 Good evening, friends. This is your host to welcome you through the creaking door into the inner sanctum. Come in, come in. It's getting cold. We're all blowing on our hands. Those of us that have hands. One character who hangs his sheet in our happy little inferno got frostbite so bad we had to amputate his... ...leer. Oh, well. At least the big freeze has brought us one blighted blessing. The stiffs around here will keep refrigerator fresh. Tonight's inner sanctum mystery, Murder Faces East, was written by John Robert and stars Carl Swenson and the role of Steve with Charlotte Holland as Selena. Tonight's candidate for oblivion is a chap whose hobby is collecting nightmares. Oblivion comes with a crash when our boy discovers an idol is no idol jazz. Hang on everybody and we'll fill in the gory details. We're in a gloomy cell of a city prison in San Francisco and the edge of a lower bunk sitting with bowed head is a man, a recent arrest. He's still dressed in street clothes. His tie is missing, so are his suspenders. Confiscated as a precaution against suicide, his eyes fix intently on the stone floor as if trying to stare a blind spot out of his vision and his mouth twists into a distorted curve of amusement. I've got a million dollars. I can't even buy a tie or a pair of suspenders or even five cents worth of freedom. Began for me with a penny postcard in the mail. Selena, my wife, read the card to me over the breakfast table. Public auction of the estate of Hanson Broca, rare oriental treasures, masks, statuary talisman. I went. Some fellas play chess or collect stamps. I hobbyed in orientalism. Selena came along to see that my blood pressure didn't pop bids out of my mouth at a bankruptus for a month. A hundred lots had been sold, a parade of bronzes, ceramics, and brocades that were the haunting fascination of the Orient. Lot number 101 on the platform was a bronze Hindu idol, small, six inches high, with a sardonic grin that looked real as if a human laughing face had been frozen into a bronze mold. Number 101, a Hindu idol, a bit lively, folks. $50. $75. See, you're mad. Now I want it, Selena. Not over a hundred, darling. We can't afford it. $75, $75, $75. $100. $100 now. $100, $100. I hesitated. And then the idol decided it for me. I watched it move subtly, just for my eyes. It moved to the east toward my aisle position, compelling me as if an invisible string was drawn between us. $200. $200. $200 once, $200 twice. Sold to Mr. Kavanaugh. I owned the Hindu idol. At the close of the sale, Selena and I were leaving when a man approached us and gaunt, swore the man with hollered-out cheeks wearing an eastern fez. Mr. Kavanaugh. Yes? I told you are the fortunate purchaser of the laughing idol. What about it? It was my intention to buy it, but I arrived too late. My car was delayed in traffic. Oh, that's too bad. Better luck next time. Perhaps I can be lucky this time. If you will sell the idol, too. Oh, I don't think so. The honorable Hanson Broko, its late owner, was found mysteriously killed. An ancient Burmese ox embedded in his skull. Oh, why do you want the idol? Like the late Mr. Broko, I am a collector. I will pay you a very handsome profit. How much? $5,000. No sale, Mr. No sale at any price. Outside, we were hurrying up a deserted side street, me clutching the idol when the promise of things to come began in a rush. $5,000, Stevie offered you a fortune. No, I couldn't sell it. Don't ask me why, Celine. I just couldn't. Rifle shot, came from across the street, someone firing down from an open window. Come on, duck into the air. Somehow we got home alive and whole. Celine went to bed in tears. Her brother Howard, who lived with us, coaxed the story from her. I hate to play pratsy between a man and his wife, Steve, but isn't possession of that idol kind of borrowing trouble? We don't know that, Howard. Someone tried to kill you. There were two rifle shots from a window. That's all we know. We don't know that they had to do with the idol. Someone did offer you $5,000 for an idol you picked up for $200. Now, how about a little sense? Get rid of it, Steve. No. That idol was on the auction stand, facing the middle aisle when the bidding began. And I was sitting on the side aisle. When I wanted to quit bidding, it moved to the east toward me. See, I was meant to buy it. I was meant to own it. I was meant to own it. I sat the idol on a strip of Oriental silk in the center of my desk and sat looking at it, studying it. It sat grinning at me, as if enjoying a secret surprise as it had already prepared for me. Hello? It's, uh, Stephen Covenor. You are? I was to come to a mosque in Frisco's Oriental quarter after dark. Another man, any other man, would get on the phone to police headquarters. But I went. 24 Caracas Street, a cop's whistle out of Frisco's Chinatown. The