. Yours has a beaded headband and a feather.
Speaker 10: And tinted glasses. I'm afraid, so, sir, very well show
them in.
Speaker 8: Yes, sir, mister Fisk is expecting you.
Speaker 5: Now, you my uncle.
Speaker 1: You are the offspring of my cousin Gertrude.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Oh, if that means like she.
Speaker 5: Was my mother.
Speaker 10: You're younger than I expected, seventeen and your voice.
Speaker 1: Hasn't broken yet.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 10: A boy's voice undergoes a normal change during puberty. It
moves from the higher ranges to hold up.
Speaker 5: Man, you got some kind of idea. I'm a male.
Speaker 1: Well, Jerry is man?
Speaker 6: You are way out Jerry for Gertrude, same name as
my mom.
Speaker 5: Don't you know? You see one.
Speaker 1: Uncle a woman.
Speaker 10: I tried to keep my face a mask, but behind
my eyes blood red, rage seared them. This vulgar, wretched,
little guttess knipe was twitting me, laughing at me, producing
every sensibility of.
Speaker 1: My life, my long search for beauty and perfection.
Speaker 10: I could have killed her at that very moment, strangled
her for invading my life.
Speaker 4: The killer lies buried in all of us, and buried
less deep than we imagined, until the right circumstances revealed him.
Man's special curse, the only member of the animal kingdom
who kills for passion, without reason or the excuse for survival.
Speaker 1: I'll return shortly with that too.
Speaker 14: Do you smoke, well, then you've probably noticed how anti
smoking feelings here have been growing and you've probably seen
and heard all the anti smoking messages on radio and
TV and the warning labels on cigarette packages. Well, the
cigarette companies would like you to believe they're sticking up
for you. They're asking you to believe that the anti
smoking movement is against smokers, and that the cigarette companies
are four smokers.
Speaker 1: But think about that for a moment.
Speaker 14: The Surgeon General says that cigarettes kill over three hundred
and fifty thousand Americans every year. He says that nicotine
is more than habit. It's a drugs addictive as cocaine.
So ask yourself who's looking out for the smoker. This
message is paid for by the Martin Himmel Health Foundation
in cooperation with the American Heart Association.
Speaker 15: Someone told me there are dinosaurs and Golden Gate Park,
but I said, no, the dinosaurs went extinct sixty five
million years ago, or did they? And then they said
there are dinosaurs in Golden Gate Park at the California
Academy of Sciences, you know the Academy. That's where the
planetarium and aquarium are and that wonderful New Hall Wild California.
So I hopped on a bus to see if there
really are dinosaurs in the park. I asked the person
at the front door, are there any dinosaurs here? And
he said, you might say that. So I walked down
that huge hall and what I saw was incredible. There
before my eyes Plusterrnosaurus rex. Then to my left was Ankylosaurus,
and when I spun around, Triceratops was there. And you
could be there too, in the midst of eleven nearly
life sized automated dinosaurs. Dino Fest eighty nine open every day.
I'm now at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden
Gate Park. For information, call seven five oh seven one
four to two. That's seven five oh seven, one four
to two. You're listening to Mystery Theater, an exclusive presentation
of New seventy four k CBS.
Speaker 4: A strange confrontation two young people of today and a
high bound Bostonian. A man who had intellectually decided to
turn his back on woman as a companion and to
become a bachelor recluse, and now he faces the fact
that the ward he has committed himself to be legal
guardian of is a female.
Speaker 10: It was I suppose only a second or so, but
it seems an eternity all my years of searching for
a woman to share my life, a woman such as
I had lost, and now to find that the slovenly
child with a long time hangled hair and dirty fingernails,
the skin tight jeans, the cheap beads and the ludicrous
hussar boots, and the face mad by the corpse colored
lipstick and the blue eyeshadow. For the first time in
my life, I was speechless.
Speaker 6: You wanna check me out? Uncle, ask Coky. Hey, that's right,
I want you to meet Coky. You drove me here,
meet my uncle or some kind of relative, mister Fisk.
Speaker 1: Cookey Ah, yes, of course, pleased to meet you. Mister.
Speaker 6: You've got any notions about old Cokey, you forget it.
Speaker 5: Say hello to the man.
