And now, a tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
Name, Betty Willoughby. Mrs. Herbert Willoughby.
35, tall, blonde, beautifully groomed, self-controlled, neat, efficient.
A perfect lady in every respect.
Lady Macbeth was a lady too.
In a moment, Act One of You Can Die Laughing, starring Evelyn Juster and Larry Haynes,
and written especially for suspense by Robert Arthur.
The lively crowd, today are green.
Those who think young, say Pepsi, please.
They pick the right one, the modern light one.
Now it's Pepsi, for those who think young.
So go ahead and pick the drink that lets you drink young as you think.
Yes, get the right one, the modern light one.
Now it's Pepsi, for those who think young.
Many people have a totally wrong idea about ladies.
They think ladies merely sit around looking helpless.
On the contrary, ladies are trained.
They can do anything they have to.
Run a large household, or commit murder.
They can do anything they have to.
Run a large household, or commit murder.
And whether she's giving a dinner for fifty, or killing her husband, a lady is efficient.
So naturally, when I decided to kill my husband Herbert,
I planned every detail in advance very carefully.
Oh, I don't want you to think I decided to kill him for no reason.
You see, there was Jack.
Jack was a very good man.
There was Jack. Jack Holden.
Dear, sweet Jack.
But Jack was only the direct cause of my decision.
The indirect cause.
The thing that for years had made me wish Herbert dead was Herbert's laughing.
Herbert was what men call a jolly, good-natured man,
and he loved vulgar, practical jokes.
He was always laughing, laughing until I thought I would scream.
I tell you, Betty, you missed a great show. That was a great show.
Answer or else with jolly George Gordon.
What a comedian that fellow was.
Laugh, I almost died laughing.
I'm afraid he doesn't amuse me, Herbert. Those Moronic stunts.
Oh, what do you mean, Moronic? You should have seen them tonight.
This young couple, see, a young couple.
They're just married, right?
So he gives them a brand new car for a wedding present
and a complete set of luggage and clothes,
and he's sending them off on a honeymoon.
Well, what's so funny about that?
Well, then he reported to the police that the car and the clothes
and the luggage were all stolen.
Herbert, I don't think it's funny.
Yeah? Well, let's take a look at this now.
Is this funny?
A check.
For $500.
Sure, sure. That's a present for you.
Oh.
You know where I got it?
No.
From jolly George Gordon himself.
But for what?
Well, I had lunch with him yesterday.
Oh, you did?
I suggested a gag for a show. And he's going to use it.
Two weeks from tonight he paid me for it.
You suggested a gag for the answer or else program?
Sure. And you know what? He's going to give me credit on the air for it.
We're going over to Bill and Gene Rexford's place to listen.
There'll be a whole gag there.
Oh, but Herbert, two weeks from tonight you're flying to Mexico.
I'm flying to Mexico.
Oh, gosh, that's right.
Business always business.
But as the man says, when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Well, maybe they can postpone it.
No, but I can catch you to the airport before my plane leaves.
You can walk over to the Rexford's.
Oh, I tell you, it's such a terrific gag.
Here's the idea.
Well, you'll see it. You'll see it.
Now, to get serious for change, I got some bad news.
Bad news?
Yeah, it's about Jack Holden.
Jack? Has he been hurt? Is he sick?
No, but he's sure going to be when I put him in jail.
In jail?
That's right.
But why?
Well, he's been dipping into the till.
What?
Yeah, stealing from the company.
Oh, Herbert, I can't believe it.
Oh, I tell you Betty, I couldn't either.
That boy, I made him my personal assistant.
I trusted him. I had him out here to dinner.
I treated him like a member of the family.
And he turns out to be a thief.
Oh, he can't be.
No, there's no mistake about it.
Believe me, I'm positive.
But does anyone else know?
No, so far just me.
Of course the whole office will know tomorrow when I have him arrested.
Does he know you suspect him?
Not a thing.
He's going to be one surprised young fella.
No, Herbert, you mustn't.
Must what?
You mustn't arrest him.
Oh now, Betty, for Pete's sake, why not?
Nobody steals from Herbert Willoughby and gets away with it.
I mean, you mustn't arrest him before you make your trip to Mexico.
You need him to run the office while you're away.
Yeah, that's right.
Sure.
Things would really be in a mess, huh?
After all, he's been my right-hand man.
Oh, but I don't see how I can...
