Suspense.
Suspense is compounded of mystery and intrigue in dangerous adventure.
Stories calculated to intrigue you, to stir your nerves.
Tonight, for instance, as we begin, you may want to ask yourself,
how could a young lady, a bride, walk out on a balcony alone and vanish?
Completely vanish.
We trust that while you are wondering how and why it was this,
we shall keep you in...
Suspense.
For Suspense, tonight CBS presents The Bride Vanishes by John Dickson Carr.
Italy in springtime.
Italy as we used to know it before the jackal struck.
And the island of Capri, twenty miles out across the bay of Naples.
Blue water a dazzle under the sun, behind through the bone white beaches,
and Vesuvius dull purple in a heat haze.
Ahead, as the little steamer from Naples chugs out across the bay, rises Capri.
Olive trees and white roads and vineyards above the cliffs.
Could young Americans find a better place to spend their honeymoon?
While the guitars sing and the warm winds blow and the little steamer carries them.
Well, Mrs. Courtney?
Well, Mr. Courtney.
I can't keep it up, Lucy.
I'm going to break down and ask if you're happy.
Oh, I'll break down too.
I want to walk up to everybody I meet and say, wee, just like that.
What I want to do is turn somersaults myself all along this deck here.
I want to say, I've been married to Tom Courtney for practically two weeks.
And now we're going to have a villa at Capri for a month.
Oh, Tom, I ought to be the happiest woman in the world.
Only...
You're shivered. What's wrong?
Well, ever since we got aboard this ship, people have been staring at me.
I can't blame you for that, dear.
No, no, I mean in a funny way.
And muttering. Even your American friend. What's his name?
Granger?
Mr. Granger. When you introduced him to me at Naples, I thought his eyes were going to pop out.
Be careful. He's standing over by the rail now.
He lives at Capri.
I like to see him wearing that white ten-gallon hat in Italy.
Before Granger made money in oil wells, he was a real old-fashioned cow puncher.
And he's proud of it. Good fellow, too.
He's too polite to say anything, but he keeps looking around at me, just the same as the rest of them do.
Well?
Well, Tom, they look scared.
You know, Lucy, this isn't the time to start imagining things.
I know. Maybe I'm just so happy I'm afraid it can't last.
Oh, don't say that.
But wouldn't it be pretty awful if something did happen and we weren't together any longer?
Wait a minute. Hasn't this ship stopped?
Yes. Well, it is Capri ahead of us, isn't it?
It can't be anything else. Well, it seems a funny place to stop.
No sign of a harbor. Only rocks and little gray cliffs.
Oh, Mr. Granger. Mr. Granger.
Yes, young fellow?
You happen to know why we're stopping here?
Oh, yes. That's an easy one, son. We're stopping so that you and your good lady
and anybody else who's curious can get a look at the Blue Grotto.
The Blue Grotto, of course.
Now just shave your eyes with your hand, then.
You see that tiny little arch under the cliff?
Yes.
And all the little white rowboats are coming out towards us?
Yes.
Now when the first boat comes alongside, you climb down that iron ladder and get in.
The boatman will row you out and through the arch into the Grotto.
It's a great big dark cavern.
The water in there looks as though it's lit up underneath with blue fire.
Would you like to go out and see it, Lizzie?
Oh, I'd love to.
But let me give you a little tip, though.
The current's pretty fast out there. You'll go shooting under that arch like 60.
Are we likely to upset?
Oh, no. No, but the arch isn't as high as your head.
When you see it come and lie back flat in the boat,
that is unless you want your block now, sure.
Thanks, Mr. Granger. We'll remember. Come along, Lucy.
Easy on the ladder, Lucy. Don't look frowned yet.
Oh, I'm all right, darling. And just as good a swimmer as you are.
I'm in the boat now. Take one more step. Steady.
Now turn around facing the boatman and sit down here beside him.
What's the matter with the boatman?
Easy, man. Do you want to upset us? Sit down.
You'll come back, will you?
Come back? I've never been here before in my life.
Push off, man. Start rowing. The other boats are piling up behind you.
You'll come back.
Start rowing, can't you? And Ali Subitov, faster.
Tom, he can't take his eyes off us.
I wish he'd watch out where he's rowing.
You'll come to live at the Villabour Castle, yes?
Tom, how did he know that?
