Now, Auto Light and its 60,000 dealers and service stations present Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light brings you James Stewart in Consequence, a suspense play produced and
directed by Anton M. Leder.
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Remember, you're always right with Auto Light.
And now, Auto Light presents James Stewart in a tale well calculated to keep you in Suspense.
Hmm.
Maybe the costume was the decisive factor or maybe it would have happened anyway.
In any event, the occasion was the 10th reunion and the class of 29, as such occasions demand,
they were all dressed identically in cowboy suits.
And there was Ted Wolfe, whom I hadn't seen in 10 years, although in college he'd been
by far my closest friend.
And so of course I brought him home to dinner.
And Gwen managed to be quite charming, even though it was the maid's night out.
She didn't even kick about the oven.
And that's how it started out, just like that.
Just like any pleasant, casual little evening.
Oh, Gwen, that was a wonderful meal.
Last one I'll get like that for a while.
Thank you, Sid.
Have you really got to go tonight, Ted?
Can't you take a day or so?
No, not very well.
I've got my plane reservations and everything.
Anyway, I told him I'd be back this week and tonight's just about the deadline if I'm
going to make it.
Well, what time's your plane?
3 a.m.
Say, that reminds me, I can't go aboard in this thing.
Oh, you probably will.
I think you're both kind of stuck on yourselves in those cowboy outfits.
Worse than a couple of kids.
Sure, I'm going to wear mine to the hospital tomorrow.
Oh, fine.
Fine.
No kidding, though.
People will think I'm nuts.
All right, all right.
Now, we'll call the hotel later, have them bring your bags over and you can change here.
Although I would think a cowboy suit would be a sensation in Ecuador.
Ted, are you really going to Ecuador?
First, I thought it must be a joke.
No, you've heard me talk about the work Ted's doing there.
I know, but Ecuador.
Well, they've got to have medical care.
I don't know if it's plantation some way.
I like it.
I don't see how you stand it.
Living like a hermit, cut off from civilization, not making...
Well, I mean, they can't possibly pay you what's...
No, no, no, no, Gwen.
What time?
Oh, my goodness, I've got to run.
Are you leaving us, Gwen?
I promised Mother I'd come out to the country tonight.
Anyway, I know you two would much rather talk over old times by yourselves.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Well, in case I don't see you again, thanks for everything.
It's been swell.
Well, you're coming back sometime, aren't you?
Maybe five years, maybe ten, maybe never.
Silly.
You come back next year and plan to stay for a while.
Oh, thank you.
I am sorry I have to go, but you two have a nice evening.
There are eggs in the icebox, Phil.
Okay.
You always have to have fried eggs at night when he was in college, Ted.
Yeah, that's Phil all right.
Good night, darling.
Don't bother coming to the door now.
I'll phone you tomorrow night.
Bye, Gwen.
Have a good trip, Ted.
Bye.
Goodbye.
You're a lucky man, Phil.
Am I?
Well, I suppose you know that the main reason I came to this shindig at all was to see you.
So, why me?
It's been a long time since you and I had the same dreams, Ted.
You haven't lost them, though.
You're still in there pitching.
Oh, sure.
Yes, yes.
Private practice.
Two cars in the garage, two chickens in the pot.
That's the kind of ball I've been pitching for the last ten years.
And it's the kind I'll keep on pitching until some other doc says coronary thrombosis and
they carry me out.
Oh, you can't kid me, Phil.
You're happy.
I'd just about given up the idea that there was such a thing as a happy man.
And now you think you've found one.
Oh, I know I have.
I knew it the minute I came into this room.
I knew it the minute I saw her.
Gwen?
Yeah, Gwen.
I hate Gwen.
Phil.
And what's more, she hates me.
Oh, it's nothing that shows on the surface we get along because we have to, because my
reputation would suffer if we didn't.
Phil, you can't be serious.
No?
Why do you think I've given up every dream I've ever had?
Why do you think I spend my life treating the imaginary ills of a lot of wealthy hypochondriacs
so Gwen can have this and Gwen can do that, so Gwen can satisfy every greedy instinct
and every petty rotten ambition that any woman ever had?
Good Lord.
I never realized.
Well, that's it.
You've got to do something about it, Phil.
You've got to get out.
You've got to go to another city, go to another country.
Yeah, yeah.
She'd be after me like a hawk.
She'd have me up before the medical association.
Oh, there are a thousand things she could do and would do.
I've thought of it everywhere there is.
It's no use.
So, oh, it's off my chest.
Now you know.
And I'm sorry I disillusioned you.
Excuse me.
