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此 moment31
For you men and women in the armed forces of the United Nations, we present one of America's
top spine tinglers, a radio rebroadcast of a program dedicated to the mysterious, the
unusual, and sometimes the supernatural.
A program of suspense.
This is the truth.
Do you understand?
The truth.
It must be the truth.
It has to be.
I Robert Winsley Graham, a doctor and psychiatrist by profession, do hereby of my own free will
and volition, albeit with deepest regret, make the following full and complete statement
relative to that all but unbelievable series of events which has brought such disaster and
misfortune to my house, particularly to my poor wife, Isabelle.
It had its beginning, properly speaking, some two months ago to be exact on the evening
of July 25th.
We were in the drawing room, Isabelle at the piano, practicing, as she said, around Jane
and I on the opposite sides of the room.
Isabelle, what's the matter?
I don't know.
I can't seem to keep my mind on anything anymore, even my music.
Nerves.
Isabelle.
Yes, Robert.
I don't wish to distress you, but it's been going on for quite a little while now.
It's not getting any better.
I know.
Let's not discuss it, shall we?
We should let me prescribe treatment for you.
I could prescribe something for her.
You do remarkable things now with just the common old drugs under proper control.
Drugs.
It's not drugs that she needs.
It's to get out of this house for a while.
It's to get back to the concert stage where she belongs.
It's work.
Aunt Jane, please.
I'm sorry.
I don't believe in beating around the bush.
You're an artist.
You've got talent.
There's no sense in you trying to subordinate yourself to somebody else.
Aunt Jane, that's enough.
I'm not subordinating myself to anyone.
Really, Aunt Jane?
You mustn't interfere, you know.
Robert doesn't want me to go back on the stage.
Darling, it isn't that I don't want you to go back.
I'm proud of you.
You know that.
Only because I think, because I know that going back to a professional career in your
present mental condition would be terribly harmful.
I know, Robert.
I know.
You're right.
After all, I'm a doctor.
It's my business to know these things.
I get it.
Probably the hospital.
Hello?
Yes, it's Dr. Graham.
Oh, yes.
Who?
When would you like to see me?
All right.
Fine.
No, no, no trouble at all.
Very well, I'll be expecting you.
Goodbye.
Who do you suppose that was?
Who?
Roger Holcomb.
Do you remember the case?
Roger Holcomb?
I remember it.
Of course you do.
The fellow was brought back from the dead, as the newspapers put it, about a year ago.
Oh, yes.
Well, he really was dead for four full minutes, as far as medical science was concerned.
Then Bates brought him around.
It was nine days' wonder at the time.
What did he want to see you about?
I don't know.
Something to do with his experience, obviously.
He was in a terribly agitated state.
The fellow had been walking up and down in front of the house for an hour, trying to
get up courage to ring the bell.
Finally phoned from the corner drugstore.
Why, the poor man.
Why in the world should he do that?
Anxiety and neurosis.
They hounded him, you know, in the most shocking way.
He got out of the hospital.
Preachers and spiritualists and movie agents, just plain fakers.
People trying to find out if he remembered anything of the four minutes he was supposed
to be dead.
People just trying to exploit him.
Oh, it must be Holcomb now.
Take him into the office.
Dr. Graham?
Yes, you're Roger Holcomb?
Yes.
Come in.
Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holcomb.
Yes, sir.
You come this way, please, to my office.
Now, just sit down anywhere.
Lie down on the couch if you like.
You look tired.
I am tired.
Tired of the dead.
Give me your hand, please.
For heaven's sake, there's nothing wrong with my pulse.
If that's all you think it is, I'll go.
Why did you come to me, Mr. Holcomb?
You know my history.
Yes, most medical men do.
Up until your disappearance.
Yeah, most medical men do, all right.
Then they tell me I'm crazy.
Do you think you are, Mr. Holcomb?
Oh, I see.
You're like all the rest.
Yes, I am.
Just a minute, Mr. Holcomb.
You came to me for advice or treatment.
I suggest you tell me your story.
Well, I was told you specialized in a strange case, things that other men can't explain.
That's true in a way.
You know what happened when I got out of the hospital.
Yes.
