 Personal notice, danger's my stock and trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, you got a job for me, George Valentine. Write full details. You know something? I'd love to be a detective. You meet so many interesting monsters. Take the fella who's about to get in touch with George Valentine. He's a big game hunter with a cargo of hungry Wildcats, boar constrictors, and other charming playmates. Now, what this old cadre wants with our George, I don't know, but I do know this. Our Let George Do It adventure is called the Hand in the Coconut. And just in case you don't care for jungle stories, you should pay attention anyway, because you'll learn a dandy new way to keep juniors' mitt out of the cookie jar. My dear Mr. Valentine, this is a letter about monkeys. My name is Derrick Stang, the same Derrick Stang who's exploits in the jungle you no doubt read as a boy. Yes, I'm still as alive as an old battleground of scars and fevers can be alive. And today I'm writing my letter on the deck of a sweltering ship, a South African freighter tied up at the port in your town. There's a little Capuchin monkey trying to untie my shoelaces at the present moment. Monkeys are strange animals, greedy like human beings. I have trapped them many times by the simple expedient to placing this shiny, desirable object inside a hollowed out coconut to which there is only a single small opening, an opening just big enough for a monkey's hand. Of course, the monkey reaches in to grasp the object. Inside the coconut he grasps it, his hand makes a fist, but then Mr. Valentine, he can't pull his hand out. The fist is too big. His greed is greater than his fear of the approaching hunter. Mr. Valentine, would you please come to visit me this evening? I need your help to complete the capture of a monkey. A monkey whose hand is already trapped. A monkey by the name of Lars Mickelson. You are listening to Let George Do It. Our adventure will continue in just a moment. Now back to Let George Do It and George Valentine. You didn't think I could stay away, did you, Mr. Stang? Here we are through here. I'm supposed to be in bed, you know, but I was afraid you couldn't find your way from the pier and so few people pay any attention to an old man. I've heard of you too, Mr. Stang, on me. Somehow I always imagined you... Toller, yes, yes. There's more hair in my beard. Purchased strident elephant, perhaps. Isn't it wonderful? The romance there is in those old National Geographic pictures. Yeah, the greatest hunter in the world. Well, I remember when you... Oh, but I still am, yes, yes, yes. Indeed, there's no one who can approach me. My exploits will never be... Wait a minute. That red sign back there, what did it mean? Quarantine, Mr. Stang. Animal quarantine. Ten days I've been stewing here because of some ridiculous nonsense. Careful there. Gangplank runs straight into the ship into the hole. I'm all right. But quarantine for what? It's a plot against me, that's what it is. No lights on, the captain disappears. Oh, yes, yes, he's a sure. He's having fun. I have matches here. The ladder to the... What in the... Steady, steady, it's all right. It's a panther. Got a rare specimen. Tore a couple of naked boys to shreds when he got him. But he's in the cage now, aren't you, old boy? Yes, they're all in cages. Animals. A ship full of wild animals. Look here, see? Constrictor, 33 feet. Takes quite a crepe to pack them in, doesn't it? See, through the little bars. And over here, the poisonous... Thanks, I'm not much interested in snakes. No, no, no, of course not. Too easy, much too easy. All of them are, you know. 60 years old, I am. Living from pill to pill, fever to fever. Well, I guess you're still a greatest animal. Red tape to be finally caught myself in red tape. Oh, you mean this quarantine? Yes, not one of my animals is sick, mind you. Not when. Zoos all over the country waiting for delivery. But the day we dock, what happens? An officious young veterinary board for the usual government inspection and he and the captain get together. Well, look, Mr. Stang, this veterinary or the captain is one of their names, Lars Mikkelsen? Is that what you meant when you wrote it? No, no, no, no, no, Mr. Bowling. That's that, Mr. Bowling. The captain's name is Teague. You've had trouble with him before. Lars Mikkelsen is... Now, Baba, how