And now, Miss Agnes Morvid in Death and Miss Turner, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
We went out for a walk this morning. I was dead and I went out for a walk. Miss Briggs went with me. It was her idea. I wouldn't have particularly thought of it.
She brought the new picture in this morning. She took my chair and stood on it and took off one shoe and hammered the nail in the wall and hung the picture up.
She asked me if it was hanging straight and I said I thought so. Then she said, well. And she took off her glasses and gave me a little inquiring expression.
She always does that after she's done something for me. She wants my approval.
So I looked at the picture hanging there and I smiled and I said, it's lovely. A plain black frame. Yes, you're right. That's just the right frame for you.
There are some other pictures down there we could have framed if you like.
That would be a lot of trouble, wouldn't it?
Not a bit.
I think I could see some more. There's a headache just hovering over me. I don't want to wait until it gets me.
Of course. You finish your nap. You know what might be nice though later on?
To go for a stroll in the park.
Go out today and have lunch somewhere nice. Like 96 Piccadilly or Clariden.
How about it, Rachel?
I was dead. Long, long dead. And I went out for a walk. My name is Rachel. Yes, I can't see any doubt about that.
And then the American meets the Englishman and says, well, how are things here, old boy? And the Englishman says, better than next year.
Are you getting tired, dear? Seen enough of London for one day?
Oh no, no. I'm enjoying this very much. As long as we don't walk too fast.
Oh, we're not, are we?
No, no. Lovely. How long have you been in London, Rachel?
You know I can't tell you that, Miss B.
Of course. I've forgotten.
You're just hoping that I just might let something sort of flip accidentally. Aren't you, Miss B?
Yes, I guess so. It'd be nice, wouldn't it?
No. No, it wouldn't. Don't count on it, Miss Briggs. It's not going to happen. I can't risk it.
Very well, my dear.
Oh, look. Here's the frame shop where I got our new picture done. The black frame you like so much.
He's framing some of our photos. Let's just go in and see how he's coming along.
Is this in your shop?
Yes, I think so.
Hello there. Anybody in?
Who is that? Oh, Miss Briggs. And how are we today?
Oh, fine. Thank you, Mr. Putney. My friend here and I thought we'd just look in and see how our little job of work is going.
I see, I see. That's four oils. By who was it?
Turner. That's it. Turner. Let me see. Oh, no. I'm afraid we haven't got to them yet. They're still hanging up there on the line.
I've been here before.
I beg your pardon?
It was the same.
I'm afraid not. You see...
What do you mean? I tell you I've been here...
Well, I've only just opened my shop a few weeks ago.
I'm not talking about your shop, Mr. Putney. But these things...
Oh, these paintings. Oh, I don't know. Miss Briggs brought them in. By Turner.
Turner? That's the boss. J.M. Turner. Well, these have nothing to do with him. In the first place he was watercolor. In the second place landscape. In the third place he was...
Well, not J.M. Turner. Another Turner. They're signed R. Turner.
Oh.
Interesting painter, don't you think? Not exactly macabre, but something shivery about them. All four of them seem to have an... well, I guess you'd call it an ominous overtone.
Really? I don't feel that particularly.
Well, wouldn't you call it a little nightmarish when a painter goes to this much trouble, all this detail of painting a man in his hand, his suit, the handkerchief in his pocket, the carnation in his buttonhole, and then leaves out his face in all four paintings. No face.
I see a face.
Oh, yes, of course.
Not complete. Not fulfilled in features. But the qualities of this man's face are there for me, even though they're not there for you. I should know this man if I met him. I think he's going to be getting back. He's dead, I see.
We rode back in a taxi, Miss Briggs and I. She had a bundle which Mr. Putney said she'd ordered or something. I wasn't a thinker then.
Every time I opened my mouth to say something, I gave them an advantage. Every time I went out for a walk, like today, I showed things in my expression that told them what they wanted to know.
