 In just a moment auto light presents suspense with Claude Reigns and Vincent Price I believe not hap and I want to thank you and Mary for a marvelous meal a delightful delicious Lovely dinner you're more than welcome. Oh, oh here comes Mary with that who's gonna wash the dishes looking alright Hey, you better start talking about auto light resistor spark plugs and fans. Ah, yes, of course hap auto light resistor spark plugs As I was saying right now by Cornelius is the time when all good men who know good things will come to the aid of their cars With a set of brand new wide gap auto light resistor spark plugs Why would their wide spark gap those auto light resistor spark plugs do things for a car your old narrow gap spark plugs Just can't match why they're marvelous. They're magnificent by Cornelius. They're matchless. You're sparking Harlow But let's switch to suspense Auto light and at 60,000 dealers and service stations bring you radios outstanding theater of thrills Starring tonight. Mr. Claude Reigns and mr. Vincent Price in Anton leaders production of The hands of mr. Ottermore a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense Tell me sergeant here. Why do you think the strangler killed the five times he did? Six times mr. Newspaper man six. Yes Well, I suppose you do know as much about the strangler as I do How long have you been on the police force sergeant? This is my 15th year as a member of his majesty's metropolitan police mr. Newspaper man for 10 years I walked the beats of the Casper Street station and for the past five years. I've been a sergeant of that station In 15 years you learn a lot about many things Including murder. Oh, yes Murder it's a word and a deed which is fascinated more people than you and I could count By all means sergeant. Let's talk about murder You'd think there'd be a little murder in such a district wouldn't you mr. Newspaper man Murder for bit of Henning cup of tea There's nothing that it takes kept lives And it was there that the strangler came to practice his grim trade Already it struck twice once on Lagos Street once on Breen Street his strong White hands reaching for an unexpected throat Then he vanished into the darkness leaving behind something that once had been a living breathing human What was his gain? Perhaps no more than the satisfaction of a job well done. Perhaps he felt he'd done some poor devil of favor That a sympathetic force led him to his victim as the same as a cyclone picks one corner and misses another I Was thinking about that the night I first met you mr. Newspaper man I was walking down Malin in when I saw you standing in the shadows Good evening officer. Hey, Sam. You are who are you from the Daily Herald officer? Newspaper man. Hey, what are you doing here? Oh looking for a story Are you expecting to catch the strangler officer? What would you know about the strangler mr. Newspaper man only that he likes your district and that you have no idea who he is That's right He could be anybody who's about in this district at night Perhaps even a newspaper man. Oh, you suspect that I might be making my news before I write And I shall keep that in mind For dull days. Good night, sir. All right. I Watched you Mr. Newspaper man as you walked away Watched and thought of the force that moved the strangler about the same time that force whatever it was Brought the strangler to mr. Wybrough an honest worker whom I've seen so many times I can tell you nearly exactly how he spent his last few minutes on earth I Know the very sound of his footsteps Almost is every thought and I can hear the footsteps of the man Who followed him? It was six o'clock of an evening a mr. Wybrough was going home from work He stepped off the tram at high Street and Mallon end and walked slowly Wondering if his messes would have herring or haddock for his tea It was a wretched night And he could taste the fog in his throat feel the dampness through the soles of his shoes He turned down Legos Street and the footsteps behind turned with him and so One behind the other the two men walked through Legos and turned into Loyal Lane Any man other than mr. Wybrough might have heard some warning in the footsteps that followed him something that said Beware Beware no The foot of a killer falls just as quietly as the foot of any other worker but those footfalls We're bearing a pair of hands to mr. Wybrough and There is something in hands Behind him even then those hands were flexing themselves feeling the strength run down through the strong fingers Mr. Wybrough was Almost home. He turned on Casper Street plotting along through the dim light Small dog barked at the figures Voices drifted out from the shabby houses, but mr. Wybrough paid no attention to them or to the steps which followed him Ahead of mr. Wybrough was his own house and he walked a little faster Maybe it looked like he was Going to get away, but the man behind Only smiled and followed at the same pace mr. Wybrough turned in at his own gate and Opened the door. He stepped inside Yes, what's for tea Flossie? How do I know before I've opened the door If it's a collector he can just nip off Well, what? Is how mr. And mrs. Wybrough Became the third and fourth but not the last victims of the strangling horror Suspense auto light is bringing you mr. Claude rain Mr. Vincent Price in radio's outstanding theater of thrills Suspends let me tell you about a foolish fellow who got the outside of his car all dolled up with doodads Trinkets vox tails and what not and then by Cornelius