And now, tonight's presentation of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
Tonight the story of a man who sets out to prove that he cannot be murdered, only to
find there was a slight error in his calculations.
So now, starring John Danaer, here is tonight's Suspense play, The Last Letter of Dr. Bronson.
My dear Dr. Mosher, forgive me if I dash this letter off rather hurriedly.
There are but a very few minutes remaining for me.
The few minutes between now and midnight.
You have always protested my fascination with the subject of death.
It irked you to hear me discuss the latest electrocution or hanging.
You alone, Mosher, will know how this fascination has led me to this terrible moment.
I should like you to have all the facts.
First of all, let me recall a conversation which we held here in my study a little over
a year ago.
Death and murder.
There you go again, Bronson.
Really, you're unhealthy.
No, no, no, no.
Now, now, wait, Mosher.
I've been studying the question for some time and I have concluded that there are five basic
checks which serve to restrain man from murdering his fellow man.
An interesting theory.
No, it's, it's more than a theory.
I can and I intend to prove it.
Oh, come on now, Bronson.
I shall select five men, each of whom I shall supply with a motive to commit a murder, greed,
revenge, jealousy, whatever.
I shall encourage each man to kill and then restrain him from the act by means of the
particular check which I'm testing.
You forget, of course, that a murderer requires a partner in crime, the victim, the man to
be killed.
Well, I shall supply one.
You will ask this victim to face five men, each standing to derive satisfaction or profit
from murdering him?
Correct.
And his only chance of survival being the validity of your theory of checks?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Do you seriously imagine you will persuade any man to have such utter confidence in your
reckonings?
There is one such man.
Who?
Myself.
Bronson, this is insane.
Why?
Why should I hesitate to risk high stakes on a sure thing?
But your life...
No, no, I tell you there's no danger involved whatsoever.
When will you begin your experiment?
Well, why don't we begin right now?
Mosher, I invite you to kill me.
What?
There's a revolver right here in my desk.
I...
You're joking, Bronson.
I'm not.
What possible motive would I have for murdering you?
Motive?
Why, we're associated rather closely in our work.
You'll come naturally into my entire practice.
I'll put that in writing for you.
It's preposterous.
Oh.
Why won't you kill me, Mosher?
Why?
There are dozens of reasons.
In the first place, I'd go to the electric chair for it.
There, there.
There you are.
A perfect illustration of the first and most obvious check.
Man refrains from killing because he himself will be killed by law.
All right, Bronson.
Maybe that proves your point, the first one at any rate.
But what about next time?
And the next?
That, my dear doctor, remains to be seen.
And so, my dear doctor, you yourself illustrated the first of my five positive checks which
restrain man from murder, fear of the law.
Now, that was more than a year ago.
The remaining checks have not been so simple.
I had to locate my four subjects.
I had to cultivate the friendship of each so that when the time should come to confront
him with my proposition, I would be certain of how he would act.
Now, the first of my four potential murderers was a clerk named Tutton.
We frequently went to church together on Sunday evenings at St. Stephen's, right around the
corner of my apartment.
One Sunday evening after the service, I asked him at my apartment.
And as we walked along, we talked.
You know, Dr. Bronson, I was talking about you to my wife the other day before they took
her to the hospital.
Oh?
I was saying what a great comfort it was to be with you these Sunday nights.
Oh, now, come, Mr. Tutton, you embarrass me.
Oh, no, no, I mean it.
In the world today, too many people seem to feel that they no longer need their God.
Yes, yes, their lives seem to be void of the great thing you have in your faith.
And the church is a great comfort to me.
And I do need something to cling to in times like these.
Isn't this your apartment that we're passing?
Oh, I wonder about the side way.
We should be unobserved.
Unobserved?
Yes, yes.
Won't you step into the study, please?
Yes.
Now, if you will take this chair opposite my desk.
Thank you.
Good.
Now, Tutton, you could make rather good use of $5,000.
Now, couldn't you?
I beg your pardon.
No, I'm quite sincere.
You know what even $100 would mean to me with my wife in the hospital.
Exactly.
And so here in this desk, I have this little package containing $5,000.
Now, it's yours if you will do me one service.
What could I do for you that would be worth all that money?
Let me explain.
My doctor called on me yesterday and he told me, well, to be quite frank with you, Tutton,
he said that I was slowly going mad.
No, that couldn't be.
No, I'm quite all right at present, but it's only a matter of time and I'd rather not have
to face it.
And so if you will take these rubber gloves.
I don't understand.
Put them on, please.
But why?
Now, as soon as you have them on, I shall hand you this small bottle.
It contains cyanide potassium, one of the deadliest poisons known to man.
Now I hold it firmly thus and clearly impress my fingertips on it.
Finally, here on the desk, I'm leaving this note explaining that I have committed suicide.
Suicide?
Now, when the bottle is in your hand, I want you to remove the stopper and empty the contents
upon my outstretched tongue.
You see, I will be dead within a few seconds.
Then you may leave by the same way we came in.
You will be quite unnoticed and with $5,000 in your pocket.
