And now, tonight's presentation from radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
Tonight, the story of a murder, deliberate, cold, motiveless, in which we will examine
its effects on our protagonist.
The story is called, The Earth is Made of Glass.
Good morning, Dr. West.
Oh, good morning, Miss Adam.
I've brought down the night charts from the fourth floor.
Ah, now look the more.
What sort of night did you have?
Fairly quiet, Doctor.
No new cases.
There were.
I don't know where you'd put them.
Well, we have one vacant bed this morning, 436.
Mr. Steele?
Yes, he died about 4 a.m.
Surprised he held on that long?
I thought you might be upset, Doctor.
I mean, the day supervisor, Miss Rosenberg, told me you and Mr. Steele were either related
or very close friends.
No, no, not at all.
Mr. Steele suffered certain delusions.
Just before he died, he asked me to give you this, Dr. West.
It's some kind of diary or journal.
He said he owed it to you, that it was in compensation.
Very well, leave it on the desk.
I'll ask who is in charge of settling his estate.
All right, Doctor.
I looked at the first few pages.
Very strange.
Oh.
Well, I'm going off duty.
Very well, Miss Adams.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Yes, Doctor.
The Journal of Richard Thomas Steele.
Strange.
He tore out a good many pages.
Everything up to July 26th.
That's only a month ago.
Why on earth did he leave it to me?
Who do you think I was?
Poor devil, there was certainly something torturing him.
July 26th, an extremely depressing day.
From early morning on, the air was hot, heavy, sticky.
I stayed indoors.
I stayed indoors with the blinds drawn, spent three and a half hours arranging and cataloging
a new shipment of books.
I must say I gloated over the volume of bacon, gold leaf uncut, 1836, a treasure.
In the afternoon, I ventured out to play chess with Elliot.
He's an uninspired player and a worse conversationalist.
I'm appalled that a man of Elliot's pretensions still wallows in 18th and 19th century thought
patterns, twaddle and sentimentality.
He's totally out of step with the times, blindly determined to keep his mind closed to any
developments in science.
It was so apparent in that argument we had over Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I noticed he had a volume of Emerson's essays, a cheap reprint, and I thumbed through it.
There was one paragraph in the essay called Compensation, which especially annoyed me.
I must have snorted because Elliot was instantly on the defensive.
When I asked him if he actually believed such claptrap, he fairly leaped at me.
Certainly, I believe there's compensation, Richard.
Tit for tat, measure for measure, love for love.
Whatever a man does comes back to him.
Good for good, evil for evil, so that if I should commit a crime, I would of necessity
be punished?
In one way or another, yes.
You mean that I would in some way suffer in compensation for my evil deeds?
Isn't that what Emerson says?
I want to know what you believe.
I believe what he says.
Well, let's read what he says.
Discounting the poetry and all the emotional overtones, Emerson says, commit a crime and
the earth is made of glass.
Commit a crime and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in
the woods the track of every partridge in fox and squirrel and mole.
You cannot recall the spoken word.
You cannot wipe out the foot track.
You cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no in-letter clue.
Some damning circumstance always transpires.
The laws and substances of nature, water, snow, wind, gravitation, become penalties
to the thief.
Well, Eliot.
Beautiful, isn't it?
Don't be evasive, Eliot.
We're discussing his theory.
Well, I don't see how there can be any argument.
We know...
We know a good deal more than Emerson, you old fellow, especially about the laws and
substances of nature.
They surely haven't changed.
No, no, but we've taken them into the laboratory.
We've tested the substances and we've mastered the laws, put them under our control.
The scientific method, Eliot.
White cancels out every word your friend Emerson wrote.
The scientific method.
Is it an open sesame to all knowledge?
Does it make us gods?
There are still mysteries we can never fathom, Richard.
For instance, the mysteries in ourselves.
In our souls?
Yes, in our souls.
Whatever it is we have that cannot be weighed or tested, yet which manifests itself in every
good or evil thing we do.
Say you commit a murder.
Say I do.
A perfect crime.
For I grant you that a man of your intelligence can outwit the police.
Nevertheless, you could not escape from...