Dr. Martin?
Oh, well, now?
Right, I'll be right down.
You're not going out now.
I want to talk to you.
No, well, I'm still a doctor.
Even Gwen can't stop that.
And I'll be back before you leave, though, if you want to stick around.
I'd so like to ride out the airport with you.
Was the call really important, Phil?
Yeah.
Now make yourself at home.
Fix yourself anything you want in the kitchen.
Only look out for the oven.
It leaks when you turn it off just right.
I won't be long.
Okay.
I'll wait, doctor.
Thanks, doctor.
I kind of hoped you would, Ted.
That was the second thing.
Ted is deciding to stay.
But I didn't know it then.
All I knew was that Jo had called me from the office and she was upset.
Still I decided to walk.
I was upset, too.
When I got there, she was going over the accounts.
Hello, darling.
Hello.
That was nice.
Isn't it always?
Always terribly.
What are you doing?
There isn't all that rush to get the bills out.
There is, though.
For me.
For you?
Uh-huh.
What is it, Jo?
What's the matter?
Phil, I had a talk with Father this evening.
Something about us?
All about us.
Well, he doesn't know anything.
He couldn't.
Nobody, unless you told him.
You know I wouldn't do that, Phil.
I'm sorry, darling.
I know.
It isn't what he knows.
It's what he thinks.
We had an awful row.
He said he'd go to the trustees of the hospital.
He said he'd go to Gwen.
He said that?
That's why I'm getting the bills out for you now.
Because I'm going away.
But you're going where?
How long?
No, darling.
It's not going to be like that.
It's for good.
Jo.
It's for good, Phil.
Jo, I can't let you go.
I know it hasn't been perfect, but I know it's been infinitely worse for you than for
me.
But at least we've had something.
At least I've always known where you are, that you're here on the other side of the
door and I could see you and talk to you.
I can't live with a door between us anymore.
Well, maybe you just don't love me enough to...
No, darling.
Darling.
I don't mean that.
Phil, I'm not playing noble.
This had to happen someday and it has.
And that's all.
I could go with you.
You couldn't do that, Phil.
Why not?
I could change my name.
We could go to another city.
Even another country.
I could get back to research.
I could...
Oh, darling.
It's no go, Phil.
I asked her for a divorce again this morning.
You don't have to tell me the answer.
There is no answer for us, Phil.
Not one that we can take.
And there we are.
Yeah.
Yeah, there we are.
You'd better go now.
I've got all this to do.
Oh, let me help you.
No.
Why not?
I could weaken and then where would we be?
Oh, Joe.
No, Phil.
Please go.
Joe.
Please.
Please.
Please.
All right.
I'll go.
I don't know how long I walked that night or where.
Most men are weak and never know it.
But when you're losing the woman you think you love, that's when you'll find out.
That's when you'll see yourself at last in the pitiless glare of all your poor, frightened,
childish helplessness.
And I walked along and I was sick to the depths of my soul.
And I walked some more.
I don't know.
Somewhere in the distance I heard a siren.
There was a glow against the sky of fire.
And then I realized I was near my home.
And then it wasn't just a glow against the sky of any fire.
It was my own house.
It burned almost to the ground.
This is terrible.
How did it happen?
Somebody said they think it was the gas stove.
Stunned and confused, I began edging through the crowd.
And then there was a sudden stillness.
And a few men took off their hats.
And then I saw it.
A stretcher.
And the black had thrown over the shapeless form.
And the blackened shriveled cowboy boot.
And I remembered.
Ted.
Ted had been in that house.
They just got him out now.
Yeah, what's left of him?
They say you wouldn't hardly know it was a man.
Frantically I started forward and then I stopped.
Because I thought somebody had spoken to me but they hadn't.
They weren't looking at me.
They were looking at the ground and the stretcher.
And that thing that lay there on it.
Dr. Philip Martin.
Yeah, I knew him.
He was a good man.
Oh, poor Dr. Martin.
What an awful way to die.
Suddenly I was shaking with excitement.
I pulled my hat down over my eyes.
I turned up my collar and I moved carefully back through the crowd.
Out into the street and I turned the quarter and then I ran.
Joe.
Joe.
Bill.
Joe, I'm going with you.
Bill, you haven't.
It's all right.
It's all right, Joe.
I'll tell you later.
But we're free, Joe.
We're free.
I'm dead.
I'm...
I mean, I mean, Dr. Philip Martin.
He's dead.
For suspense, Auto Light is bringing you James Stewart in Radio's outstanding theater of
thrills, Suspense.
Hello, hello.
