Suspense!
Tonight, the Diary of Sopronio Winters, starring Agnes Moorhead and Ray Collins.
Suspense is presented for your enjoyment by Roma Wines.
That's R-O-M-A, Roma Wines.
Those excellent California wines that can add so much pleasantness to the way you live,
to your happiness and entertaining guests, to your enjoyment of everyday meals.
Yes, right now a glass full would be very pleasant, as Roma Wines bring you...
Suspense!
This is the man in black, here for the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California.
Who tonight from Hollywood bring you as stars, Miss Agnes Moorhead and Mr. Ray Collins.
Miss Moorhead and Mr. Collins will appear in a study in terror, written especially for them,
and for Suspense by the distinguished radio playwright Lucille Fletcher.
But before we take you to the scene of our drama, let's conjure up a scene of our own.
Let's imagine ourselves in sun-drenched Havana, dining in the gay club, Mo-Mart.
As you listen to the music, you put down your wine glass to tell our host how much you enjoy his hospitality.
Part of the credit belongs to Cuba, he smilingly acknowledges, but part of the credit belongs also to your country,
for producing this excellent wine which adds so much to our enjoyment.
For this is Roma Wine, from California in your own USA.
Now, it is a fact that connoisseurs of many other lands know the excellence of Roma Wines,
made in famous wineries located in the heart of the choice wine districts of California.
But millions of Americans also know these things, and have made Roma by far America's largest selling wines.
Here at home, Roma wines are truly inexpensive. No duty, no overseas shipping costs to pay.
And for only pennies a glass, your meals, your entertaining, can have the added delight of superb Roma wines.
You will find them of truly excellent flavor and character, fine products of age-old winemaking skill,
perfected by modern quality controls and tests.
Ask for R-O-M-A, Roma Wines, made in California, for enjoyment throughout the world.
And now with the diary of Sopronio Winters, and with the performances of Agnes Moorhead and Ray Collins,
we again hope to keep you in suspense.
February 1st, St. Petersburg, Florida.
I, Sopronio Winters, have hereby begun this diary because on this date I feel for the first time that I've begun to live.
Diaries are no good unless one has thrilling experiences.
For 40 years I've never had what could really be called a thrilling experience,
but Papa's death has changed everything.
Here I am in beautiful St. Petersburg with everything to start life anew, money and buy purse,
two suitcases full of new clothes, and a gorgeous new permanent way.
And Florida is really the land of romance.
It doesn't matter whether you're 17 or 70. There are parties and dances and bingo games and flirtations for all.
My landlady, in fact, tells me that people often become engaged and even married to perfect strangers overnight.
I'm still shy, of course, but just the same, it's such fun and so thrilling.
To think one's fate may be just around the corner.
February 3rd. Oh, diary, it is beginning.
This morning when I came out of my lodging house to go down to the beach,
I noticed a man, a thrilling-looking man, sitting across the street on a bench.
It was just as though he were waiting for me because when I came out, he sort of started up as though he knew me.
Of course, I didn't speak first, but I knew the minute I started down the street that he was following me.
Well, I got to the beach and sat down with my magazines and suddenly there he was, strolling toward me with a broad smile.
Well, sitting out here all by your lonesome?
Oh, yes, yes, I am.
And down here at St. Pete Long?
Just three days.
Three days? That's a long time. It's a wonder I didn't spot you before.
Oh, oh, Mr. Ed.
Johnson's the name, Hiram Johnson. I came from Green Harbor, Maine, run a big hotel up there summers.
Well, that's my whole history in a nutshell.
Oh, my name's Sopronia. Sopronia Winters.
Sopronia? You know, that's quite a coincidence.
My sister-in-law's name was Sopronia. Sopronia Johnson. You ever heard of her?
She looked quite a bit like you, too.
Sopronia Johnson? No, no, I'm afraid I haven't. Who was she?
Someone very famous. I'm so ignorant about these things.
