Now, Auto Light and its 60,000 dealers and service stations present Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light brings you Mickey Rooney in The Lie, a suspense play produced and directed
by Antonim Leader.
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And now Auto Light presents Mickey Rooney in a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
You got the gate, you got the gate, you got the gate, you got the gate, you got the gate,
you got the gate, you got the gate, you got the gate, you got the gate, you got the gate,
shut up.
I've been kicked out of better college.
Son, why don't you leave that bottle alone?
I know it's none of my business.
Are you my father?
Of course not.
I'm only trying to...
Well, don't call me son.
And you're right, it's none of your business.
Why, you fresh pup.
If I were your father, I'd be ashamed to admit it.
I watched where you got on.
It's in the middle of the semester, bounced out on your ear, weren't you?
I know your type, taking everything you can get from the old man and not giving anything
back, only grief and gray hair.
Ah, shut up.
Mansfield, Mansfield, next station stop, Mansfield.
Put away that bottle, kid, you're home.
Mansfield, Mansfield.
The old hometown depot again.
Didn't look friendly.
Nobody was going to look friendly.
A whole term's tuition fee shot for the third time.
Well, Dad had tried to cover up what he felt, but she wouldn't.
Not glad.
I could hear already in my imagination.
Oh, so you're home again.
I guess you found out it was all a waste of time.
They couldn't teach you anything at college.
Maybe they ought to change things.
Maybe they ought to learn from you.
And make them pay, Marty, dear, make them pay.
Maybe we get back some of the money you've wasted.
What do you think, you are a rich man's son?
I knew you from the day I married your father, and I expect to see the day when I have to
send you cartons of cigarettes up to the pen.
Well, I was going to hear it again.
No way of stopping that mouth.
To break the ice, I called home from the station.
Busy.
Five minutes later, I called again.
Busy.
So I waited, and five minutes later, I called again.
Talking, talking.
That's all she ever had under a peroxide.
Talk, talk with a cheap crowd of hers.
It wasn't my dad on the telephone.
He was in Baltimore working.
Well, I grabbed a bus and went home.
Glad.
Hey, Glad, it's me.
Hey, Glad.
It's your loving stepson.
Look at that.
Didn't even bother to hang up the telephone.
What a woman.
Hello.
What's that?
Hello.
Who is it?
It was a man.
It would be, with her.
He heard my voice, thought it was Dad, and hung up.
Dad had come home early today.
Plenty of signs.
There was the paper he always picked up in Baltimore.
Cigarettes, stuff.
And I knew it was his.
It was that awful Turkish brand he'd been smoking since before I was born.
No one else could stand.
Yeah, he came home early.
They must have gone out.
I wandered into her bedroom.
No reason.
Just wandered.
You know what I saw?
She was curled up on the bed.
Yes, Glad, curled up on the bed, sort of cuddling.
No makeup.
Hair all good up with that bleached stuff of hers, and she was dead.
But dead.
Somebody had broken her neck.
If ever a man deserved a break, it's my dad.
If ever a man deserved a decent, loving wife like my real mother, if ever a man deserved
the kind of son fathers dream about instead of the mutt the rat I was turning out to be.
Well, I didn't have much time for philosophizing.
I got rid of the newspaper and cigarette butt.
I mussed my hair, tore my clothes, picked up her dead hand with those purple cat-like fingernails,
and I scratched it across my face.
Ow!
You'd think she was alive the way those nails dug in.
And then I went to the phone.
Police headquarters.
Hello, this is Martin Delavan calling from 22 Beech Street South.
Yeah.
I think you'd better send somebody around to pick me up.
I just murdered my stepmother.
For suspense, Auto Light is bringing you Mickey Rooney in Radio's outstanding theater of thrills,
Suspense.
Hiya, hello.
Say, that's quite a stack of letters you got.
Yep, that's my fan mail.
Auditorial letters, pay-ons of praise.
You mean people like you?
Of course they like me because I tell them to replace old narrow gap spark plugs with
wide gap Auto Light resistor spark plugs, and naturally they like Auto Light resistor
spark plugs once they try them.
Here's one from Mr. W.E.
Schmitz of Houston, Texas who writes, gentlemen, I recently switched to Auto Light resistor
spark plugs for my 1942 car.
I've been trying other brands for years, but when I switched to Auto Light, I can truthfully
say I've never seen such an improvement in my 43 years in the automobile business simply
by changing plugs.
Well, from an automobile man, eh?
From the sort of man who'd know that switching to Auto Light resistor spark plugs means smoother
idling, better performance on leaner gas mixtures, and actual saving of gas.
