And now, another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
A statement of fact by E. Jack Newman.
The most lurid of crimes is the crime of passion.
No mere bank robbery or stock swindle can compete for newspaper space with a nice, juicy, love nest murder.
Our story concerns itself with the murder which criminologists would classify as a crime of passion.
But in fact, it is just the opposite.
A crime of no passion.
A negative murder.
Committed because passion has fled and love was dead.
A homicide without hope.
It is the finding of this coroner's jury that Robert Ames Dudley met his death at the hand of his wife, Ellen Randall Dudley.
In view of the evidence, the jury recommends that said Ellen Randall Dudley be taken into custody and held for action by the grand jury.
Well, Chris, just as you predicted...
They couldn't have arrived at any other verdict.
Now all the police have to do is find him.
She'll show up. An international beauty with a face as well known as a movie star's.
How far can she get before she's recognized?
A defendant that famous could be the making of the prosecutor who convicted him.
You're reading my mind, John.
But how could you...
Easy. With a little help from a pal.
Well, sure, I'd be glad to help, but what makes you think you can be the next DA?
There are other men in the office with lots of long service.
The man that gets to Ellen Randall Dudley first can be the next district attorney.
Don't you realize that his name, yes, and his picture will be linked with her in newspaper stories all over the world?
Oh, sure.
First things first, I'll have a warrant for her arrest issued by our office.
And then you and I have got to use every pipeline we have into the police and sheriff's office.
I want to know the minute she's picked up.
Chris, I've watched you pull off some pretty fast deals ever since we were in law school.
Fast deals? You hurt my feelings, John.
I'm merely doing my duty as a servant of the people.
Yeah.
This is Johnny Bradford, Chris.
Oh, yeah, Johnny.
I'm sorry to wake you in the middle of the night.
That's all right. What's up?
I'm down at the sheriff's office.
They picked up Ellen Dudley half an hour ago out in Allenview.
She was hiding in the restroom of an all-night bus station.
Good. I'll be right down.
The sheriff's holding her in communicado, Chris.
That's bad.
You have to work fast on this one.
Yes, I know, I know. Listen, can you get to the sheriff?
I can try.
Get to him and tell him the district attorney will hold him personally responsible for the conduct of his office and his officers in this situation.
Remind them that the accused is the state's prisoner, not the county's.
Yeah, Chris, but he can still hold her legally for 48 hours.
I know.
And he's coming up for re-election.
I know. You just get the word to him.
I'll be there in less than a half hour.
I'm sorry. No comment. Let me through, please.
I'm sorry. I have nothing to say at this time.
You didn't waste any time, Chris.
I can't afford to. How did the papers get in on this?
The sheriff called them after I told them you were on your way down.
Publicity, huh?
Every little bit helps during election year. You ought to know.
Yeah. Where's Mrs. Dudley?
In there with him.
Where's she been these last three days?
I don't know. She isn't talking, at least to me.
Well, she'll talk to me.
Just a minute. The sheriff left orders that he's not to be disturbed.
What's your name?
Deputy P.G. Thaler.
Mr. Thaler, I want you to go and stand by that door over there.
No one, absolutely no one, is to come through that door until I say so.
I take my orders from Sheriff Morrow.
Thaler, I want it.
Hey, I thought I told you I didn't want anyone around here.
Good morning, sheriff.
Who are you?
Dale Christian, deputy district attorney.
Oh. Mr. Bradford here said you were on the way down.
Now, we can handle this situation all right, Mr. Christian.
Is Mrs. Dudley in there?
Yes.
Is she guarded?
No need to guard her.
Get in there, John. Don't take your eyes off her.
Right, Chris.
Now look here.
Now you look here, sheriff. You're going to do as I say.
Just a minute there, Bradford.
He has no right to go into my office.
He has every right to go in there, and I'll show you why.
Here. See this?
It's a warrant issued yesterday afternoon for the arrest of Ellen Randall Dudley.
When you see that seal and that signature, your authority is automatically superseded.
No one comes in here and tells me how to run my job.
I'm telling you.
You're trying to get your name and picture in every newspaper in the country at the expense of this case,
and I'll have no more of it.
