Nightman, starring Miss Marsha Hunt.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
But Miss Rhodes, it's impossible.
This is a maximum security prison.
We haven't had an escape in years.
Well, you have one now, Warden.
Tom Nixon.
How can you be sure?
I saw him in New York City two days ago.
Did you know him well?
Well enough.
He was my mother's star boarder for years.
Why, I sat opposite him at the dinner table from the time I was a girl of fifteen, until
he murdered her.
And now, somehow, he's escaped from here and he's after me.
Miss Rhodes, it's impossible, I say.
Warden Graves, ten years ago, when Mother was found murdered, I knew it couldn't have
been anyone but Tom.
I testified against him.
I was the chief, or practically the only witness at the trial.
And when they sentenced him here for life, he swore to kill me.
He swore in the open court to get even with me.
For ten years, I've lived in deadly fear of him.
And now, he's free.
And where exactly did you see the prisoner, Miss Rhodes?
That's just the point.
That's why I know he's after me.
I saw him in the building where I live.
Well, I don't see how...
He has a job there, running the elevator at night.
I live all alone, in a small three-room penthouse on the eighteenth floor of an office building.
The other night, about a week ago, I came home alone from the movies.
After midnight, I was already in the elevator before I noticed that there was a new nightman.
It was Tom.
His hair had turned white and there was a stoop to his shoulders, but everything about
him, the crook of his head, his high, thin nose, hollow cheekbones, they were all the
same.
And then he turned and stared at me.
I could see those deadly pale, cold eyes, those heavy eyebrows, and that familiar, quiet,
sarcastic mouth.
What floor, Miss?
Oh, my floor.
Yes, the penthouse, please.
The penthouse.
Where is that, on the roof?
Yes, on the roof, please.
Eighteenth floor.
Okay.
It was like being in a cage with a wild beast.
He kept watching me, peering at me furtively as the elevator moved upward with agonizing
slowness.
I shrank back to hide my face.
The light in the car was dim.
My only hope was that he didn't recognize me.
Here's your floor, Miss.
Thank you.
Good night.
You can go back down.
I don't need anything.
Thank you.
What's the matter?
Did you forget your door key?
No, no.
No, it's just, it's right here in my bag.
I'll find it in a minute.
You want me to let you in?
Let me in?
Oh, no, no.
I've got pass keys to all the doors.
It's no trouble.
No, thanks, but I, no, here, here.
I have it right here.
Good night.
And that was the first time you saw him?
Yes, Warden.
And that was all he did or said?
Well, yes, but it wasn't so much what he said as the awful feeling that he was only playing
with me.
He was torturing me until he was ready to kill me.
Warden Grace, I don't even have a phone.
I've always been afraid to be listed in the phone book.
The only way up to that penthouse was by that one elevator.
I was trapped up there at his mercy.
What did you do?
I spent the night crouched against the wall with a flat iron in my hand, just waiting
for that key to click in my lock.
But it didn't.
No, it didn't.
The next day I began to wonder if I wasn't imagining the whole thing.
Then that night, just as I was going to bed...
Who is it?
Who's there?
Oh, excuse me, Miss Rhodes.
There wasn't any answer to my ring.
What do you want?
What are you doing here?
Oh, just your laundry.
They told me to get you a new one.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
They told me to put it inside in case you weren't home.
You might have given me time to answer the door.
Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Rhodes.
I'm very sorry.
Don't let it happen again.
Good night.
I was just thinking, you've got no way to get up here or to get down, except in my elevator.
No.
Even the service elevator doesn't get up this far, does it?
No.
You're really alone up here, aren't you?
Yes, I...
Tom!
Tom, if you come any closer, I'll kill you.
Do you hear?
I'll kill you with my own hands!
I don't understand what you're talking about, Miss.
Get out!
As my buzzer, I better answer it.
I haven't seen him since, Warden.
I barricaded myself in again that night, and next morning I got down to the public phone
and put through the call to you.
But it wasn't any use.
That was the day I was out of town?
Yes.
But I still don't see why they couldn't have told me.
After all, I was giving them information.
It's one of our strictest regulations that also will pardon me state penitentiary never
to discuss any of our prisoners over the telephone.
