Now, the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California presents...
Suspense!
Tonight, Roma wines bring you the suspenseful play called The Burning Court, starring the
distinguished actor whose current performance you have admired in the picture Laura Clifton-Webb.
Suspense is presented for your enjoyment by Roma Wines.
That's R-O-M-A, Roma Wines.
Those excellent California wines that can add so much pleasantness to the way you live,
to your happiness and entertaining guests, to your enjoyment of everyday meals.
Yes, right now a glass full would be very pleasant, as Roma Wines bring you a remarkable
tale of suspense.
And with the strange events detailed in John Dixon Carr's novel, The Burning Court, and
with the performance of Mr. Clifton-Webb as its U-Bane narrator, Godin Cross, Roma Wines
hope indeed to keep you in...
Suspense!
A pleasant fire, charming company, and a hostess who realizes that tea served in the Russian
manner is the only manner in which tea should ever be served.
Yes, a heartwarming evening, Mr. Covington, in an extremely gracious setting.
How fortunate that your uncle had the wealth to satisfy such an explicit taste.
And what a pity I have so little time to tell you which one here... murdered him just last
week.
Now, I believe we're all here.
Ted and Mary Covington, Mrs. Henderson, the housekeeper, Captain Brennan, I believe.
Yes, and incidentally yourself, just who did you say you were?
No wonder you police have had so much difficulty with the case.
My name is Cross, Godin Cross, the writer.
Oh, well why don't you say so?
That book, A History of European Murder, that's yours, isn't it?
Extraordinary, a policeman who reads.
As a matter of fact, Captain, it's because of my latest book, Poisoning Throughout the
Ages, that I happen to be with you now.
Ted Covington there is a member of the firm which publishes my work.
I'd never seen him until tonight, when he himself told me what happened.
He went back to last Friday afternoon, before it was then that he began reading my manuscript
for the first time.
He began it on the train, the commuter's train, which every afternoon deposits him safely
and soundly in this charming suburb of Crispin.
That is, if you care for suburbs.
At any rate, I imagine he was almost home by the time he finished the first chapter.
When he turned the page, attached to the following leaf was a picture and, looking at it, the
young man stiffened suddenly and all but cried out his shock.
It was a picture of a woman.
Under it was printed, Marie Dubranich, convicted of arsenic poisoning, St. Petersburg, Russia,
1731.
Ted Covington was looking at a picture of his own young wife.
His 25-year-old wife in an early 18th century costume, the face, the features were identical,
even the name.
Dubranich is his wife, or was his wife's maiden name.
No, no, no, it was ridiculous.
This woman in the picture was one of his wife's ancestors, simply an amazing family resemblance.
He wondered why Marie had never told him about.
Ted Covington glanced down at the chapter to which the picture had been attached.
It was entitled, The Affair of the Non-Dead Woman.
But then the train was approaching the station and he rose and walked out to the platform.
Standing there for a moment, his eyes ran down the page.
Marie Dubranich, it appears, was quite the continental charmer in her day.
With the beneficent assistance of arsenic, she had disposed of half a dozen husbands
before she'd been caught.
But caught she was.
She was sentenced to death, the chapter concluded.
And then beheaded and burned.
And there, waiting for him at the curb by the suburban station, was the wife he knew
so well.
She was leaning toward him now to open the door, smiling in that way he knew so well.
Ted, what on earth are you staring at?
A soft fire in your eye.
Oh, it's the street light, I guess.
Oh, darling, you're silly and overworked.
Come on, get in the car.
Thus, like a wind, thin wisp of smoke, it was gone.
The unspeakably foolish concept.
Laughable?
That's what it really was.
All right, let's hear it.
What's so funny?
Oh, nothing, nothing at all, darling.
I guess I just feel good.
Oh, fine mood for dancing tonight.
Dancing?
No, Ted, you promise.
You said if Uncle Miles showed a noticeable improvement, we could go to the club.
You mean he's really better?
There's no comparison.
The doctor agreed with me.
Darling, there's no reason in the world why we shouldn't let Mrs. Henderson stay awake
for a change.
Do her good, the old witch.
What is the matter with you?
Oh, it's just that I started to call her a witch.
It's a private joke, darling.
A private joke.
And by the time they were home, it was even less than that.
Ted was sitting in the living room.
When Marie entered it and moved toward the fireplace, he studied her as she struck the
match on the half-stone.
Touched it through the little roll of newspaper.
Stood back to watch the licking flames catch the charcoal, then the logs.
As the light rose, illuminating her face and the lips barely parted in that ineffably curious
smile, he would remind her again of her fragile loveliness and his absurd reaction to the
manuscript.
He glanced around.
There it was on the table where he placed it when he'd come in.
Deliberately, he turned from it and then back again.