Heard you caught a burglar at your house last night.
I sure did, Hap.
There was this man sneaking around my garage.
I said, look here, mister, you want to replace your old narrow gap spark plugs with the sensational
new wide gap Auto Light Resistor spark plugs.
Why those wide gap Auto Light Resistor spark plugs will make your engine idle smoother,
give you better performance on leaner gas mixtures, actually save gas.
What did he say?
Well, holding him firmly with my thumb between his teeth, I said the newly developed exclusive
10,000 ohm Auto Light Resistor found in no other automotive type spark plug increases
electrode life 200% and more.
You said all that to a burglar?
And then throwing him heavily to the ground on top of me, I said, try it yourself.
See your Auto Light dealer and replace those old narrow gap spark plugs with wide gap Auto
Light Resistor spark plugs.
Your motor will idle smoother, give you better performance on leaner gas mixtures, actually
save you gas.
Then what?
Oh, he said he'd stood all he could and he started yelling for the cops.
And I think I'll start yelling for suspense.
And now Auto Light brings back to our Hollywood soundstage, James Stewart as Phil in Consequence,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
There must be something of the criminal in every man because it seemed that I knew automatically
everything I would have to do and how I was going to do it.
Hotel Wilton.
Dr. Wolf, please.
Dr. Theodore Wolf.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, sir.
Dr. Wolf doesn't answer.
Oh, well, say, what's the number of his room again?
I want to drop my note.
Dr. Wolf is in 502.
502.
Thank you very much.
I knew in a big hotel like that the chances of anyone remembering exactly what Ted had
looked like were pretty slim.
And I figured they'd give me the key all right as long as I didn't have to stumble around
asking for the number.
I let myself into 502 and snapped on the light.
I found the plane tickets on the bureau and I pried open his luggage and changed into
one of his suits, put on his hat and overcoat just in case, packed my own things away.
There was a pair of dark glasses on the bureau too.
I put them on.
Then I went downstairs, checked out, paying cash.
I knew he'd bought the plane tickets to the airport and that the travel clerk in the hotel
wouldn't know Ted Wolf from Adam.
Yes, sir.
I'm Dr. Wolf.
I've been staying here at the hotel.
Oh, yes, doctor.
I have a through plane ticket here to Ecuador, Pan American, for tonight.
I want to turn it in.
One moment, sir, that's Dr.
Dr. Theodore Wolf.
Pan American, Wilton Hotel.
Got a through ticket to Ecuador.
Dr. Wolf.
Would you take it?
Thank you.
All right.
That will be quite all right, Dr. Wolf.
And while we're at it, you might as well give me a couple of train tickets.
Yes, sir.
Where to?
I said where to, sir?
Oh, Los Angeles.
We've taken care of everything, a note to my bank supposedly from Ted and closing Philip
Martin's check for $5,000 and a letter in my own handwriting explaining that I'd agreed
to lend him that amount and asking the bank to forward the money to my account in Los
Angeles, my account as Ted Wolf.
And we drafted a letter to the people in Ecuador and we...
Then in Los Angeles, Joe became Mrs. Ted Wolf.
And at first everything clicked.
I got the kind of a job a doctor dreams about where I could write my own ticket and spend
at least half my time entirely on research.
And Joe, Joe started taking courses for a medical degree.
After all, she was only 24.
And then, and then right there, right in broad daylight in the hospital, it happened.
Hello?
Joe, Joe, pack a bag as quick as you can, just enough for two or three days in the mountains.
Now, just as fast as you can.
Phil.
It's Gwen.
I saw her just now upstairs in the reception room.
Gwen, are you sure?
Absolutely sure.
Couldn't it be just a coincidence, Phil?
I mean, couldn't Gwen maybe just have happened?
Maybe, maybe.
Listen, Joe, I've been thinking.
She mustn't know where we go.
That's what I was thinking.
Maybe it would be better if she did know where we were going.
If she didn't.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It may just be a coincidence.
But if it is a showdown, the mountains is a better place than most.
All right.
I'll phone the landlady.
Is that, is that safe?
Now, Gwen won't talk, not until she's sure.
Carlton Apartments, Mrs. Burton.
Hello, Mrs. Burton.
This is Dr. Wolfe.
I wonder if you'd do me a favor.
Why, I'd be glad to, Dr. Wolfe.
We're in the middle of a
town for a couple of days, and I just remembered some friends said they might stop by, and
I thought they might like to join us.
So I wanted them to know where we were.
All right.
Now, maybe you could just stick a note in our door where they'll see it.
We're going to Caribou Lake, and we'll be in the cottage at the very top of the mountain.
