Suspense!
Autolight and its 96,000 dealers present Transcribed Mr. Alan Ladd in Multiful Murder,
a suspense play produced and edited by William Spear.
Remingchester, you look like a badly battered battery.
A sorry sight indeed for an autolight-stay-full battery man like me.
Wilcox, I've just returned from a safari.
Been haunting camels in Kilkenny.
Camels in Kilkenny?
Why, by St. Patty, didn't you know that the last camel in Kilkenny calmly curled up and
died when the first autolight-stay-full battery landed in Ireland?
He knew he couldn't compare with that teetotalling dispenser of pep and power, the autolight-stay-full
battery, the battery that needs water only three times a year in normal camo, I mean
car use.
Such shenanigans, Wilcox.
Remingchester, autolight-stay-full batteries give 70% longer average life than batteries
without stay-full features, and that's proven by tests conducted according to SAE life cycle
standards.
By the Blarney Stone.
And furthermore, autolight-stay-full batteries have three times as much liquid reserve above
the plates as batteries without stay-full features.
That's why they need water only three times a year in normal car use.
See no more, Wilcox.
One thing more.
You're always right with autolight.
And now with motive for murder and the performance of Alan Ladd, autolight hopes once again to
keep you in suspense.
Irish, she'd ask me, how is a guy a cop?
You make with magnifying glass and bloodhounds?
You make with facts, I'd tell her.
You start with something you know for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, you make with facts.
But when you're a cop and you've got all the facts, what do you do when they're going to
arrest your own wife for murder?
Even the reporters were nice.
They didn't try to steal a picture of Mary, though there were plenty of them around.
But I knew what they were thinking about.
A little guy with a mustache sitting in my chair wearing a knife between his ribs.
And about Mary, my wife, lying over on the Davenport where the bourbon breath could be
used for a cutting torch.
And Doc Deussen was handling it.
My pal for eight years.
He was doing what he could for a brother officer and a friend.
But I knew what would have to go into his report.
You see, I've made out too many of them myself.
All right, all right, boys, wait out in the hall till the basket gets here.
Go on, go on.
Yeah, but Lieutenant, I ain't finished dusting the place yet, man.
Go on, get out of the hall.
Yeah, all right, sure, sure.
Smoke, Dave?
No, thanks, Chuck.
Well, she doesn't feel good.
I'm going to ask you, Dave.
You know who he is?
No, I never saw him before in my life.
His name's Hamilton, Victor Hamilton.
How'd you find that out?
You sat there and watched me frisk him.
Huh?
Yeah, yeah, I guess I got some sawdust in my head.
I've seen a lot of dead guys, but not in my own place.
Well, I just thought you might have known him, Dave, that's all.
Funny you don't know the guy.
Oh, look, Dave, I'm sorry about...
I'm sorry it's your wife.
Yeah, everybody's sorry.
I can follow up the routine for an hour or two, maybe, but those guys from the D.A.
I know, I know, you're thinking of Second Avenue stuff.
Spilled whiskey, broken glass, mirror lipstick on dead man's cheek.
She didn't kill him, Jack.
Irish, Irish.
I feel funny.
She's awake now.
Hello, Angel.
Oh, hi, Irish, you're home early.
Good night, Peter.
Hello, Mary.
Jack.
Irish.
She's drunk.
Or drugged.
We'll find out later.
All right, Jack.
I'm sorry.
It's all right.
Look, Angel, I want to ask you something.
Why was Hamilton here?
Hamilton?
We don't know anybody named Hamilton Irish.
A little guy with a gray mustache.
Oh, you mean the sailor?
Yes, the sailor.
Oh, I see.
I see.
Oh, you mean the salesman.
I ordered a vacuum cleaner.
He had to give me demonstration and clean the whole place.
He was a funny old man.
I gave him a drink for doing all my work.
Then what, honey?
Then I felt this hurt in my head.
I saw you and Jack.
I don't feel right, Irish.
Baby, that set of knives in the kitchen.
