Roma wines presents Suspense.
Roma wines made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
Salud, your health, sir.
Roma wines toast the world.
The wine for your table is Roma wine, made in California for enjoyment throughout the
world.
This is the man in black here for the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California, to introduce
this weekly half hour of Suspense.
Tonight in Hollywood, Roma wines bring you a distinguished all-feminine cast of stars
headed by Margot, Miss Elsa Lanchester, and Miss Janet Beecher.
The Suspense play which stars these ladies and which is produced and directed by William
Spear is called Finishing School.
Despite the absence of male participants in Ethel Lena White's story, we can promise
you there is nothing dainty about the proceedings.
And so with Finishing School and with the performances, in the order of their appearance
of Margot as Caroline Watts, of Janet Beecher as Melody, and of Elsa Lanchester as Dean
Dirling, Roma wines again hope to keep you in Suspense.
I can see them so vividly now, just as I saw them the very first time.
Those high stone ivy draped walls of Miss Nash's school for girls.
And the first person who greeted me, that amiable soul, Miss Melody.
I can see her too.
It was she in fact who showed me into my new room and who stood there watching me a moment
smiling.
This is your first teaching job, isn't it?
How did you know?
Well, if you've been around nothing but teachers for thirty years, you'd know too.
Let me guess now.
Your subject is either French or, no, no, it's sport.
On the nose.
What's your subject, Miss Melody?
Mine.
Come in.
Caroline Watts?
Yes?
I'm Miss Dirling, the Dean.
Welcome to the Nash School.
Oh, how do you do, Miss Dirling?
I've been looking forward to meeting you.
Thank you.
I wanted you to know about the general faculty meeting in my office at three this afternoon.
I'll see you then.
At three o'clock.
Oh, and Melody?
Yes, Dirling?
Miss Nash is a little concerned about the new students.
She might just check up on supplies to the third floor.
It's already been decided.
I'll see you then.
At three o'clock.
Oh, and Melody?
Yes, Dirling?
Miss Nash is a little concerned about the new students.
She might just check up on supplies to the third floor.
It's already been taken care of.
Oh, very well.
I should answer your question, Miss Watts.
You see, my subject is housekeeping.
Oh, I didn't know.
I just suppose that you were one of the teachers.
I was, up until a year ago, when Miss Penelope passed away.
Oh, yes, that was Miss Nash's sister.
No changes like that are inevitable, I suppose.
It's inevitable as, well, that ugly rumor.
Ugly rumor?
About Miss Penelope's death.
But I hadn't heard any rumor or anything about her death.
Oh, then I'm sorry, Miss Watts.
I assumed you were that familiar with the school.
What was the rumor, Miss Melody?
Oh, it was nothing really, not even worth repeating.
Wait, Miss Melody.
Look, I'll hear about it sooner or later.
Well, it's just a silly, stupid tale.
But somehow it got around that Miss Nash's sister had been frightened to death.
This, then, was Caroline Watts' introduction to the Nash Institution,
a place which future events proved to be with a vengeance of finishing school.
Thus the prologue for tonight's tale of suspense.
The narrative will be resumed in a moment.
But first, let's take a little journey.
We'll journey to a capital in Latin America,
here at a gay allegation party on a lantern-hung terrace beside a garden pool.
Listen.
Everything is perfect at your wonderful party, including this exquisite wine.
It is a wine that is made of pure gold.
It is a wine that helps to bring back pleasant memories.
I, of course, agree.
It helps good friends such as us to appreciate good food, too.
And this sherry has come far to add enjoyment to our allegation party.
It is of the famous vineyards of California in the faraway United States.
See?
It is the celebrated Roma wine.
Yes, Roma wines are prized in other countries
for the great enjoyment their superb quality affords.
They are esteemed as something rare, a luxury.
But you in America may enjoy Roma fine wines in all the variety of types
as an inexpensive everyday delight.
So trifling in cost are these fine Roma wines here in America
that you can be a most generous host,
offering to each of your guests his or her favorite,
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a fine California claret or burgundy,
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Ask for Roma, R-O-M-A, America's largest selling wine, Roma wine,
made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
And now it is with pleasure that Roma wines bring back to our sound stage
Margot, Elsa Lanchester, and Janet Beecher in Finishing School,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Frightened to death, Miss Nash's sister.