Well, let's call it your conscience.
But say I commit a laboratory murder.
What?
Let me put it this way.
To catch a murderer, the police first set out to discover some connection between the murderer
and his victim, which leads them to the motive for the crime.
And when a murderer is caught by his own conscience, it is also through his connection with his
victim, his emotional connection.
But in a pure abstract murder, one occurring in an emotional vacuum, the two participants
would be connected only by the unadulterated act of killing.
But isn't every man connected first of all with himself?
I mean, a man renders judgment on himself.
In his soul, I would say.
With superstitious claptrap, Elliot, apparently you're completely unable to grasp my premise
that theoretically, a laboratory murder is entirely possible.
Why not actually?
It would be very interesting to test the theory and find out.
July 28th, the weather continues warm, humidity high.
This is the last summer I shall spend in New York.
Today, I roamed around my library, read a little, thought a great deal.
It's odd how I keep referring back to my conversation with Elliot.
Abstract murder, a laboratory murder.
I jotted down one or two theoretical points today.
An amusing project in such hot weather.
What utter nonsense to think of conducting a laboratory experiment and writing on paper.
Boy, it's a contradiction in terms.
The core of the scientific method is to prove theory in life.
So, let us proceed actually to create a pure murder.
A murder committed, as I said to Elliot, in a material and emotional vacuum.
A murder of someone with whom I have no connection, whom I have no possible reason to kill.
But I will decide how to choose my victim after I've made all the other preparations
and have purchased the necessary equipment.
Gloves, sir.
What kind of gloves?
Oh, any kind of gloves.
But I mean, what do you want them for?
Driving, gardening?
I want gloves I can use for almost anything.
Oh, well, now we call these utility gloves.
Oh, yes, those are excellent.
Yes, what size, sir?
Any size, medium.
Now, these look just about...
No, no, no, I don't want to try them on.
I'll pick them as they are, just wrap them up.
You know, I'm very fond of a genuine old-fashioned hardware store like this one.
Lots of people tell me that, sir.
Anything special you're looking for?
No, I suppose I'm just browsing.
Oh, yes, sir.
What are those, ice picks?
Yes, sir.
Oh, quite a selection.
Screwdrivers and...
Oh, there's something I want.
A knife?
One of those.
Well, to be fair with you, sir, those are pretty poor knives.
That's why they're marked down.
Too big for paring, too small for carving.
Just knives.
That's about it.
With the best possible recommendation, I'll take one.
A meaningless knife, all-purpose gloves, knife and gloves new, factory-made, uncontaminated
by human association, smelling only of the harsh impersonal machines which turned them
out.
My first safeguards against the intrusion of emotion.
And now to complete my plans.
Who will it be?
I must never see his or her face.
I must not know his or her name, age, occupation, thoughts or desires.
I must come into contact with this victim as casually as though we were blown together
by the wind.
There can be no selection, no volition on my part, except the elementary volition necessary
to raise my arm to kill.
July 30th, the exact record of what has occurred.
But I must write it down now while it's fresh in my mind.
I'll be absolutely precise and objective.
Very well then.
At exactly 10 p.m. tonight, I left my house, wearing the new gloves and carrying the knife
in my right-hand coat pocket.
I walked an undetermined number of blocks, turning corners at random, taking care to
observe no street signs or landmarks.
I observed only one thing, that there were many people on the street.
In fact, I became aware that I was pushing through a rather dense crowd.
I walked on with difficulty, but not once did I allow myself to become conscious of
the exact nature of my surroundings.
Then at last, I found my progress through the crowd blocked by what I can only describe
as a human back.
I raised the knife and drove it into the back with all my force.
I continued walking without haste, pausing only a fraction of a second to hear,
He's dead! He's dead!
He's dead, yes.
I paused just long enough to hear, thus confirmed my unqualified belief that without any possible
consequence to myself, I had taken another human being's life.
You are listening to Mr. Joseph Kearns in Sylvia Richards' Study and Motive, The Earth
is Made of Glass.
Tonight's presentation in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
This is Flag Week, when all patriotic organizations urge all patriotic Americans to display their
stars and stripes.