Did you use the chef's knife or anything?
No, no.
You know those knives scare me.
Yeah.
That's all you can remember, Mary?
That's everything?
Yes.
What are you doing?
Practicing cops on me?
Look, honey, the landlady came over to borrow a book.
She heard the radio, but you didn't answer the bell.
She got worried and used the passkey.
Irish, what is it?
We got trouble.
Somebody used that knife on Hamilton.
Oh, Irish.
Jack, what is this?
Why, Mr. Hamilton's sitting right over there, right...
Irish.
Oh, no!
Well, Dave, the medic says that bruise on Mary's head is something she could have done on a
chair arm or a door.
Skin isn't broken.
The swelling doesn't amount to much.
So she was drunk and she fell down.
Jack, you know she never took more than one drink.
Let's hear the rest.
Lab ran tests, not finished yet.
No sign of narcotic on her so far.
Plenty of whiskey.
The prints on the knife were hers.
Why not?
It was her knife in her kitchen.
You're a cop, Dave.
You can't beat the system.
Everyone's leaned backward on this all down the line.
Everything's been checked a dozen times.
The system says she's guilty, Irish.
You think she's guilty?
What I think doesn't count.
It's facts.
Hamilton sold vacuum cleaners.
He had business cards in his pocket, but there was no order book at your house and no vacuum
cleaner.
Well, you can see what that does to her story about that demonstration.
You, uh, you better send a lawyer down to Harbor Precinct.
Not yet.
I want to dig myself.
I know what you're thinking.
She was slugged or drugged or both.
And there was a third party.
That's right.
There was a third party.
He slugged Mary and shoved that knife in Hamilton.
Then he poured whiskey down Mary's throat and painted lipstick on Hamilton's cheek.
There has to be a third party.
Dave, I know you're trying, but you can't disregard what we found.
Look, I've been a cop a long time, Jock.
I know a woman will shoot a man or stab him or poison him and then stand there and scream
what a lousy he is.
But a man did this job and I'm going to find him.
We gave the neighborhood and the house the works and we came up empty, Irish.
Then you didn't look hard enough.
I'm going to go take a look.
Wait a minute, Dave.
I can't put you on this.
The newspapers had crucified you.
Because she's my wife?
Because I might want to destroy evidence?
Something like that.
All right, here's the fact.
I wouldn't want to get the department any bad publicity.
Now, Dave, please.
David X. Murphy, detective, second grade.
It says I'm a part of the system, a cop.
Give it to the commissioner with my regards.
Oh, no, wait.
Here, take this back, Irish.
As far as I'm concerned, you're hunting the guns that knocked off those service stations.
How could you ask questions without a badge, huh?
Thanks, Jock.
Thanks a lot.
If there is a third party, find him, Dave.
Find him.
There is.
And I'll find him.
You make with facts, I told you.
The start was something you know for sure.
I knew Mary hadn't killed Hamilton.
For sure.
Fact.
Strangers saw them kill each other.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the killer knows the victim.
Fact.
Hamilton had been stabbed at my house where he came to demonstrate a vacuum cleaner.
The vacuum cleaner wasn't in my house.
Hamilton had been killed for that vacuum cleaner.
Fact.
A vacuum cleaner?
Is that a motive for a murder?
Yeah?
Police I want to talk to you.
Ah, the police have been here.
Well, they're here again.
Victor Hamlin had an apartment here and you're his landlady.
I want to know about him.
You do, huh?
What do you want to know?
The works, good and bad.
Did he drink, gamble?
Did he stay in nights or go out?
Did he pay his rent?
Start talking and I'll listen.
Oh, well, I know so much about a tenant.
I got my work to do.
Yeah, no maid to keep me.
Almost breaks my back sometimes.
Yeah, yeah, come on now, tell me.
Oh, he lived like a monk.
He paid his bills and kept to himself.
I never saw no friends with him.
Go on.
I can't tell you any more about him.
What do you think I am?
Harriet?
Harriet, come here.
What is it?
This is a policeman.