Well, that's all right. Say, look at that sun, will you? I'd say it was pretty nearly time for lunch.
You know, Sopronia, it's kind of mysterious us finding that nine-point starfish on the beach together.
My sister-in-law, Sopronia, used to collect nine-point starfishes.
But think your name, Sopronia, and you find a nine-point starfish with me.
Well, it kind of draws us together, huh?
Diary, darling, he is wonderful. Strong, kind, warm-hearted, so generous.
I feel as though I knew him completely, as though I'd known him all my life.
What's the good of waiting, Sopronia? I've got to be back at the hotel in a week. We may never see each other again.
Oh, Hiram, don't say that. I couldn't bear it.
Then let's do it right away, tomorrow. There's a parson out on Coral Avenue who'll do the job for us.
We could take a nice moonlight drive out to the alligator farm, afterward have a nice short dinner,
then climb on board the orange blossom tomorrow night from Maine.
Maine. Oh, it's all so wild, so mad, so thrilling. But what would your family think? Wouldn't they be shocked?
Oh, my family's all dead. I'm my own boss.
I'd have to help you run that big hotel. I wonder whether I could do it, meeting all those people.
Oh, don't worry about that. Just think of Maine. The big dark pine woods, the sand, the bay. The two of us alone together.
The two of us alone together.
February 7th, on board the orange blossom. I was married in a wedding dress of Alice Blue Moray,
with a frill of white organdy at the collar and wrists, and a rhinestone belt buckle.
Hiram sent me talisman roses. I'm pressing one precious flower between the pages of this diary for luck.
You'll see it beyond this bend in a couple of minutes. Bag's heavy?
No, not particularly, dearest. Oh, I can't get over that taxi manifestation.
Imagine his insulin saying he didn't want to drive this.
There's the place.
Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't want to look until I put down these bags. Now, where?
There, through those big pines.
Oh, it is big, isn't it?
125 rooms.
So many fire escapes and balconies and porches and towers.
I, I stayed in a hotel like that once years ago with Papa. It was very fashionable and...
My grandfather built that place 50 years ago. It hasn't been changed much since...
No. Of course you put in modern plumbing.
Not yet. Well, here we are. Walk in.
What's that?
Just a foghorn out in the bay.
Fog?
We get it almost every night in this kind of weather.
What are you locking the gate for?
Why not? Is nobody coming in after us? Or going out again for a while?
I thought you said the hotel...
The hotel's empty.
Empty? Hiram?
What is it now?
Hiram, darling, I know it sounds silly, but let's not go in there tonight. Let's, let's wait until morning.
Why?
Oh, just because it's so dark and empty, there's not a light in the whole place and no one's expecting it.
What'll we eat and where'll we sleep? Let's stay in the village just for tonight.
I've got things to eat and a place to sleep. Come on.
Oh, my arm. Hiram. Hiram.
You remember my telling you down in Florida about my sister-in-law, Zephronium?
Well, that's her over there on the wall. Take a look at her.
Hiram, darling, just now you hurt me. Do you realize that? You twisted my arm.
I said take a look at her. Tell me what you see.
Well, the glass is very dusty. She must have died many years ago. Her face is sweet. It's very sweet.
Her eyes, something very sad and wistful about her eyes.
She was a murderess. She was hanged in Portland 25 years ago for the murder of my brother, Hiram, here in the lobby of this hotel.
She murdered him in cold blood with an axe, that fire axe hanging over there on the wall.
It was a summer day. There were guests sitting on the front porch in the rockers. It was just after lunch.
My brother Ephraim was sitting at the desk counting his loose change. My mother was crocheting an adobe casso in that old wicker rocking chair.
Zephronia came downstairs humming a hymn.
Oh, don't, don't, Hiram. Please don't tell me anymore.
Why not?
Well, it is, it makes me nervous to hear it like this in this big shadowy lobby.
And your eyes, Hiram.
Hiram, you're acting so strange. What's the matter with you, Hiram? I know it was a terrible tragedy, but it happened 25 years ago.