He comes chugga lugging up the avenue with misfiring spark plugs and his engine sounding like a stut stut stuttering teapot Hey friend I yelled at him Why don't you switch to a set of those smooth firing auto light resistor spark plugs and make that bus of yours sound as fancy as it looks And what did he answer this guy said to me plugs is plugs? Well auto light resistor spark plugs I corrected him are different They've got a 10,000 ohm resistor ignition engineered right into the spark plug that permits the auto light resistor spark plug to maintain a much Wider spark gap setting this extra wide gap friend lets your car idle smoother gives you better luck with lean gas mixtures Actually saves gas What's more auto light resistor spark plugs cut down spark plug interference with radio and television reception pipe that badge telling him Wow, he says can you back up all that sales talk? Listen pal. I told him these are just a few fine and fancy facts And what's more those wide gap auto light resistor spark plugs are one of over 400 Automotive aviation and marine products world famous for their auto light engineered Dependability then one hono. I'll tell you the rest after suspense half And now auto light brings back to a Hollywood soundstage Mr. Claude Reigns and mr. Vincent Price in The hands of mr. Ottermole a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense Sergeant did you ever stop to wonder at the pranks of fate? Mr. Why Brow died at the one moment when there was no one around to witness his death That's true a few minutes earlier perhaps a few minutes later. There were people on the street Think how different it might have been if if you had arrived there earlier than you did Perhaps mr. Newspaper man, but I'd finished my evening team was walking through Casper Street to the station Mr. Why Brow was still lying on the door of his house his wife on the floor a little beyond him Both were dead I blew my whistle And the constable came on the run you searched the house then talked to the neighbors on either side Nobody had heard anything except mrs. Why Brow scream and they thought that just a family fight There's no sign of anything But brutal murder While we waited for the ambulance, I Suddenly remembered something Smithers yes, sir just before I found them. I saw you standing at the end of the lane What were you up to there? I thought I saw a suspicious character mucking about there, sir, and I was keeping an eye on him This vicious character bit blasted. You don't want to look for suspicious characters. You want to look for murderers Yes, sir. I think we'll get him sir. Well just between you and me smithers. I have my doubts With a man who kills to get a few Bob You know he's going to keep on because as soon as he's broke you'll slosh another one but a man like this You don't know when he'll strike again Or he feels strike again Back at the station the newspaper man were waiting with a story having sent it the way dogs will smell out the fresh track of a fox There was one newspaper man at all with shoulders and arms that look more like a Coal heaver than a journalist who kept asking about clues as though he wanted to solve the case himself That was you Mr. Newspaper man, or maybe you just wanted to find out how much we knew After the newspaper man left I was in my office Finishing up my report when there was a knock on the door Who's there? Do you mind if I come inside? Oh, it's you. Yes, I I thought of a few more questions I'd like to ask you it seems to me you are around all the time Yes, and now you want to ask more questions. I'm afraid we can't give out any more information than you already have A half a minute sergeant all the papers are going to do a regular story on the strangling monster I thought I'd like to do something different more of a mood piece. Oh, you look like an intelligent man Thanks, I thought you might help. Well, maybe I can maybe I can't what do you want to know what sort of a man Do you think the killer is you really think he's a monster who can slip through the night without being seen no No, I think he's probably a very ordinary man Everyone even our own constable says looking for a monster instead of the man standing next to them No, this man can move about and no one sees him because he's an ordinary man And it's ordinary for him to be around he he might be a boot-black the man who makes deliveries or even a policeman Order journalists Why do you say that I Don't think I meant anything personal mr. Newspaper man I meant that he's merely someone you look at and never think that maybe he might strangle someone Your theory is very interesting sergeant, and do you also think that you'll catch him where if he's caught short of actually Catching him in the act. It'll be because of only one thing. Oh, and that is curiosity curiosity. Yes He'll be nabbed if his curiosity is too great if he wonders how near others are to him If he has to ask questions and then returns to ask still more questions Later that evening I went out into the district visiting beat after beat the presence of the killer the straining hollow was in the air The entire district was given over not to panic for London never yields to that but to fear of the unknown and While the community still gasped over the deaths of mr. and mrs. Why a brow while fear was moving into every tenement the killer Made his next move Conscious of the horror caused by his hands and as hungry for more as any giddy girl at her first performance on the music hall his hands reached out