Now, hint to him you're puzzled by something in the accounts
and you're going to check up when you get back.
That way he'll be sure to be honest while you're gone
and then when you get back...
Oh, in the jail with him, huh?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
But I couldn't let Herbert put Jack in jail.
Dear handsome Jack,
he'd made these last few years worth living for me.
By thinking fast, I'd got Herbert to postpone accusing Jack.
Now I had to think of how to prevent it entirely.
And in the end, I saw that there was only one way.
The next day, Jack slipped away from the office
to come out to the house to talk.
And I thought, I thought,
Jack slipped away from the office to come out to the house to talk.
He said he was going to send me to jail?
He said you'd be behind bars for ten years, darling.
Oh, great.
Betty, Betty, maybe, maybe if I throw myself on this mercy...
Mercy? Oh, he has no mercy.
Underneath that donkey laugh, he's as merciless as a shark.
Oh, he'll send you to jail and what will become of me?
Well, why should anything happen to you?
Well, when the detectives start investigating you,
they'll find out about us.
Then he'll throw me out without a penny.
No, Jack, we can't let him. We've got to stop Herbert.
Stop him? How?
Well, there's only one way.
We have to kill him.
When I said we have to kill him,
oh, I was being very direct.
I meant to kill Herbert, and I said so.
I had the whole scheme worked out.
We'd do it the night Herbert was supposed to leave for Mexico.
And for getting rid of him afterwards, well,
the old ruin of a supposedly haunted house
Herbert owned out in the swampy woods would be ideal.
My plan, like all good plans, was simple and direct.
And when Jack saw there was no alternative, he agreed.
All right. All right, Betty.
We'll get rid of him the night he starts for Mexico.
He'll leave here, never get there.
And we just don't know what became of him.
That's it, darling. There's nothing to go wrong.
Yeah, sure, but how will I act toward him between now and then?
Just as usual.
He won't say anything about your stealing the money.
He thinks it's going to be a great joke to arrest you when he comes back.
So, the night he leaves,
you'll have dinner with us and drive to the train with us.
Only you won't get a good joke because...
That kills me, I tell you.
Here's another good one.
The little moron, the little moron, see?
He asked, what did the first wall say to the second wall?
Will you give up, Betty, Jack?
Yes, Herbert, we give up.
What did the first wall say to the second wall?
Why, it said, meet you at the corner.
You get it? Meet you at the corner.
Excuse me, Mr. Willoughby.
What is it, Jack?
I'm afraid we may miss your train. My watch says 818.
It does? Mine says 8.
Hey, look, Betty, my watch is slow.
We'll miss my train to New York. I never get to the airport on time.
I'll tell you what. Let's drive to Ridgeville instead and take the train there.
Ridgeville?
Yes, there's an express that stops there at 8.45.
We'll take that instead of the local.
Oh, yeah, sure, that's right. You know, sweetheart, you got a good head on here.
Come on, Jack, help me with my bags.
Twenty minutes later, we were parked in the darkness at the far end of the Ridgeville station.
I had deliberately set Herbert's watch back while he was dressing so he'd miss his usual train.
Now we watched him go in to buy his ticket.
Betty, I don't think I can go through with this.
Of course you can. Isn't it better than ten years in jail?
Suppose we're caught?
I've planned everything and we can't be caught.
Now, Herbert's in there buying his ticket.
This is an express. It's crowded.
Later, no one will be sure if he was on it or not.
The police will simply assume he was on it.
Yes, I suppose they will.
I know they will.
Now, later tonight, you'll take his bags to New York and check them in a pay locker at the station.
When they're found, the evidence is all clear.
He reached New York safely, then vanished.
Hundreds of people vanish in New York every year.
No one will ever connect us with it.
All right, all right, Betty, here he comes. I'd better get out and be waiting.
Well, I got the ticket.
You got my bags, huh, Jack?
I'm sorry, Mr. Willoughby, I dropped the key to the luggage compartment in the back of the car and we can't find it.
What? Dropped it in the back of the car? How'd you do that?
Well, it was my fault. Jack reached into the window for the keys and they slipped out of my fingers.
Oh, well, for cr... Oh, here comes my train. Light a match and find the key.
Well, I'm sorry, sir, I don't have a match.
For God's sake, what kind of an idiot are you? Here, let me look. I got a lighter.