He's asked me about Hamilton.
I thought you could help him maybe, huh?
Oh, Bob Victor.
You know him, Miss?
Yes, yes, I knew him.
I'm Harriet Blodgett.
I live in this building too.
Do I get to go back to my house for you?
Yeah, thanks.
Well, Miss?
I wish I could tell you something, but I can't.
I just felt sorry for Victor.
Oh, Mr. Hamilton.
He was small and he had no car.
He used to carry those cleaners all over the North End.
Now they're not fixing something to eat and take it up to him.
That all?
Nothing like you, ma'am.
I guess he wasn't interested.
No compliment to me.
What do you do for a living?
Hostess, Elgin restaurant, help Columbus Circle.
Ever meet any of his friends?
He was a lonely little man.
He was a very nice man.
He was a lonely little man.
No friend.
No enemy.
You're wrong.
He had one enemy.
The next morning I was on the third floor of the Morgan Building listening to a man named
Richards, the sales manager of the vacuum cleaner company.
Not house to house.
Indeed, no.
I'd like to have that absolutely clear.
Our people work from lists supplied by us.
We give the names of prospects and they close the sale.
You're not going to make a fortune.
Well, not exactly.
Take Hamilton.
A bad back.
Got pretty tired.
Didn't have the old bounce, the old steam.
A lot of sales got away.
Bad back?
War wound maybe.
I don't know.
He didn't talk much.
He got his demonstrator here every morning, huh?
We assign cleaners to each salesman.
Whenever they make a sale, they bring a deposit in and get another new machine.
Do they make reports?
Absolutely.
Every call.
Give me what Hamilton turned in yesterday.
Oh, yes, of course.
Here you are.
Hamilton's last report.
4502 Van Buren, 4510 Van Buren, 4515 Van Buren.
No house to house, huh?
Oh, you're kidding.
No friends, only one enemy.
On Van Buren Street.
That's where my killer had to be.
Somewhere on a street that had his feet in the bay and his head in the clouds.
From pawn shops to snob apartments.
The 4500 block was middle ground.
Somewhere on that block, Hamilton had put his thumb on one doorbell too many.
I started to top the list.
Police.
Oh, no, my Herman's a good boy.
He took that bicycle back.
He is a good boy.
Yes, Mr. Hamilton was here demonstrating a vacuum cleaner.
He cleaned all my rug.
I promise to keep him in mind.
No, no, never let no strangers sell enough inside of my place.
No, never listen to what they got to say at all.
Never.
I went through 25 like that.
26 was bigger than the others.
A half block of lawn, stained windows and brick.
Built by one of yesterday's fortunes when Van Buren Street was young.
There'll be money in it somewhere.
Somehow, I said to myself.
This was money.
He was tall, slender and pretty.
The mustache moved first.
Please, my aunt's desperately ill.
Police.
But why?
What do you want?
We're checking.
A little guy named Hamilton came by here yesterday selling vacuum cleaners.
He rang your doorbell with a lot of others.
But he got himself killed.
We look into things like that.
Oh.
Whose house is this?
My aunt's, Cecilia Breckenbridge.
That chap was here.
Hamilton, was it?
An impertinent little fellow.
He rang the bell several times, woke my aunt.
I sent him away.
He didn't get inside?
No, not past the door.
That's funny.
The salesmen make reports.
They list every house where they make a demonstration.
Your house is on that list.
It's a mistake.
I sent him away.
He didn't make any mistakes about his other demonstrations.
He didn't lie.
Mistake.
If you want it that way, I'll check the neighborhood.
People see things.
I'll find someone who saw him in here.
All right.
He was here inside.
Then why the runaround?
My aunt, she's...
Well, she's very old.
It's my duty to spare her any unnecessary excitement.
That's why I lied.
And anyway, there's nothing she could tell you.
He was here.
He made his little speech.
He went away.
But I've got a report to make out.
I know, but couldn't you make an exception?
I'm in position calling on people, bothering them.
But it's better than having a murderer walk the streets.
