Loma wines present suspense.
Loma wines made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
Salute for your health, Signor.
Loma wines toast the world.
The wine for your table is Loma wine, made in California for enjoyment throughout the
world.
This is the man in black here for the Loma wine company of Fresno, California to introduce
this weekly half hour of suspense.
Tonight from Hollywood, Loma wines bring you a star, Mr. Paul Muny.
And so through Seale Fletcher's play for broadcasting called The Search for Henri Lafave, and with
the performance of Paul Muny, we again hope to keep you in suspense.
I had just set down the last note on paper.
You know what it is to write a piece.
The agony, the drudgery, the exaltation.
A fever consumes one.
Hours melt away at the piano.
Time, people mean nothing.
The world revolves around this rocking song, this tender magic.
A heavenly feeling comes into your heart and nestles there.
So it was with this music.
I had just set down the last note on paper.
I was happy and weary and full of peace.
I lay down on the sofa to relax before Suzette brought my supper.
There's a radio near the couch.
That night I turned it on.
You know what it is to feel horror, true horror, the animal thing.
I've seen horror many times grimacing at me out of the corner of my room.
But this time it was upon me.
It was in my brain.
For that music on the radio playing now was the music I had just set down on paper.
Suzette!
Yes, Monsieur?
Suzette, come here.
Listen to this thing.
You hear it, don't you?
This is real music playing?
Yes, Monsieur Flynn.
The radio's playing real music.
It is not an illusion, a hallucination of some kind of my own.
I'm not a hallucinator.
I'm a hallucinator.
It's at the end of my own brain.
No, Monsieur Flynn.
It is real music and very pretty.
Pretty?
What is the matter, Monsieur?
Is anything wrong?
Don't you like it?
No, no.
Leave it on.
Leave it alone.
Listen to it.
Sit there beside the radio and I shall get it for you.
What, Monsieur?
My score!
Look at it.
Note to note.
I play my tonality, the oboe solo.
And I thought, it's a joke.
A joke, an incredible joke!
Oh, monsieur, I cannot read music.
I do not understand.
Perhaps someone in this building has heard me play.
But no, no, this orchestration is the same,
and the orchestration is a secret, quiet thing that one does alone.
Perhaps they have stolen the score.
Someone has copied it.
But I only finished it this afternoon.
It has been here in a drawer and on the piano.
Unless, unless someone else.
There is someone else, someone like me,
with my brain, my soul, a kind of double.
Eh!
It is over now, monsieur.
Do you want me to turn it off?
Oh, no, no.
See what they announce.
See what they dare to say.
You've been listening to the Elegy for Orchestra, Opus 42, by Henri Lefebvre.
Henri Lefebvre!
Calm yourself, monsieur.
Henri Lefebvre!
Why, I've never heard of the man.
He is an imposter, and they are liars.
Give me the broadcasting station at once.
She slipped out of the room,
and I sat there staring at the freshly written pages.
My brain was reeling.
It was, it was my music, every little note, every turn of phrase.
Before me, the silent radio faced me like a mocking sardonic spanks.
Adolphus, my good fellow, what's happened?
Monsieur Picard.
I thought it best to bring him, monsieur.
Your good friend.
Did you call the broadcasting station?
Yes, monsieur.
And what did they say?
They said, monsieur, oh, monsieur Picard, I'm afraid...
They said, Adolphus, that it was a piece by Henri Lefebvre.
An old piece, written nearly 15 years ago.
What?
Adolphus, dear boy, now try to be calm.
Tell me, you composers are so temperamental.
Sit down and try to analyze this thing from a mental viewpoint.
15 years ago?
But I finished it today.
The brain is such a queer thing, Adolphus.
And a musician's brain, that is still a puzzle to us scientists.
Ten years ago, perhaps even 15 years ago, you heard this piece somewhere.
Perhaps your conscious brain scarcely noted it.
You were thinking your own thoughts,
but your subconscious reached out and grasped it for yourself.
And now, 15 years later...
What are you trying to say, monsieur Picard?
That this piece is not mine?
That I stole it from this imposter?
No, no, no, I assure you, my dear Adolphus,
you've always been utterly original.
I wrote that piece myself, do you hear?
I tore it out bit by bit from my own creative imagination.
If I had remembered it, even my own subconscious,
would it have come so hard?
It would have flowed out like a dream.
But I had to struggle.
I had to be gracious and disgust this coder.
And you say it was exactly this way on the radio?
