Suspense.
And the producer of radio's outstanding theater of thrills,
the master of mystery and adventure,
William N. Rogerson.
Directors of radio plays share a common fantasy,
an unattainable goal,
the dream of producing a broadcast in which murder is actually committed on mic.
But since they are by and large sane, responsible citizens,
their dream is in vain.
Not so the hero of the upcoming story.
He sets out with lethal intent to make his dream come true.
Listen, listen then, as Mr. Raymond Burr stars in Murder on Mic,
which begins in exactly one minute.
Every man has a right to envision his country as he would like it to be.
Dreams foster reality.
There are many legends describing the broad reaches of our land,
like the one they tell about a Kentuckian who was once asked what he considered the boundaries of the United States.
Why sir, on the north we are bounded by the aurora borealis,
on the east we are bounded by the rising sun,
on the south we are bounded by the procession of the equinoxes,
and on the west by the day of judgment.
Folklore belongs to every nation's legendary past,
and I guess we Americans have our share of some tall ones,
like the one about...
Oh, but we'll have to save that one for the next time we travel your way.
See you then.
And now...
Mr. Raymond Burr in Murder on Mic,
a tale well calculated to keep you in...
suspense.
Yeah?
I want to see me, boss man.
Oh yeah, Chris, come in.
Sit down.
You hear the show Sunday?
No.
You should have.
After I got through rewriting that closing scene, it really played.
I'll bet.
I don't get it, Chris. I don't make you come to rehearsals.
You don't have to sit in the control room all day.
The least you can do is listen to the show at home.
Nothing in my contract says I have to.
Well, listen to this playback.
George, honest, I didn't mean it, George.
Forget this, Chris, get it.
Do you mean to say that you didn't really mean it
when you told my brother that you didn't love him?
No.
You forget, Doris, that I heard you every word
while I was hiding behind the Davenport the night my mother was here.
George, I beg you, don't do this thing.
Put down the gun, George.
This is only what you deserve.
You tricked me for the last time, Doris.
You tricked me for the last time.
How about that, kid?
What did you change it for?
What was wrong with my ending?
Why did you change it?
Take it easy, Chris.
I'll tell you why I changed it, because it was wordy and repetitious.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe people are wordy and repetitious?
Chris, I'm trying to tell you the scene, the way you wrote it, just didn't play.
Just didn't play.
That's right.
Drag out all the trade cliches.
It didn't live, it didn't play.
You ran it up the flagpole and no one saluted it.
How did you ever get into this business?
Whoever let you into a radio station?
Chris, I think you need help.
Help?
Yes.
I know a good man, Freudian but liberal.
Don't you tell me I need a psychiatrist.
Let go of me.
I said let go.
You are nuts.
You listen to me, boss man.
For two years now I've ground out a murder a week for you.
Week in and week out.
A murder a week.
I eat murder, talk murder, dream murder.
And what happens?
Every time I turn in a decent script, you chop the heart out of it.
Your contract is up next week, Chris.
You've only got one more script to do.
Write it and get out.
You'll get better than a script.
You'll get everything you deserve.
I'm going to show you what a real murder sounds like.
I'm going to show you even if I have to kill you to do it.
Good evening.
This is a recording of an actual murder.
Not written, not rehearsed.
But well and thoroughly planned.
It is respectfully dedicated to Mr. Ken Avery.
Editor and producer of the radio program Murder Please.
This is my last show, Mr. Avery.
I'm delivering it to you in its entirety.
Post, music, everything.
The events and persons are absolutely real.
It's going to be a great show, Mr. Avery.
You'll hear everything but the climax.
I'm speaking into a microphone concealed in my desk
and connected with a hidden tape recorder.
A special microphone is attached to my telephone
to enable the listener to hear both ends of any conversation.
The music you hear is coming from a high fidelity phonograph at my side.
This program is produced, edited, directed, narrated, engineered
and plotted by Christopher Turner,
whose only claim to immortality is this final half hour.
And now, Mr. Avery, the leading characters in order of appearance.
The murderer, myself.
The catalytic agent, your daughter Lois.
The victim, you.
Listen.
Listen then, Mr. Avery, to the last show you'll ever hear.
Murder, please.
Hello?
Ken, this is Chris.
What do you want?
I hate to bother you at home,
but I'd like to apologize for the way I acted this afternoon.
Accept the apology.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Accept the apology.
Ken, Ken, I'd like to talk to you about renewing my contract.
How about dropping down to my office?
Sorry, Chris, no go.
I put up with you for two years now.
Your temper tantrums, your insults, cunning and stow to the gills.
Two years of it was plenty.
I've had it.
I see.
You won't change your mind?
Not a chance.
Okay, Ken.
Thanks.