Speaker 9: Hi, Fisk Man, crazy joint. You're runny crazy crazy? Yeah,
far up, man, Hey, hit they with some skin.
Speaker 5: Just shake hands. Coky likes the house.
Speaker 1: I'm certainly flattered.
Speaker 5: Am I really gonna stay with you? Uncle?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 5: What do I call you?
Speaker 1: My first name is Carlton.
Speaker 6: It's kind of stuffy. We gotta find something better. Hey,
if I'm staying, can we find a pad for Cookey here?
See he's out of gas. And then we have no bread.
And anyway, he always went for the Big Apple.
Speaker 1: The Big Apple, New York where it's at.
Speaker 5: Kind of excited myself.
Speaker 6: Oh man, this place is way out those rooms downstairs.
Once I took a peeking when you were cool in
our heels, Cooky, you did that crazy stuffy, very real cool.
Speaker 9: Looked like a cross between my aunt Emma's barn and
the old clubhouse down by the garbage dumpling.
Speaker 6: You got some kind of a gig going down there,
Uncle Fizz.
Speaker 1: Uncle Fizz.
Speaker 9: Yeah, everybody's gonna have his own special name.
Speaker 1: Dick.
Speaker 9: My name is Cochran Rider. The second what kind of
name is that?
Speaker 8: So?
Speaker 9: Cokey gird Rooke, Kerry Fisk Fizz any matter?
Speaker 7: What is all that old jazz down there?
Speaker 3: Anyways?
Speaker 7: You sell junk junk?
Speaker 6: Oh, he doesn't mean horse grass bannies like that. He
means all things like the good will of the Salvation Army.
Speaker 10: I sell antiques, Yes to a very private and select clientele.
Speaker 6: You don't say I think being around here is gonna
be kicks, how about you?
Speaker 5: Cookie?
Speaker 9: I had exactly got the glad hand yet, baby, Come.
Speaker 3: Dinner is served, mister fish. Whenever you're already.
Speaker 10: I think the sooner the better, Bascom. Oh and you'd
better set an extra place. Mister Ryder will be joining us.
Speaker 5: Gee. I was swell at you, Uncle Fizz, After all.
Speaker 1: He did chauffeur you all the way down from Upstates.
Speaker 9: I look no sense in getting an uproar about me.
I could easily grab a couple of beers and a
big smack down to the corner.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't think of it. You must be my guest.
Speaker 9: Well, okay, if the old woman wants to you twisted
my arm, let's go load up.
Speaker 10: The dinner was an absolute disaster. When the white wine
was served.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, that tastes like vinegar. You got any sangria
or a collar.
Speaker 9: I could go for a beer myself with a sauce
special meal?
Speaker 5: You mean this goey stuff? It didn't turn out so good.
Speaker 6: Huh Hey, why are we sent out for a pizza?
Speaker 1: I won't ratherg you with the rest of it.
Speaker 10: Suffice to say, as soon as the horror was over,
I fled for bed and left Bascombe to find somewhere
for Coochie.
Speaker 1: The very name catches in my throat to bed down.
Speaker 10: By the following morning, I felt almost myself as the
bell to my antique establishment, announced one of my favorite
and most lucrative customers, Missus Willoughby from Westminster.
Speaker 13: Exquisite, absolutely exquisite.
Speaker 10: A veritable gem, an escoutoire by salons.
Speaker 13: Of course, I can't see it very well. My eyes
are not what they were.
Speaker 1: Allow me to see it for you.
Speaker 10: The wood is sycamore with gilt bronze mounts. The top
of the writing table itself is marble inlaid with plaques
of severy porcelain, undoubtedly Louis Kettor's Louis the fourteenth, the
sun god himself.
Speaker 1: How much for a treasure like this?
Speaker 3: I want it.
Speaker 1: They're like my children. I hate to part with them.
Speaker 10: If I told you what this has actually been appraised
by my peers. But then you are an old and
valued customer. I must make what accommodation I can.
Speaker 1: Shall we say ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: But then it is one of the kind. Excuse me, yes.
Speaker 3: Bascombe, the mail siry just arrived.
Speaker 1: Put it over there, please.
Speaker 13: Certainly, sir, I'll take the desk as soon as possible.