again well, I Was cutting through Cleming Street when I saw you again mr. Newspaper man You slipped along the street peering into alleys Even then I had a hunch to stop you and I felt I had no real reason to suspect you so I Walked on Peterson and joiner were patrolling joining and road. It was just 932 when I met joiner near the middle of the street. I spoke to him and went on at 933 I met Peterson coming back from the other end of the street. I answered his greeting and passed Intended to go to the end of the beat and cut over to Logan passage then during the few seconds that Everyone's back was turned towards the spot where he stood the killer Struck again Here It's Peterson dead like the rest of them strangled right under our noses Where were you joiner? I just reached the end of my beat sergeant was already turning when I heard your whistle I just passed him on my way to Logan that we were covering both ends of the street He must have come from minnow Street or Cleming Street and gone back the same way before we could see him It is dimly lit around here. So what's up constable? I heard Sam. We were oh It's you mr. Newspaper man. Yes, so he struck again. What happened sergeant. I've been checking the beats I came up here passing joiner and then Peterson here I was at this end of the street joiner of that with Peterson in between us going towards joiner He cried out once and then was like this We saw no one Well, were you when you heard my whistle on Cleming Street perhaps half a square down and no one passed that way that means that he must Have come from minnow showering in sir. Yeah, go ahead joiner Half a square down Cleming Street. Were you that's right That's where you were More than five minutes ago when I passed and you were coming this way I thought I saw something in one of the alleys and stopped to look closer Oh now come sergeant. Let's not start suspecting each other the mutual suspicion of this district is catching. Yeah, I Suppose it is Yes, of course still There's a murderer who must be caught Mr. Newspaper man The following day I was back on duty early You know the side of a uniform sergeant somehow gave the people a bit more confidence than that of the constables You know Bobby will it bobbies are well enough in their way But you know your average Londoner likes to see more important officials around when things were a bit rough The talk in the pubs and on the streets was all cut from the same cloth and the pattern was fear I Say the strangler some part she was off his beam Things as I we ain't squeezed dry enough so he nips over Squeezes a little more and pops back to the West End or your bar me eat a leg Didn't he get a peeler last night and don't that prove it? He's a bleeding Jack the Ripper that's what he is and he'll bloody will kill a lot of us without a single bloody flick to stop him He's got a Bobby didn't he and when Bobby's crawling all over the place and that was a land on him and he was to stop him That's what I want to know I Walked the streets Dropping a bit of cheer me on there For five times. I saw you again. Mr. Newspaper man your dark face twisted with emotion as you listen to the talk This too was queer for you were the only newspaper man. I saw in the whole district By 9 o'clock I was in Richard's Lane and now the street partly a stall market and partly cheap homes on one side was the shattered wall of the railway yard The wall of the railway yard put a shadow over the street so that even a garbage can look like a man crouching farther down the street the outline of the Empty market stores look like a bunch of ghosts waiting for the man who would send them more ghosts There was no one on the street No wonder witness That which was about to be Then suddenly in the time between one footfall and another the wall of silence Was broken And then the lane came to life It seemed like they were all released by that scream all along the street doors opened and people poured into the street Mottling as the store of anger began to overcome their fear. They milled around uncertain which way to turn then Then the whistle pointed the direction to them gathering like dark clouds They moved down on the cottage where I stood with the constables the site of so many I was made them feel that he would now be caught and that anger came up in answer to it Well go in and get him what's not waiting for He's true killing now go on and get him your bloody Get up break it up move back all of you Join her get around to the back and meet the constables there Martin Addison take the house on the left Jones Edmunds take the house on the right bet you come with me Inside the cottage a Whole family lay dead Fallen around the supper table One look at their necks Showed us the strangest trademark again, but there was nothing in that cottage except death One by one the constables came back to report nothing Once more he had killed and slipped away again I looked out at the crowd now beginning to move back as they realized we were empty-handed suddenly I saw in the front ranks your face again the newspaper man who seemed to be everywhere I turned there was a light in your face a light that was almost happiness and looking at you in that brief second I was aware that there were two of us who now knew the identity of the murderer With the crowd shifted back began to lose themselves in the shadows and you were gone before I could move The strangler had struck again and again We were empty-handed as we waited for the ambulance may have been empty-handed sergeant