Speaker 1: Atune Faisterly Theater.
Speaker 2: Come in.
Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: I'm e. G. Marshall.
Speaker 1: The setting on your dial is the passport to a
shadow land of mystery and terror, and you can travel
as far and as long as your imagination will permit.
In ancient times, evil was usually the work of people
who were monstrous grow TETs and psychoticry. Today's perpetrators, for
the most part, are quite banal. Many of them lead
what can only be described as normal lives. Some of
them have achieved such heights of respectability that their deeds
are no longer considered evil. The girl days when villains
were villains and performed with style and flair, Today's faceless
scoundrels don't even get any fun out of their own evil.
Our mystery drama Killer of the Year was written especially
for the Mystery theater by Sam Van and stars Norman Rose.
It is sponsored in part by Uncle Ben's Long Grain
and Wild Rice and imported Vigna Rose Wine. I'll be
back shortly with that one evil.
Speaker 2: What's evil?
Speaker 1: Since the beginning of the human race, men have speculated
on the nature of evil. Saints, philosophers, psychologists all have deliberated,
and still the answer elluses us. In this enlightened century,
will science finally.
Speaker 2: Solve the problem?
Speaker 1: Shall we discover that evil is actually a virus, a
disease that infects its victims at random. Impossible, you say, perhaps,
But how do you account for the fact that so
many people are suddenly stricken, so many of the most
unlikely people, people like Harry Johnson?
Speaker 3: Turn around, Harry, let me look at you. Oh no, dear,
to go a coupling.
Speaker 2: It's too formal.
Speaker 3: It's a formal occasion.
Speaker 2: Mine. Who rang the bell before? Oh?
Speaker 3: It was a telegram the president of your own company,
mister G. G. Gresham himself. Well, what do you think
of that?
Speaker 2: I don't know what am I supposed to think of it?
Speaker 3: Don't you even want to read it?
Speaker 2: You read it all right?
Speaker 3: Congratulations you are a credit to the corporation, signed GG Gresham.
Speaker 2: Ah, Well, well.
Speaker 3: What do you realize what this means? Mister Gresham himself
all the way out in Chicago. Mister Gresham, who personally
run the half billion dollar corporation, knows about you, knows
about the award.
Speaker 2: And its Frisham has a PR department which handles this
kind of nonsense.
Speaker 3: Oh, why do you call it nonsense.
Speaker 2: Because he couldn't care less I beg.
Speaker 3: To do for Harry when one of his executives.
Speaker 2: To him, I'm an employee.
Speaker 3: Wins the Man of a Year award in.
Speaker 2: A tank town like Danvers Corners.
Speaker 3: This happens to be the county seat and it's the
third largest city in the state.
Speaker 2: Let's hear it for Danvers Corner.
Speaker 3: Oh, don't pretend to be cynical.
Speaker 2: Is because you're not, my dear. I never set out
to win this award. I mean, but it wasn't deliberate.
I didn't plan it. It wasn't part of a campaign
to do myself some good.
Speaker 3: Well, it's recognition of the facts, and you.
Speaker 2: Have to recognition. I like to work on community projects.
I think it's the best investment of time I can
make it done.
Speaker 3: When you took me home from our very first date,
mother came upstairs to my room for a chat.
Speaker 2: That was another world in those days, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I certainly was. And mother said, tell me all about him, dear,
And I did, and she said, you know, he sounds
too good to be true. And Harry, she was right,
and she still is, you are too good to be true.
Speaker 2: Come on, I'm the same as everyone.
Speaker 3: No, dear, You're not like everyone else. You have a
conscience and you have ideals, and those things are in
short supply today.
Speaker 2: You know, Jenny, I think I have a headache.
Speaker 3: Headache? Why should you have a headache all of a sudden, I.
Speaker 2: Think my halo is on two types? Oh, come on,
we'll be late for the bash. A man of the year, buddy,
This is the first chance I've had off of my congratulations.
Thank you, Pete, great dinner, great speech. Listen, why didn't
you run for Congress? Now? Why should I run for congres?
Why else have you been knocking yourself up playing four
nights a week because I like it. You know it's
all going to wait it, it's not gonna wind up
doing you any good. Well, it makes me feel good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Coming from anyone else, it would sound like a line,
But you I believe. Hello, Py, Jenny, Congratulations.