place was empty. No furnishings, just a few scattered prayer rugs. A makeshift altar and a bony old man wearing a fez. It was chalk white as if he just climbed off an embalming table. The sub Stephen Covenor. In person. I am Jin Khan. Okay. Tell me why I'm here. Because you possess the laughing idol. And because it is written that Jin Khan must serve the possessor of the idol. Serve me? How? Your danger is great, sorry. Now, your enemies will strike. But you will reach riches and power. The idol will show you the way. And Jin Khan will serve you. Serve me? How? Now, it is written that when it faces to the east, Jin Khan will talk to his ancestors and then come to you. The idol up and left. A thousand doubts were whispering in my head. Outside I had to pinch myself to remember that I was in the States. Everybody had closed up shop and gone home. The street was deserted, not a sound. Except the cats whining meow. And then I got a sample of what Jin Khan had meant by your danger is great. The first I knew of it was a cold breeze whistling an inch past my head. A sharp edged instrument had narrowly shaved me and buried into a building site. It was an ancient Burmese axe, one inch closer. And I would have been dead. A hobby keeps you mentally fit to be tied. But what gives? A chap buys an auction sales bargain and some creep applauds him with a blast of gunfire. Add to top it off with a hand-tooled coffin lid. A second creep chirps Bravo with an axe. Looks like that Hindu idol is going to make Saab Kaminoor permanently idol. Let's see exactly how said retirement is accomplished, shall we? I sat around at home for days with the idol right in my view. My wife Selena avoided me, she suspected my sanity. I was moving the dark ages right into the middle of my home. I watched the idol for hours, hypnotized by it. It sat grinning at me. I saw it move to the east. A gong I'd once picked up in an eastern bazaar and hung on the floor of my den. Sounded. Saab Kaminoor, how'd you get in here? There are informal ways Saab. The idol faces to the east. Yes, right under my eyes it moved. I have spoken to my ancestors. Now I will offer you the second of my humble services Saab. The second? What was the first? The axe that buried harmlessly into the wall when you left the mosque. You lived Saab. That was my first service. And the second? What's it? It is written that the Chandra Ruby will fall to you. What is the Chandra Ruby? You will know Saab when you seize it. On this paper you will find your instructions. Go after dark. I opened the paper. It was a message scribbled on old rice parchment. A drawing like a surveyors map with some writing on it. It said, Mount Fiori Cemetery. The drawing was a picture of an exposed coffin. And in it was a figure crass up like a mummy in a sarcophagus. And markers showed the exact position of the grave. And an arrow pointed to the left eye of the corpse. That night after dark, I stole into the Mount Fiori Cemetery. Storm was threatening. The grave had no markings. No tombstone. I dug four feet down. I reached the coffin. It lay exposed with the rumbling skies giving it a ghostly glow as if someone had rubbed it with phosphorus. I wedged the edge of a pick into a side and tried and it opened. Exactly as drawn it was a mummified corpses. Triple face what was left of it peaked out. Just the nose and the eyes and part of the brow. One socket was empty. And the other the left eye. The eye marked by an arrow on the drawing. Gleamed red. The lightning spear in the sky caught its radiance and the eye seemed to burst with a ruby fire. And flickered. And dimmed as the lightning passed, the Chandra Ruby, Gin Conn had said. I was the owner of the Chandra Ruby. Ruby said in the skull of a corpse. Well, I didn't swallow that. Going home I dropped into Saperstein's jewelry store for an appraisal. Rubies as you know fluctuating value. Well, yes, I know. I know it. Just give me an approximate idea. Is it worth, say, $1,000? You can safely multiply that figure by 50. For an approximately fair price. $50,000? For days I hardly slept watching that idol. And then on the fourth day the idol moved again. I've spoken with my ancestors. It is written that you will reach great wealth and power. But first an unhappy task awaits you, son. An unhappy task? You must kill to save yourself. Kill? Yes, Siden. Who do I have to kill? Your wife. Kill Selena? No, no, that's insane. Why? To save yourself. Her hatred for you rages in her mind like a fever. Her wish to destroy you is overwhelming. Selena kill me? Why do I don't believe that? It is so written. Search her mind, son. And you will know. Search her mind and convince yourself. Jin was gone. Murderer. Or be murdered. There was something to swallow. Search her mind, Jin Conn. It said twice as if there were a clue and a speech. Search her