In just a moment, Auto Light presents Suspense with Claude Rains and Vincent Price.
More coffee, Harlow?
Ah, I believe not, Hap. And I want to thank you and Mary for a marvelous meal, a delightful, delicious, de-lovely dinner.
You're more than welcome, Harlow. Uh-oh, here comes Mary with that
who's gonna wash the dishes looking her eye. You better start talking about Auto Light Resistor spark plugs and fans.
Ah, yes, of course, Hap. Auto Light Resistor spark plugs.
Ah, as I was saying, right now, by Cornelius, is the time when all good men who know good things
will come to the aid of their cars with a set of brand new wide gap Auto Light Resistor spark plugs.
Why, with their wide spark gap, those Auto Light Resistor spark plugs do things for a car your old narrow gap spark plugs just can't match.
Why, they're marvelous, they're magnificent. By Cornelius, they're matchless.
You're sparking, Harlow, but let's switch to Suspense.
Suspense.
Auto Light and its 60,000 dealers and service stations bring you radio's outstanding theater of thrills.
Starting tonight, Mr. Claude Rains and Mr. Vincent Price in Anton Leder's production of The Hands of Mr. Ottermore.
A tale well calculated to keep you in. Suspense.
Tell me, Sergeant. Yes. Why do you think the strangler killed the five times he did?
Six times, Mr. Newspaper Man. Six? Yes.
Well, I suppose you do know as much about the strangler as I do. How long have you been on the police force, Sergeant?
This is my 15th year as a member of His Majesty's Metropolitan Police, Mr. Newspaper Man.
For ten years I walked the beats of the Casper Street Station and for the past five years I've been a sergeant at that station.
In fifteen years you learn a lot about many things, including murder.
Oh, yes. Murder. It's a word and a deed which has fascinated more people than you and I could count.
By all means, Sergeant, let's talk about murder.
You'd think there'd be little murder in such a district, wouldn't you, Mr. Newspaper Man?
Murder for a bit of Henning? Cup of tea?
There'd be nothing there to take except lives. And it was there that the strangler came to practice his grim trade.
Already it struck twice. Once on Lagos Street, once on Green Street.
His strong, white hands reaching for an unexpected throat.
Then he vanished into the darkness, leaving behind something that once had been a living, breathing human.
What was his gain?
Perhaps no more than the satisfaction of a job. Well done.
Perhaps he felt he'd done some poor devil a favor.
That a sympathetic force led him to his victims, the same as a cyclone picks one corner and misses another.
I was thinking about that the night I first met you, Mr. Newspaper Man.
I was walking down Malin Inn when I saw you, standing in the shadows.
Good evening, officer.
Stand where you are. Who are you?
From the Daily Herald, officer.
Oh, Newspaper Man, eh? What are you doing here?
Looking for a story. Are you expecting to catch the strangler, officer?
What would you know about the strangler, Mr. Newspaper Man?
Only that he likes your district and that you have no idea who he is.
That's right. He could be anybody who was about in this district at night.
Perhaps even a newspaper man.
You suspect that I might be making my news before I write?
And I shall keep that in mind for dull days. Good night, sir.
All right.
I watched you, Mr. Newspaper Man, as you walked away.
Watched and thought of the force that moved the strangler.
About the same time, that force, whatever it was, brought the strangler to Mr. Weibrauch,
an honest worker whom I've seen so many times, I can tell you nearly exactly how he spent his last
few minutes on earth. I know the very sound of his footsteps.
Almost his every thought.
And I can hear the footsteps of the man who followed him.
It was six o'clock of an evening and Mr. Weibrauch was going home from work.
He stepped off the tram at High Street and Malin Inn and walked slowly,
wondering if his missus would have herring or haddock for his tea.
It was a wretched night and he could taste the fog in his throat,
feel the dampness through the soles of his shoes.
He turned down Legos Street and the footsteps behind turned with him.
And so, one behind the other, the two men walked through Legos and turned into Loyal Lane.
Any man other than Mr. Weibrauch might have heard some warning in the footsteps that followed him,
something that said, beware, beware, beware.
No, the foot of a killer falls just as quietly as the foot of any other worker.