You got to hurry. Now, where did you drop them? I don't see anything.
I can't imagine how any guy can be stupid enough to drop a...
Quick, quick, quick. Push him into the car.
Here I am. Grab his car.
There, close the door.
Now put this ring on him.
There.
He's dead. He's dead.
Jack Starley, the worst is over.
It had worked perfectly. Not a soul had paid us any attention.
As far as the world knew, Herbert was on that train headed for New York,
where his check bags would later be found.
Actually, he was in the back of the car as I drove it deep into a swampy section of woods a few miles away.
Shouldn't we be there by now?
The house is just around the next turn. You'll see it in a minute.
Up there.
Good Lord. What a monstrosity.
Why, it must be 200 years old.
260. Herbert bought it because it was supposed to be haunted.
Oh, you must have heard him talk about it. Oh, yes, only a thousand times.
I own a real haunted house, he'd say, and then he'd laugh like crazy.
He claimed it was haunted by a Revolutionary War pirate.
Oh, now that's just nonsense.
But now he'll be able to haunt it himself.
Come on, we have to get him out and bury him.
Together, Jack and I lifted Herbert's body out of the car and laid him at the foot of a tree.
We left the raincoat covering him.
I confess that I felt a little squeamish about seeing his face.
But I felt no remorse.
All I could think of was how wonderful it would be never, never to hear Herbert's hideous, grating laughter again.
In the trunk of the car we had tools and electric lanterns.
Leaving Herbert until we were ready, Jack and I entered the crazy, ruined old house and went down the creaking steps into the cellar.
There we selected a spot underneath the cellar stairs.
Jack began to dig.
Isn't this deep enough, Betty?
Oh, yes, of course.
And anyway, we have to hurry.
We still have to get to the Rexfords later.
All right, give me a hand. Help me out of here.
There.
Thanks.
What about the Rexfords?
Did you forget?
This is the night Herbert's silly gag's going to be used on the Answer or Else program.
The Rexfords are going to be watching. We have to be there.
Oh, great. Well, we'd better hurry.
Yeah.
All right, come on. Let's go get Herbert.
All right.
I still have to drive to New York with those bags after the Rexfords party.
We went back up the steps and out to the car to where we'd left Herbert lying beneath a tree.
And we stopped.
I felt as if a great fist had seized my heart as trying to stop it.
Herbert was gone.
In a moment, the concluding act of...
Suspense.
The Rich New Instant from Jason Sanborn.
Fine coffee for nearly 100 years.
He's gone.
Daddy, this is where we left him. There's the raincoat, but he's gone.
Someone has found his body.
No, no, that's impossible. We'd have heard them.
Let me think. Let me think.
Yes, of course he must have revived. He wasn't dead.
And he's escaped.
No. Look, these marks on the ground. He must have been crawling.
And he couldn't have gone far.
We've got to look for him.
Jack, shine your light around.
This way, toward the road.
No.
What?
No, this way, Betty, my dear.
I'm over here.
Herbert.
He's setting up against a rock.
This is as far as I could get.
I wasn't as dead as you thought, my dear.
It's a good joke on you to find me gone, wasn't it?
The expression on your faces.
Herbert?
He's fainted.
No. He's dead, Jack. At last.
He's had his final joke. He even died laughing.
But now it's our turn. Now it's our turn.
There.
How the cellophore looks normal again.
No one can tell. It's a private graveyard.
Jack, darling, it's all right. It's almost all over.
Yes, I know. I know, Betty, but I don't have nerves of steel.
Apparently you do.
Oh, it's just that I planned this so carefully, darling.
I know everything's all right.
Well, then let's go.
No.
Let me have the light.
I want to shine it around one last time to make sure we haven't left anything that might...
What's that?
What?
There. Over in that corner.
Well, let me look.
It's scrap paper.
Betty, it's a wrapper off a stick of chewing gum.
Someone's been here recently.
Let me see it.
Stamp.
It's laying there for a long time. Days, at least.
Well, how'd it get here?
Some tramp was here, maybe some kid playing in this old house, that's all.
I guess you're right.
Here, help me with the tools.
Now let's get ourselves out of here.
I don't know about you, but I need a drink.
I drove back to the house and cleaned up.
Then I poured us both drinks.
It had gone off rather neatly, I thought.
But then, as I said, planning is so important,
whether you're giving a big party or murdering your husband.
