Suspense.
And the producer of radio's outstanding theater of thrills,
the master of mystery and adventure, William N. Rogson.
No generality is ever completely true, including that one.
Take the old saw which states what people don't know won't hurt them,
and that other pious assurance of the triumph of good over evil,
which states murder will out.
The upcoming story nearly disproves both these mossy axioms.
The murder almost succeeded, and the murderer almost was not hurt by what he didn't know.
But in the end, he was hoist by his own paper hanger.
Listen, listen then, as Mr. Lloyd Bridges stars in Pigeon in the Cage.
And now, Mr. Lloyd Bridges in Pigeon in the Cage,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
I'm Gerald Brewer. I'm 31 years old and I'm a paper hanger.
I got a wife and I got a kid in the way.
She'd like to be home now. Wish I were out of here.
Right under the button here it says, ring in case of emergency.
But nothing happens. I've been ringing this bell for the last hour and nothing happens.
Nobody's home, I know that, but I don't know what else to do except ring this bell.
I'm stuck in an elevator in a private house between the first and second floor.
The overhead light went out a few minutes ago and I can hardly see.
This elevator isn't very big. It holds all three people, four.
There's a lever here for floor stops, but something's gone wrong.
The elevator won't move.
And there's two buttons here, one that rings the bell and the other for emergency stops.
Overhead maybe about eight feet from the floor.
There's a little door maybe about six inches square. I don't know what that's for.
That's a pretty old elevator, pretty old house.
Can't squeeze out of it, that's for sure.
Three walls of this thing are cherry wood and the front of it is a folding iron gate.
I got on it on the fourth floor where I was papering the library.
That was five o'clock and I was quitting work.
Then the elevator got stuck and nobody's home.
I've been yelling my lungs out, ringing the bell, calling for Mrs. Rogers who owns this house,
and pounding the wall, and nobody's home.
I'm stuck.
The elevator is stuck right above the first floor, right above the living room.
So lying down like this I can see into it through a gap, no bigger than a quarter inch.
I'm worried a little about my wife because she'll worry.
But there's nothing I can do but wait, relax and wait.
I'll be right back.
Alright, you alright, Janet?
That's what woke me.
If someone was home and talking, I was going to yell out and let them know that I was stuck in the elevator right above their heads.
You've got to kill her.
You see, the only way to do it is to kill her dead.
Alright, alright.
I'll kill her when she gets home.
Okay?
Okay, Janet?
When your wife's dead I'll be okay.
Hey, how about some music? I'll put out some records.
Relax.
Harry?
What?
What about the gun?
Don't worry.
Do me a favor, will you, Harry?
Let me worry. Let me know what you...
Alright, the gun's just there at second floor of my bedroom.
Listen, Janet, you don't even have to be there when it happens.
When's your wife coming home?
She'll be here in a minute.
Look, want a drink?
Maybe, I don't know.
Come on.
Let's go to the kitchen.
Mix the drinks.
I don't know who the girl is. I never saw her before.
What I could make out of her looking through the gap is that she's a lot younger than Mr. Rogers.
That was Mr. Rogers. I knew that right away without looking at him.
I remembered his voice because we'd had a discussion about wallpaper pattern 1216B.
It was Sunday strollers in the park for the library on the fourth floor.
Well, if he was going to kill his wife and I just heard about it, what do you think he'd do to me?
All I had to do was yell out and let him know that I'd heard.
Now, listen, I got a wife and a kid in the way.
I'm a boy who figures I'm hanging a lot more paper before he dies.
My family expects it of me.
Besides, what am I supposed to do?
Yell out, hey, I'm hanging up here in the elevator and I just heard what you said.
How do I know that Mr. Rogers wouldn't kill me, huh?
I guess all I can do is just stay here and hope that I can think of something.
You better. You better, Janice.
The drink, get it. I'm fine.
What shall we do?
What do you mean?
Why wait?
I don't mind waiting now. I feel fine.
We left the party. We were dancing.
Let's dance.
Janice. Janice.
What's the matter?
Nothing. Let's just not laugh, that's all.
Let's not do anything to make the other one laugh.
Now who's nervous?
I'd better be coming home soon.
Let go of me.
I'm lost.
There's nothing wrong, Harry. Just right now, let go of me.
