Auto Light and its 96,000 dealers present Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light brings you After the Movies, a suspense play starring Mr. Ray Milan.
I'd been called a jury duty a couple of weeks before all this happened.
It was one of those kind of sensational trials.
The judge told us jurors not to go out in any public places where we might be approached or influenced.
So I've been sticking pretty close to the hotel.
So it was a real treat when they said we were free for a couple of days because the witness was sick.
Of course, the movies is a public place, but Anne didn't think that would really count and neither did I.
We went to the early show, crossed the street from the hotel and got out about half past nine.
I thought she was darling. I didn't care so much for him though.
I didn't think she was too hot either.
Say, what's the difference really?
The first movie I've seen since the trial started, how much of ice cream?
We got those little cakes at home.
Some ice cream might go nice with them.
I don't know if I can go home. I mean this jury thing, you know.
Oh, you're free for a couple of days. Isn't that what they told you?
Not going to do any harm for you to sleep home tonight.
I suppose not. What kind do you want?
What?
Ice cream.
Chocolate.
Come on.
Well, well. Hello there. How are you this evening, folks?
Yeah, fine. Just fine.
What can I do for you?
About a quart of ice cream, chocolate.
Right.
Say, how's the trial going? You're on the jury, aren't you?
Yeah, but I'm not supposed to talk about it.
Oh, yeah. I should know better than to ask.
I bet you we have five, seven jurors a day come in here from the hotel across the street.
Hey, you think you've been on this trial a long time?
Some people stay on for months.
Well, I'll tell you what I think about this Harmon fellow.
I'm not supposed to let anybody talk to me about it either.
Oh, say, that's right. I forgot about that.
Well, that'll be 60 cents.
Yeah, I got it, Ann. What did I do with my wallet?
Oh, here.
That's 60 out of one.
And thank you.
Well, I hope now that you know us, you'll trade here sometimes even after the trial's over.
My name is Adelson.
Well, I'm Mr. Benig, and this is my wife, Ann.
I'm happy to know you.
I hope you'll be through with the thing real soon.
I hope so, too. Good night.
Al.
Yeah.
Look what I found.
What?
An envelope on the floor right here.
Somebody dropped something, huh?
Yeah.
It's open, too.
I wonder if we should, you know, to find the owner.
Say.
Money, bills.
Hey, let me see.
How much is there, Al?
Al? How much, Al?
Ten thousand dollars.
Huh?
Ten thousand?
Who dropped ten thousand dollars on the floor of a drug store?
In just a moment, Mr. Ray Milan in the first act of After the Movies.
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Ten thousand dollars?
You mean the envelope was just laying there on the floor?
I almost stepped on it and then I picked it up and I saw there was something in it.
Well, what should we do?
Gee, a thing like this, I don't know what to say.
If I was you, I'd keep it. That's what I'd do.
And since it was in my store...
No, no, we couldn't do that.
Well, I could. It ain't stealing. You found it. And it was my store you found it in.
We better turn it in.
Look, if there's a reward, we'll get together on it, won't we?
There's some kind of a note in it.
A note?
Yeah, in with the money.
This is your first pass as agreed and... no signature.
Doesn't make much sense to me.
Me either.
Hey, where you going with that money?
If anybody comes looking for it, we live on 5th Street, 229.
If there's a reward, we'll see you get your share, Mr. Adelson. Come on in.
Don't worry, Mr. Adelson.
Don't worry. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money.
I said there was nothing to worry about.
But I wasn't feeling quite as breezy as I sounded.
Ten thousand dollars is an awful lot of money.
Ann was still trying to figure it out when we got home.
One thing I'd always said about Ann, she had a good mind.
Now she remembered the note and she took off from there.
Al, it must mean something. It was written to somebody.
It must mean something to them.
After all, it's ten thousand dollars.
Let's get on with the ice cream.
All right.
Look, Annie, if nobody claims it by tomorrow, we'll put an ad in the paper or something.
