 Tired of the everyday routine? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you Escape! Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure. Tonight, we escape to a train headed for Calcutta, and an exciting tale of the most sought after emerald in the world. As Richard Sayle tells it in his famous story, Figure a Dame. You do it. You figure a Dame. Take this Mrs. Arthur Bankner, whose body I'm hired to guard. A widow woman who wanted a piece of green ice so bad, she came halfway across the world with this Rajahore. This whistle stop in the middle of India. And then to the winter palace of a character named Samurai Dahl. Him and his English jodper's jewel silk turban, his eyes like hard pennies. Him, I didn't like. The star of Kilimanjore. It has finally brought you to me. What, Mrs. Bankner? Oh yes, Samurai Dahl. Is that how I call you, or is it Mr. Dahl? However you call me, madame, will be satisfactory when you pay me the $150,000 we agreed upon. American dollars. Give him the money, Joe. I can't wait any longer. Oh, I think I've lived my life for this moment. First we look at the emerald, huh, Mrs. B? But Mr. Dahl wouldn't... Joe, it's not done that way. This is India. Different customs, different manners. How true, Mrs. Bankner. First we look at it, an old Brooklyn custom. Huh, Sam? Of course. Samurai Dahl. The emerald. The star of Kilimanjore. Fetch it, girl. At once, Samurai Dahl. Hmm. Goes good with your huh, Sam? Dancing girls with bells on their toes? It's only adequate. I neglected to ask you this, Mrs. Bankner. Forgive me, but just who is this creature? Joe? Oh, he's not a creature, Mr. Dahl. Well, for one thing, he's a detective for the Magnum Insurance Company. That explains a great deal. You see, Mr. Dahl... Joe... Mr. Harrowman here recovered some jewelry I lost in Paris. I was so impressed with him. I mean with how efficient he was. Yeah, she means she persuaded Magnum to let me come along on this little buying trip for protection. Magnum thought it was a good idea, too. Now you know who the creature is. Now everything's gay, huh, Sam? Samurai Dahl? Thank you. You may go back, girl, to whatever child's game you are playing. I could weep at having to part with this. Here, the star of Kilimanjore. Oh, Joe! Joe, look at it! Look! Oh, my life! Many, many jewels! But, oh, none like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's... it's something. It'll do. You are satisfied, Joe? Yeah. And you, Mrs. Bankner, it satisfies you? Oh, yes, yes! Then it remains only for me to be satisfied. Give him the money, Joe. Give it to him. Okay. Okay, here, Sam, you can count it if you want to. I want to? Oh, exquisite, exquisite money. Uh, good. Oh, Mrs. Bankner? Yes. If, uh, by some graveness fortune, you should lose the star of Kilimanjore, or, more exactly, it be stolen from you, then please to refer the thief to me. I shall be happy to buy it back from him at a good price. Mrs. B wanted to celebrate, so we went to the town's one hotspot, a Rosset town. It was a dive. And the props hadn't changed from flatbush, smoke, oriental cigarette type, bartender oriental type, dames, any type. Complete with Lendley's jazz band, the joint was a shorely paradise with one great big advantage. No local ordinances. You name it, you can have it. Oh, I'll have another swizzle, Joe. Finish the drink you've gotten, I will say. Oh, Joe, you don't have to be so solicitous. Oh, I've got the star of Kilimanjore. I've got it, Joe, and we're celebrating, remember? Come on now, dance with me. Joe, what are you staring at? Joe. Who, Joe? That girl over there, the one against the bar. She looks like an American, that one. Yeah. She's lovely. I only say that because she is. Now, you've looked at her, Joe, now look back at me. You know what? I've seen her before. Uh-uh, here, in India, a couple of times before her. I look up, and there she is, leaning against a bar or watching the same rope trick or being a part of the same crowd as me. This is following you, Joe, to the ends of the earth. And our better resistance is getting lower from bar to bar. Following her, yeah. I heard you say something about dancing, lady. Well, not. They're revesting you from the Pope-dex sailor boy. At least buy him a drink. I am nothing. Go on, sailor, make an exit while the house is still with you. I was saying to you, lady, I was saying I heard you want to dance. This guy with you ain't made a move. Now, what would you have done? Tell me. Me? Me? I'd dance. Yeah, yeah, you would. What has happened here? The jolly-tar, he