Speaker 3: Thank you Kelly. Have you met Will maclown.
Speaker 2: Will m'cla No, I don't think so. Oh, are you
in for a tree? Although we though what, you're so
thoroughly married you probably couldn't enjoy the sight of another
beautiful woman. I'll introduce you to John for then Jenny,
who is she?
Speaker 3: She's the new librarian, and she'll be very happy to
meet you.
Speaker 2: Oh, why, she.
Speaker 3: Can thank you for her job. After all, you're the
one who raised the funds for the library campaign.
Speaker 2: I'm why do you make it sounds if I did
it single handed?
Speaker 3: Wilma. I'd like you to meet my husband, Harry Johnson.
Speaker 2: How do you do, Wilma, Wilma Sloane. No, that isn't
your name. You're not Wilma Sloane. I know you, that
is well. I know your face. How could I ever
forget your face? I stared at it for hours in
that courtroom. I know your face from every ankle. There
are times on your eyes would wander among the rows
of spectators, and sometimes sometimes we would meet mine and
we would look at each other for a brief moments.
Do you recognize me? Do you know my face? How
long was it? Four? No? Five years ago? The company
had sent me way way up and out to the northwest,
to a place called Centerville. Centerville. It makes Denver's Corners
seem like Paris Centerville.
Speaker 1: I gotta be with us a spell, mister Johnson. Oh,
ten days, two weeks, I suppose you from the Gresham Company.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have to run some sales training sessions, but
albeit night. Tell me what's there to do around here
in the day time? Well, to tell the.
Speaker 1: Truth, there ain't nothing to do around here daytimes outside
of hunting season. But you're in luck.
Speaker 2: Why we got some murder trial going a murdered child.
Speaker 1: Yep, in all the papers?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: What hell? The papers around here?
Speaker 2: I guess where's the trial being held?
Speaker 1: Wait in the courthouse?
Speaker 2: Where else?
Speaker 1: I'm fixing goal myself. I get the wife to take
over the front. I'll drive you down there.
Speaker 2: That's her, she's the defendant.
Speaker 1: That's her, Tessie Bonner. She works in the library, and
maybe I should say she worked in the library.
Speaker 2: She's a very beautiful woman.
Speaker 1: Hey, she's good looking.
Speaker 2: But she's a killer. Isn't that what the jury's supposed
to decide her?
Speaker 1: The jury has already decided. I know every one of
them made box, I can tell.
Speaker 2: But that's not right.
Speaker 1: You just listen to the testimony. You'll see it'll prove
she's guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Speaker 2: That's your full name? Please?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess my full name would be Edna Amabilla's coin,
and you.
Speaker 2: Rented an apartment to the defendant. Miss Teresa Bonner said,
the three unies and the deceased. Was he a regular visitor? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, he'd show up there, two, three, sometimes four
times a week.
Speaker 2: I said to my oldest girl.
Speaker 3: Looks like we have a little love less up there
in three g And she said, oh my, get with it.
This is a new morality. I mean, so, what do
you approve if you have a document? Well, I was gonna.
Speaker 2: Tell her, did you ever hear signs of an altercation
of what arguments fight? Oh?
Speaker 3: No, no, I can't say that I did. I didn't
hear a word until that night.
Speaker 2: I suppose you tell us just exactly what you heard.
Speaker 3: Well, I was surprised, Surpi.
Speaker 2: Why Well, you know, they.
Speaker 3: Were very quiet usually, and all of a sudden, on
this particular night, they start yelling at each other, yelling,
well maybe not yelling, but you can hear them all.
And he was saying it's over, it has come to
an end, and she kept saying, no, it's not over,
it's just begun. She said, I can't. I won't let
you walk out on me. And he said, we both
knew it would have to end sometime, and she said
it can only end when one of us is dead.
And he said, don't be stupid. And she said, I
won't let you go. I can't let you go. And
he said, you knew from this gard I was married.
And she said yes, and so did you, and and
and does this clime? Well, she said, if I can't
have you, she can't have you either.
Speaker 2: And what did he say to that?