That's what they said.
So you came all the way out here in person?
Yes.
And now you wish me to send someone to apprehend this man?
I want you to bring him back, that's all, back where he belongs.
Miss Rhodes, I can't bring Tom Nixon back.
He's here.
Oh, no, Warden Graves.
Now please, I've seen him with my own eyes.
I've talked to him face to face.
Maybe there's someone here calling himself Tom Nixon, but he's escaped.
He's free.
I know it.
Will you just step this way with me, Miss Rhodes?
No.
I don't want to.
I don't want to see his cell or talk to anybody or anything else.
Tom Nixon's dead, Miss Rhodes.
He's buried in the prison cemetery.
I'd like you to see his grave.
Now, this is a photograph taken of him just a week before he died.
See, he wasted away quite a bit.
He was in the infirmary all last year.
He became very religious, too, toward the end.
He spent a good deal of his time praying.
Praying?
Yes.
All the fights seemed to go out of him as soon as he knew he was seriously ill.
But you'd say this was his picture, wouldn't you, Miss Rhodes?
Yes.
Yes, it's Tom, all right.
And these little personal belongings?
Ordinarily, we turn these over to the family, but in Tom's case, Will, we couldn't trace
any family.
You'd recognize these as his?
Yes.
I don't know them all, but that gold watch, he used to wear it every Sunday at Mother's.
He wrote a couple of notes before he died to a fellow prisoner and to the prison chaplain.
You recognize this handwriting?
Yes.
Yes, this seems to be Tom's.
Well, Miss Rhodes, feel a little better about your elevator operator now?
You must think me a fool, an awful fool.
Not at all.
But the likeness was so extraordinary.
It was almost like seeing a ghost.
A ghost?
Oh, come, come, Miss Rhodes.
Now that you've gotten all this off your chest, isn't it perfectly obvious?
That poor night man's done nothing or said nothing to you at all out of the ordinary.
It's only that, well, you seem to be the victim of some kind of a guilt complex.
Guilt complex?
Why not guilty of anything?
What I mean is, Tom has been on your mind now for ten years.
You testified against him.
He threatened you.
Gradually, you came to see him everywhere.
No, no, only this once.
Only these last few nights.
All right.
But now you know the truth.
That should clear your fears forever.
Tom's dead and buried.
Go back and take a look at this night man again.
Now that you know Tom's dead, I'll lay out the whole resemblance.
It'll vanish.
I hope so.
My advice to you, Miss Rhodes, would be to go straight home.
Use that elevator as much as possible.
Get acquainted with this night man.
For your own sake, try to get the better of these hallucinations.
Well, that's all they are.
The hallucinations.
Good evening.
Oh, evening, Miss.
Could you help me with these bags, please?
Okay.
Is that all, Miss?
Yes, thank you.
Oh, this is for you.
No, thank you, Miss.
I never take tips.
It's all right.
I'd like you to have it.
I'm sure the superintendent wouldn't mind.
Superintendent hasn't got anything to do with it.
Oh.
Well, aren't we going to start?
Yeah, all right.
Been out of town?
Why, yes.
Yes, I have.
Yeah, I haven't seen you for a couple of nights.
I was in the country visiting a friend.
Oh.
What beautiful weather out in the country this time of year.
I wouldn't know.
Well, is this my floor already?
No, no, it's not.
Then why are we stopping?
Elevator's stuck.
Power's cut off.
Cut off?
Mm-hmm.
But how could that happen?
Which never happened before, as long as I've lived here.
Well, sooner or later, I guess it had to happen.
Isn't there some way we can get it back on?
With some buzzer for the cellar or something.
If the power is off, the buzzer isn't working.
So one of the lights is still on.
The lights?
Yeah.
They'll probably go out in a minute, though.
And then it'll be black in here.
Black is the gray.
Well, let's get out of here.
Open the door.
I can't.
Won't budge.
But you haven't even tried.
I don't have to try.
We're stuck between floors.
The door's flush with solid wall.
Solid wall?
Yeah.
It's kind of like being bricked up in a cell.
But there must be some way out of here.
Isn't there a little door in the roof?
