 Good evening friends. This is your host to welcome you through the creaking door into the inner sanctum. Come in, come in. I just came in from a bang-up fashion show. Styles guaranteed to kill you. See him and you'll never forget him. You'll talk about him day and night, man. Oh, there are wonderful frizzes. One old fellow wore his head at a slant. And how they parked his face on the piano before modeling. Said his face always stole the show. A third wild man displaying the newest in zombie zilt suits got into his trousers by pulling him over his head. Poor chap strangled the desk. There's nobody minded. Now they couldn't if they wanted to. In order to mind, you've got to have one. Tonight's inner sanctum mystery, Wish to Kill, was written by John Robert and stars Carl Swenson, the role of John, with Miss Leslie Woods as Celeste. Okay, get your forks ready. Your pitchforks, that is. Have you ever wished for someone's death? Lacking the nerve to kill, you wished it with every ounce of you. And dreamed it too. A dream such as this. John Kellan's dream. For a yellow pallor in her cheeks, yellow greed on her face, within reach of my hand, I give up and stand over her. Celeste, the person I hate. I touch her. She's waiting there. I want her to wake up, to fear, to witness her own death. Celeste, wake up Celeste. John? John? You look at me as if I'm a stranger. Well, your face, it's a... John, what are you up to? This. A knife. To cut the knot that bites. John, you're insane. Cut it, John. No! But it was just a coward's improbable dream. The tortured wish of a helpless man. The wish for her death floods my mind. I wish it with every ounce of you. I can think of nothing else. Nothing else. He motored the country. And hum of the car is a single word throbbing in my brain. Murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder. John, I had a dream last night. Frightening a dream woke me up. After that, I couldn't sleep long night. What was your dream about? Well, someone was hovering over me. I was about to die at the point of a knife. Who was hovering over you? I don't know. I tried to identify him, but his features were blurred and kind of unclear, and I... Now, who would want to murder me? Could someone wish my death? You could. I? I could want my own death? Yes. Well, now you're either teasing or you're being third. Neither. But why should I want my own death? Self-dislike. Your own rotten a second here. Your own crimes, shock and appalled you. My own rotten? And crimes? What crimes? Your crime against me. I'm a middle-aged man and you're young. Marriage was to be an equal partnership into which you brought youth and beauty and I wisdom and money. That was our understanding, but you cheated. You brought nothing to me. You made a joke of my wisdom. You want only my money. The wish to kill was pushing me relentlessly now, pushing me. Just where are we driving, John? Do you know that we lost the highway at least three miles back? A drop in my brain was a fever. Murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder. My hand found a car tool. It was there conveniently behind me as if I'd planned it to be there like that. Why were you stopping? To settle something forever. Now, get out. A tire wrench? Oh, John, John, you wouldn't dare. Get out. I'm walking to the pine grove in front of me. It's useless to run or scream. There's no place to run to and nobody to hear you scream. I didn't choose this spot accidentally. Obviously not. And I didn't just come along with you idly either, John. You didn't just come along. Well, look. See for yourself. You're armed. And I'm an expert shot. You're not hurt. I shot at your tire wrench just to disarm you. You're not much of a killer this time either, are you, John? This time. That dream that awakened me last night. I woke up to find a knife on the bed hovering. A knife, John. As if a killer had lost his nerve at the last moment. You're going to expose me? And how I am. The minute we get back to town, I'm going to tell the world that you're criminally insane. And I will see to it that you'll put where you belong. In an asylum. I sprung my own trap. And then suddenly it happened. My wish that she died then right before me. Produced its agent. A man appeared. An armed bandit came out of the pine grove. As if I had wounded. John. Okay, lady. Get those rocks off your fingers and climb out of that fur coat. You, mister, pass me your wallet. He hadn't seen Celeste's gun. Hidden in the folds of her coat as she removed it slowly. Not expecting it, the robber hadn't seen it. I watched Celeste. Hence. Gathering of courage. My coat? Here. Why, you! Oh! John! John! For Celeste. Her shot had gone wild. But not the bandit. Celeste was on the ground. A shadowed figure. Still as death. In the first gloom of twilight. That crazy dame pulling a gun on me like that. Who's she? So quiet, so dead. Yeah, bullseye for me. Now pull those rings off her fingers and give them to me. Come on, don't stand around staring at me. I wished you. When you came, agent to my wish. I murdered Celeste. Through you. Okay. So you wished. Now grab a hold and help me dump our victim. We carried her into the pine grove. The bends had led the