What do you say?
Well, you can't take the matter of life and death into your own hands.
Precisely.
That's why I'm asking you to do this for me.
Well, I'm very sorry.
I can't oblige you.
Well, now, if it's the law, you feel...
No, no, no, it's not that.
You seem to have arranged that perfectly.
Then what is it?
If you don't understand why I can't do this monstrous thing, I suggest you look up the
Sixth Commandment.
Good night.
So, Mosher, my second point was proved.
No one refrains from killing because it is against his religious principles.
The hands of the clock now read 15 minutes to midnight, one quarter of an hour in which
to complete this report.
Now, my third proposition called for an entirely different sort of man.
One night I came upon him very unexpectedly.
I was walking along one of the darker streets of the city.
There was no one in view.
He was slumped down beside an ash can.
He had been shot in the chest and left arm, severing an artery.
He was bleeding profusely.
I tore off his shirt, made a tourniquet for his arm.
Never mind me.
Get away.
Now, who did this to you?
What difference does it make?
You're going to a hospital.
No, they'll call the cops.
There, there.
Now, come on.
I'll help you to your feet.
Come on.
No, thank God.
I'm a doctor, man.
You'll die if you're not treated quickly.
Go on, I tell you.
They'll call the cops.
I don't want no cops.
His name was Matt Doyle, a small-time hoodlum.
I visited Doyle in the hospital almost every day.
Several months later, I was ready to put him to the test.
I found Doyle in one of his hangouts and brought him to my apartment.
And for the third time, I carefully explained my proposition.
Oh, that's the angle.
Here, here are the gloves.
Here is the suicide note and here is a.45 caliber automatic.
You're familiar with this type of weapon, I take it?
Familiar.
Yeah.
Is this on the level?
Absolutely.
And this water door is mine if I kill you?
That's right.
Nobody will know I've done it.
No one.
Yeah.
These gloves, they're kind of small for me.
That's all right.
They'll do.
Yeah.
You want me to put on the other one?
It's safer, yes, yes.
Yeah.
I guess it is.
Now, I want you to understand exactly what you're doing, Doyle.
Without any justifiable cause, merely for the sake of money, you are going to murder me.
Now, you understand that.
Yeah.
You've been hired to do this before.
Well, yeah.
But you've never killed a friend, have you?
Yeah.
Yeah, I have.
Anyway, they were my pals until they got in the boss's way.
But when the boss would say, see to a mat, then there was just another job to me.
Whatever the boss said was always right, you see.
But you, well, I don't know.
No, no, I can't do it.
But I thought you said that you...
No, here, here.
You take the gloves.
Are you afraid of the law?
No.
What's the matter then?
It's...
Well, the boss always told me what to do, you see.
And then afterwards, he'd always come around and slap me on the back and he'd say, good
boy, Matt.
But if I took care of you, well, you couldn't come around later to tell me that I'd done
a good job.
And you see, well, that's important to me.
Yes, but look, Kyle...
No, no, I'm sorry, Doc.
But if there's somebody else that you want me to take care of...
No, no, no, there's no one.
Thank you just the same.
That was my third proposition.
Even a criminal of low intelligence, a professional killer, cannot bring himself to murder unless
the act follows the code of his society, unless it is approved by some voice of authority.
My next subject was altogether different in temperament.
I first encountered Judith Ainsley about five years ago when I operated on Barrett Sheffield,
the actor.
You will recall that Sheffield was brought to the hospital with a lung abscess.
As I prepared to do the rib resection, I noticed that the nurse standing beside me was greatly
agitated.
Retract his doctor.
Thanks.
Doctor, do you think this is advisable?
What?
His dyspnea is more pronounced.
Listen.
Miss Ainsley, another hemostat, please.
But he's getting blue.
Doctor, do you think you really should?
He's cyanotic.
Miss Ainsley.
I'm sorry, Doctor, but if...
Doctor, Doctor, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Doctor.
Catherine, quickly please.
Quickly!
Well, that's that.
You killed him.
You should never have gone ahead.
You know that, I warned you.
What does it matter with you, Ainsley?
Have you never seen a pulmonary before?
Yes, I have.
Well?
We were going to be married next week.
If ever I saw hate, cold, undying hate,
it was in that girl's eyes.
I had made the most implacable enemy of my life.
A few months ago, I inquired about Miss Ainsley
and learned that she had done four years of medical
and was now interning in the hope of picking up a residency.
I went down to the hospital and sat in the doctor's lounge,
waited for her.
Presently, she came in with another intern.
I stood up, walked towards her.
Oh, I would say about three months ago.
Miss Ainsley.
Huh?
Could I speak with you, please?
Excuse me.
Of course, Doctor.
Doctor Ainsley, if you please.
Yes, Doctor.
I have a little proposition to make to you.
But first of all, there are two facts I'd like to be sure of.
A, you are unable to set up your own practice
because you don't have the money to get started now.
Is that right?
Perhaps.
Fact B, you still hate me and feel a strong desire
to be revenged for the wrong which you consider I have done you.
