 Personal notice, change is my stock and trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, you got a job for me, George Valentine. Write full details. Standard Oil Company of California, on behalf of independent Chevron gas stations and standard stations throughout the West, invites you to let George do it. Sudden Storm, another adventure of George Valentine. Dear Mr. Valentine, I'm riding from the most desolate place in the world, south end of Adobe Valley, right next to the bare Dead Hills, where not even a coyote could be happy unless he found a rock high enough to jump off of. Well, Mr. Valentine, I found my high place. And if I'm a coyote, it's only from running so fast and so long and hiding so much and not even remembering some of it. But you see, right now I'm myself, I guess you'd call it. So here goes. You read in the newspapers the past year about the punishments of the sinful that were known as the quotation mark killings. First there in the city, then several more times in towns up the valley and all by the same man. Only he was never caught. Mr. Valentine, I believe in justice. And what scares me more than anything is the idea that some hick cop might get it all wrong, might make an innocent person suffer for those killings, which I did. Yes, me, every one of them. What? That's what he writes, George. Well, go on, go on. Killings which I did, every one of them. Let me see the postmark. It's at Obie Valley. Yesterday. I guess nobody has ever understood those killings. The women who died and the notes I left. Give me the phone and go on, go on, keep reading. All right, George. So I've written everything down so you can understand and tell the world how I've been punishing sin only sometimes like right now when the storm is beating down outside. When I'm more like myself, I know that the only way for me to be happy is to just jump right out into space so I won't ever have to explain anything, even to myself. That's what I'm going to do, Mr. Valentine. By the time you get this letter, by the time you follow my directions and get here, I myself will be punished. I'll be dead. Hello, hello, hello. Wake up with your police headquarters. Well, 22 miles beyond the timbered place. I guess this is it, Brooks. All those trees down. Oh, George, it must have been a terrible storm. I'll say. OK, look out for the mud here, Angel. Yeah, George. I don't see Lieutenant Riley's car yet, do you? Oh, look. Huh? Oh, hey, friend. This place called the Adobe Valley Inn. Huh? Well, this is the Waldorf Astoria. Oh, I see. Just took down the sign, huh? As far as the view, rattlesnakes didn't like it. Do you own it? Well, lady, what you see before you is its only guest. Only one they've had in five years, just me, now and then. Uh-huh, even more deserted than it looks. Sure run down, isn't it? You were here to meet that cop from the city, Riley. His car's round and back out by one of them cabins in the orange trees. Thanks. Come on, Brooks. Tid dried out orange trees. That's what brought the suckers here 50 years ago, to smell one orange and buy a real estate. Then drainage took the water away from this country. What keeps you around here? Oh, mining engineer's my line, or maybe prospecting to you. I'm a latter-day sucker, that's all. Can't stay away from them. How are prospects? Well, there's something around here beside rocks for cattle to starve on. So I keep coming back, finding rocks. Now, look, what's all the excitement? You and the lieutenant and that shat. Nobody lives around this joint, but an old, old lady in a runny nose flunky. So come on, what's happening? What's all the... We'll tell you later, friend, when we know ourselves. Yeah, this is the cabin he wrote about in his directions to you, Valentine. And he was in here, all right. That's paper in the waste basket. Yeah, that's where he wrote that letter to you. Riley, what did the laboratories say about that letter? Oh, it's genuine, all right. It's from the same guy. The quotation mark killer? Yeah, yeah, miss Brooks, him. The worst unsolved maniac case in years. Somebody we know nothing and everything about. What do you mean? Well, we know his handwriting from the notes he left on his victims and his fingerprints we've had then. Well, they're on your letter, incidentally. And we know he always killed the same way, two curving slashes from a knife. That's why the newspapers gave him the name, the quotation mark killer. Yeah, but you don't know his real name or what he looked like. Well, our police psychiatrists and artists have worked on that. They figured he was small or slender than some kind of a facial disfigurement. And then the letter he claims to have been hiding out right here. Mm-hmm. Empty bean cans, razor blades, candles. Must have been here a couple of months. Who's the bucktooth