The manuscript had been moved only an inch or so, but moved.
Keeping his back to his wife, he thumbed through that early chapter and discovered, just as
he was afraid he would, that the picture itself was gone.
For a long moment, he thought of what to do.
Then, slowly, he turned around.
This, this book of crosses I brought home.
Yes, dear.
There was a story of a poisoner in it.
It's funny, her name happens to be the same as yours.
Your maiden name, that is.
Look, darling, was she a relative of yours?
Why, Ted, you're serious.
In a way, yes.
I don't mean it's really important.
It's just that, well, when you run across a person who was a top flight poisoner a couple
of hundred years ago, and who's a dead ringer for your own wife, you want to hear about it,
that's all.
Ted, what on earth are you talking about?
Darling, be honest with me.
Didn't you look at this manuscript when I was out of the room?
No.
You didn't take out a picture of a poisoner named Marie de Brunnich?
I most certainly did not.
Somebody took that picture out of the manuscript.
Oh, but who could it be?
Mrs. Henderson has been in the back ever since we came in.
And Uncle Miles, he's in bed in his room.
I'm sorry, darling.
It'll turn up.
Forget it.
Maybe I am overworked.
I guess a little dancing is just the thing I need tonight.
When they returned home, it had happened.
Mrs. Henderson met them at the door.
Ted's uncle had taken a sudden turn for the worse.
Hurry as fast as you can.
You'll be right there.
Marie, if you don't mind, I...
Yes, yes, Ted.
Come, Mrs. Henderson, let's go into the living room.
He had wanted to be alone in the room,
not because of his great attachment to his uncle,
who, say, for Ted himself, was the last of his branch of the Covingtons,
but because he had seen something.
It was the silver cup under the edge of the bed,
the cup of the late patient had used for his medicine.
Ted moved over to it, stood down.
There were still a few drops at the bottom.
And then, just as he was rising to his feet,
his heart seemed to mislead.
He had seen the other thing, Uncle Miles' cat,
two feet away from the cup, further under the bed.
She was lying on her side.
Fearfully, he extended his hand.
The cat was still warm, but quite dead.
No-one must know, not yet.
There would be a funeral, a normal official interment
in the family crypt on the grounds.
Meanwhile, the cat must be buried, disposed of,
and the contents of the cup.
The next day, at the chemists, he was told it contained arsenic.
For Suspense, Roma Wines are bringing you a star, Mr. Clifton Webb,
whom you have heard in the first act of The Burning Court by John Dixon Carr,
which is Roma Wines' presentation tonight of Suspense.
Between the acts of Suspense, this is Truman Bradley for Roma Wines.
We now quote a brief word from the renowned hostess, Elsa Maxwell.
I've found that one of the smartest ways to entertain during warm weather
is to serve tall, iced, thirst-quenching Roma refreshers
made with distinguished Roma California wines.
And it's so easy to enjoy frosty, satisfying Roma wine and soda.
Simply half-fill tall glasses with Roma Burgundy or Sauternes.
Add ice cubes and sparkling water, and sugar if you wish.
For a decorative touch, garnish with cherries and slices of fruit.
And be sure to use Roma, for Roma wine is always uniformly good.
The happy result of selected grapes.
Carefully picked at the very peak of character in California's choicest vineyards,
gently pressed, then guided unhurriedly to perfection
for the ancient skill of Roma's famed wineries.
Yet, good as it is, Roma wine costs only pennies a glass.
Remember, because of uniformly fine quality at reasonable cost,
more Americans enjoy Roma than any other wine.
R-O-M-A, Roma wines.
And now Roma wines bring back to our Hollywood sound stage,
Clifton Webb as Go Down Cross, writer and authority on Murder Through the Ages
in The Burning Court, a play well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Now let me understand one thing, Mr. Cross.
You're simply relating what Mr. Covington here told you.
Yes, less than 15 minutes ago, Captain.
Then why not have Mr. Covington tell it himself?
Primarily because I can tell it more beautifully.
Uh, Mr. Covington.
More tea.
I'll get it for him, Madam.
Oh, you're very kind, Mrs. Henderson, but I'd rather you didn't miss even one facet of the story.
Oh, well, I'm not leaving, sir. The samovar's right over here.
Excellent.
I think that you should know that earlier tonight, just three days after his uncle's burial,
Ted Covington sat alone in this room, contemplating some astonishing plans.
This very night, long after Marie would retire,
he himself would open the vault and exhume his uncle's body.
A chemist had been engaged for a private autopsy.
He was to look for traces of poison, yet,
Ted Covington wasn't so sure he could go through with such a plan.
The door opened, and Marie came into the room,
walking now quite softly across to the great fireplace.
He studied her closely as she struck the match,
then touched it with the crumpled scraps of paper.