Speaker 3: He said, be sensible? And she said, how can a
woman in love be sensible? And then the next thing
I heard him say was you're crazy. You've gone mad.
Put down that night.
Speaker 2: You heard him say those exact words, put down that night, yes, sir.
And then what happened?
Speaker 3: And then I, uh, well I heard him yell and
then and then I didn't hear anything. Well, I was scared,
you know, I mean I I didn't know what to think.
Speaker 2: What did you do?
Speaker 3: Well? I thought for a minute. Then I walked up
the stairs and I went to her door. MM and
I I just stood there listening. Finally I knocked on
the door and I said, ms mona at mcmonna, are
you okay?
Speaker 2: There was no answer.
Speaker 3: Well, I I I tried to turn the handle, and
the door wasn't locked, so I opened it and I
walked right into the apartment, and there I saw.
Speaker 2: Would you tell us what you saw?
Speaker 3: I I saw him lying on the floor.
Speaker 2: He was dead. You're sure he was dead?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, his chest was covered with blood.
Speaker 2: And where was the defender?
Speaker 3: She was standing there near him, right in the middle
of the room, and she was holding a big knife
in her hand, and you could see blood on the blade.
Speaker 2: Would that be that large knife lying on the table
marked exhibit be.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, yester, that's the knife. And and she was
holding that that that knife in her hand, and she
was mumbling, no one else can ever have you, No
one else can ever have you.
Speaker 2: Mm And what you've told us just now is exactly
what you saw.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, exactly.
Speaker 2: I have no further questions. And threw it all. She
sat quietly at her table next to her attorney. It
was as if someone else were on trial. She hardly
seemed to listen to anything that was being said. Occasionally
she would glance at the spectators. Her eyes would slowly
sweep the room. From time to time they would meet mine,
and she would look at me. Oh, what a what
at my imagination? But the trial came to an end. Finally.
The jury left the room at eleven forty five and
returned promptly at two. They had lunch between twelve and
one thirty, so you can imagine how long they deliberated.
But of course the verdict was obvious on the very obside, guilty,
guilty of murder in the first degree, guilty, with no
recommendation for mercy. So so now what is she doing
here less than five years later? Because this is Tessie Bonner.
She may call herself Wilma Sloane, but her name is
Tessie Bonner Perry.
Speaker 3: They did wild flow?
Speaker 2: How do you do?
Speaker 3: Congratulations to gentlemen?
Speaker 2: Where were you? I said I could have the next dance?
How are you keeping promises? Yet? Now? If you good
people will excuse us?
Speaker 3: They make a handsome couple, don't say, Harry? Oh well,
I said, Peter and willmas Low make a good looking couple?
Speaker 2: Thing? Oh yes, Oh she's such.
Speaker 3: A beautiful girl, isn't he?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Jednie lovely, lovely if you.
Speaker 1: Like a girl who knows how to use a knife.
But is she the same one? Harry is absolutely certain.
But if she's the same one. What indeed is she
doing here? The state where she was tried still has
the death penalty. At the very least, she should be
in jail for a long long time. Well, you will
only have to wait a short short time till I
return with some answers in act too. Although Harry Johnson
has raised considerable funds for the town library, he rarely
goes there himself. However, this afternoon, on an impulse, one
that he can explain, or can he, he.
Speaker 2: Has stopped at the library.
Speaker 1: From the doorway, he regards the librarian, a rather beautiful
young woman named Wilma Sloane. She's talking to several children.
It's hard to believe that she is a woman who,
in a fit of passion or as a result of
a cold blooded resolve, stabbed her lover to death. But
she did some five years ago in a state a
thousand miles away, and she has been tried and convicted
for murder. And the question is what is she doing here?
Harry Johnson wants to know the answer, but evidently not now,
and so he turns away and walks down the library steps.
Speaker 2: Sure thing, Thanks, Pete. You know, if anybody would ask
me where they could find Harry Johnson. I'd answer to
try the library. Just what that's the book to meet? Pete.
Don't have an affair with her, Harry who you've heard
me more? Don't have an affair with whom? Was Wilma Slow? Come, Pete?