It's not our worry.
Yeah.
Here, chocolate.
We could keep it, couldn't we?
I mean, the law says finders keepers.
If nobody can prove it's theirs, we can keep it, can't we?
Isn't there a law?
Well, I guess as far as the law is concerned, we could keep it.
Of course, we'd have to give part of it to Mr. Adelson.
Mm-hmm.
I don't know, Al. That money belongs to somebody.
All right. If they claim it, all right. If they don't, well, all right.
Why worry about it?
Belongs to whoever that note was written to.
Uh-huh.
Now listen, listen.
This is your first half as agreed in the E.H. business.
But if they are not hung up when the time comes,
don't expect to get the rest or stay healthy very long.
No signature.
Al, that last part about staying healthy, that's a threat.
That's what it is.
Threat? Well, yeah, it could be.
The man who's giving the money is threatening the man who's getting it,
that if he doesn't...
Doesn't what?
Al, don't be so dense.
Help me a little. Doesn't do what they're paying him to do.
It's a bribe.
Don't you see, Al, this money is a bribe?
A bribe?
Hey, that's right, Annie. It could be right. It's that.
Well, now we're getting somewhere. All right, a bribe.
And it has something to do with something being hung up.
If they are not hung up when the time comes, it says.
What could be hung up that's so important to anybody?
Jury.
That's it, a jury that can't reach a verdict.
Al, I'll bet that's it.
Somebody is trying to bribe somebody on a jury to...
To what?
Al, those initials, E, H, Edward Harmon,
the name of the man that's on trial.
The jury that you're on.
Gee, I don't know, Anne.
They all seem like such nice, decent people.
Listen, listen.
This is your first half, the $10,000, as agreed in the E, H.
That is the Edward Harmon business.
But if they are not hung up, it's a jury,
don't expect to stay healthy.
Yeah. Yeah, it does make sense, Annie.
Al, we've got to call the police.
Police?
Well, sure, we've got to report it right away.
Well, maybe I should give it to the district attorney in the morning.
No, don't you see, Al, you're on that jury.
Why, if we delay telling them for even an hour,
they may think you've got something to hide.
No, I think I'd better wait till the morning.
If you don't phone them, I will right away now.
Well, I hope you're right.
I hope this is the right thing to do.
My name is Albert H. Benig.
That's right.
I live at 229 Fifth Street.
Yeah.
I want to report something to you.
There's a drug store on the corner across the street from the courthouse,
and my wife and I were in there earlier this evening,
and my wife found something.
Yeah.
Well, on the floor.
It was an envelope with $10,000 in it and a note.
And we think it has something to do with the Edward Harmon trial.
Yeah.
No, just my wife.
Yeah, she's sitting right here with me.
Yeah, that's what I think.
You'd be doing me a great favor if you'd...
Yes, we'll wait right here.
We'll be expecting you.
What did they say?
They said they'd send somebody up just as soon as they could.
Well, weren't they excited about it?
Didn't they say anything?
Well, Anne, I guess with people like that,
these things are just sort of routine.
That must be them now, Al.
I'll go.
I must say they took their time about it.
Oh, good evening, gentlemen. Come in.
Thanks.
You're Mr. Penning, Albert H. Penning?
That's right. This is my wife.
How do you do?
I sort of expected to see someone in uniform.
I should have known, I suppose.
Uniform?
Yes, you gentlemen are from the police, aren't you?
No, no, we're not.
Oh.
You expecting the police, lady?
Better not take too much time, Johnny.
I think you people got something that belongs to us.
Something you found in the drug store in the corner.
Oh.
We lost it there.
The drug has told us you had it.
Well, we did find something, yes.
Ten grand and five hundred in a white envelope.
Well, I guess it's theirs all right, Anne.
Yes, but...
But what?
Well, I'm sure it's yours, but...
there was something else, too.
We better just give it to them, Anne.
The note. I always said that was foolish.
There was a note?
Yes.