blonde? Huh? Oh, that newspaper clipping? I don't know. I don't know. A nightclub singer or something. I haven't got all the victims straight. The men who were assigned to the case will be out here as fast as they can. All the victims? Yeah, here, here. Look, clippings of all of them. Pick your stew. His own private little gallery. Yeah, all pretty good-looking women. Uh-huh, remember, he, uh, he hated sin. Yeah, he was a nut. I guess he had the idea that, uh... Jezebel's. Wasn't that what he thought? Sure, sure. Any woman he thought might be one, he just decided they should be punished by him. On the perfidy of women. Huh? Yeah, he wanted you to find all this Valentine, so you'd understand him. That's what he's been doing here right in this. Here, see? He's practically a book. Here, let me look. Tell about his murders. Mm-hmm. Tells about him. This split off crazy part of him, bro. Nobody has ever punished enough the women of the race who... Oh, it might almost be sad if it wasn't so hard. Skip it, Brooks. You bring that thing along. His letter was in a different frame of mind. Check. For once, he was sane enough to know he had to kill himself. Okay, now, where'd he do it? How'd he do it? Where's the body now? No, sir. No, sir. Ain't been nobody out in the shed. Look, yes, there has been. We know there is. I've had the in here ever since my husband died. Twenty-three years ago. Don't even take in guests anymore. It's too much trouble. Mr. Ruger, he's a prospector. He's been here once in a while, off and on. While we've met him. Who else was seen around here? Look, sir, she don't know. She hasn't even left this room in ten years. You speak when you're spoken to, young man. Sure, boss. Kitty, you the hired help? Yes, sir. My name's Ralph. And I know I could help you. Gosh, it's exciting. A thing like this happening right around here. Well, have you seen him? The man hiding in the shack? Well, you understand. I don't get out there so... Have you seen him? No, sir. Not anybody. Ask me the same question. I'll give you the same answer. Oh, hello there, Mr. Ruger. Haven't seen an extra man around, huh? No. Gee, I'd be glad to help you look. I'd be glad to help you. I remember ten years ago, a hobo lived in the barn for almost a month before anybody noticed. So none of you have seen anybody, is that right? Usually it's hard to hide out in a place so isolated because people notice... You're just asking the wrong people, that's all. The old and the lazy. Try those stokes or psychs or whatever it is. Styles, that's it. Rancher and his wife lived down the edge of the can. Have they mentioned anything? Search me, I don't know them. Got a dog that'll tear your leg off. Good place to stay away from. But they might have seen something. Yes, they might have. That's all there is around here to see anything. Just them and us. Looks like nobody's home. Yeah, the place seems deserted. It's not much of a ranch house. Not much of a ranch? In this dying country? That murderer could hide in those people at the end. Do you really think anybody else would have seen him? He should have. No trees or undergrowth around here unless he just stayed holed up all the time. Yeah, but where is he now? His body. He sounded like he wanted to kill himself with a big... George, listen. Hey, look out. What's the dog? Get away from here, mutt! Get away! I heard him! Hey, what are you talking about? There's a man over there. Hey, hey, hey! Get out of here! Who are you? What do you want? Take it easy. Stop, will you? Get that dog out of here! Get down! Get down! That's pretty. I got him, I got him. Don't you dare come any closer to me or I'll turn him loose. Is your name Stiles? Who are you? Where'd you come from? I know where you came from, Buster. Out of that house. Now calm down. Will you tie up that dog? What's the matter, Mr. Stiles? Don't you like strangers? George, he's terrible. Where the law, Mr. Stiles? What's in your house anyway? What? It's my wife. My wife. She's in the house. And she's dead. The blonde. Bucktooth blonde. Same one in the photo that folded up newspaper clipping back in the shack. She's been murdered, hasn't she? I just come in. I just found her. What do you think, really? I guess she's been dead for maybe a couple of days. But it's the same two knife slashes, aren't it? So it's him again. Our boy did it. Yeah, sure. Just like the others, everything. But you say you haven't seen any stragings around, Mr. Stiles, huh? No. But I never go over by the inn except on my trips into town. How often is that? Pretty often. I'm just hanging onto my land here by my bare teeth. I get away, work as a carpenter sometimes to fill out the budget. That way you've been the past few days? Yeah. I was fixing fences as big a ranch as 20 miles on beyond. I was making a circle fixing fences. Look, in