And now, another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
The Target, a solidly built two-story brick building on the edge of the industrial section of the city.
The Obstacle, three locked iron doors and twelve armed guards.
The Prize, three million dollars in cash.
The Problem, to penetrate past the three locked doors of the armed guards and emerge safely with the money.
The Answer...
Just for the record, the name is Pete Wilson.
Job, night superintendent of the Lakeside Municipal Crematorium.
Time, midnight, about a year ago, with the thunderstorm bowling duck pins in the sky.
I was reading the Western in my little office by the front door.
My job was a nice quiet one. We hardly ever had any customers at night.
My entire staff, Danny Maxwell, was mopping the reception room.
When I heard the door open and someone come in, then the daddy of all thunderbolts lifted me out of my chair.
And whoever had come in spoke to Danny.
Hey, did you see that flash? Right enough to be Judgment Day.
I guess it was Judgment Day, all right. For some people that is.
Did you know two people died just since you came in the door?
They did, huh? Died when?
Some place in this country. Now one more has died.
That makes three.
Now it's four. That's the mortality rate for this country, four a minute.
For this city, it's one every thirty minutes.
Two an hour.
Forty-eight every day.
And you'll be one of them if you keep up this line of chatter. I want to see your boss. Get him out here.
It was Al Thomas' voice, and of all the people in the world, I didn't want to say Al was all of them.
But I got outside fast.
Al, Al Thomas. Well, long time no see.
Hey, Petey Boy, you're looking good, real good.
Excuse me, Mr. Peep, but this gentleman...
He's an old friend of mine, Danny. Go on out back and clean up. I want to talk to him.
Danny went off with his mop, and I took Al into my office.
I got out the bottle of bourbon I used to help the, uh, prowl cowboys warm up with on cold nights.
Al took off his wet ninety dollar gabardine topcoat and smiled at me with big sharp teeth.
Yeah, nice set-up you got here, Pete. Your own boss. Lots of time to yourself. Everything nice and quiet.
I like it quiet, Al.
Yeah, you always did, didn't you? Remember how noisy our cell used to be?
Always somebody in a cell block coughing or snoring or choking or screaming?
Yeah, yeah, I remember.
Look, what are we talking about cells? Let's talk about something interesting. Like money.
Money, Al?
Money. I got a little job in mind, Pete, and I need some help. You.
Al, I'd certainly like to help out, but the doc told me to avoid any excitement. You're the old ticker, you know?
Excitement? This'll be like wheeling the baby to church. Tell me, Petey, can you drive a horse?
Well, sure I can drive a horse.
Then you're in. I'm giving you a 20% piece. The total take should be three million. So you'll be the first guy in history to earn 600 grand for driving a horse.
Any questions, Petey?
Oh, what kind of a horse, Al?
Horse? Who said anything about a horse? I asked if you could drive a hearse. A hearse, boy, a hearse!
The last thing I wanted was to get back into the business. And the last person I wanted to get back into it with was my old cellmate, Al.
But if he wanted me, I was stuck. Being a three-time loser, all he had to do was plant some hot goods on me and call the cops, and I was up for life.
I had to play along. So the next afternoon I went to see him in his room in a crummy lodging house, and he took me to the window and pointed.
See that steam shovel across the street?
Well, sure I see it. Excavating for a new building.
Yeah, and you see the solid old brick building right next to it?
It's the main headquarter. There's a dollar delivery, the big armored car outside.
That's where they load the armored cars with the money.
Now, every Thursday night there's better than three million dollars in that building, Pete, being packaged for payrolls in this area.
Next Thursday night, we're cutting ourselves in on that three million.
Just you and me? Just the two of us knocking over 12 armed guards and three locked doors and...
Oh, Petey, relax. Of course we're not trying anything like that.
I was afraid for a minute.
Now use brains, Pete. Brains, not muscles.
You know who's operating that steam shovel? Marty Brennigan.
Marty Brennigan?
That's right. The whole construction gang is part of his mob.
They have the foundation of a dollar delivery building weakened in one spot so it's all ready to cave.
And next Thursday it will cave.
We'll just walk in and pick up the dough.
But then, where do we come in, huh?
Well, that's simple, Pete. We take it away from them.
So that's how the dollar delivery holdup started.
Anyway, how my party had started.
