Now, Roma Wines, R-O-M-A, made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
Roma Wines present Suspense.
Tonight, Roma Wines bring you Miss Nancy Kelly and Miss Kathy Lewis in Dark Journey,
a Suspense play produced, edited, and directed for Roma Wines by William Spear.
Suspense, radio's outstanding theater of thrills, 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 Nancy Kelly and Kathy Lewis
in the premiere of Lucille Fletcher's radio play for two actresses, Dark Journey.
Tonight's study in Suspense.
Today I'm going on a journey. I am going to see Ann Brody again after 15 years.
When the news came yesterday, terrible as it was, it was as though a shadow had lifted from my life,
a secret horror that I could never quite forget.
I have been afraid of Ann Brody now for 15 years, but there is no need to be afraid of her anymore.
Ann's secret has been locked in my heart together with all shameful, horrible things.
Yet I've never gone on a journey like this one, but while it comes back.
There have been times when I couldn't bear the whistle of the train,
flung out long and mournful over the lonely countryside.
I couldn't bear the smell of a day coach, the feel of the plush seats, the rattle and bustle.
Only because everything came back, every detail of that long and terrible weekend we spent together 15 years ago.
Oh, God!
Oh, Alice, Alice, we're all. Thank goodness.
I don't think anybody saw us, do you?
No, only old Mr. Hodges was stationed at the master and he's no God.
I wouldn't want anybody to know, not that I care, but you know how the tongue's wagging in this town.
Well, it's much better to be perfectly sure of your plans before you pass the word around.
Then if you and Clyde don't settle things, nobody will be any the wiser.
If we don't settle things? Well, there's no if about it, but Clyde and I are practically engaged.
Did you get his letter yet about us coming to New York?
Uh-huh.
Well, for goodness sake, why didn't you tell me? What'd he say?
Oh, nothing much. He's no letter writer, just that he was glad and that he's been busy and he's going to call us at the hotel.
Oh? He can't meet us at the train?
No. It seems it's his mother's birthday and he's promised to take it to lunch in town.
We'll be getting in just around that time. He's terribly devoted to her, you know. Has been ever since his father died.
Oh, I see. You're very much in love with him, aren't you, Anne?
Terribly.
And yet you really see him so little. How long has he been now? Three months?
Not three months and six days, but it doesn't really matter.
No?
I know Clyde loves me and I love him. There's a bond between us and nothing will ever break it.
Well, as long as you feel that way, it's a wonderful way to feel.
I don't think you ought to let it drag on like this much longer, Anne. I really don't.
Don't worry. We'll settle it this time once and for all. You'll see.
When we get on this train again, I'll be wearing his engagement ring on my finger.
Oh, doesn't anybody ever open a hotel window?
Three o'clock. I thought he'd have called me by now.
Oh, he's probably tied up with his mother.
Come on, let's get on the drugstore and have a sandwich. Aren't you just starved?
No, no, I don't feel hungry. You go, though. I'll wait.
Oh, come on. The clerk will take the message for you.
No, no, I want to be here myself.
Why don't you call him?
I can't if he's at a restaurant.
Maybe he didn't go. Maybe he's home sick or at the office.
No, no, it wouldn't look right. He's got to call me.
I don't know why he doesn't.
I don't know why either. In fact, why couldn't we all have had lunch together at that restaurant?
I mean, he's not exactly poor, is he?
Don't you want to take a bus ride or see the sights or anything?
Later, Alice, after he's called.
Hello? Yes? Oh, yes, this is Miss Ann Brody.
What? He left a message.
Oh, thank you.
What is it?
He stopped by and left a message.
He has a previous engagement. A previous engagement.
When he knew I was coming to New York this weekend only to see him.
Well, maybe it was something he couldn't get out of. Maybe on account of his mother's birth.
But he already gave her today.
And after all he knew I was coming, he knew I'd want to be with him every possible minute.
Maybe that's the trouble, Ann. Maybe he doesn't want to be pinned down.
Maybe you expect too much.
That he was right here in the hotel and he didn't even...
Oh, he's grown away from me. He's not mine anymore.
Alice, Alice, you know what Clyde has meant to me these three years, how I've lived for him and worshipped him.
Oh, it's just as though my world has been cut away.
It's like having a lump of ice for a heart.
Alice, Clyde is my heart.
Oh, I've got to see him. I've got to tell him.
Oh, Ann, dear, wouldn't you like to lie down?
No, no, I can't lie down.
I'm free to sit here in this chair by the window.
I wish you'd go, Alice.
I want to be quiet and think and think about him.
Ann, I wouldn't.
Something's happened to him. There's some derriere.
I've got to wish it away, to break it down.
What are you talking about?
I can do it, you know.
Ann, please go. Please.
Oh, oh my gosh, don't tell me it's nine o'clock.