Well, if I had known then what I know now,
I would have been able to judge with real accuracy
the importance of Miss Melody's remark.
But the excitement of my first classes left little room for other thoughts.
A week or so later, out on the athletic field,
one of my students, Flora Nash, the niece of the owner, became quite ill.
I sent her to the infirmary, but within ten minutes she had returned.
Miss Sterling, she said, had ordered her back.
I was furious and, well, I told her I was going to have it out with that woman.
Miss Watts, wait. I know it isn't my place to say this, but please, for your own sake,
don't antagonize Sterling.
Oh, now really.
I tell you, I know what I'm talking about.
Listen, you know Miss Melody, don't you?
Of course.
Miss Watts, she practically started this school with my two aunts.
When Miss Penelope died, everybody thought she'd move up to take her place.
But she didn't.
Somehow or other, Sterling saw to it she was left with the job of housekeeper.
Miss Watts, don't have any trouble with that woman. Please.
All right, Flora. I'll go see Miss Nash.
Oh, no.
Why, Flora, Miss Nash is your own aunt.
But Sterling would find out. Please, you mustn't.
I've never heard such nonsense in all my life.
Hurry straight to bed.
I went to the top floor of my building and entered the small waiting room of Miss Nash's quarters.
It was empty, but just opposite was the door to the private apartment,
almost halfway open, and I walked over to it, ready to announce myself.
Then I stopped, bed still.
Penelope.
For it was then that I heard...
Are you there, Miss Penelope?
Sterling's voice.
We're almost in touch. Yes, I hear her now.
Very faint, but nearer, nearer.
It was an incredible sight.
Seated at a table wholly unlike the elderly, but austere, white haired lady I'd seen before was Miss Nash.
Her eyes were closed, and swaying gently, she seemed utterly transfixed as she listened to Dean Sterling's low murmur.
We're here, Miss Penelope. We're waiting.
Yes.
Speak to her, Miss Nash. Speak to her now.
Oh, all right.
Can... can you hear us, Penelope?
Miss Sterling's voice.
Can you hear us, Penelope? Miss Sterling says you... says you have predicted some tragic accident for another of our loved ones.
And then Sterling turned toward me.
What... what are you doing here?
I... I'm sorry. I wanted to speak with Miss Nash.
This is not the time or the place for that.
What is it? Miss what?
Miss Nash, it's about your niece. I really...
I'm familiar with this matter about Flora, Miss Nash, and at the moment I don't want you to be disturbed by anything so...
Trivial.
Trivial? But I...
I don't see how you can call it trivial, Miss Sterling. Flora was ill today. Why did you send her back to the field?
Because she was no more ill than you are. She was simply up to her old trick, playing on the sympathy of a new teacher. Come, we'll talk about this outside.
No, I...
Miss Nash, your niece really...
Miss Sterling, she'll handle it. Miss Sterling knows best.
Yes, Miss Nash.
Good night.
If you'll just step out here...
Now.
Miss Sterling, you evidently don't realize that Flora Nash suffers from a slight heart condition. It's entered on her card.
I'm sure it is, because I entered it.
I'm a fairly competent judge of her state of health, Miss Watts, for the simple reason that I happen to be a registered nurse. Can you say the same?
Well, no, I...
After this, please be assured that I don't make a practice of deliberately murdering my students, especially the niece of my employer.
I'm very sorry, Miss Sterling.
Very well, Miss Watts. That will be all.
But it wasn't all. I was bewildered, even alarmed, I suppose, at the recollection of that voice calling out,
Miss Penelope. And I went to the one person that I felt must be told.
For quite a while, the housekeeper said nothing, then she motioned me to a chair.
You might as well know this, Miss Watts. Sterling, you see, has deluded Miss Nash into believing she can actually hear Miss Nash's sister.
She then reports, relays, messages which are supposed to come from Miss Penelope.
But, Melody, I'm afraid I don't under...
My dear, these messages direct Miss Nash to delegate more and more power to Sterling.
That's her grip on Miss Nash. That's the instrument she's using to get the whole school away from her.
I can't under... Miss Melody, how could she ever delude Miss Nash that way? The head of a school and intelligent...
She's an old, grief-stricken woman, Miss Watts. More important, she's a woman who's been thoroughly sold on Sterling's clairvoyant power.
You see, Sterling's made quite a number of predictions, and always they've come true.
They've come true?
Because she makes them come true. Miss Watts, there's a reason why I've told you this.