But those footfalls were bearing a pair of hands to Mr. Weibrauch
and there is something in hands.
Behind him, even then, those hands were flexing themselves,
feeling the strength run down through the strong fingers.
Mr. Weibrauch was almost home.
He turned down Casper Street, plodding along through the dim light.
Small dog barked at the figures.
Voices drifted out from the shabby houses but Mr. Weibrauch paid no attention to them
or to the steps which followed him.
The head of Mr. Weibrauch was his own house and he walked a little faster.
Maybe it looked like he was going to get away but the man behind only smiled
and followed at the same pace.
Mr. Weibrauch turned in at his own gate and opened the door.
He stepped inside.
Is that you, Harry?
Yes. What's for tea, Flossie?
Harry, you're lucky to be getting that.
How do I know before I've opened the door?
If it's a collector, he can just nip off.
Well, what...
Harry!
And that is how Mr. and Mrs. Weibrauch became the third and fourth
but not the last victims of the strangling horror.
For suspense, Auto Light is bringing you Mr. Claude Rains and Mr. Vincent Price
in Radio's outstanding theatre of thrills, Suspense.
Say, Ham, let me tell you about a foolish fellow who got the outside of his car
all dolled up with doodads, trinkets, voxtails and whatnots.
And then by Cornelius he comes chug-a-lugging up the avenue
with misfiring spark plugs and his engine sounding like a stut-stut-stuttering teapot.
Hey, friend, I yelled at him, why don't you switch to a set of those
smooth-firing Auto Light Resistor spark plugs
and make that bus of yours sound as fancy as it looks.
And what did he answer?
This guy said to me, plugs is plugs.
Well, Auto Light Resistor spark plugs, I corrected him, are different.
They've got a 10,000 ohm resistor, ignition engineered right into the spark plug
that permits the Auto Light Resistor spark plug to maintain a much wider spark gap setting.
This extra wide gap, friend, lets your car idle smoother,
gives you better luck with lean gas mixtures, actually saves gas.
What's more, Auto Light Resistor spark plugs cut down spark plug interference
with radio and television reception. Pipe that.
Badge telling him.
Wow, he says, can you back up all that sales talk?
Ah, listen, pal, I told him, these are just a few fine and fancy facts.
And what's more, those wide gap Auto Light Resistor spark plugs
are one of over 400 automotive, aviation and marine products
world famous for their Auto Light engineered dependability.
Then one, Hono, I'll tell you the rest after suspense happens.
And now, Auto Light brings back to a Hollywood sound stage,
Mr. Claude Rains and Mr. Vincent Price, in the hands of Mr. Ottermole,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Sergeant, did you ever stop to wonder at the pranks of fate?
Mr. Weibrauch died at the one moment when there was no one around to witness his death.
That's true.
A few minutes earlier, perhaps a few minutes later, there were people on the street.
Think how different it might have been if you had arrived there earlier than you did.
Perhaps, Mr. Newspaper Man, but I'd finished my evening tea
and was walking through Casper Street to the station.
Mr. Weibrauch was still lying on the door of his house,
his wife on the floor a little beyond him.
Both were dead.
I blew my whistle, and the constable came on the run.
He searched the house, then talked to the neighbors on either side.
Nobody had heard anything except Mrs. Weibrauch's scream,
and they thought that was just a family fight.
There was no sign of anything, but brutal murder.
While we waited for the ambulance, I suddenly remembered something.
Smithers?
Yes, sir?
Just before I found them, I saw you standing at the end of the lane.
What were you up to there?
I thought I saw a suspicious character mucking about there, sir,
and I was keeping an eye on him.
Suspicious character? Be blasted.
You don't want to look for suspicious characters, you want to look for murderers.
Yes, sir. Think we'll get him, sir?
Well, just between you and me, Smithers, I have my doubts.
With a man who kills to get a few bobs, you know he's going to keep on,
because as soon as he's broke, he'll slosh another one.
But a man like this, you don't know when he'll strike again.
Or he'll feel strike again.
Back at the station, the newspaper men were waiting for the story,
having centered it the way dogs will smell out the fresh track of a fox.
