And now, tonight's presentation of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
This evening, Suspense brings you what we feel is a particularly unusual and absorbing
story.
No actors other than Mr. William Conrad will appear in its presentation.
It's a study in terror which has few equals.
So now, starring Mr. Conrad, here is tonight's Suspense play by A. M. Burrage, The Wax Work.
While the uniformed attendants of Mariner's wax works were ushering the last stragglers
through the great glass paneled double doors, the manager sat in his office interviewing
Raymond Huston.
The manager was speaking.
Oh, there's nothing new in your request, sir.
In fact, we refuse it to different people, mostly young bloods who've tried to make bets
about three times a week, I should say.
We have nothing to gain, something to lose by letting people spend the night in our murderer's
den.
If I allowed it and some young idiot lost his senses, what would be my position, huh?
But your being a journalist somewhat alters the case.
Huston smiled.
I suppose you mean that journalists have no senses to lose.
No, no, no, of course not.
But one imagines them to be responsible people.
Well, besides, we have something to gain here, publicity and advertisement.
Yes, exactly, said Huston.
And there I thought we might come to terms.
The manager smiled.
Yes, I know what's coming.
You want to be paid twice, do you?
You know, it used to be said years ago that Madame Tussauds would give a man a hundred
pounds for sleeping alone in the chamber of horrors.
Well, I hope you don't think that we've made any such offer.
What is your paper, Mr. Huston?
Well, I'm freelancing at present, sir, working on space for several papers.
However, I would find no difficulty in getting the story printed.
I'm sure the morning echo would use it like a shot.
A night with Mariner's murderers, no live paper could turn it down, sir.
Yes, how do you propose to treat it?
Well, I shall make it gruesome, of course, gruesome with just a saving touch of humor.
The manager nodded and offered Huston his cigarette case.
Very well, Mr. Huston, you get your story printed in the morning echo and there'll be
a five pound note waiting for you when you come and call for it.
But first of all, you realize it's no small ordeal that you're proposing to want to take.
I'd like to be quite sure about you.
I'd like you to be quite sure about yourself.
I own I shouldn't care to take it on.
I should hate having to sleep down there alone among them.
Why, asked Huston.
Oh, I don't know.
Isn't any reason, I suppose.
I don't believe in ghosts.
If I did, I should expect them to haunt the scene of their crimes or the spots where their
bodies were laid instead of a cellar which happens to contain their waxwork averages.
Well, it's just that I couldn't sit alone among them all night with their seeming to
stare at me in the way they do.
After all, they represent the lowest and the most appalling types of humanity.
The whole atmosphere of the place is unpleasant.
And if you're susceptible to atmosphere, sir, I warn you that you're in for a very uncomfortable
night.
Huston had known that from the moment when the idea first occurred to him.
His soul sickened at the prospect.
But he had a wife and a family to keep.
So here was a chance not to be missed the price of a special story in the morning echo
with a five pound note to add to it.
Besides, if he wrote the story well, it might lead to an offer of regular employment.
The manager smiled at him and rose.
Well, I think the last of the people must have gone by now.
Oh, there is one condition I'm afraid I must impose upon you, sir.
I must ask you not to smoke.
We had a fire scared out on the murderers' den this evening.
I don't know who gave the alarm, but whoever it was, it was a false one.
Fortunately, there were very few people down there at the time, or there might have been
a panic.
Now, if you're ready, we'll make a move.
He led the way through an open barrier and down ill-lit stone stairs, which conveyed
a sinister impression of giving access to a dungeon.
In a passage at the bottom were a few preliminary horrors, such as relics of the Inquisition,
a rack taken from a medieval castle, branding irons, thumb screws, and other mementos of
man's cruelty to man.
Beyond the passage was the murderers' den.
It was a room of irregular shape with a vaulted roof and dimly lit by electric lights, burning
behind inverted bowls of frosted glass.
It was, by design, an eerie and uncomfortable chamber, a chamber whose atmosphere invited
its visitors to speak in whispers.
The waxwork murderers stood on low pedestals with numbered tickets at their feet.
Recent notorieties rubbed dusty shoulders with the old favorites.
Fertel, the murderer of wear, stood as if frozen in the act of making a sharp-winded
gesture to young bywaters.
And there was Lefroy, the poor half-baked little snob who killed for gain so that he
might ape the gentleman.
Within five yards of him sat Mrs. Thompson, that erotic romanticist hanged to propitiate
British middle-class matronhood.