Okay, okay.
I better go upstairs and get the gun.
I think I found the thing is stuck.
What?
The elevator. Stuck again.
Door down in the basement keeps swinging open and stops it.
Stuck.
Sure it's stuck. Look, look right over your head.
Yeah.
Harry.
What?
Suppose someone's in that elevator.
Are you kidding?
Suppose someone's in that elevator, Harry.
How could anybody?
Tell me how it got stuck.
How do I know how it got stuck?
Suppose someone's on that elevator and heard everything we said.
Now look, it's happened a hundred times before.
Suppose the elevator went upstairs and I stood here and rang for it.
The elevator would start, but if the basement door swung open, the elevator would stop.
You're satisfied?
All right.
It happened to my wife.
She walked instead of closing the door in the basement.
All right, all right.
Guns in the bedroom.
I'll walk upstairs and get it.
Mr. Rogers went to get the gun.
I could hear him go into his bedroom.
Well, yesterday I papered with the hunters on horseback pattern.
I watched the girl that he called Janice.
She sat on the sofa for a little while.
She got up, folded her arms and walked around the room.
She stopped in front of the elevator.
Anybody in there?
Anybody in there?
She kept looking at the gap where the floor of the elevator was a quarter inch above the top of the door.
But the light was out on the elevator and it was black.
I hugged the foul wall.
She couldn't see me.
Then Mr. Rogers came back downstairs.
You're not satisfied, are you?
What do you mean?
Looking at the elevator.
I'm unsatisfied.
Well?
I tell you I'm okay.
Would it make you feel better if I went down to the basement and shut the door down there, stopped the elevator and you see?
Forget it.
It would make you feel better, wouldn't it?
Leave me alone, will you?
Janice.
Stop it, Harry, please.
You want to forget it, Janice?
You want to go back to the party and see?
No, no, no, no, no.
Listen, I'll go down and close the elevator down in the basement.
All right.
That's what's upsetting you, isn't it?
You're afraid someone's in there.
Why didn't you say so?
Please go downstairs and close the...
Harry.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's her.
You wait here.
Yes.
I'll do it out in the garage.
Janice, we're going to have to hurry.
Make it look like a robbery.
All right, Harry.
She keeps a jewel in the safe there.
Watch out, Janice.
Don't push me.
You're starting in the way.
The safe's behind that picture.
Just tell me to move it.
I'll move.
Don't push me anymore, Harry.
I'm sorry.
12 to the right, 18 to the left, 20 to...
Harry, the phone.
I know it's the phone.
Answer it.
What?
Answer it.
Say you're Mrs. Rogers and get rid of whoever it is in a hurry.
Say you'll call back.
Hello?
Yes, yes, this is Mrs. Rogers.
Who?
Paper hanger?
No, I'm sure of it.
Yes, yes, goodbye.
Harry.
What is it?
Was there a paper hanger here today?
Huh?
Well, I guess so.
The place is being papered.
Why?
That was his wife, Mrs. Brewer.
He's not home.
She expected him home hours ago.
She knew he was here.
Harry, the elevator.
Yes.
Brewer, you up there?
What about it, Brewer, you up there?
Okay, Brewer, don't bother to answer.
I'll find out whether you're up there.
And if you are, you're dead.
Well?
I don't know.
I'm not sure.
He's in there.
I'm sure he's in that elevator.
And he knows what we did.
Harry.
Wait a second, will you?
Brewer, you heard what I said, didn't you?
You're in there, I'll kill you.
Jenny, get me a chair.
Maybe if I stand in it, I can see him.
Brewer.
Brewer, you won't be able to hide in there for way long, Brewer.
Can you see him, Harry?
I don't know.
Black in there.
This lid is all I have to look through.
Turn off that music, will you?
What's the music got to do with it?
Turn it off.
Harry.
What?
Listen, Harry.
I'm getting panicky, both of us.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe you're wrong.
Maybe the paper hanger just stopped at the corner bar
and got loaded and never got home.
Maybe she's...
We've got to find out.
We've got to get out of here, Janice, thanks for the party.
I'll go down to the basement and close that elevator door
and bring it down.
All right.
You wait here.
Harry.
Pour yourself a drink, Janice.
You look terrible.
Why don't you just wait to hear what I have to say?
All right, what do you want?