He's the lady. She is not dead.
Dead? Of course she's not dead. What are you talking about?
She never come to Capri before?
Never.
Then I tell you, she will disappear just like the other one.
Disappear?
I'll rest my auras and I tell you.
Tom, aren't we moving rather fast?
Yes, that's the entrance to the grotto ahead.
I tell you, there was a lady so much like you on a carpeting back.
It scared me.
Look, old man, I don't want to teach you your business,
but you've got your back to that grotto.
Take this lady back where she come from.
Do not take her to the Villabour Castle.
Down, see, flat on your back, down.
Signore, signore, I am sorry. I almost make you get hurt.
You know you nearly got your own head knocked off.
Excuse me, nor, I am used to it.
Now I will roll you round the blue grotto.
I don't think I like it much, Tom.
Neither do I.
Dark, except for that blue light under the water.
Oh, transparent. You can see the fishes swimming.
Gentlemen of Boatman, this lady who disappeared from the Villabour Gaze.
Two, three years ago she disappeared.
You say she looked exactly like my wife?
You see, signore, she was going to be married.
She was trying on a, what do you call, her wedding dress.
Her mother and sisters, they were in the room with her.
She walked out on a balcony over the sea.
You know what I mean, on a balcony over the sea?
And nobody ever hear of her again.
You mean she jumped over into the sea?
Or a young girl going to be married.
Kill herself, no, no, no, no.
And what did happen?
I don't know.
But sometimes they say you can meet her ghost in the here.
She float just under the water where you can see her.
And turn over and over.
And the wedding veil is still round her face.
Tom, let's get out of here.
You want to go, yes?
Lucy, if this fellow's stringing us along.
He's not stringing us along.
Then somebody ought to know what this means.
If we've inherited a haunted balcony where people disappear like soap bubbles.
I say it's too much.
Let's get back to our ship and talk to Granger.
Yes, Boatman, take us back.
Mr. Granger, Mr. Granger.
I'm a poor man.
You too, young woman.
She's been starked with haphazard care.
Give me a hand, Lucy.
Thank you, dear.
Oh, didn't anybody else go to the Blue Grotto?
Well, ma'am, no.
Not after they saw you go.
It's all right.
We've just heard the story, Mr. Granger.
Oh, I ought to have told you about it myself.
All the way out here, I've been cursing myself and thinking what a gnarly old badger I am.
For not telling you when I first met you, Naples.
The girl did vanish, then.
By a first-rate miracle, yes.
In broad daylight and within 20 feet of her mother and sisters.
You don't look like a man who'd believe in miracles, Mr. Granger.
Oh, I'm not, son.
I'm just telling you what happened.
But why is everybody so excited?
Somebody must have thrown her off the balcony.
Josephine Adams was all alone on a balcony 40 feet up a cliff, smooth as glass.
She didn't fall.
She wasn't thrown because there was no sound of a splash.
And she didn't come back from the balcony because her mother and sisters were in front of the only door.
Yet, within 15 seconds, 15 seconds, mind you, she just vanished.
You believe that?
Sure, I believe it, son.
Well, it's a fact.
Did you know the girl's family?
Oh, very well.
We've got a real English-speaking colony here.
Oh, by the way, in about half a minute now, I'm going to show you your new home.
Oh, can we see it here on the ship?
Oh, sure you can, ma'am.
It's on the edge of the cliff.
Dr. Davis's house is on one side of it, and my shack's on the other.
Uh, that's why I want to ask you a question.
Of course.
Ask anything you like.
Well, I'm an old stager, ma'am, and not exactly up to the high-tone society around here, but do you...
do you trust me?
Yes, I think so.
Well, then promise me something.
Unless you're with somebody you do trust, keep away from that balcony.
Do you honestly think there's danger or...
I don't know, son. If I did, I wouldn't have to talk this way.
Sounds like a dog barking. I thought I heard it before.
What is, a big police dog, and led by a very handsome woman, if you ask me.
Oh, Lord, here she is again. Oh, the Countess. She lives in our colony.
She looks like an American. You take your eyes off her, Tom Courtney.
She isn't American. Married a Count Parchisi or something like that.
Just call her Nellie.
My dear Mr. Granger.
Hello, Nellie.
It's true. Everybody told me so, but I couldn't believe it until I saw her.
