 Good evening friends. This is your host to welcome you through the creaking door into the inner sanctum. Come in, come in. Just signed up to take some classes this fall. A preparatory school kinda. They guarantee to prepare you for anything or your sanity will be cheerfully refunded. One course in better citizenship is titled How to keep busy though dead. Another popular course is the art of stone sculpturing. The teacher hands you a hammer and a tombstone and then dares you to try something. The length of the course depends on the individual student. It ends promptly when you terminate. Tonight's inner sanctum mystery, Catch a Killer, was written by John Robert and stars Larry Haynes in the role of Stitch with Barbara Weeks as Gale. And now let's exercise our fears. Tonight's drama is told under the byline of Stitch Thompson, a newspaper man as hard boiled as a ten minute egg. The way men get who make murder their business. He's in Joe's restaurant staring restlessly at nothing. The way men do who are fed up with himself. Ten years on the crime beat and your mind begins to crack a little. Like a punch drunk fighter talking to himself. You've seen the sword inside a life and it's crept into your system. You forget more than you remember just to keep from going nuts. But there's one experience I do remember because it happened to me last. It began in court. A guy was being sentenced to death. Marco Chase, you have been found guilty of murder by a jury of your peers. It is the sentence of this court that you be taken to the state penitentiary and kept there until the week of October 20th. It was a girl, a perky little brunette fainting dead away. A wife or a sister maybe or just a woman hearing the bell told over a guy was too young to die. It was a sister as it turned out to be a little while later when I ran into her again at Joe's restaurant, a newspaper man's hang heart. Now you better stop it kid, you'll just get yourself sick. Marco your husband. My brother, he didn't do it. He didn't murder Mona Taylor. It's a little late to go into pros and cons. Mona Taylor was a dancing partner. Yes, but that was all. He wasn't in love with her and he didn't murder her. If Mona Taylor was murdered. If? Well wait a minute they'd never have gotten a conviction without a corpus delicti. They found her in the river, a body that was hardly anything, it had been weak. They identified the body. But how? Teeth, just a small dental crown and a dentist testimony, so-called measurements. The measurements fit, but that could have been a coincidence. Yeah, it could have been. The main gimmick was that dentist testimony. All horribly circumstantial. 90% of hanging evidence is circumstantial kid. Help him Mr. Thompson please. Oh you know me huh? Yes, you've succeeded where the police failed so many times. You've been oversold on my reputation. You won't help me? I wouldn't know how. Sorry. I said no, but I took her red eyes away with me. Her red eyes were right in front of me a couple of days later. I was on an assignment, the city morgue. A local racketeer had been riddled with bullets and tossed into the streets. There was a woman beside me, a relative. She was there to identify the remains. I watched her look and I listened to her scream. Mr. Thompson, I prayed for you to come. There was a corpse in the city morgue just now, and a woman screaming. The way I saw it, the corpse was your brother Marco. The way I heard it, it was you screaming come October 20th. Save Marco, please. That's if he's really innocent. My hats off to your technique, kid. You sure hopped me up with a sense of guilt, made me feel as if... As if? As if I'd be guilty of murder if your brother went to the chair an innocent man. How will you help my brother? You have a plan? No, I'll have to feel around blindly. I'll, uh... I'll needle a corpse into second guessing. One big hints in the newspaper about how the evidence that convicted Marco was a little lightweight. That maybe there's more to the Mona Taylor murder than was told. It's only an arrow in the air, kid. Don't bank on the thing. The arrow landed right on Tom Riter's sore spot. Tom Riter was the county DA. Have you lost your mind completely stitched? Seven stories on the Mona Taylor murder. On the Marco Chase conviction. A closed case. Not until the evening of October 20th. What makes you think he's an innocent man? He's been tried and judged. I don't know exactly. Call it a hunch. Or, uh... Maybe it's his fifth sister's faith that sold me. I'm crazy, huh? You're not kidding. Haven't you something interesting and current to write about? Marco Chase is current and choice. How far do you expect to go with this nonsense? I shouldn't tip my hand, but I will. Right now, Marco's sister Gail is trying to persuade Mrs. Mary Taylor, that's the victim's mother, to petition for court permission to exhume the body of Mona Taylor. Exhumed the body of Mona Taylor? That's if we can get the mother to agree. But why? Well, we not only think Marco Chase is innocent, but we also have an idea that the corpus delicti might not be Mona Taylor. The DA wasn't the only one. There was someone else really put out and determined to do something about it. About me, I mean. I was telling you, I was telling you. Tell me how she made out with Mona Taylor's mother when my door buzzer phoned. I was a kid with a package. Mr. Stetsch Thompson? Yeah, that's me. Well, here's a package for you. Who from? Well, a man in the old drug store said to bring it to you at nine sharp. Nine sharp, it is. Thanks. It was just a package. A box and brown wrapping paper. I opened it. Who wouldn't