Al didn't explain anymore and I didn't ask no questions.
Al didn't like questions.
But next night he dropped into the crematorium and I showed him how we take care of our customers.
Now back here, Al, is the receiving door.
From the outside, a box is rolled through on these steel rollers.
One man can handle it.
I'll show you how the whole deal works. It's practically automatic.
Hey, Danny!
Yes, Mr. Pete?
Come out here a minute.
What do we need him for?
Dad Danny always does the honors.
Can you trust him if he starts talking?
Danny never talks. He's punchy. He used to be in the ring.
As fast as a thing happens, he forgets it.
Here, here, Mr. Pete.
Yeah, well, show my friend Al how we handle this, eh?
Oh, sure, Mr. Pete.
Well, first I push this button.
That turns on the furnace, Al.
And then I push the box down the steel rollers like this.
Now watch, the furnace door opens automatically.
Hey, the box is rolling right into the flames.
All automatic. Now the door will shut down.
That's all there is to it.
Okay, Danny, go on back out front.
Yes, Mr. Pete.
Very neat.
What's down these stairs?
Oh, that's the storage room. We keep cleaning supplies down there.
And stuff like that.
Good. We'll hide the money down there.
Hide the money here?
You heard me. We've got to hide it someplace, Pete.
This is one spot it won't be looked for.
That's all then till Thursday night.
Oh, except I'll need an official form.
Well, what kind of official form, Al?
The regular kind. Authorizing accreation.
I wish I knew what Al was figuring on.
But like I say, Al didn't like questions.
When I thought about the job taking three million bucks away from Marty Brannigan's mob.
I went hot and cold.
I wanted to bow out, but didn't know how.
Al wanted me to help for some reason.
And what Al wanted, he got.
So I sweated it out. And finally Thursday night came.
And long about midnight I found myself in Al's room watching the dollar delivery building across the street.
A truck drove up toward and inside.
There goes one of the armored cars inside now to pick up a payroll delivery.
Any minute Marty Brannigan will make his move.
Everything seems so quiet.
What do you want, a brass band? Keep quiet and listen.
Marty Brannigan getting inside. His boys are in there now.
Now if we don't hear any shooting or an alarm by the time I count to ten they pull it off.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
Okay, they've done it. Now it's time for us, Pete. Come on.
Where to, Al? To buy a quart of milk, chum.
Al led me out the back way and we started walking through the dark, quiet streets.
We walked five blocks, ten.
And then the quiet night blew wide open.
All right, the alarm's been sounded. The Brannigan and his boys are a long way from the dollar delivery building by now.
Sure, but anything moving in this town is going to be stopped and such.
I know that. All right, here we are.
Where? See that milk wagon at the curb?
Yeah, I see.
Here comes the driver delivering the milk. Now act drunk and try to buy a quart from him. Go ahead, go ahead.
Buddy. Hey, hey, Buddy.
Yeah, what is it?
Listen, Buddy, I want to buy a quart of milk.
I just deliver, Mac, I don't sell.
Well, my old lady sent me out to get a quart of milk. Just one quart.
Now let me have one little old quart, Buddy.
Well, let go of my arm, you lush. Let go, I say.
Okay, take this.
Just as the milkman slugged me, Al stepped in from behind and laid a sap over his ear.
We caught him and dragged him into the milk wagon and tossed him in back on top of the cases of milk.
Then I found myself standing there with a reins in my hand.
All right, Pete, you said you could drive a horse and drive.
Come on, boy. Come on.
In the next block there's an alley. Turn into it.
Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.
Oh, I hope none of them prowl cars stop us.
Who's going to stop a milk wagon?
Well, they might notice we aren't delivering any milk.
Don't worry, they won't. They're all heading for the dollar delivery building.
And that's one place they won't find anything.
Branigan and his mob have had 17 minutes to make a getaway.
Then they got away with the dollars, too. Where does that leave us?
With all the cream, chum.
That milkman in back there is one of the mob.
One of Branigan's mob?
Sure, he's been on the job for six months. That's how long Branigan's been planning this.
Marty wasn't taking any chance of being stopped and searched.
First thing he did was stop and transfer all the loot to this milk wagon.
The money is back there, Petey. Under the milk.
Like I said, who's going to stop a milk wagon?
Okay, here's the alley. Turn in here.