Charles Peace, the only member of the vile company who looked uncompromisingly and entirely
evil, sneered across a gangway at Norman Thorn.
Brown and Kennedy, the two most recent additions, stood between Mrs. Dyer and Patrick Mayen.
The manager walking around with use pointed out several of the more interesting of these
unholy notorabilities.
That's Scriven, I expect you recognize him, insignificant little beast who looks as if
he couldn't tread on a worm.
Oh, and that's Armstrong.
Looks like a decent, harmless country gentleman, doesn't he?
And there's Olfacier.
You can't miss him, of course, because of his beard.
And this one...
Who's that?
Hewson asked in a whisper.
Here, come here, have a good look at him.
This is our star turn.
He's the only one of the bunch that hasn't been hanged.
The figure which Hewson had indicated was that of a small, slight man, not much more
than five feet in height.
It wore little waxed mustaches, large spectacles, and a caped coat.
There was something so exaggeratedly French in its appearance that it reminded Hewson
of a stage caricature.
He could not have said precisely why the mild-looking face seemed to him so repellent, but he'd
already recoiled a step, and even the manager's company had cost him an effort to look again.
But who is he, he asked?
That, said the manager, is Dr. Modette.
Hewson shook his head doubtfully.
I think I've heard the name, but I forget in connection with what.
The manager smiled.
You'd remember better if you were a Frenchman.
You know, for some long while, that man was the terror of Paris.
He carried on his work of healing by day and of throat-cutting by night.
He killed for the sheer devilish pleasure it gave him to kill, and always in the same
way with a razor.
After his last crime, he left a clue behind him which set the police upon his track, but
he was much too clever for them.
When he realized that the coils were closing about him, he mysteriously disappeared, and
ever since, the police of every civilized country have been looking for him.
There's no doubt that he managed to make a way with himself, and by some means which
has prevented his body coming to light, one or two crimes of a similar nature have taken
place since his disappearance, but he is believed almost for certain to be dead, and the experts
believe these record decences to be the work of an imitator.
It's queer, isn't it, Miss Hewson?
However a notorious murderer has imitators.
He's a man of the heart, Miss Hewson, shattered and fidgeted with his feet.
I don't like him at all.
What eyes he's got.
Yes, this figure's a little masterpiece.
You find the eyes bite into you, huh?
Very much excellent realism, then, for Budette practiced mesmerism, and was supposed to mesmerize
his victims before dispatching them.
Indeed, had he not done so, it's impossible to see how so small a man could have done
his ghastly work.
There were never any signs of struggle.
I thought I saw him move, said Hewson with a catch in his voice.
The manager smiled.
You'll have more than one optical illusion before the night's out, I expect, sir.
Well, I'm sorry I can't give you any more light because all the lights are on.
For obvious reasons we keep this place as gloomy as possible, eh?
Well, Miss Hewson.
Good night.
Hewson wheeled a swivel chair, a heavy one upholstered in plush, a little weight on the
central gangway, and deliberately turned it so that its back was toward the effigy of
Dr. Budette.
For some undefined reason, he liked Dr. Budette a great deal less than his companions.
Busying himself with arranging the chair, he was almost lighthearted.
But when the manager's footfalls had died away and a deep hush stole over the chamber,
he realized that he had no slight ordeal before him.
The dim, unwavering light fell on the rows of figures which were so uncannily like human
beings that the silence and the stillness seemed unnatural and even ghastly.
He missed the sound of breathing, the rustling of clothes, the hundred and one minute noises
one hears when even the deepest silence has fallen upon a crowd.
The air was as stagnant as water at the bottom of a standing pond.
It must be like this at the bottom of the sea, he thought.
He faced these sinister figures boldly enough.
They were only waxworks, so long as he let that thought dominate all others, he promised
himself that all would be well.
It did not, however, save him long from the discomfort occasioned by the waxen stare of
Dr. Budette, which he knew was directed upon him from behind.
The eyes of the little Frenchman hearted and lamented him, and he itched with a desire
to turn and look.
My nerves have started already, he thought, and then another voice in his brain spoke
to him.
It's because you're afraid that you won't turn and look at him.
The two voices quarreled silently for a moment or two, and at last, Euston slewed his chair
around a little and looked behind him.
Among the many figures standing in stiff unnatural poses, the effigy of the dreadful little doctor
stood out with a queer prominence, perhaps because of a steady beam of light beat straight
down upon it.