She does look exactly like poor Josephine Edmonds.
Just as small, just as dainty.
Please, is everybody trying to give me the jitters?
Nellie, I want you to meet some friends of mine.
Oh, you don't need to introduce me. I know who they are.
You're the nice young couple who've taken that villa.
I'm Nellie LeCasey.
Oh, yes. This is my dog Tiberius, named after the wicked Roman emperor.
You know who used to live at Capri?
I must confess I'm terribly fascinated by wicked things.
Aren't you, Mr. Courtney?
Lucy, stop digging me in the ribs. I haven't done anything.
No, and you're not going to.
Tiberius seems to have taken quite a fancy to you, Mrs. Courtney.
I've never known him to go to a stranger before.
I only wish I could borrow him. He might be a charm against...
Oh, I don't know. We'll be at the harbor in a few minutes.
Then you must let me drive you up to the villa.
You won't be able to get any servants, I'm afraid, because they won't stay there.
But you can camp out.
Look. There's the villa. We're passing it now.
Where?
On the cliff where I'm pointing.
Wait a minute. There must be some mistake.
That's not the Villa Bougayse.
It sure is, son.
That's a palace like all the other houses there.
And I rented it furnished for about $25 a month.
Can't you guess why you got it so cheap, son?
If you take my advice, you'll turn around and go back to Naples by the next steamer.
Harry Granger, don't be an idiot. Let's have some excitement.
Let's have some excitement.
Tom is beautiful.
Too infinitely beautiful, if you ask me.
There's the balcony.
It's all right by daylight, son. Marble and tapestries and whatnot.
But at night, when you've got to put out the lights, you start thinking what happened there.
The moon over Capri makes a deathly daylight.
You could see to read on that balcony if anyone went out there.
Frosted glass doors open out on it from a big room on the ground floor.
The moon is so beautiful.
It's like a dream.
Frosted glass doors open out on it from a big room on the ground floor.
Two determinedly calm persons and a dog sit looking at each other.
Lucy, stop it.
Stop what?
Stop looking over at that balcony.
I'm sorry, darling.
Why are we sitting here anyway? There's an outer room that's much more comfortable.
It's like having a toothache. A very little toothache.
I may be dense, Angel, but I don't follow you.
You put your tongue against the tooth to see if it'll hurt.
You know it will hurt, but you go on doing it just the same.
That's us.
Maybe you're right.
Oh, Tom, did you ever think we'd have a lovely house like this?
The house is all right, yes.
Then they have to go and spoil everything.
Our honeymoon with this blasted Tommy Rod about.
Hey, Tom, you're as jittery now as I was this afternoon.
Oh, even Tiberius is jittery.
Yes, I guess I am. Easy, boy. Easy, easy.
Well, there's whiskey on the table.
They call it beaky here.
Make yourself a drink.
In a minute. Not just now.
Lucy, there's nothing wrong with that balcony.
Suppose you walked out there this minute.
I've had a horrible longing to try it.
Just because I know I shouldn't.
Well, nothing could attack you.
All you'd have to do would be to yell.
That'd bring Mr. Granger out on his balcony like a shot.
And the neighbor on the other side of us would...
Who is on the other side, by the way?
A loony doctor.
A what?
A specialist in brain diseases.
Dr. Davis. He's English.
Listen.
It's somebody in the other room.
Easy, Tiberius. Easy.
Tom, I'm afraid.
It's all right, darling.
You hold Tiberius' collar while I open the door.
We don't want him to fly at anybody.
We're going into the other room and stay there.
Ready?
Yes.
Good evening, Mr. Courtney.
Good evening, Mrs. Courtney.
I'm no ghost, though you appear to regard me as one.
I'm merely your neighbor, Dr. Rutherford Davis.
Oh. Yes, of course.
Mr. Granger mentioned you.
I trust you will pardon this intrusion.
No one answered my knock, so I ventured to come in.
It's no intrusion, Dr. Davis.
We're a little disorganized here, that's all.
Naturally.
Mr. Courtney, I wish I could say welcome to Capri,
but I have a very different message.
Well?
If you value Mrs. Courtney's life,
you'll go back to Naples immediately, sir.
Not you, too.
I do not say that as a ghost hunter, sir.
I say it as a medical man.
May I sit down?
Oh, of course. Please do.