Followed me, questioned me, hounded me, day and night, trying to find out if I remember
anything, had experienced anything beyond the grave.
Yes, I remember that.
Well, then you remember that my answer was always the same.
That I remembered nothing. But I knew nothing.
Well, I was wrong.
Oh? What did you experience during those four minutes?
I don't know. But it must have been something.
Something I don't even dare to think about.
How do you know this?
Well, it happened the first time on a boat trip,
which I'd taken to recover my health.
I found myself chatting with a woman who was seated at my table in the dining salon.
She found occasion, as such women often will, to mention her age.
She said, after all, I'm not yet 40.
And then it happened.
What happened?
Well, from somewhere came crashing into my mind
a certain knowledge of the exact day and year of that woman's birth.
And with it, a compulsion to speak out.
A compulsion which I could no more have resisted than I could have resisted breathing.
I said, Madam, you were born in May, weren't you? May 30th.
She looked at me in utter astonishment.
We'd never even seen each other before in our lives.
And said, yes. And then I added the date. The year 1900.
You see, she was well over 40. She'd lied to me.
Innocent enough thing. But I had known the truth.
And I can force to speak.
And I have been ever since.
This phenomenon has occurred often?
More times than I can remember.
Every time a direct lie, no matter how trivial it is,
part of it, in my presence, I suddenly know the answer to that lie.
I know the truth. And I'm compelled to speak it.
And this condition has existed only since your...
Since my four minutes beyond the grave.
Quite.
It's as though in that brief time I glimpsed eternity.
If I'd seen reveal all truth of all the ages,
I could never tell you how horrible that seemed.
I found that men, even the most honest of men,
live by lies.
Tell me, you have a family, friends, who are understanding?
Oh, for heaven's sake, doctor, don't you understand what this has done to me?
Yes, I had a family and friends. A girl I was going to marry.
Today I'm an outcast. Pariah.
I'm shunned, feared. I'm hated. Yes, hated.
Miss Dawkins, I believe that this condition is very real to you.
It causes you very real anguish. I want to help you.
Do you think you can? I'm confident that I can.
Suppose you could arrange to stay with me here at my home for a matter of weeks or months, if necessary.
Well, I'll do anything. Anything in the world to be a normal man again, but...
But what?
Dr. Graham, I can see that you still don't believe in what...
No. I beg of you.
You don't know the terrible responsibility I'd be to you.
I'd be like a spy, like some inexorable prosecutor from another world.
Sir Holcomb, let me worry about that.
All right.
Is there anyone else in your household who might object?
Oh, no. There's only my wife and her aunt.
I have your own quarters. It'd be quite comfortable, I assure you.
I'm sure I'd be... It's a lovely house, but I've seen a bit...
Yes, I'm rather lucky. I'm interested in research primarily.
Not much money in that, you know, but...
A couple of years ago I came into quite a nice inheritance.
The house went with it.
What is it?
What's the matter?
The inheritance was not yours.
It was your wife's.
The house is your wife's.
You were penniless.
That's true.
I don't know why I lied to you.
Pride, I suppose.
I'm sorry. I told you I couldn't help it.
I'll go now.
Please.
Mr. Holcomb, my fault is the small matter.
But you see, now that I...
I want to help you.
Do you believe me now?
I believe, Mr. Holcomb, either that you are far more ill than I realized
or that did months come,
you and I must venture into a realm
more explored by mortal man.
It was utterly fantastic.
And yet it was true.
I checked the facts again and again.
He could not possibly have known, and yet he knew.
Could you imagine what this meant to a man of science?
If I could fathom the depths of Roger Holcomb's mind,
I could make a contribution to the body of scientific knowledge
absolutely without parallel in modern times.
I'd be more famous and pasturer, Ehrlich.
It remained the problem of Isabelle.
I was aware of the danger, of course.
I was acutely aware of the peculiarly delicate balance of her mind at that time.
The fact that the presence of a man like Roger Holcomb
might be seriously detrimental to my rather well-conceived plans for Isabelle.
I believed I could control the situation.
I had one moment to proceed.
Actually, Holcomb's presence made itself felt almost immediately.
The first incident came after he'd been with her.
Isabelle, please stop that playing and listen to me.