Exactly as though they had copied out the parts in the twinkling of an eye.
And an orchestra was reading my score.
It's very strange, isn't it?
The man either stole my piece somehow, or else...
there was some terrible coincidence,
some simultaneous crooked streak of identical inspiration
that leaped across the world.
Who is this Henri Lefebvre?
I should like to know him, to confront him face to face.
Henri Lefebvre? You've never heard of him, Adolphus?
No.
He was a rather famous composer in my youth,
a writer of symphonies and operas.
And what has happened to him? Is he still alive?
It is an interesting question, Adolphus.
I must confront him. Do you hear, Mr. Pigard?
I'm convinced that there's something unreal about all this.
Fate has played me some trick.
There is some horrible linkage between this man and myself.
Some string vibrating in his brain which has caused the like vibration in my own.
I must find him.
I must somehow break the spell.
And supposing this Henri Lefebvre is dead or alive,
I must discover where this music came from
and what it meant to him
and what it may mean to me.
Tonight, Roma wines are bringing you a star, Mr. Paul Muny,
whom you've heard in the prologue to The Search for Henri Lefebvre.
Tonight's study in Suspense.
Down in Bermuda, there's a famous club renowned for its fine food and gracious living.
Suppose we go there now to the exclusive Carl Beach and Tennis Club
and observe a dinner party on the terrace.
One of the party, a North American, has just raised a toast to his host.
As he lowers his glass, another is raised by his Bermudian friend who says,
It has been a pleasure, my friend.
And in a way, payment on a pleasant obligation to your United States.
For your California has given us this superb wine in which we drink these toasts.
So delicate, so excellent in flavor and bouquet that we imported your famous Roma wine.
Yes, that is true, for in Roma wines, you will find the uniform qualities
which make a wine truly magnificent.
A delicacy so delightful, many foreign lands know Roma wines as an expensive, special occasion treat.
But for millions of Americans, Roma wines have long been a daily pleasure
for greater enjoyment of meals, for delighting their guests,
a pleasure which costs you only pennies a glass.
For you do not pay high import duties nor expensive shipping charges to enjoy this delicacy
which brings you a combination of old world winemaking skill
plus Roma's modern testing and quality controls.
No wonder then that Roma wines are America's largest selling wines.
Ask for R-O-M-A, Roma wines made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
And now it is with pleasure that we bring back to our sound stage our star, Paul Muny,
and the search for Henri Lafebvre, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Henri Lafebvre, born 1885 through an fran, educated at the Ecole Normale,
fellowship student in composition, the Paris Conservatoire,
won Prix de Rome in 1908 with a piece entitled Étude Contre Puntale,
studied under Saint-Saens for two years,
made first great success with performance of opera Ecdate,
which was presented at the Paris Opera in the...
Do you want me to go on, monsieur?
No, no, no, these dictionaries tell you nothing.
They make everything smell of dust and corruption.
Has the meal come in yet?
No, monsieur, only the package of music from the library.
This music?
Yes, monsieur.
Then what are we waiting for? Give it to me.
Henri Lafebvre, elegy, opus 42.
Incredible to think of all those years.
Look, Susette, the paper is already turning yellow.
And draving is old-fashioned, and yet it's exactly...
Adolfus.
Yes?
I have a letter from his publishers.
He is still alive.
Thank God!
But there is some mystery about him.
They would not give me his present address.
What do you mean?
They say they've not heard from him in ten years.
His musical output has ceased.
He submits nothing, does not answer their letters.
Well, then how do you know he's still alive?
They occasionally hear from Madame Lafebvre.
Madame Lafebvre?
He has a wife who's been living in Wynne.
Good! We will write to her at once.
That will not be necessary, Adolfus.
Now calm yourself. This is the best news of all.
Madame Lafebvre has arrived now in this very city.
In fact, I brought her here to see you.
Bring her up at once.
Adolfus, I beg of you, now calm yourself.
You'll frighten her. You must not be too hasty.
I will not frighten her.
I will only find out where he is.
Or perhaps even seeing her.
Sometimes reality shrivels everything.
The truth becomes drab, commonplace.
This way, Madame Lafebvre. Over here.
Yes, Madame, this door.
I stood quite motionless in the center of the room.
A woman dressed in black confronted me across the waist of the polished floor.
She was thin, middle-aged, a little stooped.
Her pale eyes looked washed out with crying.
Yet there was another look in them.
A look of some drowned in monstrous terror.
Monsieur Adolfus Wynne?
