 And now stay tuned for the program that has rated tops in popularity for a longer period of time than any other West Coast program in radio history. The Signal Oil Program, The Whistler. The Signal Gang! Signal, the famous GoFarther gasoline, invites you to sit back and enjoy another strange story by The Whistler. For extra driving pleasure, the signal to look for is the yellow and black circle sign that identifies signal service stations from Canada to Mexico. And for Sunday evening listening pleasure, the signal to listen for is this whistle that identifies the Signal Oil Program, The Whistler. I'm The Whistler, and I know many things for I walk by night. I know many strange tales hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak. And now The Whistler Strange Story, Incident at Pebble Cove. Standing there on the boat dock which served as the main landing at Pebble Cove, John Gaylord presented the picture of a successful, relaxed young author. He was tall, tanned, self-assured in manner and bearing. He liked it here at this hideaway resort on the Pacific Coast. It was a place where he could work when he felt the mood. Forget it if he didn't. The other villagers, a smattering of artists and winter vacationists, kept pretty much to themselves. And when John did want conversation there was always Steve Carson, a young constable who included Pebble Cove in his district. It was Carson's small boat that was approaching the landing at the moment. And John moved forward to catch the line Steve threw and made the boat fast. Okay Steve, I got it. Thanks, Johnny. Well, what brings you in here? Something official? No, just coming in. Pretty choppy out here today. Worse, it's shell beach. I went down to watch the outboards raised. Good crowd? No, not bad. Come on, I'll walk you up to the house, buy you a drink. I better take a rain check. Gotta get back to the office. Oh? Just wanted to let you know I can't make that chess game we plan. I have to run up the Gorman. Oh, well, that's two rain checks. Oh, by the way, have you met your attractive new neighbor yet? Attractive? You mean the new neighbor is a girl? That's right. Yeah, surprised you tipped me off. Well, I'm different. I figure competition breaks the monotony. Okay, what's your name? Benton, I believe. Yeah, Peggy Benton. Peggy Benton? You know her? No. No, no, I don't. Well, the way you react to that. No, I don't know her. No, the name sounded familiar, that's all. Well, I'm sure you'll get around to making it sound more familiar. Good luck. Yeah, thanks. Well, Johnny, your past comes calling again, doesn't it? Changing your name from Harold Ferris to John Gaylord hasn't solved a thing. Peggy Benton, she's found you. And you wonder what it means this time? You watch Steve Carson's boat move away from the landing and walk back to the beach. The rising tide tells you that it's close to six o'clock, not too late to make a call on your neighbor, and you're anxious to get it over with. As you reach your cottage about a hundred yards from your own, you ring the bell and brace yourself to face it. Mr. Ferris, I've been expecting you, Hal. Hello, Peggy. Well, come in, come in, neighbor. Or should I call you by your new name, Johnny Gaylord? That's what everybody else calls me, I like it. Well, may I fix you a drink, Johnny? No, thanks. Well, you don't mind if I have one. No, no, go ahead. Oh, thank you. You look so well, John. So very well. But I'm a little surprised. Oh? Yes. So many successful young authors have their pictures on the jackets of their books. You never have. Not hiding from someone, darling. All right, Peggy. What do you want? What are you down here for? Darling, are we going to talk silly or neighborly? You know what I want. More of the same. I can't give you another cent. Oh. When you're doing so much better than before, I should think it would be easier. Peggy, I... I wish you'd leave here. I'm sure you do. You also wish I'd drop dead. I didn't say that. You're as obvious as your chief writing, Johnny. But little Peggy takes good care of herself. Understand? And she's going to take even better care of herself. So? How much is it this time? Oh, no special amount. Now, wait a minute. I'll give you $5,000, Peggy. $5,000? For what? You turn that diary of Helen's over to me and let me get rid of it. Oh. So the world will never know that Helen's death wasn't accidental. That she knew you were going to kill her. Peggy, I want... Forget it. Helen meant nothing to me ever. Just a roommate, that's all. But a mighty profitable one. Now that you're so successful, Johnny. Peggy, where is that diary? Oh, let's just say I have it in my hope chest, shall we? It's not for sale. Not when it's practically an annuity. A nice yearly income. And where is this going to end? It isn't. Johnny, darling. Unless you want that drink, you'd better run on home. Do some thinking until, say, about 10 tomorrow morning? 