Take the gun with you in case he's there.
Okay, okay.
How about that?
Wouldn't you think that my wife had...
No, no, it wasn't her fault for calling.
For being worried, for being such a good wife.
But if she hadn't called, Mr. Rogers and that girl
would have gone away.
We always blame somebody else when we're in trouble, don't we?
Well, one thing I'm sure of,
Mr. Rogers has a gun in his hand.
And the other thing, the other thing that I'm sure of
is that he isn't kidding.
I'm positive that he isn't kidding.
A man who's just killed his wife isn't a kidding type.
Now, now here's what he's about to do.
Close the basement elevator gate,
push the button and bring the elevator down.
Then he's going to open the door, see me, shoot me.
A man with a family, like I said,
and I got a good trade, paper hangin'.
And a lot of things I'd like to enjoy in life,
so I don't want to die.
You know what my life depends on right now?
This button marked emergency stop.
Mr. Rogers closes the gate and tries to bring the elevator down to the basement.
And me inside the elevator, I keep my finger on the emergency stop button
and I pray.
Oh, nothing happens.
The elevator doesn't move.
What's the matter?
You're doing anything up there?
What? What do you mean?
Pressing a button or anything?
I'm not doing anything, Harry.
Well, something's wrong.
What?
What's the matter? I don't know.
Just in case, I'm going to leave the door open, Janice,
and I'm coming out.
Mister, mister, if you're in there, mister,
if you're in there in that elevator and you know what's happened
and if there's some way the three of us can get together
so that nobody has to get hurt anymore, listen.
All right, we killed his wife.
You don't know what she was.
You don't know what she was.
Janice.
Janice, what are you doing?
We can reason with him if he's in there.
Maybe all we have to do is explain why it happened
and maybe tell him we're not so bad.
You know what I think, Janice.
I think there's no one in there.
There is. There is. I know it, Harry.
All right.
We'll make sure.
Come on.
We'll go upstairs up to the second floor.
I've got a way to make sure.
How?
I'll climb down into the elevator from the second floor.
There's a little trap door on top.
I'll open it, strike a light.
I'll find out.
Come on.
Have you got matches, Harry?
I'll use my lighter.
I got the trap door open.
Can you see him?
Wait.
There.
Uh-oh.
I'm going to have to...
Hey!
Harry, my dear, what's the matter?
He's in there, Janice.
When I reached in, he knocked the lighter out of my hand.
He's in there.
Kill him.
Kill him.
You've got to kill him.
No, we don't.
It's all right now.
It's all right that he's in there.
What do you mean?
We killed my wife, right?
We were going to take her jewelry,
would make it look like a robbery and murder,
would make it look like she surprised the thief,
she was coming home and the thief was leaving.
Yes.
Well, don't you see?
I'll bring her body up here to the bedroom,
and then I'll throw the jewelry in the elevator,
empty the gun, throw it in.
He'll be the thief.
The murderer trapped in the elevator.
Hey!
How do you like that, brother?
You'll be the murderer.
Do it. Just do it, Harry.
It's going to be all right.
Just do it.
I'll be right back.
You'll pay for this.
You'll pay for this.
Mister, we know you're in there, mister.
Just a couple of feet below.
Listen, mister.
What do you want?
Oh!
Hello, Mr. Paperhanger Brewer.
You think that you're...
What?
If you think that you can get away with this...
I tried to reason with you.
All I wanted you to do was to go away.
I talked to your wife.
She was worried, wasn't she?
If you'd listened to me, you could have been home by now.
How can I listen to you after what you did?
I tried to explain it to you, and you wouldn't listen.
Mr. Rogers was a married man.
You carried on with him, didn't you?
You know what?
What?
He shot his wife, but you're just as much a murderer as he is.
I know.
How can you expect me to listen to you?
I don't want anybody else to get hurt.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Honest.
How about the way you said, kill him, kill him, huh?
Meaning me.
What about that?
Because you had to act so smart.
Because you didn't answer when I talked to you.
Yeah, I saw you.
What do you mean?
When you were downstairs in the living room,
I was lying down the floor in here, and I saw you.
I can't understand how anybody who looks like you can do what you did.
What does your wife look like?
Why?
What do you look like?
You don't even know me.