Now, this is no pressman's holiday.
If you have any brains at all, you'll take Mr. Thaler here
and go outside and get rid of those reporters as fast as you can.
I'll take action against you for this, Mr. Christian.
Do that, sheriff, and see where it'll get you.
Good morning, Mrs. Dudley.
Yes?
My name is Christian, Mrs. Dudley. I'm the deputy district attorney.
All right, John.
What are you going to do?
Just take a few notes, Mrs. Dudley.
What kind of notes?
Mr. Bradford is also from my office.
He's here to take notes on what you say to me, Mrs. Dudley.
Oh.
I'm obligated to warn you that whatever you say right now
may be used later in the court.
You don't have to talk to me unless you want to.
Do you understand that?
Yes.
This won't take long.
I'd just like to get your story in your own words.
Pardon me.
Yes?
I...I don't understand you, Mr. Christian.
You just told me that anything I tell you may be used against me in court.
Yes?
Well, then, to be on the safe side, I shouldn't tell you anything.
Mrs. Dudley, listen to me.
Now, listen carefully.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended a coroner's inquest
inquiring into the death of your husband, Robert Ames Dudley.
Yes?
A coroner's jury there determined that Mr. Dudley came to his death
as the result of wounds inflicted by you, his wife.
A hatchet was presented as evidence.
Mr. Thomas Unger of the Police Crime Laboratory
positively identified it as the murder weapon.
Sergeant Victor Manning also testified,
and he explained that several fingerprints on the murder weapon belonged to you.
Two witnesses, your maid, Ethel Lee Barth, and a neighbor, Mrs. Frank Thompson,
gave testimony that further incriminates you.
Enough evidence was presented for the coroner's jury
to recommend that you be taken into custody
and held for the action of the grand jury.
Do you understand what I've just told you?
Yes, yes, I think so.
In a few days, the grand jury will meet
and charge you with murdering your husband.
There's no doubt that they will make that indictment, Mrs. Dudley.
From there, you will be arraigned and later on taken into a court and tried.
Do you understand that?
Yes.
Fine.
Now, a frank, honest statement on your part,
before all of these things take place,
can save a great deal of pain on both sides.
Such a statement from you right now may determine the disposition
and the proper plea to be entered on your behalf.
What do you mean, Mr. Christian, proper plea?
You murdered your husband on the night of the 13th.
The sooner you admit that, the better off you'll be.
You make a full confession, you sign it, you enter a plea of guilty,
and I promise you I'll do all I can for you with the court.
Okay?
Suppose... suppose I don't admit anything?
Then you can expect no clemency.
Then that, of course, is entirely up to you, Mrs. Dudley.
But I must tell you that the death house and the state penitentiary
is full of people who didn't listen to reason while they still had a chance.
This is your chance, Mrs. Dudley, right here and now.
Well?
I don't know what to do.
If you don't take my advice, they'll hang you.
I promise you, Mrs. Dudley, they'll hang you as certainly as you're sitting in that chair.
Well?
I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
Suppose you begin at the beginning.
The beginning? What was the beginning? I don't know.
Well, let's say, where did you meet your husband?
It seems to me I read someplace that it was in Europe.
Yes, that's right. In the south of France.
I had a villa on Cupp-Ferrat that summer.
What summer would that be?
1952.
You meet him through friends, did you?
Yes. At a gala in Monte Carlo.
We were married three weeks later than Mary and Grasse.
Rather a short engagement, wasn't it?
It seemed an eternity at the time.
I was fed up with European gentlemen, I suppose.
Bored with the kind of men who put all women into two categories.
Possible wives or possible mistresses.
Roger was only interested in me as a wife.
And he was so refreshing.
So healthy.
So American.
You remind me of him a little.
You look about the same age. He was 36.
I'm 34.
But the marriage didn't work out the way you expected.
I understand you and Mr. Dudley have been having trouble for some time.
Oh, yes. For years.
I soon found out that although he wanted me as a wife,
he wanted every other woman as a mistress.
And he drank?
He drank.
Last July, you had him arrested when he came home drunk and threatened you.