But I'm sure there were enough thoughts in your head to make up for the lack of something to put your hands on Dark thoughts perhaps. Yes. I did think mr. Newspaper man. I tried to imagine what you were doing during the next hour I thought perhaps that you went to the nearest pub and sat alone at the bar attended by a frightened barmaid I think you dismissed the surrounding horror from your mind and thought only of the glass of stout and the sandwich for even such Men as you must rebuild their strength. I think you looked at the sandwich Noticing that it was skimpy as bar sandwiches usually are and you may have thought idly of the inventor of the sandwich The Earl of sandwich then of George the fourth then of all the Georges as any good Englishman might and so to that George Who wondered how the apple got into the apple dumpling? It was while thinking of that and how the ham got into the ham sandwich that your mind came back to the people who had been murdered Maybe it was then that you thought of the simplest fact of all that the murderer could escape by either running away Or by standing still it was then I think that you got up from the bar without finishing your sandwich It was perhaps 20 minutes later that you walked down the street and met the man you were looking for Seen anything of the murderer of sergeant. Oh It's you again. Yes. No Nor was anybody else and I doubt if they ever will I don't know he's already struck fire of times. I've been thinking about it, and I've got an idea So yes, yes came to me all of a sudden and I felt that we'd all been blind. It's been staring us in the face Oh Has it now? Well, if you're so sure Why not give us the benefit of it? I'm going to Yes, yes, it seems quite simple now, but there's still one more point. I don't quite understand. I Mean the motive Now as man-to-man Tell me Sergeant otter mole Just why did you kill those inoffensive people? Well To tell the truth, mr. Newspaper man. I don't know But I've got an idea Just like you Everybody knows we can't control the workings of our mind ideas coming to our heads without being Asked but everybody's supposed to be able to control his body Why? We get our minds from heaven knows where from people who were dead years before we were born some say Maybe we get our bodies the same way our faces our legs our hands they aren't completely ours and Couldn't ideas come into our bodies like ideas come into our minds Couldn't ideas live in muscles as well as in a brain? Couldn't it be that parts of our bodies aren't really us and couldn't ideas come into them all of a sudden? Like ideas come into my hand See mr. Newspaper man It was one other thing The newspaper man did while he was in that pub He'd called his newspaper and Told them his idea and said he was coming to meet me and so They're hanging me killing me For something which my hands did I had nothing to do with it You can see that But what hurts me the most is what the judge said when he sentenced me It's not true It's not true. I tell you That if I lived Some day these hands my hands they say Might reach out For you Reigns and Vincent Price for a splendid performance Mr. Reigns and mr. Price will return in just a moment Harrow you were telling me yes. Yes. Yes. Well hap the next time I saw this fancy fellow His gadget laden car was humming and purring up the street as smooth as the slippery glide of a slide drum bone I got my auto light resistor spark plugs he yelled to me as he whirled by and they're terrific I'll buy Cornelius this fellow had the right dope because friends when you replace your old narrow gap spark plugs with the Wide-gap auto light resistor spark plugs you can really tell the difference in your car So if you don't already have a set of auto light resistor spark plugs drive down tomorrow to your nearest auto light dealer and Treat your car right switch to auto light and friends remember to Auto light means spark plugs ignition engineered resistor spark plugs auto light means batteries stay full batteries Auto light means ignition system the lifeline of your car And now here again is mr. Claude Reigns The hands of mr. Otter mall has always been one of my favorite mr. Stoll is and so it was a great pleasure To be able to play it on suspense one of my favorite radio programs What about you Vincent? Well, I agree with you on both counts Claude and in addition I found it refreshing to play the murder victim for a change instead of the murderer By the way Claude, what will we be hearing on suspense next week a treat? You won't want to miss one of Hollywood's most glamorous stars mr. Rosalyn Russell in a top story the sisters another gripping study in suspense Claude Reigns will soon be seen in the Paramount picture the sin of Abby Hunt Vincent Price can currently be seen with Lana Turner Jean Kelly and June Allison in Metro Golden Mayors Technicolor production the three musketeers Tonight suspense play was the famous story by Thomas Burke adapted for radio by Ken Croson with music composed by Lucian Morrowake and conducted by Led Bluskin the entire production was under the direction of Anton M leader in The coming weeks suspense will present such stars as James Cagney Ronald Coleman William Bendix and others make it a point to listen each Thursday to suspense Radio's outstanding theater of thrills and next Thursday same time here Rosalyn Russell in the sisters Ben show turn in your scrap steel to your local scrap dealer the more scrap the more steel Good night. This is CBS the Columbia broadcasting system