Suspense.
And the producer of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, the master of mystery and adventure,
William N. Robeson.
You are about to experience one of the most terrifying half hours in your entire life.
Three Skeleton Key, starring Vincent Price.
Oh yes, I realize superlatives tend to lose their significance by overuse.
How many times have you been promised that a story would be the funniest, or the most dramatic, or the most exciting,
only to find that it failed to live up to its advertising?
The story you are about to hear is an exception.
It is unconditionally guaranteed to chill your blood, unless you happen to love rats.
We begin now with Mr. Vincent Price in Three Skeleton Key, a play well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
Three Skeleton Key
Picture this place.
A gray tapering cylinder welded by iron rods and concrete to the key itself.
A bare black rock 150 feet long, maybe 40 wide.
That's at low tide.
At high tide, just the light rising 110 feet straight up out of the ocean.
And all about it, the churning water, gray-green, scum-dappled, warm as soup.
And swarming with gigantic bat-like devil fish, great violet schools of Portuguese man-o-war,
and yes, sharks, the big ones, the 15 footers.
And as if this wasn't enough, there was a hot, dank, rotten-smelling wind
that came at us day and night off the jungle swamps of the mainland.
A wind that smelled like death.
Set in the base of the light was a watertight bronze door.
And in you went and up, yes, up and up and round and round,
past the tanks of oil and the coils of rope, cases of wicks, racks of lanterns,
sacks of spuds and cottons and cans, and up and up and up, round and round.
Over the light store room was the food store room,
and over the food store room was the bunk room where the three of us slept.
And over the bunk room was the living and cooking room,
and over the living and cooking room was the light.
She was a beauty, balanced like a ballerina on the glistening steel axle of her rotary mechanism.
And at night you'd lie there on the stone deck of the gallery,
with her revolving smoothly and quietly over your head, easing her bright white eye 360 degrees around the horizon.
You'd lie there watching to see that the feeders kept working, that everything ran right.
And it wouldn't be bad.
The other two fellows snoring in their sacks two levels down.
You'd smoke your pipe to kill the stink of the wind, and it wouldn't be bad.
About those other two, Louie and August. What a pair.
Louie, he was head man, with a big fellow from the Basque country, black beard, little hard black eyes,
and a pair of arms that I tell you, those arms were as big around as my legs.
Yeah? Head man he was, and what word he let go was law.
A silent fellow, and although I spent my first two weeks trying to strike up a real conversation,
the most I could ever get out of it was...
I took up this profession because I don't like people.
They talk too much. It's quiet work, light ending. Let's keep it that way.
Understand? You're getting to be as bad as August.
I thought maybe...
That was Louie.
And when he accused me of becoming like August, I quieted down,
because August was the talkingest man I've ever met. The talkingest and the ugliest.
He was hunchbacked, stood four feet high, had red hair and big blue eyes.
It seems he'd been an actor in Paris.
Played in over 200 different productions, dear boy.
At the Grand Guignol. Oh, but it was monstrous. Horrible.
The way we used to scare the audience. I was hated. Yes.
They used to throw things and hiss and bare their teeth at me.
Finally it got too bad. I couldn't stand it any longer.
So I gave up the theatre. My nerves, you understand.
Yes, I gave it up completely. I really did. I couldn't stand it any longer.
It all started one morning at 2.30.
I was on watch, lying on the cool stone deck, pulling on my pipe,
staring out at the blackness, the phosphorescent comers and the big yellow stars.
When out of the corner of my eye I noticed something show up for a second.
Something the light had touched far off.
I waited for her to come around again and when she did, there it was.
A three master, a big one, about a half mile off and coming down out of the north or west,
coming straight for us.
You must understand our light was where it was for a very good reason.
Dangerous submerged reefs surrounded us and ships kept clear,
but this one, this sailing vessel was coming straight on.
I went over to the gallery door and yelled,
Lori, Lori!
What?
Ship headed for the reefs.
Coming right up.
I had the glasses out now. I couldn't read her name, but I could see her quite plainly.
All sails set, the foam creaming away under her bow, her beautiful lines.
A Dutch ship, I guessed it. But why didn't she turn?
Every time it passed, our light hit her with a glare of day.
Ship? Where?
North or west, the light will touch her in a moment.
Can't they see?
Look at her. She just keeps coming on.
The square heads.