I've fallen into a trap when Miss Briggs had suggested that walk this morning. I've been weak. I should never have gone. I want to be dead. And I won't be brought back from it.
No, wasn't that a pleasant outing?
Yes. Yes.
What have you got in that bundle?
Hmm?
Mm-hmm.
The stuff I ordered the other day from Mr. Putney.
Oh? What is it?
You'll laugh.
No, I won't.
Well, I know it's foolish, but... But anyway, it's something I've always wanted to have a private dabble at. They say it relaxes the nerves.
And who knows? I'm younger than Grandma Moses.
Paint. We brought a box of paint.
And brushes.
This one, if you please, cost two dinners.
It's for the fine detail work, he said.
Sable.
It's a sable brush.
And these, you mix your colors on them.
Palette.
And then there's, whatever this is, fixative and...
Well, anyway, I've gone and got a perfect smasher of a real professional kit.
Now, if someone would teach me to draw a straight line...
You didn't buy this box of paints for yourself.
Did you, Miss Briggs?
With what heavy...
You brought them for me.
That's it, isn't it?
I was the painter.
That's what you're waiting for me to find out, isn't it?
R. Turner.
The painter who does portraits of a man without a face.
It's Rachel Turner.
Is that him?
I don't remember, but...
Is that him?
Am I Rachel Turner?
Wait here. I've got to get Dr. Price.
I looked at the floor a moment after she had gone.
And the square of white became the only thing in the room.
I picked up a canvas.
I drew a chair forward and propped the canvas against it.
I was doing my best not to sink, not to govern my actions,
simply to allow whatever might happen.
My hand was tearing away the cellophane wrapper from the charcoal.
I leaned over the square of white propped there on the chair.
And like plunging a dagger into a white body,
I invaded the purity of the canvas with a bold and perfectly symmetrical oval in black.
Done with one stroke.
The charcoal fell from my hand.
Now the oils were bursting onto the palette.
The sable brush, stabbing into the color, blending, gushing the mixture.
Perfect flesh tone.
Ah, for what sake?
And then there was a roaring in my ears like the sound of a flame
rushing through the night.
Rachel, here is the doctor.
The doctor?
Well, we meet at last.
I mean to say we meet as people meet in a drawing room,
a cocktail potter perhaps where the hostess hasn't had time to introduce us all around,
and we find ourselves, you and I, elbow to elbow at the punch bowl.
In this moment you smile to me as I hand you your glass and I say my name is Grant.
I'm Rachel Turner.
I'm a painter.
Who are you?
You know, that's a subject on which I'm dreadfully ill informed.
I'm a psychologist myself.
Sir Bartley Grant of the Magistrate's College of Medicine.
Good heavens.
Not only a painter but a positive encyclopedist.
How would you know that?
Have we met before?
We've not met at all this way.
We don't meet, you and I, for Bartley,
until some months from now when you are my doctor.
And I'm a patient who has lost her memory.
How much do you know now, Miss Turner?
We're going to be sorry.
More than that, you'll be the object of all the murderous hatred my soul is capable of
if you persist in bringing me back.
I shall risk that.
Many people hate me.
I save many others from being hated.
Miss Turner, did you paint this picture just now
in those 15 minutes while Miss Briggs and I were talking?
Yes.
It's remarkable.
Amazing.
This man's face, why him?
I mean, for what reason this particular encounter?
Is he real from life?
Yes.
Yes.
What's his name then?
Who is he?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm the only one.
Then why did you feel compelled to bring Katz's face
to show to yourself again now?
Why?
Helen, it's the face of the man I murdered.
In a moment, we continue with...
Suspense.
We continue with Death and Miss Turner
and Miss Agnes Moorhead.
A tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
You murdered this man whose face you painted, Cheryl?
Yes.
Yes, I did.
How did you murder him?
I don't know.
You have no recollection of having actually done it?
No.
You are unable to tell yourself where it happened or when?
