Auto Light and its 96,000 dealers present Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light brings you Vamp Till Dead, a suspense play starring Miss Ginger Rogers.
Hello?
Sure.
Honest.
Bye.
Sparkling conversation, Harlow.
Well, that's the owner of a new Auto Light stay full battery, Half.
The battery that needs water only three times a year in normal car use.
Hello?
Why, sure.
You're telling me.
Bye.
Harlow, are you speechless?
No, Half, that's my friend again.
He wants me to know his new Auto Light stay full battery has fiberglass retaining mats,
protecting every positive plate to help prevent shedding and flaking,
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And you said nothing?
Well, there is nothing to say after such a sound statement, Half.
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The battery that needs water only three times a year in normal car use.
And remember, you're always right with Auto Light.
And now with Bamped till Dead and the performance of Miss Ginger Rogers,
Auto Light hopes once again to keep you in suspense.
The End
Ha ha ha ha ha ha, your first name, I've forgotten.
What did you say it was?
Amy, Mr. Gentry. Amy Watkin.
Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, yes, yes, yes.
And are you a good secretary, Amy?
Why, you have all of my recommendations, Mr. Gentry.
I mailed them to you a week ago.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, to be sure.
I must have looked at them or I wouldn't have hired you
and had you come all the way from New York now, would I?
You never worked for a writer.
You think you're like it here in this big house working for me?
I hope so, sir.
Sir. Ha ha ha ha, sir.
That's very good.
Did that politeness come from some secretarial school,
or perhaps your dear old mother taught it to you?
No, I know, sir. I mean, I...
Never mind, Amy, as soon as we finish eating,
you may unpack, write whoever you have to write,
and explain it to us safely here.
We start work first thing in the morning.
I'll attend to all that, Mr. Gentry.
What do you think of me?
I beg your pardon?
Me? How do I strike you?
What am I, a gentle person, a wit, a profound talent, a buffoon?
Tell me, Amy, I'd be interested in your opinion.
Well, I've only known you half an hour, Mr. Gentry.
Then I'll tell you I'm a writer.
Amy, do you know what it means to have a million words inside of you
and not be able to let them out?
No, sir.
It's an utter horror,
and that's the way it's been with me for almost a year.
But now I'm ready to go back to work again
and release those million words.
To take them down, that'll be your job.
I'll do my best, Mr. Gentry.
It's not going to be easy, very demanding, Amy.
That's why I'm paying you a good salary.
I'll make you work when it's working time.
I understand, Mr. Gentry.
Sometimes I feel like working, and sometimes I don't,
and sometimes I...
I like carnations on the dinner table, Amy,
very hard to get.
Shipping problems in winter like this, delicate, fragile things.
Yes, they are.
But they are my favorite flower.
The cook's name is Jenny.
She'll help you find your way around the house,
and for heaven's sake, call me Paul, not Mr. Gentry.
Yes, Paul.
That's better.
I suppose you're tired.
Yes, I am.
It was a terribly long trip.
You can find your way to your room.
Wait a moment, Amy.
Wait.
First time I've had a good look at you.
Can't see by candlelight over a dinner table.
Tilt your head toward the lamp.
I want to see your face more clearly.
No, but I... Don't.
Do as I say.
Hmm.
Hmm.
You're trembling as I touch your face, Amy.
You're frightened.
Oh, no, I'm not.
I'm not at all.
At this instant, you can't decide whether or not I'm a madman.
You must need this job very badly.
I want to work for you.
I have an inland father who...
I'm not interested in your problems.
Don't tell them to me.
Amy, it's an assistance to me
if people adjust to new situations as quickly as possible.
Have you heard about my wife?
No, sir.
I haven't.
I will tell you.
People around here say I killed Mrs. Gentry.
His great black eyes,
set deep back in his head,
seemed to be laughing at me when he said that,
as though he expected me to run from the Roman
and get as far away from him as I could.
But I didn't move.
Somehow, in that moment,
I knew that I wanted to be near him,
no matter what he had done.