10? Isn't that when the bank opens? You see, little Peggy wants a check. A nice big check to cash. And you'd better have it ready for me. Tonight's $20 signal gasoline book goes to Mrs. W.G. Reed of Long Beach, California for this limerick. The rabbit looks simply aghast as the tortoise went whizzing past. Said Bunny, I know what makes his crate go. With signal go farther it's gassed. Signal, signal, signal gasoline. Your car would go far, would go farther gasoline. Poor Mr. Bunny. He would have won by a hair. And then some, if he just kept in mind what makes signal gasoline give you such good mileage. It's because today's signal helps your motor run more efficiently. And when your motor runs more efficiently, you also enjoy more flashing pickup and smoother power. In addition to quicker cold weather starting, you can prove all of this for yourself. If you'll try, just try a few tankfuls of the famous go farther gasoline. Signal, that is. Yes, Johnny, the past is caught up with you. Peggy Benton has traced you to Pebble Cove and she's the same determined girl that you thought you'd left behind in St. Louis. Determined to make you pay for her silence concerning that oddly unsolved death of your former fiance, Helen Walters. But you don't go to the bank the next morning, do you, Johnny? No, you're certain that Peggy will take her time, not risk upsetting you. She'll give you time to think, to realize that you must pay her because there's no other way. Unless, of course, you can get your hands on the diary of your late fiance, Helen Walters. The diary Peggy is using to blackmail you. You've got to get it from Peggy and destroy it. That afternoon you're pacing the living room of your cottage, thinking about it and wondering when there's a knock on the door. Oh, Steve, come on in. I didn't think you'd mind Ms. Benton joining us, Johnny. I've been showing her around, introducing her to some of the villagers. Oh, when I heard you were living here, Mr. Gaylord, I insisted on meeting you right away. Well, it's a pleasure. Oh, thank you. Everyone's so nice. And I suppose you know, too, that you've got the nicest constable here. I bet she says that to all the constables there, Johnny. Yeah. I'll get you a chair, Ms. Benton. Oh, no, no, no. We mustn't stay. I've heard, Mr. Gaylord, how writers hate to have their privacy invaded. We'll run on. I only wanted to say how I've enjoyed your work. She's quite a fan of yours, Johnny. Particularly that murder story. The one about the man who killed his fiance? The one where the police didn't even know she had a boyfriend? Oh, that boyfriend was pretty smart. What was that? Not one of the Dave Dressicles, sir. Oh, well, it was an old one, quite some time back. The girl, well, she left a diary or something. It named her fiance and told how she thought he'd kill her. And it was just the way she died. Oh, it was terrific. I can see you guessed wrong on that one, Ms. Benton. Now you've made Johnny believe you don't read him at all. Come on, we better go. Anyway, I've got to get back to the office. Oh, well, all right, Steve. Oh, but you do forgive me, don't you, Mr. Gaylord? There's nothing to forgive. Oh, that's fine. I'll see you again. Real soon. Yes, you will. Real soon. You watch them leave walking down the path toward her own cottage. And suddenly you realize that you must get that diary away from Peggy. If necessary, you will have to use force, won't you, Johnny? Yes. You've got to get that diary which practically names you as a murderer. The opportunity comes several hours later, doesn't it? When the yelping of a small dog attracts your attention to the front door. You see that the dog, small and white, is tagging along at Peggy Benton's heels. As she walks down to the beach for an afternoon swim, you slip out of the cottage and hurry after them. On the beach, your rock cave hides you from view until you can slip up to where Peggy dropped her bathing robe and the sand. Quickly you check in the pocket of the robe, but the key to her cottage isn't there. Suddenly the dog comes bounding out of the surf toward you. You scoop up the struggling white bundle of fur and move back into the cave, and you know that Peggy will follow it. Hello, Peggy. Okay, Queenie, you can run along now. Here, go fetch. You see it now, Johnny. The reason you couldn't find Peggy's keys in her bathing robe. They're fastened to a wrist on a small leather band. What? What is it, Johnny? What do you want? No, not your dog. Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you, no matter how much you might deserve it. You're hitting my wrist. Am I? Well, isn't that too bad, Peggy? It's these keys. I want them. No! I'm taking them, Peggy. I mean it, even if I have to. Knock you cold to do it! No! No! While you're yelling, no one's going to hear you over that surf. Now give me those keys! A few minutes later, after leaving Peggy, lying back in the cave, where you hit her hard enough to knock her out for a while, you begin your search of her cottage, looking everywhere. Somehow you lose all track of time until nearly a full hour later, you hear the clock and the mantel. Oh, six o'clock. Six o... The tide's in. If Peggy hasn't come to, she'll drown! You rush out of the cottage down the path toward the beach, and then suddenly you stop dead in your tracks. You can see him standing there in the half-darkness leaning against the tree. It's too late to turn back, isn't it, Johnny? He's already heard you. Hello. Hello. How about you, Johnny? Yeah. Hello, Steve. What are you doing around here? Might ask you the same thing, huh? Well, I just stepped out... You don't have to, really. I know what you're up to. What? Calling on your new neighbor, huh? Oh. No, no, really, I wasn't, I... Sure, I was just kidding. Out for a walk? Yeah, yeah. Oh, Sam, not any rush, are you? Yeah, well, as a matter of fact, I do have to get back to the cottage. Good, I'll go along with you. Have a phone call to make anyway. Don't mind if I use your phone, do you? No, of course not. And so you start back for the cottage, away from the caves and Peggy. You're hardly listening to Steve's idle chatter. All you can hear is the pounding of the surf below, smashing into the caves. Finally at the cottage, Steve puts through his phone call, and you keep glancing at your watch. There's still a chance you'll be able to reach Peggy in time, isn't there? But somehow you'll have to get rid of Steve. Then as he finishes his call... Hmm, how do you like that? Now I gotta get back to the village. You do? Yeah, my own fault for calling, I guess, another stolen car. Well, sorry to rush away, Johnny, but then you have work to do. Yes, I have work to do. Nice. You watch him as he hurries away down the road toward the village. Then as he disappears from view, you start down the path to the beach, running, stumbling, splashing through the surf. And finally when you get there, the waves are pounding into the mouth of the cave. It isn't that you care what happens to Peggy. Actually, you'd be better off if she were out of the way. But not before you find out where she keeps Helen Walters' diary. The diary linking you to her murder. You'll plunge in and look frantically for Peggy. Peggy! Peggy! The waves seemingly grow higher and higher every moment, battering, smashing their way into the cave. Finally, you give up and fight your way out. And then up to a rocky ledge and drop. Exhausted. The hours that follow are agony, aren't they, Johnny? It's the waiting through the long night, wondering if Peggy is dead, washed out to sea. Late the following afternoon, you go down to the village and in the post office you run into old Martin Haves. Say, Johnny, you hear about the Benton girl? No, what? Found her body just a little while ago on the beach, about a mile from here. Drowned. Drowned? Yeah, the riptides. Pretty dangerous over that way. Too bad. She seemed like a real nice young lady. It's done, isn't it, Johnny? Peggy Benton will never bother you again. But the evidence she was using against you and blackmailing you is as dangerous as ever. You've got to find it some way and destroy it. Before you make your next move, you decide to find out what Steve thinks about Peggy's death. When you walk into the constable's office, he's standing with a window, his back to you. He doesn't turn around even as you speak to him. Steve, I just heard about it, Miss Benton. Quite a shock. Yes, quite a shock. Well, well, accidents do happen. It was an accident, of course. Looks that way. Although in the preliminary examination, the coroner found a pretty bad bruise on the back of her head. Oh? Might have struck her head against a rock. Could have knocked her unconscious. Yeah, it's probably when she was out there in the water. We'll know more about it after the coroner brings in his autopsy report. Of course. Well, I'll be running along. Going