What's gotten into you? The problem is not what's gotten
into me, but what's gotten into you. Pete, you're either
crazy or what? I don't know? Look what are you
driving at? What I'm driving at is that man is
not naturally monogamous? Or let's not start this, nuns and
that gay I never got married. You may be deeply
in love with a woman, but suddenly someone happens along,
and why are you're gone? I think that's ridiculous. It
probably is, but unfortunately it happens, and it happened to
you last night. Pete. I wish you would tell me
what you're talking about talking about Wilma Slow? What about
Wilma Sloan? Let's do it the step, sir. I thought
you were introduced to her. One look at your face
convinced me. Convince you of what convinced me? I'd better
ask her to dance so I could get her away
from you and have her for yourself. Oh, or get
me wrong. I'd take her if I could get her,
But she's not for me. I know. See, I'm an
expert in these affairs. Oh so bothered. Look, you made
disapprove of my attitude toward life and love. But I
do have both experience and expertise. So I took her
away from where you and Jenny were standing before before
what before? What you were thinking? Before? That look on
your face could become obvious to everyone else, including my
poor dear sister. You know I think that you are crazy. Yeah,
and so now it's the afternoon of the next day,
the late afternoon. I'm downtown. I stopped for a traffic light.
Idly I glanced toward the library steps, thinking, of course,
of that delectable new librarian. When who do I see
walking up the steps by my most faithful brother in law, Harry,
A man who's wrecked it to you would have just
earned him the Man of a Year award here in
Danver's corner. So I can explain, man, but I can
explain it better. You walked up the steps, you paused,
you knew it. This business you don't quite know how
to go about it, so at the last minute you
lost your nerves and beat a hasty retreat for Pete.
Not one word of what you say is try you'll
come back again. There always has to be a first time, Harry,
and your first time is waiting in the wings, or
I should say, behind the desk, Harry, don't do it.
I have no intention of you to think. You don't
teak if you don't mind, I insistently changed the supplies.
It's so painful. No, it's ridiculous. And why are you
becoming so excited? I'm not excited? But what are you, Pete?
But I'm very much in love with my wife. Your
kind of guy needs watching? Or don't toudge everybody's morality
by your own? Are you're doing it? The library? I
thought I needed a certain book and then well then
I remember that I had it in the hut. Sure
it's true. Do you know what Nero said about truth?
He said, the truth is whatever you wanted to be.
I must say you choose a strange model. But that's
where you are right now, Harry. And don't say I
didn't warn you.
Speaker 4: Hello sent the mill Motel.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is mister Harry Johnson. You wouldn't remember me.
I was out there five years a day.
Speaker 4: I remember you, find mister Johnson. You were with the
Gresham Corporation. You spent fifteen days here teaching sales seminars.
He was in Room one twelve, face in the lake.
Speaker 2: Yes, bro, I may have to take a trip out there,
and I wanted to know if the well, if the
motel was still around.
Speaker 4: Oh well, bigger and better than ever. Want me to
make you a reservation.
Speaker 2: Well, my plans aren't firm yet.
Speaker 4: Sure, just give us a little notice. We always got
room for.
Speaker 2: You, mister Johnson. I remember when I was out there.
You had some excitement.
Speaker 4: Excitement.
Speaker 2: Yes, you were having a tire weren't you tile?
Speaker 4: Oh oh yeah, Tessey Bother.
Speaker 2: That's who it was. Yes, I remember I was in
the courtroom when the jewelry brought in a guilty birthday.
Speaker 4: Oh yes they did.
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't there when the judge sentenced to tell
me what did she get the rope?
Speaker 4: But then the governor said, oh, come on, you can't
hang a woman, so he gave her life instead.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I guess she's still in jail. No, no,
she's dead, dead, I.
Speaker 4: Say dead, that's the only way to figure you. See,
they have a breakout from the women's penitentiary. A couple
of years ago, Wilma and a couple of others escaped.
Speaker 2: Oh well, then why do you say that she's dead.
Speaker 4: Well, they made it up to the mountains, but they
got caught in a snowstorm, and I guarantee you nobody
could live through that one. You will. I have been
nice talking to you, mister Johnson.
Speaker 2: You come up and see this real, so yes, thank you. Hey, oh, hello, dear.
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought I heard someone come in the back door.
Speaker 2: I wanted to make sure it was you. I saw
a whole line of cars parking from of a house,
and then I remember, it's your women's club afternoon.
