 Here, Mr. Bradley, girl in mystery drowning, Penaquit, Maine. While her sister stood helplessly on the dock, Abigail Thorne, 26, was drowned in the bay here at midnight last night. According to her sister, Sarah, the older girl was about to board her ship. The black swan. Well, yes, that's the name. How did you know? How did I know? Because it had to be. It had to be. Midnight, the witching hour when the night is darkest, our fears the strongest and our strength at its lowest end. Midnight, when the graves gape open and death strikes. How? You'll learn the answer in just a moment in the black swan Leon Meadow is. Listen to the waves against the dock. Yeah, it's six years since I, Amos Bradley, last heard this sound. Last stood here in the moonlight looking out over Penaquit Bay. And there she rides at anchor just as she did six years ago. A black ship against the sky. 45 feet of black hull beauty. The loveliest sloop ever turned out in the main shipyard. 45 feet of unholy black evil. The black swan, she was named. But a better name would have been ship of death. Yes, she was even launched in blood. No, Mr. Thorne. Left Fred talk about a ship built by Fred Thorne. Fred thinks she's a tremendous job he ever turned out. Well, yes, sir. I'll get him just as soon as we check the keel plate. He'll be pleased, buddy, to find birthday presents. Give us a man's life and take us this life. Stand aside, Caleb. What's taking him so long? I left the yard for months. She lay there on the ways like a stranded whale on a beach. There was talk in town about old Caleb turning strangely on the one thing he was supposed to love, his daughter Abby. But I dismissed it as idle village gossip. Actually, no one knew very much about that family. The Thorns kept themselves on that little island of theirs. You can just make it out. Yeah, they're beyond the breakwater. And then one day, about six months after Fred was killed, I ran into Philip Hazlidon Main Street. That's just the man I want. I'm looking for a first mate. Since when? Well, I had a note from Abby yesterday. She wants me to bring the black swan up to the island. The black swan? I thought the old man... Changed his mind, I guess. Now you never can tell with him. But Abby, I mean, after what happened? Oh, come now. You certainly haven't started believing that old wife stuff. Not, of course not. But the old man swore he'd never look at the ship again. Search me. Well, anyway, I'm to bring her out Saturday. You want to come? Yeah. I think I do. You take over the wheel. She handles like a dream. Well, Fred knew how to build them. Now, watch it. She's trigger light to the touch. Well, maybe this is the turning point. Maybe now... Well, maybe now Abby will set the date. Now that she's put these childish fears behind her. You've been patient, Phillip. I'd wait forever for Abby Thorne. How about the old man? You know how he feels about Abby or how he was supposed to. You'll just have to learn to like it. Cut her closer to the boy. That's it, Amy. Right. Now, a few points. Ah, there we are. There's the dock. He was standing there on the little dock. Waiting for us. Waving to us as we anchored in the cove and jumped into the dory. A dark-haired, willowy girl. Lovely girl. And next to her, next to her was Sarah, sister Sarah, 14. A smaller, incredibly faithful replica of Abby. Except for her eyes. Her piercing, stony, blue eyes which were like Caleb's. Frighteningly like Caleb's. Abby had planned a picnic for us at Arrow Beach on the other side of the island. She and Phillip had set out first to get away from Caleb, I suspect. And I was to bring Sarah along later. Well, just as we were about to leave the house, Caleb stopped me. He'd scarcely uttered a word since our arrival. Why don't you to see something, gamers? Oh, all right. You come too, Sarah, to friends' room. All right, Father, only I know what it is. Yes, Sarah knows. It's our secret. We keep it locked in Fred's room. We waited till Abby was gone. Abby's left us. Oh, Father means she's with Phillip. Abby's gone. Abby's left us. See him, he's on the floor there. What? It's a tool chest, complete set. Here's tools, Fred's. All his tools, his planes and chisels and gouges. And all the bits and braces and mallets. All his tools. Aren't they beautiful, Amos? The way they shine? We keep them shiny and clean. Just the way Fred always kept them. It's our secret. Abby doesn't know. Abby's left us. But Fred is back now. See all his tools. And someday, Father's going to take them and put them all in that big chest and bury them out at sea. That's what Sarah and me planned. Only now I have a better idea. You didn't tell me, Father, you didn't. Where, Father? Where could there be a better place? There's a better place, all right. Well, go on, go on, your place, all right. Remember much about that picnic? Except Abby's unusual quietness. Phillip's efforts to keep the conversation alive and Sarah's strange restlessness. She stared at me constantly. Warning me silently with those intense blue eyes. Warning me about that secret at Caleb's. Well, I was glad I know that when we finally said goodbye late that night, rode out to the black swan and cast off. I don't get it. Get what? The ship, the way she's acting. She's not responding. She's sluggish. Ah, temperamental. Where do we get out beyond the coach? She feels a wind. Look stiff out there. She's nosing down in this heavy... Second victim. I managed to get the swan back. And shortly afterward, I left Penaquit to work in Boston for my uncle's engineering firm. I heard nothing from her about the thorns for a year when I received a short, formal note from Abby. Her father had passed away peacefully in his sleep. I would have been less surprised had Caleb's death been more violent, had the black swan somehow been involved. And then once more, Penaquit and the thorns receded into the past. Three, four, five years slipped by uneventfully. Before the black swan again revived my half-forgotten fears. I had just returned from a