Thank you.
We seem to be forgetting our manners.
Dr. Davis, will you have a drink?
Oh, thank you. Perhaps a small whiskey?
I'll get it, darling.
You sit down and talk to Dr. Davis.
You're not going back into that room alone.
I'm only going to get the drinks, Tom.
I promise to be good.
Come with me. Can't you, Tiberius?
Oh, I see you've borrowed Tiberius from the Countess Lucchese.
Yes. She was kind enough to offer him.
Excuse me, I'll be back in a minute.
Come on, Tiberius.
Hi.
I hope this is all right, Doctor.
No, sir. It is not all right.
Your wife is in very great danger.
But why?
Because of that balcony?
No, because she looks exactly like the late Josephine Adams.
I don't get it.
Mr. Courtney, did you ever hear of paranoia?
It's some kind of mental disease, isn't it?
The paranoic begins by imagining that he or she
is being persecuted by someone.
First, he hears things.
A voice in his brain whispers,
You'll be killed. You'll be killed. You'll be killed.
He hears it in the tick of a clock, in the rattle of a train,
in the footsteps on the street.
There are holes in the walls through which his enemy is always watching.
Invisible speaking tubes bring him messages.
There are pains in his joints and nightmares of attempts to poison him.
His brain bursts and he kills. He kills. He kills.
Boy, excuse me for speaking so strongly.
But how does this affect us?
Mr. Courtney, will you examine this sheet of paper?
What is it?
A fragment of a typewritten diary.
I found it on the cliffs months ago.
Don't ask me who wrote it.
But I know there's a criminal lunatic on this island.
He imagined that poor, inoffensive Josephine Adams was his enemy.
So he killed her.
Killed her? How?
I don't know.
And what happened to the girl's body?
I'm not a detective, sir.
The body was carried out to sea, perhaps,
or washed along the cliffs and into the Blue Grotto to be lost.
But don't you understand the danger to your wife?
You're not suggesting that with somebody's cracked brain,
your wife is Josephine Adams, created all over again?
Kill Lucy? It couldn't be done.
It was done, my friend.
Listen, that sounded like a dog howling.
Mrs. Courtney is rather a long time in getting that whiskey.
She wouldn't go near the balcony.
She promised not to go out on the balcony.
People do very perverse things, my friend,
when they know they shouldn't.
Lucy!
That seems to be Tiberius out on the balcony.
I can't see anything else from here.
She's gone.
An empty balcony, a howling dog,
and a sea turned clear silver under the moon.
Then, after the tumult and the shouting,
there are other pictures.
Don't you hear the noise of that motor launch
with a half-dimented young man at the wheel?
Three other familiar figures are gathered around it.
Don't you recognize the brunette prettiness of Nellie Lucasa
and the white ten-gallon hat of Harry Granger
and the neat, pointed beard of Dr. Davis?
But what on earth is he going to do out here in this motorboat?
I'd like to know that myself.
Listen, please, all of you.
Now, take it easy, son. We're with you.
What time is it?
Time?
Yes. What time is it?
Half past two in the morning, going on for three.
Twelve hours.
Then the tide ought to be just where it was this afternoon.
What's the tide got to do with it?
A whole lot.
Somebody set a trap and made Lucy fall off that balcony.
I know it.
Oh, that's absurd.
If Lucy's been carried out to sea,
there's nothing we can do about it.
But if she's been carried along with the current
and into the Blue Grotto...
Blue Grotto?
One moment, sir.
You're not proposing to run this big launch
under that arch after dark?
Yes, doctor. That's just exactly it.
Go on. Do it. I'll back you up.
Let's have some excitement.
This'll be exciting enough, I assure you.
Mr. Courtney, have you got some wild hope
of recovering your wife's body?
I've even got a wild hope she may be alive.
Lucy's a very strong swimmer.
You're acting like a nerd, son.
Get set, everybody. I'm going to swing around.
We're in the current now.
Better hold tight.
I've got to duck my own head when we go through.
Everybody else, squat down.
It's a nice jubil test against this.
Don't you understand, Mr. Courtney?
Get ready. Here we go.
Why don't I just run?
There's no Blue Grotto.
It's as black as pitch.
My dear Nellie, I kept trying to tell all of you.
The Blue Grotto effect is caused by the sun's rays.
