Now, Roma Wines, R-O-M-A, made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
Roma Wines presents Suspense.
Tonight, Roma Wines bring you Miss Joan Loring as star of The Great Whorrell, a suspense
play produced, edited, and directed for Roma Wines by William Spear.
Suspense.
Radio's outstanding theater of thrills 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 in entertaining guests, to your enjoyment of
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Yes, right now, a glass full would be very pleasant as Roma Wines bring you Joan Loring
in a remarkable tale of suspense.
The court will come to order.
Is counsel prepared to proceed?
For the prosecution we are, Your Honor.
The defense?
Yes, Your Honor.
Very well.
The district attorney may call his witnesses.
Your Honor, my first witness is a document.
This document duly entered as evidence in this court and marked exhibit A is the diary
of Alma Whorrell.
I should like the court's permission to read from this diary certain entries beginning
with May the 14th, which I consider to be relevant to this case.
Granted.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is the diary of the defendant, Alma Whorrell.
May the 14th, we open tonight in St. Louis.
It is a shock to realize that today marks the fifth anniversary of my association with
the great Whorrell and that for all but a few months of that time I have been married
to him.
The great Whorrell, the marked mentalist, that's the masked mentalist, jury.
It is doubly shocking as I look back to realize how profoundly I have been affected by those
five years as the wife and assistant of the world's greatest mind reader.
For there is no doubt that he is that.
As I write these lines I am sitting in a quiet corner of the wings where I can watch Paul's
nimble feet out on the stage, the way he charms his audience.
But such sounds as these with their familiar and well-remembered ring from five years of
vaudeville and heart-truquing scarcely register upon my mind tonight.
For today I have finally faced the terrible fear that has been haunting me through the
gathering nightmare of these past months.
If I have not faced it sooner it is because my mind quailed before the thought and all
its implications.
The evidence has always been there in a thousand little acts and instances almost from the
first.
Perhaps meeting Paul has forced the decision.
Certainly I can wait no longer and avoid decision.
Tonight I must put it to the test.
What the result will be I already know.
What steps for my salvation will lie ahead thereafter I have not dared to contemplate.
Thank you all.
Now ladies and gentlemen the final demonstration.
I'll ask a member of the audience to step up here on the stage and blindfold me.
You sir, the great Harrell, thank you.
Do you have a handkerchief on?
Yes, yes sir.
Good.
Take the handkerchief.
You will fold your handkerchief and tie it over my eyes.
Yes, right over the mask.
That's it.
Knotted in the back of my head.
Good and tight.
Splendid.
Now tell me, you're certain that I can see nothing through this blindfold?
Well, if you can you must have x-ray eyes.
Very well.
Now I shall ask my assistant to select some member of the audience who will give us some
personal object, anything at all.
I shall attempt to identify that object entirely by the transmission of thought waves by reading
the mind of my assistant.
Are you ready, I'm up.
Yes, I am.
Now my assistant has selected the victim.
It is, yes it is a gentleman.
My assistant now has in her right hand, thank you.
Hold it up for the audience and see it, I'm up.
Yes, I'm holding it.
The object appears, very difficult, difficult, the object appears to be a picture.
Yes, it is a picture, a picture of a middle-aged man.
He has a beard.
It is a picture of Abraham Lincoln on a five dollar bill.
Please, please, please.
Now I will ask my assistant to concentrate all the faculties on the serial number of
that five dollar bill.
Do you have the number well in mind, Alma?
Yes, I have.
Good.
Will the gentleman take the bill back again then please?
Does the gentleman now have the bill in his possession again?
The gentleman has?
Concentrate please, Alma.
No, no, no, no, I'm not getting it.
Now that's better.
Yes, yes the serial number of the five dollar bill the gentleman has in his hand is B42533197D.
Is that correct?
That's right.
I thank you all very much.
Ah, there you are my dear.
Congratulations, you were practically perfect tonight.
Martin, I want to talk to you.
By all means.
No, turn around, look at me Martin.
This is terribly important.
It also happens to be quite important for me to get this grease paint off.
Go ahead, Alma, I'm listening.
Martin, you just said I was practically perfect tonight.
You were indeed my dear.
Your signals came through with unusual clarity.
But Martin, what I'm...
Good heavens, Alma, you've been doing this long enough to know what I mean.
Martin, I didn't give you any signals tonight.
What?
I didn't give you any signals.
Very well.
The word then is not perfect.
You are miraculous.
Does that suit you better?
Martin, look at me.
Don't you see what that means?
What's the matter with you, Alma?
You can read my mind.
Can I?
You can read my mind, Martin.
Very well, Alma, if you wish to believe that, I'm sure it can only have the excellent effect
of making the act even more believable to the audience.