I turned the horse into the alley. It was lined with garages.
I maneuvered the horse and waggled at the one of them, and Hal slammed the door shut.
While I took time to mop my brow, Hal was already opening the door into the next garage.
Hey, Pete, come here and look.
Yeah, sure, sure. At what?
In there. All parked and ready.
Holy cow. It's a hearse.
That's right, a nice, respectable-looking hearse.
And in that hearse is a plain pine coffin.
Petey, we're going to fill that coffin with three million bucks.
Then we'll drive it to the crematorium.
We'll unload the box and hide the money in the storage room,
then put the coffin through the furnace just as if it was a legitimate customer.
I got all the documents. Made out for Albert G. Cash.
Albert G. Cash of Dortmund.
In about a week, we'll load the dough into the hearse again and I'll drive it right out of the state.
Nobody's going to suspect a hearse, Petey.
Okay, let's get busy. We've got to put Mr. Cash in his coffin.
Hal and I left the money sacks in the milk wagon and stored them in the empty coffin.
When we finished, Hal went back to check on the unconscious driver, and I heard him yell...
Hey, Petey, come here. This guy is...
By the time I got there, Hal Thomas was stretched down the garage floor and the milkman was gone running.
I didn't have time to wonder about him while I had to look after Hal.
He had an ugly gash in his head and the blood was pouring down his face.
I mopped off the blood and lugged into the hearse where I stretched him out of the front seat.
Oh, he shook his head groggy and tried to sit up.
Oh, he slugged me, Petey. He waited for me. He slugged me.
No, no, take it easy, Hal. Don't try to talk.
We've got to get the dough hid. You've got to get me back to my room.
You need a doc. You're hurt bad.
No, no, no, no, no, no doc. Get the dough in the crematorium and hide it.
Oh, come on. Get going.
I got the motor started and drove the hearse out of there.
I just hoped no cops would wonder what a hearse was doing on the street so late.
If anybody asked, we were from out of town.
One plow car went by without stopping.
Then we were turned into the parking space back at the municipal crematorium.
Everything was quiet.
I slid the pine box holding Mr. Cash on the loading platform and threw the door on the conveyor.
Then I helped Hal inside.
All right, Hal. Another couple of steps.
That's it. Okay, okay, we're inside.
Now we'll hide the dough and then we'll get you back to your room and get the hearse back in his garage.
I'll get rid of the milk wagon and we're set.
I feel pretty bad, Peter. I've got to lie down.
Mr. Pete, is that you, Mr. Pete?
Hal, you've got to hide. Stand behind this pillar.
Mr. Pete, oh, there you are.
Yeah, yeah, well, what is it, Danny?
I got the front all cleaned up. You want me to clean up back here now?
No, no, not yet. Later, later.
Hey, is that a customer coming in that box?
Yeah, it's Mr. A.G. Cash, a doorman.
Now, look, Danny...
Ain't it pretty late to be receiving customers?
Well, it's a rush job, but the family's leaving town in the morning.
Now, go sweep out the chapel and stay there until I call you.
Well, sure, Mr. Pete. Do I do the honors?
Later, later, and then I'll beat it.
All right, Hal, you can come out now. Danny's going.
Hey, Hal, what's the matter? You look so funny.
Hal!
Hal hit the floor like a sandbag and just lay there.
I bent over him, feeling for his pulse, and then I knew...
Hal Thomas was dead.
In just a moment, we will return for the concluding act of...
Suspense.
Confidentially, before I got the happy habit,
I never could have talked to strangers this way.
Mumbled, maybe, but talked?
Oh, never!
And my happy habit is catching.
One listen does it.
Arthur Godfrey, Art Link Letters House Party, Gary Moore,
and the new Bing Crosby Rosemary Clooney Show,
CBS Radio has them all.
It's live show biz sound.
Every Fundy, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Catch?
Hal was dead, all right.
Sometimes the skull fracture has a delayed effect like that.
I turned hot and then cold.
There was a buzzing in my ears.
Now I had a cold corpse, three million in hot cash,
and an unexplained hearse on my hands.
If I could juggle them all fast enough,
I was a millionaire.
But if I fumbled, well, who'd ever believe
that I hadn't killed Hal for the loot?
I'm up my face.
Should I?
Shouldn't I?
Could I?
Couldn't I?
I began to think I could do it.