It's right straight up a dirt road from the lake.
They can't miss it.
Caribou Lake, the cottage at the top of the mountain up the dirt road from the lake.
Is that all?
Yes.
Thank you, Mrs. Burton.
That's all.
Thank you.
Caribou Lake is nothing more than a general store where you can buy bait and hire boats
and cottages.
At that time of year, there's hardly anybody there except the people who own the store.
The cottage we had was a good three miles away, up a twisting dirt road running above
the lake.
But you could see it very plain, even at night when the lights are on.
We stopped in the store.
We both went in to buy what we needed, food, kerosene, matches, things like that.
Then we went on up the mountain.
By that time, it was almost dark and Joe fixed something to eat, but neither of us could
touch it.
We were watching the road for lights of a car.
It was about half past eight when we saw them.
Then we went on past the store, not stopping, and came on up the mountain.
It couldn't have been anyone else but Gwen.
Well?
Yeah, she didn't waste any time.
What if the car is rented?
No, she'd bring her own.
She loves to drive.
Phil, you're not afraid, are you?
No.
No, not anymore.
I'll go.
Well, this is a surprise.
Hello, Gwen.
Dr. Martin, always poised.
Nothing surprises you, does it?
I suppose it was the check.
Partly.
Then I happened to notice that a Dr. Theodore Wolfe had married a Miss Josephine Reynolds
in Los Angeles.
It did occur to me that your idealistic friend must have been an awfully fast worker.
Well, aren't you and your bride going to ask me in?
Come in, Mrs. Martin.
Thank you.
Quite cozy, aren't you?
We have been.
Well, I'm sorry to break up your little...
All right, cut it out, Gwen.
What do you want?
Dear man, what do you think I want?
In the way things are now, you've got $200,000 worth of life insurance coming to you.
Why don't you let us alone?
Philip, I don't know whether you realize how much worry and anguish you've caused me.
Sure I know.
I know.
I know just exactly how much.
And perhaps you also know exactly how you stand with the law in this matter.
I don't know about all this impersonation business, except it would permanently ruin
your career.
But I do know that the laws covering Bigamy are quite drastic.
Yeah, I used to think that money meant everything to you, Gwen, but I guess it doesn't.
I certainly don't feel called upon to accept rebukes from you, Philip, for anything, not
after what you've done.
I feel that I'm being most generous to both of you.
All right, now just what exactly do you want, Gwen?
Either you come back and we'll explain the whole thing as amnesia or something, or you
both go to jail.
How could you shut up?
Listen, listen.
Just a minute.
Listen, Gwen, does anybody else know about this?
Of course not.
Nobody knows you came out here, or why?
After all, Philip, I do have some pride left.
Just that I was taking a little trip to New York to forget.
New York, huh?
All right, Gwen, just give us a couple of minutes to talk this thing over, will you?
Alone?
Very well.
Although I don't see there's very much to talk about.
Will you go outside or shall we?
I'll go.
I'll wait in the car.
Oh, Phil.
It's all right, Jo.
I don't mind now.
Neither do I.
Do you think you can do it?
Me?
I'll have to have an alibi.
Have you thought?
I've thought about it.
I've thought about it all day.
And it's all right.
It's good.
She'll disappear the same way I did.
A fire?
Yeah.
Only I'll have to be down at the store when it happens.
This place will go up like kindling.
And when they pull her out, they'll think it's you.
Nobody knows she's up here.
And I'll be there to say it is you.
How are you going to...
I've got it all fixed in the cellar.
All you have to do is...
Here.
Use this hatchet.
Can you?
Yes.
I will.
Then go out to the car and get on the floor of the back seat under the blanket, lock it
from the inside.
I'll probably get away right afterwards.
All right, Phil.
I'll see you in the car.
And the whole thing shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.
Phil, you're not afraid?
Are you?
No.
I'm glad.
Gwen?
Yes?
Come on in.
Have you decided?
Yes.
Yes.
Well, you might as well eat with us.
There'll be quite a few details to talk over.
I'm not sure I feel much like eating in this house, Philip.
Yes.
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not going to start back hungry.
Give me the keys to your car, will you?
It's blocking mine and I'll go down the hill and get a few things for dinner.
Really, Philip?
Will you please stop griping?
You've won.
Now give me the keys.
Very well.
But I wouldn't try any mad dashes if I were you.
Oh, don't be a fool, Gwen.
No, I don't suppose you would alone.
She went in.
I took the keys, but first I went around back down the cellar.
I put a lot of old newspapers around the wood pile and doused the whole thing with kerosene.