conference to find Miss Brewster, my assistant, standing at my desk, glancing at the evening newspaper. She looked up as I entered the office. You're from Penaquit, Mayn, aren't you, Mr. Bradley? Yeah. Yeah, what about Penaquit? Well, this little item here. Possibly you know the girl. Sounds positively spooky. Girl in mystery drowning, Penaquit, Mayn. While her sister stood helplessly on the town dock, Abigail Thorn, 26, was drowned in the bay here at midnight last night. According to her sister, Sarah, 20, the older girl was just about to board her ship. The black swan. Oh, yes. That is the name. Black swan. How did you know? How did I know? It had to be. It had to be. Dark of night. And a ship with a past that is just as dark. What would you expect of a ship that was launched in blood, but... Murder! Has the ship of death singled out for its next victim? Listen as Amos tries to find the answer. I didn't think a ship could be a murderer. Fred Thorn, who built the black swan for his sister, Abby. Then Philip Haslett, who loved that sister, Abby. And then Abby. Lovely dark-haired Abby herself. And who's to be next? Well, that's why I'm here now. Why I've come back after all these years to Penaquit Bay. I'm going to find out tonight. Yeah, I know. It's late and dark. Care to come? No? Can't say I blame you. What's that? May storm a bit later? Well, fine. It suits me just fine. I'm going out there, see? Sailor myself. Before this night is done, I am going to know the answer. For all this time, somebody must be taking care of it. Somebody is, Amos. It can't be. You need a flashlight to reassure you? Wouldn't Abby's ghost be more companionable in this pale, thin, old life? It's you, Sarah. Little Sarah. For a moment, I... I thought I was Abigail. Yes, Amos, you were the one who always said I was the image of it. I am. A pale image. A reflection without substance. Come over here and sit down, Amos. After all, we have a lot to talk about. You want to know, don't you? You came back to find out about Abby. The black swan? Yes, Amos. But the paper didn't say how or why, did it? It didn't tell about the fights we had. Abby and I, after Father died, the bitter fights we had about the black swan. Until one day, Abby, why not sell her? What's so precious about that horrible ship? I won't, that's all. Hasn't she caused enough grief? Let her rot to pieces in the harbor. I won't sell her. You're afraid, aren't you? Afraid she might kill someone else. I'm afraid. Then make sure she never has another chance. Sure. How? Destroy her in the harbor. We could burn her in the harbor tonight. And that's what you were going to do that night? Yes, Amy. We put two cans of gasoline in the dory and rode out to the black swan. But instead of the paper, you were standing on the dock. I was. We were about halfway out when suddenly a strange feeling of watching Abby get to her feet a gasoline can in one hand. Do you see it happening swiftly without warning? Only two left who cared. And we'd come back to find out. Amos, who loved my sister in silence. And Sarah? Who? I might have told you once. She went away like the others. I've come back, Sarah. Yes. Because there's no rest for you either. No rest until we know. Look to the anchor, Amos. It's time we did know. My friend at the dock was right. It's going to storm. Yes, I think so. And we haven't learned anything. She's handling like any other ship. Only better. That's Fred Builder to handle. She's biding her time, that's all. What are you thinking? Do you remember the picnic that day? Yes, sir. That night, after you and Phillip had left, I went to Fred's room. They were gone. His tools, the chest. Gone? You mean Caleb? Yes. Father had taken them away while we were picnicking over at Arrow Beach. Taking them where? He wouldn't tell me. He said he'd found a better place to get saying that over and over, but he would never tell me where. I think so after Phillip was killed. How? Well, it goes back to Fred, my brother Fred. Don't you see, Father commissioned Fred to build the black swan as a birthday present for Abby. It was one of the ways he thought he could, well, buy Abby away from Phillip. And Fred was the first victim of the black swan. Yeah. Then Phillip. And the more Father tried, the worse it became. Abby wouldn't talk to him, not a word. Phillip, Phillip took Abby further away from your father than he could possibly have done in life. Phillip's death? No, Amos. Phillip's murderer did that. The black swan. I don't like the way she's blowing up. And I don't. Now that the swan is behaving herself. Yes. Well, maybe so, but the weather isn't. Now that you've promised to come back to Boston with me and to leave all this behind you, I'm not taking any chance. Any way you say him. Yes, sir. It's half submerged. Why, there? They are. They're his tools. Fred's tool chest and everything. When Caleb said he knew a better place, he meant in the ship. Yes, he took the chest and nailed it up under the deck, up at the bow. That's why the black swan acted so strangely. The night Phillip and I left the island. But, Amos, tonight she was acting so beautifully, too. I know. That's because somehow all these years she's been rocking there in the harbor. The chest worked itself loose. Just loose enough so it would ship with the ship's motion. But then, I mean, what happened when we tried to bring her in tonight? Well, my guess is that the chest suddenly got itself wedged in tight in one place, off-center. That's why she wouldn't answer the helm. Fred's chest. Yes, Amos. Yes, that's why she rolled so badly the night Abby and I... Don't, Sarah. It's all over now. It is over now, isn't it? It was almost over for us. And then no one would have known. We know now, Sarah. Yes, the black swan has been brought to justice. And by her own hand. A strange family. And the ship was launched in blood. With such a setting, it's no wonder that what was meant as a tribute and an act of love turned into comes in with a rising tide. And the clocks strike twelve.