Don't touch me, Zephronia.
Don't touch you.
Do you remember what I said to you in Florida?
What did you say? You said a million sweet and wonderful things to me, huh?
I said you resembled my dead sister-in-law. I looked at her again. Look at her closely. Zephronia.
Why? Oh, no, I can't. It's too horrible. I can't look at her face with any pleasure now, knowing she was a murder.
You're afraid to look, is that it?
No, not afraid.
You...
Hiram! Please, my arm.
Very well. I'll look.
Now, stand there quietly. Like that. Take off your glasses. That's all I wanted to see. That's all I wanted to see.
February 12th. Green Harbor Hotel, Maine. I cannot understand it. I try to fathom it, but my head aches and my heart is heavy.
The hotel is deserted, unchanged, and apparently uninhabited for 25 years.
Wash bowls and pitches still stand in the empty rooms, covered with spiders and cobwebs.
Dust is everywhere, and the printed regulations on the walls are tattered and yellow with age.
Our old broken rocking chairs on the front porch faces, emptily out to sea.
Can he mean this to be my home?
He's downstairs now, in the shabby parlor off the lobby, playing the harmonium.
Rody, I...
Yes? Yes? Yes, Hiram?
Sleeping?
No, dear.
Why is your door locked? Come out. I want to show you around the place.
It's all right, dear. I've seen it. I've seen just about everything.
No, no, you haven't. You haven't seen the grounds at all.
The grounds? But, Hiram, it's after midnight.
I want to show you where my sister-in-law, Sopronia, is buried.
Well, not tonight, dear. Please, it's so late and I have a headache.
Open the door, Sopronia. I want you to come now.
No! No, I shan't. Now go away and let me alone. I won't. I won't. I won't. I won't.
It's no use carrying on like that. You see, I've got pasties to all the doors.
And beyond, where those four birches are standing, is where my sister-in-law, Sopronia, was laid away 25 years ago.
It was the biggest funeral in the neighborhood. Folks crowded outside the gate with the dozens, trying to get a look,
but we wouldn't let them. Buried her ourselves, without a service, out here by herself on the grounds.
Ephraim is buried in town, but not Sopronia. I had a feeling that I'd have to keep an eye on her even then.
Keep an eye on her?
Oh, I knew she was one of those restless sleepers who wouldn't stay quiet in her own grave.
I knew before the year was out she'd find some way to start roaming around, hunting for mischief again.
She was a young she-devil to the core, Sopronia. They could hang her till doomsday and it wouldn't do any good.
You mean, you mean, you think she haunts this hotel?
No, no, no, not this hotel. She never had any use for it, dead or alive. No, she makes for the warmer climates.
She was always a cold-blooded little fish, freezing and shivering all the time. It's places like California and Texas.
And Florida, she makes for her.
Florida?
Yeah, that's one of her favorite haunts, particularly around St. Pete. She likes the flowers and the sun and the romance.
How am I? Do you mind if I go inside?
Just a minute. I haven't explained everything.
You think I'm crazy, I guess. Crazy. But I'm a lot smarter than some people give me credit for.
Because you see, I have found her now. Three times.
Do you see that grove of birches over there?
Under every one of them's a grave. I've found her wandering the earth in disguise three times.
And I've killed her three times. And it still doesn't do any good. She's still restless.
You mean, you mean, you've killed three different women?
So now I keep another grave to remind her. It's waiting now. Would you like to see it, Sopronia?
No, no, Hiram, no, please, please.
Are you afraid to see it, Sopronia?
No, Hiram, you don't mean to say that you think just because my name happens to be Sopronia that...
And that I look a little like...
Think what, Sopronia?
Nothing.
February 14th. My mind is made up. I've made a terrible mistake.
I must get away from this place. I must get away from Hiram as quickly as I can.
I shall wait for dusk when he generally sits down in the parlor and plays the harmonium.
I can hide, I can hide a little earlier in one of the deserted rooms.
