Suspense.
And the producer of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, the master of mystery and adventure,
William N. Robeson.
In a niche all his own, apart from other great tellers of tales of terror, stands the moody,
dark, and devious genius Edgar Allan Poe.
Obscure and ambiguous, the rolling periods of his prose are not for the casual reader,
no more than for the casual listener.
But for sheer suspense compounded of horror piled upon horror, literature offers nothing
more awful than the pit and the pendulum.
The terror of the black pit would have sufficed a lesser imagination, but to this the macabre
intellect of Poe added the inescapable doom of the razor-sharp pendulum, and then piled
on the rats and the moving walls of red-hot iron until the edge of the unbearable is reached.
Can you take it?
Can you listen through the next half hour?
Try.
Try to listen to Mr. Vincent Price starring in the pit and the pendulum, which begins
in exactly one minute.
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And now, Mr. Vincent Price stars in Edgar Allan Poe's immortal story of punishment by
terror, the pit and the pendulum, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
I was sick, sick unto death with that long agony and when at length they unbound me and
I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me.
The sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum from
which emerged the syllables of my name.
John Dalbray.
Captain John Dalbray.
Good father's, gentlemen.
We hear you, my son.
Even now I have no knowledge of where I am or to whom I may be speaking.
You're speaking to me, my son.
I am Fra Pedro de Spea, prior of the Dominicans of Segovia and grand inquisitor for all Spain.
This then is the court of the Inquisition?
It is.
But I am a French officer.
That is true.
A soldier and creature of the archfiend, the antichrist Napoleon Bonaparte, who even now
is at the gates of Madrid while his general Assalle menaces our city of Toledo itself.
Nonetheless, I am a prisoner of war.
By what right do you try me in this court?
Let the clerk read the charges against the prisoner.
Item that on the fourth day of September in the year of our Lord 1808, the said Captain
John Dalbray did wed and espouse that most noble lady, the Dona Beatrice Valdez, niece
and ward of the illustrious...
One moment.
Excellency.
This marriage was a deplorable thing, if you like, but lawful marriage, however regrettable
in a case like this, is no sin nor crime.
There are other matters in the indictment.
Then continue.
But give us nothing that is not material.
One that on the 12th of October 1808, the said John Dalbray, being in command of a battery
of light artillery, did direct the fire of his guns against the Holy Church of Santa
Marta the Innocent and thereby of his wicked malice destroyed that church utterly.
Captain Dalbray, is this charge true?
Yes.
You admit it.
Good Father, the church blew up, did it not?
Would you boast of your sin, young man?
It blew up because it was stored with kegs of gunpowder for your army.
I had every right to fire on it.
And that is all the defence you have to make?
I tell you I had every right to fire on it by military law.
Is military law above God's law?
I don't know.
I did my duty.
Long live the Emperor!
Captain Dalbray, mark what I say.
No man, however great his heresy, is condemned to be burned in the fire if he first recount
and acknowledge the error of his ways.
Do you so?
I cannot.
I was under orders.
I obeyed them.
Then, John Dalbray, there can be no mercy, no pity, since there is no atonement.
The sentence of this court therefore is...
I had swooned in terror, yet I will not say that all of consciousness was lost in the
deepest slumber, no, in delirium, no, in a swoon, no, in death, no.
And in the grave all is not lost, else there is no immortality for man.
In a moment we continue with the second act of suspense.
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And now, Mr. Vincent Price in The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
No, even in the grave all is not lost.
There were shadows of memory which told me indistinctly of tall figures that lifted me
and bore me in silence down.
Down, still down, until a hideous dizziness oppressed me of that descent into the earth.
There was a vague horror at my heart because of that heart's unnatural stillness.
Then as consciousness swam back to my wits again, darkness, a damp stone floor in darkness.
Oh, Beatrice, oh my wife.
Did you call me, Jean?
Beatrice, you here in the dungeons of the Inquisition?
No, my poor Jean, I am only here in your imagination.
Am I mad then?
No, but your brain is fevered.
You only think you hear me.
I hear you clearly.
You won't leave me.
As long as I am in your heart, I shall be here.
Have they chained you to the wall?
No, no, they've taken away my uniform.
They've given me sandals and a robe of rough cloth, but I'm unchained.
Beatrice, suppose, suppose they have buried me alive.
Have courage, Jean.
You must have courage.
Then tell me, tell me where you are now, Beatrice, in the flesh, I mean.