many times have I told you? Deep, stupid, like men. Big, booming feet on the floor. You come booming like elephants. All right, all right. My wife, Mr. Valentine, she... Baba, men. Ah, this is... No, no, no, no, no, no. My wife is asleep, she means in there. Baba, he's our friends of mine. We're just going to my state room. Well, go, go. Do not just talk about it. She's asleep. Be quiet. Of course, of course. All right, all right. Men, elephants in the moon. Here, here we are. What in heaven's name was that old thing in earrings? Baba. An old-fashioned notion of my wife's the personal servant, the devoted slave. I found her in Cairo 25 years ago. Claimed she could talk to animals. She looked just the same then, but she gets more and more obnoxious every year. Did your wife make this last trip with you, Mr. Steele? Oh, yes, yes. It has to be somebody to tie my mufflers, not my medicine. Yammer it, the old man. Mr. Steele, wait a minute. Look, what do you want me for? To be a witness. The hand in the coconut. Lars Mickelson. But who is Lars? The captain left the ship in charge of this man, an ugly, conniving rogue, the second mate. Lars Mickelson. But what did he do? What do you want me to be a witness to? Mr. Valentine, he stole my field glasses. He... What? Especially made ones there were, too. Finest ice lenses. There were several things stolen during the voyage, but I was sick. I didn't notice. First, a hunting knife and other little things. Now, you ought to see that he has them. That's all. I'll testify to their loss. I am seeing my lawyer in the morning. What makes you think Mickelson took these? The hand in the coconut, I told you. The field glasses I placed where he could take them. He won't let go. No one else could have taken them. He's up in his cabin now. Oh. You think this is trivial. I'm being vindictive. But, Mr. Valentine, people can't get away with things with me. I won't let them. Now, you'll find out for me, won't you? You'll come back first thing in the morning with this quarantine. My fever is those nagging women, you understand, don't you? So, I'll straw and somebody thinks I'm so ineffectual I can be stolen from without... All right, Mr. Stang, all right, yeah, sure. See you in the morning. The boyhood hero. How the mighty are fallen. Oh, George, I feel sorry for... Sure, sure, sure, sure. What are you gonna do? He's gonna see his lawyer in the morning and prefer charges against him? What can we do, Angel? I don't like a thief either. The hand in the coconut. Poor, worn-out, suspicious old guy. Well, at least we can do his find out if he's right. Sure, those are good field glasses. Well, we were on the ship here, Mr. Mickelson. I just wondered what the skyline of the city would look like from... Well, I saw you with them around your neck and... The name is Lars, sister. Second maids don't rate that mister stuff on a tub like this. I just been cleaning them in my cabin there. You want to go out on deck? Oh, wait a second. Zeiss lenses, huh? Nothing but the best. Who are you? What are you doing aboard? Oh, we're just visiting, Mr. Stang. Oh, nasty old coot, isn't he? What's the matter, buddy? Whose glasses are these? Mine, of course. What are you talking about? They're a gift, that's all. Look, what in the name of... Oh, Mr. Mickelson, have you seen my... Well, how handy. Those are what I came for. Ah, these? Yes, of course, my glasses. I wanted to take a look at the... Wait a minute. Law and the baby, you said you... Take your pardon? I don't know who you are, but if this fresh sailor's a friend of yours... Baby, I don't... Mr. Mickelson, I want these field glasses. I loan them to you, remember? Are you so stupid? They are, lady. They are. Thank you. You're not stupid at all. But then, maybe you're not a sailor. Bye-bye. Well, here's one for you, Angel. Tempest in a teapot. So much fuss over a pair of field glasses. Here's yours. They're on the ship, tourists. Now, get off, both of you. What are you so mad about? Who is she, friend? Passenger, Lorna Stang, Mrs. Stang. Mrs. Stang, but she was supposed to be asleep. Look, both of you. There's the gangway off the forward deck through here. Now, come on, be good, will you? I'm busy trying to get ready so we can unload when there's crazy quarantine. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Why can't we go through here? No, no, you can't get off there. She came. Here, this is the door she came out of, isn't it? The same one you came from when we came in here? No, no, no, get away from me. Says you, handsome. I don't know why you should be so upset, Mr. Mickelson. There's nothing through that door except, except apparently your state room. I don't know what goes on on that ship, Mr. Valentine. I'm just a veterinarian. Strange bunch of people being cooped up together for a long time. Mr. Bowling, I tried to get hold of the captain. The captain went ashore the day they landed. I've been with him for years, nice guy. Besides that second mate, Mickelson, offered to stay aboard and keep an eye on things. That's not surprising. Huh? Oh, well, yeah, I, I know what you mean. They're about the same age, I guess. I mean, Mrs. Stang. Yeah, we know what you mean. I'd like to help the old guy, too. He's one of my heroes. I guess if his wife is giving things away to her sailor friend, your evidence might at least help him get a divorce from her. She's no good, I can tell you that. Stang says there's something funny about the quarantine. There is. When the ship docked, we got an anonymous note from one of the crew. Said a couple of the animals had been suspiciously sick during the voyage. Going to take the quarantine off tomorrow. Let them all in. False alarm. Hmm. An anonymous letter from one of the crew. Made sense at the time. Doesn't know. Would you clear that up? Well, George, after all, if Mrs. Stang is the kind of woman who'd pull a wool over her husband's eyes in one way, she'd certainly... Not exactly what I meant either, Miss Brooks. Oh, yeah, she might have written the note. To finagle a couple of more weeks with her sailor? That's not likely. Derek Stang who's sick, Mr. Valentine. We know that. He keeps her live from medicine to medicine. Old fevers, something... Medicine in blue wrappers? Huh? Yes, yes, as a matter of fact. Tablets of some kind. Something pretty strong, I should imagine. Oh, but his wife... His wife is also his nurse, Miss Brooks. He depends on her. Aside from his money, she's all he's got. Well, Mr. Valentine, why did you say blue? Oh, because I noticed a stack of blue papers in Lars Mikkelsen's cabin. George. The greatest hunter in the world. Suppose he's the one walking into a trap. Yeah. Suppose it's his hand in the coconut. You are listening to Let George Do It. Our adventure will continue in just a moment. Now back to George Valentine. The hand in the coconut. You meet one of your childhood heroes, the greatest hunter in the world, Derek Stang. You find that he is still the greatest hunter when it comes to animals. But his observation of human beings is a little less acute. He thought you would trap Lars Mikkelsen for stealing a pair of field glasses. Instead, you have trapped him for stealing Mr. Stang's wife. Or is it the other way around? My name is George Valentine. You have begun to suspect that the person who is really in danger of being trapped is the hunter himself. I don't know what I can do in this situation, Mr. Valentine, dragging me down to the waterfront. I know, Doctor. I know. I'm sorry we had to get you out of bed. Oh, look at that fog. Stang must have his own position. You know I care, Mr. Stang. Mr. Stang's stateroom is right here. Don't see his wife's watchdog run any place, do you, Angel? He's here. He's gone. Well, you dragged me out to look at a man you think might be sicker. There you see. He's so sick he's out walking around decks someplace at 6 a.m. or going someplace else. Well, I'm a doctor, Mr. Valentine. You expect me to take serious? Look at these. Blue papers. No, wastebasket. George, the same as those potters, those tablets were ready. Yeah, only look how many of them. They were edging from the other trash. Hmm, strong. I grant you the old man is taking strong medicine, but men who are poisoned generally die in bed. And if a man had been living on this stuff, he could build up quite a resistance. In fact, Mr. Valentine, while it might hurt you or me, he couldn't be poisoned with it. It was a stang. George, here she is. Hey, what's the matter? What happened? Hey, lady, snap out of it. Snap out of it. Lona. Lona, what is it? What are you doing to her? What's the big idea? Oh, take it easy. Buster, take it easy. It wasn't me. She's just staring at something