There was one newspaper man at all with shoulders and arms that looked more like a coal heaver
than a journalist who kept asking about clues as though he wanted to solve the case himself.
That was you, Mr. Newspaper Man.
Or maybe you just wanted to find out how much we knew.
After the newspaper men left, I was in my office,
finishing up my report when there was a knock on the door.
Who's there?
Do you mind if I come in, Sergeant?
Oh, it's you.
Yes, I thought of a few more questions I'd like to ask you.
It seems to me you are around all the time.
So?
Yes. And now you want to ask more questions.
I'm afraid we can't give out any more information than you already have.
Half a minute, Sergeant.
All the papers are going to do a regular story on the strangling monster.
I thought I'd like to do something different, more of a mood piece.
Now, you look like an intelligent man, Sergeant.
Thanks.
I thought you might help.
Well, maybe I can, maybe I can't. What do you want to know?
What sort of a man do you think the killer is?
Do you think he's a monster who can slip through the night without being seen?
No, no, I think he's probably a very ordinary man.
Everyone, even our own constables, is looking for the monster
instead of the man standing next to them.
No, this man can move about and no one sees him because he's an ordinary man
and it's ordinary for him to be around.
He might be a boot black, the man who makes deliveries,
or even a policeman or a journalist.
Why do you say that?
I don't think I meant anything personal, Mr. Newspaper Man.
I meant that he's merely someone you look at
and never think that maybe he might strangle someone.
Your theory is very interesting, Sergeant.
And do you also think that you'll catch him?
Well, if he's caught, short of actually catching him in the act,
it'll be because of only one thing.
Oh, and that is?
Curiosity.
Curiosity?
Yes, he'll be nabbed if his curiosity is too great,
if he wonders how near others are to him,
if he has to ask questions,
and then returns to ask still more questions.
Music
Later that evening, I went out into the district,
visiting beat after beat.
The presence of the killer, the straining horror was in the air.
The entire district was given over not to panic for London never yields to that,
but to fear of the unknown.
And while the community still gasped over the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Weibrauch,
while fear was moving into every tenement,
the killer made his next move.
Conscious of the horror caused by his hands
and as hungry for more as any giddy girl at her first performance in the music hall,
his hands reached out again.
Music
Well, I was cutting through Cleming Street
when I saw you again, Mr. Newspaper Man.
You slipped along the street, peering into alleys.
Even then I had a hunch to stop you,
and I felt I had no real reason to suspect you so.
I walked on.
Peterson and Joyner were patrolling Joynington Road.
It was just 9.32 when I met Joyner near the middle of the street.
I spoke to him and went on.
At 9.33, I met Peterson coming back from the other end of the street.
I answered his greeting and passed,
intending to go to the end of the beat and cut over to Logan Passage.
Then, during the few seconds that everyone's back was turned towards the spot where he stood,
the killer struck again.
Ah!
Whistle
Joyner, here.
What the?
Oh, heavens! It's Peterson!
Yeah, it's Peterson, dead like the rest of them, strangled right under our noses.
Where were you, Joyner?
I'd just reached the end of my beat, Sergeant.
I was already turning when I heard your whistle.
I just passed him on my way to Logan.
Then we were covering both ends of the street.
He must have come from Minow Street or Cleming Street
and gone back the same way before we could see him.
It is dimly lit around here, sir.
What's up, Constable?
Stand where you are!
Oh.
It's you, Mr. Newspaper Man?
Newspaper Man, yes. So he struck again.
What happened, Sergeant?
I've been checking the beats.
I came up here, passing Joyner, and then Peterson here.
I was at this end of the street, Joyner with that, with Peterson in between us, going towards Joyner.
He cried out once and then was like this.
We saw no one.
Where were you when you heard my whistle?
On Cleming Street, perhaps half a square down, and no one passed that way.
That means that he must have come from Minow.
Shall I ring in, sir?
Yeah, go ahead, Joyner.
Half a square down Cleming Street, were you?
That's right.
That's where you were more than five minutes ago when I passed, and you were coming this way.
Well, I thought I saw something in one of the alleys and stopped to look closer.
Oh, now come, Sergeant, let's not start suspecting each other.
The mutual suspicion of this district is catching.