Something you can pry open.
Something you can climb up out of into the shaft.
I don't see any.
Well, what are we going to do?
What are we going to do?
Wait.
Wait until somebody comes along downstairs and finds the elevator stuck and then rings
up the superintendent.
But that might be ours.
Might be.
No.
Help.
Somebody.
Help.
You're wasting your breath.
Everybody's left the building.
I know because they've all signed out.
Everybody's down in the basement and there won't be any passengers ringing for an elevator
this time of night.
You seem awfully sure about all that.
Jumpy, ain't you?
No.
I suppose really there's nothing to be afraid of.
Sooner or later they'll come.
Oh, sure.
Sooner or later.
It's just that we're being stuck up here between...
You're not jumpy on economy.
You?
No.
Of course not.
But you were kind of jumpy with me the other night, weren't you?
The other night?
When I brought the laundry into your apartment unexpectedly.
Oh, that.
That was a mistake.
A mistake?
Yes.
I just thought you were someone else, a friend of mine, someone I'd always been afraid of.
Oh?
But now I've learned it couldn't be you because this friend's dead.
Dead and buried.
What was his name?
Maybe I know him.
Oh!
The lights are out.
I knew they'd go sooner or later.
No.
They can't.
I can't stay here alone in the dark with you.
So you are jumpy with me.
No.
I thought you said this guy was dead and buried.
Well, he is.
He is.
I saw his grave.
And why are you screaming like that?
I'm not screaming.
Only it's so dark in here.
It's so close and creepy.
What did you do to this friend that makes you so jumpy?
Do?
To him?
Well, nothing.
I didn't do a thing.
No?
It was he.
He threatened me.
He was a murderer.
He killed my mother in cold blood ten years ago.
He was our border for ten years.
And then one afternoon I came home and there was Mother lying on the floor with her trunk
full of blood.
No.
Where are you?
I can't.
Go on.
No.
I can't stand it.
Tom.
Tom, it is you.
I thought you said your friend was dead and buried.
Stop it.
Stop torturing me.
Now tell me the truth.
You escaped, didn't you?
You didn't die.
And it was someone else.
Someone else's grave, just as I thought.
You escaped and found me here.
Answer me, Tom.
Where are you?
I can't see you.
No.
No, Tom.
No.
Tom, I didn't mean it.
I didn't.
I didn't mean to send you there.
It was only because I loved you, Tom.
And I hated Mother and hated you for loving her.
It was only to get revenge on you both that I killed her and framed you.
Mother was so cruel to me, Tom.
I killed her and framed you.
Mother was so cruel to me, Tom.
She treated me like a slave.
And all the time, flaunting you in my face.
I gave you spoken one kind word to me, Tom.
At the trial, just one word to let me know you love me.
You're going to kill me, aren't you, Tom?
Aren't you, Tom?
No!
No, Tom, I don't want to die!
I don't want to die!
Why are we going down?
There's a passenger ringing in the lobby.
Then you're not Tom?
No, Miss.
You're not going to kill me?
Not me.
It was all just a crazy hallucination.
Just because the power went off and...
And you look so much like Tom Nixon.
Oh, forgive me.
Please forgive me for being so absurd.
There's nothing to forgive.
And you'll forget all about those silly things I said, won't you?
I didn't mean them.
It was just because I was beside myself.
What silly things?
All those silly things about my mother and Tom.
Here, this is for you.
No, no, I insist this time. I insist.
I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I never accept tips.
Oh, but I want you to...
Particularly from a dame who framed my twin brother.
Twi...
Evening, warden.
Good evening, Lieutenant Nixon.
She confessed.
I thought she would, Lieutenant.
No, no, no!
Suspense.
In which Miss Marsha Hunt starred in William and Robeson's production of Night Man, written by Lucille Fletcher.
In a moment, the names of our supporting players and a word about next week's story of suspense.
Supporting Miss Marsha Hunt in tonight's story were Lawrence Dobkin and Charles Seale.
Listen.
Listen again next week when we return with Mr. Joseph Cotton starring in Red Cloud Mesa.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
The latest news follows. Then Have Gun will travel on CBS Radio.