Martin, I can't go on this way.
This is all a lot of nonsense, you know.
No, it isn't.
You haven't even denied it.
I've seen it coming for months.
Little things at first, Martin, at home, on the street, until my most intimate thoughts
weren't my own, until my mind wasn't my own, until I have no mind.
Just what is this little scene leading up to, Alma?
Martin, you've got to let me go.
You've got to set me free.
Let you go?
Yes, give me a divorce.
Go, Alma, you're being hysterical.
Martin, please.
Alma, I have devoted five years to my association with you.
I have trained you until, yes, until you were perfect.
I'm sorry, Martin, I'm sorry for all that, but I've got to have my freedom.
Are you thinking of Paul Wilson?
You know what I'm thinking.
I see.
And you do understand, Martin?
I understand that you'll be of very little use to me in your present condition.
Never, I can never go on again.
Very well.
It just so happens I received only this afternoon a very lucrative offer from Austrade.
They'll even supply a partner, apparently not fully appreciating your importance in the scheme of things.
I shall accept.
Oh, thank you, Martin.
I shall accept, but I shall return in about three months.
Meanwhile, we shall forget Paul Wilson, won't we?
I shall expect you to be fully rested when I return, and in a reasonable frame of mind.
Rested?
And as for your freedom, Alma, understand this.
You'll never, never be free from me.
Set your mind to that.
My mind?
My mind.
Between the acts of suspense, this is Ken Niles for Roma Wines.
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And now, Roma Wines bring back to our Hollywood Soundstage, Joan Loring as Alma in the great Horel,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
May 16th. I am free. At last, after all these months and years of haunting fear, I am free.
Even the terrible revelation of two days ago, the final certainty that my husband could read my mind,
now seems almost like the fading shadow of a bad dream compared to that wonderful fact.
He is leaving and I am free.
What does it matter now that he says he is coming back or even that half-failed threat that he will never give me my freedom?
I am prepared for that. For now, I shall make the decisions.
For the first time in five long years, my mind is my own, released at last from that constant crushing insidious influence of his.
And I will do the planning. Tomorrow, Paul and I are going to see a lawyer.
For by the time Martin Horel does come back, I will no longer be his wife.
I will be Mrs. Paul Wilson.
Can I help you?
This is Martin Horel to see Mr. Banning. Do you have an appointment?
Yes, for two o'clock.
Have a seat, please.
Thank you.
Mrs. Horel to see Mr. Banning. Thank you. Mr. Banning will see you in just a moment, Mrs. Horel.
Thank you. Oh, Paul, darling, I can hardly believe it.
I know. How long will it take?
Six weeks if I go to Reno. Can we manage that, darling?
Sure, we'll manage it somehow. How do you think Horel is going to take it?
I don't care how he takes it, do you?
Maybe I'm a cat in a home wrecker, but I don't.
Silly. I only wish you'd wrecked it years ago, what there was of it.
After all, Paul, what can he say? He left me, didn't he?
In spite of all his high-flown speeches about coming back after me and never giving me my freedom, he did leave me.
Sure, although I'll never know why you didn't leave him long before this.
Because, Paul, I'm not sure that I could have.
Not sure that you could have?
I'm not sure he'd have let me.
Yes? Yes, Mr. Banning.
Mr. Banning, we'll see you now, Mrs. Horel.
Thank you.
Let's go right in.
Come with me, Paul. No. No, Paul, you wait here.
Ah, Mrs. Horel?
Yes.
Sit down, please.
Thank you.
Now, what can we do for you?
Well, you see, Mr. Banning, I'm married to a vaudeville artist, Mr. Martin Horel.
Hm?
He... We've had an act together for the past five years, a mind-reading act, the great Horel, it's called.
Oh, yes, yes, I believe I've heard of it.
Yesterday, my husband left me. He's gone to Australia.
I see.
And so I want to...
Yes?
And... And so I... I want...
You want legal counsel, Mrs. Horel, hm?
I...
You can speak frankly with me, Mrs. Horel. Is it something about a divorce?
No.
Then what is it?
I... I don't know.
You don't know?
No.
Well, there's not much we can do for you if you don't know what it is you want us to do for you.
How is that?
No.
Well, then, I suppose you'll come in at some later time when your mind is really made up.
Yes, sir. All right. I'm very sorry.
That's all right, Mrs. Horel. I quite understand. Good day.
Good day.
Oh, well, that was quick.
I don't know what's the matter.
It's nothing, Paul.
Why is the sheet? What happened?
We were going to have to wait a little while for the divorce.
Wait? Why?
Paulie, it's a lot more complicated than I thought.
How could I tell him?
We'd been so sure of happiness.
And then this.