And then, when he's back in toward the lobby, slip out the front door.
Sopronia, Sopronia, Sopronia.
Oh, oh, there you are. What's the matter? Anything wrong?
No, Hiram.
You didn't want anything outside, did you? Because if you do, you'll have to ask me to get it for you.
You see, I always keep this front door locked.
Yes, yes, Hiram.
And the back door, too. All the doors leading out into the porches and the fire escapes.
And a good many of the windows makes one feel safe from thieves and peeping toms.
Oh, you've got a cold. That's too bad.
Yes, I must have caught it last night outdoors. The damp.
You ought to be in bed. Good one.
The only good bed in the house is in my sister-in-law Sopronia's old room.
Oh, no, no, Hiram. I'm all right. I'm all right. It's just a little head cold.
Little head colds often develop into pneumonia. It's too bad I didn't think of that before.
You might have slept in it from the very beginning. Here, up these stairs.
What's the matter? Are you so weak?
No. No, I'm all right.
This room is the cleanest in the hotel, too. I've always had a sort of suspicion about that.
There, you see? I've kept everything as it was.
What's the matter?
Nothing. Nothing. It's just...
Seems kind of familiar?
No, no. No, it's just that seeing it so clean, seeing it as though someone were living there,
as though they'd only just stepped out for a moment.
It's just that she left it that afternoon when she walked down to murder my brother.
You see her needlework on the table with a needle sticking in it, her hymn book still open?
She was very fond of singing hymns, Sopronia was. Had a nice voice, too. I used to accompany her.
I'll turn down the bed for you. Then you can get undressed while I go and make you some hot tea.
No, I don't want any.
Here's the closet you can put on one of Sopronia's dressings.
Dary, I'm beside myself. I shall go mad. I shall go mad.
Two hours have passed since he locked the door on me. Night has fallen. I'm alone.
Alone in this horrible room with its hideous little moment of the death.
I'm sitting here at her little wicker table trying to be calm, trying to write this.
Somehow when one writes about a thing it doesn't appear so real.
My hand is just brushed against her needlework, her hymn book.
I can't bear having them near me. I must get them out of my sight anywhere in that closet or bureau drawer.
Ready for your tea?
No. Yes, Hiram.
Why aren't you in bed? You'll take worse cold, you know.
I'll get in bed in a minute. First I...
Ah, brushing up on your needlework again.
My needlework?
You've got it in your hand.
Hiram? Oh, yes. Yes, so I have.
Oh, but I wasn't working on it, Hiram. I swear I wasn't.
I've never done a stitch of needlework in my whole life. I don't know one number or a stitch from another.
Now let me show you. Look, look, look. I don't even know how to hold the needle.
No, get into bed, Zephronia. You're feverish.
Before we go on, Hiram, before you go on thinking, we've got to have an understanding.
You've got to let me explain. I was born in 1892 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. My name is Zephronia. That's true, but they name lots of people Zephronia.
I was named for my grandmother. She just died.
Yeah.
Oh, no, no. You've got to listen to me. I lived in Kalamazoo all my life.
My father was vice president of the Kalamazoo First National Bank. Everybody in town knew him, and they know me.
If you'd only just write a letter or send it yy, I'd never heard of Green Harbor in my whole life. I'd never went anywhere.
No.
For almost 10 years, I stayed home day and night, nursing Papa, he had a stroke. I was not in the house.
It was a red brick house with green shutters.
February 15th. Now I live only for moment to moment, listening to each creak upon the stairs.
Oh, my cold is growing worse.
I've been in bed all day. It's night now. The fog on is going to blow again.
February 19th. I woke up early this morning after a wretched night and the date was burning in letters of fire in my brain.
He's planning to kill me. It'll be today.
But the hours have been crawling on. It's almost midnight.
Why does he torture me like this?
I would rather be dead than sit here in this room one moment longer.
If he doesn't come in five minutes, I shall force him to come. I shall beat on the door.
No. No.