I could hide Hal and the money in the store room,
burn the coffin, get rid of the hearse, and then...
Mr. Beat!
Mr. Beat!
Yeah, yeah, well, what is it, Danny?
There's two cops out front asking for you.
Two, uh, the cops?
Officer Hunt and Officer Connell.
They want to ask you some questions.
Oh, okay, okay.
Tell them I'll be right in.
No, I didn't have no choice.
I got Hal's body out of sight as fast as I could.
No time to lug him down to the storage room.
And inside 60 seconds I was out front talking to Hunt and Connell,
the prowl car team who patrolled our neighborhood.
Pete, we wanted to ask you, did you hear anything unusual tonight?
Oh, just sirens, lots of them.
Something big happened.
Not unless you count two and a half million bucks big.
Two and a half million?
Somebody knocked over a dollar delivery
and got away with two and a half million.
Missed half a million in their hurry.
Yeah, we've been searching every car and truck in the streets.
No sign of the dough.
The headquarters thinks the gang hit it and broke up.
Hit it, huh?
Now we're searching block by block.
You hear any unusual noises, trucks or cars stopping, anything like that?
No, not me. Nothing.
You don't mind if we search the place?
Search the crematorium?
Of course not.
Oh, but first, I got some embalming fluid I'd like you to test.
Embalming fluid, huh?
Sounds interesting.
What do you say, Hunt?
I say let's try it.
Okay, right over here in my office.
Step in, be comfortable.
I keep it in here filed under E.
The best Kentucky bourbon embalming fluid.
See what you think, huh?
Man, that'll put life in the money.
Here, Colonel.
Thanks, Hunt.
Ah, you're right.
That'll make the dead ones happy and the live ones happier.
Well, have another. It'll be a long night.
You can say that twice.
The captain is really going to write us to find that dough.
Well, happy days.
They each had another drink and then went out to look around.
I sat there and held my breath, praying they wouldn't find Al
and notice the hearse on back.
They looked around for a minute and then I heard him go out.
I kept on sitting there until my heart stopped pounding.
Finally, I went out to finish the job of hiding my dough.
I was a millionaire now.
Two and a half times a millionaire.
And all of it tax free.
I even had a couple of nasty thoughts for Marty Brannigan's stupidity
and missing the other 500 grand.
As I stood in the reception room listening, I heard something.
And all of a sudden I had a horrible thought.
And I began to run toward the back.
Danny! Danny!
Yeah, Mr. Pete?
Danny, did you? Did you?
Did I what, Mr. Pete?
Danny, where's the box from? Is it the cash in?
You said it was a rush job, so I processed them.
Oh, no, no. Let me look. Let me see.
Oh, you did it. It's in there. It's burning.
I figured you'd be glad to have it done, Mr. Pete.
Say, tell me, what did his initial stand for?
I mean, A-G cash.
Stand for his initial? I'll tell you.
All gone, Danny.
All gone cash.
Yes, it was all gone all right.
The whole 2 1 half million.
Cremated while I was passing out drinks to Hunt and Connell.
Well, the dollar delivery boys and the feds finally caught Marty Branigan and his mob.
But they never would buy the story that Marty didn't have any idea where the money went to.
Tell them to look in the urn on the top shelf of the storage room of the Lakeside Municipal Crematory.
Has the name A-G cash on it.
I don't suppose they'll be able to do much with the nice white ashes in the urn.
But ask them to be gentle with them.
They're not only the most expensive ashes in the world,
but they're also all that's left of Al Thomas.
Because the only place I could hide Al in a hurry was the one do-the-trick lid of the coffin
and put Al on top of the money and then latch it shut again.
So Al and the door went in the furnace together.
Anyway, he died rich. And I like to think he made a liar out of those jerks
who go around saying you can't take it with you.
If anybody ever took it with him, it was Al.
Suspense.
You have been listening to Coffin for Mr. Cash.
Written for Suspense by Robert Arthur.
In a moment, the names of our players and a word about next week's story of suspense.
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Music.
Heard in tonight's story were Leon Janney as Pete Wilson and Mandel Kramer as Al Thomas.
Others in the cast included Sam Raskin, Sam Gray, Joseph Boland, and Bob Donnelly.
Listen again next week when we return with A Shipment of Mute Fate by Martin Storm.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.