CAST:
TALLU, your host, Tallulah Bankhead
BUCK
BUD
DOC
IRENE
NOTE: Script of a dramatic sketch from a variety series.
TALLU: Darlings, last week, in our quest for the kind of story which would please you most on the Big Show, we chanced upon a wry little classic from the droll pen of John Collier. It has just the suspenseful angle and the macabre twist to tingle your nerves. It has, too, as the star lead, the distinguished actor Mr. William Gargan, whose exciting new series "Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator," opens on NBC radio next Tuesday night. But now Mr. Gargan, in the role of Doctor Rankin, brings us John Collier's story, "De Mortius." (MUSIC: MAIN TITLE AND DOWN FOR) TALLU: Doctor Rankin was a large and rawboned man on whom the newest suit at once appeared out-dated, like a suit in a photograph of twenty years ago. He had those huge and clumsy hands which can be an asset to a doctor in a small upstate town where people still retain a rural relish for paradox, thinking that the more apelike the paw, the more precise it can be in the delicate business of tonsillectomy. This conclusion was perfectly justified in the case of Doctor Rankin. For example, on this particular fine morning, though his task was nothing more ticklish than the cementing over of a large patch on his cellar floor, he managed those large and clumsy hands with all the unflurried certainty of one who would never leave a sponge within, or create an unsightly scar without. MUSIC: OUT WITH (CLINK OF TROWEL ... THEN A SCREEN DOOR BANGS AND HEAVY FEET ARE HEARD WALKING THE FLOORS ABOVE HIM) BUCK: (OFF) Hey, Doc ----? BUD: (OFF) Anybody home? BUCK: Hey, Doc! The fish are biting. Let's go! BUD: Guess he's out! BUCK: Okay - We'll leave a note -- say we're down at the creek and to come on down. BUD: We could tell Irene. But, she's not here either. You'd think she'd be around. BUCK: You said it, Bud. Just look at this table. You could write your name ....... BUD: Shhhhhh - Buck -- Look! (WHISPERING) He must be down in the cellar. BUCK: Okay. (THEIR STEPS...DOOR CREAKS OPEN AND THEY START DOWN STAIRS) BUCK: (ON) Why, Doc -- there you are! BUD: (ON) Didn't you hear us yelling? DOC: I thought I heard someone up there. BUCK: We was bawlin' our heads off. Thought nobody was home. Where's Irene? DOC: Visiting. She's gone visiting. BUD: Hey - what goes on? What are you doing? Burying one of your patients, or what? DOC: Oh, there's been water seeping up through the floor. I figgered it might be some spring opened up or something. BUD: You don't say! Gee, Doc, I sold you this property. Don't say I fixed you up with a dump where there's an underground spring. DOC: There was water. That's all I know, Bud. BUD: Yeah, but Doc - you can look on that geological map the Kiwanis Club got up. There's no better section of subsoil in the town. BUCK: Looks like Bud sold you a lemon, Doc. BUD: No. Look. When the Doc came to this town he was green. You'll admit he was green. The things he didn't know! BUCK: (LAUGHS) Yeah. He bought Ted Webber's jalopy. He'd have bought the Jessop place if I'd let him. But I wouldn't give him a bum steer. DOC: Okay - okay. I was green - I admit it. BUCK: Listen to him. Just a poor, simple city slicker from Poughkeepsie. BUD: Some people would have taken him. Maybe some people did. Not me. I recommended this property. He and Irene moved straight in as soon as they ware married. I wouldn't have put Doc on to a dump where there'd be a spring under the foundations. DOC: Oh, forget it. I guess it was just the heavy rains. BUCK: By gosh! Look at that pick ax. You certainly went deep enough. Right down into the clay, huh? BUD: That's four feet down, the clay. DOC: Eighteen inches. BUD: Four feet. I can show you on the map. BUCK: All right - no arguments, boys. What do you say we go down to the creek, Doc --- they're biting. DOC: Can't do it, boys. I've got to see a patient or two. BUD: Ah, live and let live, Doc. Give 'em a chance to get better. Are you going to depopulate the whole darn town? DOC: Got to make my rounds, boys. Sorry the fish will have to wait. BUD: Well - I guess we'll have to take no for an answer. BUCK: Yeah ---we'd better be getting along. BUD: How's Irene, Doc? DOC: Never better. She's gone visiting. Albany. Got the eleven o'clock train. BUCK: Eleven o'clock? For Albany? DOC: Did I say Albany? Watertown, I meant. BUCK: Friends in Watertown? DOC: Mrs. Slater. Mr. and Mrs. Slater. Lived next door to 'em when she was a kid, Irene said, over on Sycamore Street. BUD: Slater? Next door to Irene? No. DOC: Oh, yes. She was telling me all about them last night. She got a letter. Seems this Mrs. Slater looked after her when her mother was in the hospital one time. BUD: Nope. DOC: That's