And Auto Light resistor spark plugs cut down spark plug interference with radio and television
reception.
All right, Harlow, but let's not interfere with the reception of suspense.
And now, Auto Light brings back to our Hollywood sound stage, Mickey Rooney as Martin Delavan
in The Lie.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Don't get cocky with me, young fella.
And just remember that you put yourself in a jam that always turns out to be pretty rugged.
And let's have the story again.
Look, I've told it to you twice.
Let's have it again.
You don't have to play McTavish of Scotland Yard.
You don't have to find the killer.
I told you I did it.
But you make it sound so exciting.
Let's have it again.
Okay, okay.
Beginning where?
You were expelled from college this morning for drinking.
They always expel me for drinking.
You took the early afternoon train at State Junction, got out here about six and telephoned
from the station.
Take it from there.
The line was busy.
I took a bus from the station.
I came in without making any noise.
It didn't happen to make any.
From the hall out there, I hear this...
This...
I heard my stepmother talking on the phone.
To a man?
Yes.
How'd you know it was a man?
I could tell.
Smart boy.
What was she saying?
She...
She said enough.
I'd like to find out what makes enough.
Well...
What makes enough?
The point when you put your hands around somebody's neck and start to squeeze.
She was two-timing your father, huh?
All right, go on.
I guess I lost my hit.
I remember grabbing her by the neck just as she heard me and turned around, and I remember
her fingernails coming up toward my eyes and digging into my face.
Would you say she did a good job on me?
Yeah, look at these scratches.
You did a better one on her.
Well, this is about checks with what you sent before.
Good for me.
You don't want to change anything?
I want you to take me downtown and book me.
There's no hurry.
I want you to reenact this for us before a motion picture camera.
The mo...movies?
That'll be fun.
Hey, what's the matter?
You don't look happy.
Would it have pleased you more if you'd had to beat it out of me with a rubber hose?
Maybe.
Maybe it would.
And a good...
Right here, Lieutenant, in the kitchen.
Now, break out your camera.
Somebody burned a newspaper in the kitchen stove.
The ashes are still warm.
And which paper?
Can you make it out?
No, no, no.
The ashes are all stirred up.
Did you burn a newspaper, kid?
Yes.
Why?
Well, after I killed her, I got kind of a bad feeling.
I mean, I'm not sure.
I got kind of a chill, and I thought I'd start a fire.
And then you changed your mind, huh?
That's right.
So, you just waited for it to burn out, and you just stirred up the ashes, huh?
Listen, if people were always rational, they wouldn't commit murders.
Psychologists, too, huh?
Okay, set up the first shot from the hallway, Endocott, as it comes in.
Jack.
Where's your father, Delavan?
Where can we reach him?
I don't want him pulled into this.
Leave him alone.
Don't start jabbering at him, making things worse than they are.
Get hold of your blood pressure, Bob.
It happens that you killed his wife.
Now, where do we reach him?
He's in Baltimore.
Henry Dullivan Company, import and export.
Commutes every day?
Yeah, yeah, but he wouldn't be at his office now.
It's long past closing time.
All set, Lieutenant.
All right with you.
You like your old man, huh?
Oh, I guess he passes.
And that's all?
We haven't seen much of each other since he married that...
since he got married again.
I get expelled from different colleges, and he balls me out,
and I write him for checks, and he sends them.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, let's make our try for the Oscar, shall we?
You just go through the motions starting at the door,
exactly as it happened.
Without my make-up, Lieutenant?
Very funny, except there's a dead woman in the bedroom.
You better change your attitude, kid.
Who's this?
It's my father, please.
Take it easy with him.
Dad! Dad!
What's going on in my house?
Marty, what are you doing here this time of year?
Let me break into him my way.
You shut up.
Where's Glad? Where's your mother?
And what are all the police doing around here?
Marty, speak up.
All right.
I'll give it to you straight.
She's dead.
What? What do you mean?
You know what dead means?
She's dead. I...I killed her.
No, no, Marty, don't say that. It isn't true.
You...why, you don't know how...
I killed her!
How would you know anything about it?
You were in Baltimore.
You were in Baltimore, weren't you?
Gentlemen, please.
I'm Lieutenant Steele.
Lieutenant, don't listen to my boy.
He couldn't have possibly...
Don't try to tell anybody what I couldn't have done.
You know I always wanted to kill her.
Anyway, you weren't here.
You were in Baltimore until now at your office.
I wasn't in my office.
Dad!