Oh, I thought you might have been a little too excited.
I thought you might be a little chilled.
Chilled? If only she knew the chill that was wrapped around his heart.
If only she...
He stopped short in his thoughts,
for now the glow had risen against that somewhat childlike face,
and suddenly he saw, for the first time, the faint wrinkles of age at her eyes.
Now the light was higher, and there, there it was.
A thin light creased, like an almost invisible star that encircled the mountain.
Marie du Brunnet, beheaded and burned in 1731.
Yes, he was sure of it now. He had to go through with his plan.
So, by the dim light of a lantern, he set about his task,
pounding his way through the thick concrete that now covered the family tomb,
drawing open the great subterranean door, descending to the ink-black chamber below.
He found the coffin, wrested it from its crib, placed it upon the floor.
He unclamped the lid, opened it, and then, then...
The word of shock leapt from his throat.
Empty! Empty!
Empty! Empty, you say?
Huh? Who's that? Who said that?
I did, Mr. Covington, up here.
Who are you?
I'm Captain Brennan from the Office of the Commission of Police.
Police? How did you... Who sent you here? Who told you about this?
Why, your housekeeper, of course.
You didn't think Mrs. Henderson saw the dead cat, did you? But she did.
She also saw you bury it. That, as you know, was three days ago.
So, I've had a chance to do some delving.
I must admit, Mr. Covington, that when I learned your wife's maiden name was Du Brunnet...
Marie Du Brunnet, child, was really quite a trick.
Why? What difference does that make?
Perhaps you don't know it, but that's a rather important name in crime history.
Oh, but the same name, that's all. It's a coincidence, Captain.
Yeah, isn't it? The case is full of them.
Learned most of her poison tricks, for example, from a lover of long standing,
a fellow by the name of Kroszitov. Godin Kroszitov.
Kros... Godin Krosk, let's say.
Hasn't you affirmed published books by a man by that name?
Kros? Oh, this is some kind of a joke.
But what's even more interesting, Mr. Covington, is the fact that the name of the judge
who sentenced Marie Du Brunnet to death by the burning court just happened to be Covington.
Covington?
Thurman Covington.
An ancestor, wouldn't you say, of the man who just died?
Or was murdered? An ancestor of yours, am I dead?
Oh, but you can't believe any of this.
This nonsense about a long time lover and a vengeance through the ages.
Captain? Captain Brunnet?
Yeah, down here, Freddy.
Oh. No luck, sir. No answer at all.
The place seems to be vacant.
The Covington house?
What?
Yes, sir. Couldn't wait to sell.
Get out of my way.
Hey, Covington, come back here.
All things happened to my wife.
You want me to stop him, Captain?
Let him go. We'll follow him.
Marie? Marie? Where are you?
It's me, Ted.
Marie, what have you done? What?
Good evening, Mr. Covington.
Who are you?
My name is Cross, Good Ann Cross, the writer.
Cross? My wife. What have you done to her?
You fiend. What have you done to my wife?
Stop it. Listen to me. Why are you here?
Why am I here?
Because your wife, reading my chapter on Marie du Brunnet,
realized I knew more about the family than even she did,
because she found my phone number on the front cover of the manuscript,
and because I know an exceptional case when I hear one.
Does that answer your question?
No, you know it doesn't. Can't you see I've got to...
I've got to know whether...
I see. Whether your wife is really Marie du Brunnet,
who was burnt by order of the burning court.
You're quite sure, no doubt, that I'm Good Ann Cross who first wooed her.
No, my boy, Marie du Brunnet is no more your wife's real name
than mine is Good Ann Cross.
What?
Your esteemed wife, Mr. Covington, was adopted by people named du Brunnet,
remote members of the real family of Poisoners.
I can't believe it. What didn't she tell me?
Because until I told her half an hour ago, she didn't know it herself.
I'd learned it through my research.
Oh, that's too wonderful.
For years, Mr. Covington, that young woman has been haunted by the fear
that she might be a Poisoner by blood.
You can see, can't you, why she was willing to lie, steal a picture,
do anything to hide her past from the man she wanted to hold.
Yes, yes, I can see that now.
But Mrs. Covington...
You mean she's...
Yes, Mr. Cross.
Oh, Marie, darling, you're all right.
That will be our old, old friends, the police.
Will you take them into the front room, Mrs. Covington?
Meanwhile, you, my friend, will tell me everything that's happened up to now.
Having just delivered your wife from the burning court,
I'll see if I can't save her from the electric chair.
Sugar?
Just pass it, please, Mr. Covington.
There. Thank you.
Ah, yes. Truly excellent tea.
Don't you agree, Mrs. Henderson?
What? Oh, yes, yes, it's very nice.