What is it? What is it?
Watch north or west.
Ha! I know. I know what it is.
What?
The Dutchman, the flying Dutchman.
She's derelict.
That's it.
Derelict?
She's abandoned. The crew left her for some reason or other, but instead of sinking, she's gone on, running before every wind.
She'll not run long. Not with these reefs to break her up.
A beautiful ship.
Now why would men leave a beautiful ship like that?
We watched her the rest of those black hours, healing and rocking, pushed and pulled by every stray wind, every freak current.
Watched her until the dawn came, until the sea turned from black to a pearly gray.
And on she came again, heading for us.
We all had our glasses trained on her now.
August, you can kill the light.
Right, Chief.
She doesn't look so good by daylight.
Do you think she'll ground this time?
I say, do you think she'll ground this time?
This is impossible. Absolutely impossible.
Why?
Here, take my glasses. They're stronger than yours.
All right. What is it you...
I had to focus and then my breath froze in my throat.
The decks were swarming with a dark brown carpet that looked like a gigantic fungus, but undulating.
And on the mass in yards, the guys and all were hundreds, no, thousands, no, I don't know, an inestimable number of tremendous rats.
See them?
Yes, yes, I see them.
Now we know why she's a devil.
Yes, now we know.
What are you two doing here? Give me a look.
Yes, give him the glasses. Take a good look, chatterbox.
Give you something to talk about.
She's still heading for us.
Yeah.
Look, if she's going to turn, she better turn soon.
Suppose she doesn't.
You mean suppose she piles up on the key?
It's low tide.
Yeah, yes, yes it is.
Well, where's all the conversation? Oogies?
No, no.
She's still coming on.
Go away.
Turn, turn, will you turn? I say I pray you turn.
Cracked up.
Rats, look, on the water, like a carpet.
Swimming.
Sure they're swimming, those are ship rats.
They're swimming for the rocks.
Door, below, it's open.
Yes, come on.
You tell me when, racing down the stone stairs,
taking them three and four at a time, scared.
You can bet we were scared.
Oogies, you get the windows, maybe they can climb.
We don't know.
Right chief, but hurry, hurry.
See them?
No. Oh, yes I do, yes. Up at the other end of the rock.
Look at them.
Me?
They smell us. Here they come.
Close the door.
I can't, it's stuck.
Oh here, let me.
Move, move.
You made it.
Holy, that was close.
What about him? Look, there.
We'll get him.
Watch it, he's kicking.
What? What a brute.
He's as big as a tomcat.
Big.
His eyes were wild and red, his teeth long and sharp and yellow.
He went for a starving ravenous.
And we fought him, fought that one rat all over the room.
It was all, believe me, I do not exaggerate.
It was like fighting a panther.
Got him.
We'd better get aloft.
We ran up the winding staircase.
We passed the tiny windows of the various levels.
And at every one, every one was a thick, wriggling, screaming curtain of brown fur.
I was ahead of Louie and I dreaded each successive level.
Suppose they had found a way in.
Look at them. Will you look at them?
It's a nightmare.
Will you look at them?
The air of the gallery was thick and fettered with the stink of them.
The light was dim brown, filtered through the crawling mass that swarmed over the glass all about us.
We could not see the sky, nothing, nothing but them.
Their red eyes, their claws, their wriggling hairy snouts and their teeth.
The rats, they screamed and howled and threw themselves against the glass.
They were starving and we three, we stood quietly, very, very quietly
in the center of the glass room under our beautiful light.
We waited.
What can we do? What can we do, Chief?
Take it easy, O'Geeve. Take it easy.
It won't do any good. It won't do any good to stand here and shake.
That's right.
Go away. Go away. Do you hear me? Go away this instant.
They won't go away. Not until...
Finish it, Chief. Not until what?
Not until they've been fed.
You can take just so much horror and then you get used to it.
And they were interesting to watch, you know.
They couldn't understand the glass.
They could see us and they could rush at us, but that thin invisible barrier
held them off, stopped them.
From time to time we caught a glimpse of the rocks below, more rats down there
swarming brown velvet in the bright tropical sunlight.
And then the tide began to rise.
If only it had drowned some of them.
If rats don't drown, you can't drown one of them.
Look, they're all climbing up the tower.
This bunch around us is getting thicker.
Say, what's the time, huh?
Quarter of six.
You've got first watch.