Speaker 3: We're just breaking up now.
Speaker 2: I didn't want it to cereb anyone, so I just
sneaked up the rear staircase.
Speaker 3: Oh that's altay, a word you're use in your own house.
Speaker 2: Sneaked.
Speaker 3: Incidentally, Well, I wasn't doing home so early.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Well, I, Jenny, I have a problem. I just want to,
you know, sit and think it out. Oh sounds grim,
that probably is. What's it about. Well, it's concerned with
the duties of a citizen.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, Well let me know how it works out. Oh, darling,
would you mind doing something for me? You name it
Willmas Sloane is here and she doesn't have a car,
and nobody else is doing her way. Will slo You
remember you met her the other night at your award dinner, Darling,
would you mind giving her in this tone? Well, I
do it myself, except I've got to get dinner started.
This is very kind of you, mister Johnson.
Speaker 2: I uh, I bother you called me Harry.
Speaker 3: I will on one condition. You must call me Wilma.
Speaker 2: Well I'll do better than that. I'll call you Tessy. Tessy,
Oh Teresa, how miss Bonner, which do you prefer?
Speaker 3: I see, Well, what do we do?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: I know what I should do?
Speaker 5: And what's that?
Speaker 2: Head for the police station and turn you over to
the authorities. Why because you're an escaped convict.
Speaker 3: I know, I know I'm an escaped convict. But why
should you turn me over to the police.
Speaker 2: Why because it's my duty as a citizen.
Speaker 3: Oh, and do you always do your duty by jargon?
Speaker 2: At least to the best of my ability?
Speaker 3: And as you see it, it's your duty to return
me to the penitentiary. Yes, why I never did you
any harm? I killed a man who needed You can't.
Speaker 2: Kill another human cause you want.
Speaker 3: To What else was I to do? He used me
and then he tossed me asided if I were an
object of no consequence.
Speaker 2: What kind of society would we have if people were
free to kill at their own pleasure?
Speaker 3: You haven't answered my question, which is what do we
do now?
Speaker 2: I I should turn you over to the police.
Speaker 3: I know you said that. Is this the road to
the police station?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Why haven't we headed that way?
Speaker 3: Because yes, it's clear, it's very clear to me.
Speaker 2: You mean it's very clear to you. How could it
be very clear when it isn't clear to me? I
don't even know what I'm doing or why?
Speaker 3: In the interests of clarity, why do you hesitate to
do your duty? Would you hesitate for a moment if
I were a man? I don't think so. Again, would
you have to potato?
Speaker 2: If I were a old, ugly old stress that? That's what?
Speaker 3: Why do you hesitate? I heard you speak at the
bank with the other night. The fabric of society is
woven by each single individual, and so forth I recognized you.
I remembered you from the carbone.
Speaker 2: You you did? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, And I said to myself, Oh, if he remembers me,
I'm gone. There's the mister pillar of the community himself
in the flesh.
Speaker 2: Turn you when I should that you walked? How do
you know? Because you want me? Oh come on, that's
what it is.
Speaker 3: But you want me, And you're saying yourself, here's the
most attractive woman I ever met.
Speaker 2: You have an extremely high opinion of yourself.
Speaker 3: I must be the most attractive woman you ever met.
You know why because I'm making you go against the
habit of a lifetime.
Speaker 2: I haven't done anything yet. Oh yes you have.
Speaker 3: You're thinking what a waste it would be to send
her back to prison. You're not interrupting me, now, are you.
You're forty years old. You never stepped out of line
in your life. Aren't you bored with Jenny?
Speaker 2: I'm afraid you don't know everything, or I admit I
was tempted for a moment.
Speaker 3: You should be. I made you quite an offer offer.
Speaker 2: What offer myself? Why you would sell yourself to buy
my silence?
Speaker 3: Most women sell themselves for something, but the truly sell
themselves with security for advancement for the illusion of romanic
for me right now, there is nothing more than a
little in all the world than your silence.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not for sale? Why not? That's the I
could engage in a in a tawdry affair.
Speaker 3: Oh, I see, it's not that you're opposed to an affair,
just a tawdry affair? Would else be tawdry? A because
it's not how these things begin, it's what they've become.