open it? How suspicious can you get? I got the cover off and the room fell on me. There were bells. There were bells way off somewhere. I was waking up to bells. I've been asleep for a thousand years like a mummy in a tomb. There were bandages all around my head. Hello, Stetsch. Gail, where am I? In a hospital. You've been here three days. What happened? A time bomb wrapped in a parcel was delivered to you. Yeah, I remember it. At nine sharp, it went off right on the button. How bad am I? Cuts and burns. Who did it, Stetsch? Don't know. Someone who doesn't like what I'm up to. Someone who wants the case to stay like it is. Closed. Oh, did you talk Mona Teller's mother into it? Yes, she agreed, finally, just this morning. She petitioned for court permission to exhume the body of her daughter. On the day I was checked out of the hospital, we exhumed the alleged body of Mona Teller and shipped it to a private laboratory. Just what do you hope to accomplish out of this, this grisly business? A detailed chart of the victim, Mr. DA, as well as it can be constructed, all measurements, bone widths, body scars, affinity, and so forth. The physiological story and the medical story, as good as we can get it. And then what? Then we compare it detail for detail with a chart we've gotten up on the known Mona Teller. The idea is to see if the lady now in our laboratory and Mona Teller are the same people. But that's already been done thoroughly. Yeah, I know. By the state, with your experts, this time we're doing it for the defense with our experts. It's all a little speculative, maybe. Just a way of showing we were really an earnest, really dead set on forcing official interest in action. But there was one immediate result. Stitch. Yeah. Her teeth. The dental crown that the state used to prove she was actually Mona Teller. But the one that dentist swore he'd made for her. Yes. So... Mona Teller was buried with her crown in her mouth. Her mother insisted she be buried like that. Remember? Yeah. The old lady did make an issue of it. What about that crown? It's gone. Mona Teller was buried in it. Stitch, but now it's gone. I beat the DA to the dentist whose positive identification of the dental bridge did so much to cinch the state's identification of the body. But why come to me, Mr. Thompson? I'm looking for a dentist. What are you so nervous about, Dr. Penner? Well, I'm a nervous man. Just nervous. Now, look, if you continue like this any further, I'd call the police. Tell the police you've got my fingerprints on your face, lover boy. I said lover boy, but what do you bet you weren't that lucky? What do you bet you made very slow time with Mona Teller? Oh, that's absurd. You're acting slousy. Now, where is Mona Teller? Where is she? Are you insane? She was buried. They buried a girl they called Mona Teller mainly because you identified a dental job in her mouth. Strike out your testimony, and the corpse was a practically unidentifiable somebody washed ashore after weeks in the river. I'm not just guessing or bluffing, Penner. We exhumed the body this morning and found the dental crown she was buried with messy. Missy? You're acting still lousy. A talk. All right. I lied when I identified the crown. Why? Well, I was forced to. Someone kept telephoning threats to kill me if I didn't. Who kept telephoning it? I don't know. It was just a voice on the telephone. A hard, determined voice like yours. A voice I became afraid of. He said it was to both our advantages, his and mine, if the body was identified as Mona Teller. Why'd you go to the crazy risk of stealing the crown? Your newspaper articles made me do it. Your demands that the body be exhumed and in the case reopened. You see, I was afraid another dentist would turn up. The dentist who had really worked on Mona Teller. You see, I never did any work on her. Okay, Pena, get your hat. My hat? And take it off when you enter the DA's office. Tell them what you've told me. Tell them especially that his corpus delicti is probably not the real Mona Teller. And tell them that you wanted to prevent exhumation of the body so desperately you tried to blow Stich Thompson off the face of the earth. You did send that time bomb, didn't you? Yes, I sent it. I must have been crazy. I knew Marco was innocent. Not so fast, Gail. Mona Teller is still a missing dancer who might turn up dead. And the odds are top-heavy that she will turn up just like that. Why are you so certain, Stich? The kind of girl Mona was. All meek and no hard. She made men a career. Bet on it that way, kid. Mona Teller is dead. We bet on it like that. For the mothers reluctant, okay, we hold up in Mona's apartment that night to see if we could get a line on the men in her life from her letters in a stack of diaries. Get a line on one guy, especially. The guy would put the heat on the dentist, pin her in the first place and gotten them to purge her in court. You were right about Mona. Thought her making a career of men. I undersold her. Men crawl through a diaries like ants. She hated men. Men loved her, but she hated them. Yeah. She was no good, Stich. If she's dead, I'm glad. Oh, I get it. She did a good job on your brother, Marco, too. Not for my brother. I don't hate her just for that. I hate her for all the men who fall honestly in love. And for you, Stich, I hate her for you, too. For me? Yes. I've watched you staring at her picture all night. She's beautiful, isn't she? Yeah, yes, she is. But they're rather beautiful women in the world? Yeah, but not like... Look, you've got me moaning over a girl I don't even know. I didn't do it, Stich. It just happened to