In the old house by the Olive Grove, scorned of my people.
Yes, yes, I know.
Each morning I climb to the hilltop and watch for them.
Yes.
Sometimes I think I hear gunwheels rumble in the hills and long moving columns with
the red dust rising above them.
Go on, go on.
First come the heavy cavalry in plume-crested helmets, on their flanks wailing like hawks,
light huzzards in blue and scarlet, and behind them in a glitter of bayonets as vast as light
points on the sea, rank upon rank, the long grey coats and tall bearskin capsules.
The old guard and the grand army.
It's only a vision, my dear one.
They do not come.
Will they ever come, Beatrice?
I cannot tell.
Then I must face what has been prepared for me.
Can you stand up, Jean?
I think so.
Then what?
Walk as far as you can.
Measure the limits of the sail if this is not a tomb.
I'll try, Beatrice, I'll try.
This robe impedes me and the floor is treacherous with slime, but I'll try.
Look out!
Jean!
I'm all right.
I fell on my face.
The robe tripped me.
What, Jean?
But my hand is in front of me, lower than my face, but I feel nothing.
Nothing, Jean?
It's a pit, a deep circular pit, and I fell on the very edge of it.
They would have had you walk into it.
Yes.
But you didn't.
You're saved, Jean.
Saved, Beatrice, saved.
My torture has been merely postponed.
At last a deep sleep fell upon me, a sleep like that of death.
How long it lasted, I know not, but when I opened my eyes once again, I could see.
Yes, see.
My prison was large and lofty, its walls formed of massive iron plates, a wild sulfurous luster.
I could not trace its origin, lit up the dungeon and the circular pit.
I could see, but I could not move.
I lay on my back on a low framework of wood, securely bound by a long fastening resembling
a surgical bandage.
The bandage passed round and round my body, leaving at liberty only my head and my left
arm.
With much exertion, I could supply myself with food from an earthen dish on the floor
beside me.
It was meat, highly seasoned, and there was no water.
Beatrice, Beatrice, where are you?
I am here, Jean.
Your voice sounds stronger and I can see you.
You are weaker, my dear, and more fevered.
Look, Beatrice.
Where?
At the ceiling of this room, 30, 40 feet up.
What do you see?
I see painted on the ceiling a figure of Father Tyre.
Yes, but this Father Tyre carries no scythe.
He carries instead what looks like a gigantic pendulum from an ancient clock, and the pendulum
is moving.
The painting cannot move.
But I swear the pendulum did.
It swung a little back and forth, just like a real pendulum.
Beatrice, take care.
Take care of what?
Take care of the rats, the rats from the pit.
They're swarming out in dozens.
You can see their eyes glitter.
What do they want?
They have caught the scent of the meat in the dish beside you.
They'll not get it.
Go!
Go away, you vermin!
Au revoir, Jean.
Au revoir.
Beatrice, where are you going?
I can hardly hear you.
You are sending me away, Jean.
I'm sending you away.
My poor loved one, you can't bear to see the rats running about my feet, can you?
Even when you know I'm not here.
Beatrice.
It is true, Jean.
You are sending me away.
Yes, yes, it's true.
In a cell swarming with vermin, there are others I would rather see here.
I would rather see.
Did you call me, Captain Dalbray?
Then in spirit, I am here.
Go.
I command you, Frau Antonio.
Go!
Not until I have first told you what is in store for you.
Which is?
Listen.
Do you hear anything?
Yes, yes, I hear something.
Turn your eyes upward.
Look at me.
I'm not a rat.
I'm a rat.
Copy.
It is not a rat.
It is a rat.
Is it a rat, or a rat?
All right, look at the ceiling.
The pendulum.
By the pendulum.
It is descended.
Only a foot or so as yet.
And as you notice, it is not really a pendulum.
No.
No, its underside is a crescent formed of razor-sharp steel.
You mean...
A ponderous weight, Captain Dalbray.
Its movement is slow now, but soon it will take on momentum.
It will swing wider and wider and with each broad movement, it will creep a trifle lower.
The steel.
The steel is directly over me.
Yes, above the region of your heart.
How long before?
You need have no immediate fear. It will not be too soon.
But how soon?
Who can tell?
Minutes, hours, days. Who can say how long it was?
It might have been many days before that hideous blade swept so closely as to fan me with its acrid breath.
Down, still unceasingly, still inevitably,
I was still in the middle of the night.