Yeah. I suppose it is.
Yes, of course.
Still, there's a murderer who must be caught, Mr. Newspaper Man.
The following day, I was back on duty early.
You know, the sight of a uniformed sergeant somehow gave the people a bit more confidence than that of the constables.
The bobbies are well enough in their way, but you know, your average Londoner likes to see more important officials around when things are a bit rough.
The talk in the pubs and on the streets was all cut from the same cloth, and the pattern was fear.
I say the straggler's some posh who's off his beam.
Thinks as though he ain't squeezed dry enough, so he nips over, squeezes a little more, and pops back to the west end.
Oh, you're balmy. He's a lag. Didn't he get a peeler last night, and don't that prove it?
He's a bleeding jack the ripper. That's what he is.
And he'll bloody well kill a lot of us without a single bloody flick to stop him.
He got a bobby, didn't he? And the bobby's crawling all over the place and not wanting to lay a hand on him.
And he was to stop him. That's what I want to know.
I walked the streets, dropping a bit of cheer beyond there. Four or five times I saw you again, Mr. Newspaper Man, your dark face twisted with emotion as you listened to the talk.
This, too, was queer for you were the only Newspaper Man I saw in the whole district.
By nine o'clock I was in Riches Lane, an outer street, partly a stall market and partly cheap homes.
On one side was the shattered wall of the railway yard.
The wall of the railway yard put a shadow over the street so that even a garbage can looked like a man crouching.
Farther down the street, the outline of the empty market stalls looked like a bunch of ghosts waiting for the man who would send them more ghosts.
There was no one on the street, no one to witness that which was about to be.
Then, suddenly, in the time between one footfall and another, the wall of silence was broken.
Help! He's here!
And then the lane came to life. It seemed like they were all released by that scream.
All along the street, doors opened and people poured into the street, muttering as the stored-up anger began to overcome their fear.
They milled around, uncertain which way to turn. Then, then the whistle pointed the direction to them.
Gathering like dark clouds, they moved down on the cottage where I stood with the constables.
The sight of so many of us made them feel that he would now be caught and that anger came up in answer to it.
Well, go in and get him! What are you waiting for?
He's through killing now. Go on and get him, you bloody felons.
He ought to be strung up!
Break it up, break it up. Move back, all of you.
Join her. Get her out of the back and meet the constables there.
Martin, Addison, take the house on the left. Jones, Edmonds, take the house on the right. Betts, you come with me.
Save a piece of him for me, sergeants!
Inside the cottage, a whole family lay dead, fallen around the supper table.
One look at their necks showed us the strangest trademark again, but there was nothing in that cottage except death.
One by one, the constables came back to report. Nothing.
Once more, he had killed and slipped away.
Again, I looked out at the crowd, now beginning to move back as they realized we were empty handed.
Suddenly I saw in the front ranks your face again, the newspaper man who seemed to be everywhere I turned.
There was a light in your face, a light that was almost happiness.
And looking at you in that brief second, I was aware that there were two of us who now knew the identity of the murderer.
But the crowd shifted back, began to lose themselves in the shadows, and you were gone before I could move.
The strangler had struck again, and again we were empty handed as we waited for the ambulance.
You may have been empty handed, sergeant, but I'm sure there were enough thoughts in your head to make up for the lack of something to put your hands on.
Dark thoughts, perhaps.
I did think, Mr. Newspaper Man, I tried to imagine what you were doing during the next hour.
I thought perhaps that you went to the nearest pub and sat alone at the bar, attended by a frightened barmaid.
I think you dismissed the strangling horror from your mind and thought only of the glass of stout and the sandwich, for even such men as you must rebuild their strength.
I think you looked at the sandwich, noticing that it was skimpy as bar sandwiches usually are.
Perhaps you may have thought idly of the inventor of the sandwich, the Earl of Sandwich, then of George IV, then of all the Georges, as any good Englishman might, and so to that George who wondered how the apple got into the apple dumpling.
It was while thinking of that and how the ham got into the ham sandwich that your mind came back to the people who had been murdered.
Maybe it was then that you thought of the simplest fact of all, that the murderer could escape by either running away or by standing still.