Good night, Amy.
Heh, heh, heh, heh.
Heh, heh, heh, heh.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
I went upstairs to my room.
I could still hear laughter even after I closed the door.
And then, finally it stopped.
And I was lying across my bed when...
I was aware that someone was standing beside me.
He's like that child.
You mustn't mind him.
Why, it's his way.
A way you'll come to know and understand
if you remain here and work for him.
I'm Jenny the cook.
Oh, yes.
I'm glad to meet you.
He said you'd show me around.
Somehow, I didn't imagine you'd be like this.
Oh, my dear.
Well, I find more satisfactory inspiration
in serving meals for a fine writer like Paul Gentry
than I ever found in the 23 years
I taught a high school English class.
Jenny, I'm going to like you.
Don't let him upset you.
He really doesn't mean it.
He can be as gentle as he is harsh.
No one really understands him.
Did, uh...
Did Mrs. Gentry understand him?
No. No, she didn't.
She never made an attempt.
There's a question in your eyes, Amy.
Was... was she murdered?
Yes.
In that little guest cottage down by the bridge.
You can see it from this window.
There?
It seems so still and quiet, Jenny.
It's hard to realize.
Yes. Happened almost a year ago.
I served dinner that night.
They argued over something trivial,
the flowers on the table.
Mrs. Gentry ran from the house.
A few minutes later, I could hear her
playing the piano from that cottage.
Some little tune that always infuriated him.
The next morning, her body was found slumped
over the piano.
Her neck was broken.
That's all.
Thank you for telling me about it, Jenny.
There was no evidence against Mr. Gentry.
No proof.
Only hearsay and talk.
I see.
You'll hear that talk from time to time, Amy.
Will it disturb you?
No.
I don't think so.
Strange.
What?
Your appearance, my dear.
It's really quite remarkable
how much you resemble Isabel Gentry.
I didn't go right to bed that night.
Instead, I slipped out of the house
after everything became quiet
and followed the path across the bridge
to the guest cottage
where she had been murdered.
The door was unlocked,
and though it was dark, I found the piano.
As I played, I wondered how much of poor Gentry
I might have understood
if I had been Isabel.
The next three weeks,
I took dictation from morning till night.
The whole place was geared especially
for his return to work.
Jenny seemed to be everywhere,
bringing in meals at all hours,
slipping in and out of rooms silently
so as not to disturb anyone.
And then one afternoon,
suddenly there was another man
standing there beside Paul.
Oh, Amy, this is Al Pender,
a local newspaper man.
He tried his best to have me indicted for murder.
Oh, how do you do, Mr. Pender?
I'm a celebrity, Amy.
Pender wants to interview me about my new book.
Why don't you tell him all about it?
I wouldn't want the responsibility, Paul.
You can tell him how bad it is as well as I can.
No, Paul, I couldn't say that about it.
What could you say about it?
Is it anything worthwhile?
The dropped eyes, the withdrawal.
Isabel used to react the same way
when I became angry with her.
Do I remind you of her?
Yes, you remind me of Isabel,
of all the things in her that stopped me from writing.
How do you like that, Pender?
There's a story for you to print.
You want me to print it, gentry?
I'd kill you if you did.
I'm sorry that I remind you of Isabel, Paul.
Are you, Amy?
Are you really?
No, I don't think you are.
I don't think you are at all.
Well, has he been like this much?
I'd rather not say, Mr. Pender.
Al.
I'm glad he left, Amy.
I think you're a nice person.
Thank you.
Too nice to work for him.
How'd you meet him? How'd you get this job?
I found out he was going back to work
and needed a secretary.
Did you know that no one in town would work for him?
Yes.
Because of Isabel Gentry.
And still you came here. Yes.
He killed her. Everyone knows it.
It was never proved.
No. Because of the technicality.
I watched him here with you.
He looked at you the same way he used to look at Isabel with that...
that fury in his eyes.
I know that. And there's a reason.