Euston flinched before the parody of mildness which some fiendishly skilled craftsman had
managed to convey in wax, met the eyes for one agonized second, and then turned again
to face the other direction.
He's only a waxwork like the rest of you, Euston muttered defiantly.
No, all only waxworks.
They were only waxworks, yes, but waxworks don't move.
Oh, not that he had seen the least movement anywhere, but it struck him that in the moment
or two while he'd looked behind him, there had been the least subtle change in the grouping
of the figures in front.
Crippen, for instance, seemed to have turned at least one degree to the left.
Or, thought Euston, perhaps the illusion was due to the fact that he had not slew his chair
back into its exact original position.
Oh, but there were Brown and Kennedy too.
Surely one of them had moved his hands.
Euston held his breath for a moment and then drew his courage back to him as a man lifts
a weight.
He took a notebook from his pocket and wrote quickly, memo, deathly silence and unearthly
stillness of figures, like being at bottom of sea.
Hypnotic eyes, Dr. Baudet.
Figures seem to move when not being watched.
He closed the book suddenly over his fingers and looked around quickly and awfully over
his right shoulder.
He had neither seen nor heard a movement, but it was as if some sixth sense had made
him aware of one.
He looked straight into the vapid countenance of Leproy, which smiled vacantly back as if
to say, it wasn't I.
No, of course it wasn't he or any of them.
It was his own nerves.
Or was it?
Then why all that silent unrest about him?
A subtle something in the air which did not quite break the silence and happened whichever
way he looked, just beyond the boundaries of his vision.
He swung around quickly to encounter the mild but baleful stare of Dr. Baudet and then without
warning he jerked his head back to stare straight at Crippen.
He'd nearly caught Crippen at time.
You'd better be careful, Crippen and all the rest of you.
If I do see one of you move, I'll smash you to pieces.
Do you hear?
He ought to go, he told himself.
Already he'd experienced enough to write his story, or ten stories for the matter of that.
Well then, why not go?
The morning echo would be none the wiser as to how long he'd stayed.
No one would care so long as his story was a good one.
He asked but the manager.
One never knew, perhaps the manager would quibble over that five pound note which he
needed so badly.
He wondered if his wife were asleep or if she were lying awake and thinking of him.
She'd laugh when he told her that he'd imagined that he'd imagined.
This was a little too much.
It was bad enough that the waxwork effigies of murderers should move when they weren't
being watched, but it was intolerable that they should breathe.
Somebody was breathing.
Or was it his own breath which sounded to him as if it came from a distance?
He sat rigid.
Listening.
Breathing.
Until he exhaled with a long sigh.
His own breath after all.
But if not something, it divined that he was listening and had ceased breathing simultaneously.
Someone turned his head swiftly around and looked all about him out of haggard and haunted
eyes.
Everywhere his gaze encountered the vacant wax and faces.
And everywhere he felt that by just some least fraction of a second he had missed seeing
a movement of hand or foot, a silent opening, a compression of lips, a flicker of eyelids,
a look of human intelligence now smoothed out.
They were like naughty children in a classroom, whispering, fidgeting, and laughing behind
their teacher's back, but blandly innocent when his gaze was turned upon them.
No.
No, this would not do.
This distinctly would not do.
He must clutch at something, grip with his mind upon something which belonged essentially
to the workaday world, to the daylight London streets.
He was Raymond Huston, an unsuccessful journalist, a living and breathing man, and these figures
grouped around him were only dummies so they could neither move nor whisper.
Well, what did it matter if they were supposed to be lifelike effigies of murderers?
They were only made of wax and sawdust and stood there for the entertainment of morbid
sightseers and earning sucking trippers.
Oh, that was better.
Now, what was that funny story which somebody had told him in the Falstaff pub yesterday?
Oh, yes.
He recalled part of it, but not all, for the gaze of Dr. Budette urged, challenged, and
finally compelled him to turn.
Huston half turned and then swung his chair so as to bring him face to face with a wearer
of those dreadful hypnotic eyes.
His own eyes were dilated and his mouth at first set on a grin of terror, lifted at the
corners in a snarl, and then Huston spoke and woke a hundred sinister echoes.
You moved!
Yes, you did, you moved!
I saw you!
You moved!
Then he sat quite still, staring straight before him like a man found frozen in the
arctic snows.
Dr. Budette's movements were leisurely.