way. Surely just following a prearranged blueprint in his mind. And we stopped at a pond. We almost walked into it when he ordered a hold. Far enough! We'll give your missus a whole lily pond all to ourselves. We held her so solemnly for an instant. In that instant I could feel the world tremble in the night. Okay. He... Celeste! You're divorced now, mister. Like the lady enough to remarry her. Huh? I don't understand. You're better like her enough to see that you're about to join up with her for good. You're going to murder me? Just shut you up. No, I won't ever betray you. I swear I never will. I wanted her dead and I watched you dead. In the gloom I couldn't see the gun level that high, but I could feel it like a live thing throbbing against me. Again I could feel the world tremble under my feet like a rumbling earthquake, erupting and hurling me through space. I ran! Ron and you'll make Zion a lot tougher for yourself. Two shots in this fire in the gloom. I was untouched, whirling in the deepest space. Third shot! The knife is my shield, my armor against death. I lay face downward in a pine bed while time stopped, listening to the bandit firing random shots into the woods, and he slowly gave up the pursuit. Soon, for a long time there were no sounds, no rustling in the tickets, no shots. My mind was an adding machine, totaling the column of numbers, five, five bullets, and the one that had killed Celeste, six, he fired six bullets, and now there were no more. I'd won! I'd saved my life! I'd won! But then, when the darkness emptied, silently into the ghostly craze of dawn, I saw her, Celeste, specter of death in a wet dress that dripped like great beads of tears falling. She was standing over me, Celeste. You're late, John. He's gone away. You don't have to hide anymore. We can go home now. You say we? We can go home now. No. No, not together. Never together anymore. Come, John. Never together. Never anymore. Come, John. Come home, John. Alone. I'll go alone. You're dead. You're at the bottom of the pond. Dead. I left the pine woods and went home alone. The imagination plays tricks. Celeste was dead forever in a watery grave. The imagination plays tricks. Entering my house in a white glare of a new day, there were sounds in the living room, familiar morning sounds, radio music from Celeste's favorite station, the station she tuned in while she had her breakfast. I'd been dawn all night. Who? Who had tuned in that program? And then another thing. Swimming in my vision, catching it my throat, a coat flung carelessly over a chair. Celeste's coat, the mink she'd worn to her murder. And then in the kitchen, one more thing, a coffee pot on a lighted stove, hissing. The doorbell. The back door to the yard. Mrs. Argosby. No lady with no life of her own, only everybody else's. I made the next door. Good morning, Mrs. Callum. Mrs. Argosby. Come to give back the sugar I borrowed this morning. And thank Mrs. Callum for me. Yes, thanks. The sugar you borrowed this morning? Well, that's what I said. Borrowed from whom? Mrs. Callum, of course. Now ain't that a peculiar question? You're certain you borrowed it this morning? I am. Are you trying to mix me up now? You're an elderly woman. You do nothing but stare out of windows and live other people's lives. You have no life, no sense of time. The day could be yesterday, and yesterday could be last week or last month. Now get out of here with your old wives' taste. Well, I never! She scurried off. And then staring after her into the yard, something suddenly held me. A clothesline of wash. And there in the center of the lion's limp and dripping great beads of tears as I'd seen it standing over me in the pine woods was the dress, red silk with gold brocade, the same dress the less had been murdered in. And her body cast into the lily pond. I went back to the scene of the murder. At the scene there was a sign that I hadn't noticed yesterday. A large construction sign fringing the neck of the pine grove, a sign that read Harris Town, now building the Seymour Harris Construction Company. There was a fleet of trucks and cranes and men with stores of men. And I and Bulldozer shearing through the pine trees, leveling them. And I called to a man holding an engineer's construction plan. You over there, engineer! What's going on? Read the sign! I know, I know. But those Bulldozers, you intend leveling the whole pine grove? Yeah, we do. Goes back less than a quarter mile. Just a day or so is worth for those Bulldozers. It's a funny out-of-the-way place for a housing development. Well, land's cheaper for one thing. Well, it's spotted with stagnant pools, mosquito infested. Spotted? You don't know the pine grove, mister. There's just one pond, shallow lily pond in there. They'll get that drained and leveled off with fill and a jiffy. Hey, you sound like you hate to see those pine woods go. What, are you sentimental about them or something? Well, yes, sir. I'm sentimental. Drained in the jiffy. Machines were going to dry up the lily pond and expose the corpse. At nightfall, when the Bulldozers sat quietly like great iron ghosts and the men were gone, I stole into the pine grove to grapple. First or last, shallowly