 Good evening friends. This is your host to welcome you through the creaking door into the inner sanctum. Slither in, won't you? Hmm? Sorry the place is such a mess, I'll sweep it up later. Those are just chips off the old block. Been doing my bone work. Oh, didn't I tell you? Sure, I'm going back to Skull this time. All goes enough. Ready to string along with us for a while. Good. After all, this is a newspaper story. If you feel a little cold as we go on, it's only because we have a story to tell you. Ha ha ha ha ha. Tonight's inner sanctum mystery, Death of a Doll, was written by Fred Mato and stars Mason Adams in the role of Will with Ted Osborne as Bo Cousins. This is the story of Willie Harper and the Devil. And how Willie, on his first assignment for the Morning Blade, finds himself at two in the morning, sweating nervously in the murky shadows of a riverfront street. Willie has a gun in his pocket and a doll that belongs to a dead girl tucked under his arm. A block away, leaning against the one streetlight, impassive grotesque ape-like is the Devil waiting for Willie. I keep saying this is 1948. And I keep saying this is Manhattan. And I keep saying whether you believe in the Devil or not, you don't meet him till you're dead. But believe me, that's the Devil over there under that lamp. At three o'clock, he's coming for me. Sure, you've got a right to think I'm crazy, standing around waiting to be killed with a doll under my arm. It all started ten days ago around five in the afternoon at the city morgue. But Grundy, the night editor, sent me there on my first assignment. The morgue, he says, is a good place to start for stories. Looks like you might be in Luxem. How's that? Come along with me. What's your name? Will Harper. All right, Willie. Come down to the couriers with me. Yes, I'm very wrong. I've got a story in there for you. The girl in lock number seven. She's been here four days. Tomorrow we close the case. What did that mean, Mr. Jackson? It means, despite everything the police have been able to do, they can't find out her name, where she lived, or anyone who knew her. How was she found? Tugboat crew, fish director at the river. Tomorrow she goes to the city barrier grounds in a plain box marked Jane Doe. That's horrible. Just dying and nobody... Do you think she was murdered? There's not a mark on her. They say she wasn't. But I want you to know, but I want you to look at her face and tell me what you think. This is Jane Doe of number seven, sir. Jane, this is Willie Harper. I want you to see her face, Willie. Tell me what you see in it. A strange emotion shook me. She didn't seem dead to me. Her skin was perfect ivory. Her hair was fine spun copper. Her lips twisted slightly. I blushed and turned away, catching myself imagining what those lips must have looked like with life's color. Jackson led me back to his office without speaking. As I lit a shaky cigarette, he fished a brown paper bag out of his desk. He handed it to me, telling it forward as he did so. What the devil? And when they pulled her out, she was crutching this doll close to her. Even the doll hasn't helped Grace. The police have threw it. Mr. Jackson, you'll think I'm nuts. I suddenly feel sore, boiling mad. I don't know why, but I think she was murdered. The look on her face... Kind of a secure help? Yeah. That girl nobody wants. And the doll is your story, Willie. Too bad you didn't know her before. Yeah. Well, thanks. Yeah. Take the doll along, will you? I beat it back to the paper on fire to do a story about the dead girl and her doll. As I gave McGrundy my report, he stared at me. When I got through, he had a sort of put the grin on his face so I know it all. He grunted and tilted the paper-op doll forward. Think she was murdered, eh? Yes. The cops don't think so? No. They're closing her case tomorrow? Yeah. No clues, facts, or anything outside of this doll? None. All right, Harper. I'll give you another day to find the nasty character who did this horrible thing. Cops have been wrong before. Go ahead. Thanks. I'll get a story. Take your dolly along. And keep falling with the dead ones, Harper. You're better off. Now I know why I resented that crack of McGrundy. You must have guessed before I did that I had fallen in love with the girl in the morgue. Half hour later, disgusted with my own morbidity, I went to my room before going out to eat. Slammed the door and tossed the doll into a chair. I couldn't shake the feeling that the nameless girl in the morgue had something to say to me. If only the doll could talk, could tell me about it. What was she like? Was her voice soft? Was it kind? Who was cruel to her? Where did she live? Who killed her doll? Who? I grinned sheepishly at myself in the mirror. And with that gesture, this story really begins. The next few moments remain electrifyingly vivid. I had set the doll down in the bureau. I didn't touch it. I wasn't even looking at it when a new sound came from it. I stared at the crumpled, ridiculous little fool. Almost afraid to touch it again, but I did. I had to. I picked it up and tilted it limp, please. Karanana. That was what I had heard. A sound? A sound only? No. Somehow I thought it was more than a sound. A name. Maybe a name. Half because I didn't want to stay alone with a doll any longer and half on a hunch. I stuffed the doll in its bag and went back to the paper. I went straight to the reference room, filed the doll under my arm. What are you looking for? I want to know if you've got anything in the files and someone named Karanana spelled with a K or a C. What's funny, you seem amused. Don't tell me he's around again. If you've got a lead on Karanana, you've got some stuff. Oh, would you get me the clips on him? I'll get you myer's anthropology of a shit. He's in there. Anthropology? Why? Who is he? The devil. Karanana. Of course, an almost forgotten myth from Asia. Lucifer on earth wearing out one body after another, walking the earth always. I remember it now from college. I had it on the long walk and