Isn't that so?
Yes. But he got out of that very easily.
They didn't do a thing to him.
Roger was awfully good at talking himself out of things.
He had a law degree too, you know.
So I understand.
Roger never went into practice.
He didn't have to.
That was his trouble.
His father left him quite a bit of money and he simply didn't have to do anything at all.
How long shall we get on with this, Mrs. Dudley? It's past five now.
Five?
I've been up all night long.
This makes four nights in a row I've gone without sleep.
As soon as we finish here, you can get some sleep.
I don't feel one bit sleepy.
When I first came here, I was dreadfully tired.
I thought I could sleep for a week.
But now I'm not the least bit tired or sleepy. Isn't that funny?
Now, if you'll just start with the events of that night...
What is today?
Friday.
I'd be playing bridge this afternoon.
There's a dog show tomorrow evening I wanted to go to.
I won't be able to go anywhere now.
Do you feel sorry for me, Mr. Christian?
I beg your pardon?
Do you feel sorry for me?
Makes no difference how I feel, Mrs. Dudley. You're an accused prisoner.
My job is to get a statement of fact from you. That's why I'm here.
Oh.
I've explained this once. I'm your friend here.
In the courtroom, I'll represent the prosecution and I'll do everything I can to see to it that you hang.
Unless you make a complete confession now.
Is that perfectly clear to you, Mrs. Dudley?
Yes.
And if you have a record of always getting a conviction,
that'll help you when you run for district attorney, won't it?
Mrs. Dudley, my professional career has nothing to do with this.
If I weren't here talking to you, someone else from my office would be here. It's a job that has to be done.
But wouldn't it be better for you if you had more of an audience than Mr. Bradford over there?
Wouldn't it be much better if you had me in a courtroom with reporters and photographers around...
Mrs. Dudley, do you want to talk to me now?
I don't mean to make you angry, Mr. Christian.
But if all you've told me is true, you can hang me right now.
I certainly can.
Yet you're here to get my story. You must be uncertain about something.
I told you I'm trying to help you, Mrs. Dudley.
But I warn you, I'm not uncertain about anything where you're concerned. Make no mistake about that.
I have a duty to the people of this state to learn the facts of this case and present them before the court.
I tend to do that with or without your cooperation.
Well?
May I talk to you alone?
To understand why Mr. Bradford is here.
Yes. But I'd like to tell it to you alone.
It can't possibly hurt anything to talk to you first, can it?
All right, John. Wait outside. I'll send for you when I need you.
Right, Christian.
Thank you.
All right, Mrs. Dudley. We're quite alone.
What do you want to tell me?
I killed my husband.
Very well. Tell me how it happened.
I was having some people over for dinner that night.
I was busy in the kitchen with the maid fixing dinner.
When Roger came downstairs, I asked him to do a simple thing.
Just a little thing.
I asked him to start a fire in the fireplace.
It was pretty chilly out and the fire always made that room look so warm and nice.
Have you seen my house?
Yes, Mrs. Dudley. Go on, please.
He took so long down in the basement getting things ready for the fire.
And our guests were arriving at 7.30.
So I asked him to come up and make some martinis and let the fire go for the moment.
He called me a name.
Why?
I never knew why he did things like that.
I went downstairs to ask him why he was so angry.
And he called me another name.
It wasn't just the name or him being angry.
It was all of those things he had done to me before.
Arguing, fighting, insults.
When he started up the stairs, I picked up the hatchet and I hit him with it.
He fell down.
Then what did you do?
I ran upstairs, put on my coat, and I left the house.
Where have you been these last three days?
I never left Allenview.
I had a room at a motel last night.
Then I thought I'd better get away, go east maybe.
But somebody recognized me at the bus station.
Did you ever think about killing your husband before this?
Oh, yes.
Did you know you were going to kill him when you went down to the basement?
No.
Why did you kill him?
He took my life away from me, Mr. Christian.
I don't understand.
He took my life away from me.
He stole my life.
I don't understand that, Mrs. Dudley.
When I went down the stairs that night and saw him standing there,
I suddenly realized all he had taken from me.
