 Suspense. This is the man in black, here again to introduce Columbia's program, Suspense. From Hollywood we bring you a star, Mr. Orson Wells, who this evening begins a four-week engagement as guest of these proceedings. In the interest of prime suspense, Mr. Wells and the producer of this series have scheduled four radio stories, which they feel are particularly distinguished in our chosen field. The first of these is The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Gonell. And so with the performance of Orson Wells and the character of General Zaroff and Keenan Wynne as Sanger Rainsford, who learned from Zaroff what was the most dangerous game, we again hope to keep you in suspense. Any moment now he may come in and when he does, I'm going to kill him. It's him or me. And I'm going to do my best to make it him. Oh, maybe it sounds crazy to you. I guess it does. It would have sounded crazy to me a few days ago when I was with Whitney on the yacht. I was on a pleasure trip. A pleasure trip! How could I or anyone realize then the horror and torment I was to go through? How was I to know of Yvonne and the death swamp and the hounds? How was I to know of Zaroff? Think of it. It was only four nights ago that the ship went down. We've been talking about this island, Ship Trap Island with Whitney said it was called on the charts. It was sleepy and started on down below to turn in. I was mixing myself in nightcap when I looked up and saw it. A tremendous reef racing at us out of the fog. I screamed out a warning but it was too late. We were right upon it. Safe out on the prowl but the force of the explosion hurled me into the blood warm waters. Terrified at the suddenness and surprise my stomach weak and sick at the thought of the others. The sea was eddy and furiously around the sinking remnants of the ship. A certain cold headiness came to me and made me swim desperately away. Or I might not have lived to go through the horror which was soon to come. I struck out to the right in the direction of the island about which Whitney had been telling me. I had no recollection of how long I swam but all at once I heard the mustering and growling of the sea breaking on the rocky shore. With my remaining strength I dragged myself from the swirling waters. All in gasping my hands raw I had last reached a flat place at the top. I flung myself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of my life. When I awoke I was in a strange place having no idea how I had done it. A man seemed to be awakening. Where is this? He had to be taken care of. Oh, God, there's life on this island. I hardly believed. Few people do. Yes, you aren't quite safe here in my castle, Mr. Rainsford. Rainsford, I'm... Sanger Rainsford of New York. Rainsford? Sanger Rainsford? Yes. Well, it is indeed a very great pleasure and honor to welcome you, Mr. Sanger Rainsford. You're the celebrated hunter, are you not? Yes, yes, you know me? By reputation only. I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see. My name is General Zaroff. I am not English, Mr. Rainsford, but I went to a good school. Perhaps you recognize the colors of my tie. No, it makes no difference. I've lived too long in the jungle to be a snob. Well, I... I can't tell you how happy I am to meet you, General. And I can't tell you how happy I am to meet you, Mr. Rainsford. But come, we shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later. You must be hungry. Yes, I am rather. What? Ivan thought you'd like a robe. He's drying your clothes for you. Oh, thank you. Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow, which you mustn't mind his looks. His ears were cut off in battle, and he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. He is sensitive about his appearance. A simple fellow, really, but I'm afraid a bit savage. He's been in our family for years. Follow Ivan if you please, Mr. Rainsford. I was about to have my lunch just before you awoke. We can have it together now. Does the robe fit you all right? Yes, yes, perfectly, thanks. I am so glad. You have quite a collection of heads here. Lions, tiger, elephants, moose, bears. I don't believe I've ever seen a more perfect specimen. They are nice. I take great pride in them. You have good cause. Coming from you, Mr. Rainsford, that is a great compliment. Here we are. You sit over there. Thank you. Good at all. Hi, Ivan. We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please forgive many lapses. Of course. Well off the beaten track, you know. Uh, Shushu. Shushu. It's a hunting falcon. Shushu is of no further usefulness in the field. But I am fond of its company. My not, little sweetheart. Patience, my darling. I know you're hungry, my dear. We hunt tonight. Your heads are really remarkable, General. That, uh, that Cape buffalo is the largest I've ever seen. Ah, that fellow, he's a monster. Did he charge you? Held me against a tree, fractured my skull. Let me the scar. And I got the brute. I've, uh, I've always thought the Cape buffalo was the most dangerous of all games. Uh, no, no, you're wrong. Wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous game. Yvonne, the wine. Oh, no. Oh, no. How does he understand you? He reads my lips. If you like to shantay, Mr. Rainsford, Yvonne chills it expertly. Uh, no, no, the Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous game. Here in my preserve on this island, I hunt more dangerous games. Oh, is there a big game on this island? The biggest. Really? Well, it isn't here naturally, of course. I have to stock the island. What have you imported, General, uh, Jaguars? Jaguars. I hope you like feeling me, Mr. Rainsford. I do very much. Thank you. Uh, is it Jaguars, General? No, no, no, no. Hunting Jaguars ceased to interest me some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left in Jaguars, you understand? No real danger. I live for danger, Mr. Rainsford. We will have some capital hunting. You and I. I should be most glad to have your company. Yes, but I'll tell you... I'll tell you, you'll be amused, I know. I think you may say in old Modesty that I've done a rare thing. Yes, I've invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of champagne, Mr. Rainsford? Thank you, General. God makes some men poets. Some he makes kings, some beggars. Me, he made a hunter. My hand was made for the trigger. My father once said that. Made for the trigger. My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I've hunted every kind