down there in the fog. Baba, she screamed. I heard her, but I can't see. In the water. In the water. He fell in the water. George, I can't see him. There's his cane, but it's so far from the wharf. Not there. He's not here. He's gone down. I could see him go down. They call him so fast I can't do anything. Hey, there's the police over there. Get a boat for him. Mickelson, step on it. The crew ain't so fast. All right, all right. Do what you can. He just fell. I could see him fall. There was something to matter with him. He walked like the blind. I called out, I shouted. I tried to grab him in time, but he fell. The policeman over there on the deck saw the splash too, Valentine. Looks like stang's been swept out. All right, all right. Only Mrs. Stang... Leave me alone. My baby, I could not grab in time. Don't touch me, Baba. Oh, my baby. Now, look, he fell here, huh? Over this rail? Yes, I think. It was in the fog. Okay, now listen, I don't believe you. And I don't mean just the rail. I mean the scupper's wide and deep, see? If a man fell, he'd only land against the rail. Men. He fell, I say. I saw him fall. They're not doing much good, Valentine. Mickelson. The police couldn't get out in time, neither could I. He didn't come up. He's gone. He's gone. You understand me? Yeah, I understand. It's as phony as a lit nickel. Of course they're lying. But there's nobody aboard the ship except the three of them, was there? Riley, suppose that old Heronin gave the poor guy a shot. Of course she did. What else? You already saw how Baba was covering for Mrs. Stang, didn't you? The good, faithful old Dwayne helping out in all kinds of cute ways. No real witnesses. You'll never get a conviction. I'll get a confession, my friend. You were with the other two, so they couldn't have shoved him. All right, Mrs. Stang, let's go inside and... Mrs. Stang. Oh, I'm sorry. Why? Leave her alone. Still staring at nothing, eh? But you ought to stop shaking, Mrs. Stang. I'm all right. Oh, sure, sure, you're fine, fine. Just a little upset because you're going to get all of Stang's money at the expense of your stooge, poor, faithful old Baba who'd be locked up for murder. She told you he fell. She told you, didn't she? She told you, didn't she? Well, go on, go on! Oh, Doctor, what's the matter? Medical convention, Lieutenant. That other man over there with the bag, colleague of mine, Dr. Morrison, just got here, says a woman called him from the ship almost an hour ago before we came aboard, Valentine. Had to hurry all the way across town. Woman identified herself as Lorna Stang. No, no. She said she'd just gone into her husband's stateroom to give him his regular medicine, only he wouldn't wake up for it. She was afraid he was dead. Oh. So it's just his body that went overboard, don't you understand, Reverend? We'll get a confession that three of them are innocent. Wait a minute, hold it. Doctor, what else in that waist pass? Same wrappers, same medicine. So they poisoned him. What difference does it make? Will you ever prove it? I don't have to. No, no. He had his body, it wouldn't either. Tablets are gone from the mate's cabin where I saw him, aren't they? What's that got to do with this? Hey, Dr. Towing, Derek Stang lived on this stuff. What would happen if it were taken away? Well, it's hard to tell. Die sooner or later, probably. Uh-huh. Well, suppose Lorna Stang had left those tablets with the mate. Suppose they were substituting something harmless for the strong stuff in the blue papers. Suppose that was the idea. Perhaps he couldn't prove that absence of medicine had killed a man. Hey, where you going? Where do you think, rally? To catch a monkey. Mr. Stang told me you talked to animals, that right, proper? Why not? They can say more than men. I already told you we know the whole story, didn't I? That your beloved mistress confessed the whole thing, all of it? And so? And so now tell me he fell overboard. I threw him overboard. He was dead. I see him dead in the bathroom. Oh, great. Helpful Nelly, huh? Now wonder Mrs. Stang wouldn't let you touch her. Now wonder it was she who screamed when she saw you out there on deck. You kind of interfered with their little plan, didn't you? I know nothing of plans. You knew enough that when you saw the body you figured it was murder and thought you'd better be helpful and get rid