At times, Amy,
you look a great deal like her.
That means you're in danger as long as you're around him.
He's a madman.
He might actually think of you as Isabel.
I want him to think of me as Isabel.
In every way possible.
Every day, every minute.
There must be some way to prove he killed her.
Who are you?
I'm Isabel Gentry's sister.
Auto Light is bringing you Miss Ginger Rogers with John Hoyt in Vamp Till Dead.
Tonight's production in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
No phone calls, Harlow.
I guess I'll start to go.
Well, you'll have plenty of starting power to get going in your car, Hap,
with an auto light stay full battery,
the battery that needs water only three times a year in normal car use.
Harlow, you throw those lines so fast, I need a chest protector.
Protection?
Why, the auto light stay full battery has over three times the liquid protection of batteries without stay full features.
So, the stay full needs water only three times a year in normal car use.
Go on, Harlow, and remind me...
That the auto light stay full battery has fiberglass retaining mats protecting every positive plate
to help reduce shedding and flaking and keep the power producing materials in place.
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And now auto light brings back to our Hollywood sound stage,
Miss Ginger Rogers in Elliot Lewis's production of Vamped Till Dead,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Music
For the next few days, Paul Gentry threw himself into his work with a vicious sort of concentration and purpose,
but his efforts were all in vain.
His writing seemed to go from bad to worse.
The stories were twisted, perverse, distorted studies in human behavior.
The women were inevitably deceitful.
The men tortured and driven to insane rages.
Terrible, terrible!
Not a word, not a single word in the whole mess that's printable at all.
Perhaps you're trying too hard, working too hard, Paul.
How can you accomplish anything worthwhile if you only half try?
I'll ask Jenny to bring us some coffee.
I don't want any coffee, I don't want anything.
Maybe I expect too much, want too much, need too much.
What is it that's the matter with me?
What is it? Tell me, tell me.
I can't tell you, Paul. I don't understand you.
You don't even try, Isabelle. You...
Why do you smile?
You just called me Isabelle.
I did.
Well, I'm sorry. It won't happen again.
It was an accident.
Yes, Paul, of course it was.
It was an accident.
For the first time since I had met him, Paul Gentry was confused.
And it was the confusion I'd been hoping for.
I began to do everything the way I'd remembered Isabelle.
I wore her favorite perfume.
I held my head to one side and smiled the way she used to.
I started dropping her expressions in my speech.
I wasn't sure all the time whether I was torturing him or he was torturing himself.
But unconsciously he began to think of me as Isabelle.
Even Jenny noticed it.
Amy!
Oh, I didn't notice you coming, Jenny.
What are you doing?
Here in the cottage.
Practicing?
It was the little melody she used to play.
He's been calling you by her name, hasn't he?
No, it's probably because his mind is on his work and an old habit is difficult to break.
And you're not thinking about it.
You fixed your hair the way she used to wear it.
Have I?
I often put it up like this.
Do you think my hair would really bother him, Jenny?
Oh, it's hard to tell.
The poor man.
She was such a part of his life.
I guess he can't quite give her up even yet.
Oh, maybe it'd be better if he didn't even try.
A memory is sometimes a wonderful thing.
Not hers.
There was something about her that killed his inspiration to create
and left him with a feeling only to destroy.
And he's done a good job, starting with himself.
His writing is very bad.
What do you think I could do to help him?
Leave.
Because no one can help him but himself.
What if he's going to write in Eatney?
Do you want to go through life with a picture in your mind of man being eaten alive
by the acids that are burning inside of him?
Jenny, where do you stay?
Oh, I'm like his desk or the chair he sits on,
just a piece of furniture doing his job.
He doesn't think about me one way or the other.
Someday I'll be able to see him get back to writing the way he used to.
You mean without her?
Yes.
Do you think he killed her, Jenny?
That's something I don't dare think about, Amy.
I thought about it.
In the days that followed, Paul's work went from bad to worse,
and so did his temper.