Speaker 2: Both of us are attractive, I'm intelligent.
Speaker 3: In a week, a month, we would love each other.
Speaker 2: I love my wife.
Speaker 3: Then why aren't we headed toward the police station?
Speaker 2: We are?
Speaker 1: It's about three miles to the station house, and that
you take four or five minutes to get there. An
awful lot can take place in four or five minutes.
Will she simply submit quietly and return to a sentence
of life in prison? After all, she got in there
because she killed one man? Would she kill another man
to stay out? From a different perspective, how solid is
Harry's resolved.
Speaker 2: To turn her over to the police.
Speaker 1: Questions, possibilities, We shall weigh them all when I return
shortly with Act three? How does it begin? Where does
it begin? Why does it begin. A man spends his
years walking what we are pleased to call the straight
and narrow, and suddenly he finds himself sorely tempted to
break out of the social and religious mold he has
formed for himself over the course of a lifetime. There
are those who say man is naturally evil, and there
are those who say that man is intrinsically good. Well,
Harry Johnson can be a test case for either.
Speaker 2: Point of view.
Speaker 3: Here we are, yes, here we are at the police station.
Do your do you hear, mister high Johnson? Do your
duty of an upright dedicated concerns?
Speaker 2: I will let's go.
Speaker 1: Oh well sure, send him in, mister Johnson at miss Loane.
Speaker 2: Well what you will?
Speaker 1: Sit down?
Speaker 2: Well, what can I do for you? Lieutenant Craven.
Speaker 1: By the way, I was gonna go to that banquet
the other night, mister Johnson, But I was on the desks.
Somebody asked to my misstore. Oh yeah, that's right. Congratulations,
everybody says, for once, the Matter of the Year committee
picked the right guy.
Speaker 2: I'll thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, Now, what can your police department do for you?
Speaker 2: Folks? A lieutenant? I am here to report, Yes, sir,
I I wished to report that, uh that missus Wilmas Sloan.
Speaker 1: Well, hold it just a second. I didn't think I
have to write anything down. Let me get my pad here.
Speaker 2: Okay, shoot, I have to report that miss Wilma Sloan.
Speaker 1: That's Sloan spelled with an E at the end.
Speaker 2: Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: We had some Sloans over the nose gap, but they
don't have the e, or he wouldn't be related.
Speaker 2: I suppose. I don't suppose you were saying.
Speaker 1: Mister Johnson about miss Slow, I wish to report that that. I. Hey,
this s how I get funding say.
Speaker 2: Well, look, you see miss Sloan here is well, she's
a yeah, she's a she's a very shy and timid person.
And well, she happened to be talking to my wife
and she she said she couldn't be sure, but she
thought she might have noticed some uh, some prowlers about
the vicinity of her home. Well, I said, why don't
you notify the police, And she said she didn't want
to bother anyway.
Speaker 1: Oh, now, miss Sloan, bother us, please bother us. That's
why we're here to be bothered.
Speaker 2: And so I said, nonsense, I'll take it up with
my friend Lieutenant Craig.
Speaker 1: Absolutely right, mister Johnson, that's all. Any time you have
the slightest, the vaguest suspicion, you get on that phone,
you understand, Yes, lieutenant mister Johnson, and there were more
people like you, how much easier our job.
Speaker 2: Would be.
Speaker 3: Thanks to the left.
Speaker 2: What's you mean?
Speaker 3: You know you hadn't said a word since we left
the police test.
Speaker 2: I know, good night, good night, just like that? No,
not just like that. I suppose I suppose you should
know why I did it, But I do know it's
not at all what you're thinking. It isn't I thought
about it. I kept thinking about what you had done.
You killed a man who well, who had behaved badly
towards you. After all, he was married and he but
he had no right what. You were sentenced to prison,
you had already served two years. It isn't as that
you were a a professional killer. You won't do it again.
You've been fighting enough, punished enough in jail. You'd be
a burden on society here, your or your assets up
the community, your productive you can kiss me. I'm doing
this because because I think no useful purpose would be
served why why.
Speaker 3: Don't you kiss me? You wanted to kiss me since
you first saw me in that corp I.
Speaker 2: Kiss him? Will? Hello, Jenny, where were you? Hey?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 2: Of course I'm home.
