Suspense.
This is the man in black, here again to introduce Columbia's program, Suspense.
Our star tonight is Mr. Sydney Greenstreet, one of Hollywood's most sensational newcomers in a number of years.
The famed fat man who lent his suspenseful talents to the Maltese Falcon across the Pacific.
As the Greenstreet is with us to create on the air, John Dixon Carr's celebrated detective, Dr. Gideon Fell.
The story called, The Hangman Won't Wait, is tonight's tale of suspense.
If you have been with us on these Tuesday nights, you will know that suspense is compounded of mystery and suspicion and dangerous adventure.
In this series, our tales calculated to intrigue you, stir your nerves, to offer you a precarious situation, and then withhold the solution until the last possible moment.
And so it is with The Hangman Won't Wait and Mr. Greenstreet's performance, we again hope to keep you in...
Suspense.
He comes striding towards us now, beaming like old King Cole.
You can probably hear him chuckle. If he wheezes a little, that's due to weighing more than 300 pounds.
You notice the three chins in the bandit's mustache and the eyeglasses on the black ribbon.
He removes his hat with old school courtesy. Don't try to bow, Doctor.
He is Gideon Fell, Doctor of Philosophy and expert in crime, if he tells us something about the Barton case.
Sir, I have only one remark to make about the Barton case. Everybody was wrong.
I'm afraid we don't quite follow that.
The judge was wrong, the jury was wrong, the prosecution was wrong, the defense was wrong.
But Dr. Fell, you can't have a murder case in which everybody is wrong.
In my cases, sir, you can have practically anything.
Oh yes, that's true enough, but...
I want you to imagine yourself in the position of that girl, Helen Barton.
Well?
Imagine yourself waking up suddenly in the middle of the night.
You're terrified, but you don't know why. The room is cold and nearly dark.
All of a sudden you realize it's a room you've never seen before.
There's a queer smell like old stone and disinfectant.
There's no sound except...
I...I...what is it? What was that?
Now, lean back in your bed, dearie. It's all right.
Yes, take it easy, miss.
I...I was dreaming.
You were having a nightmare, dearie. But it's all right now. Nothing's going to hurt you.
Not yet.
Be quiet, Anna.
All right, all right. Would you like us to turn on all the lights, miss?
Please, would you do that?
You see, I...I don't understand this.
Where am I and how did I get here? And who are you?
Well, don't start that all over again, please.
Start what all over again?
Saying you've lost your memory and don't even know what your name is.
Are you insane? Of course I know what my name is. I'm Helen Barton.
Ah.
But it's all I do know. Where am I? Why on earth is it so cold?
Well, that's not unusual, you know, for England in the middle of December.
Did you say December?
That's right, dearie. 18th of December.
You're fooling me. You're playing a trick on me.
My head feels queer and I want to start crying, but I won't.
It's not December. It's the end of August. I was going up to see Philip.
Oh, that's it. I was going up to see Philip.
Philip?
Philip Gale, the man I'm going to marry.
Be quiet, Anna. And don't turn on these lights yet.
She's air than a sun. She's...
Anna!
I'm going to be half shaken all over. And so help me, she don't know where she is.
Listen, dearie, I'm going to sit down on the bed beside you.
Now take my hand. Olden. Tight.
What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?
This is Maidhurst's prison, miss.
Steady, dearie.
I'm still dreaming. I must be. You can't mean I'm in prison.
Now look, dearie, I'm afraid it's worse than that.
Worse than that?
Look over there. You see where there's a little bit of fire in the grate?
Well...
And paper on the wall and pictures and a carpet on the floor.
Why don't you come out straight and tell her?
They're going to hang you in the morning, miss.
This is the condemned cell.
In sudden shock, the prison clock smote on the shivering air.
But I won't quote that any further.
I have too vivid a memory of sitting up that night with Colonel Andrews, the governor of the prison.
Over here you'd call him the warden.
There's a little office with a lamp shade, tilted so that I could see his face.
And he said, I hate executions. Loathe them.
Can't even sleep the night before.
If you hadn't offered to come here and save my life...
This is a strange place, sir, to talk of saving your life.
No, it's no good being sentimental about the thing. That's the law.
I didn't make it.
But I gather you're not exactly happy about this case.
I'm not. That's a fact.
Mind you, there's no doubt whatever about the girl's guilt.
I'm gratified to hear it.
But if only she confess. Most of them do, you know.
They confess to you?
To me or to the hangman? Not often to the chaplain.
Because they think he'll threaten them with the hereafter.
But when Kirkwood goes in with the strap to bind their arm, he says to them...
I don't like to think I'm doing something that would be on my conscience.
So if you'd care to tell me...
Quite a sensitive fellow, your hangman.
No, look, here, I'm serious.
So am I.
Sometimes I wish I had any job in the world but mine.
If only the girl would confess. If she just said, I'm sorry.
If she confessed. If she just stopped this nonsense about not remembering.
Not remembering what?
Not remembering how, well, not remembering how she shot Philip Gale.
Not remembering anything, even her own name.
Total amnesia, covering a crime.
Sir, you frighten me.
You mean to say that a woman suffering from loss of memory can be tried and sentenced to death?
No. Not if she really has lost her memory.
Well, then...
Her defense was a fake. Are you quite sure of that?
Naturally. The judge would never have allowed it to come to trial if he hadn't been convinced that she was shaming.