Yes.
I am Cécile Lafebvre.
I have heard that you are searching for my husband, Henri?
Yes, Madame.
Why do you wish to see him, Monsieur?
Why do I wish to see him?
You have not heard of my strange predicament, Madame?
No, I have heard nothing.
I arrived in this country only today.
You arrived alone?
Yes.
And your husband?
My husband remained in Switzerland, Monsieur.
Switzerland?
Yes, Monsieur.
He has lived there for many years.
But why?
I thought they said your home was the one.
No, I was my home, Monsieur.
My husband and I have been estranged for the last ten years.
Oh.
But there is much I know about my husband's work.
If it is about that, you wish to know.
Ten years.
You have not seen him for ten years?
No, Monsieur.
You know his Opus 42, his Elegy for Orchestra?
Yes, Monsieur.
When did he write it?
About fifteen years ago.
Yes, I remember the piece well.
I copied out the parts for him myself.
Then you would know the music when you see it.
Is this the piece, Madame?
Yes, Monsieur.
I wrote this music, Madame, a month ago.
Out of my own head.
Impossible, Monsieur.
Impossible? But I tell you it is so.
How could it be?
This is my husband's piece.
I remember the night he wrote it.
Hot midsummer night.
The windows were open.
We could hear the bells of Rouen ringing in the hours.
He could not sleep.
Our little daughter had been crying.
Your little daughter?
Does this distress you, Monsieur?
No, no, no. Please go on.
He wanted to call the piece Parvin for Louise.
After our little daughter.
But I wouldn't let him.
It was too sad, I said.
And I made him call it just... just Elegy.
But he said it was her piece.
That he had been thinking of her crying all the time he set it down.
It was as though all the sadness that was in his love for her had gone into the melody.
But... but I still don't understand.
I wrote this music out of beauty, out of spring sunshine and happiness.
He could never understand why it was so popular.
He didn't want to publish it.
He hid it away saying it was like... like a premonition.
He'd come to him like some hideous omen from another world.
And he was right, Monsieur.
How do you mean?
Our little daughter Louise.
She died a little while later.
Madame Lefebvre?
Yes, Monsieur. I beg your pardon for crying.
I do not want to see your husband or hear this music ever again.
My search has ended.
Do you believe in ghosts, Madame?
No, Monsieur.
I've been through too much to believe in poor, sad ghosts.
But I do.
I believe that neither your husband nor myself really wrote that piece.
There is some further horror, some demon force at work in this music.
It captured him and it has captured me.
Tell me, Madame Lefebvre, did your husband write any music after he wrote this piece?
Not much more, Monsieur.
You mean it racked his brain as it has racked mine?
Leaving him without inspiration?
No, no, it was not that.
I'm not sure if you're right. He still writes.
But nothing he has written for ten years has had any meaning.
What do you mean?
Monsieur, have you not already guessed the truth?
My husband has gone mad.
He has been mad for the last ten years, shut up in an asylum in Switzerland.
Oh.
I have told very few people.
It is a form of horrible neurosis, work neurosis the doctors call it.
He seems to have lost his heart.
The events of his past life are meaningless to him.
He has even forgotten our little dead Louise.
How terrible.
And now he sits in a bare room and writes music all day long.
He has become a slave, a machine.
They tell me that his shelf is packed with scores.
But all of them are only an endless jumble of notes.
Notes such as a child might scrawl across the page.
And it was the music, the ghost music that did this?
Who knows, Monsieur.
Yes.
There were seeds of madness in this thing.
Even from the beginning.
There was something uncanny.
Why should that radio play that music just after I had finished the piece?
Why should you, you a perfect stranger have come here and found me?
Perhaps, perhaps I too am destined to go mad.
Monsieur, believe me, people do not go mad so easily.
To be destroyed as my husband was destroyed.
One must have deep sadness and love.
One must have human ties, a wife, a beautiful little child.
You have no such ties, Monsieur.
No.
I have no ties.
My husband went mad because he loved too much.
When I looked at Louise to hide, he thought that he had killed her.
She died of simple pneumonia, but he could never understand.
He became insane with grief.
He thought he was her murderer.
Don't you see, Monsieur, you who live here alone, whose life is so quiet?
Madame Lefebvre.
I beg your pardon, Monsieur.
I have seen you before, Madame Lefebvre.
I have met you somewhere.
I have heard your story.
You have come here before?
No, no, Monsieur. I have never come here before.