I didn't feel very well long about noon.
I quit for the day.
May I see my wife, please?
In the bedroom.
And what did you do for the rest of the day, Mr. Delavan?
You don't have to answer that, Dad.
You don't have to say anything.
I'm trying to full confession, Dad.
I went to a Turkish bath and I stayed there for several hours.
Yeah, we can check that easily enough.
Of course.
I'm sorry to say that my son is right, Lieutenant.
I wasn't here.
When you commit a crime, it's as though someone snapped a switch and the sun went out.
Now you live in shadow.
You wear faded blue denims with your number on them.
You're surrounded by so much iron.
Doors and bars and the bed you sleep on.
You weigh every word before you say it.
Because it might make the difference between living and dying.
Most of the time you're angling to live.
By the time I was through, I made sure I would die.
You did a bad thing, Marty.
Why did you do it?
The important thing is that I did it.
That's what we've got to keep remembering.
Now don't let me down.
You haven't said anything, have you?
About what?
About you.
Well, what's there to say?
What's there to...
Oh, I get it.
I get it.
Swell.
Swell, we'll keep it that way.
Oh, I suppose I ought to be keeping it that way.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Swell, we'll keep it that way.
I suppose I ought to be able to understand what you're trying to say, Marty.
But I can't.
I'm so confused.
They keep hammering away at me, trying to break down my story, where I was.
That Turkish bath routine wasn't very bright.
They can check on that dad.
They did.
There's no question about that, Marty.
I was there.
When?
All that afternoon.
From two until five.
Who says you were there?
Beside yourself.
The clerk, the attendants, the rubbers.
They all know me, Marty.
I've been going there every Wednesday for months.
This couldn't be true.
Everything else about the whole nightmare could happen.
It was happening.
But not this.
He had killed her.
He must have killed her.
I'd hung a perfect frame on myself because he did it.
What's the matter, son?
Dad, how would that day's Baltimore paper get into our house before you came home?
Well, it's delivered to me.
I buy one in the morning to read it on the way in,
and the one that's delivered I read in the evening at home.
It's that simple.
And I suppose you're going to tell me that since I've been away,
Gladys learned how to smoke those Turkish blowtorches.
No, but you know how chain smokers are, son.
They're bound to run out of their own brand sometime,
and they'll smoke anything they can get their hands on.
Anything they can get?
Oh, sure. Anyone could figure that out.
But why talk about newspapers and cigarettes, Marty?
We have only five minutes together.
Don't talk about anything.
What a chump I've been.
What a sap.
Oh, Dad, Dad, you don't know.
I know only one thing, Marty, that you didn't do it.
How do you know that?
Well, who would have known better?
What does that mean?
Why, why, you're my boy.
Oh, you've been wild, but that was because you were so hurt
when I remarried.
And when she turned out to be what she was.
Oh, you don't have to keep reminding me of that, son.
Oh, I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry.
Anyway, I know my boy, Marty, and you didn't kill her.
Makes no difference, Dad.
They got an airtight case against me.
I'm going to fry just as crisp as though I did it.
I never thought for more than a second that you killed her, Marty.
The way you kept jabbering, you were in Baltimore, I was here,
you were in Baltimore, like a needle stuck in a reckon.
What can we do now, Lieutenant?
Do? It's out of my hands. You go to trial.
Trial? For what?
You say you know I didn't kill her.
Listen, kid, you framed yourself too well.
You didn't leave a shred of evidence that points to the real killer.
You had a motive.
You cleaned up every trace of someone else.
And now that someone else is laughing up his sleeve.
But, wait a minute, they can't convict me and execute me for a crime I didn't commit.
Take it easy, kid.
Take it easy? You mean take the rap?
You mean you'd like me to sit with my hands folded like a good little boy
and let him shave my skull, slit open my pants leg
because somebody else broke her neck?
Well, have you got a real idea who that somebody could be?
How would I know?
You think I ran around with her friends?
I never saw one of them.
But I'll bet she had a little black book that was so full it was spilling over.
Son, I told you this thing is out of my hands.
According to police routine...
But we're talking about her life! Don't you understand? My life!
And I'm trying to tell you that you're talking to the wrong man.
See the D.A., kid.
He's the only one who can help you.
Every word of my confession was a...
was a deliberate lie, sir.
A lie. See, I dictated it and I reenacted the whole thing before the camera
because I thought I was protecting someone else, see?
A real murderer?
No, no, but I thought so at the time.
What was this somebody's name?
I'd rather not tell you that.
Why not if he's innocent?