Aunt Jane, you know Robert has said I mustn't talk about it,
that it's bad for me.
I don't care what Robert said.
But he's my doctor and my husband.
And I'm not sure that he should be either.
Aunt Jane, I don't know much about psychiatry,
but I do know that making trouble between a husband and a wife...
I'm not making anything that isn't there already, and you know it.
Good heavens, girl. Look at yourself.
Look what's happened to you since your marriage.
I've been sick.
He's made you sick.
That's ridiculous.
Maybe it's just that he's afraid of losing you.
Maybe he's even afraid of losing your money.
But I'm absolutely convinced that whether he's meant to or not,
he's made you believe there's something the matter with you that isn't.
Aunt Jane, I simply forbid you to talk this way.
I saw he brings this psychopath into the house.
And don't bring Roger into it.
He's Robert's patient.
It's Robert's work and it's none of our business.
What about your own work?
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter?
Aunt Jane, you simply don't understand.
Robert is my husband.
I trust him and I love him.
Nothing can ever come between us.
I'd destroy anything.
I'd kill anyone who tried.
Isabel. Isabel, do something before it's too late.
Do what?
Get away.
Leave him.
Divorce him. Anything.
Oh, I hope we're not interrupting.
Of course not, darling.
Hello, Roger.
Hello, Isabel.
Good afternoon.
How are you feeling, Roger?
I'm better, I think.
I think it would be better if we didn't discuss our states of mind, Isabel.
Oh, of course. I'm sorry.
Well, would you like me to play something for you?
You know, I think I'm beginning to get the feel of it again.
Really, I do.
You're sure we haven't interrupted some conversation?
Of course not.
We were just discussing how helpful you've been in getting Isabel back to her work again.
Roger.
No. No, you were not.
You were telling Isabel to divorce her husband.
Isabel.
I'm sorry.
Roger, come back.
Isabel, is that true?
You brought him in here deliberately.
Is that true?
It doesn't matter, I suppose.
You've known how I felt for a long time.
Yes, I'm afraid I have.
But Robert, it was all so silly. She didn't mean it.
I did mean it.
But I did mean it.
I'm sorry, Isabel.
But I've been under this roof too long, as it is.
Oh, Jane, you're not leaving us.
It's best, Isabel.
Yes?
Yes, I think it's unquestionably best.
Best that you go at once.
She left us, of course.
I'd always believed that Jane exercised an unfortunate influence over Isabel.
I did not dream it had reached such a point as this.
Yet this incident gave me my first insight into the relationship
which was destined to develop between Isabel, Roger and myself.
The first and most obvious result was that within a matter of weeks,
Isabel was to lose every friend she had.
We became further estranged as each day passed.
It was difficult to speak of even the most casual things with this
strangely terrifying spectre of truth always at our elbow.
The situation reached its inevitable climax the evening that
Leopold Sirinsky, the famous conductor of the Los Angeles Symphony,
was to call on Isabel with a view to resumption of her professional career
under his auspices.
I gave a great deal of thought to that evening.
It had to be handled with a great...
Robert, you will help me, won't you?
Of course I will, darling.
I don't know whether you realize how important it is to me.
I have nothing but the music now.
I've been working so hard, playing sometimes half the night while you were asleep.
Yes, I've heard you.
Sometimes it seems that the piano is all that's helping me to keep my sanity.
My darling, I want you to let me prescribe something for you.
By the time we face this thing, you're trouble, I mean.
Robert, does he have to have dinner with us tonight?
Roger, Isabel, you know how I stand on that.
Oh, yes, but just once...
Even once, Isabel, to keep him in his room like a spoiled child when we have guests.
It might undo everything I've accomplished in weeks.
Of course, you're right.
Roger, come in.
Robert, I was wondering if I might be excused just for a night.
You're having dinner with us, Roger.
Must I?
You know you must, Roger, and you know why.
Why, Roger, don't you want to meet the great Leopold Sirinsky?
He's really a wonderful person.
Yes, indeed I would very much.
You know, I made my debut with him in 1934.
I did a concert with him every year until my...
until I...
Isabel, who was very talented, you know.
I was? I am.
Oh, Roger, I'm going to play with him again.