He stepped off his pedestal with the mincing care of a lady alighting from a bus.
The platform stood about two feet from the ground, and above the edge of it a plush covered
rope hung in arc-like curves.
Dr. Budette lifted up the rope until it formed an arch for him to pass under, stepped off
the platform and sat down on the edge, facing Huston.
Then he nodded and smiled and said,
Good evening.
I need hardly tell you that not until I overheard the conversation between you and the worthy
manager of this establishment did I suspect that I should have the pleasure of a companion
here for the night.
You cannot move or speak without my bidding, but you can hear me perfectly well.
Something tells me that you are, shall I say, nervous.
My dear sir, I have no illusions.
I am not one of these contemptible effigies miraculously come to life.
I am Dr. Budette himself.
He paused, coughed and shifted his legs.
Pardon me, but I am a little stiff.
Please let me explain.
Circumstances with which I need not fatigue you have made it desirable that I should live
in England.
I was close to this building this evening when I saw a policeman.
Regarding me I thought a little too curiously.
I guessed that he intended to follow and perhaps asked me embarrassing questions, so I mingled
with the crowd and came in here.
A coin brought my admission to the chamber in which we now meet, and an inspiration showed
me a certain means of escape.
I raised a cry of fire, and when all the fools had rushed to the stairs I stripped my effigy
of the caped coat which you behold me wearing, donned it, hid my effigy under the platform
at the back and took its place on the pedestal.
The manager's description of me, which I had the embarrassment of being compelled to overhear,
was biased but not altogether inaccurate.
Clearly I am not dead, although it is as well that they well think otherwise, no?
Is account of my abbey, which I have indulged for years, although through necessity less
frequently of late was in the main clue, for you see the world is divided between collectors
and non-collectors.
With the non-collectors we are not concerned, eh?
The collectors collect anything according to their individual tastes, from money to
cigarette cards, from mouths to matchboxes.
I collect throats.
He paused again and regarded Huston's throat with interest, mingled with disfavor.
I am obliged to the chance which brought us together tonight, and perhaps it would seem
ungrateful to complain.
From motives of personal safety, my activities have been somewhat cut-tailed of late years,
and I am glad of this opportunity of gratifying my somewhat unusual whim.
But you, sir, you have such a skinny neck.
If you will overlook a personal remark, I should never have selected you from choice.
I like men with thick necks, thick, red necks.
He fumbled in an inside pocket and took out something which he tested against a wet forefinger,
and then proceeded to pass gently to and fro across the palm of his left hand.
This is a little French razor.
The blade you will observe is very narrow.
They do not cut very deep, but deep enough.
In just one little moment you shall see for yourself.
Now I shall ask you the little civil question of all the polite barbers.
Is the razor suit you, sir?
He rose up, a diminutive but menacing figure of evil, and approached Huston with a silent
furtive stamp of a hunting panther.
You will have the goodness to raise your chin a little, then.
Oh, thank you.
And a little more, just a little more.
Thank you, merci, monsieur.
Merci, merci.
Merci.
Merci.
Merci.
Merci.
Merci.
Over one end of the chamber was a thick skylight of frosted glass, which by day let in a few
sickly unfiltered rays from the floor above.
After sunrise, these began to mingle with the subdued light from the electric bulbs,
and this mingled illumination added a certain ghastliness to a scene which needed no additional
touch of horror.
The waxwork figures stood apathetically in their places, waiting to be admired or execrated
by the crowds who would presently wander fearfully among them.
In the midst, in the center gangway, Huston sat still, leaning far back in his swivel
chair.
His chin was up tilted as if he were waiting to receive attention from a barber.
And although there was not a scratch upon his throat, nor anywhere upon his body, he
was cold and dead.
Dr. Baudet, on his pedestal, watched the dead man unemotionally.
He did not move, nor was he capable of motion.
But then after all, it was only a waxwork.
Suspense, in which William Conrad starred in tonight's presentation of the waxwork.
The music for tonight's program was composed by Lucian Morrowak.
Next week, we bring you a story based on fact, a man's last hours in a death cell awaiting
execution.
We call it, The Phones Die First.
That's next week on Suspense.
Suspense is produced and directed in Hollywood by Anthony Ellis.
Tonight's story was written by A.M.
Burrage.
The orchestra was conducted by Wilbur Hatch.
Stay tuned for five minutes of CBS News to be followed on most of these same stations
by my son, Chief.
Here she listens most to the CBS Radio Network.