Your flag hanging on high tells all who pass that America truly is one nation indivisible.
Give new glory to old glory by showing your country's colors during Flag Week and on all
patriotic holidays, national and local.
And now, we bring back to our Hollywood soundstage, Mr. Joseph Kearns, in Elliot Lewis's production
of The Earth is Made of Glass, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
August 1st.
All day I felt enormously stimulated, elated by the success of my experiment.
The very intensity of the sun outside my study has added to my feeling of well-being.
Tomorrow, I shall complete my notes on this extraordinary and I'm sure valuable psychological
study.
Today, I shall relish to the full my mood of achievement.
How I regret that I can't tell old Elliot.
I can picture the disbelief and horror on his face if he knew.
Compensation, oh tut-tut, Mr. Hammerson.
August 3rd.
Yesterday I was unable to write in my journal because of the excessive heat and because
I suffered from a headache and a vibration in my ears.
Today, I'm forcing myself to write to have on record the final control in my experiment,
my laboratory murder.
To assure complete ignorance of the identity of my victim, I have read no newspaper and
will not read any for a period of two or three weeks.
Nor will I hold conversation with anyone apt to be morbidly interested in murder, as reported
in the tabloid press.
August 4th.
The heat is unbearable and all day I have felt that odd heavy vibration in my head.
Now also on my arms and body.
It is almost constant in a one-two, one-two rhythm.
But sometimes it's a sound as well as a vibration like the distant sound of the sea.
I must consult a doctor.
Last night I was kept awake by the throbbing in my head and toward morning I was subjected
to a new agony.
Very softly at first, but louder and louder like voices heard in delirium, my head became
filled with an almost hysterical babbling.
Not for an instant have the voices stopped or even paused.
I simply keep time with the reverberation of my heart.
August 8th.
I have no need to consult a doctor for I know the nature of my illness.
Last night, trying to drive the unspeakable uproar from my brain, I turned to music.
But when I put the record on the machine, Schnabel's recording of Beethoven's F minor
Sonata, the Appassionata, the sound in the voices rose to a bedlam, shrieking, round
out the music.
And then I knew, in spite of every precaution, my laboratory murder had not taken place in
a vacuum.
Two things had penetrated my shield.
First, the voices echoing in my ears, the fragmented speech about a concert, are the
same voices I heard in that crowd, rising again and again to the climax of a woman's
life.
And the pulsing sound I hear when I drove that knife home into a beating heart, its
vital rhythm, the mighty leap and contraction of the heart's muscle on the blade of the
knife, was transmitted back to me through my hand and remains indelibly recorded in
the heartbeat of my own blood.
August 11.
During the past hour, the incessant hammering of sound has receded, but I know this respite
will be brief.
Now, while I'm able to reason, I must discover where I erred and act swiftly to correct my
error.
There's no turning back.
The death I caused is an accomplished fact, and each day I remember something more.
Today, suddenly, like a photograph imprinted on my brain, I saw the black collar of his
coat, his gray hat, and between his clipped, silky reddish hair.
And I had and still have an insatiable desire to turn his head around to see his face.
Perhaps there is only one course for me to take, to reverse my plan, learn everything
about my victim, every possible detail, create for myself a total portrait, and then discard
it in its entirety.
Learn his name, age, address, all the statistics of his life.
Why, beg your pardon, Miss, where are the newspaper files?
What dates did you wish to see?
The week of July 30.
Which paper?
The times, I'll stop with that.
Oh, just a moment.
I want them for the whole week.
Yes, yes.
Well, here are all the copies for July bound, and these loose ones are August, so far.
Oh, thank you.
Now, don't take them out of the reading room and return them to the desk when you're through,
please.
Yes, thank you, I will.
I opened the bound volume near the end and immediately saw his picture, page one, center.
The photograph was blurred, but without reading a word, I recognized him because he matched
his hair.
I mean, his face went with the back of the head I had seen.
But before I could read the headline above the picture, someone spoke to me.
Pardon me, but may I look at that for just a moment?
Oh, it couldn't be.