My aunt is really quite ill.
I can be very gentle.
Oh, it's embarrassing.
Do you know what a persecution complex is?
Right about them.
Well, that's her trouble.
She's old.
Well, you know, senile.
She thinks she's being kept a prisoner here.
Oh?
She's right, of course.
If she weren't confined here, she'd be confined to an institution.
She doesn't understand why.
She's outlived all her close friends,
and she wonders why no one comes to see her.
That's why you let Hamilton and his back-in-fiender in.
Well, I thought it would help.
Instead, he made it worse.
I see.
Are you Breckenbridge?
My name is Dolph.
Harold Dolph, her sister's son.
I'm her only relative.
I keep the place going.
You know how old people are about family homes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
Let's go and see her.
All right.
This way.
Cecilia Breckenbridge was sitting in a rocking chair
beside a window that looked out over the backyard.
She was thin and small.
And she looked up at me out of blue, tormented eyes.
Don't tell her that he was killed.
It'll upset her.
Aunt Cecilia?
It's a beautiful day, Harold.
A lovely day.
Aunt Cecilia, this man is here to ask a few questions
about that vacuum cleaner salesman you saw the other day.
Oh.
Be a good girl and answer him.
It's a lovely day, Harold.
Mrs. Breckenbridge, I'd like to know what time he came in to see you.
Sometimes she'll talk, and sometimes she won't.
Mrs. Breckenbridge, do you remember how long he stayed?
The way her mind is, it's hard to tell what to expect.
Do you remember what he did while he was here?
Oh.
A lovely day, Harold.
A lovely day.
That you, Dave?
Yeah, I'm in a drugstore at Van Buren and Hope.
How's the coming out? Give me a hand.
I spotted that third party.
He's tall and pretty, and he's scared to death.
Auto Light is bringing you Alan Ladd in Motive for Murder,
tonight's production in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
Say, Remingchester, were you in Limerick when you were hunting the Irish camel?
Was I in Limerick? I invented the Limerick.
Ah, but not this Limerick, old pal.
Listen, a good name in Erin is Slattery, so's Auto Light's stay-full battery.
Its water he needs a teaspoon feeds. Only three times a year is no flattery.
Alas, poor Limerick. I knew him well.
Well, you know that the Auto Light's stay-full battery needs water only three times a year in normal car use.
Why?
Because it has three times as much liquid reserve above the plates as batteries without stay-full features.
Is it the leprechaun in you, Wilcox?
Why, every leprechaun in Ireland knows that the Auto Light's stay-full battery has a fiberglass retaining mat protecting every positive plate.
That keeps the power producing material in place, you see.
In recent tests based on SAE life cycle standards, the Auto Light's stay-full batteries gave 70% longer average life than batteries without stay-full features.
And remember, Auto Light's stay-full batteries need water only three times a year in normal car use.
Get an Auto Light's stay-full battery and be right with Auto Light.
And now, Auto Light brings back to our Hollywood soundstage our star, Alan Ladd, in Motive for Murder.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
You start with something you know for sure, like the fact that Mary couldn't kill anyone.
Then you go to people and you ask questions. You look for somebody who'll talk too much or not enough.
Somebody like Harold Dolph in a big old-fashioned house on Van Buren Street.
You meet his invalid aunt who only sits and dreams of 50 years ago.
And you look at tall and pretty in his $30 shirt standing there.
And you find out why and go out and kill a man named Hamilton and steal his vacuum cleaner.
All right, Dave, you've told me what you walked into now. Tell me why you think Harold Dolph's the one.
Tried to cover up before I could ask anything accounted. He lied once.
Oh, cut it, man. I've questioned people too.
All right, but there's something wrong in that house, something wrong about him.
He looked like he knew she wouldn't talk before I asked her questions.
He explained she was ill, a little crazy.
Suppose she isn't crazy, Jock. Suppose she's afraid of him.
All right, Irish, suppose.
Maybe he's keeping her prisoner there.
