 Suspense in the producer of radio's outstanding theatre of thrills, the master of mystery and adventure, William M. Robeson. Among the great classics of radio drama, none is more memorable than Three Skeleton Key, although few who have heard it would remember it by that title. To them it is simply that story about the rats, and that it is, an unforgettable experience in horror. We repeat it now because we can't help ourselves. We like to scare, as well as you like to be scared. Listen. Listen then as Vincent Price stars in Three Skeleton Key, which begins in just a moment. And now, Three Skeleton Key, starring Vincent Price. A tale well calculated to keep you in. Suspense. Try and picture this place. A grey tapering cylinder welded by iron rods and concrete to the key itself. A bare black rock 150 feet long, maybe 40 wide. That's a low tide. At high tide, just the light rising 110 feet straight up out of the ocean. And all about it, the churning water, grey-green, scum-dappled, warm as soup, and swarming with gigantic bat-like devilfish. Great violet schools, a Portuguese man-a-war, and yes, sharks, the big ones, 15-footers. And as if this wasn't enough, there was a hot dank, rotten-smelling wind that came at us day and night off the jungle swamps of the mainland. A wind that smelled like death. Set in the base of the light is a watertight bronze door. And in you go, and up, and up, round and round. Over the light store room is the food store room, and over the food store room is the bunk room for the three of us slept. And over the bunk room is the living and cooking room, and over the living and cooking room is the light. She was a beauty. Balanced like a ballerina on the disning steel axle of her rotary mechanism. My companions in the light were an odd and opposite pair. Big Louie, the head man who hardly ever talked, and Auguste, who never stopped. But it wasn't a bad life, especially at night when the others were snoring in their sacks two levels down. Usually there was nothing to see across the starlit water. For most ships knew better than to come close to three skeleton key. But one night, gazing out across the phosphorescent comas, I noticed something show for a second in the revolving light. Something far off. A three master, a big one, about half a mile off, and coming down out of the north-northwest coming straight for us. I went over to the gallery door and yelled, Louie! Louie! Come on in there, ship headed for the reef. I had the glasses out now. I couldn't read her name, but I could see her quite plainly. All sails set, the phone creaming away under her power, beautiful lines, but why didn't she turn? Every time our light turned, it hit her with a glare of day. The ship? Where? North, northwest. The light will touch her in a moment. Can't they see? Look at her. She just keeps coming on. Oh, the square heads. What is it? What is it? Watch northwest, August. I know, I know what it is. The Dutchman, the flying Dutchman. She is derelict, that's it. Derelict? Abandoned. Crew left her for some reason or other, but instead of sinking, she's gone on, running before every wind. She'll not run long, not with these reefs to break her up. Beautiful ship. Now, why would men leave a beautiful ship like that? It's impossible. Absolutely impossible. What? Here, take my glasses, they're stronger than yours. All right. What is it, you? Who's in my throat? The decks were swarming with a dark brown carpet that looked like a gigantic fungus, but undulating and on the masts and yards were hundreds, no thousands, no meat. I don't know an inestimable number of tremendous rats. The three of us frozen in terror, appearing through our binoculars as the rat-covered ship gracefully, relentlessly bore down upon the key. Until it lashed with a horrible certainty, splintering and grinding upon the rocks, she ran aground. Look, the rats on the water. Like a carpet. They're swimming. Well, sure, they're swimming. Those are ship's rats. But they're swimming for the rocks. Come on! Down we went, racing down the stone stairs, taking them three and four at a time. Scared? You bet we were scared. The most you'll get for windows made it in climb, we don't know. All right, Chief, but hurry, hurry. You see them? Yes, I do. We're up at the other end of the rock. Look at them, me. And they smell us. Here they come. Close the door. I can't, it's shut off here. Oh, move, you wheeze. I made it. That was close. One got in. Look, there. Watch it, he did. Kick him. He was as big as a Tomcat. Bigger. And his eyes were wild and red. He was long and sharp and yellow. He went for a starve and ravenous, and we fought him. Fought that one rat all over the room. It was, oh, believe me, I do not exaggerate. It was like fighting a panther. I got him. We ran up the winding staircase. We passed the tiny windows of the various levels, and everyone was covered with a thick, wriggling, screaming curtain of brown fur. The air of the gallery was thick and fetid with the stink of them. The light was dim, brown, tilted through the crawling mass that swarmed over the glass all about us. We could not see the sky in nothing, nothing but them. Their red eyes, their claws, their wriggling, hairy snouts, and their teeth. What can we do? What can we do, Chief? Take it easy, old goose. Take it easy. No, I can't. I just can't. They won't do any good. Won't do any good to stand here and shake. Go away. Go away. Do you hear me? Go away. They won't go away. Not until... Finish it, Chief. Not until what? Not until they've been fed. All day long, we sat there in silent horror, watching the writhing mass trying to reach us through the glass, and then at last it began to get dark. One side of the room was lit a soft, filtered red. Sunset through the rats. Very pretty. I set the wicks, checked my fuel, and then lit the lamp. It caught them, lit them in their gigantic, wriggling web of pale, hairless bellies, twitching red tails, bright eyes. And then I started the rotary motor. The light drove them mad. As she swung slowly and smoothly about, she blinded them in the fierce, stabbing bar of light moving continually about ever turning, ever touching, ever moving around and around, and they twitching and shuddering, eyes flaming when they