I have the feeling that rather soon, there'll be another prediction, and somehow, some way, it mustn't be allowed to come true.
I want your help.
Miss Melody, what could we do?
Yes?
Sterling.
What? I'm perfectly aware that you regard me as a very ominous creature, a sort of Lady Macbeth.
And no doubt, your special charge, Flora Nash, shares the same view. So, bring her along when you come to my cottage tonight.
Your cottage?
Yes, there'll be some other girls. I'm having a little party.
Well, I... I hadn't...
What's the matter? Don't you want to?
What? Oh, yes. Yes, of course I do, Miss Sterling. I'd love to come, thank you.
Good. And you can come too, Melody. Eight o'clock sharp.
We were prompt, Flora and I, and the sharp tenseness and alertness we carried with us into that cottage vanished almost at once.
To my surprise, I discovered that when Sterling chose to be, she was one of the most compellingly charming women in the world. And that night, she chose to be.
Flora, since you're the one student in the whole pack of teachers, we'll make you the guest of honor. Now, what would you like to do?
Gee, I don't know, Miss Sterling. Anything, I guess. Have you any ideas, Miss Watt?
Well, we can always play cards.
That, of course, is exactly why we shouldn't.
Oh, Sterling, I've got it.
What?
Remember last spring, that seance you gave us?
Oh, no.
I swear.
No, I don't think so, Helen. In the first place, I haven't picked up a single new trick.
Oh, that's all right. It'll all be new to Watson and Flora. Come on, give them a chance to see you demonstrate your real powers.
Yes.
All right, then.
Oh, no, I'd rather not. Flora, you're not scared, are you? A little, maybe.
Well, don't be. It's all in fun, like watching card tricks. Need any help in here?
Oh, thank you. Yes, we'll use this large table.
Come on, Flora, you stick with me.
All right, Miss Watt.
So presently, in a room quite dark, we ranged ourselves about a large bare table, at the very head of which sat the Dean.
And then, for several long moments, there was quiet, broken at last...
Yes.
...by the low drone of Sterling's voice.
Yes. I hear you. Yes. Yes. But you must announce your presence. Let us know you're here.
Speak louder. Louder! Your name is... Coldman?
Miss Watt!
Coldman Nash.
That's my great-aunt.
And you're trying to warn...
To warn...
She's faded. She's faded. Turn on the lights quickly.
It's her heart. Get the doctor quick. Call him somebody. The phone's in the bedroom. And Helen?
Yes.
I want some digitalis. You'll find it in the medicine chest in the infirmary. Here are the keys. And hurry, I'll be right back.
Thanks, Sterling.
Here, Watt. Here, let's pick her up. We'll put her on the sofa. That's it. Must have been frightening.
Yes. Frightened nearly to death. There. Miss Sterling, you did this deliberately.
Deliberately?
You knew that girl's heart condition. Why, Watt?
You can't anticipate a thing like that. I was simply going to tease her, warn her not to fake any more illnesses.
But you see how she's faking this one. You planned this, Miss Sterling. The party, having her here, finding out her uncle's name.
I happened to know her uncle's name. It was a joke. A game. Everybody knows that.
A game?
She's coming to.
You tell these women it was a game, but will you tell that to Miss Nash?
You don't know what you're saying.
Oh, yes, she does. You'll show Miss Nash the proof of another successful prediction.
Melody.
You'll have her completely at your mercy. Flora's the only remaining heir to this school. The only person who stands in your way.
Caroline, don't leave.
Oh, it's all right, Flora. I'm only going to get my coat. We'll be right back. Please, don't worry about a thing.
Come along, Miss Melody.
It was five minutes later that Melody and I crossed the campus to Sterling's cottage and found it empty.
We learned that the doctor had arrived, had prescribed for Flora, and ordered her to the infirmary.
Caroline, Sterling alone was left in charge of the girl. That's where Melody and I found her.
Directly before Flora's room at the infirmary. We wasted no time. Literally, we pushed her aside and hurried into Flora's.
Shh. Can't you see she's asleep? The doctor gave her something to make her sleep.
Is that what this is?
What?
This bottle of nice bend. You can see from the label what it is. Digitalis.
A heart stimulant, Miss Melody?
And not oddly enough, a deadly poison. The doctor left it here and it's been given to Flora every two hours.
Now will you please be good enough to leave?