I knew what it was, of course. I knew it the moment I tried to say that one...
Divorce.
And now the incredible, the terrifying fact stares me in the face
that Martin Horel still reads my thoughts.
Separated by thousands of miles, he still has the power when he wishes to invade
the innermost recesses of my mind as easily as he would walk into a drawing room.
I know because I felt his presence there.
And so I shut off my thoughts, emptied my mind as I have always done to guard my slightest secret.
But what am I to do now?
I must think. I must plan very carefully.
I dare not tell Paul if I possibly can avoid it.
An even more horrifying thought.
If Martin Horel's mind exerts such power over me as this, how much further can he go?
How much further can he go?
June the 22nd.
For weeks I have moved in a nightmare of conflicting, panicky thoughts and indecision.
And today something happened, trivial in itself, but having a significance that has left me shaken and appalled.
This afternoon I was to meet Paul early and we were to go to the beach.
But I was late. I was terribly late.
It was nearly dark before I got to his hotel.
Come in.
Oh, so there you are.
Oh, Paul.
Where have you been? What have you been doing? I've been waiting here for nearly three hours.
Paul, you'll never believe this.
Sure, I'll believe it, but it better be good.
I've been feeding the swans.
Feeding the swans?
Yes, in Central Park.
Oh, but, Alma, we had a date. If you've held up somehow or got lost or put in jail, but feeding the swans...
Oh, listen, I've got to tell you something.
I'm listening.
First, about the lawyer.
I didn't ask for a divorce.
What do you mean?
I couldn't.
You couldn't?
Paul, he's reading my mind again. He's reading my mind.
Alma.
It's true, Paul.
But he's in Australia.
No, I know, but when I began to talk to the lawyer, he was in my mind.
It doesn't seem possible.
I know it doesn't seem possible, but it is.
It was the same thing about the swans only worse.
The swans?
I didn't even know what I was doing, Paul. The date I had with you, everything just went out of my mind.
And there I was feeding the swans until it was as though I suddenly woke up.
And then I knew.
Knew what?
Why I was there.
Paul, today is the anniversary of my marriage to Martin Harrell.
Well?
That was what we did, Martin and I, the day we were married.
Paul.
He made me do it, Paul.
He reached out across all those miles and made me do it again today.
He made me forget everything and just remember that.
Remember him, Paul.
How could he?
He did.
Paul, if he can do that, he can do anything, can't he?
I don't know.
He could even make me commit murder.
July 7th.
Yesterday I bought a gun. I don't know why, but something told me that I must.
And today I found my opportunity to use it.
It was early in the afternoon. I was in Brooklyn. I did not know why.
And then I was going into a theater.
They were playing a combined bill of a current motion picture in vaudeville.
Again, I did not know particularly why I was there, but it seemed quite natural.
I found a seat near the back of the house. A new act was just beginning.
Ladies and gentlemen, the masked marvel of mentalism, the great Harrell.
For a moment I sat stunned, unable to believe that I was not dreaming.
But it was.
He seemed to have changed a little, the voice perhaps, something about his hair, but it was.
And so I knew. I knew why I was there.
I knew that he had drawn me there, told me to come there, as surely as though he had summoned me with his voice.
But I knew something else. I knew why I had bought the gun.
I knew at last the terrible price I was prepared to pay to win my freedom.
I have a little piece of paper.
And a little piece of paper.
It is, yes, it's the gentleman's driver's license. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct.
Thank you. Thank you.
I knew what was coming next.
I knew that out of all that audience I would be selected.
I knew this was the chance he had been waiting for.
But now I also knew it was the chance I had been waiting for.
I was on my feet and making my way towards the aisle.
My handbag was open, my fingers around the grip of the automatic.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps there are some of you who believe that there's some trick to this.
That it's all done with mirrors.
But before we go any further, I'm going to ask some feminine member of the audience to step up here on the stage and blindfold me.
Are there any volunteers?
I see a young lady standing in back of the house.
Will the young lady come up on the stage, please?
No.
Don't be bashful. Step right up.
You're not afraid of me, are you?
Oh, perhaps the young lady is afraid I'll read her mind.
Perhaps she's harboring some guilty secret.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that is the last entry in the diary of Alma Harrell.
You may judge for yourselves the significance of her words.
I should like now to put into evidence the words of another witness, Paul Wilson.
This is a statement by Paul Wilson placed in my hands only a short time ago and with the permission of the court.
I will read it to you.
Permission granted.
These are the words of Paul Wilson.
I am writing this hoping that it will never see the light of day.
But if it ever does, I can only hope that it will be used wisely and unjustly and not as an instrument of vengeance or retaliation.
I have been in love with Alma Harrell.
The first day I met her, I am still in love with her.