Brother, let me sit quiet praying that he doesn't come.
Oh, I want to live.
I want to live.
LeBronia.
It's come.
LeBronia, come downstairs. I want you to sing me a hymn.
Sing? Sing? He never asked me to sing for him before.
But she sang.
I can't sing, dear. I told you that long ago.
Did you? Well, I've forgotten.
And besides, how can I come downstairs when my door's locked?
It's unlocked. Try it.
Unlocked? Oh, no. How could it?
Oh, it is. It is. And I never knew it. I never knew it.
Coming.
Oh, he unlocked it sometime while I was just singing. Why didn't I try a few more times?
LeBronia.
Yes. Yes, Hiram. I'm coming.
Hiram, where are you?
In here. In the parlor.
What are you doing there, Hiram?
Waiting to hear you sing.
You're at the harmonium?
Yes.
All right. I'll sing. I haven't sung in years, but I might as well.
I'll sing for you out here in the hall. My voice will carry better.
It always did carry better in the hall, didn't it, Sopronia?
So you remember that, too. Of course, you know both the front and back doors are locked.
Yes. Yes, Hiram, dear.
Shall I sing, too, Sopronia? Would you like me to sing along with you?
If it pleases you, Hiram.
Work for the night is coming, Work in the morning sun, Work for the night is coming, When man's work is done.
Work while the daylight darkens, Work in the summer sun, Work for the night is coming.
When man's work is done.
There's only one more page. Shall I read it to you?
Yes. Yes, go ahead.
March 22nd. I've been sick, I think, for a very long time.
The pages of my diary are blank, but I shall take you out again, poor diary, today and start you over again.
No. No, I shall never look back at the other pages.
I shall only write on and on about this nice, quiet place, so that no one reading this diary will ever know that I did it.
But I did do it, diary. I was smarter than he.
When I opened that door at the head of the stairs and heard the music, when I saw the fire axe still hanging on the wall,
I was so cautious, so terribly cautious, I tiptoed like a little mouse, even as I sang the hymn into that room where he was playing.
If a reflection of that axe had so much as glimmered across the wood, if he had turned,
but I was clever, so much cleverer than he, I kept on singing.
And now, now I'm free. Free as a bird. I'm free and he shall never catch me now, not this time or ever again, because he's dead.
Isn't he, nurse?
Nurse, isn't my dear brother-in-law Hiram really dead?
Yes, miss, he's dead. And now I'll thank you to hand me over that diary. The doctor doesn't approve of the patient's writing anything.
And so closes the Diary of Sophronia Winters, starring Agnes Moorhead and Ray Collins. Tonight's study in Suspense.
Suspense is produced and directed by William Spear.
It's my job, it's my privilege, to tell you how much pleasure and enjoyment you can add to everyday living by serving Roma wines with meals when entertaining or anytime.
And in hot weather, let me suggest Roma wine cooler offers. Just put ice cubes in a tall glass, half fill it with your favorite Roma wine, then fill it up with sparkling water.
For a sweeter drink, just add sugar and stir. Ah, that, my dear people, is really something. And it's so simple, so good, and so inexpensive.
It's a fact. The cost of Roma wines is only pennies a glass full. Get Roma wines today, enjoy them regularly. If your dealer is temporarily out, please try again soon.
Just be sure you ask for R-O-M-A Roma wines, America's largest selling wines, made in California, for enjoyment throughout the world.
Agnes Moorhead appeared through the courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and is currently being seen in their production, Dragon Seed.
Next Thursday, same time, in an unusual feature performance, Suspense will bring you, in his first appearance as an acting storyteller, the noted American novelist and playwright, Mr. Ben Hecht.
Sharing honors with Mr. Hecht as star of the performance will be Mr. Frederick March. You won't want to miss hearing Frederick March and Ben Hecht in Actor's Blood, which will be next week's tale of Suspense.
Presented by Roma wines, R-O-M-A, made in California, for enjoyment throughout the world.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.