I didn't mean to sleep so late. We'd better get up and get breakfast.
Alice, Alice, what am I going to do?
What am I going to do? He hasn't called me. I haven't slept.
Why don't you call him, Ann? Call him and have it out with him once and for all.
No, no, I couldn't.
Well, maybe there's something bothering him.
Maybe it's some family situation.
After all, his mother didn't have lunch with you yesterday.
Maybe there was a reason.
What reason could there be except that she didn't want to meet me?
She doesn't want him to marry anybody. She wants him all to herself.
Well, isn't that enough to upset any fellow?
Oh, come on, we'll get to the bottom of this thing.
What's his number? I'll get it for you.
I, I haven't his number. I never called him at home.
But his address is 3254 Sunset Drive, Riverdale, New York.
3254 Sunset Drive, Riverdale, New York.
Hello. Hello, operator. This is room 351.
We want to put in a call to Riverdale, New York.
3254 Sunset Drive, Riverdale, New York.
The name is Dexter. Mr. Clyde Dexter.
Will you get it for us, please?
What did she say? She's looking at us.
There it is. She's ringing.
Here, you better take it now.
Oh, no. No, just one minute. One minute.
Let me get my breath.
Let me think of what I'm going to say.
Hello? Is this the Dexter residence?
This is Miss Ann Brody speaking.
I wonder if I might speak to Mr. Clyde Dexter, please.
Thank you.
Clyde?
Oh, Clyde, this is Ann.
I'm fine, thank you.
Oh, Clyde, I've been waiting here at the hotel for you to call,
and Alice and I have to spend the morning out,
and we thought we'd better let you know we wouldn't be in
just in case you wanted...
Oh, yes, Clyde, I know you said you had a previous engagement,
but I thought...
Well, you see, Clyde, I'm only going to be here today,
and we get to see each other so little, I was wondering...
What's that, Clyde?
Yes? Yes?
Well, no, I didn't.
What did you say, Clyde? I didn't understand.
You know what? You...
Oh, Clyde. Oh, Clyde, it's not true. It can't be.
It can't be. But, Clyde, we...
But, Clyde, you can't do this to me.
I've considered myself engaged to you.
Ann, give me that phone.
No, I just want to say goodbye to him. Please.
No.
Ann, don't look that way.
What did he say?
He told me he's engaged to marry a New York girl this September.
Oh, Ann.
Well, he just isn't worthy of you.
He couldn't have been if he treats you like this now.
I love him. I love him.
I'll love him till the day I die.
Ann, I'm sorry. I'm...
Oh, please, Alice, please, don't talk.
Don't come near me or go away, will you, just for a little while?
Oh, no, I won't leave you. I can't leave you when you look like that.
Oh, go away, I said.
Oh, do you hear me? Go away. I want to be alone.
I want you to go away.
I...I have work to do.
Work to do?
I'm...I'm going to will him to come back to me.
I'm going to make him come to this hotel through heaven and hell.
And they're dragging him away from me.
Oh, Ann.
I can do it. I've done it before.
I've made him write to me. I've made him call me up out of a clear sky after months and months.
I willed him to speak to me the very first time I saw him when he was just a stranger.
I willed him to give me his return deep in last year at the Spring Dance, and I can do it. I can do it.
If only I'd try hard enough and...
And if you're absolutely quiet...
Clyde...
Clyde!
Oh, it's no use. He's too far away.
I'll have to come closer to him.
We're going out.
Going out? Where to?
To Riverdale.
Riverdale?
I want to look at his house, to see where he lives.
There's something there. Someone who's holding him back.
Ann, let's go back to Denford. Let's take a train tonight, any train, and get out of here for good.
No, I can't go home. I told you that before. I can't until I have his engagement ring on my finger.
For Suspense, Roma Wines are bringing you Nancy Kelly and Kathy Lewis in Dark Journey by Lucille Fletcher.
Roma Wines presentation tonight in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
Between the Acts. This is Truman Bradley for Roma Wines with a little domestic drama.
It's happened to you before and will happen again.
You're relaxed in your easy chair, coat off, contentedly reading your evening paper.
Your wife is probably tidying up after dinner.
The doorbell rings. Sure enough, it's guests who just dropped in.
Now, famed hostess Elsa Maxwell tells us how she handles these surprise visits.
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That's R-O-M-A, Roma Wines.
Remember, more Americans enjoy Roma than any other wine.
And now Roma Wines bring back to our Hollywood Soundstage, Kathy Lewis as Alice and Nancy Kelly as Anne in Dark Journey,
a play well calculated to keep you in suspense.
It's getting dark. I don't think we ought to be wandering around here like this. There might be strange men.
Here's the street, Sunset Drive, and there's the house. I've seen pictures of it. I'd know it anywhere.
Anywhere.
Oh, Anne, please. This is doing you no good.