to drop in tonight, Steve? Yeah. I'll be dropping in, Johnny. You're anxious to learn of the coroner's findings, aren't you, Johnny? But you're quite confident you'll be in the clear at least of Peggy's murder. And it was murder, wasn't it? Even though you hadn't intended it to be. Early that evening as you sit across the chess table from Steve, you can sense there's something on his mind, something more important than your little game of chess. Steve, have you notified Miss Benton's family? Doesn't have one. As far as we've been able to find out. We looked through a lot of her things, you know, the cottage. There wasn't much there. She brought only a couple of suitcases with her. I got her a hunch she had a place in town. An apartment, maybe. Mm-hmm. You're mostly. Oh, sure. An apartment, huh? Any idea where it is? Not yet. We have a tracer on it now. City police are looking into it for us. I'd like to find that apartment, Johnny. Really important? I think so. I'd like to get there before somebody else does. Oh, what do you mean? Oh, maybe it's just a long shot. Wild guess on my part. But I have a hunch Peggy Benton's death wasn't accidental. I see. The coroner's report indicates that she was dead before she hit the water. Oh. Well, it wasn't drowning. Mm-hmm. Look, Steve, here's a thought. That blow on the back of the head you mentioned. Isn't it possible that Ms. Benton was walking along the beach and perhaps slipped off the rock? Get her head when she fell? Yeah. Sure, I suppose. And then when the tide came in, why? It could have happened that way, Johnny. But there's one thing that bothers me. What's that? I'm wondering about her keys, Johnny. Keys? I was talking to her just before she went down to the beach yesterday. She was wearing those keys on a leather wristband. The body was found, the keys and the band were missing. I got a hunch that when we find those keys, we'll find a clue to the murderer. Huh. Sure move, Johnny. Yes, then you've got to move fast now, Johnny. You've got to get to Peggy's apartment before the police do. You're more than thankful when Steve leaves early and the moment he's gone, you pull the keys out of your pocket. The keys on the leather wristband. You examine them closely. First is the key to the cottage. The next is obviously a car key and the third. You can barely make out the worn markings on it. The crest and apartments, apartment 10. Quickly you drop the keys in your pocket and hurry out towards your car. Glad there's only a 25 mile drive to town in Peggy's apartment. It's almost 10 o'clock when you arrive at the crest and slip quietly into apartment 10. You go through each room carefully and finally find what you're looking for. The diary Peggy was using to blackmail you. As you remove the rubber band around it and thumb through it, several photographs fall out and flutter to the floor. You pick them up, look at them. Snapshots of the three of you together. You, Helen and Peggy. You put them in your pocket with a diary and then slip out into the hall. But before you can lock the door, you hear someone coming up the stairs. Quickly you step into an alcove and wait. Two men, one of them in a policeman's uniform. You got out of the apartment just in time, didn't you, Johnny? Steve Carson's called the city police for assistance in tracing Peggy's apartment. Almost trapped you. Man, house manager's a gabby, old damage. Yeah. Now here we are, apartment 10. You got the key? Yeah, just a sec. Hey. What's the matter? It's not locked. What? Looks like somebody beat us to it. Look at that room. Looks like somebody gave it a fast frisk. Come on. The moment you hear the move into the apartment you race down the stairs, through the lobby and out into the street. Downing the corner, you slide in behind the wheel of your car and drive off. It was close, wasn't it, Johnny? As you reach the outskirts of town, the highway, you pull into a gas station. You ought to be certain the police didn't see you leaving Peggy's apartment and aren't following you. As the station attendant fills the tank, you keep an anxious eye on the rear view mirror. The police are nowhere in sight and you're certain that you've given them the slip, aren't you? Yes, and you're feeling a lot better now that the only link between you and murder is safely tucked away in your inside coat pocket. Check the oil and water, sir? Oh, no, thank you. Here you are. Everything else okay? Yes, everything's fine. Just fine. Maybe it's cold outside. That's not only the name of a popular song, but also the reason many of you will soon be needing a new battery