Thanks for nothing.
Lovely opening scene, Mr. Avery.
Thank you.
You played it exactly the way I wanted you to.
You just threw away your last chance to save your life.
An excellent performance, Mr. Avery.
I shall kill you in the name of the parasitical breed you represent.
The avaricious, arrogant men of high places who milk the talent of others
and claim it as their own.
So, Mr. Avery, if you won't come down to my office by invitation,
and I knew you wouldn't, there's another way.
The telephone book.
Listen, Mr. Avery, the sound of the flipping of pages.
Your daughter's phone number.
Here we are.
Hello?
Hello, Lois.
It's been a long time.
Bet you don't even know who this is.
I don't recognize the voice.
Christopher Turner.
Oh, hello, Mr. Turner. How are you?
Fine. Just fine.
How do you like living alone?
It's all right, I guess.
Rather be living with the folks?
No. No, it's kind of independent this way.
How's the writing coming?
Not so good, Mr. Turner.
I've written five scripts so far and every one of them has been rejected.
I don't know what's the matter.
Well, the reason I called was your dad and I had a little talk this afternoon about you.
He thought perhaps I could help you.
Well, I wouldn't want to bother you.
Oh, no bother at all, Lois.
I like to help aspiring young talent.
That's very kind of you.
What are you doing this evening?
I was going to wash my hair.
Why don't you wash your hair tomorrow evening and come down to my office right now.
We'll get started.
Well, I told a girlfriend I'd be home tonight.
She was going to drop over.
Can't you call her and tell her to make it some other night?
Here's the point.
This is the only free night I'll have this week.
Things are sort of piling up.
I'd like to see you get squared away with your writing.
And I did promise your dad.
Well, all right, Mr. Turner.
You know where my office is?
No, I don't think so.
It's right across from the studios in the annex, room 208.
I'll be right over.
Fine.
And I certainly appreciate this, I'm sure.
Not at all, Lois.
Goodbye.
I'll be right over.
I certainly appreciate this, I'm sure.
Not at all.
You see, Mr. Avery, that's how people talk.
Now let's see what else.
Oh, yes, sound.
Drawer opens.
Gun taken out.
Click of breach.
Whirl of chamber.
Bullets inserted in chamber.
Three, four, five, and six.
Gun in drawer.
Drawer closed.
Now we must wait until the...
See, Mr. Avery, fate is a better dramatist than neither of us.
Just when things start getting dull, the phone rings.
Hello?
Hello, Chris.
Hank.
Hi, Hank.
What is this?
Old man Avery got you slaving on a round-the-clock basis now?
When are you going to tell him to go take a flying leap?
I just did that today.
No kidding.
Well, congratulations.
From here, you can't go anyplace but up.
Yeah.
Say, Chris, we got a pretty active poker game going on over here.
Just room for one more sucker.
What do you say?
I can't tonight.
I'm doing my last show.
Well, forget it for one night, why don't you?
Live a little.
Thanks, Hank, but I can't.
I'm coming over and get you away from that typewriter if I have to use force.
I can't do it, Hank.
The show's next Sunday.
Well, I got a script due tomorrow.
You don't see me knocking myself out.
Let them wait.
I'll be right over.
Now listen, Hank, you can't come over here.
Don't you get it?
Oh.
Oh, I'm sorry, Chris.
Sure thing.
Give her my regards.
Anybody I know?
Story conference, that's right.
Yeah.
Well, take it easy, boy.
How about lunch tomorrow?
Sure thing.
Okay, Chris, goodbye.
Bye.
That was close.
Good scene, though, don't you think, Mr. Avery?
Your daughter, Mr. Avery, has just driven up in front of the building.
She wears a cardigan sweater, tweed skirt, flat shoes.
She's young and very pretty.
A girl with everything to live for.
Now she's disappeared into the building.
In a moment, she'll knock on my door.
Then, Mr. Avery, you will hear for yourself how youth reacts to the threat of death.
And this, Mr. Avery, would be the proper dramatic moment to end Act One.
May I suggest at this point you insert one of your beloved commercials?
In just a moment, we continue with...
Suspense.
Do you know the Social Security benefits to which you will be entitled when you separate from the service and take a civilian job?
Here's a tip from Social Security.
The basic idea of old age, survivors, and disability insurance is really simple.
During working years, workers, their employers, and self-employed people pay Social Security taxes.
The money is deposited in special trust funds.
When earnings stop or are greatly decreased because a worker retires, dies, or becomes severely disabled,
payments are made from these funds to replace part of the earnings the family has lost.
The amount of the benefit is figured from the worker's average earnings.
The total payment can be as much as $254 a month for a family with several members collecting benefits.
You can see how important it is for you to know just what the law requires you to do
and what benefits it provides for you and your family.