Any accommodation you desire, well, I will be in Saratoga
for a few days. You make the time as say
next Thursday. It will be cash as usual. You know
my works. I don't trust banks. Ten thousand dollars? Oh
U are visual new delivery boy?
Speaker 6: Right him, uncle's newest antique. I'm his war Jerry, and
this here is my old man Cookie.
Speaker 5: Please to make your acquaintance.
Speaker 13: But I can't say the same, mister Fisk. I've never
questioned your taste before, but really, horriff off like this,
it's enough to shake my judgment in you and.
Speaker 5: Others of your customers too.
Speaker 7: Good morning?
Speaker 5: Did I say something wrong?
Speaker 1: Bask them?
Speaker 10: Yes, sir, go after missus Willoughby and make sure she
gets in her car.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 10: Did you say something wrong? Did you say? It isn't
just what you say, my dear, it's what you are.
You are wrong. That's the problem. You simply do not fit.
You've got to go.
Speaker 6: Oh no, mad let's not get throwing away a hey layout, Corky,
who asked you in?
Speaker 5: I'll handle this myself.
Speaker 7: Okay, that's the way you want it. You got it.
Speaker 5: Now, Uncle Fizz, let's you and me get it on
the table. There's a cord order.
Speaker 6: You got to take care of me till I'm of age.
I'm buying that for the next year, because I go
for some of what's here.
Speaker 10: You mean you're waking up to the fact that it's
time with the leopard to change response.
Speaker 5: Oh not me, maybe you.
Speaker 6: I ain't changing my lifestyle till I'm good and ready,
if ever, but you you sure could use a few
changes in yours. So I'm sticking just as long as
I can.
Speaker 1: I stared in dismay at this defiant child.
Speaker 10: My only thought was to rid myself of her, at
least for the moment I sent her away.
Speaker 1: I had to be alone.
Speaker 10: I closed my door after hanging out my sign tastefully
render in an italio on a plaque of cherrywood.
Speaker 1: Pleasant red.
Speaker 10: Mister Fisk regrets that pressing affairs requires absence for the
next two hours. Then I sat down, the dark green
bottle in hand, waiting for the rosewood clock to strike
the hour.
Speaker 5: Wow, what a super kitchen.
Speaker 3: Yes, miss Wharton, it is rather nice.
Speaker 5: And all those lovely copper pots hanging overhead. Do you
use all that?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 8: I suppose I have at one time or another. You
mind if I keep on. I'm preparing lunch, one dinner too.
Speaker 5: I'm all right? Could I help?
Speaker 3: Oh? I bless you? No, no, no, everything under control.
Speaker 5: You could help me, eh?
Speaker 3: Could I?
Speaker 1: How well?
Speaker 6: I like it here and I like Uncle Fitz. I
like my uncle. Why doesn't he like me? E?
Speaker 3: Excuse me, miss, I've got to chop these onions. It's
just as well.
Speaker 8: You see, he's he's sort of off women.
Speaker 6: As you might say, I don't take you. I mean,
I don't understand. He's pretty damn attractive, and he's sexy, so.
Speaker 8: Whid well, quite a long time ago, when we were
in the army together, he was going to be married
to a girl and she was killed in a car
crash before he ever got back from overseas.
Speaker 5: How long ago?
Speaker 3: Oh lord, it's pretty near fifteen years.
Speaker 5: And he hasn't liked women since then.
Speaker 3: Not him. He's the most eligible bachelor in New York.
Speaker 5: What beast come? You're crying?
Speaker 3: Not me, ma'am. Just the onions you too.
Speaker 6: No, No, it is in the onions with me. I'm
sad for anyone who's haunted by goes. I got my
own closet full cookie. I thought you cut out.
Speaker 3: I meant to that.
Speaker 9: I got to thinking I was just about to ring
the doorbell.
Speaker 3: When you came out.
Speaker 5: I just wanted some mayor want to ride?
Speaker 1: Uh uh walk?
Speaker 5: Nah? Just sit here for a moment on the stoop.
Speaker 7: I'll sit with you.
Speaker 9: Hey, Look, Jerry, I got to thinking, you buy all
that chess the old lady with a ten grand in
cash for a piece of crunch you could pick up
at a good will for twenty five bucks. What's your drift? Well,
hurry on myself. Blackmail horse a bag man for the numbers.