engineered, sir. But it was. The reeking pond left its filming weight just below my shoulder. I covered the bottom, inch for inch, and then over again, waiting for the numbing moment of power when death and my bare feet would touch. Inferring slowly night's light and across hour on hour. The numbing moment of horror never came. My feet didn't touch death. The last wasn't there. The last wasn't under foot. But standing openly on the bank with the moon lighting one half of her face. Specter of death in a wet dress that clung tightly. V-dress, red silk and gold brocade. The dress that hung liply from the yard clothesline. You don't need to look any more, John. Are you dead, Celeste? You don't need to look any more. We can go home now. Celeste, please, while I have a shred of sanity. We can go home now. Are you dead? Are you dead? Come, John. We can go home now. I went home midnight. The lights are unbrilliant. I'd left the house in darkness and music. Radio music. The radio tuned in to Celeste's favorite easy station. And other things, old familiar things, nightly routines, my slippers and robes and pipe waiting in a table of snacks, cheeses, crackers, red wine set before the fireplace. Our nightly ritual of midnight snacks with a fire going. Were the fire going? Fire wasn't going. Fire couldn't. The fireplace was bricked up, newly bricked with fresh cement. Fresh cement's still moist to the touch. Cement's a little soft, huh? You. A killer himself. I looked up who you were. In your wallet, Mr. Callum. The fireplace. Out of commission from now on. Unless you want to answer to a murder charge, partner. You willed me, remember? You murdered your Mrs. through me. Well, then Celeste is? Behind those bricks. What? How? I got a look at that construction sign last night. Went back for the body. You were a day late catching on to the danger we were in when they got around to draining off that lily pond. Not we. We. Your Mrs. is behind those bricks, so you'll always remember it's we down the line. You murdered Celeste. I wanted her dead, but you murdered her. I have nothing to fear from the police. Haven't you now? How do you think I happen to be up there at the pine drove at the right time? What? How you happened? Should I know? I'll remind you. You hired me to waylay you and your Mrs. But come on, with all the jewelry she was going to wear plus a grand I was going to find in your wallet. You don't remember? No. No, I don't remember. Tell that to the police. But Celeste isn't dead. Now where'd you get that brainstorm? I saw her in the pine grove twice. She spoke to me. You're crazy in the head. She's been here in this house preparing breakfast, setting up my slippers, rolled this table of snacks. I did all that, Kellam. I was having fun with you. Softening you up in the head so you'd go to the bank for me regularly and often. You did all that? That's right. No. Celeste lives. I hired you, yes, that much, I believe, but you told Celeste, you joined with her. You joined her scheme to drive me insane to steal my money. That's a nice idea. Too bad the lady is dead. No, she lives. You shot her there, but she didn't die. You missed deliberately. We dropped her in a shallow pond less than five feet deep that she could get up and steal out of in the darkness. You're as barmy as a pet bug. But we're going to do business. Cash on the line from now on. I had but one course now. One course only. I could have no safety, no life ever. Sooner or later, he'd kill me. Police department. Kellam, you're listening to me. Yes. What, Sergeant? You were smart about one thing. Smarter than I was. Hurry up. Hurry up there, man. You're not pulling down the Chinese wall. It's only a fireplace. About that hood and your wife working together. You hired the gunman, all right, and then he made a quiet deal with your wife. But there's always a button. But what? Your wife got scared of her own scheme. With a gunman dominating the picture, it was getting out of control. Mrs. Kellam suddenly wanted to get out from under. Well, how can you know that she wanted to get out? I do know. You see, I was on my way here anyhow just when you telephoned headquarters. You don't get it, eh? No. Your wife phoned in a complaint. She was on the phone with me personally, not an hour ago. You tried to murder her, she swore twice. Then Celeste is alive? That's no surprise to you. From what you told me, she's practically been keeping house for you. Same as always. Sure, she's alive. Okay, there, fellas. Okay, Sergeant, we got it open. Come on. Come take a look at nothing. At nothing, Sergeant? Celeste. Eh, what are you trying to... Well, knock me down. She is in there. A woman that phoned me only an hour ago was sealed up in a fireplace all that time. Bricked up in the fireplace. You know, that's really doing your all to keep the home fires burning. Celeste was simply crazy about housekeeping. Imagine getting her part of your grave to wash dishes. Let's sum up the domestic life of the Kellins and the limericks, shall we? There once was a cook named Celeste whose cuisine met every test. She could toss up a dish that was simply delicious, but hubby's goose was the dish she cooked best. Good night. Pleasant dreams.