Yes, I'll leave, but I shan't go far. I expect to stay very close to this girl until she's safely under someone else's care.
You're completely mad, aren't you?
That's an odd remark, Sterling, coming from you.
We maintained a watching post not far from the room. And from there first Melody, then I made regular trips to the bedside. Flora was better. There was no doubt of that.
And so at last I dropped off to sleep. The sleep that lasted for an hour or more. For dawn was filtering into the long infirmary corridor when I awoke.
Suddenly, Melody was shaking. Caroline, it's happened.
What? What do you say?
Caroline, it's happened.
What do you say?
She's dead.
Flora's dead.
Sterling, just tell us what happened.
It was only a few minutes ago. It was time for her medicine. And I went over to wake her up for it. Her heart had just stopped beating.
The medicine? The digitalis, you mean?
That's right, Melody.
Where is it?
What?
Where is it? Where's the bottle of medicine?
Why?
Why? It used to be on that nightstand there. But it isn't now. Where is it?
Sterling, what have you done with it?
I don't know. Let's see. Under the bed. It might have rolled under.
But it didn't. Nor under the chest of drawers either.
Perhaps you should look out of the window. Maybe Sterling decided not to give her any medicine at all.
Miss Melody, this medicine chest, it's locked.
Locked?
Yes. Do you happen to know where the key is?
One of a housekeeper's major duties. See if this will work, Caroline, being keeper of the keys.
It works.
Melody! Miss Nash, look!
What is it?
It's Sterling's bottle of medicine. Unopened.
Unopened?
And unused.
I was right, Sterling. You just sat there and watched her die.
That's not true.
Helen, you saw me give Flora some medicine early tonight, right after the doctor left.
Helen, you remember that, don't you?
Helen, it looked like a different bottle, Sterling.
A different bottle?
Yes. And I can guess what was in it. A sleeping draught.
That's what you gave us, Sterling. You knew that even a slight overdose would stop a weakened heart.
All right, Sterling. We found one bottle. The one that would have saved Flora's life.
Where's the one that took it?
You should know that, Melody.
What?
You should know where that bottle is because you took it out of this room just a little while ago when I was calling Miss Nash.
You are insane.
What's more, you brought it into this room tonight in one of your countless visits.
You bought in a bottle of heavy sleeping draught and exchanged it for digitalis.
You were hoping I couldn't tell the difference and that I'd give that to Flora instead of the heart stimulant. And that's what I did.
You did it all right, but without any help, Sterling.
Just how, for example, could I produce a bottle of sleeping draught so exactly like the digitalis that you couldn't tell the difference?
You had whole meds and chests to work with. That's how you did it. And that's how I knew you did it. Helen?
Yes, Sterling. I know what you're thinking. It just came to me.
Go on.
When we were at the cottage, when you sent me over here for the bottle of digitalis.
That's it.
There wasn't any? There wasn't any in that chest?
Of course not. Sterling didn't put it there until tonight.
Well, that's not the point, Melody. She couldn't have put it there at all because she had no way to get into the chest.
You see, when Sterling sent me over here, she gave me her keys.
Well, well, well, I forgot to give them back to her. Here they are. I still have them.
In other words, Melody, you were the only one who could put the digitalis bottle there in the chest.
Very true what you said before. One of a housekeeper's major duties is being keeper of the keys.
Miss Melody, that isn't true, is it? Miss Melody, it isn't true!
No, of course it isn't. Don't listen to them, Caroline.
No, Caroline, don't listen to us. Listen to Melody.
Let her keep drugging you with lies until you see everything she wants you to see and hear everything she wants you to hear.
That's what she did to Flora, you know. She flooded that poor girl's imagination with absolute terror.
And then she killed her.
Caroline, I didn't kill her. Why should I? Why would I want to?
Why? Why?
So you could get Flora out of your way. So you could accuse me of killing Fern.
Get me out of your way, too. So you could have a clear path to mismatch.
Well, Melody, your plan backfired.
But you're not getting me out of this school.
Helen, Watts, go phone the police.
I'll never leave. Do you hear that? I'll never leave. Never.
Oh, yes you will, Melody. Yes, you will.
And Sterling was right, too.
For within the month, Melody was an inmate of a quite different kind of institution than the Nash School.
Life settled down then into a state of normalcy that lasted through the rest of the year.