Well, you said he admitted that much. She'd be in an institution otherwise.
But really keeping a prisoner in there.
Why, though? Why?
Money, money, of course. Her money. He explained it. Her family had money, not his.
You looked into that part?
No, Jock, but I've seen his kind a hundred times.
In Gabbardines, it costs 250 standing around living off what another man worked hard for.
Oh, it's a reach, Irish, a long reach.
He's our man. I know it.
He can stick around that house and torture that old lady by keeping her scared he could kill Hamilton.
Sure, but where does Hamilton fit?
Oh, I don't know, Jock. That old lady could tell me if I could talk to her.
You could be awful wrong, Irish.
I've been wrong before. All I want is a chance to talk to her without Dolph breathing down my neck.
Yeah, yeah.
If I'm wrong, okay. If I'm right, I want Dolph where we can make the pinch.
He'll come out of there sometime.
When he does, you trail a guy. I'll talk to the old lady.
All right, Irish, Jock.
Hey, that him backing the roadster out of the carriage house?
Hey, you're right.
Check with the station any time you get a chance. I'll do the same.
Right, Irish.
If she couldn't answer the bell, I had to use my gun butt on the garden door.
This time she wasn't humming, just breathing slow, uneven.
I lifted an eyelid and felt her pulse, doped.
Then I noticed her hands, fine, long, delicately formed hands, but no rings.
Yet marks that showed she'd worn rings most of her life.
The pictures of her all over the place showed her wearing rings.
Rings with big stones and old-fashioned settings. Money.
Went from top to bottom, then. Attic to basement, every room.
No rings and no vacuum cleaner.
Harbor precinct, Eddie speaking.
Jock Doosan checked in yet?
Who's this?
It's Dave.
Oh, Irish. Yeah, Jock checked in.
Well, give it to me.
I followed your man downtown to the Morgan building on Fifth.
Morgan building?
Yeah.
Morgan building? No house-to-house canvassing, only from lists.
Hey, Irish, you all right?
Yeah, thanks, Eddie. I'll come to your bank.
Right.
Oh, Eddie.
Yeah, Dave.
Send a car to 4698 Van Buren.
There's an old lady down there, doped.
Name's Cecilia Breckenbridge. Take care of her.
Nephew's name, Harold Dahl. Don't let him get close.
Got it.
Mr. Richards left strict orders that he wasn't to be disturbed.
All the salesmen were in for a big meeting today.
Come on, skip the act.
Now, you can't go in there. I don't care if you are the police. You can't go...
What is this, Elsie? I...
I told him, Mr. Richards, but he wouldn't listen.
I left strict orders that...
Oh, thought you.
Mr. Richards...
Later, sister.
Now, see here, such high-handed methods of entering a man's office.
I'm a citizen of this city...
And you're violating City Ordinance 116, paragraph 5, code 2.
You haven't got a peddler's license and your boys are doing house-to-house.
I distinctly told you, we work from clients'...
That's not why I'm here.
Don't go with the tall and pretty and the brown gabardines who came to see you a little while ago.
Huh?
Within the last hour.
An officer from my division followed him this far.
A tall man, brown gabardines, but I...
What do you want?
Well, he just wanted to ask me about his vacuum cleaner.
What about his vacuum cleaner?
Well, he... I had to tell him the same thing I explained to you this morning...
About how we handle our sales.
What thing? Come on.
About a sale.
When they make one, they bring the deposit money in and get a new machine to deliver to the customer.
They can't sell a gem and stir. It's used and worn.
Is that all?
Well, you see, he ordered a cleaner yesterday and he said the salesman promised to deliver it.
But he never got it.
What salesman?
He didn't know the salesman's name. He described him as a small man.
Yes, a small man. All the man wanted really was a vacuum cleaner. My goodness.
He wanted something else. What?
Well, he asked me for the address of that salesman.
He said he wanted to talk to him about his vacuum cleaner that wasn't delivered.
You gave the address to him?
But I told you I don't know what salesman it is.
It was just a little man, he said. So I remembered poor Hamilton.