He was unmanageable most of the time.
Then his headaches finally came upon him and couldn't work for hours at a time.
He would sit in his chair drinking and staring at me,
just staring, staring, staring.
Sometimes I expected him to leap out of his chair and beat me to death.
And other times I was afraid he was going to fall on his knees
and throw his arms around me, begging forgiveness.
I knew he was almost ready to break.
The day went into a rage and started throwing things around his study.
I left the house and walked down to the bridge.
I was only alone for a minute.
Hello, Amy. I heard all kinds of noise in the house.
What's going on?
Suppose I ask you what's going on?
You seem to be keeping a pretty close watch on me. Why?
Call it humanity. Call it what you like.
I don't want anything to happen to you.
Is that the only reason?
No. I want to be around when he breaks up completely.
Are you sure it's just humanity?
Or trying to catch a murderer?
Looks more like a campaign of personal revenge.
I said call it what you like.
But if you stick around here another minute, you're out of your mind.
Suppose I told you I wasn't worried about myself?
I might say you're crazy.
You're in more trouble than Isabelle was.
He's going to go.
And when he goes, nothing or nobody around him is going to be safe.
Al, I'm going to tell you something.
Isabelle used to write to me, and she was pretty frank.
She told me about a newspaper man she was interested in.
Could you be that newspaper man?
How many of them do you think there are in this town?
Is it because you loved Isabelle that you want to see her murderer caught?
Or would you just like to sacrifice Paul Gentry because he was married to her when you wanted her?
All right. So I knew your sister.
There were very few young men in this town who didn't.
She didn't like living here. She didn't like Paul Gentry.
She didn't like this lousy small town.
Then why didn't she get out?
You can't walk when you're dead.
I mean before.
Because she was afraid of him.
Cowed by him, mentally beaten down by his peculiar form of sadism.
You really hate him, don't you?
Look, I brought you something. This gun.
What do I want that for?
Because if you're foolish enough to stay on in that house you need some protection.
But not a gun.
Everything's on your side, Amy. The first time he comes at you let him have it.
No jury in this town would ever do a thing to you.
I came here to get proof that Paul Gentry killed my sister.
And I want him to pay for it. Under the law.
It seems to me that you want me to be judge, jury and executioner.
Take it, you little fool. He's dynamite.
What did you come here for? To play games? Take it.
Hurry up. Put it in your pocket.
All right.
Tender, are you aware that this land belongs to me? What are you doing on it?
Talking to her, what does it look like?
Paul, please.
How many times do I have to tell you to leave my wife alone?
Your wife, it's bad enough that I have to tolerate you in public places.
But this land is private. And it's mine.
Go on, get off it while you can still walk.
And Isabel, you get back to the house where you belong.
I ran back and locked myself in my room.
Downstairs I heard Paul moving around in his study.
Then I heard a bottle crash against the wall.
And then his heavy steps coming up the stairway.
And then suddenly before I could do anything, he was standing in my doorway.
Isabel! Isabel! Isabel!
Paul, Paul, come to me.
Isabel, Isabel, why did you come?
Isabel, Isabel, why did you make me do it?
Why did you do it, Paul?
I couldn't help myself. It was those men all the time, especially Penn...
Amy, Isabel's dead.
You're Amy. Why do you keep making me think that you're Isabel?
Please let me go, Paul.
What's this all about, Amy?
Let me go, Paul.
All right. A few weeks ago you came here and began talking and acting like her.
Or is it my imagination? Maybe I'm going crazy.
Paul, I think it's mostly your imagination.
Maybe I happen to be a little like her.
No, there's something more to it than that.
Something I can't figure out. Something in the air or inside of me.
I don't know what it is. But I do know one thing. Another week of this and...
Amy, why don't you leave here while it's safe?
I think it is safe, Paul.
You aren't afraid of me the way you were that first night.
You aren't afraid of what I might do to you.
No, Paul. I'm not afraid.
If you really want me to go, I will. I'd rather stay.