Yes, that's right. I will.
Come along, old goose.
It was getting dark.
One side of the room was lit a soft filtered red sunset through the rats.
Very pretty.
I set the wicks, checked my fuel, and then lit the lamp.
It caught them.
Lit them in their gigantic wriggling web of pale hairless bellies
twitching red tails, bright eyes.
And then I started the rotary motor.
The light.
The light drove them mad.
As she swung slowly and smoothly about, she blinded them in the fierce stabbing bar of light
moving continually about, ever turning, ever touching, ever moving around and around
and they twitching and shuddering, eyes flaming when they were struck by the light,
the bright light moving and behind on the dark side of the room, so close, so close.
I dared not turn my back, which cannot help turning your back when you are in a room made of glass.
On the dark side of the room, you could not see them, but only their eyes,
thousands of points of blank red light blinking and twinkling like the stars of hell.
Louis relieved me at ten, but as you may imagine, I didn't get much sleep that night.
And when I came up into the gallery early the next morning, there stood August.
He was bowing to the rats, waving his arms, and so helped me making a speech.
My dear audience, I am going to play once again that magnificent role which made me the toast of the Paris Theatre.
Prolete, the evil genius of the medieval underworld.
I am he who did guide the dark soul of the Maréchal into the nether paths.
Do not be frightened, little children. I will not hurt you much.
He kept turning. I stood staring at him, horror struck, but he didn't notice me.
The man had gone mad. He kept turning, telling his stories to all the rats, leaving not one out.
August, August!
Another one, a late comer. Take a seat on the aisle, dear Patrice.
Oh, stop it, stop it!
He didn't stop. He went on bowing and scraping to the rats, his big blue eyes rolling and winking, his wild red hair waving about him.
I grabbed him by the arm and slapped his face.
He looked at me like a child, and then his face screwed up. He looked as though we were about to cry.
Go below, August. Go on.
Very well, then. Later, my dear audience. Later.
Matinee today.
Sure, he was crazy. But I guess we all were.
A few hours later, he came back up and caught Louis and me teasing the rats. Yes.
Sounds horrible. It was fun.
We would get right up against the glass and make faces at them. It drove them crazy.
They would scratch away, trying to get into our eyes.
Louis was even cuter about it. He'd pull a piece of bread out of his pocket and press it against the glass.
The rats would scramble into a solid ball, biting each other, clustering like grapes.
From time to time, a whole lot of them would slip and fall 110 feet to the surface below.
Look. Look. Look at the sharks.
They're eating them.
No, those sharks are our friends.
Here. Here. I'll get another bunch together.
Here, my beauty. That's it. I'll kill each other.
There they go.
August joined in too. Very ingenious August.
He learned that if he spread eagle himself against the glass, they'd bunch and bundle against his figure.
Then he'd leap back. Look. My portrait in rats.
It went on all day. And then I was lying in bed. It was about midnight.
I was very tired and I was just beginning to fall off to sleep when I became conscious of a new sound.
I couldn't figure it at first. I got up, lit the lamp and went to the window.
Even as I looked at it, I saw one of the panes begin to sag in.
They had eaten the wood away.
Louis. Louis, come quick.
What? What is it?
They found a way in.
I held the glass with my hand.
Now they were all going crazy and assured of the success of this maneuver, they were all nibbling away at the wood.
Louis ran below and then returned with a large sheet of tin.
We spread it against the window and hammered it into place.
Even as we did so, I felt the heavy bodies thudding against the other side as the window gave way.
That ought to hold if it doesn't, we're done for.
Rats can't eat tin.
No, no, they can't.
What? What was that?
I don't know.
It came from below.
The storeroom window.
They're in. They're swarming up the stairs.
Drop the trap.
Like...
Two of them got in.
Go after them.
We didn't have to go after them. They came at us.
I looked to one side and grabbed a marlin spike, swung and smashed one in midair.
I whirled to see Louis, but the other, it had ripped his hand open.
The blood was pouring all over the place.
He held his hand aloft and kicked at the snarling rat.
I stepped and swung and got him.
My hand.
He's got my hand.
That's the both of them, Louis.
I'll get you something to tie that up.
Blood, look at it, my blood. I'm bleeding.
Don't worry about it, Louis. Don't worry.
Now, here, look.
I'll wind this kerchief around it. It'll be okay.
Blood.