happened. Get him out of here. Oh, yes, yes, sir. I meet Johan, this man on the floor. Joe, I liked watching you do it. And I know the same mind. Art was a beautiful thing. Oh, you too, mister. You want to play too? No, McCoy, no. I know an Irish right cross when I see one, so I brought you both drinks. My pleasure. Why, thank you. I am not Irish. You may not know it, son, but you are. You know some place on your tree there's an Irishman. Did you mind if I, uh, sit down? Who are you? What's the record? A man like you, son, I can tell it by the turn of your lips. A seeker, you might say. After what now? A woman smiling? And there's that here in India. Fortune, there's that here too. Things, that's what. Without the Irish poetry, who are you? Rafferty. John Rafferty. Now, we're happy to know you, Mr. Rafferty, even for just this moment we're leaving now. Oh, stay, Joe. Ah, sleep. We'll need it. The train to Calcutta leaves early tomorrow. And so it does. Then this is not goodbye after all, for I'll be on that train myself. Sleep, I'd said. For the widow with the emerald, maybe, but not for me. I sat on the verandah or the Rajahore ritz just outside Mrs. B's room and I could hear her making happy moans in her sleep. Once I heard a crawling noise, I got up, investigated, and found it was a noise made by something that crawls. Then came the dawn. I hustled Mrs. B in her bags into a Model T cab that took two hours to get to the railroad station a mile away. That I'd counted on, so we made the train for Calcutta on time. Oh, Joe, just thinking a few days, Calcutta. Then the plane, then Paris, and then you leave me. Yeah, that's how it was laid out, the itinerary. Go on in. I'll be there in a minute. But aren't you coming with me? No, Mrs. B. You go find your compartment. I'll bring the bags to you. Oh, but see, the bar girl. That's who it is, isn't it, Joe? Coming this way. That's who it is, Mrs. B. You won't want to be here when I talk to her, huh, Mrs. B? No. No, but don't talk long, Joe. It's me that's paying you, remember? So Mrs. B was on her way to her compartment. The star of Kiliman Joe and a little pouch with gold strings around her neck and inside her dress. This was the last lap. If anyone was going to lift the rocket, it had to be done before we got to Calcutta. And then the girl's perfume was inside me. We've met before, haven't we? Where or when I don't know, but we've met. It's as good a way as any to get to know me. I'm Joe Harriman. Marianne Ryder. It seems we're always in the same places. On the train all the way from Bombay at the café last night here. Coincidental, isn't it? I wouldn't know. Well, of course it is. Wait, do you mean you've been following me? A dream like you that makes you hungry inside? It wouldn't be hard. Like that? Like that. Traveling for your health, Marianne? No, business. In this slop hole, something like you, business? Well, I... I'm a kind of buying agent for a New York film. Trinkets. That's it, trinkets. Emerald trinkets? Emerald would be lovely. I must find my compartment, Mr. Harriman. Maybe I'll see you again later? Count on it, Marianne. It's a promise I make to myself. All aboard! All aboard! I didn't see her again until later. I sat in my own compartment next to Mrs. B's and did a lot of thinking. Important thinking, and I didn't want to mix up with her perfume. Maybe she was an out-and-out jewel thief, and that bothered me. She was a cinch to get caught if she tried to lift that stone. And you can't make that good, good time with the girls behind bars. I did my thinking like that for a long time. Had a couple of meals in between, red, and did some more thinking. When I got finished with it, I was looking out of a window and seeing it was a night without moon, a night for company. I walked down to the club car and found what I was looking for. Hello? Hello, Mrs. Don't be frightened, it's me. That kind of night out there gets you down? No. I was just toying with my memory. Sit down, Joe. Oh, thank you. Toy with your memories some more. It wears wonderful on you. And then tell me about it. All right. Now shall I tell you about it? Uh-huh. Out there, Joe, the night, the black hills, those strange little lights that flicker and swirl past you. It's like... Well, like I wasn't on this train at all, but out there and part of it. Like something I've known and remembered for a long, long time. Is that all? That, Joe. This? Don't say we shouldn't have done it because we should have. I know, but what must you think of me? What? I'll tell you. Because