It was then, I think, that you got up from the bar without finishing your sandwich.
It was perhaps twenty minutes later that you walked down the street and met the man you were looking for.
Well, seen anything of the murderer, Sergeant?
Oh, it's you again.
Yes.
No, nor has anybody else, and I doubt if they ever will.
No, I don't know. He's already struck fire five times. I've been thinking about it and I've got an idea.
So?
Yes, yes. Came to me all of a sudden, and I felt that we'd all been blind. It's been staring us in the face.
Oh? Has it now?
Well, if you're so sure, why not give us the benefit of it?
I'm going to.
Yes, yes, it seems quite simple now, but there's still one more point I don't quite understand. I mean the motive.
Now, as man to man, tell me, Sergeant Otto Mole, just why did you kill those inoffensive people?
Well, to tell the truth, Mr. Newspaper Man, I don't know, but I've got an idea, just like you.
Everybody knows we can't control the workings of our mind. Ideas come into our heads without being asked.
But everybody's supposed to be able to control his body. Why?
We get our minds from heaven knows where, from people who were dead years before we were born, some say.
Maybe we get our bodies the same way. Our faces, our legs, our hands. They aren't completely ours.
And couldn't ideas come into our bodies like ideas come into our minds? Couldn't ideas live in muscles as well as in a brain?
Couldn't it be that parts of our bodies aren't really us? And couldn't ideas come into them all of a sudden like ideas come into my hands?
You see, Mr. Newspaper Man, it was six.
One other thing the Newspaper Man did while he was in that pub, he'd called his newspaper and told them his idea and said he was coming to meet me.
And so, they're hanging me, killing me for something which my hands did. I had nothing to do with it.
You can see that. But what hurts me the most is what the judge said when he sentenced me.
It's not true. It's not true, I tell you.
That if I lived, someday these hands, my hands, they say, might reach out for you.
Thank you, Claude Rains and Vincent Price, for a splendid performance. Mr. Rains and Mr. Price will return in just a moment.
Harrow, you were telling me...
Oh, yes, yes. Well, Hap, the next time I saw this fancy fellow, his gadget-laden car was humming and purring up the street as smooth as the slippery glide of a slide trombone.
I got my auto light resistor spark plugs, he yelled to me as he whirled by, and they're terrific. Well, by Cornelius, this fellow had the right dope.
Because, friends, when you replace your old narrow gap spark plugs with the wide gap auto light resistor spark plugs, you can really tell the difference in your car.
So if you don't already have a set of auto light resistor spark plugs, drive down tomorrow to your nearest auto light dealer and treat your car right. Switch to auto light.
And, friends, remember to...
Auto light means spark plugs. Ignition engineered resistor spark plugs. Auto light means batteries. Stay full, batteries. Auto light means ignition system. The lifeline of your car.
And now here again is Mr. Claude Rains.
The hands of Mr. Ottomol has always been one of my favorite mystery stories, and so it was a great pleasure to be able to play it on suspense. One of my favorite radio programs. What about you, Vincent?
Well, I agree with you on both counts, Claude. And in addition, I found it refreshing to play the murder victim for a change instead of the murderer. By the way, Claude, what will we be hearing on suspense next week?
A treat you won't want to miss. One of Hollywood's most glamorous stars, Miss Rosalind Russell, in a top story, The Sisters. Another gripping study in...
Suspense!
Claude Rains will soon be seen in the Paramount picture, The Sin of Abby Hunt. Vincent Price can currently be seen with Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, and June Allison in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Technicolor production, The Three Musketeers.
Tonight's suspense play was the famous story by Thomas Burke, adapted for radio by Ken Crossen, with music composed by Lucian Morrowek and conducted by Lud Bluskin. The entire production was under the direction of Anton M. Lieder.
In the coming weeks, Suspense will present such stars as James Cagney, Ronald Coleman, William Bendix, and others. Make it a point to listen each Thursday to Suspense, radio's outstanding theater of thrills. And next Thursday, same time, hear Rosalind Russell in The Sisters.
This is the Auto Light Suspense Show. Turn in your scrap steel to your local scrap dealer. The more scrap, the more steel. Good night. Switch to Auto Light.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.