Here, darling, your drink.
Oh, yes, thanks, Betty.
Oh, I need it there.
Well, we can relax now.
Ah, it's all over.
Almost.
Almost all over, Betty.
I still have to drive to New York and plant those bags in a pay locker.
Yes, and the Rexford's party, oh, I wish we could skip that.
Why don't we?
We're going to be late anyhow.
Oh, we can't.
Herbert made such a point that we watched when they used his precious gag.
It looks suspicious.
Herbert and his gags.
Well, let's go.
No, wait.
We could take a minute longer.
What?
Darling, we're alone now.
We don't have Herbert to worry about.
Oh, yes, of course, sweetheart.
I guess I was just keyed up.
Come here.
Is this better?
Much better.
Oh, Jack, we're going to have such a wonderful time now.
With Herbert gone.
Jack's kiss made me want to skip the Rexford's and their party and the silly program
and Herbert's stunt and everything else, but we couldn't.
So ten minutes later, we were ringing the bell at Rexford's place.
But we can get away fast as soon as this thing is over.
It's a party, Jack.
We can't rush off too fast.
Well, I...
Shh, here comes somebody.
Betty, Jack.
We thought you weren't going to make it.
Come on in, quick.
We had a little trouble with the car.
Oh, isn't that always the way?
Well, come on into the living room.
Bill, Jack and Betty are here.
Oh, good.
Jolly George Gordon is just explaining about good old Herb's gag.
It's a lulu, kids.
Here, I'll turn the setup.
Goodbye, all of you, and lots of luck.
And so, folks, there go our four pair of contestants on tonight's special stunt.
Eight happy people without an idea what they're getting into.
And now Jolly George is going to let all of you out there into the plot.
Oh, I can't wait to hear it.
You see, we've just sent those four couples out with road maps and picks and shovels
to dig for buried treasure.
What they don't know is they're going to wind up in the cellar of a haunted house.
Yes, sir, the first ones to get to that haunted house
and dig in the right part of the cellar will find a chest with $5,000 in it.
Dig in the cellar.
Some treasure, eh?
But to test their nerves, while they're digging,
we're going to broadcast into that house all the ghostly noises you can think of.
Howling dogs and clanking chains and squeaking doors and everything.
Hey, that's not a fat gag.
Aren't we just devils?
Our special thanks to Herbert Willoughby of Connecticut for thinking of the stunt
and lending us his own haunted house in the woods for it.
We buried the chest there a week ago and carefully removed any signs that we had been there.
That money is buried in Herbert's old haunted house.
Hey, we've got as much right to dig in it as anybody.
An hour from now that whole cellar will be dug up and we want to get there first.
So come on, let's go.
Betty will show us the way.
Won't you, Betty?
So you see, Doctor, my plan for getting rid of Herbert was a perfectly good one.
I'm not ashamed of it a bit.
And if his silly stunt for that moronic program spoiled everything,
I'm prepared to take the consequences.
A lady does what she has to without regret.
There's only one thing I want to ask you.
Since Herbert is dead, why doesn't he stop laughing?
Can't you hear him?
Doctor, make him stop.
Make him stop laughing like that.
Day and night I hear him laughing.
I can't stand it anymore.
I can't stand it.
Suspense.
You have been listening to You Can Die Laughing, starring Evelyn Juster and Larry Haynes,
and written especially for suspense by Robert Arthur.
In a moment, the names of our players and a word about next week's story of suspense.
Athlete's foot roots, like garden weed roots, grow below the surface.
You've got to penetrate the surface to root it out.
And that's how NP-27 treatment works to root out athlete's foot.
NP-27 penetrates below skin surface where other remedies can't reach, even into toenails.
NP-27 liquid stops itch, relieves pain, promotes healthy tissue.
NP-27 powder guards against new infection, keeps feet healthy dry.
NP-27 roots out athlete's foot, or your druggist will refund your money.
Suspense is produced and directed by Bruno Zirotto Jr., musical supervision by Ethel Huber.
Featured in tonight's story were Ian Martin as Herbert Willoughby,
Lee Vines as Jolly George Gordon, Gertrude Warner as Gene Rexford, and William Mason as Bill Rexford.
Listen again next week when we return with Bells, written by Jack Bundy,
another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
France in Focus. David Schoenbrunn's Your Man in Paris weekdays on the CBS Radio Network.