Yes, I'm afraid that's true, Doctor Bronson.
Good.
Good?
Yes.
You see, I want to pay someone to murder me.
So once again, I carefully and painstakingly
set forth my simple conditions.
I'm not sure that you're entirely sane, Doctor.
But go on, you interest me.
You see, it's my heart.
I've had considerable damage.
Coronary occlusion had to spend six weeks on my back.
Just got up last week.
So naturally, I was given digitalis and...
Oh, I see, Doctor.
You've been heavily digitalised.
And if someone were to give you an injection of calcium gluconate,
you would have an immediate heart block dead within a few minutes.
Exactly.
A simple error of judgement, unavoidable.
Five thousand dollars.
My own practice.
And I will say that I'm feeling badly again,
a recurrence of my pericardial pains.
I will go back to bed and ask that you be assigned to care for me.
And the rest is simple.
No one would ever expect you to know that I had been digitalised.
Still, if I were on my toes, I would naturally go via case history
before giving medication of any kind.
Well...
Yes, I suppose that's true.
Professional people might think you had been a little lax.
Doctor, I want to thank you.
You've done me a great service.
You mean you'll do it?
You've reminded me that nothing,
no money, no revenge, nothing,
can be worth the slightest shadow of suspicion in a doctor's career.
They'll never say that I lost a patient because of an error in judgement.
You see, I once knew a doctor who did.
There, Mosher, is my fourth check.
Man, or in this case, woman,
refrains from killing because of the fear of loss of reputation.
Now...
Now I come to the testing of my fifth subject,
man who would not murder because he couldn't bear the sight of blood,
much less the responsibility for shedding it.
Ladurn was my man, and I found him shortly after my search began.
On that day, I saw him turn a ghastly white as a fast-moving car,
ran over a small dog which had run into the street.
Ladurn clutched at his throat and fell in a dead faint.
Now I, of course, made it my business to become acquainted with him.
I hadn't seen him for more than four months until tonight.
As he took his place at my desk, I noticed he's changed.
He's thinner, his dark eyes seem blacker than ever.
And so now, for the fifth and last time, I explain the necessary details.
Uh-huh. So it will look like suicide.
Yes, that's right. Here is the knife and the suicide note.
You've arranged everything? Everything.
No-one knows I'm here? No-one.
You want me to kill you now? Yes.
Why do you want to die?
My doctor says that I am going insane.
That's strange. About going mad?
About him saying you're going mad. Oh, yes.
It was a shock. I don't mean that.
What do you mean? That's the same thing they told me.
They what? They told me over a year ago that I was going mad.
The sight of blood no longer troubles you? No.
Then there is no check. What check?
I mean, is it? No, nothing. Nothing.
Well, might as well get this over with.
Nice gloves you've got here. Nice and smooth on my hand.
Then you're going through with it?
I've got my gun right here, too. Beauty, isn't it?
Yes. Then if you'll give me back the knife...
No, no, I'll keep that.
I've used this gun a lot the past three months. Killed about 50 dogs.
You've done what?
It's very interesting. I do it after midnight.
It's fun watching the dogs. You have to know just where to hit them.
Kills them instantly. Yes, but the noise...
I have a silencer. I don't like to wake people up when I kill their dogs.
Now, look here, Lutern. This has gone far enough.
I was only joking. No, you weren't.
Now, listen to me. I was only joking.
Shall I do it now? No.
No, no, wait. You want it through the heart, don't you?
Not yet. Can't you wait? Just a little while.
What for? There's no use you're trying anything. I'd kill you quick.
Yes, I suppose you would.
Look, I have been conducting a little experiment.
I would like to write an account of it before I go.
What sort of an experiment?
I don't think you'd understand.
Okay, I'll wait till midnight. Then I've got to go.
There's a German police dog, a big ugly brute.
But I'll wait. Thanks.
The clock says 10 minutes past 11.
Yeah, you've got 50 minutes.
I'll wait by the window.
And so, Mosher, my experiment has ended.
Strange, isn't it?
The one thing I didn't count on was the choosing of a subject
who would not respond to my checks, who in fact had no checks at all,
for insanity knows no restraint.
Dr. Branson, it's midnight.
He is still at the window.
I know that I am beginning to understand exactly what is going on in his wicked mind.
I wonder why.
Now I shall sign my name for the last time and lay down my pen.
Then I shall look up and say,
All right, Ladurn.
Suspense, in which John Dana starred as Dr. Branson.
Next week, the story of a man who learns far too late that in horse racing or life,
there is no such thing as a sure thing.
We call it the sure thing.
That's next week on Suspense.
Suspense is produced and directed by Norman MacDonald with music composed by Lucian Morawick
and conducted by Lud Bluskin.
The last letter of Dr. Branson was specially written for Suspense by Leonard St. Clair
from the story by Richard Crake.
Created in the cast were Harley Bear, Howard Culber, Paul Richards, Virginia Gregg and
James Nusser.
You enjoy City Hospital every Saturday in the daytime on the CBS Radio Network.