For more information, write to Social Security, Department 15, Hollywood 28, California,
and ask for a free copy of Booklet 35 called Your Social Security.
And now...
We continue with the second act of Murder on Mic, starring Mr. Raymond Burr,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Act Two.
This is Christopher Turner once again, Mr. Avery, bringing you by transcription
the first recording of an actual murder ever made specifically for broadcast.
The setting, my office, the music, recorded the time night, the victim yourself.
Your daughter has just entered the building and in a few seconds she'll be knocking on my door.
I'm sorry I have to go to such length to get you into my office.
I'd gladly have killed you in the street, but it's so much more difficult to make a recording there.
So concludes the usual resume with which we begin the second act of every Murder, Please program.
I hear her footsteps in the hall. Your cue, Lois.
Sound, knock on door.
Come in.
Hello, Lois. Come on in.
Thanks, Mr. Turner.
Have a seat here by the desk.
This is awfully nice of you, Mr. Turner.
I always tell Dad to stop imposing on my behalf, but I guess he'll never learn.
You're here because I want you to be here and for no other reason. Now, a cigarette.
Oh, no thanks.
My, this is a nice office you have here.
It serves just a hole in the wall, but quiet. Nothing fancy.
Why, I like it.
How long have you been writing, Lois?
All of my life, but, well, seriously about six months.
What sort of things?
Murder mostly. I hear that's what sells best.
True, true. You can usually make more money writing about murder than committing it.
So, suppose we just start talking about murder. Maybe something interesting will come out.
Now tell me, why do you think people kill?
Lots of reasons, I guess.
Could you kill?
I don't think so.
Maybe you could. Here. Here's a loaded gun. Take it.
Oh, please put it away.
Take it in your hand.
No, no, I'd rather not.
Oh, it's very obedient.
Won't fire unless you press the trigger. Now take it. That's it.
Now, point it at me.
Oh, please.
Think now, think. One touch of your finger and you kill me.
One little touch. Very delicate instrument, the trigger.
There's a sense of power there. Feel it?
I'm afraid.
Fear? Yes, but exhilaration too, like the second drink.
Yes, I guess I feel it.
You, you can give it back to me now.
Oh, I never held a gun before.
Are you afraid of death?
Sometimes when I think about it.
What is death to you?
Death? I don't know.
No idea?
Emptiness, blackness, nothing.
Is that so terrible?
Yes, because you really don't know.
Like the dark.
That's it.
You, you don't know any more about death than you do about me.
You?
Yes.
Well, well, I know you work for Dad.
But you've never even spent one hour with me.
Once at lunch your father introduced us, yet you came up here alone.
Now, how do you know you can trust me?
I suppose I don't really.
Look at this gun.
Please put it down. It makes me terribly nervous.
Do you have any money?
A little.
How much?
Five dollars maybe and some change.
Give it to me.
Here.
Now why did you give me the money?
Because you asked me for it.
Because you were hoping I'd put down the gun?
If I had said a kiss, one kiss and I'll put down the gun, what would you do?
I suppose, I suppose I'd give you...
But a kiss, that would be harder to give, wouldn't it?
Yes.
Kiss me.
There.
Thank you.
Now, now put down the gun, please.
I know it's a lesson in writing and all that, but it scares me.
No.
I said you would.
I said nothing of the kind.
And if I had said it, you would have been foolish enough to believe me.
You can't trust a man with a gun.
You feel helpless, don't you?
Yes.
While you could give me money, there was hope.
While you could give me love, there was hope.
But if all I wanted was revenge, there would be nothing you could do to save yourself.
Nothing.
If I told you that right now, this moment, I'm going to pull this trigger and blow you
to bits, tell me, what would you say?
Well, I'd try to talk you out of it.
What would you say?
I wouldn't know what to say.
Then I'd shoot.
I'd tell you about the electric chair.
Very little threat to a man about to kill.
Later, perhaps, when he's running away, then he'll think about consequences, but not now.
Now it's only kill.
Now what else, what else would you say?
I'd beg him.
He wouldn't listen.
I'd plead with him.
I'd say, please don't kill me.
And if he still wouldn't listen?
Then I'd die.
Yes, you'd die.
Mr. Turner, I think I'd better be going.
No, we're not even started yet.
Well, if you don't put down that gun, I'm going.
I don't like it.
Sit down.
I want to tell you a story.
Please, Mr. Turner.
Sit down.
This is just a sample plot.
You can have it if you want to.
It's about a writer, a writer who had great novels in him, great plays, but he was broke.
For the sake of a roof over his head and three meals a day, he started turning out radio mysteries.
He turned them out until every drop of originality was squeezed out of him.