Because I don't want him dragged through the mud.
I...
Here's the report you've been waiting for, sir.
Oh, thanks, Endicott.
Yes, sir.
Listen...
Now look, Delavan, I am too busy to play games.
This report establishes beyond doubt that it was your skin and blood under her fingernails.
That clinches it for me.
But wait a minute, don't you...
That's all. I'll see you at the trial.
And I guess you know how it'll come out.
So callous was this killer, so conscienceless,
that not only did he freely admit his guilt,
he willingly reenacted the whole ghastly thing
before the police department's cameras you've seen.
Far from showing remorse for his crime, he gloried in it.
You know the evidence.
His finger prints his blood under her nails.
I ask that you return a verdict that will make mandatory the extreme penalty.
Death for Martin Delavan.
I...
I'm gonna die.
Dad...
Find a way out for me, will you?
I don't know where to turn, Marty.
I'd give my life to save you.
Would you, Dad, would you sometimes, you know,
people just use that expression?
I sometimes wonder if they really would do a thing like that.
Isn't that what you did for me?
It's such a shame, Marty, that this should happen to us because of her.
The only good thing she ever did was to bring us together again.
By dying.
Then you knew all about her.
For a long time.
But I kept hoping...
Well, maybe she didn't appreciate you, Dad, but...
but I do.
You're not so bad yourself.
Dad?
Yes?
It's probably too late, but...
one part of my story was true.
She had been talking to somebody.
What?
The receiver was off the hook and there was still a party on the other end.
Who was it?
That I don't know.
I picked up the receiver and I said, hello.
I heard a funny kind of gasp and then a click.
But Dad, don't you see?
It means somebody's ear was in on that murder.
We've got a witness.
Somebody who knows I didn't do it.
He and the guy who murdered her.
Time's up, kid.
We have just another five minutes.
We've got rules here, mister.
I'm just the right guy to be worried about rules.
Shove off, will you?
Wait a minute.
Shove off, will you?
Dad, did you try everything?
Try everything.
Take your hands off of me!
Just because you're going to die, don't give you any special privileges.
Let me go.
Hey, Joe.
Dad, Dad, help me.
Come on, Marty.
Tell me what to do.
Help me, Dad.
Marty, tell me how to help you.
Steal!
Steal, Dr. Steal!
Lieutenant Steal, tell him.
Tell him about the vote.
Go!
Tell him we've got a witness.
Dad, remember, it's a matter of time.
I haven't got much time!
Now, look, Miss Jane, a boy's life depends on this.
And we haven't got much time either.
There's anything I can do to help.
Fine.
Now, let's see.
It was around six in the evening when Marty Delavan got off the train and tried to call
home.
Uh-huh.
He got a busy signal.
Let's give ourselves a break and say it was the same party who was on the line when he
came home.
Could you trace that call?
I'm a trial lieutenant.
A call that long would have plenty of overtime on it.
Well, stretch it out a little, kind of narrow down the field.
Say five minutes before he called, another ten before he gave up, another ten to get
out to the house on the bus and then coming in, looking around, finding the receiver off
the hook.
Say, uh, say 45 minutes.
Oh, my gosh.
What's the matter?
I just happened to think.
What if Mrs. Delavan put in that call?
You'd have a record of it, but the charge would be on her bill.
That wouldn't show the name of the person she was calling.
Those are the breaks.
I'll see what I can do.
Hello.
Hello, Lieutenant.
Oh, what'd you find?
Well, that call was placed by Mrs. Delavan.
No.
To a Mr. William J. Simmons.
Sure.
What?
You see, Mrs. Delavan always complained about her bills.
She never stopped saying we were cheating her.
Well, we had to put a monitor on her telephone and make a record of the bill.
And then we had to go back to the house and say, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
uh, uh, uh, y- y- you know,
Now, look, V.A., that kid isn't any of the things you called him in the courtroom.
I know.
And I couldn't stand by and see him fry for a murder he didn't commit.
Steele, you're a fine detective, but a little too much of an optimist.
Now, this weasel you brought in here, his story is only as good as the amount of proof
you can attach to it.
Look, I'm no weasel.
I didn't want to get mixed up in this because I got a wife and kids, see?
You know what it means if your wife finds out you've been playing around?
Fill it into the dictograph.
Huh?
How do I start?
With your name.
William J. Simmons, 798 Shore Avenue.
Okay.
You were acquainted with Mrs. Gladys Delevingne?
Yes.
You were in love with her?
Well, in a way.