You're local fish y'all.
Speaker 5: Call him that?
Speaker 7: Okay, Okay, he's off.
Speaker 9: I'm just trying to figure maybe we could have a
good thing going here.
Speaker 7: Wee.
Speaker 3: I need you to cut.
Speaker 1: In what ever's cooking?
Speaker 5: I need you to cut out?
Speaker 9: What is the god the hots for a guy old
enough to be your father?
Speaker 6: I saw you'd figure it's not that way anyways, he
and all that old Why don't you just bug off?
Speaker 9: I don't figure what you're hanging around for. Well, can
you get out of it? But a short term in Dollsville?
Speaker 5: Well maybe that's what I need. Maybe that's what I
really want.
Speaker 9: Okay, baby, it's your life. But there's something screwy about
this whole thne maybe you'll get more than you bargained for.
Anything new in the old Willoughby Dame Evans.
Speaker 7: Eh, nothing much to go on, sergeant, except for one thing.
Speaker 1: Heah, what you remember? I made a point.
Speaker 7: She wasn't strangled, she was like garreted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there some kind of wire.
Speaker 9: Yeah right, something rang a bell and I checked around.
The first thing I'd dig up is an open file
in the twentieth. A few months ago, a woman named
Lilyan Elliott was found dead in the same way. Yeah,
turned out to be a fancy hooker. No leaves, just
on a hunch. I had central files, punch up the computer,
and then I'd turn up two more in the last
ten years, taken out the same way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anything else to time to get it? Nope.
Speaker 9: First was an Allen Parkins American, but it happened in Paris.
She was a thirty year old artist. The second was
four years later in the village sixth pricincts. Woman around
twenty five in the antiqu jewelry business.
Speaker 3: And how old was the hooker?
Speaker 1: H thirty four?
Speaker 9: Maybe uh thirty five, good looker, but get a little
old for the game. And an eighty year old society
biddy worth millions, who kept it all in cash and
safety deposit boxes in her apartment, pinned to the drapes
and folded up between old newspapers and the basement.
Speaker 3: Is she the only one robbed?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 9: For as we know's not much of a pattern.
Speaker 3: Eh, Where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: I keep digging that.
Speaker 9: I don't know why, but I smell one guy and
all of these and I ain't gonna let him get
away with it.
Speaker 10: It was a long wait. The pendulum swings in his
gentle arc. I can feel her presence coming closer, closer,
feel myself floating back into that special world of peace
and beauty. Her back has turned to me, as I call,
as she turns. But it is no longer one just
face I see. It's the face of the slovenly, mocking
little witch I have taken into my house. Bad enough,
she invades my waking life. I will not let spoil
a few dreams I have left. Old instincts explode and
I reach towards her, ready to strangle her for dairy,
for daring to try to take one's place.
Speaker 4: A curious story about a curious man who lives a
secret life with a phantom woman?
Speaker 3: What is he seeking?
Speaker 4: And does his dream life drive him to destroy any
woman who seeks to invade it? I'll return shortly with
Act three. Controlled hypnosis is a ParaScience and a valuable
tool in psychiatric medicine, but self hypnosis is something else. Again,
for the limiting factor of hypnosis ordinarily is that the
subject will not do anything ordered by the control, which
is against his own desires. But where there is no
control except the subject himself, perhaps we're about to find
the answer.
Speaker 11: What did you do?
Speaker 1: I won't let you take wander away from me? No one,
No one can take my cod It's me what Let's go? Wonder?
Speaker 10: I I thought, Jerry, Yes, why would you think that
I saw? I thought I saw someone else's face instead
of yours.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you did what you mean?
Speaker 11: It's lasted far too long, Carton, far too long. It's
time for me to go.
Speaker 1: No, no, yes, yes.
Speaker 11: My dear, But I love you and I love you,
But all things come to an end. It's finished, my darling.
Speaker 1: Finished.
Speaker 11: Better it's finished for me than for the others, for
the others.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, who is who is it?
Speaker 3: Begging your pardon?
Speaker 11: Sir?
Speaker 8: But there's someone to see you.
Speaker 1: You know very well, I never see anyone when the
sign is out.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, But but this gentleman is from the police.
Speaker 10: Sir, police, Oh very well, just a moment.
Speaker 1: Yes, what is it?