He wants me to open the seasons in November.
Can you imagine what that means to me?
I'm so glad, Isabel.
And Robert has finally given his consent, haven't you, dear?
I'm sorry, what was it you said, Isabel?
I said you'd given your consent to my playing with Sirinsky.
Isabel, you...
you know I don't want you to think that...
I'd ever stand in your way.
I know, dear.
Roger, I'll do the Emperor concerto,
and you will come to hear me.
You do want to, don't you, Roger?
Please, Isabel, don't ask things of me that can't...
What's the matter?
What's the matter with both of you?
You act as though you thought I wouldn't be able to appear.
As though the whole idea were hopeless or something.
Isabel, please.
I am going to play.
I'll be better than I ever was.
You know I will, don't you? Don't you?
Of course, Isabel, you play wonderfully.
Roger.
No, Robert, you're...
you're very certain that Isabel will be prevented from ever playing again
by death.
Death?
Oh, Isabel, forgive me, forgive me, please.
By death? No.
Oh, no.
Please, Roger, it's not true.
Tell me it isn't.
Roger, answer me.
Answer me.
Roger, do you hear me? Answer me.
Answer me!
When Sirenski arrived, I told him it would be quite impossible
for Isabel to leave her room.
The concert was cancelled, and indeed, to my knowledge,
she's never touched the piano since that day.
By now, to even the most casual observer,
it must appear only natural that Isabel had every motive
for a desperate, almost paranoid hatred of Roger Holcomb.
This much was clear to me.
The rest, not yet.
But one thing from any point of view was certain.
I had to keep Roger and Isabel apart.
Perhaps what I feared was indeed inevitable.
I honestly did not think it so at the time.
As a precautionary measure, however, I prescribed a drug for Isabel,
which she had last consented to take.
I gave her her own supply, she administered it to herself,
as I had directed.
Roger? Roger?
Yes?
It's Isabel.
What do you want?
Let me in, please.
No.
Please, it's terribly important.
Well, I was thinking...
I know.
But he said it would be all right this time.
Are you sure?
Yes. Yes, please.
All right.
Now, what do you want?
I want to talk to you, that's all.
What about if it's so important?
Roger, why don't you ever leave your room anymore?
Aren't you gay?
Do you think I hate you?
Isabel, I don't know what to think anymore.
You do, don't you?
I warned him. I told him it would happen.
Now I'm going mad up here.
I think he'll be anguished I've caused you.
But Roger, I don't. You must believe me.
I know what it's been like for you having me here.
Roger, you see, for the first time in my life,
I think my husband is wrong about something.
Wrong?
Yes. Don't you see?
He's been worried about both of us.
And so this distrust has grown up between us.
Well, I don't distrust you.
You've been more wonderful to me than I've been to you.
But you're afraid of me.
And that amounts to the same thing.
And it's bad for the both of us.
It's hurting both of us.
I've often felt I wanted to talk to you,
beg your pardon.
Oh, you don't have to do that.
We're both sick.
But I think if we saw each other sometimes,
if we talked the whole thing out,
it would help us both.
Does Robert think so, too?
No.
Then he didn't tell you it was all right to see me?
No. I lied to you.
You what?
I lied to you.
You lied to me. And it didn't happen.
Isabel, don't you see?
I am getting well. It didn't happen.
I know.
I don't think it does happen anymore.
Except with Robert.
What makes you think they don't?
I don't know.
Something about the way he acts.
The way he is.
But if he is curing me,
then perhaps you shouldn't have come up with me.
No, no. Don't you understand?
We must see each other. We must talk.
No, listen.
Isabel.
Robert, something's happened that I must tell you about.
Please, you're completely overwrought.
Oh, but Robert, if you want to...
Isabel, why did you do this?
I'm sorry.
You have to have a sedative right away.
Isabel, get the bottle from your room.
Mine?
Yes, yes. Please, hurry.
Robert, she lied to me.
Yes, yes, I know.
But, Roger, I must absolutely forbid you to talk now.
You must trust me.
All right.
But later I won't have a long talk with you.
Of course we shall.
Here it is.
I brought my hypodermic too.
I'm glad you did.