No.
I only am sure that I killed him.
Miss Turner, we are going to give you something to make you sleep.
Sleep.
Now, will you roll up your sleeve for Miss Breen?
Help me, dear.
Yes, we shall need the help you need to sleep for a period of time now.
I hope it will be a brief period.
You've wanted to sleep a great deal of recent months, haven't you?
Yes, that was because you were afraid of reality, of your thoughts while awake.
So you were always dozing off or taking a nap or staying in bed till half the day was gone.
No, I know I'm a murderer.
I've earned the right to be dragged into forgetting it for a few hours.
I was already dead, I'd forgotten. Why couldn't I have been allowed to die?
Why not have hung me and been done with it?
Hung you? Hung you for what?
For a murder you cannot describe.
Of a man whose death and circumstances point to violence we have no record of.
No one on earth has come forward to accuse you of any crime.
How did you find me? What was I doing? Where was I when you found me?
You must remember what happened yourself.
You must live through that horror again.
Only then will you know what is true.
In the means I must shall help you in every way I can.
Hate me if you like, and it's better than hating yourself.
Good night, Miss Turner.
So many years to remember.
A life brought back to be my own.
The figures and landscapes and people which belonged to me.
Where nothing had been in line the day before.
It was all there.
Often till my birthday.
What happened on the 16th of April?
I remember the night before.
It was the last thing I remembered until a waking hair in the hospital on the first day of May.
I was standing in the lobby of the hotel just having got off that rickety elevator.
And my bag was packed, the result of my feet.
And the porter came around from behind each booth and handed me my train ticket.
After that, nothing.
Black.
White.
Piano.
Tunes.
Train.
Teeth.
Sarishtam.
Felicito.
Pellet.
Teeth.
Porter.
Ticket.
Train.
No white.
I beg your pardon?
No white.
She has that long train that the dwarf carries.
Oh yes, quite right.
Blood.
Dead.
Train.
A saw.
Miss Turner, have you noticed anything about your response to this word?
Which word, doctor?
The word train.
I have put it to you three times.
And each time you have, for some reason, avoided connoting what one should expect to be the most common place association.
You have not answered with, slope or wheels or waterloo station or underground.
Have you any idea why you should be unwilling to recognize the word train as a high speed conveyance traveling on rails?
I...I don't have any idea.
Book.
Dealer.
Yorkshire.
Pudding.
Train.
Reck.
Thank you, Miss Turner.
I think that will do it for today.
Miss Wigg took me back to my room.
I was in a fever.
I could hardly walk straight.
She kept dabbing in my forehead with her handkerchief, but it didn't do any good.
I could see her lips moving, probably asking me if I was all right, and if she could help me.
But I couldn't hear her.
There was another horrifying, terrible sound filling my ears.
I held my hands over them, trying to...
Oh, did it go louder?
My roomess Wigg tried to push me toward the bed.
I could see her lips framing, you must lie down.
But I pressed her out of the way and lunged for the candle.
My hands and arms were numb as best, so they were floating out of my control.
Except that they ached agonizingly.
There were flashes before my eyes, pounding waves that threw my head back and forth as though I were being battered in some apocalyptic storm.
Then came a frightful shrieking, torn from the throat of a damned soul in torment.
And I fell forward on the floor, and something fell with me, and I saw it was the pressure I'd painted, and the voice that was shrieking was my own.
Aaaaaaaahhh!
Rachel, here, Rachel!
This is it, is it nurse?
Oh yes, yes, it's all right.
All right, roll up that sleeve.
Yes, no, Rachel!
She painted that picture there, as serious, like a madwoman.
Yes, yes, yes, be quiet.
Now, Miss Turner!
Oh, you hurt me.
You hurt me this time.
It's just stinging.
The licta's a little bit different this time, Miss Turner.
It'll stop hurting in just a moment.
There, it's better already, isn't it?
Oh, yes.
This is warm.