Standing at my shoulder, smiling, young, apparently as alive as I.
But it was.
He was there.
He, my victim.
The face in the paper and his face were the same.
I swear they were the same.
I'm sorry to bother you, and the girl at the desk told me you had that volume at the time.
Yes, yes.
There's an item I wanted to see in the July 30 issue.
I'd wait, but I have to catch a train.
If I'm late, my wife worries.
You know how it is.
If I am late, my wife worries.
That night he was very late.
Somewhere she's still waiting.
Waiting.
Is that what he wanted me to know?
Oh, but this is madness, hysteria.
It's merely coincidence that the man in the library looks so much like him.
He's dead.
I know he's dead, and the dead neither walk nor speak.
I must believe that.
And I must go back to the library and find out where he lived, who and what he was.
August 15th.
I'm beyond all human help.
I can confide the terrors I live with only to the pages of this journal.
Today I went to Riverside to a quiet street where he had lived, Treeline Street, running
down to the Hudson River.
I walked past his house, number 246 Palisades Road.
A young woman on the front porch was trimming a morning glory vine.
I ached to speak to her and ask her name, but the words stuck in my throat.
I walked on.
Then at the next corner it happened again.
I had paused at the curb when he came up behind me.
Pardon me, did you see the bus go by?
The bus?
Yes, the bus for Columbia.
Say what's wrong?
Are you ill?
No, no, no, I'm all right.
You look like you're about to faint.
I'm all right.
I live right near here.
If you want to lie down...
No, no, no, please, I'm all right.
My house is just down the block.
No, please, no, I...
Well, it's up to you.
I can't make you come, but I hate to see you suffer needlessly.
August 20th.
He doesn't like to see me suffer.
Yet because of him, there isn't one day, one hour when I'm free from despair and fear.
Yes, I accept him now.
The dead do walk and speak.
At least one dead man does.
Whether actually or in the madness of my brain, I do not know.
I only know that if I venture out of my house, inevitably he finds me.
Sometimes he follows at a distance, sometimes waits ahead of me in beckons, and sometimes
he meets me face to face as he did two days ago.
I was going home and I stopped at the corner drugstore.
Evening, Mr. Steele.
Malded?
No, no, I'll have a cup of coffee.
Sure thing.
Yeah, this stool's vacant next to this gentleman.
Thank you.
Oh, no, no.
Go ahead, sit down.
Sure, sit down.
I won't bite you.
Here's your coffee.
No, Joel, I changed my mind.
Look, fella, if it's something about me...
What's wrong, Mr. Steele?
What do you want with me?
Tell me what you want.
Me?
I don't want anything.
Then why don't you leave me alone?
Somebody you know, Mr. Steele?
Apparently Mr. Steele thinks he knows me.
I do.
Oh, I do.
Maybe so, Mr., if you say so.
But if you know me, it sure wasn't from this life.
Must have been some other incarnation.
That was the evening of the 17th.
And yesterday I'd started down the subway steps at 53rd Street.
After looking all around to make sure he was nowhere near, I'd only gone a few steps when
I felt my arm jostle when I turned.
Oh, pardon me.
Please, what do you want?
What?
What do you mean?
Why are you following me?
I looked and I didn't see you, and then suddenly you struck my arm.
Maybe it's just fate or something.
Anyway, I said I was sorry.
Then have mercy on me and go away.
Look, you don't own the subway.
Please, please, please, I beg of you.
Okay, okay, since my face seems to give you the willies, I'll be big-hearted.
I'm in no hurry, got all the time in the world, so I'll wait and take the next train.
Will that help?
You know it will.
I don't know and don't want to, but run along now before I change my mind.
August 26th.
What will you have, quote God, pay for it and take it?
Well, I have paid and I must now take.
For the day I learned the cure for all my pain and torment, the day the course I have
to take is clear.
Today on a deserted path nearing Fifth Avenue, I saw him again.
He was coming directly toward me.
I waited.
I didn't even try to escape.
Oh, wait, I must ask you.
Ask me what?
Well, there's one question I have to know.
I'm not sure I understand.
We don't have to play games or pretend.