of game in every land. It'd be impossible for me to tell you how many animals I've killed. Grizzlies in your Rockies, Crocodiles in the Ganges, rhinoceroses in East Africa. There's an Africa, by the way. That Cape Buffalo hit me and made me up for six months. As soon as I recovered, I started for the Amazon to hunt Jaguars. But I'd heard they were unusually cunning. They weren't. They were no match at all for a hunter with his wits about him. The high-powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. As I, in my tintle, the spritzing headache one night, a terrible thought pushed its way into my head. Hunting was beginning to bore me. And hunting, remember, had been my life. I've heard that in America, businessmen often go to pieces when they give up the business and it's been their life. Yes, yes, that's so. I had no wish to go to pieces. I must do something. Now, mine is an analytical mine, Mr. Rainsford. Doubtless. That is why I enjoy the problems of the chase. So I asked myself why the hunt no longer fascinated me. You are much younger than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but you perhaps can guess the answer. Simply this, hunting had ceased to be what you call a sporting proposition. It had become too easy. I always got my quarry. Always. It's no greater bore than perfection. Cigarette? No, thank you. No animal had a chance at me anymore. Not a chance. That is no boast. It is a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought of this, it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you. It came to me as an inspiration. What I must do. And that was... I had to invent a new animal to hunt. A new animal? Oh, you're joking. Not at all. I never joke about hunting. I needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this island, built this castle, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect for my purposes. There are jungles, there are the maze of trails in them. Heels, swamps... Yes, but the animal, the animal genitals are... It surprised me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares to that for an instant. Every day I hunt. I never grow bored now. For I have a quarry with which I can match my wits. Yes, but you still haven't... I wanted the ideal animal to hunt, so I said, what are the attributes of an ideal quarry? And the answer was, of course, it must have courage, cunning, and above all, it must be able to reason. Well, no animal. There is one that can. One? I can't mean... And why not? Well, I... I can't believe you're serious, General Zarov. You're just joking. Joking? I'm quite serious. Speaking about hunting. Hunting? You're speaking about murder. Oh, dear me, that unpleasant word. I think I can show you that your scruples are quite ill-founded. Yes, I hunt the scum of the earth. Sailors from tramships, laskers, mongrels, a thoroughbred horse, a hound is worth more than a scorer. But these are men. Precisely, that is why I use them. It gives me pressure. They can reason after a fashion, so they are dangerous. But where do you get them? We visit my training school. It's in the cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down there. Now they're from the Spanish box, in the cellar that had the bad luck to go with the rocks out there. A very inferior lot, I regret to say. Poor specimens, more accustomed to the deck than to the jungle. Not a glass. It's a game, you see. Sort of game. I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours' start. I'm to follow. I follow the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him... Suppose he refuses to be hunted. I give him his choice, of course. He need not play that game if he does not wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honour of serving as official nauta to my old king, and he has his own ideas of sport. The invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they choose the hunt. And if they win, to date, I have not lost. I do not wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of problem. I assure you, occasionally I strike a tartar. She remembers the tartar, don't you doubt me? Yes, he almost did win. I eventually had to use the hounds. You see? Open the window. Good lot, I think. They let out at seven every night. Anyone should try to get into my castle all out of it, something extremely regrettable to curtain. But enough of this come, I won't show you a collection of heads I'm quite sure you've never seen before. Join me the library for coffee. I, uh, hope that you will excuse me tonight, General. I'm really not feeling well at all. Indeed. I know what it is. My old complaint. Oh, newly boredom, you need some excitement. Tonight we'll hunt. Hey, Mr. Rainsford. You and I. You're wrong, General. I won't hunt. I won't murder. As you wish, my friend. The choice rests entirely with you. But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Naivans? Ooh, ooh, ooh. My dear fellow. You don't mean that you plan to hunt me. My dear fellow. Have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting. This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel at last. I simply can't believe that this must be some sort of dream. You'll find the game worse playing, Mr. Rainsford. Think of it, your brain against mine, your woodcraft against mine, your strength, your stamina against mine, outdoor chess. And the steak is not without value, eh? And if I will... I will surely acknowledge myself defeated if I do not find you by midnight at the third day. My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town. Or you can trust me and give you my word as a gentleman, as a sportsman. Of course you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here. I will agree to nothing of the kind. Oh. Well, in that case. Hmm, but why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Vufricco unless, uh... we'll... Your choice, Mr. Rainsford. I'm a hunter, you know my choice. Ivan here will supply you with hunting clothes, food, and knife. I suggest you wear moccasins, they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it death swamp. There's quicksand there. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. We'll always take our siesta after our lunch. Don't we, Shushu? God, my little pet. You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear, Mr. Rainsford. You'll want to start. Of course. I shall not follow through dusk. Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think? Au revoir, Mr. Rainsford. Au revoir. I... I'd fought my way through the bush for two hours, repeating to myself over and over again, I must keep my nerve, I must keep my nerve. My whole idea at first was to put distance between myself and General Zarov. And at this end I had plunged along through the thicket spurred on by the sharp rouls of something very much like panic. Now I had got a grip on myself. I'd stopped. I was taking stock of the situation. I saw that straight flight was futile. Inevitably it would bring me face to face with the sea. Now I'll give him a trail, I'm worried. And I struck off from the rude path I had been following and into the trackless wilderness. I made a series of intricate loops. I doubled back on my trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, all the dodges of the fox. I found me exhausted. My hands and face lashed by the branches on a thickly wood ridge. My need for rest was imperative and I thought, I played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable. A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was nearby. And taking care not to leave the slightest mark, I climbed up and stretched out among the broad limbs. Rest brought me new confidence and almost a feeling of security. Even so expert, a hunter as General Zorov cannot face me here, I assured myself. An apprehensive night crawled slowly by, my mind keenly alerted for any sound, any warning. Towards the dawn, an instinct I'd ever knew existed. Like an animal must possess and it held me to look far off in the distance in the correctly direction. Sure enough, following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zorov. Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how fine a heart pounding furiously, I slid down quickly from the tree and struck off again into the woods. I knew I had to do something desperate. I knew that I had little time in which to do it. 300 yards from my hiding place, I stopped for a huge dead tree throwing off my sack of food. I took my knife from its sheath and began to work with all my energy. And I threw myself down behind a fallen log, 300 feet away. It was flight that carried me on for hours. I don't know where I got the strength. I kept telling myself over and over again that I must keep my nerve, that I was competing with a monster, a super huntsman. Dust came, then darkness, and still I managed to press on. The ground grew softer under my moccasins, the vegetation grew rancor denser, insects bit at me savagely. Suddenly, as I stepped forward, my foot sank into the woods. I tried to wrench it back, but the moccasins sucked viciously at my foot like a giant leech. With a violent amour, I tore my foot loose. With shoulders, I climbed out and from some hard saplings cut steaks and sharpened them to a pint. These steaks I planted in the bottom of the pit with a point sticking upwards. As fast as I could, I wore the rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it covered the mouth of the pit. And wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, I crouched behind the stump of a lightning charm tree. Oh, I knew Zharov was coming. I could hear the pattle sound of his feet on the softer. Zharov was coming and coming fast. He was not feeling his way along foot by foot. He had no single pit. I lived a year and a minute frozen every muscle tensed. I was awakened by a sound that made me know I had new things to learn about fear. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering. The baying of a pack of hounds. I could do one of two things. I could stay where I was and wait. That was suicide. I could flee. That was postponing the inevitable. I had put my very last hope into that tiger pit. The moment I stood there thinking, all at once an idea that held a wild chance came to me and tightening my belt, I headed away from the swamp. The baying of the hounds was too near. It would be on me any minute now. My mind worked practically. I thought of a native trick I had learned in Uganda. I caught hold of a springy young sapling and two it fastened my hunting knife with the blade pointing down the trail. With a bit of wild grapevine, I tied back the sapling. Then I ran to my right. I raised that tape to find traces of the curtain and felt the fresh scent of how an animal at bay feels. At least I had to stop to get my breath. The baying of the hounds stopped just as suddenly and with it my heart stopped too. They must have reached the knife. Excitedly I shined up a tree and looked back. My pursuers had stopped all right but the hope that had been in my brain when I climbed died. For in the shallow valley, I saw that General Zorov was still on his feet. The curtain he had come along to hold the hounds. The knife driven by the recoil of the springing tree had splintered through his chest. I'd hardly tumbled to the ground when the pat took off the cry again. Nerve, nerve, nerve, nerve I patted as I dashed along. A blue gap showed between the trees dead ahead. The hounds were almost on top of me. I forced myself on towards that gap. I reached it. It was the shore of the sea. Across a cove I could see the gloomy gravestone of the castle. Twenty feet below me the sea rumbled and hissed. I hesitated. I heard the hounds. Then I leaped far off into the sea. He was good to me. And I'm here safe in the General's bedroom, waiting for him. Three days are up, and I've eluded him. But now I must go further. In a moment we will meet, he and I. And he will be unarmed. Only one of us is going to live. You understand that now. A swamp. I found it easier and quicker than walking through the jungle. I congratulate you. You've won the game. Oh, no, General. I'm still a beast at bay here. Get ready, General Zaroff. Swords. A re-pass for the hounds. The other will sleep this very excellent bed. This is the most dangerous game by Richard Connell, starring Orson Welles, tonight's tale of suspense. Mr. Welles was General Zaroff and Keenan Wynne Rainsport. This is your narrator, the man in black, who conveys to you Columbia's invitation to spend this half-hour in suspense next week, same time. When Orson Welles will again be our star in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story The Last Special, producer of Suspense's William Spear, who tonight also directed the broadcast, and who was Bernard Herman, the conductor, Lucian Marowick, who composed the original score and Private Jack Hansen-Pink, the radio author, collaborated on tonight's suspense. The Columbia Broadcasting System.