You read it?
We glanced through it, of course.
We thought it might tell us who the money belonged to.
And it did, didn't it?
No, oh, no.
Come on, lady. Now, wait a minute.
This is a gun, man.
The note told you that the dough was to buy off somebody
on the jury of the Harmon Trial, didn't it?
You talk too much, Johnny. Come on, let's get out of here.
What's the difference with your head?
All right, what about it, Mrs. Penning?
How did you know it was in the note?
We got to know these things.
We work for Mr. Harmon.
We know you're on the jury, too, Mr. Penning.
Al.
Where are you from, Mrs. Penning?
I mean, where do your folks live?
What part of the country?
Why, Washington.
Boca and Washington.
All right.
Mr. Penning, you go on down that trial, Amar,
just know nothing had happened.
Anybody ask you about your wife,
you tell them she's gone on a little visit
to her folks in Spokane.
Visit to my folks?
The case will go to the jury on Friday.
If everything goes like it should, your wife will be back here,
safe and sound, first thing Monday morning.
Oh, good Lord.
But you can't do a thing like this.
You can't.
You're reasonable, Mrs. Penning. We got to.
You people know too much about this thing.
Well, we wouldn't say anything, I promise.
I swear it.
If we take a chance like that,
Armin is up for murder.
Better get your things together,
Mrs. Penning. Go with us, Am.
We ain't got all night, though.
I'll take the money, Mr. Penning, before I forget it.
Thanks.
I hope you understand our position.
What are you going to do?
Well, obviously, the money went to the wrong party.
So we got to use another method.
If everything goes like it should on that jury,
your wife will be okay.
But if it doesn't,
You can't. You can't do that.
Oh, but we can.
Saves us a lot of money, too.
And, Mr. Penning,
not a word to the authorities.
Your wife would make a cute corpse.
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Night's production in Radio's
Outstanding Theater of Thrills.
Suspense.
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After they left, I just sat there.
Maybe another guy
would've rushed right off and done something.
But I couldn't. I
had to think. It had all happened
so suddenly in less than an hour, the whole
thing. And picking up the money on the
floor at the drugstore and then figuring out
from the note that it was a bribe to someone on the jury
of the Harmon trial, the jury
I was on. And those
gangsters arriving and claiming the money and
taking Anne as the hostage for my verdict.
The police hadn't
arrived. I left home, sneaked
out the back way, took the side streets and went
to the office of the chief of detectives.
So you came down here. What are we sitting here for?
Why don't we do something? We gotta know
what we're doing before we start doing it.
Anyway, from what you told me, I don't think she'll be
in any real danger. No real danger.
She's been kidnapped by gangsters.
But why? That's what
doesn't make sense to me yet. I told
you, the money was some kind of a bribe. They thought
we knew about it. But you didn't.
How could we? Anne just picked up the money off the floor
and... They said that they'd have her back
by Monday? That's what they said. You can
believe them if you want, but she's my wife. Okay.
Okay.
What do these two cookies look like?
I don't know. Average size, dark, I think.
I don't remember what they look like.
Did you catch their name? I didn't ask them.
You're not going to be
much help for a while, are you? Okay,
it's all right. By the way,
my name's Dan.
Mine's Al. You'll probably be seeing quite a lot
of me in the next day or two, so we might as well
get acquainted. And
Al... Yeah.
Take it easy.
We'll find your wife.
His being friendly like that
made me feel a lot better. But we still
weren't doing anything.
First, he got out a lot of pictures, and I had to go
through all those. But of course, I couldn't recognize
anybody, and then he started making
phone calls. That didn't make much sense
to me either, except that he figured
they might have just stolen a car, and he was trying to
check on it. Finally, he called
a police car and we drove back toward the courthouse.
It was 12 o'clock,
but Mr. Adelson hadn't left the store.
He was anxious enough to talk, but it didn't
look as though he was going to get us anyplace.
I tell you, Lieutenant, it was right there
on the floor. Right there!