that photo, well, your wife, she was a singer? No. No, just a few years ago at a club down in Valley Junction for fun. That's all. It was pretty lonely up here for her, I guess. Yeah, I can imagine. You never thought there was any danger leaving her alone. I always let the dog stay with her. Yeah, hold it a second. Valentine, did this murder happen before or after that letter to you? Just what I was wondering, Riley. How'd you find any mention of it in that true confession he wrote, Bruxy? No, not yet, George. He's not specific about anybody. Too busy talking about himself, huh? Well, it might have been before, Riley. I mean, a man like that might have a pretty strong kickback after committing one of his crimes. Maybe it was this, instead of the storm that snapped him into a little normalcy, made him realize he had to kill himself. Here, that's what you hope. Yeah, well, there's going to be a worse storm. And the letter he talked about jumping right out into space. Some place in life there is a clean, high place. What's that? Hey, sure. Sure, what he wrote about the coyote and the rock. How about it, Stiles, is there a high rock around here any place? What? A rock. No, not that I know of. It's rough, but just rolling hills. But the trestle, Mr. Stiles, the trestle. Sure, that's right. Trestle's the only high place. Runs across the big wash. Canyon, they call it. Yeah? What are you talking about? Listen to this. I have found such a place, and it's an old trestle. Nearly 200 feet high, and there I intend to make my final punishment. There I will kill myself. Come on. Any luck on your side? Oh, not down here, Riley. He certainly wouldn't have landed this far off. Yeah. And none of these mud puddles are deep enough to cover a man. Oh, brother, what a country. Oh, sorry. And what a case, Riley. We tear out here to locate a madman who plans to kill himself two days ago. But instead we find one of the people he's killed, which might have been followed up by his own suicide. Then where is he? Looks more like he changed his mind. Well, at least let's say he's not here, no body. You mean he's still loose, Valentine? You mean the storm has barely begun, don't you? You mean who else is going to be killed? We'll return to tonight's adventure of George Valentine in just a moment. No other part of the country offers more scenic variety for motorists than our western states. At the same time, no other driving is tougher on car engines. That's why motorists everywhere in the West will tell you more people prefer RPM motor oil than any other brand. And there's sound reason for RPM being first choice, where driving's toughest. It's scientifically compounded to stay on every inch of metal at all times, whether your car's pulling over a long steep grade or rolling through a hot desert valley. Ordinary oils in today's high-powered engines leave upper cylinder walls bare and exposed to wear, but not RPM. And that's just one of the advantages that make it the best engine insurance you can buy. Tomorrow, start using it in your car. RPM motor oil, first choice, where driving's toughest. Ask for it at independent chevron gas stations and standard stations, where they say, and mean, we take better care of your car. Now, back to tonight's adventure of George Valentine. You receive a letter from a man whom the police have frantically sought for more than a year, a man whose insane killings have terrified not only the city, but the scattered towns of Adobe Valley as well. The murderer tells you he's going to commit suicide by leaping from a high abandoned railroad trestle, apparently because he's just committed his final murder that of Mrs. Stiles, the lonely wife of a rancher. But then you find that the man didn't jump, for now you have searched at the place he described and you haven't found his body. Yes, it looks as though the killer changed his mind, as though the posse which Lieutenant Riley has hurriedly summoned will be needed after all, with the killer still loose somewhere in the night around you. Did you get in touch with those ranchers, Father up, Riley? Yeah, yeah, the sheriff's men have. Well, this is a little harder country to get out of than I thought. How so? Well, that's storm. Most of the big places had men out looking for lost cabs. And these hills are pretty bare, a man on foot can be seen for miles. Nobody reported seeing anybody, huh? What about the road out that way? No, no, no, no car. Besides, the roads were blocked off for a couple of days. Those are trees from the wind, remember? Hey, Mr. Valentine! What? Hold it. Yeah? Mr. Valentine, come here! Just a second. Yeah, where are you? Over here! Where's the dog, Mr. Valentine? Oh, hello there, rookie. Oh, come on out. Come on, come on, get away, get down! The dog brought in something. Come here, Muck. Get away from there. Come here! Yeah, here, look here. It's a bandana. No, that's right. A man's handkerchief. Pretty fancy one. Not anymore, but it... Soaked up with mud and burrs. So was the dog. Not your bandana, huh? No, no, and I'm pretty sure the kid doesn't know anything like that. Uh-huh. Well, now the ground's pretty dry up around the style's place, isn't it? Sure. Here's one of the dog's footprints. The dog came from the opposite direction. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but if you haven't found any traces of what became of this killer in the castle up there... Sure, sure, sure. You never know, do you? Just a bandana got lost in the storm. Might mean nothing or everything. We'll see in time. All right, all right, Styles. Just keep him on the train. He's not any bird dog, you know? He's no blood hide. I don't care where he... Take it easy, Styles. Just do the best you can with him. You'd like to find what we're looking for just as much as we do, isn't that right? Not with you. What do you mean? What do you mean, not with us, Styles? I mean, I'll kill him. That's what... I guess she wasn't so happy up here me having to be gone so much in the towns, but she always said she could stand it. Yeah, yeah, sure, I see. A guy like that's crazy. He had a picture of her somebody said. That's right. And the shack, along with pictures of the others he killed, carried them in his wallet all the time, I guess. When you find him, I'll kill him. How are you? Come on now. Keep your mind on what you're doing. Push that dog, will you? George, we're almost a mile from the castle. More than that from the ranch and the inn. There should be at least some prince if the guy came down this way. I know it. But then the honey explains... I don't, I don't. What's the matter, Styles? Lose the sense? What sense? I'm just nosing around having fun. Well, keep after. Oh, George, listen, it's a wild goose chase. Look, the murderer was here, though. The evidence in the shack. Yes, but who... who was there? The crazy, split-off part of the man who did terrible things and who wrote about them. That's all. Don't you wonder why it's so hard to get any trace of the killer nobody's ever really seen? Who disappears so easily? It could have been anybody in that shack, George. Any other person. Remember in the letter he said, when I'm myself... Fingerprints in the shack were the same as the other killings. That's what I mean. Somebody who went to the shack and wouldn't be noticed. Somebody who really lives up in this part of the country. Why, it could be... any one of the men up here. They all have gone down to the other towns quite often. And here we are in an empty muddy wash in the middle of the night. Okay, okay, stop it. He could be ahead of us or behind us, and we wouldn't know... Valentine! Look there. Yes, dance. Shut up, Mike. Stop that. Behind the rock Valentine's sea. You're waiting for us hiding? George, it's him. Now, wait a minute. Give me that flashlight. Don't find that. He'll see where we're... I'm just making sure that's all. I'm looking for footprints. I still couldn't see any, could you? Look. What? In this mud leading over to him, not a single one. What? What I can see... Riley, this is a wash under the railway trestle. And two days ago there was a big sudden storm in this beautiful adobe country. Well, didn't you ever hear of a flash flood? Flash flood? Now, what kind of... Come on, come on, there's no danger. The guy left no footprints because he was washed down here. He's already dead. Well, it's him Valentine. The original, one only quotation mark killer. His fingerprints check. Yeah, yeah, the sheriff's men there just compared them. The police artists and psychiatrists guess pretty well, huh, Riley? Small, slender. Some kind of a facial disfigurement. He's been dead since the night of the sudden storm. Yeah. Splinters, a little tire in his jacket. He jumped from the trestle all right just the way he said he would. He killed himself after committing that last crime of his, Mrs. Stiles. And if it hadn't been for high water carrying him down here... We might not have suspected so many people. And that's what he wanted to prevent, remember? Hmm? Wanted me to see that nobody suffered for crimes that they hadn't committed. All right, all right. Well, you've got your man. You've got your evidence. Oh, uh, come here a minute, will you, Mr. Over? Yeah, sure. Never dull at the wall left ours, is it? Say, uh, you were around the night of the storm. You must have known how the water flooded down this canyon like water out of a bucket. Well, you ever seen up around Bakersfield? Now, Stiles over there, he's been pretty upset. Or the idea might have occurred to him. But you knew exactly why we were looking around the trestle. Why, uh, why didn't you suggest that