Oh, Hush. I've dreamed about that house, dreamed of myself and him living in it together.
I've dreamed of our children playing on that lawn and the sound of music inside and our cars standing outside.
But it wouldn't mean a thing to you, Anne, if Clyde didn't love you.
I've dreamed of the years we'd spend together. I even named the children Clyde Jr. and Peter and Charlotte.
That's his mother's name. I never liked it, but I was going to call one Charlotte just to please him.
And now what have I got? Nothing. Nothing is gone.
Come on, come on with me, Anne.
Oh, there's a light going on upstairs. He's thought of his room. I wonder if he's home.
Clyde, Clyde, think of me. Come back to me.
Oh, love me, Clyde. Love me. Love me.
No, Anne, don't. Somebody might hear you.
There's a shadow at the window. Oh, it's Clyde. Oh, no.
No, it's someone else. It's a woman, a gray-haired woman. Oh, it's his mother, Alice, Clyde's mother.
I don't think he's home, Anne. Let's go back to the hotel.
No, no, I want to see her. I've heard so much about her. She always turned her nose up at me.
He never admitted it, but I knew. He was the only son and she thought there wasn't anybody good enough.
And he was always under her influence, just believed everything she said.
I could tell the way he talked. It was always mother says this and mother says that.
How better was she who turned him against me, who picked out that, that New York girl.
Oh, Anne, please come on. You're just tearing your heart out.
She's up in his room now. She's straightening his things. She's happy up there.
She doesn't care that she's made me miserable. Oh, I can feel it now, Alice. I can feel the barrier in my heart.
Shh, something's coming. Let's go.
We're doing no harm. We can stare, can't we, if we wish? Come on. Come on, we'll walk past the house. We'll defy her.
We'll go up and ring the bell and then when she comes down to answer it, we'll ask, is Mrs. Clyde Dixter at home?
And then when she answers, who we mean, we'll laugh at her face.
Oh, Anne, you're just beside yourself.
Yes, I am. I am beside myself because I feel it, Alice. He's lost to me as long as she's up there.
Oh, I can stand here out here under the trees trying to reach him with every bit of soul I possess, but as long as she's there,
as long as she's alive, he'll never be mine again.
Anne, Anne, this is terrible. You've got to pull yourself together and get some rest. You've been sitting in that chair now for three hours.
Please, don't talk. Just let me alone. You're working on that willpower thing still, aren't you, Anne?
Anne, it makes me awfully nervous.
Be quiet. It's coming. Something's coming. Something's going to happen. I feel it all around me.
I'm going to get a doctor if you don't stop.
Shh, shh, shh.
I feel it. I feel something. You're just as white as a sheet. You're shaking all over.
I absolutely refuse to let this go on. Do you hear? Now, you get into bed.
No.
Let me take off my shoes.
No, no, no. Leave me alone.
It's as though there were a big lump being moved off my heart, as though the ice inside me were going, as though I could cry at last.
Oh, it happened. Oh, thank you, God. Thank you.
All right. I'll lie down now. I'll go to sleep.
If you could sleep, you'd feel better. If you'd just relax.
I've done it, Alice. You'll see. He'll be here in the morning. You lie down now.
There he is. Didn't I tell you? There's Clyde now. Hello? Yes.
Yes, this is room 351. Yes, this is Ann Brody speaking. Yes.
It's Riverdale calling.
Riverdale? Clyde?
She didn't say. Oh, hello? Yes. Yes, I'm Ann Brody.
Why, yes, I'm a friend of Mr. Clyde Dexter. Who did you say this is, please?
The police.
The police?
Oh, something has happened to Mr. Dexter, hasn't it?
Oh. What? Yes. Yes, my friend and I were out to the house late this afternoon, around six o'clock.
Well, yes, I did wear a white hat and a green dress, and she...
Oh, but we took the subway, the White Plains Express, on the Inderbur line from our hotel.
We came back around seven. We just walked past the house tour three times, but...
But what's the matter?
Why are you asking me these questions? No, I haven't seen them. I...
What?
Give me the phone, Ann. Let me speak to them. You're in no condition to do...
Keep away.
You know what they're saying, don't you? That Clyde's mother has been murdered.
What? Oh, no. No, I haven't.
Yes?
No. No, we didn't. We just came right home. We didn't even ring the bell.
His mixer's desk to get there with you.
I see. Well, I'd like to speak to him, please, when he gets through.
Will you ask him to call me?
Yes. We'll stay here in the room.
Oh, Ann. It was a hammer. At eight o'clock tonight.
She was struck from behind by an unknown assailant.
Oh, how awful. Why did the police call us?
What have we got to do with this?
Clyde was home when we walked by the house. He saw us standing there.
I'm going to tell him, Alice. I'm going to tell him the truth.
Truth? What truth?
There's always been that power inside me. I've known I had it, and sometimes it frightened me.