Yeah, but when you talked to these two men...
Oh, yes. Well, I talked to them. The one,
that is, and he said he'd lost an envelope
he thought in my store. And I said,
yes, we'd found it, and Mr. Benwick had it.
So you talked to them. What did they look like?
Well, now, how can I know what they looked like when they
called me on the telephone?
Okay.
I guess that's all, Mr. Adelson.
I'm sorry, Lieutenant. I wish I could help you.
That's perfectly all right. If there's anything else...
We'll call you. Hey, Mr. Benwick!
Yeah? Did you tell him about the note?
Note? Yeah, the note that was in with the money.
So there was a note.
Sure! In with the money!
Wasn't it, Mr. Benwick?
What about it, Al?
Well, I'm sorry.
I guess I forgot.
We drove back to Fifth Street
and parked in front of our apartment.
Dan didn't say a word until we got
into the elevator. Then he spoke to the elevator boy,
not to me.
You take Mrs. Benwick
and a couple of men down tonight
about 10.30. Yeah, that's right.
Police?
Mm-hmm. What did they look like?
I couldn't really tell you.
They had their hats pulled down, sort of.
One was tall and the other was short.
That's about all I noticed.
Oh, wait a minute.
Yeah?
The tall one had kind of a limp.
He had a cane. A limp, huh?
You hear any names?
Yeah, now that you speak of it,
the short one called the tall one Johnny.
Funny, I didn't think of it.
The tall one and the short one and the tall one's name
was Johnny and he had a limp.
I bet that breaks the case wide open, huh?
Yeah, yeah, I'll see that you get a citation.
We got off at my floor and I opened up the apartment
and we went in.
He still didn't say anything.
He prowled around the apartment, poking into bureaus
and closets for not saying a word.
Then he came out in the living room
and sat down in the big armchair and looked straight at me.
All right, Al.
What about the note?
I'm sorry, Dan, I didn't think it was important.
You're not sore, are you?
Me? What have I got to be sore about?
Sure what? Yeah, I'm sorry.
And what about the note?
All it said was something like, this is the first half as we agreed
and no signature.
Have you got it? No.
It took it when they took the money.
And you couldn't remember that one was a tall guy
and the other was a short guy and that the tall guy's name was Johnny?
But I was all upset. I didn't even know if I heard his name.
Are you trying to protect her, Al?
No, no, I've told you everything I can.
Okay, forget it.
Let's see.
A bribe.
That means that somebody wants something
or is on the spot.
The fix will be on by Monday, they say.
Now, who is there in this town that employs gunsels
that would have a deal with that much dough set for next Monday?
Oh, there could be a million deals like that.
Quiet. Let me think a minute, will you?
Johnny, a cane
and a short guy.
It's on the tip of my tongue.
It wasn't so long ago, either.
Sure.
Sure. Why didn't I think of it?
Think of what? Bill Quinlan, the defense lawyer
in the Harmon case. Those are his boys.
Had him up a dozen times. He always comes and gets them off.
The Harmon trial? Yeah, this Harmon is up on a murder rap.
A bank robber, a guard was killed.
His lawyer is Bill Quinlan.
Quinlan's bribe moored juries and I got hairs on my head.
If you could ever prove it.
Get a couple of hung juries and they let you off the hook.
He's pulled it plenty of times.
Well, isn't that a little far-fetched?
It's like I say, Al, it's all we've got.
I'll have the boys check the jury list anyway.
Where's your phone? In there. Dan?
Yeah?
Dan, uh, I'm on the jury.
You're what? Well, don't you see?
If I opened my mouth, they'd kill her. They told me so.
So that's it. I didn't dare tell you, Dan.
I hoped you'd find her without... Why, you long-legged,
thick-headed idiot. Don't you think I've been in this business
long enough to know it a little better than you do?
Don't you think I know how to give people protection when I have to?
Do you think we go around trying to get people killed?
Do you know any more that you haven't told me?