for your car. Naturally, you'll want to be sure you're choosing the battery that gives longest, trouble-free service at lowest cost per month. So just consider these facts. You get up to 35% more power from a signal-deluxe battery for quicker starting and to take care of the many electrical gadgets on your car. That's because signals micro-porous all-rubber separators hold twice as much acid solution between the plates. And you don't have to add water so often to a signal-deluxe battery because of its improved design all-rubber case. As a result of finer quality construction like this, signal-deluxe batteries last so long, they're now guaranteed a full 30 months on a service basis. When you take this into account, plus signals liberal credit terms and generous trade-in allowance for your old battery, you'll find you're actually saving money by choosing a signal-deluxe battery. The extra-powerful, extra-long-life battery sold only by signal service stations. It's over, isn't it, Johnny? And now you're back at your pebble-cove cottage. It was a lucky break, wasn't it? Finding Peggy's apartment, getting away before the police arrive. You've only to destroy the diary, the snapshots of you, Helen and Peggy, dispose of the keys and you're in the clear. But before you do, you want to take a look at those pages in the diary, don't you? Yes, you're curious. You remove the rubber band that's around the small book, thumb through the pages. It's all there, isn't it, Johnny? Enough evidence to hang you. It wouldn't do at all if this fell into the hands of the police, would it? Someone's at the door, Johnny. And you wonder who's calling on you at this time of night. You drop the diary to the table, glance out the side window. It's Steve. Quickly, you pick up the diary, the snapshots and the keys, tie them together by stretching the rubber band around them, and drop them behind the sofa. Hello, Johnny. Ah, Steve, how are you? Just passing by. Saw your lights. Been working? Oh, yes, I had some things to do. Just thought you might be interested in the latest developments. Huh? City police located Miss Benton's apartment tonight. Oh. Newspapers in town ran a picture of her. Apartment house manager where she lives saw it. Call police. I see. Looks like my hunch was right. The keys were important. Maybe that's why Miss Benton was murdered. I don't follow Steve. Somebody got to Peggy Benton's apartment tonight. Just before the police. The place had been ransacked. Really? Oh, well, there you are, Queenie. I wondered what had happened to you. Been following me around all night. Miss Benton's dog, you remember? Hello, Queenie, girl. Hey, Queenie. Here, Queenie. Here. Oh, there she goes inside. Here. Hey, Queenie. Here, girl. Here. Where'd she go? Here. Oh, there she is. Under the sofa. What? Come on, girl. Come on. Yeah, you got something in her mouth. Looks like a book. Hey, Queenie. Hi. It's a good dog. Hey, let me see what you... Wait a minute. What's this? Miss Benton's keys. Why, Steve, I don't know how they could have got back to this. It's a diary. And these snapshots, you photographed very well, Johnny. I thought you told me you didn't know Peggy Benton. Let that whistle be your signal for the signal oil program, the Whistler, each Sunday night at this same time. Brought to you by the Signal Oil Company, marketers of signal gasoline and motor oil, and fine-quality automotive accessories. Remember, if you would like the fun of having your friends hear a limerick of yours on the Whistler, the address to which to send it is the Signal Oil Company, Los Angeles 55, California. All limericks become the property of the Signal Oil Company. Those selected for use on the Whistler will be chosen by our advertising representative on the basis of humor, suitability, and originality. So, of course, they must be your own composition. Featured in tonight's story were Larry Dobkin, Marion Ladd, and Don Harvey. The Whistler was produced and directed by George W. Allen, with story by Steve Hampton, music by Wilbur Hatch, and was transmitted to our troops overseas by the Armed Forces Radio Service. The Whistler is entirely fictional. All characters portrayed on the Whistler are also fictional. Any similarity of names or resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Remember, at this same time next Sunday, another strange tale by the Whistler. Don't forget, when you give to the community chess, you're helping not just one organization, but many worthy causes that directly benefit four out of every ten families. Think of that when you're deciding how much to give.