Down, still unceasingly, still inevitably,
down the sharp steel flashed past within three inches of my chest.
And then, only then,
Beatrice, Beatrice.
I hear you calling, Jean. I am here.
Oh, Beatrice.
Is there no hope, my dear?
How can there be?
I am feeling twelve more vibrations, and it will fray the threads of my robe,
only lightly as a razor in a delicate hand.
There will be many sweeps down before it bites deep.
I can't escape it, and yet, if only I could use my wits.
You kept me away from you, Jean.
You locked me out of your thoughts.
If I am here only in your thoughts, why should I fear the rats?
The rats? The rats?
There is a real swarm here.
Across the floor and over the meat platter.
They have taken nearly all your food.
Yes, they are ravenous.
They have sharp teeth. The meat is oily and spiced.
If I take what remains of it, scatter you vermin!
Rub that meat on the bandages that hold me here.
Try it, Jean, try.
It may be too late. If I move my body of a fraction of an inch up, I...
Try it, I tell you, try.
Can I stand those rats crawling across me?
Can the flesh bear it?
One of them has leaped on the wooden frame wood.
Another follows. They are gnawing at the bandage.
Seven, eight more sweeps of the pendulum.
Does the bandage give way?
A little.
Life's till, Jean, life's till.
Pin the dozen rats now.
Is death, I wonder, worse than this disgust?
A dozen sharp knives could do no better.
The bandage is loose into ribbons.
If you move sideways, carefully, and drop to the floor.
Beatrice. Beatrice, I... I... I can't move.
My arms and legs are numb. There is no power to...
This deal is frayed. Your robe, a minute's more, will be too late.
Try.
Then with all the strength that is in me and the hatred I bear, my enemies...
You're free.
Yes, a second time, I'm... I'm free.
See, Jean, the pendulum stops.
They are drawing it back up through the roof.
Each move I make is watched. You never doubted that?
No. Yet with all they could do to you, they have failed twice.
They will not fail a third time, my dear. Listen.
What do you hear?
A groaning. A grinding as of metal.
It is only the cogwheels of the pendulum.
I think not, Beatrice.
Why not?
It seems to come from behind these iron-plated walls.
It seems to shake the dungeon as a millwheel might shake at it.
Stand up, my pojone. Get up off your knees.
I can't, I can't endure any more.
Don't you sense even now the odor of the heated iron?
Heated iron?
Yes, the walls are beginning to glow red.
Oh, Beatrice, I have been much humbled.
But I won't have you see me in tears.
I order you to go.
Jean, in the name of heaven...
In the name of heaven go.
In just a moment, we continue with the third act of...
Suspense.
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And now...
Act Three of The Pit and the Pendulum, starring Mr Vincent Price.
A tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
A suffocating heat pervaded the prison.
I could draw no breath of air into my lungs.
Against the loom of that fiery destruction,
the thought of the pit and its coolness came like balm.
Does the pit please you, Captain Dalbare?
You again?
Do you find its contents pleasing?
Not the pit.
And how shall you avoid it? Look!
This dungeon has changed its shape.
That is true. The walls are closing in.
It was formerly a square, and now it is...
Now it is flattening slowly towards the centre to force me into the pit.
Of course.
It will force you along with me.
Again, apparently, you must be told, Captain Dalbare,
that you are speaking only to your own sick fancy.
I am not here at all. Farewell.
Now flatter and flatter grew the red-hot walls.
I shrank back, but the closing walls pressed me relentlessly onward
toward the loathsome pit.
At length for my seared and writhing body,
there was no longer an inch of foothold.
I screamed once, I tottered on the edge of the pit,
I averted my eyes.
Then there was a discordant hum of human voices,
and then a loud blast of many trumpets.
The fiery walls rushed back,
an outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting into the abyss.
It was that of General La Salle.
The French army had entered Toledo.
The Spanish Inquisition was in the hands of its enemy.
The
suspense in which Mr. Vincent Price starred in William M. Robeson's production of
The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe,
adapted for suspense by John Dixon Carr.
In a moment, the names of tonight's supporting players
and a word about next week's story of suspense.
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Supporting Mr. Price in The Pit and the Pendulum
and the rest of the world.
Listen, J. Novello, Ben Wright and John Hoyt.
Listen.
Listen again next week when we return with another tale
well calculated to keep you in...
suspense.
America listens most to the CBS Radio Network.