I accept you.
You're real.
Yes, I guess I'm real enough.
And only you can give me the answer.
Why me?
Please, I can't stand much more.
Can't you see?
You look sick.
If you want me to help you, I'm...
There's only one way you can help, only one way.
Just answer me.
Well, okay.
Go ahead, I'll try.
Do you believe in compensation?
What do you mean by that?
I mean if someone does evil, if I have done evil, must I get evil in return?
Well, say it again.
Do you believe in good for good, evil for evil?
Look, what about killing?
Well there's all sorts of killing.
In the war I killed several people.
Oh, but senseless killing, killing with no reason.
What's the compensation for that?
You asked a pretty complicated question of a pretty simple guy.
The only thing that comes to my mind right now is what it says in the Bible, an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
That's... that's what you believe?
Well sure, I guess that's what I believe.
Well does that answer your question?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, command.
The price asked by the only one who can ask it.
Well, I'll pay, for I've learned that no event between two human beings can happen in a vacuum.
We're all enmeshed, bound together through our blood in a pulsing net.
And if one of us does violence to another, he does violence to himself.
Very well.
This price I'm glad to pay.
I'm glad to die for his death.
There's no other way.
Hello Mr. Steele.
Are you awake?
Where am I?
In the hospital.
How do you feel?
Hospital...
Oh, but I must...
I have to die.
Not if we can keep you from it.
I have to.
You did your best.
And what a silly way to do it with a butcher knife.
I tell you, you have to let me die.
Where's the doctor?
Now lie down, lie down Mr. Steele.
The doctor will be here in a minute.
I have to make him see.
I promised.
You promised?
Oh, here's the doctor now.
Dr. West, I'm having a little trouble.
Trouble, Miss Rosenberg?
What seems to be the matter?
You...
Forgive me.
I'm sorry.
I tried to do as you said.
I tried to die.
Tell her please go away and leave me alone.
I promise I'll die.
Miss Adams?
Yes, Dr. West?
Did you finish reading his journal?
Yes, doctor.
It's a weird document.
It certainly is.
What made him think you were the man he killed?
That was the nature of his illness.
He had a fixed delusion.
He looked at me and saw someone else's face.
How strange.
Yes, but there's something stranger still.
When I finished reading this, I called the police and checked.
About the murder?
Yes, and there was no such murder as he described.
Not on July 30th, not ever.
He didn't kill anyone?
He never drove his knife into a living back.
But Richard Steele killed in his mind.
You mean just because he thought of killing?
No, he went further than that.
He selected his victim.
Who?
The man whose picture was in the paper.
I looked it up.
It was on the front page of the book review section, a photograph of an author.
Someone he wanted to kill?
Yes, and even for that crime, because he wished for someone's death.
The earth was made of glass.
There was full compensation.
Whose death?
Who was it?
The author of a new biography called Ralph Waldo Emerson and Our Times.
And who was it by?
The author was Richard Steele himself.
Suspense, in which Joseph Kearns was starred in The Earth is Made of Glass.
Next week, the story of a man with no imagination who found it necessary to cause the violent
end of a life.
It was written by the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, E. Jack Newman, and it's
called Sequel to Murder.
Next week on Suspense.
Suspense is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis with music composed by Lucian Morowick
and conducted by Lud Luskin.
The Earth is Made of Glass was written for suspense by Sylvia Richards.
In tonight's story, Joseph Kearns was heard as Mr. Steele.
Featured in the cast were Whitfield Connor, Charlotte Lawrence, Herb Butterfield, Jerry
Hausner, Paula Winslow, and Junius Matthews.
And remember, next week, E. Jack Newman's new Suspense play, Sequel to Murder.
When four noisy people give one noisy party in a Baltimore home, two of the four wind
up at the morgue.
It's an unsettling bit of business that interested all of Baltimore just a few years ago.
And CBS Radio's Crime Classics weighs the available facts for you tomorrow night on
most of these stations.
Hear all about the death of a Baltimore birdie and friend on Crime Classics tomorrow night.
You can join the FBI in peace and war Wednesdays on the CBS Radio Network.