It's not bad, just the flesh.
My blood.
Then I became conscious of a new sound.
They were gnawing their way through the wooden trap door.
I watched the planks, fascinated, and even as I did it began to give way,
a bristling, whiskery snout showed through.
Louis, Louis, we've got to go up.
The next level was the living quarters in Kitchenites land.
The trap there, too, but it too was wooden.
My blood. What are we going to do?
I don't know. They'll be through this one in a moment.
The gallery. The trap door in the gallery is metal.
Good. Come on.
We made it. We made it.
We lay across the trap, exhausted while we were there.
The trap exhausted while below us the rats took over the entire tower.
I could hear them howling and fighting over our food supply,
our water, our leather, and all about us.
The others screamed and glared in at us, swayed in a tangled mess,
hypnotized by the ever-turning light.
By morning the air in the little room was horrible.
To now we'd been getting air from the tower below.
Now that was sealed off.
And so was all our food and water.
We lay exhausted, panting, waiting, waiting.
The hours passed.
The night came.
Waiting, waiting. The hours crawled on.
I was almost dozing from fatigue when I saw a sight that brought me too fast.
Would you like to come in, my beauties?
Yes, will you?
I hold the powers of life and death, and I can let you in, you know.
A ghost was standing by the glass,
and in one hand he held a big wrench.
He was tapping the glass gently, not quite hard enough to break it.
I eased myself to my feet and slowly, very slowly, I tiptoed toward him.
All I have to do is crack just a little harder and harder.
I found a coil of wire in the tool kit, and I trust him up,
fastened him to a stanchion in the center of the room.
Louis was of no help.
He lay on his side looking at his bloody hand, weak and sick as a baby.
So there I was, a lunatic and a coward for company,
and all about watching our little drama, The Rats.
The day dragged by.
The supply boat wasn't due for another twelve days.
I don't know what they could have done if they had come,
and we had only one way of summoning them.
That was to shoot off distress rockets, but the rockets were four floors below,
and even if they'd been right there in the gallery,
I couldn't have opened the window to fire them.
That night I tended the light, but its flame was devouring our oxygen.
The following day we lay, thirst tormented, starving, waiting, waiting.
The following night I again tended the light,
but the small supply of spare wicking we kept in the gallery had become exhausted,
and quite suddenly, at about midnight, the light went out.
There was nothing I could do.
Wicks were stored three levels below.
Nothing I could do, nothing.
From time to time I'd strike a match to see the clock,
and when I did, it lit up the million red eyes about us, all about us watching, waiting.
Below it had grown quiet.
They'd cleaned us out, and now they too were waiting, all waiting.
And then the rats, quite suddenly, were silent.
And then I heard it.
And then I saw the sky and the stars.
The rats were gone.
I went to the glass, out there on the water a small freighter, a banana boat, showing a few lights,
came softly and innocently ass.
The light was out.
They didn't know.
I wanted to open the windows, to call out to them, to warn them somehow,
but I was afraid what if the rats were hiding from me, tricking me.
So I waited.
She grounded very softly on a reef not 200 yards from the quay,
grounded so gently that the man playing the cornet, was he a passenger,
a crewman off watch, didn't even stop playing.
They tried washing her back off.
I could have told them to save their fuel.
The tide was rising, would have floated her free.
And I waited.
Well, that's all.
That's the story.
The sun came up and there wasn't a rat on the whole quay.
Every last one of that terrible army had deserted us.
They went back to sea on their new ship.
Alton, in St. Asylum, he never recovered.
Louis, they took him into Cayenne where he died of blood poisoning from his bite.
Life on three skeleton key isn't bad these days.
But sometimes when I see a strange vessel approaching, I get a little nervous.
Somewhere on the seas there's a little banana boat without a crew.
That is, without a human crew.
Suspense.
In which Vincent Price starred in Three Skeleton Key with John Dana and Ben Wright.
Suspense.
In which Vincent Price starred in Three Skeleton Key with John Dana and Ben Wright.
Suspense.
Suspense was directed in Hollywood by William N. Robeson.
Three Skeleton Key was adapted by James Poe from the story by George G. Tuduz.
Leith Stevens composed and conducted the original score.
Sound pattern by Cliff Thorsness, Gus Bays, and Ray Kemper.
George Walsh speaking.
Suspense is presented by the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.
The United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.