Speaker 3: Well, I figured the PPA committee meeting you should be
over by ten thirty, so I thought i'd surprised you
and stop by. But would you go somewhere and have
a sandwich?
Speaker 2: The whole was I hungry? I'm sorry, but the school
was dark.
Speaker 3: I guess the meeting ended early.
Speaker 2: Well, no, as a matter of fact, that uh, it
never began. Oh what do you mean there was no
meeting it was?
Speaker 3: That was Oh well, buddyd you do oh?
Speaker 2: I figured since I was out anyway, i'd uh oh
I pay old Jerry sal in the visit Jerry Sayling.
Yes you remember Jerry. He ran the new stand near
the railroad station. Since I guess it must be the
Civil War or something like that. Well you see now
he's laid up sick. Everybody's forgotten him, and well he
lives near the school.
Speaker 1: Darling.
Speaker 3: That was very thoughtful and very sweet. Incidently, dear, are
you free Wednesday night?
Speaker 2: Well? Well sure, why do you ask when you do
have a great many demands on your time, do I well, yes,
I spoke, I do, but uh, I ain't the way
you asked that question. What do you mean are you
free Wednesday night? A woman shouldn't have to talk that
way to her own husband.
Speaker 3: Oh, helly, you're the kind of a man who has
to keep active, working for the community. And well, I
don't mind at all. You don't know, because Darling, it's
the thing you need. You have to do it, you
need fulfillment. It makes you a better man and the
better husband.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jerry, I I never realized what a remarkable woman
you are. Oh, thank you guying to Why don't we
go out now? I have a snack somewhere.
Speaker 3: No, Harriet's too late Wednesday night.
Speaker 2: I have to go soci's close to a letter.
Speaker 3: I suppose all put out there tomorrow it's.
Speaker 2: Oh, tomorrow's Wednesday. Then, well we we can't see each other.
Why not? Oh? Because well, because Jenny has something planned. Jenny,
she's my wife, Wilma, and what am I? Wilma?
Speaker 3: Oh, poor Hallie, you can never face reality. You are
terrified by the facts.
Speaker 2: Wilma. M I have to go now to Jenny. Of course,
as we both know, she is my wife.
Speaker 3: Because she has the document. That document that time, missus
Cohen expressed it at the trial. She has the document.
Speaker 2: Oh, Harry, who has your heart? Oh mama, how could
you call the morrow for day?
Speaker 3: I want you to answer the question. No, I guess not,
because once you face up to that question, you'll have
to accept the next step. You'll have to divorce Jenny.
Speaker 2: Divorce Jenny for a man in my position doesn't divorce,
or I.
Speaker 3: See your position doesn't divorce?
Speaker 2: How about you? Well, I could never do it. I
could never be.
Speaker 3: Going home to her now. But answer this, would you
rather be alone with her? Or would you rather be
alone with me? Oh?
Speaker 2: Well? Peace about times of a dessert? And I always
skip mine? So suppose we stop talking about sports in
politics and you tell me why you wanted to buy
my lunch. A couple of months ago, I warned you, Harry,
about what I warned you not to have an affair
with Wilma Slum. Now pee, Harry, I uh, I spoke
with Lieutenant Craven as a police department a lieutenant Cravee.
Rather he spoke with me. I will say he was embarrassed.
What does Lieutenant Craven have to do with some time
ago you brought Wilma in to see him. It seems
that she she was too bashful to complain about prowlers
in her neighborhood. Yes, yes, so, Craven's had a squad
car cruising the area, and the patrolman noticed a man
who keeps coming and going, oh yeah, Oh well, Craven's
a good friend of mine, and he's put two and
two together, right, does he have? Come on, Jerry, come on.
Craven worsh ships the ground you walk on. He thinks
you should be president. He's afraid if this gets out,
and this kind of thing always does, you'll become a
laughing stock. A guy like you, mister morality himself like,
people will eat this up. I pete, but I don't
know what to do. Okay, let's break it down. You
in love with her? I don't know. Will you divorce
Jenny out of what? Harry? Harry? Break it up now
before it goes too far, walk away, because after a
while she won't let you. Wh What do you mean?