No.
Do you know who the juror is they're trying to bribe?
Nope. Yeah, okay.
At least now we know where to start looking.
Dan. Yeah?
You're not sore at me, are you? Me? No.
What have I got to be sore about?
We knew where to start looking, but it wasn't as easy as that.
I was still on the jury, of course,
and they didn't dare make a move against Harman
because of Ann.
The case went to the jury Friday, and there was still
no word of her.
And, of course, I had to vote not guilty. They understood that.
But as it turned out, the vote was 8-4,
so it didn't really matter.
With the hung jury, Harman was scheduled
for a new trial anyway.
By now it was Monday, the day Ann was supposed
to return, but there was no word.
What if they'd found out the police
knew I was on the jury?
It was nearly midnight when Dan came
to the apartment.
He looked as though he hadn't slept for three days.
I hadn't either. He told me to come along with him.
He didn't say much until we were
way down on Avenue C in the Lower East Side.
Don't let her get out, fella, but I think we're gonna come out all right.
When did you find out?
About an hour ago. We trailed Harman.
That's why he got bailed.
Dan, don't kid me. Are you sure that she's...
Sure as we can be. We know where they are.
She'll be there.
Now, that's the place, third house down.
Ellis, you and Wilson,
stay out the back. Farley, Edwards,
take the front. I'm going in.
All right, get going. Dan!
Yeah? I want to go with you.
You stay in the car. I'm going with you.
Okay, come on.
Now, let's go.
There's a light in the front.
They may give us a little reception now.
They wouldn't do anything to her,
would they, Dan? I'll try the door.
It's locked. Can we bust it open?
I got a skeleton.
All right, close it behind you
so the street light won't show us up.
Okay.
They're coming.
Now, those are my boys.
Let's try in here.
I don't think anybody's around.
Come on.
Maybe they took us someplace else.
Quiet.
No, Al. You better stay out.
Why? What is it?
What is it?
It's her, Al. Your wife.
She's dead.
She was dead.
And the next day there was the funeral.
A lot of friends came around
and shook hands and looked at me sad.
And I stood by
where she was lying with all the flowers around her.
This wasn't the way it was supposed to work out.
Dan came too.
For a long time he stood there
looking at her
and my friends
and me.
You called them, didn't you?
I called them? Yeah.
You called them and she thought
you were calling the police.
That's why the police never showed up.
I called them.
She was so insistent I had to call somebody.
I didn't think they'd take her away.
I thought they'd just take the money
and leave, forget the whole thing.
But they took her too.
What about the money?
The money they paid me
for the trial?
The money for the trial, $10,000.
I told you. They took it.
They took the money and they
and they took her.
They took it all except $500.
I kept that in my pocket.
They didn't get that.
That's what I paid for the funeral with.
I know.
We had the numbers of the bills when we
picked them up later last night. They had it all except $500.
That's what
brought me back to you.
That's funny.
I did it for her.
To buy her nice things.
And all I bought her
was a funeral.
Say goodbye, Elm.
You'll have to come with me.
Suspense presented by
Auto Light. Tonight's star, Mr. Ray Milan.
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Music
Next week on Suspense, Mr. Alan Ladd
as star of The Killing in Abilene.
And in weeks to come,
you will hear such famous stars as
Dennis Day, Cornel Wilde, and
Ginger Rogers, all appearing
in tales well calculated to keep you
in Suspense.
Suspense
Suspense is produced and directed by
Elliot Lewis, with music composed by
Lucian Morawek and conducted by Lud
Bluskin. Parts of this program were transcribed.
After the movies was written for
Suspense by Jack Finney, and was
adapted by Robert L. Richards and David
Ellis. Ray Milan appeared by arrangement
with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, producers of
the Technicolor picture, King Solomon's
Minds, with Deborah Carr,
Stuart Granger, and Richard Carlson.
And remember next week on Suspense, Mr.
Alan Ladd in A Killing in Abilene.
.