Everything that was young and fresh and wanted.
And I despised him for it.
So I killed him.
Why did you have to kill him?
You could have divorced him, left him.
Don't you see what he had taken from me, Mr. Christian?
There was nothing left for him to steal from me.
Or nothing left for me to give to another man.
Are you married?
No, I'm afraid I've been too busy.
Well, then you wouldn't know what a man can take from a woman if...
Mr. Christian?
Am I someone you'd want to be married to if this terrible thing hadn't happened?
Am I someone you'd be proud to have for a wife?
You might be.
That's all a woman needs.
To be wanted.
Am I old and ugly and unattractive?
Am I shallow or flighty?
Look at me, Mr. Christian.
I am.
So stand up, please.
Look at me.
Close.
Yeah.
Would you want to be loved by me?
You're very beautiful, Mrs. Tubby.
Have you any idea what it means to be a beautiful woman, Mr. Christian?
To be admired by every man and envied by every woman?
And never to be sure why?
Oh, how many times have I heard those words, I love you?
I wondered what they meant.
What was loved?
My face?
My figure?
My artificial makeup?
My Balenciaga gown?
Or me?
Maybe you can give me the straight answers, Mr. Christian.
I haven't been able to get to the hairdressers recently.
I've run out of lipstick.
I'm afraid that this suit needs pressing.
Would you want to be loved by me, Mr. Christian?
Yes.
Yes, I would.
Well, I was nothing to Roger Dudley, nothing.
And my love was nothing to him.
I was a fixture, a decoration, an animal.
And he took all of it.
My love and my life.
And then he stood at the bottom of the stairs and called me a name.
Mrs. Dudley, Mrs. Dudley, listen to me.
Now listen to me.
No one saw this happen.
The maid was upstairs in the kitchen.
Mrs. Thompson only heard it from next door.
Now listen to me.
You can claim that you did it in self-defense.
He came at you and you picked up the hatchet and you hit him with it to protect yourself.
You tell it that way when Mr. Bradford comes back in here.
There are a dozen good men in the state who'd be glad to represent you in court with a story like that.
I'll be opposite them. You can get off.
He made you kill him because it was either him or you and you ran afterwards because you were frightened.
In the end, you'll be charged with second-degree murder and at the most you'll get a suspended sentence.
Don't you understand what I'm telling you?
You can be free.
Yes.
Yes, Mr. Christian.
All right, let's have Mr. Bradford in here now, please.
All right.
Wait a minute.
Hold it.
I can never be free.
What are you talking about?
You haven't understood a thing I've told you, have you, Mr. Christian?
He took my life away from me a long time ago.
Can't you see, Mr. Christian, I don't have any life to live now?
Mrs. Dudley, you have everything to live for.
Look, you're young and beautiful and you want and need all the things that life can give you.
Too late, Mr. Christian.
No, it's not too late. You must listen to me.
You're too valuable a person, too desirable, too beautiful to die.
You must live.
For me, for us.
You need to be loved and you need me.
God help me. I need you. I need you. I need you.
A few minutes ago you were telling me about your duty to the people of this state, Mr. Christian.
Tell me about it now.
Yeah.
All right, send in Mr. Bradford.
I wanted to talk to you alone like this to make sure I was right.
You're no better than he was, Mr. Christian.
You'd take a woman and do the same thing to her that he did to me.
Until you kissed me just then, I wasn't a person to you. I was an animal, a trapped animal.
And if I let you help me escape from this trap, I'd just be escaping into a smaller one, a woods with you.
You're another Roger Dudley.
Okay, Chris.
Chris?
Are you ready to make your statement a fact, Mrs. Dudley?
Yes.
All right, Joan, take it down.
From the beginning, Mrs. Dudley, just as it happened.
Suspense.
You've been listening to a statement of fact written for suspense by E. Jack Newman.
Heard in tonight's story were Rita Lloyd as Ellen Dudley, Mason Adams as Christian, Lawson Zerby as John, Hal Burdick as the sheriff, and Jack Arthur as Taylor.
Listen again next week when we return with Time on My Hands by Walter Black, another tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.