you. I watched your finger her trinkets before and her gowns. The way your hand touched things Mona owned and wore. How do I touch them? Tenderly. With a touch of love. Am I? Sure, I can go for a girl like the next guy can. So what? I could go for Mona? I could go for you. Can't you? Go for me. Easier than for Mona. She's only a photograph on a bureau. You're alive, baby, right within reach. Then reach, Stich. What? Reach. Kiss me. Are you kidding? No. Kiss me. Funny, but I can't. You can't in her room with her pictures staring at you with Mona live in the room. You're trying to hoodoo me into believing I'm in love with a ghost, but the fact is you're jealous of a ghost. I am jealous of her. It's insane I know, but I am. I'm sorry, Stich. Oh, forget it. It's a kind of a spell in this room anyway. Let's get back to our work. I've got a lot of names here for the DA to investigate the hundred men who were after Mona. If Ryder turns a miracle, he'll pull the one man out of the list. The one man who can lead the police to Mona. But if one woman can lead the police to Mona. One woman? Yes, Stich. One woman. Me. You? I don't get it. I know where Mona Taylor is buried. I visited my brother in the death house last night. Marco told me, thanks. Gail knew all right and showed me. We drove up state New York into the Catskills and parked outside a big iron gate that had a sign over a main lodge reading, Martinsons bungalows for rent, hunting and fishing. All right? Now what? There's scattered bungalows half mile up that footpath. We'll have to walk the rest of the way. And, uh, Mona's up there somewhere? Yes, but my brother left her. The night she disappeared. Mona was there, all right? Up where a natural lake had dried into marshland. I got on my hands and knees and turned my flashlight on her, but I couldn't see her. There was a burlap bag over her. The last resting place was a broken covert built into a dam that was no longer in use, but Mona was no longer in use. Your, uh, brother left to hear you say. What's the rest of it? Marco rented a cabin up here for the season. He'd driven Mona up. They were to go over a new dance routine. Marco drove to the village to shop for groceries, provisions. He left Mona here, reading. When he got back, she was dead, shot through the heart. Marco lost his head. He didn't notify the police. He hid her here. Mm-hmm. Afraid he'd be the fall gang, huh? Yes. Their names had been linked romantically. They'd fought publicly backstage in nightclubs. Why didn't he open up about where the real Mona Taylor was during his trial? He gambled on being acquitted, but in hiding Mona, he compromised himself hopelessly. I couldn't advise him. I discovered these things just last night when I visited him. Whoever sneaked up here to shoot Mona came up on foot. Parked his car at that big gate down there and came up on foot. He had to. This was during the daytime. You said the stores were open for your brother to do his shopping. It was between noon and 2 p.m. on July 18th. And that name down there where we parked, Martins, who is Martins? Flora Martins in the widow. She manages the lodge and rents out the bungalows. Let's go have a talk with her. A strange car parked out there on that day, July 18th. It was at one o'clock. I took the license number down and it's right here in my daybook. I phoned the license number to District Attorney Ryder. But before dropping in on him to see who he'd nailed, I took Gail to Joe's restaurant. And she was red-eyed again like the day I met her. All right. All right. Now what's watering your eyes, kid? Nothing special. I've always cried since I was a child. I've cried. Oh, what for? Or is it for what? For everything. And everybody. For the mess people make out of their lives. For my brother. For all the men who fall in love with all the moanings. I cry for you too, Stitch. For a wreck who blanks out here at Joe's seven nights a week, huh? For a great newspaper man who could have been a wonderful guy. Thanks for the tears, baby. You ever cried for yourself? I am now. Not crying for a girl who could have fallen in love with a guy who could have been a wonderful guy. Thanks again, baby. Stitch, where are you going? To see what the DA's come up with. Hi, DA. Hello, Stitch. Sit down. I checked auto license 6Y 410. I wired the state cap on your tip. Here's what they wired back. Green Coupe 1946. The owner's vital statistics are age 36, height 511, weight 175 pounds, eyes blue. You sure he was the man who murdered Mona Taylor? Yeah, I'm sure. What's his name and address? He lives at 625 10th Street. His name is Stitch Thompson. Why'd you come forward like this now? This late. I didn't. A brunette named Gale pushed me forward. She knew I was the guy who murdered Mona. She also knew I was a punch drunk reporter who'd blanked out. So she started a campaign to start me remembering. You know, she did it to save her brother. Well, a funny thing happened to her. She's in Jaws right now. Crying her eyes out for me. Imagine rolling up your sleeves only to put the finger on yourself. You know, for a guy whose moniker was Stitch, our boy was certainly unraveled. Mona had a way with men, so Stitch did away with Mona. Did some wolf just observe that Mona was more... kissed off than kissed? Good thing Gale was able to maneuver Stitch into remembering. Marko my words it was. Inner Sanctum was heard in the United States for CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System, and has been rebroadcast for service men and women overseas. This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, the voice of information and education.