There never is one except when the sun is out.
Just how does our friend propose to find anything in here?
Listen.
Something got pulled at the side of the boat.
I felt it move.
Not the date girl I trust.
There's a hand here.
A wet hand.
Lucy!
She's not alive.
Mr. Granger, help me lift her up over the side.
Easy, easy now.
Don't tip the boat.
Lucy, Lucy, are you all right?
No, no, no.
Are you all right, Lucy? Can you hear me?
All right. I'm just exhausted.
I got in here.
Couldn't swim out against the current.
Now don't try to talk.
I've got to talk.
I'm going to faint.
Tom.
Who's with you?
Only our friends.
Who's with you?
Is the murderer with you?
I was just wondering the same thing.
To be shut up in the dark at three o'clock in the morning
with a criminal lunatic.
Who spoke, Ben?
Lucy, don't hold me so tight. Let go, dear.
I'll get the boat started and have you out of here in a second.
Who spoke, Ben?
Only Dr. Davis.
Tom, I've got to tell you.
I know how that girl, Josephine Adams, died.
Almost killed me.
Is anybody here? Got some brandy or a flashlight?
I have a flashlight, my friend.
Will you allow me as a medical man to examine Mrs. Courtney?
You'd better keep back for just a second, doctor.
She's a scavenger.
Give me the flashlight, please.
I walked into the other room.
Nobody with me.
All alone except Tiberius.
Yes, Lucy?
Somebody called my name.
From the balcony, I thought.
Very softly.
Mrs. Courtney said.
Mrs. Courtney.
Did you recognize the voice?
Yes. That's why I went.
And you'd better start up this boat and get out of here.
Don't pay any attention to them, Lucy.
Nobody can hurt you now.
I went out in the balcony.
The bright moonlight.
Brightest day.
But there was nobody there.
Nobody on the balcony?
No. I looked out over the sea.
And then something came at me.
Something flew out of the air and came at me.
Just one moment before Mrs. Courtney goes on.
Is anybody in this boat carrying a revolver?
Not that I know of.
Excuse my mentioning it.
But I felt something.
A title. Like a revolver.
A brush passed my hand.
It was only the flashlight.
Excuse me. It was not a flashlight.
Mr. Courtney's got the flashlight.
Would you please let Lucy go on and finish?
Lucy, you were on the balcony and something came at you.
Yes. Like a snake.
Sideways. Out of the air.
It went over my head.
Fastened around my neck.
It was a rope.
With a running noose in it.
A rope?
It was thrown from another balcony.
I'm small and light like Josephine Adams.
It pulled me sideways.
And over the rail.
I fell.
I think I begin to understand what...
They couldn't see what happened to Josephine Adams.
Frosted glass doors to the balcony.
So they couldn't see.
Take it easy now. You're perfectly safe.
Is she perfectly safe?
The murderer. Let her fall on the rope.
But the rope was jerked tight.
Long before she struck the water.
That broke her neck.
Then the murderer lowered her softly.
So there wasn't any splash.
And the current took her away, rope and all.
That's it. It would have happened to me.
Only the rope must have slipped through the murderer's fingers.
Through whose fingers?
What did I tell you?
Somebody in this boat has got her involved.
Who's overboard? Somebody went?
Switch on that light, my friend.
And shine it on the water.
All right, doctor.
As you like.
Look at it.
Turning over and over.
The water in the blue grotto is red now.
Tom, stay close to me.
It's all right, Lucy. I swear you're safe enough now.
Did he shoot himself?
Yes.
Did who shoot himself?
Who had a balcony exactly like ours on the house next door?
Who began life as a cow puncher and would have known how to use a lasso?
Yes, and knew Josephine Adams well.
And got it into his maniac's head that Mrs. Courtney was Josephine Adams all over again.
Harry Granger.
Look.
There's his ten-gallon hat floating away.
And so ends The Bride Vanishes, a story of mysterious doings in the Isle of Capri.
And tonight's story of suspense.
Columbia presents these tales of mystery and intrigue and dangerous adventure for your relaxation and enjoyment.
Next Tuesday there'll be another in this series.
Same hour, 9.30 Eastern wartime.
William Spear, the producer, John Dietz, the director, Alexander Semmler, the composer, conductor, and John Dixon Carr, the author, are collaborators on...
Suspense.
This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.