Peaceful.
This picture you've just done, Miss Turner.
Is it good?
I think it's extraordinarily good.
Are you sleeping?
Sleeping, but awake.
Asleep, but not asleep.
Could you describe this picture to me as though I'd never seen it?
A man sitting in a railway compartment,
looking out the window of a train.
Opposite him with her back towards you is a woman.
It is as though we were the woman whose attention is on this man.
As though we were this woman?
Yes.
Don't you mean that you are this woman, Miss Turner?
Yes, I am.
What day is it now?
My birthday.
April the 16th, last April.
Yes, that is the day.
I'm aboard the Flying Scotsman.
I'm on my way to Edinburgh to paint the moors.
I'm in a compartment, alone.
I'm relaxed and happy.
I feel the urge to paint something.
Right here as the train goes speeding along.
And what will you paint?
A man.
That is the embodiment of a man.
His posture, his clothes.
For some reason I cannot paint his face.
I know his face, but I find it impossible to transfer it to the canvas.
I make four separate versions of him,
but each time my brush remains poised in midair,
refusing to invade the oval of white where the face should be.
At Manchester I get out to stretch my legs,
walking up and down the station platform.
And when I resume my compartment,
I find that I have a fellow traveler sharing it with me.
As I seat myself opposite him, he turns to face me directly.
He is the man.
It's his face which is missing from the portraits that lie on the seat beside me.
How do you do?
How do you do?
I...
How do you do?
What is it, Miss? Do you feel unwell?
Forgive me for staring at you. I didn't...
I mean looking at you in this way.
That's all right. If you like.
I'm a painter, you see.
Artist? Oh, Johnny Gordon, artist.
Well, this is the impossible part.
Here, you see these pictures?
Oh, yes.
Yes, very interesting.
Not to know who it is, his face.
Oh, but I do know.
I didn't feel I could do the face before, but now I can.
Oh, of course. Why?
Because it's your face.
My face?
Oh, why my face?
Yes. I know it sounds queer, but...
You're going to put my face in there?
Yes, if I may.
Well, all right. All right, go right ahead.
You mean it? Now?
Certainly. Now, now, what do I do? Do I just sit here?
Yes, yes, just that way.
Please, if you tilt your head just a little more that way.
Oh, is this all right?
Yes. You're in the shadow, though.
There's only a little more light.
Oh, I have it.
Wouldn't it be too much trouble if we changed places?
There's good light here where I'm sitting.
Have I made a pardon?
If we change places, I'll sit over there, and you'll...
Oh, oh, yes, yes, change places. Oh, sir, didn't they?
I sit down where he's being.
And he places himself exactly where I've been sitting.
For a moment he looked at me smiling.
And then it happened.
It was a grinding, crashing thunder.
Smoke and steam obscured his face, still smiling in surprise.
And then an inferno of itchering wood and glass and reddening steel came screaming at him.
And the task that he threw was famous and got him freaking a death.
I did him. He straight-straited with me.
It was I who was meant to die in the first place.
I killed him! I killed him!
I killed him!
I killed him!
I killed him.
I killed him.
He took my death.
No, Rachel, you did not kill him.
You know that now.
Now that you remember,
come back, back to the edge of madness.
I'm going home now.
My train leaves at midnight.
They gave me a farewell tea this afternoon.
And I even had a cocktail.
The hostess is much too busy to introduce us all around.
But a very nice gentleman came up to me and introduced himself.
My name is Greif.
I'm a psychologist.
I am Rachel Turner.
I'm a painter.
Suspense.
In which Miss Agnes Morehead starred in Death and Miss Turner,
written especially for her by William Spear
and produced and directed by William N. Robeson.
Supporting Miss Morehead in Death and Miss Turner were
Irene Tedrow, Raymond Lawrence, John Hoyt, and Richard Peel.
Listen.
Listen again next week when we return with another tale
well calculated to keep you in...
suspense.