Speaker 9: My credentials, mister fish, Detective Evans, twentieth precincts.
Speaker 7: I get right to the point.
Speaker 9: Do you know missus Beatrice Willoughby one twenty second place.
Speaker 10: Of course, she's an old and valued customer. I had
a death delivered to her mansion only this morning. Now,
don't tell me anything has happened. It's a priceless antique.
Speaker 7: If it's the desk you're worried about.
Speaker 9: No, but uh, that's what brought me here, missus Willoughby, Yes, sir,
she's dead.
Speaker 1: Heart.
Speaker 7: No, sir, she was strangled and robbed.
Speaker 1: Oh how terrible.
Speaker 7: I should really say. Guaranted.
Speaker 1: That's a strange word for you to use.
Speaker 7: Is it?
Speaker 1: But it has rather a specific meaning.
Speaker 9: Yes, well I used it. It wasn't a stocking, for example,
or a rope. Definitely a wire used very expertly.
Speaker 10: Are you, by any remote chance suggesting that I had
anything to do with that?
Speaker 9: I'm not suggesting anything, just doing my job. You were
with the Green Berets.
Speaker 10: What you say, yes for three years, and I'll anticipate
you and say that part of my training was the
technique you were describing. But if you think Detective Evans
was it, Yes, sir, missus Willoughby owed me ten thousand dollars.
I would scarcely if you will forgive the praise. Do
her in before I was paid?
Speaker 1: Would I?
Speaker 9: I'm not suggesting anything, I'm only collecting information. Do you
recall knowing an Ellen Parkins?
Speaker 10: I certainly do. I knew her in Paris So ten
years ago. Great talent, is an artist, but I lost touch.
I've often wondered what happened to her?
Speaker 9: She was found in her studio dead. Garreted, Good lord, no,
when ten years ago? Were you also acquainted with a
Judith Carlin sort of in your business?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 10: She was an antique jewelry, had an unerring sense of
taste about jewelry, but not about her friends.
Speaker 9: Shall we say? Don't tell me that she is about
five years ago? Garreted, Now, Sir, a miss Lillian Elliott's.
Speaker 10: Oh no, not Lilian, what is this some psychedelic dream?
Speaker 1: It can't be happening, ask him?
Speaker 5: Way up to you look like your eavesdropping.
Speaker 1: I was just.
Speaker 3: Closing the door. See the sign.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I wanted to have a talk with my guardian.
Speaker 3: You can't interrupt him now he has a very important guest.
Speaker 5: Come along, okay, psky, okay, but easy on my arm.
You got some grip there.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry I didn't realize. Let's go in the kitchen, ma'am.
I have my work to do.
Speaker 5: Let me help a little now.
Speaker 3: There's nothing for you to do.
Speaker 6: Oh, there's a whole lot for me to do. I've
decided to be a permanent guest. That is, as long
as I'm allowed to be permanent.
Speaker 3: Just what do you mean by that, Miss Terry.
Speaker 6: Well, look, you really love Karl. I mean my guardian,
don't you.
Speaker 8: We've been through a lot together here and I here's
miss Jerry. I love him like the sun. I never
had I do anything for him.
Speaker 5: Well that's the way I feel.
Speaker 6: Oh, I know it'll seem silly to you, except well,
maybe you're the only person in my whole life who
could understand.
Speaker 8: You.
Speaker 6: See, my mother was a drunk and my father was
a deadbeat. So I had to develop a shell hard
enough so I didn't curl up and die. But I
don't need that anymore. I love him, and not like
an uncle, like a woman. For sure, you're a The
age is relative. If I'd let my parents shape my life,
I i'd be one hundred and seventeen going on eighteen.
H doesn't mean anything anymore. Juliette was sixteen. Charlie Chackley,
he's about ninety Caissole's Picasso.
Speaker 5: A man is a man as long as he wants
to be and fast. I'm in love. I love him
just as much as you. We're the same.
Speaker 8: No, not quite. You said I had a strong grip.
Well that's because I've been conditioned all my life. I
was a commander during World War Two, Special Service Force
in career, then Vietnam. That's where I met mister Fisk.
He's like a son to me, as I told you,
and I protect him even with my life.
Speaker 5: You don't think I feel the same.