The other one's mislaid, Summer.
Will you give it to him, please?
I?
Yes, I'm sorry, but this is upsetting me rather badly.
My hands are shaking.
Robert, I'm terribly sorry.
No matter.
Now give him the hypodermic.
That's right.
Thank you.
Leave us now, please, Isabel.
All right.
How are you feeling now, Roger?
Well, I'm fine, Robert.
I think I'm better than I've been in months.
I know you're better.
That's why I was so upset to see you.
Why, Robert?
I can't tell you all my reasons now,
but you must trust me and believe in me.
Oh, I do, but...
Only that I'm afraid of your health.
Roger.
No, you're afraid of murder.
What?
Murder.
Roger, listen to me.
Roger.
Murder.
Roger, what are you talking about?
Roger.
Roger!
It was clear to me now.
I knew I must take immediate action.
I knew that the most terrible consequences might result
if Isabel were alone with Roger, even for a moment.
But he knew that he'd said so with no other explanation.
I thought it through most carefully,
and yet no plans are perfect.
No man is infallible.
Isabel!
Robert.
What are you doing?
Nothing.
Don't lie to me, Isabel.
I'm not.
You were coming from Roger's room.
No.
No, I swear I wasn't.
Isabel, don't you understand that you're sick?
I've insisted on these things for your own good and his.
All right.
I was going to torture him, but I had to.
Oh, Isabel.
Why do you try to tell me that?
But it's true, Robert, really true.
Is it?
Roger?
What's the matter?
Look.
Robert.
No, it couldn't be.
It is.
He's dead.
Dead?
Hypodermic by his side, the drug, your drug, your hypodermic.
But it's only a sedative.
Except that in large enough quantity, it's fatal.
You knew that.
Oh, Robert, don't listen to me.
Isabel, why?
Why, I warned you.
Robert, look at me.
It's Isabel.
It's your wife.
You can't.
Oh, no.
Where are you going?
Come back.
I'm going to call the police.
It was perhaps the most terrible decision a man ever had to make, even though it did come
not as a shock to me, even from my point of view as a scientist.
It was terrible enough.
Yet it had to be done, and I had done it.
I did not speak to her as we waited, and she made no further attempt to appeal to me.
She seemed utterly stupefied, perhaps, as a result of the drugs she had herself been taking.
Perhaps because she suddenly realized she was hopelessly trapped.
When the police arrived, I told the story with a little emotion.
Yes, yes, there are fingerprints all right on both the bottle and the hypodermic.
Those would be my wife's, of course.
They both belong to her.
Is that true, Mrs. Graham?
Yes.
Dr. Graham, do I understand then that you are formally charging your wife with the murder
of Roger Holcomb?
Well, you could hardly expect me to do that, could you?
I'm simply telling you the facts.
You said she hated Holcomb, and you knew it.
My wife has been mentally ill for some time.
Now, many people can testify to that.
You will plead insanity, of course.
Dr. Graham, I can't tell you how sorry I am, but the things you have told me add up to
only one thing that you yourself obviously recognize.
Yes.
Your wife, Isabel Graham, murdered Roger Holcomb.
What did you say?
I said your wife, Isabel Graham, murdered Roger Holcomb.
No.
I murdered him.
What?
I tried to make it appear that Isabel had done it, and I succeeded.
But I killed him.
No plans are perfect.
No man is infallible.
Yes, I killed Roger Holcomb, and he himself revealed the truth.
I'd planned to dispose of Isabel for many months.
I'd never loved her.
I'd loved only science.
I wanted her money, and Holcomb found it out.
That was the risk I ran.
That any chance lie in his presence, either by Isabel or myself, to bring out the truth,
and it did.
I had no alternative once he'd discovered that.
But to kill him, it's easy enough to throw the blame on Isabel.
I had not counted on that terrible compulsion for the truth,
that strange affliction of Roger Holcomb's, to his power over me.
Did it transfer itself at his death to me, or was it conscience?
It's a pity that it had to end this way.
He's a fascinating case.
And so closes Lazarus Walks, starring Orson Welles.
Tonight's tale of suspense.
This rebroadcast is a presentation of the Armed Forces Radio Service.
Thank you.