I level with women who level with me. I think you're interested in me. And? And trinkets. Expensive trinkets. Like the star of Kilimanjaro. I don't understand you. Mr. Harriman, please come hurry. Mrs. Bankner. What's the matter with her? She is very upset. I think something is wrong. She says you come right away. She's crying. Excuse me, Mary, and I got to go to work. Come on, you. Yes. Mrs. B. Mrs. B, something wrong? Oh, Joe. Oh, Joe. I had a nightmare and I woke up. I was so frightened. No. All right. Conductor, thank you. You can go now. Yes, sir. I called for you when I woke up, but you weren't there. Then you put your arms around me. Oh, Joe, hold me tight. Yeah. Oh. Oh, it's better like this. You close to me like this. Uh-huh. Oh, look at me, Joe. What do you see? You're so helpless I could kiss you. Try me, Joe. Yeah. Joe. Joe, you're hurting me. Joe, what? Joe. Her throat was soft against my hands. Her arms waved around for a little while. The look in her eyes was something I had never seen before. She didn't struggle much. She didn't do anything much, except not believe it was happening to her that she was being murdered. Then she quit believing anything. She was dead. In just a moment, we will continue with Escape. But first, every Wednesday night, Groucho, Marks, Bing Crosby, and Burns and Allen in one, two, three order on most of these same CBS stations. Hear them all tomorrow night on CBS. And now we return you to the second act of... Escape. There wasn't much trouble falling asleep after that, after I was sure Mrs. B was dead, after I'd stashed the emerald where it couldn't be found. There wasn't much trouble falling asleep at all, like being out with a beautiful dame, and she liked you. And you went home and put your arms behind your head and smiled at yourself, and you slept the best kind of sleep of all. It got to be eight o'clock in the morning, and that was all right, too. Because there I was having breakfast in the diner with another promise I'd made to myself. Her name was Marion Ryder, and she poured my coffee for me. I've been thinking, Joe. I've been thinking it was wrong what we did last night. I'll tell you why it wasn't, Marion. You want to hear? Just... just don't lie to me. I'm crazy about you. See, I don't even have to look down into my coffee cup when I say it, like you're doing. I'm sorry. It's just that... Wait a minute, honey. Our conductor. Hey! Come here a minute, you! Yes? What is it you wish, sir? I wish this. I wish that you would go down to Mrs. Bankner's compartment and wake her up. Tell her this mush, you waiters serve for breakfast is lousy, but tell her she's got to get some food now. Yes, sir. Well, don't just stand there. I wish it, so do it. Yes, sir. Right away, sir. Joe, are we saying, honey? Don't call me honey. Why not? It's a word I don't care for. Just don't do it. Yeah. No class, huh? Sure, when we get to Calcutta, I'll find the words it'll fit. Joe, leave me alone now. But... Calcutta is only a few hours away, Joe. Sure. I know about Dane's, Marion. They need thinking time to make everything right with themselves. Sure. I'll see you later. Morning, my boy. Morning to you. Oh, hello, Mr. Rafferty. You had your breakfast, yes. Yes, don't remind me of it. Oh, you come along and have a coffee with me then. Thank you, but... Oh, by the way, my boy, Mrs. Bankner. What about her? Well, nothing about her, but I'm in the next compartment to hers and I heard the conductor knocking on a compartment door just now and she doesn't seem to answer. She sleeps heavy. She's lucky. Well, I'll see you later. Mrs. Bankner? Breakfast, Mrs. Bankner? What's the matter, conductor? She doesn't answer. I've been knocking. Oh, yes, sometimes she does that. Have you got a key to the door? Yes, but... Open it. Very well. Holy... Something is... Yes, something is all right. Come on in. Close that door. Look at her, will you? Something is... You said that... She's dead. I'll tell you something else. The lady's been murdered. You said... I said murdered. Look at the marks on her throat. Strangled. Sir... Sir, her hand. Please, she is holding something in her hand. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she is at that, a button. Perhaps the man who did this thing to her. His button. That's a real good, perhaps. Come on. Not a word about Mrs. Bankner to anybody, you understand? Yes, but... I'm a detective. I know about these things. Not a word. Come on. When do we get to Calcutta? In three hours, noon. First stop, sir, for water. A five-minute stop at a village, Mipirai, then Calcutta. As soon as we get there, telegraph to Calcutta to the police. Tell them what's happened, and that's all. You understand? Yes. Well, now we go in here. In here. But this is Mr. Rafferty's compartment. Yes, the guy who did it. Close the door. I think he got what he was after for Mrs. Bankner. Maybe we'll find it. There will be trouble. You are searching his things. I told you I'm a detective. I know how to operate. Let's try this closet. Oh, nothing here. But the button... I'll give it to you. I'll turn it over to the British police when we get to Calcutta. Here, take it. Yes. But the button in Mrs. Bankner's hand was brown. Gray. Can't you see the button is gray? Take it. We stood there staring at each other for maybe a minute, and his eyes eased off mine. He made a kind of sloppy salute. He turned, went down the train corridor to wherever it is, conductors hold their heads in their hands. It had been awful close, awful tight. Tearing a gray button off Rafferty's coat while I searched it and palming the button off on the conductor, that was a little task that took delicacy and timing. So I'm delicate with my fingers and my sense of timing is perfect, and I'm sure of myself. And that adds up to a win. When we hit the water stop, I got off to stretch my legs to let myself breathe a fresh air so it would cool me off inside. The little guy running like a monkey on top of the water tank looked neat and clean in his white diaper and green turban. The hills covered with snow looked good, far away, but good. And then an Irish mosquito buzzed in my ear. That's a lovely panorama, those hills. Lovely. It's like music, floats and bells and a flight of birds. Yeah, yeah, they're like that. I don't know the words to the music, but they're like that. It's Petty, Mrs. Bankner isn't here to enjoy them with you. What about Mrs. Bankner? What about Mrs. Bankner? Well, why, she's dead. Murdered. Surely you knew that, my boy. How did you find out about it? Oh, you know how it is on a train. Things get themselves whispered about. How did you find out? How easy, boy, easy. You're a fiery one, are you not? It's only that I saw the conductor looking sadder and me being a kind of friendly, friendly human being and smart enough to know conductors know things. I asked him why he was sad. I asked him in a way that made it easy for him to answer. Quicker, Rafferty, get to it quicker. Well, you told me that you told him not to say a word about the murder and I said, who's murder? And then he says Mrs. Bankner and I said, oh. And he said he'd be disgraced because it happened on his train. What else, Rafferty? And the matter of the button was deeply puzzling to him. Button? Yes, the button. Now isn't that a queer thing to be puzzling to him with a murder on his hands? The train got going after that. Me too, my brain, that is. Things going around in my brain. Everything I'd mixed up with that crummy little button and that crummy little conductor. Imagine a guy so scared he had to shoot his mouth off like that and shoot it off to Rafferty of all people. Conductor need a little talking to, a finger waved under his nose. The way it happened, I was standing on the observation platform by myself and he came right up to me. Mr. Haribin? I beg your pardon, Mr. Haribin. Yeah. I beg your pardon, Mr. Haribin, but lunch is being served in the diner. An early lunch. We shall be in Calcutta in an hour. Come here, you. I beg your pardon. I said, come here. You wish it? Uh-huh. You know something? You look worried. Because I am. Why? This whole affair, the murder and the... Button? That, sir. And the other thing, you say Mr. Rafferty is the murderer. I told you not to talk to him. I told him hardly anything. I didn't tell him he was suspect. Oh, it's good you didn't. Real good for you, you didn't. Just let Rafferty coast, you understand? Then when we get to Calcutta, the police will arrest him because you've got the evidence. The button. I've got it only... Only what? Only... I thought it was brown. You did, huh? It was brown. You're sure of it? It was brown. When it was in Mrs. Bankner's hand, it was brown. When you gave it to me in Mr. Rafferty's compartment, it was gray. See, I have it here. It is gray. Yeah, I'll take it. Sir? Give it to me. Thank you. Now, you know what? It was brown. Yeah, it was. But I'm saying something. I'm saying, you know what? Sir? I'm saying you've got to go. You really gotta go. Sir, what are you doing? Right now you gotta go. Sir, it was gray. No! No! How everything was