Tell us what you heard over the telephone at six o'clock on the evening she was murdered.
Well, we were talking, just talking, see, about... about how we felt.
Suddenly I hear this guy's voice on the phone somewhere off in her house.
He yells, where were you yesterday?
We had a date, didn't we?
Then he comes closer, still yelling.
What did he say?
Oh, all kinds of stuff, names, things like that.
Then she begins to scream, don't, Steve, don't, you're hurting me, Steve.
I can tell he's got her by the neck, he's choking her.
I can tell he's choking her.
Come on, kid, on your feet.
Is it... is it time?
Time for what?
You... you know...
I don't know anything you wanted in the warden's office.
Come on.
What... what's up?
Search me.
Hey, that's pretty good.
I'm the guard, you're the prisoner, but I say you search me.
Do you know who's with the warden?
Well, that local Dick Steele.
McTavish of Scotland Yard.
A couple of other guys and your old man.
My father.
My father, what... what do they want with my father?
Search me.
Hey, I said it again.
We ought to hold you for obstructing justice, young fellow, but I suppose you and your father
have suffered enough.
So it was somebody else.
Somebody else all the time.
Your description of the murdered lady was very accurate.
She got around.
Who... who is he?
How'd you find him?
Well, that's a pretty terrific story, Marty.
You see, we traced the guy who was on the phone and he heard Mrs. Delavan holler the
name Steve.
Now, a detective has to be smart.
He's got to be a psychologist, a science bug, an incredible kind of a guy who can take the
name Steve and pick a murderer out of 140 million people.
So how did I do it?
Well, how?
I opened her little black address book.
Remember, you tipped me off to that and looked for a guy named Steve and there he was, Steve
Barton.
So I picked him up.
Mc... McTavish of... of Scotland Yard.
And this time with a real confession.
How do you feel now, Simon?
Oh, I... I don't know.
I've done so much thinking about what it means to die that I'm not sure which world I'm standing
in.
Now tell me, kid, what was the name of that newspaper you burned and who did smoke that
cigarette?
Dad, is all this on the level?
On the level, Marty.
Well, just to keep it on the level, gentlemen, it was the Baltimore Star, the paper my dad
always reads and the cigarette was his favorite brand.
Maybe you understand now.
Come on, Dad.
Take me home.
Thank you, Mickey Rooney, for a splendid performance.
It was fun to do.
Say, Harlow, I've heard great things about some new award suspensions received.
Why, yes, Mickey, the Alfred P. Sloan Award for the outstanding radio program in 1948,
promoting highway safety, was awarded to CBS and Auto Light last week.
Well, say, wasn't that the Jimmy Cagney Suspense Show of last December?
Right, Mickey, and coincidentally enough, last week the National Safety Council announced
a similar award to Auto Light for the same program and for their promotion of safety
on the highways.
Wow, that's great going.
And it reminds me, haven't I often heard an announcement on this show?
Let's see.
How does it go?
Oh, yeah, I know.
And, actually, the life you save may be your own.
That's right, Mickey.
Yes, Auto Light is proud to lend support to the promotion of highway safety.
They're proud, too, of the more than 400 products for cars, trucks, airplanes, and boats that
are made in 28 Auto Light plants from coast to coast.
And Auto Light also makes complete electrical systems for many makes of America's finest
cars, batteries, spark plugs, generators, starting motors, coils, distributors, all
engineered to fit together perfectly, work together perfectly, because they're a perfect
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So, folks, don't accept electrical parts that are supposed to be as good.
Ask for and insist on Auto Light original factory parts at your neighborhood service
station, car dealer, garage, or repair shop.
Remember, you're always right with Auto Light.
Now, again, here is Mickey Rooney.
It's been a real pleasure to be here, and I'll be listening next week when radio's
outstanding theater of thrills presents Bob Hope in Death Has a Shadow, another gripping
study in...
Suspense.
Mickey Rooney appeared by arrangement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, producers of the technicolor
picture Little Women, starring June Allison, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien, and Elizabeth
Taylor.
Tonight's suspense play was based on a story by William Irish and adapted by Herb Meadow.
Music was composed by Lucian Morrowake 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 Stewart, Claire Trevor,
Frederick March, and many others.
Make it a point to listen each Thursday to Suspense, Radio's Outstanding, Theater of
Thrills, and next Thursday same time, hear Bob Hope in Death Has a Shadow.
You can buy auto light resistor spark plugs, auto light staple batteries, auto light electrical
parts at your neighborhood auto light dealers.
Switch to auto light.
Good night.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.