Even then, she might have got off of the life sentence or even with manslaughter, if it hadn't been for the nature of the crime.
She didn't cut anybody up, I hope.
No, but it was almost as bad. She shot a man who had raised his hands and begged for mercy.
That completely damned her in the eyes of the jury.
And yet...
You have doubts.
I tell you, I haven't any doubts. And in any case, it's none of my business.
How has she acted since she's been here?
Oh, a model prisoner. But I wish she'd stop this business of seeming to be in a daze. It's getting on my nerves.
I'd rather think the prison itself would get on my nerves.
I looked into your execution shed once and I don't want to look again.
You'll get used to it after a while. Helen Barton won't.
Tell me about a nice girl, too. I knew her grandfather.
You live near here?
Yes. Born and bred in Meadhurst. She got mixed up with a farrow-going swine named Philip Gale.
Crazy about him. Wouldn't hear a word against him. Then he threw her over for a woman with money.
I see.
He had a bungalow on White Rose Hill. She went up there one Sunday afternoon.
Alone?
Yes. Herbert Gale, Philip's brother, heard them screaming at each other. He ran in to see what was wrong.
Philip was trying to chase the girl out. She grabbed a.32 revolver out of the table drawer and told Philip to put up his hands.
That scared him and he did put up his hands. Then she shot him dead.
And afterwards?
Afterwards she couldn't remember.
Didn't remember anything?
No. Pretended she didn't even recognize her own family. She said, Who is Philip Gale?
And you hang her tomorrow morning?
Yes.
Without ever hearing her side of the case?
Confound it, man. There's no doubt about the evidence.
Are you sure?
She killed Philip Gale. Gale's brother Herbert saw her do it. This hypocrisy about not remembering.
Emotional shock could do just that, you know.
She wasn't so emotionally shocked that it disturbed her aim. She drilled him clean through the heart at 15 feet.
The bullet entered in a dead straight line through coat, waistcoat, shirt and heart. You could have run a pencil through the holes.
Now don't sit there puffing out your cheeks and waving a cigar at me. I'm only...
Tell me, Colonel Andrews, aren't you talking to convince yourself?
No. Suppose that girl is telling the truth. Suppose she has lost her memory.
Yeah.
All right. You don't believe that. Suppose it. And suppose in some black eye just before the hangman comes that her memory returns.
Don't talk rubbish.
I've lived long enough to know that mental suffering is the cruelest form of suffering on this earth.
Imagine yourself in that position. Come out of a daze into what you thought was a safe and pleasant world.
You don't know where you are. You don't know what's happened. You only know that when the clock strikes eight, they're going to take you out and...
Eh... Did you hear that?
Yes.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Yes.
It isn't possible.
Very much fear it is.
Sometimes, you know, we have to use drugs.
Drugs?
Yes. We take them to the execution shed. It's only a short distance and we try to get it over in a matter of seconds, but sometimes they can't walk.
Yes? What is it?
Big pardon, sir, but I thought I'd better get you, or the doctor, or the chaplain, or both.
What's the matter with you men? You're as white as a ghost.
I can't help that, sir. I've been a warder at this place for a matter of fifteen years, but I never knew anything like this.
It's the upstairs room, I suppose, Miss Barton?
Yes, sir.
Aesthetical?
Yes, sir. She says... Well, she says she remembers now.
I see.
She's carrying on something awful, sir, but that ain't all. She claims she never done it.
What's that?
She claims she never killed Mr. Gale at all.
Never killed?
That's all, Harris. You may go.
Yes, sir.
Any other disturbances in the building?
Well, sir, they're a bit restless and a-wing.
That's usual.
Yes, sir. And there's a bloke outside the prison, I mean, who keeps angin' about in front of the main gate.
You can see him by the streetlamp. First he'll take a few little quick steps back and forth,
then he'll run and stick his face against the bars of the gate, then he'll go back to pacing again.
Fair guide me the creeps he did even before this other thing.
You don't happen to know who he is?
It's the other Mr. Gale, sir. Herbert Gale. I envy art to chase him away.
All right, Harris, go ahead. And be along in a minute.
Yes, sir.
So the girl claims to be innocent. You heard that, eh?
Yes, I heard it.
What do you mean to do?
I'll see the girl, of course. But it won't affect the issue.
Not even if she does happen to be innocent.
Fairly in the name of heaven, try to understand my position.
Believe me, I do understand it.
The jury convicted this girl of murder. Her appeal was dismissed.
The Home Secretary has refused to intervene on behalf of the King.
You couldn't do anything even if you wanted to.
You couldn't even appeal to the Home Secretary without new evidence.
Exactly. And it's too late for new evidence.
Because you can't just accept the word of Helen Button.
All the same, I'm dreading this interview.
It's against regulations, but I wish you'd come along with me.
Oh, if there only...
Oh, there isn't.
Where's the whiskey? I think a little stimulant.
She will need the stimulant.
It's a cold night.
It'll be cold to get where she's going.
I didn't do it. I tell you, I didn't do it.
Daddy, Miss.
It's all right, dearie.
The governor and the big star gentlemen believe you didn't do it.
Oh, no, they don't. You needn't try to fool me.
Look at them over there on the corner, whispering.
I heard that. You said, fell she's lying, but I'm not lying. I'm not.
Miss, you've got to pull yourself together.
And have a nice breakfast.
What would you like for breakfast?