Speaker 8: I'd like to say something if I may. Perhaps it
would be safer for us all if you get out
of the master's life right away.
Speaker 10: For a long time, after the police officer left, I
lay sunk in my chair, my mind a kaleidoscope.
Speaker 7: Of the past.
Speaker 10: He had forced nothing I had admitted nothing, but he
had shaken me. I went to the armoir and unlocked it.
There with the leaden green bottle with its final few
magic drops to seek wander again. Then I opened another compartment.
Within it were the tools of death I had never
been able to throw away. The most prominent and of
focal interest for the moment was the wire garrot with
its hand holes. That the best of my belief had
been shot away since my last patrol. Holding it, my
hands were shaking and my stomach was ice. Had I
was it possible under self hypnosis that I had used
it against the women who proved less than perfect? I
might have believed that except for poor dear missus Willoughby.
I had a sudden urge for air, to breathe, to walk,
to think outdoors carelessly, I thrust things away, pushed the
armoire door shots without locking it, and left.
Speaker 5: Uncle Carlton, Carlton, are you in there?
Speaker 3: Shut up?
Speaker 1: Rascal?
Speaker 3: I told you to leave, Miss Cherry? And what are
you doing in that dress?
Speaker 6: I haven't really got anything of my own? I mean,
like this, I found it upstairs? What's that in your hands?
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, Miss Cherry, but you couldn't help him either.
You just couldn't measure up. You'd let him down like
all the rest, and I won't allow that to happen.
He's special, you see, very special.
Speaker 3: No putty but me knows that.
Speaker 8: And those of you who don't know how special he
is have to be eliminated.
Speaker 3: Don't be afraid.
Speaker 8: It doesn't really hurt, and it's only for a moment.
Speaker 1: Masterprizing Bascombe. The garret you.
Speaker 3: Only because of you Carton, You.
Speaker 1: Mean, Judith Ellen, Lillian, they.
Speaker 3: Lash you down.
Speaker 10: I nehut did but Beatreth Willoughby. Why poor missus Willoughby
that it was an accident.
Speaker 8: You remember how you and I first met, Yes in training,
and I had a certain weakness the ponies. You bailed
me out. Then My life wasn't worth a nickel. You
made one stipulation that you would lay off them for good. Yes, sir,
I broke my words some years ago. I did all
right for a while, and then it all ran bad.
When Missus Willoughby bought the desk and I knew that
all that cash was loose around her house, I thought
I found my way out. Only she didn't go away
as she promised, and she discovered me robbing the rest
was reflex action. Oh that's for me nothing. I'm mold enough.
It doesn't matter and I deserve it. I think you'd
better call the police so I can set the record straight.
Speaker 5: This. Yes, Gertrude, are we doing the right thing?
Speaker 1: I can't answer that.
Speaker 10: Once I wanted to be a big milion to your
galateare I wanted to mold and change you.
Speaker 1: It's okay with me, except that it backfired. You change me.
Speaker 10: You took ten years off my age, which still makes
me thirty five.
Speaker 1: But that makes me young enough.
Speaker 6: Oh, considering I was the oldest seventeen year old you
ever knew.
Speaker 1: From war to wife, it's quite a jump.
Speaker 8: Uh huh.
Speaker 5: If you don't risk the big ones, you don't end
up a winner.
Speaker 4: A strange twist, but a nice one. Two lost souls
found each other and a life that could have been
denied them so easily. And Bascombe, for whom there are
no excuses, died while awaiting trial from a sudden, massive
heart attack, the best and kindest thing he could do
for both Carlton and Jerry. Their backgrounds alone were enough
to make a human relationship or problem without the complication
of Bascombe's misguided help.
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Speaker 4: Just a glance at the long view for people who
agonize over age gaps, or any other fancied objection to
a long term relationship or a marriage as life or
fate as you prefer to believe arranged it. It was
actually Jerry who died before Carlton, but not before they
had had over thirty full years between them. The Lord
giveth and taketh away.
Speaker 1: But if you believe in him hard enough.
Speaker 3: The odds are on your side.
Speaker 1: Our cast included Robert L.
Speaker 4: Green, Jennifer Harmon, Court Benson and Potoniac and Larry Robinson.
The entire production SCHEN was under the director of Hyman
Brown