of the evidence. She is my mistress. For her I would do anything. But she, you say she confessed. I lied. You shuck, oh no. Take it easy, baby. Look out, now look out. Yeah, be careful. Don't get your friends excited. Besides, you're not really mad. You told it too easy, so don't pretend. There should be cages. Oh, I'm not afraid of these things. All behind bars, aren't they? All trapped. Monkeys, can't they? Yeah, even the snakes. I talk to animals too, you know, Baba. No, no, no, I'm not. You are the good and faithful servant of spoiled Lorna Stang's plan for a perfect murder. So perfect, so neat, it must have been put right in front of her. Like bait in front of an animal, like a shiny object in a coconut to trap the greedy monkeys. Sometimes they move the cages. Sometimes there are accidents. Cut it out, old woman, I'm not afraid. But everybody else seems to be stevedores, policemen. They don't come any closer than they have to, do they? You're only too glad to get rid of this slice of the jungle. You talk like they win. Ah, men. Old woman, so faithful to Lorna Stang. I guess she believed it. She put a pretty good act. But then she's young. You can't have been with her very long. And the great hunter told me he found you at Cairo 25 years ago. Faithful to whom, Baba? Now, let's see. Who's everybody most afraid of? Snakes, I guess. Boa const... Look out! Don't touch your kids! The great hunter. Greatest in the world. Hello, Mr. Stang. Stand very still, Mr. Valentine. Ah, yeah, now I get it. The snake was the dead man, thrown overboard. Yeah. Even when I was a kid, I knew how good you were. Don't know why I thought you were slipping. There is a snake in the next cage under my hand, alive and poisonous. You will stand here quietly until I unload it off the ship with my animals. No, you're not a hero anymore. Just a guy who baits coconuts, waits until the monkeys bite. I think they've killed you, and then messed things up by having Baba throw something overboard with a splash. Then she reluctantly admits it. It was you. You would have made a good pupil, Mr. Valentine. I doubt it. You picked me for a sucker, didn't you? Because you arranged this phony quarantine that kept the monkeys aboard, where you'd all be cooped up together, where you could push loin and lies into what they did. Sure, you arranged it all. Mr. Valentine, I lift this catch and the snake is released. He's faster than you. I was hired as a witness, wasn't I? Yes, a witness, Mr. Valentine, to a murder without a bother. Oh, yeah, that's better, isn't it? It'd be second-degree. They'd be put in prison, locked up, put in cages. Yes, yes. I never kill animals, you know? So you baited the trap. In cages, Mr. Valentine, they'll still be here. Perhaps you too, the biggest game in the world, men. And I am the only hunter in the world who ever tried... Hold it, Stang, hold it. Now you listen to me. I'm just an amateur, see? Mr. Valentine, there's no more time. It's up to the snake... When I go hunting, now you listen to me. I'm stupid when I go hunting because I carry a gun. Hey, you see? Now your snake's dead. So you stand still, Buster. I could probably get a game permit for you. Back to the conclusion of our Let George Do It adventure in just a moment. Stang didn't do anything. That's the awful part. He made the other people do things that were wrong so there's nothing the police can hold him for. Angel Derek Stang was really successful, you know that, don't you? He kept trying to get bigger and bigger game all his life. And then he tried to trap human beings into a spot where they'd be caged until he finally trapped himself, don't you understand? Now one look at that guy and what do you think any court would decide? Now don't worry, he'll be in a cage all right, Oh, George. Let's forget this nightmare. Take me someplace for a nice, cozy supper. Hmm. Okay, the trumpet in. Is it nice? Oh, yeah, Angel. They serve a delicious kind of drink there in a coconut shell. Oh, George. You have just heard the hand in the coconut. Another Let George Do It adventure. Robert Bailey was started as George Valentine with Virginia Greg as Bruxy. David Victor and Jackson Gillis wrote the story with music by Eddie Dunsteader. Now this is yours truly inviting you to another visit with Valentine when you will again hear what happens when you Let George Do It.