Finally, he realized that he had nothing to leave to the world, nothing but scripts to be swept up by a studio janitor after the broadcast.
Well, the writer made a decision one day.
He would do a last radio play, a radio play with an actual murder, the only chance he had for immortality.
And he selected as his victim the man who had squeezed his talent dry.
He selected his editor and producer, Ken Avery.
Yeah.
I like you.
I like you very much, Lois.
I wish this could be happening to almost anyone but you.
Get to the phone.
What?
The telephone.
What for?
To call your father.
No, no, I won't do it.
You'll call your father and you'll tell him to come down here.
Now pick up the receiver.
No, no, wait, I'll do it.
Oh, please, please, Mr. Terry.
Be quiet.
Please.
Now take the phone.
Tell him.
It's ringing.
Take it.
Hello?
Dad?
Lois?
Lois, what are you calling at this time of night for?
Something the matter?
Dad?
You want him to take you home, you don't feel well.
Lois, something is the matter.
Where are you?
I'm at Mr. Turner's.
Turner's?
His apartment?
His office.
I don't feel well.
Dad?
Come and take me home.
I don't feel well at all.
Give me the phone.
Hello, Ken?
What's the matter with Lois, Chris?
I don't know.
She came up tonight to discuss some script she wrote,
but she seems to be suddenly taken ill.
You'd better come and get her.
I'll be right down.
Relax, Lois.
We haven't got very long to wait.
The script is nearly finished.
Twenty minutes have gone by,
and now I hear steps in the hall,
steps of Mr. Ken Avery.
The climax, ladies and gentlemen,
of the listening audience I produced for you.
Mr. Avery will never live to hear it.
Lois, are you...
Sit down, Ken.
What is this?
Lois, what's been going on here?
Tell him, Lois.
He's going to kill you.
He's going to kill both of us.
Close the door.
Chris, put that thing down.
Somebody's liable to get hurt.
Good line.
Perfectly in character.
The inane cliché from the mouth of the great producer.
You see, Ken, everything's being recorded.
Your voice, Lois's, mine.
Sit down.
Recorded for what?
Posterity.
For the show next week.
You'll have the honor of appearing on your own program
as the murder victim.
Let me show you here in the desk.
You see, tape recorder.
I've stopwatched every second.
It's been running exactly 25 minutes.
You always made it a rule to plan the climax for 26.30
so you could have room for a final commercial.
Well, that's just what I'm doing.
According to my timing, you have about
one minute and 30 seconds to live.
All right, Chris. All right.
That's enough of the phony dramatics.
Give me that gun before somebody gets hurt.
Stand back.
I wouldn't want to mistime the climax of the show.
This won't make a show.
You won't be around to change it, Mr. Avery.
The agency wouldn't put this thing on the air.
Why not?
You telegraphed the ending.
Oh.
There's no twist. No surprise ending.
You told the audience to expect the murder to be successful.
But our shows have to have some kind of surprise for the audience, Chris.
You know that.
Where's the twist?
Still the editor right to death store.
All right, Ken, perhaps you can provide the surprise ending
that's going to save your life.
I don't have to.
You provided the twist yourself, Chris,
but you didn't know it.
And yet the twist was part of the story all the time.
Where, editor Avery?
You, Chris. You're the twist.
Me?
That's right. You're a flop, Chris.
You're so used to dreaming on paper, you can't live anymore.
You wrote about love because you never had it.
You wrote about fortunes, and you haven't got two bits.
You wrote about murder, but you haven't got the guts to pull the trigger.
Now, give me that gun.
You think I won't shoot?
I know you won't.
Give me that gun, you hack.
What did you say?
I said you were a hack.
Give me the gun.
No. No, I'm not a hack. I'm not.
Give me that gun.
Let go. Let go of my hand.
Stop it. Stop it, I said.
Let go!
You always have to change the ending.
Oh, Dad.
It's all right, Lois.
Dad, take me home.
We have nothing to worry about, Lois.
The recording will clear us.
Take me home, please, Dad.
As soon as I make sure what's on that tape, I'll rewind it to the beginning.
Here we go.
Good evening.
This is a recording of an actual murder, not written, not rehearsed,
but well and thoroughly planned.
It is respectfully dedicated to Mr. Ken Avery,
editor and producer of the radio program Murder...
Suspense.
In which Raymond Burr starred in William M. Robson's production of
Murder on Mic, written by S. Lee Bogostin.
Listen.
Listen again next week when we return with
Fleshpeddler starring DeForest Kelley,
another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
Supporting Mr. Burr in Murder on Mic were Norma Jean Nilsen, Anne Diamond, Alan Reed, and Byron Kane.
Suspense.
Suspense has been brought to you through the worldwide facilities of the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.
Suspense.