It's in her eyes, those brilliant eyes. There's something sharp
like steel. To get what she wants. She'll do anything.
She's a kind who could kill you. Oh, let's you
think you, Harry, haven't you been married fifteen years? I
I I don't say this because she's my sister, but
she's a girl and a million Jenny Is and you
know it. He seated light like an illness. I know,
I know, I've been there before. But you can't end
every illness by letting it run its course, because that
way you take the chance it'll kill you. Harry, cure it.
I don't know how to do that if you don't
know how to, or you don't want to. But look,
your life's in a mess right now. Go away for
a week? Go away? Oh, come on, A guy in
your position can suddenly realize he has to make a
business trip. Get away from both of them and think
out your problem. Decide what's important, make up your mind.
What do you really want?
Speaker 3: How he died?
Speaker 2: Boy?
Speaker 3: Hello? Is that all you can say? It's been here
for a week. Come on to town, dinnis ready, I'm
just catting the rose.
Speaker 2: Wilma, Wilma, it's time we had a serious talk.
Speaker 3: I'm no, darling, we'll overdo now.
Speaker 2: Wilma. You can trust me, trust you, of course, I
trust you? No, No, not really? What do you think
you didn't want to go back to prison. Now that's true,
isn't it.
Speaker 1: That's true?
Speaker 2: But no, no, that prief listening. So you don't have
to pretend any longer. Pretend what pretend that you love me?
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm not pretend.
Speaker 2: God knight that person night you said to me that
my silence was the most important thing in the world,
and that you were willing to buy it. Now you
said that, yes, I said that, Well you don't have
to buy it any longer, not that you ever had
to buy it in the first place. So you thought
I was buying you. You admitted it.
Speaker 3: Do you forget what else I told you that same night?
I said, it's not how these things begin, but what
they've become. And oh it has become love.
Speaker 2: I love my wife. Now, look, this is over. It's
come to an end.
Speaker 3: It's not over. It's just the gun. I won't let
you walk out on you.
Speaker 2: You would have to end sometime.
Speaker 3: It can only end when one about their death.
Speaker 2: Wilma, don't be stupid.
Speaker 3: My name isn't Wilma.
Speaker 2: Why do you call me Wilma? Because because, oh, good lie,
this is the way it happened before the way.
Speaker 3: Yet It has happened before, hasn't it, Oh, hasn't it? Charlie?
Speaker 2: Please control yourself, Wilma.
Speaker 3: You know my name isn't Wilma, It's Tessy. Was that
her name?
Speaker 1: Was that?
Speaker 3: Her name?
Speaker 5: Charlie.
Speaker 2: I'm not Charlie Reynolds or Ryan.
Speaker 1: I'm Harry Harry Johnson.
Speaker 2: And you're safe. Your secret is safe with me.
Speaker 5: If I can't have you, she can have you.
Speaker 2: Sent woman in love is never. Don't be crazy.
Speaker 3: If I can't have you, no one can have you.
Speaker 2: Man put down that night.
Speaker 3: I will tell you, Wilma, my name is.
Speaker 2: I will tell you.
Speaker 3: No one else can ever have you.
Speaker 2: No one else can ever have you.
Speaker 1: Wilma Sloane, Tessy Bonner, Charlie Reynolds, Harry Johnson. So many times,
in so many places they act and reenact the same
roles over and over again. And it's a mixture of love, deceit, madness,
and evil. And to taste it is to risk the
arrival of death. But you shall risk nothing if you
wait for me to arrive after a few moments.
Speaker 2: And so what is it? What is evil?
Speaker 1: Need it be nurtured carefully before it springs forth from
the human breast or can it be a s an
alien Thing? Our cast included Norman Rose, Terry Keane, Joan Shay,
Nap Poland, and Ken Harvey. The entire production was under
the direction of Hyman Brown.
Speaker 2: Radio.
Speaker 1: Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division.
Speaker 2: This is E. G.
Speaker 1: Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dream.
Speaker 5: The night's w R Mystery Theater was brought to you
in part by shop boyd Supermarkets where you get a
lot more for a little less. The preceding program was
furnished by the Columbia Broadcasting System. This is w R
New York and rk OLD General station at the time
signal exactly eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: Here's John Scott for the news
Speaker 2: And