what she told me. Of course, it was a good many years ago. BUCK: Look, Doc, Bud and I were raised in this town. We've known Irene's folks all our lives. We were in and out of their house all the time. There was never anybody next door called Slater. DOC: Perhaps she married again, this woman. Perhaps it was a different name....Mind moving your feet? I'd better smooth out this rough place in the cement. (SOUND) BUD: No, Doc. It wasn't a different name. BUCK: What time did Irene go to the station, Doc? DOC: Oh, about a quarter of an hour ago. BUCK: You didn't drive her? DOC: She walked. BUCK: We came down Main Street. We didn't meet her. DOC: Maybe she walked across the pasture. BUD: That's a tough walk with a suitcase. DOC: She just had a couple of things in a little bag. BUCK: I don't get it, Doc. I--------Bud! BUD: Yeah ---! Holy Smoke! BUCK: Oh, gosh, Doc ----a guy like you! DOC: What in the name of Heaven are you two bloody fools thinking? What are you trying to say? BUD: A spring! I ought to have known right away it wasn't any spring! DOC: Am I crazy? Or are you? You suggest that I've --- that Irene -- my wife --oh, go on! Get out! Yes, go and get the sheriff. Tell him to come here and start digging. You --get out! Go on! BUD: I don't know, Buck. BUCK: It isn't as if he didn't have the provocation. BUD: Lord knows! You know and I know. The whole town knows. But try telling it to a jury. DOC: What is it? Now what are you trying to say? What do you mean? BUCK: If this ain't being on a spot! Doc, you can see how it is. It takes some thinking. We've been friends right from the start. Darn good friends! BUD: But, we've got to think. It's serious. Provocation or not, there's a law in the land. There's such a thing as being an accomplice. DOC: You were talking about provocation. BUCK: You're right, Doc. And you're our friend. And if ever it could be called justified ---- DOC: Justified? BUD: You were bound to get wised up sooner or later. BUCK: We could have told you, but what the heck? BUD: We could. And we nearly did. Five years ago. You hadn't been here six months, but we sort of cottoned to you. Thought of giving you a hint. Spoke about it, remember Buck? BUCK: I remember. A decent, straight-forward guy comes to a place like this and marries the town flirt. And nobody tells him. Everybody just watches. BUD: Funny. I came right out in the open about that Jessup property. I wouldn't let you buy that. But getting married - that's something else again. DOC: I'm fifty. I suppose I'm pretty old for Irene. And I know a lot of people think she's not exactly a perfect wife. Maybe she's not. She's young -- full of life -- BUD: Oh, skip it, Doc. Skip it! DOC: No. I'm sort of a dry fellow -- kind of dull. But she's not much of a housekeeper. BUCK: No, she ain't. DOC: And she's not very deep mentally. I don't care. She's lazy. No system. Well, I've got plenty of system. She's childish. That's it -- like a child. But even so, that she would behave like that! BUD: Uh huh. Well, Doc, the town will be on your side. BUCK: But that won't mean much when the trial comes up in the county seat. DOC: Yeah -- I guess you're right. I've been so upset. So mixed up. What will I do, boys? What'll I do? BUCK: It's up to you, Bud. I can't turn him in. BUD: Take it easy, Doc. Calm down. Look, Buck, when we came in here the street was empty, wasn't it? BUCK: I guess so. Anyway, nobody saw us come down in the cellar. BUD: And we haven't been down. Get that, Doc? We shouted upstairs -- hung around a minute or two, and cleared out. But we never came down in to this cellar. DOC: I wish you hadn't. BUCK: All you have to do is say Irene went out for a walk and never came back. Bud and I can swear we saw her headed out of town with a fellow in a tan coupe. We'11 fix it. Now we'd better scram! BUD: And remember, Doc - we was never down here! So long. BUCK: We're for you, Doc. So long, now. (MUSIC: BRIDGE) (SCREEN DOOR BANGS AND HIGH HEELS PINK ON FLOOR ABOVE) IRENE: (CALLING) Yoo Hoo ---Doc? -- Yoo Hoo -- I'm back! DOC: I'm down here, Irene, (CELLAR DOOR OPENS) (STEPS DOWNSTAIRS) IRENE: Oh, there you are, Honey pie! Can you beat it --- I missed the darn train! DOC: Oh? Did you come back across the field? IRENE: Yeah, like a dope. I could have hitched a ride and caught the train up the line. Only I didn't think. If you'd run me over to the junction, Doc, I could still make it. DOC: Maybe. Did you meet anyone coming back? IRENE: Not a soul. Aren't you finished with that old cement job yet? DOC: Nope. I'm afraid I'll have to take it all up again. Come over here, my dear, and I'll show you! (MUSIC: CURTAIN) (APPLAUSE) TALLU: Bravo, Bill Gargan, and thanks also to your fine supporting cast, Martin Blaine, Vinton Hayworth, and Jan Miner.