Lasted, in fact, up to just four hours ago when I was crossing the grounds toward the main gate.
All of the teachers had gone into town and I was on my way to join them.
When I saw it there on the grass, a tiny object glistening dully in the late afternoon sun.
What made me pick it up? I don't know.
But when I did, it was as though a rocket exploded in my brain.
It was a small empty bottle and its label bore the slightly faded letters of the word digitalis.
Then in the next instant...
Find something? Sterling!
Yes, I... I found something, Sterling.
This bottle labeled digitalis.
You know, I bet anything in the world a good chemist can find traces of a sleeping drug in it.
You mean? Then you found it. Melody's bottle.
Melody's bottle? My guess is that Melody's bottle, as you put it, never will be found
because it never existed except in your mind.
What?
I picked this bottle up right here, Sterling, right where I'm standing,
just three feet from the trash bin behind your cottage.
That was careless of me, wasn't it?
You used this bottle.
You used it to get Flora Nash out of your way, to kill her and make good on your warning.
You're taking it to the police, I suppose.
I want to see if they can find your fingerprints on it, Sterling.
Yes, I'm going to take it to the police as fast as I can get there.
Certainly, Watts. And the best of luck!
She went on inside her cottage, and I struck out across the grounds for the main gate and the road into town.
I reached the gate just in time to hear the school caretaker playing it shut.
Miss Sterling, he explained, had just telephoned the order, and early closing hour.
I remembered the service driveway then.
The other passageway through those high stone walls which encompass the grounds,
and I found that it, too, was locked.
I was imprisoned.
And then, it was right then that the solution came to me.
I should have thought of it before.
Miss Nash herself was in those grounds, right on the top floor of my own building.
I would take the bottle to her. I would show her the proof.
I flew up the stairs, down the corridor, entered her small waiting room, and then stopped.
Just beyond me, through the open doorway of the darkened suite, was Sterling and Miss Nash.
The fellow's tragedy was before this school year ended.
That's the warning I hear.
A warning? From Flora, did you say? From my niece?
From your niece.
Oh, she says there will be more tragedy.
Oh, no.
Before this school year ends.
Tragedy.
Oh, for one more... one more woman here.
My strength left me completely then.
I don't know whether I fainted or not or how I got back to my room, but I'm hearing it now.
And it is just ten minutes before midnight. Ten minutes before this school year ends.
My door is locked. She has locked it from the outside.
But now... now that door is going to open. And she's coming in.
What? What are you going to do with it?
This revolver. I'm going to use it to fulfill a prediction.
Don't, please. Don't, please.
Flora made a prediction to Miss Nash tonight. Flora made it through me.
Do you understand that? Flora made it.
I heard her. I really heard her.
Saying that there would be one more death before this school year ends.
Please.
My prediction is going to come true. Now!
Hello. Hello. The police station.
You'd better send someone over to the Nash school right away.
There's been a... somebody's shot herself dead.
And please... please tell Miss Melody... Miss Melody that she'll be out soon.
Tell her that Lady McBeth is gone.
And so closes Finishing School, starring Margot, Elsa Lanchester and Janet Beecher.
Tonight's tale of... Suspense.
Before we tell you about our star and story for next week,
a word about an American anniversary of 173 years this week.
Still standing in California is a little winery founded in 1771.
Settlers from foreign countries discovered early that California vineyards were among the world's finest.
But in the rare combination of climate and soil which produces perfect wine grapes,
California surpasses some of the most famous old world vineyards.
Take Roma California Sherrier Port. They are magnificent wines, truly delightful.
Yet, like all Roma wines, priced astonishingly low, because you pay no duty, no costly shipping charges.
Toast the New Year with Roma wines, America's largest selling wine.
And let us hope that next New Year's we'll all be together, our sons and daughters, our husbands and fathers, in a world at peace.
We help make this more certain with the war bonds and stamps we buy.
So for 1944, increase your purchases of United States war bonds.
Good luck and health to you one and all from the makers of Roma Wines,
made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
Next week, Roma Wines take great pleasure in bringing to you, in his first radio appearance of the year, Mr. Alan Ladd.
Mr. Ladd will be heard in a swift moving action drama played against the colorful background of the Midway in an amusement park and called,
The One Way Ride to Nowhere. Don't forget then next Thursday same time for Alan Ladd in Suspense.
Presented by Roma Wines, R-O-M-A, made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.