Things have happened. I've been afraid sometimes to use it, afraid it would turn against me.
And tonight it did turn against me.
Ann, what do you mean?
By an unknown assailant. Murdered by an unknown assailant.
You know who that assailant was? It was me.
Ann, are you crazy? You were up here in the room every minute.
I was up here in the room, but I was wishing she were dead. I was willing him to come to me.
I was trying to destroy the barrier.
Surely you can't believe that, Ann. It was only a coincidence, a terrible coincidence.
I was trying to bring him back to touch his heart, but the power didn't touch his heart.
His heart's like steel against me. It struck his heart and glanced off and struck her dead.
Ann, please, you're talking like a little...
But you don't understand. People like you can understand. People like you...
But there's violence to will. To store it up takes years.
To send it out of yourself is like sending a powerful hand with fingers.
Will can't kill somebody, Ann.
Not pure will. The body is one thing, the mind's another.
Mrs. Dexter is physically dead. Her heart stopped beating.
There was a blow. Somebody real, somebody human did that.
She was struck from behind. She was alone in the house. They said the doors were locked.
She had no enemies. It came out of nothing and it went away again.
Oh, I never dreamed... I didn't want it to happen that way, but...
But it's getting beyond me. It's assuming forms and accomplishing ends. I don't plan.
It's turning against me, Alice. Turning against me!
Do you think a police court will believe you?
You'll only confuse the testimony. You'll only hurt Clyde.
Oh, Will. Will, you talk about the power of your will.
Did you have any real power these last two days? Did it bring Clyde to this hotel?
Did it make him love you or even call you off?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Don't you touch it. I won't let you speak to him.
Get away from that phone, Alice.
Do you want to get us in trouble? Do you want us to go to jail and spend weeks in court?
He'd put you there. He wouldn't care.
Get away from that phone, Alice.
I don't believe you, do you hear? I think you're mad. You're mad as a hatter.
Get away from that phone.
No!
And you'll ruin your life. You'll fall into suspicion.
And people always think you had something really to do with it.
You'll end up in an asylum. The whole world will know he jilted you.
What...what are you going to say to him?
He must be half beside himself as it is.
He'll never believe you.
What?
All right. Thank you, Alice.
You see? It is there, isn't it?
I made you do what I wanted.
And I could make anyone.
Hello?
Hello, Clyde.
Oh, Clyde, darling, I just heard the terrible news.
Not terrible for you. I'm so sorry.
Yes, Alice and I were out there this afternoon. We came by to say hello, but we got cold feet and came home.
No, Clyde, no, we didn't. Not a soul.
Oh, yes, my darling, I...I understand how terribly broken up and...and my heart goes out to you.
Oh, I will, Clyde. Dearest, I will. I'll be right over.
I'll help you in any way I know.
Goodbye, Clyde.
Anne.
You didn't tell him.
You're not going to tell him at all.
No. Why should I?
He's mine now.
And so Anne Brody walked out of my life.
Walked from me, wrapped in her new and terrible strangeness.
Now I didn't want to play any part in her life again.
I didn't go to her wedding when she and Clyde were married one year later.
To me, there would have been something evil in hearing her voice repeat the sacred words.
I am take thee, Clyde.
There has been for me a nameless horror in the slow, steady way Anne Brody fulfilled her plans.
The house in Riverdale, the car, the three children, Peter, Clyde Jr., and Charlotte.
Her happiness, her triumphant motherhood have somehow been hideous to me.
I've never heard a train whistle crying through the dorm, but what I've thought of her and shuddered.
I have been afraid of Anne Brody now for fifteen years.
Today, I know I've been a fool.
Today I know that it was a real murderer who murdered Mrs. Dexter with a hammer from the service porch.
Today I'm going on a journey to Riverdale.
I am going to see Anne Brody again, lying willed and struck down in her coffin.
Lying innocent and pathetic, lying murdered. Not will, nor nameless monsters of the mind could save her from the truth at last.
Yesterday afternoon, the weak, long-blooding creature who could not brook domination from mother or wife,
flung pent-up deaths against the mistress of his will.
Yesterday afternoon, Clyde Dexter struck again.
Suspense.
Presented by Roma Wines, R-O-M-A. Made in California for enjoyment throughout the world.
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This is Nancy Kelly. I'm sure you'll want to hear next Thursday's suspense when Joseph Cotton will star as a famous New York criminal lawyer
in one of the best known suspense stories of our time, Den Hecht's Crime Without Passion. Thank you.
Nancy Kelly will soon be seen in the Paramount picture. Follow that woman.
Next Thursday, same time, Roma Wines will bring you Joseph Cotton as star of Suspense, radio's outstanding theater thrill.
Produced by William Spear for the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California.
Next week, part of the country goes on daylight saving time. If your area remains on standard time, tune in Suspense one hour earlier.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.