And I thought it might be...
You told him where Hamilton lived?
Oh, yes. Yes, I did. Did I do something wrong?
Driving across town towards Hamilton's apartment, I kept thinking of Mary and her question about how a cop works.
No miracles, no magnifying glass, no butt hounds, just facts.
Facts to find a killer.
An old house built with one of yesterday's great fortunes,
a fortune that dwindled down to a handful of wedding rings.
Diamonds.
Twenty or thirty thousand dollars worth of motive.
Facts.
A tall and pretty who was money hungry and liked expensive clothes and cars.
Facts.
A vacuum cleaner salesman apartment without a vacuum cleaner.
Hey.
You held out on me.
What do you mean? What do you mean this is a respectable apartment?
You know how to throw that book at you?
When I was here before, I went through Hamilton's apartment and there wasn't a vacuum cleaner there.
But I never...
Hamilton kept at least two cleaners here all the time.
You kept still hoping to grab one for free.
But I never saw any...
He didn't keep them in his place. He didn't want to lug them up three flights.
He kept them somewhere on this floor.
I didn't think you'd care.
Why was it?
The hall closet and back. He had a key.
You'll give me yours now.
And that's where I found the old lady's wedding rings.
The sack on that demonstrator Hamilton used in her house.
Facts.
I had all of them now.
A minute later I heard feet on the stairs.
I left the cleaner sitting there in the hall and stepped back into the shadows and waited.
Waited for my killer.
Oh.
Hello sweetheart. I've been expecting you.
We got business.
Business?
About your aunt's diamond rings.
What are you talking about?
Murder.
Murder?
There's an old lady waiting to die and you've been helping her with dope.
Well, that's ridiculous.
That's why you never let anybody in to see her.
But you wanted some fun yesterday. Jokes.
And you let a vacuum cleaner salesman named Hamilton come in and visit her.
Now, see here, really...
But as sick and as doped as she was, your aunt figured out a way so you'd never get those rings.
She beat you, Dolph.
All right, you've got to...
When you weren't looking, she took them off and threw them under the vacuum cleaner.
Now, we can come to some understanding of...
She wouldn't talk to you. Remember the salesman?
Trailed him all over town.
And you found him at one place, along the line you stabbed him with a kitchen knife, sapped Mary...
Mary?
...and did the covering up with a broken glass, lipstick and liquor.
Mary?
My wife, brother, and it's my place.
Oh.
When I look, I can get you money.
Ten, fifteen thousand dollars.
Thanks, that's what I've been waiting for.
Please!
He talked.
Fact.
Harold Dolph killed the salesman when he opened the cleaner and didn't find the rings.
He didn't know that Hamilton had stopped off at his own place, where he left the demonstrator with the rings in the sack...
...and picked up the new one he was delivering to Mary.
Irish.
How did you do it?
With a magnifying glass and bloodhound?
You know, honey, you make with thanks.
It starts with something you know for sure.
The fact that my wife can't be a killer.
You see, I love her too much.
Suspense.
Presented by Auto Light.
Tonight's star, Alan Ladd.
Say, Wilcox, I've decided never to hunt Irish camels again, big orie.
Let me give you a tip, Reming Chester.
You'll do better going for those Auto Light stay-full batteries...
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Remember, you're always right with Auto Light.
Next Thursday for Suspense, our star will be Ronald Reagan.
The play is called One and One's Alonesome.
And it is, as we say, a tale well calculated to keep you in...
...Suspense.
Tonight's Suspense play was produced and edited by William Spear...
...and directed and transcribed by Norman MacDonald.
Music for Suspense is composed by Lucian Moraweck and conducted by Lud Bluskin.
Motif for Murder was written by John and Ward Hawkins and adapted for radio by Jack Newman.
Alan Ladd will soon be seen in the Paramount picture Captain Carrie USA.
Don't forget, next Thursday same time, Auto Light will present Suspense starring Ronald Reagan.
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Switch to Auto Light. Good night.
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