And then I cut a stub of plumber's candle and set it on the papers and lit it.
I knew just about how long it would take the candle to burn down, about 45 minutes.
Then I went out and I got in Gwen's car and I started on the mountain without lights.
At the drop above the lake, I put it in low and I cramped the wheels and I jumped out.
About 40 feet of water.
Unless somebody told them where to look, they'd never find the car.
And all that hadn't taken more than 15 minutes.
The walk down to the store took about 20 more.
Well, forget something, Dr. Wolf?
Yeah, yeah, like a fool.
I forgot my tobacco.
I can't get through the night without a pipe.
No, just how it is.
Walk down?
Yeah, working up an appetite, you know.
There you are.
You folks have callers tonight?
No, no.
Why?
I thought I saw a car go up your way a while back.
Oh, oh, I saw the lights, but they didn't come up.
There's somebody must have made the wrong turn.
Didn't they come back?
I don't know.
I was out for a spell.
You see that car come back by, Daisy?
Well, you must have seen it all right.
It was about an hour ago.
Oh, seems like I did hear a car about that.
Sure, sure, that was it.
Yep, pretty sure I did.
Mrs. Dooley don't always see so good, but she hears plenty.
Here, Ma.
Hey, Pa, looky here.
Pa, look it.
Look it up there.
Looks like a fire.
Say, it is.
It is a fire.
Golly, Doc, that looks like your place.
It couldn't be, but it must be.
Big too.
We better get up there too.
Do you have your, do you have your car?
We'll go in the truck.
It's right outside.
The boys can bring Ma along in the car.
You hear that, Ma?
Yeah.
Len.
Come on, Doc.
Johnny, get out of the car.
I sure hope everything's all right.
I sort of why.
The cottage was all wood and dry, and it was completely gone by the time we got there.
It was the boys who dragged her out of the embers.
I wouldn't look if I was you, Doctor.
Oh, Joe.
Must have been quick anyway.
She's burnt almost to nothing.
You better go on, Doc.
We'll take charge of everything.
All right.
Do you want one of the boys to go with you?
No, no, no.
I'll get in touch with you from town.
I'll make the arrangements down there, and I'll send down for...
Sure, sure, sure.
You go on.
We'll see to everything.
All right.
I'm awful sorry, Dr. Wolf.
I climbed into the car and I started down the mountain.
When I was around the first bend, I pulled up and stopped.
I reached over with one hand and touched the blanket on the floor behind me.
Are you all right, Joe?
Yes, Philip.
I'm quite all right.
Gwen.
Gwen has never told me how it happened, but of course she killed Joe.
We both killed her.
And now I know that I'm trapped.
I'm hopelessly, irrevocably trapped by the terrible burden of guilt we share between
us as she is.
I know now the two people held together by such a frightful bond cannot both go on living,
for that bond can be broken in only one way.
One of the two must die.
And so I write this and place it in the hands of my attorney for safekeeping in order that
the true facts be brought to light in the event of such a death.
For no matter how innocent it may appear, no matter how natural the cause, how plausible
the accident, it will be no accident.
It will be murder.
Cold-blooded, calculated, deliberate murder.
And now the local news.
Dr. Philip Martin, who has been in poor health for the past three months while recovering
from an attack of amnesia, died today in his home from an overdose of sleeping sedative.
He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Gwen Martin.
Thank you, James Stewart, for a splendid performance.
Better performance, Harlow.
Yes, half as like the performance you get when you replace old narrow gap spark plugs
with wide gap auto light resistor spark plugs.
They make an engine idle smoother.
Give better performance on leaner gas mixtures.
Actually save on gas.
Because auto light resistor spark plugs are ignition engineered.
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Remember, you're always right with auto light.
And now here again is Mr. James Stewart.
Well, I want to thank Tony later and his great cast of actors for making my suspense visit
so pleasant.
I'm a great suspense fan and like all of you, I'm looking forward to the next week's show
when Frederick March appears in Cornell Woolrich story, The Night Reveals, another gripping
study in...
James Stewart can currently be seen starred in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, The
Stratton Story.
Tonight's suspense play was adapted for radio by Robert Richards from an original story
by Vladimir Posner and George Sklar with music composed by Lucian Morrowek and conducted
by Leith Stevens.
The entire production was under the direction of Anton M. Leder.
Next Thursday, same time, hear Frederick March in The Night Reveals.
You can buy auto light resistor spark plugs, auto light staple batteries, auto light electrical
parts at your neighborhood auto light dealers.
Switch to auto light.
Good night.
CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.