Yes. Well, that Captain Brennan completes Ted Covington's personal account
of the events leading up to the present.
Let us now consider that supernatural hocus-pocus
of the body that walked out of the sealed-in tomb.
That body, let's agree, that never was in that tomb.
Never in that tomb?
No, Mr. Covington. It was disposed of long before.
But who could have done it?
Who could have kept that body out of the tomb?
Who, Mr. Covington? Why, you, sir.
What are you saying?
What are you driving at?
I don't understand what you're...
It's very simple.
You had to get rid of the body, Mr. Covington.
You knew that eventually there was going to be an investigation.
This is a joke, isn't it?
A rather bad joke on your wife.
From a few historical coincidences,
you built a murderess in your own wife's image.
I won't listen to this any more.
Why should you? Look, Cross,
why would Covington here spend an hour
smashing into a crypt for a body he knew wasn't there?
Obviously, my dear captain,
to induce you to ask such a question,
to impress you with his own innocence
and his desperate concern for his wife's guilt.
No, this isn't true. It can't be true.
Of course not.
Cross, just how, for example, could I have been in this house
to poison my uncle and also at the dance that night?
Easily. You simply left the dance that night.
I left the... It was Marie who...
I explained how I looked for her.
So you did.
And you didn't see her, Mr. Covington,
for the very good reason you weren't there.
No, wait a minute.
You were here, my friend, in this house,
just as you had planned.
No, no, you...
Who but you, the nephew, could so naturally
have handed his uncle a cup,
a cup presumably of medicine.
Don't listen to him.
And who but you of all those here
have the strength to carry that body to the furnace,
where it's now probably nothing but ashes?
Lies. All lies.
Why should I do such a thing?
Why would I murder my own uncle?
For the best reason that ever existed.
A fortune.
Stop!
You were the only heir.
You'd get the estate, the money, the independence.
Please, Marie. Brennan, he's making this up.
He's...
Now, now, now. It isn't as bad as all that.
Why, the police can never touch you.
After all, where's the body?
Where's the evidence?
A truly delightful beverage.
Yes, Mr Covington,
I'm sure you'll be quite comfortable
in an asylum for the insane.
And that is...
Mr. Crofts.
What is it?
Here, stand back.
Stand back, let me get to...
Mr. Crofts.
What?
What's the matter, Captain?
This man's dead.
Dead?
And from poison, if I know anything.
Poison from that glass of tea.
Ted!
You!
That glass was right beside you, Covington,
and nobody knew what it was.
You're a fool.
It was right beside you, Covington, and nobody else.
Nobody else was near.
Too bad he didn't drink it as soon as you hoped.
I didn't do what I did.
Because a second ago, Covington,
we had no evidence,
no body to use against you.
But we have now, Mr. Covington, we have now.
I arrest you for the murder of Godin Cross.
Godin?
You're much too far away, my love.
Godin.
Much too far from the flame.
So you've come back, dear Godin.
Back within the hour.
Back for you, Mary.
Far with all the Covingtons,
disposed of now, with the old score settled at last.
I know.
There's no need to tarry longer.
You were brilliant as ever, Godin.
Superb in building the case against him.
Magnificent in the suicide.
I never even saw you take the poison.
And I thought I'd taught you all the tricks.
Closer now, much closer.
Yes.
Closer to the flame, Mary.
Yes.
Yes, Godin.
Closer to me, my love.
That night, the Covington house burned to the ground.
The body of Marie de Brontich Covington was never recovered.
And so closes the burning court
in which Roma wines have brought you Clifton Webb,
as star of tonight's study in...
Suspense.
Suspense is produced, edited, and directed by William Spear.
Before Mr. Webb returns to the microphone,
let me say a word for Roma Wines, the sponsor of Suspense.
Elsa Maxwell makes this timely suggestion
for Father's Day next Sunday.
Show Dad how much you really appreciate him
by making next Sunday's dinner a festive occasion.
Serve glorious golden amber Roma California Cherrie
as first call for dinner.
Dad will enjoy the light nut-like flavor
of this distinguished Roma wine.
Serve cool.
Miss Maxwell has made a grand suggestion.
And why not further delight Father
with a gift package of delicious Roma wine.
Good Roma wines, always delightful,
always uniformly delicious, are reasonably priced.
And the next time you use vermouth, choose Roma vermouth.
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blended and developed with all the traditional
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Try Roma vermouth soon, won't you?
This is Clifton Webb.
And now a serious word.
This great Seventh War lone drive must be a success
if our war against Japan is to be a success.
Our fighting men are depending upon you to put your job over.
It's up to you to buy bigger bonds,
and more of them than ever before.
So please, do it now.
Ladies and gentlemen, next Thursday, same time,
Ann Richards will be your 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.