were struck by the light, blinking and twinkling like the stars of hell. You must make the most of any situation to endure it. And we found a way to entertain ourselves by teasing the rats. Sounds crazy horrible. It was fun. We would get right up against the glass and make faces at them. It drove them crazy. They would scratch away trying to get at our eyes. Louis was even cuter about it. He'd pull a piece of bread out of his pocket and press it against the glass. The rats would scramble into a solid ball biting each other, clustering like grapes. In time to time, a whole lot of them would slip and fall 110 feet to the surf below. Look at the sharks. They're eating them. The sharks are our friends. I'll get another bunch to get it. Hey, little beauties. That's it. Pile up. Kill each other. There they go. August joined in too. Very ingenious August. He learned that if he spready-gold himself against the glass, they'd bunch and bundle against his figure, then he'd leap back. Look! My portrait, he rats. I went off watch about midnight. And I was just falling asleep when I became conscious of a new sound. I couldn't figure it at first. So I got up, lit the lamp and went to the window. Even as I looked at it, I saw one of the pains begin to sag in. They were eating the wood away. Louis, Louis, come quick. They found a way in. Held the glass with my hand. And now they were all going crazy and assured of the success of this maneuver. They were nibbling away at the frame. Louis ran below and then returned with a large sheet of tin. We spread it against the window and hammered in their place. Even as we did so, we felt the heavy bodies sputting against the other side as the window gave way. That ought a hold. But if it doesn't, we're done for. Rats can't eat tin. Oh, Dad. I don't know. But it came from below. They're in. They're swarming up the stairs. Drop the trap door. Two of them got in. We didn't have to go after them. They came at us. I leaped to one side and grabbed them on a spike. Swung and smashed one in midair. I hurled to see Louis with the other. It had ripped his hand open and the blood was pouring all over the place. He held his hand aloft and kicked at the snarl. He stepped already. Swung and got it. My hand. He got my hand. That's both of them, Louis. I'll get you something to pry that off. Bleeding. Look at it. My bladder. I'm bleeding. Don't worry about it, Louis. Now look, look, look. I'll wipe this kerchief about. It'll be okay. Now it's not bad. Just the flesh. Then I became conscious. Of a new sound. They were gnawing their way through the wooden trapdoor. I watched the planks fascinated. And even as I did it began to give way. A bristling, whiskery snout showed through. The gallery. The trapdoor and the gallery it steals. Good. Come on. We made it. We lay across the trap exhausted while below us the rats took over the entire tower. I could hear them howling and fighting over our food supply, our water, our leather. And all about us the others screamed and glared in us. Swing in a tangled mass hypnotized by the ever-turning light. By morning the air in the little room was horrible. Until now we've been getting air from the tower below. Now that was sealed off. And so was all our food and water. We lay exhausted panting, waiting, waiting. The hours crawled on. I was almost dozing from fatigue when I heard something that brought me to my feet. Would you like to come in my beauty? I hold the powers of life and death and I can let you in, you know. A ghost was standing by the glass and in one hand he held a big wrench. He was tapping the glass gently. Not quite hard enough to break it. I eased myself to my feet and slowly, very slowly, it fell toward him. All I have to do is tap just a little harder. And it broke. For company and all about watching our little drama, the rats. The following day we lay thirst tormented, starving, waiting, waiting. And the following night I again tended the light. But the small supply of spare wicking we kept in the gallery had become exhausted and quite suddenly at about midnight the light went out. There was nothing I could do. Wicks were stored three levels below. Nothing I could do, nothing. From time to time I'd strike a match to see the clock. And when I did it lit up the million red eyes about us. All about us, watching, waiting. Below it had grown quiet, it cleaned us out and now they too were waiting. All waiting. And then the rats quite suddenly were silent. And then I heard it. And then I saw the sky and the stars. The rats were gone. Yes, out there on the water a small freighter, a banana boat, came softly and innocently at us. The light was out. They didn't know. I wanted to open the windows to call out to them, to warn them somehow. But I was afraid what if the rats were hiding from me, tricking me. And so I waited. She grounded very softly on a reef, not 200 yards from the key. Grounded so gently that the man playing the cornet was he a passenger, a crewman off-watch, didn't even stop playing. She tried washing her back off. I could have told them to save their fuel. The tide was rising, would have floated her free. And I waited. That's the story. The sun came up and there wasn't a rat on the whole key. Every last one of that terrible army had deserted us. They had gone back to sea on their new ship. August, insane as hell, and he never recovered. And Louis, they took him into Cayenne where he died of blood poisoning from his bite. Life on three skeleton keys isn't bad these days, but sometimes when I see a strange vessel approaching, I get a little nervous. Can you blame me? Somewhere on the seas there's a little banana boat without a crew. That is without a human crew. Suspense. In which Vincent Price starred in William M. Robeson's production of Three Skeleton Key, written by George Tuduz and adapted for suspense by James Poe. In just a moment, the names of the supporting players and a word about next week's story of suspense. Supporting Vincent Price and Three Skeleton Key were Ben Wright and Lawrence Dobkin. Sound patterns by Tom Hanley and Bill James. Listen. Listen again next week when we return with another tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. America listens most to the CBS radio network.