Then why should your face seem so suddenly familiar?
And your words?
There is something uncanny about this thing, Madame.
For a moment there, for a moment, I thought I knew.
Knew what, Monsieur?
I thought I knew you and your husband and Louise, and that I had lived.
Monsieur.
Perhaps, perhaps it was only in one of my nightmares, but somehow.
Try to remember, please.
Remember.
The little house in Rouen.
The stone house.
Remember.
The tree in the garden.
The coffee on Sunday afternoons.
The Bechstein piano by the window.
The bedroom with the calico curtain.
The little doll carriage underneath the stairs.
Louise's doll carriage.
Louise.
What have they done to her?
They have taken her away.
And I, I have killed her.
The little doll carriage waits at the bottom of the stairs, but she will never come back.
Never come back.
No, no, no.
She's been dead for ten years.
You must not think of her anymore.
You're getting better.
Dr. Picker says you are getting well.
Dr. Picker?
You're a doctor, Henri.
What are you talking about?
I?
I have no doctor.
Don't you see, my darling?
Your long search is over.
I?
I am Henri Lefebvre?
Yes, darling.
I?
Ha.
Ah.
Ha ha ha ha.
I am shriveled old man.
I locked up in the walls of a lunatic asylum for ten years writing a jumble of notes like a little child.
Then who is Adolfus Flann?
A name you made up, darling.
A poor mad name.
My symphonies are rubbish, you say?
My adoring public are only shadows running across the walls.
And these mountains beyond my window.
These mountains.
Ha ha ha ha.
You are lying to me.
Henri.
I tell you my name is Adolfus Flann.
Look, Henri.
This room.
These bare white walls.
These bars across the window.
This door one cannot open from the inside.
For ten years, Henri.
For ten years I have waited for a glimmer to come.
For some little memory like that music.
For ten years I have prayed for you every day.
For ten years.
While I sat here.
I do not believe it.
Dr. Picker.
Henri, my dear fellow.
You.
Call me Henri too?
I cannot tell you how happy I am, Madame Lefebvre.
The experiment has worked beyond our fondest hopes.
I've been listening to every word and you've handled it exactly right.
Monsieur Picker.
Am I Henri Lefebvre?
Yes.
I have been mad for ten years.
You have deceived me for ten years.
I am not Adolfus Flann.
Oh, Henri, if you could have known how my heart beat.
When Dr. Picker first telephoned.
And now.
Naturally.
My poor fellow.
It must be a terrible shock.
After ten years one cannot be cured overnight.
Rest. Much rest will be necessary.
And many little talks.
But you will see.
In a few months.
We may hope for something quite remarkable.
Monsieur and Madame Lefebvre.
In a few months, he said.
In a few months I would be able to go back.
I would take up the threads of my own life.
As Henri Lefebvre.
I'm still here.
Here in this room.
With its bare white walls.
And its door that locks from the outside.
I'm still here.
Although I know now for sure that.
My name is Henri Lefebvre.
As sadness is in my heart.
And a natural pain that I can never conquer.
War has come back.
The stone house.
The little doll carriage underneath the stairs.
And my arms ache with longing for a little dead child.
With long honey colored hair.
There's no music in me now.
No music save that one tune.
Which sings in my head all day long.
My parven for Louise.
If I could only get it out of my mind.
I might be able to work again.
I might be happy as I once was happy.
I might look out of my window.
And find a symphony in the sunset on the mountains.
That is why I will not go back.
I will not leave this room.
Until I find him again.
Until I find.
Adolphus Fleck.
And so closes the search for Henri Lefebvre by Lucille Fletcher starring Paul Muny.
Tonight's tale of suspense.
Suspense is produced and directed by William Spear.
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America's largest selling wines.
Made in California.
For enjoyment throughout the world.
This is Paul Muny.
It's been a great pleasure to appear in this distinguished radio play theater which is devoted to the art of suspense.
I should like to pass along to you the information that I just gleaned from Mr. Spear.
The next week at the same time my friend Mr. Herbert Marshall will be your star.
In that very extraordinary novel of vengeance and retribution called The Beast Must Die.
And one more word.
You've been hearing a great deal about the fifth war loan drive.
It may sound to you as though we on the radio are being a little overly insistent about it.
Well we are being insistent.
You must listen.
You must respond.
Buy an extra war bond tomorrow.
And on Thursday same time you will hear Herbert Marshall as star of suspense.
Presented by Roma wines R.O.M.A.
Made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.