mind. What was I to search her mind so that I couldn't know? I thought about it hard all through the evening. And then her diary. Selena kept a diary faithfully. I found her diary in the drawer of the night table. Selena was fast to slow it noiselessly. Reading into Selena's secret mind. Jin Conn was right. Selena lived only to hate me. A page written just a day before approved it. The unbearable fall away. One day I will destroy him. I must. Or be destroyed. Destroy. Or be destroyed. Murder. Or be murdered. I stared over at Selena. And I had something, the intensity of my thinking, maybe. Awakened her. Steve, you've been prying into my diary. No. Not into your diary, into your mind. I've been prying into your secret mind. Steve, what's come over you? A revelation. I have been living with a fraud. A murdering fraud. Steve, you're out of your mind. Kill or be killed. Do you hear, Selena? Marriage boils down to a comical simplification. Kill or be killed. Murder or be murdered. Isn't it funny, Selena? When planning. How did a sudden widow explain his deceased wife away to a curious world? I still hadn't finished. I hadn't found the answer when Howard came to the breakfast table. Steve, if I could speak up frankly, just once. Straighten the shoulder. Go ahead. That orientalism, many of yours, is degenerating you into something unhealthy. Now, why not call it quits? Selena's edgy and depressed. She feels rejected. They push her too hard. She's capable of harming herself. Harming herself? You're hinting at suicide? Yes, Steve. I'm hinting at that. Exactly. That was my way out. Suicide! Selena just wouldn't come back from her early morning walk. Make a victim of despondency and hysteria. When night came, I transferred the corpse to another setting. Somebody... is at my door. Yes? Telegram for Mr. Stephen Kavanaugh. Well, I'll take it. I'm Mr. Kavanaugh. Sign here. Telegram for Selena. I opened it. Came from New York. A barbonaille attorney's at law. The wording was a formal invitation to appear and collect about a million dollars. This is to inform you that the will of your late uncle, Thomas de Haven Chalmers, names you as sole beneficiary. Please communicate to us the date of your arrival in New York. Part recluse that we'd all been joked about. Had left Selena a million dollars that she didn't have the slightest use for now. Great wealth and power, Jin Khan. And promised by succession, the fortune was mine now. If I could make murder the perfect crime. When night came, I drove Selena toward Apple Lake. It was just outside and down. Selena was fully dressed, gloves, shoulder bag, right down to the last accessory. A frantic wife on a solitary walk had taken a fatal plunge. I got to the lake, entered carefully to the water's edge, ready to complete her suicide. I never got to carry out my plan. Don't worry, Kamino. You can't get away with murder. Four other troopers besides myself are ready to blast you. You've got to make a fight for it. How'd you know to follow me here? Five minutes before you started for Apple Lake, your brother-in-law got a peek in your wife's bedroom through the porch window. I'm in a city prison on the first lap that leads to the electric chair. Governor. At hysterical yarn, you blabbed at the prison stenographer when we brought you in. We checked every detail. Nothing checked. I'm nuts. I had a nightmare. We stopped in at Saperstein's jewelry store just for the sake of routine. At Saperstein's, your zany story suddenly rang true. We ran into his ingenious plot as I've ever encountered. It was at Saperstein's that your brother-in-law, Howard, purchased the stone you called the Chandra Ruby. Howard? We got a confession out of him. Why? The capitalized on your weakness for Oriental bunkers. It was worth investing $50,000 for a genuine Ruby, worth forging entries in your wife's diary and putting you through the paces as he did. All is sell you the idea of murdering your wife. He knew when Uncle had died in New York that after Selena, the Solaris, you came. That after you, burned for the murder of your wife, he came. But Jin can't. A hired stooge. Like the man who offered to buy the idol from you after that auction sale. Everything that happened to you was staged from a script prepared by your brother-in-law. And you played leading man as if you were born to the role. Sucker. Little onion peeler once remarked, except in your relative's carefully, Bob, what looks like any law might actually be an outlaw. Anyhow, it's an ill-win. Mmm. A-how me. There's nothing like an auction sale to pass the time. Right into tomorrow. There are three little words going, going, gone. Steve's going, Howard's going, and Selena's gone. The only thing that's standing up is that unclaimed million-dollar. Interested? Somebody? Mmm. Radio service, the voice of information and education.