the body might have been carried down here? Well, well, in all excitement... Never mind, never mind. Say, you got a dollar on your wallet? Huh? Come on, let me see your wallet. I really want to see if a certain folded-up newspaper picture would fit into it. Kind of a photo a guy might carry around of a girl. What are you talking about? Settling a couple of things. Why, I don't mean about who the crazy quotation mark killer was. That's all settled. But about a man suffering for a crime he hasn't committed. Well, uh, hurry it up, will you? You can let me test this picture of Mrs. Stiles for size in your wallet. Hello, Stiles, I want you to do something. This is Ruger, a prospect who just can't stay away from this part of the country. Sure, I've seen him once or twice, passing the end. Yeah, that's right. When he comes around your place, didn't even know you and your wife. Shut up, will you? Now, Stiles, I want you to hold his arm so I can walk away. What? Yeah. Something happened earlier tonight that I want to check on. I want to see if my ears were right the first time, back by the trestle when Ruger called my attention to the bandana. I want to see whether that dog of yours that's snarling at me right now does when only Ruger's around like he was then. Oh, Mr. Valentine only. George, whose death on Stranger's, Stiles, and the man who's never gone near your ranch house, never gone near your wife, I suppose, in all the times that you were away. Well, listen. Look at the dog. Still watching me. But I'll bet you could even pat him, couldn't you, Ruger, your old friend? My old dog! Pat him! Pat him! George, did he confess? The time we tore Stiles off of him, Ruger was only too glad. It made sense, Angel. You see, I'd noticed the dog went for every single other person tonight. From what we'd heard of Mrs. Stiles, her being the lonely kind of a woman she was cooped up in that place when her husband was gone, well, long came Ruger, and I suppose... Must have been going on for years. Yeah, she wouldn't leave her husband, and Ruger couldn't stand it. Took turns loving her and hating her, because he couldn't tear himself away from her, I suppose. George, the other killer. It's so accidental that he would have come along and be blamed for it. Well, no, what's accidental about it? That's just the point, Brooksy. You see, the killer was hiding in that shack. Well, Ruger spotted him, that's all. Got in there and read all that stuff. The big confession. It was all there for him. Maybe he even saw the scratch notes of the letter to me. Yeah. That gave him the idea of killing Mrs. Stiles. Yeah, it laid it right out for him. All he had to do was wait until the crazy guy jumped off the trestle, then go up to the ranch house, and make the death of Mrs. Stiles fit in with the pattern everybody knew about. That's it, Ronnie. With the bad weather and the days wait for me to get the letter. Ruger knew there'd be plenty of delay, Brooksy. Knew even a doctor'd never be able to figure out who died first, the lunatic killer, or the woman whose picture Ruger just took out of his wallet and slipped in with the killer's things. Yeah. Quick, sudden storm for everybody, wasn't it? Yeah. But it's over now, Brooksy. It's all over. One thing you don't want during your vacation motoring trip is your car's engine handicap by engine sticking gum. The impurities that cause this power robbing gum exist in most raw gasoline. The only way to get them out is to refine them out. And Chevron Supreme is the gasoline that's super refined to remove gum. Try Chevron Supreme and notice your car's improved response. Faster start, smoother pickup in traffic, and ping-free power on hills. See if it doesn't give you that new car feeling. Another thing this premium quality gasoline gives you is full mileage in the kind of everyday driving you do. You don't have to wait for your vacation to enjoy that new car feeling. Just ask for Chevron Supreme tomorrow. Ask at standard stations and independent Chevron gas stations where they say and mean we take better care of your car. Tonight's adventure of George Valentine has been brought to you by Standard Oil Company of California on behalf of independent Chevron gas stations and standard stations throughout the west. Robert Bailey has starred as George with Virginia Greg as Bruxy. Let George do it is written by David Victor and Jackson Gillis and directed by Don Clark. Wally Mayer is Lieutenant Riley. Her Butterfield was heard as Stiles. Ted D'Corsia as Ruger. Well as the old lady. Irvin Lee as Ralph. Fred Howard as the murderer. And the dog was played by Earl Keen. The music is composed and presented by Eddie Dunstetter. Your announcer, John Easton. Listen again next week, same time, same station to let George do it. This is the Mutual Don Lee Broadcasting System.