I want to be close to you.
Closer to you than anybody in this world has ever been.
I don't want you to go, Amy. Ever.
I love you.
I know. You love me the same way you once loved her.
Isn't that so?
Yes, Amy, that's so. And I want you to marry me.
Of course, Paul. Of course.
I've always wanted to be your wife.
Amy. Amy.
I let him kiss me then, hoping he wouldn't feel the gun in my pocket.
I knew that very soon I might have to use it.
The next evening, when we came back from the wedding license bureau,
he planned a wonderful dinner for two.
The table was beautiful with candles and flowers and expensive silver.
When I walked into the dining room,
I was dressed in the perfect image of my sister, as I remembered her.
Isabelle, you'll never look more beautiful.
Thank you, Paul.
Your chair.
Thank you.
We're having roast mallard duck.
I shot them myself and kept them in the deep freeze.
Are you ready for dinner, Mr. Jenfrey?
Yes, Jenny.
Yes, sir.
Oh, Jenny, use the large soup bowls, please, for Isabelle.
I understand, sir.
I know you prefer them, darling.
Yes.
Something wrong, Isabelle?
Paul, I just noticed you have carnations on the table.
Why, yes.
You know, you know I don't like carnations, Paul.
I don't like them at all.
Isabelle, they were all I could get.
I'm afraid you'll have to like them, darling.
I don't have to like anything.
Have Jenny take them off the table.
I'll see here.
You'll either get rid of them or I won't eat dinner with you.
Do you hear me?
Then don't eat dinner with me, my dear.
I'd like it better that way.
Then I won't have to look at your bored, critical face all the time.
Isabelle, Isabelle, come back here.
Come back here.
I rushed out the door and down toward the cottage.
And then I remembered it had been a year to the night.
It had been a year to the night that Isabelle had died.
And then I was in the cottage where it had happened,
playing with the piano, playing her tune.
I sat there waiting.
I knew that I would hear steps first, then a door.
But I heard nothing.
Nothing but the wind outside.
And then I heard the steps.
You!
Oh, no!
Don't!
Don't!
Amy!
Amy!
Don't!
Amy, are you all right?
Yes, I had to do it this way.
I had to.
I know.
Don't try to talk to me, Amy.
It's all right.
Stay where you are, Pender.
Or I'll blow your head off.
You're wrong, Paul.
It wasn't me.
Paul!
Paul, darling.
She was the one.
Jenny!
Jenny!
She tried to kill Amy the same way she killed Isabel.
She thought Amy was going to take you away from her.
Amy, my darling, I'm sorry you had to go through this.
Paul.
Paul, do you know who I am?
Who I really am?
Yes, I know you're not Isabel.
I've known all along.
I had to pretend as you pretended.
I'm sorry, Paul, for the pain I've caused you.
It's all over, my darling.
Ended.
Yes, Paul, it's all over.
Isabel is truly dead.
Suspense presented by Auto Light.
Tonight's star, Ginger Rogers.
Friends, this is Harlow Wilcox again.
I'd just like to remind you that you're always right with the more than 400 products made
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Next week on Suspense, Miss Eve Arden as star of The Well-Dressed Corpse.
And in weeks to come, you will hear such famous stars as Ezio Pinza, Paul Douglas,
and James Stewart all appearing in tales well calculated to keep you in Suspense.
Suspense is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis with music composed by Lucian Morawek
and conducted by Lud Bluskin.
Ramp Till Dead was written for Suspense by E. Jack Newman and John Michael Hayes.
Included in tonight's cast were John Hoyt, Jeanette Nolan, and Ed Max.
Ginger Rogers is soon to be seen in the Universal International Picture, The Groom Warspurs.
And remember next week on Suspense, Miss Eve Arden in The Well-Dressed Corpse.
You can buy Auto Light staple batteries, Auto Light standard type ball resistor type spark plugs,
Auto Light electrical parts at your neighborhood Auto Light dealers.
Switch to Auto Light. Good night.
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