By the greatest of good fortune, it was not too difficult to hush up the affair in the Brooklyn theater.
After she fired the second shot, someone grabbed her and they took her to the manager's office.
She had the good sense to say nothing and to contact me at once.
The theater manager didn't want trouble and after I'd spoken to Harrell's agent, a fellow I'd never seen before,
it became apparent that he didn't want to press charges either.
Of course, it was impossible to explain why she'd done it.
No one knew that except Alma herself.
And me.
And I knew that it was up to me to help her somehow and as quickly as I could.
I got hold of the best psychiatrist in town, a Dr. Emil Hokeman.
He came to see Alma the very next day at her apartment.
This feeling you have, Mrs. Harrell, that your husband has control over your mind, it has been growing stronger?
It is not a feeling, Dr. Hokeman. It's a certainty.
Oh, I see.
There really isn't any other way to explain what's happened, is there?
Well, it's very unusual, yes.
Perhaps you would care to discuss it with me further at my office.
If you think there is anything that can be done, yes, I'd like to very much.
Good, good. Shall we say tomorrow at two then?
Yes, tomorrow at two.
Until then, Mrs. Holy. I'll show you to the door, doctor.
Oh, thank you. Please.
Goodbye, doctor.
Goodbye.
I'm almost frantic, doctor. I thought of going to Harrell himself. I thought of almost everything.
Do you think something can be done?
You see, Mr. Wilson, when two people live so closely together over a number of years as Mr. and Mrs. Harrell,
it's not unusual that they may, well, occasionally, shall we say, anticipate each other's thoughts.
Yes, I suppose so.
The matter of the anniversary, a subconscious recollection.
Of the theatre? Well, she must, of course, notice somewhere, perhaps forgotten it, that Mr. Harrell was back in the United States.
Yes.
But his reading her mind, projecting thoughts into her mind, there's no scientific proof whatsoever that such a thing is even remotely possible.
And that's what makes it so terrible.
I don't wish to alarm you, Mr. Wilson, but, well, we shall perhaps find out more tomorrow.
Good day, sir.
Goodbye, doctor, and thank you.
Is that the paper, pa?
Oh, yes, it was outside the door.
Is there anything in it about her?
I'll see.
Mm-hmm. There's a little something here on the theatrical page.
I guess he couldn't resist the publicity, but it just says, unidentified young woman.
Oh.
It's funny he never tried to get in touch with you, isn't it?
But he did, Paul, didn't he?
Alma.
What?
It wasn't Harrell at all. Look here.
What?
He'd sold the act in Australia, the name and everything.
What, Paul?
Alma, he was hurt shortly after he arrived. That's why he sold the act.
And he died out there.
Died?
Martin Harrell has been dead for almost a month.
Oh. I see.
What?
I really should have known, I suppose.
Known what, Alma?
That it was someone much closer to me than Martin Harrell who was reading my mind.
Listen, Alma, the doctor says...
You knew all the facts.
It's you who's been reading my mind, isn't it, Paul?
Alma, the doctor says that's impossible. He says there's no...
But you should have realized, Paul, that if I was willing to kill Martin Harrell for my freedom, I would be willing to kill you too.
Alma, the...
Yes, Paul. I still have a gun.
It's no use locking yourself in there, Paul.
Because, you see, I'm going to wait.
I've locked myself in.
But the room in which I'm writing this is a sheer drop of fifteen stories to the street.
And there's no telephone.
Not that it matters.
I wouldn't escape even if I could.
I must try to save her.
Because either this is some ghastly misunderstanding, or Alma is hopelessly insane.
What I have written here I shall hide somewhere in this room.
I shall hide it in such a way that it can never be discovered except by the painstaking search of someone looking for evidence.
Evidence of murder.
And now I'm going to unlock the door.
Alma?
Yes, Paul?
Alma, I'm coming out.
I want to talk to you.
Yes, Paul?
Alma, I know what you're thinking.
Yes, Paul.
I'm sure you know what I'm thinking.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached the verdict?
We have.
How do you find the defendant?
Guilty or not guilty?
We find the defendant, Alma Harrell, did deliberately shoot and kill Paul Wilson.
We further recommend that she be confined for the rest of her natural life to an institution for the criminally insane.
They said I was insane.
What do they know of the tortured depths that lie beneath the surface of the human mind?
I know because it is beginning again.
It is Dr. Hockman.
He has been coming nearly every day to visit me.
He thinks he too can see into my brain and know my thoughts.
But I have made my mind a blank.
There's nothing there for anyone to read.
And so he won't know.
He doesn't know that I have hidden a table knife and sharpened it all night against the stone.
When he comes tomorrow, I shall be ready.
Suspense.
Presented by Roma Wines.
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