You don't even know what a man looks like,
and you're going to do what you're going to do.
Yes, I am.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr. Paperhanger, I'm talking to you.
I'm talking to you.
Why don't you answer me?
Give me a hand, Janet.
Janet, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Give me a hand, Janet.
Janet, what's the matter?
Janet.
It's almost over here.
Here, put it down.
Here.
I got the jewelry.
Here, hold it a minute.
I just want to take the rest of the bullets out of this gun.
No.
Wait a minute.
Why did you have to do that for?
Now there's no more bullets in the gun.
Bullets are in the wall.
I'll knock over pieces of furniture.
Make this place look like a mess, like she put up a fight.
Now what do you have to do?
Just climb down there again on top of the elevator, that's all.
I told you it would be over in a minute.
Hey, you, Brewer.
Not talking, huh?
I don't mind.
I'm going to give you something, Brewer.
A pair of jewelry, a bracelet, and a necklace.
Worth a lot of money, Brewer.
Here's a gun, too.
Empty because it's the one you killed my wife with.
Have fun, Brewer.
Can you believe it?
Just look what's happened to me.
I'm paper in the house.
I get caught in an elevator.
And now I'm going to be blamed for murder.
And there's nothing that I can do about it.
Rogers and the girl are on the first floor now.
He's helping her with her coat.
She still looks shaky.
I can lie down on the floor and see them through the gap.
Hey, I heard her starting to leave.
I'm going to go get her.
Uh, Mr. Rogers.
You're not going to get away with it, Mr. Rogers.
Before you go, you better think about something.
What about the fingerprints?
What about the fingerprints and the gun, Mr. Rogers?
You forgot to wipe them off, didn't you?
Hello, Mr. Rogers.
I'm lying down on the floor of the elevator
and I'm looking out of the gap when I can see you.
Hello, Miss.
I'm in here and you're out there.
But you're the ones that are trapped now.
Mr. Brewer. What do you want, Mr. Rogers?
Mr. Brewer, I...
Harry.
You're right, isn't it?
Your fingerprints are on the gun.
Mr. Brewer, I guess we better make some arrays,
but certainly...
Janice. What?
Go down to the basement and shut the elevator door.
Then, Mr. Brewer,
be able to bring the elevator down.
Go ahead, Janice. Hurry.
How does it feel?
Well, the first thing I want to tell you is that
you can keep the jewels.
How does it feel to be trapped?
Oh, really, now. We'll talk this over.
It feels terrible, doesn't it?
When you come out of the elevator.
I don't think so.
I don't know whether I'm going to come out or not.
Not now.
Come on up.
All I have to do is keep my finger
on this emergency stop button,
and you can't move this elevator an inch.
Now, let's be reasonable.
You killed your wife, Mr. Rogers.
How do I know what else you got down there
that you might kill me with?
Do you think I would...
Yeah, yeah. You know what a silly question that is, don't you?
Look.
I got this gun of yours,
and it's proof that you killed her.
And no amount of argument that you can think of
is going to be enough to prove
that you killed her.
Money!
I got lots of money!
I don't think money is important right now.
Well, why...
He won't come out!
No, sir. I'm not coming out.
I got you two where I want you, and I'm not moving.
Janice, tell him how rich I am,
how much I can do for him.
Tell him, tell him all the things I can do!
All the things you can do!
Look what you can do!
Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
Shut up!
Shut up!
Am I right?
Janice!
Janice?
Janice, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to hit you.
I didn't mean to!
I didn't mean to!
You're not dead.
You're not dead, Janice!
Dead Janice!
Dead Janice!
Dead Janice!
No, no! I didn't mean to!
You're not dead, Janice!
Yeah, Mr. Rogers, yeah.
All the things that you can do.
Hello, Norma.
This is Jerry, dear.
No, no, no. Everything's fine.
Yeah, in just a little while.
No, no, really. Everything's fine.
I'll tell you about it when I get home.
I got stuck in an elevator, is all.
I said I got stuck in an elevator.
Suspense.
In which Lloyd Bridges starred in William M. Robson's production of
Pigeon in the Cage
written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin.
Listen.
Listen again next week
when we return with another tale
well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
Supporting Mr. Bridges and Pigeon in the Cage
were Ellen Morgan and Joe DeSantis.
Thanks for watching!