right. Everything in place. The button I had had proved Rafferty the murder of Mrs. B. The conductor? Everybody would say the poor guy had a bad accident. Now all it needed was the payoff to a dream. And that would be something named Marion Ryder. It's Joe. I'm bringing you pretty flowers. Let me in. I don't see any flowers. You will. Shut the door, Marion. All right. Keeps twisting around inside me. I love you. You can't say things like that. Stop me. Like this, Joe. Like that. One of those things. I meet you and bang. Electricity. Just like Joe. Joe. Joe. I love you. I'd do anything for you. I never said that to a woman before. Joe, wait. I've got to tell you something first. You must have told me that you were a crook. That you followed me and Mrs. B. So you could lay your hands on the star of Kilimanjaro. No, no, Joe, wait. You're too late, kid. Mrs. B is dead. Murdered. The emerald's gone. Something wrong, kid. Oh, so much. So much. Oh, nothing is wrong. Rafferty, the Irish poet, is going to take the rap for it. He was after the emerald, too, but he's not getting it. Just the gallows. That's all Rafferty gets. Joe, listen to me. Stop talking and listen. No, kid. You listen to me. I get 50 grand for it. I'll take it back to Samurai Dahl and sell it to him again. 50 grand. You and me. I can die from so much joy. I killed her for you. You? You killed Mrs. Bagnon? You heard it? Sure. Kid, it wasn't hard. You mean that much to me, so it wasn't hard. It was almost a pleasure. A down payment on our happiness in my car. Oh, you spoiled everything, everything. Oh, Joe, you poor fool. Marial is that right, Joe? You're such a fool. Get out of here, Rafferty. No tricks, lad. This gun I hold makes holes in people. You're people, aren't you, Joe? Or are you? What do you want here? Tell me before I go for my gun, I do foolish things like that. I don't doubt it. But first, I'll tell you, lad. I know how you planted a murder on me with a button from my coat. And I know where the Star of Kilimanjaro is. So you're nothing but a filthy, stinking jewel thief just like I figured. Not quite, Joe. Marion, tell him how I know these things. Tell him who I am. He's the chief of the Magnum Insurance Company agents in Bombay. Rafferty, you're crazy. No. Magnum cabled him to follow you and Mrs. Bankner to make sure the emerald got back safely. Magnum didn't trust you with a stone like that. They put another man on to make sure you wouldn't steal it. And you had to kill her. They can't prove it. I'll pin it on Rafferty, sir. Help me. But you killed her. You just admitted it. Joe, your word isn't worth dust. You're a crook yourself. No. Not quite. Marion? All right. I'll tell him. Joe, I happen to be Rafferty's wife. She said it. It only took her a couple of seconds, but that's what she said. But it took a long time for the words and the sound to get to me. And you know something? Looking at her then and watching her mouth move, she looked real sad and suddenly real lonely. You do it. You figure a dame. Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson. Tonight we have presented Figure a Dame by Richard Sayle, adapted for radio by Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Featured in the cast were Frank Lovejoy as Joe, Joan Banks as Marion, Sarah Selby as Mrs. Bankner, and Ben Wright as Rafferty. Also heard were Paul Freese, Harry Bartel, and Gary Merrill. Special music was arranged and conducted by Del Castillo. Next week. You were on a small ship off the coast of Borneo. In the waters beneath you lies a fortune in pearls. And at your side stands a man from whose murderous greed there is no escape. Next week we escape with Floyd A. Nelson's exciting tale of reckless men and their lust for treasure. Seeds of greed. Goodbye then until the same time next week when once again we offer you escape. It's Christmas time. Lots of mistletoe, lots of packages, lots of carols being sung. And never a man to overlook a chance to celebrate, George Burns gets into the act with a special program of what he claims are Christmas carols. George's sponsor had certain ideas about George's voice a few weeks ago and fired him from the show. And tomorrow night you'll learn how George's fellow singers and Christmas shoppers in general react. For one of the merriest of holiday shows, don't miss George's and Gracie's program on most of these same CBS stations this Wednesday night. Now stay tuned for Hit the Jackpot, which follows immediately over most of these same CBS stations. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.