headed down Fifth Avenue, my head whirling with a maddening constant. I think I would have given up the whole thing then. But always at the point of going home to bed or of chucking the blasted doll in a can. The face of the girl in the morgue blanked out other thoughts. When I reached Washington Square, it was dusk. The sidewalk artists were packing up their canvases as I passed them all but one, that is. He was a tall, angular man with a completely bald head whose four or five paintings had the advantage of a streetlight. The man paid no attention to me. Until at the sight of one painting, I stiffened another shock. It's a matter, friend. The stuff that bad? That one. The one of the girl. It's a woman with a doll, I call it. Like it? Who's the girl? Do you know her? Tell me. Sorry, I'm felling oil paintings, friend. I'm not a dating bureau. No, no, no, no. You've got me wrong. I've got a good reason for asking. Look, I'll prove it. Here. Here. Isn't this the doll you painted with a girl? Where'd you get that? I haven't seen Hazel in a week. She left for the coast. I gave her that doll to pose with. What's wrong? Hazel is dead. Dead? Where is she? If I tell you what you promised to say nothing for a while, I'm a reporter for the blade. My name is Will Harper. I won't say anything unless I believe you had something to do with it. Where is she? I'll take you to her. She's at the city morgue. An hour later, we had come out of the morgue. Oh, cousins, it's simply nodded at my questioning look. Seeing the girl again, knowing her name, now added to the emotions I already felt for her. I had a sudden impulse. We handed the artist Hazel's doll. Are you giving me the doll? No, no, I want it back. But I want you to tilt it. Make it cross. What did that sound like to you? I don't know. I don't know. What did that sound like to you? What did you hear? The doll said... Karanana. You heard it too. Say that name again. What did you hear the doll say? I distinctly heard it say... Karanana. Then I'm not crazy. And do you know who Karanana is, Mr. Cudden? I'm afraid I do. The most fantastic coincidence I have ever encountered. Why? Do you know who Karanana is? The devil, Lucifer Satan. Quite. I think we'd better go to my place and talk this out. Certainly if what I think is true is true, no one will believe us. What do you think? That Hazel was murdered by... Karanana. I followed Bo Cudden silently along the dark streets of the lower city. His long legs led us finally to a dingy, narrow, fish-fouled street where we climbed an outside stair to the loft of a warehouse. You're in love with her, aren't you? An amazing circumstance being in love with someone you met. Too late. I could have loved her, yes. I met her at our emission house. Conceived the idea of painting her with a doll. Somehow that seemed right to me. So what? Well, we worked here for three weeks on the painting. I paid her enough so that she could go to California. Dream of hers. One night as we walked the streets nearby, Karanana appeared. Karanana? Yes, Karanana. Or a man who calls himself Karanana. The devil or the human form of the devil. However you choose to think. But there can't be such a thing that the devil is just a myth. Is it? I met him in Istanbul eight years ago in a cafe. Did a painting of him. What's he like? A squat, massive man, ape-like. As I painted him, he admitted to me such crime that I could hardly hold my brush. He made his living a professional murderer. Very discreetly, very cleverly. Very effectively. Why didn't you turn him in? Really, no. I liked the painting and to live. He was so pleased with the picture I made and gave him that he told me any time I needed to rid myself of some embarrassing person, he'd be around. Lucky you, but who'd believe that story? We do, Willie. And that's the important thing. Do you have any spare cash? Why? I have about a hundred and fifty dollars. If you could make up the difference. I think we should claim Hazel's body and give the child a decent burial. I fixed it up with Jackson at the Mord. At the three that afternoon, Bo Cousins and I plus two grave diggers in Simeon Cemetery. We're watching a bright new casket being lowered into a new grave. Man that is born of a woman has but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower. He fears that it were a shadow and never continued within one's day. In the midst of life, we are in death. Thanks, Bo. I liked it too, Willie, very much. You're a nice guy, Willie. Wouldn't you rather go now? No, no, let's wait till she's covered over. I want to talk to you. I've just gotten an idea. Bo, I know how to make things come out even for Hazel. I know how to get Karanana. And I will be very glad to see that you're buried next to Hazel here. I see things a lot clearer now that Hazel has a name and a passport. If there is a man named Karanana, as you say, I think he's human and that's an even chance. Maybe Karanana isn't the one. Do you want to help? In any way, I'd rather be discreetly disposed of. Yes, swell. Karanana said he'd do a little job whenever you wanted him to, right? Yes. Then you get in touch with him and... Sorry, Willie. My merchant's death is unreachable. He shows up when he wants. All right, I'll wait. But when he does, you've got a murder for him to do. I have? Who? Me. That was a week ago. An exciting week for me, covering all sorts of stuff in the paper. I'd begun to think both cousins was an imaginative phony. Even my editor, McGrundy, had stopped kidding me about Hazel's doll perched on my desk. Then this morning at 9.30, I got a call. Morning Blade, Willie Harper. What's up, Karanana? Did he say where? I didn't know where, exactly when, or even if I could get the drop on the devil and force the truth about Hazel out of him. I stuffed the doll into a bag and put it out, but McGrundy caught me. Harper! Yeah. Woman shot through the back of her head. Blank solitaire. 147 Parkway North. Husband with her. Run out on him. Phone it in. Right. When I hit the lobby downstairs, an unaccountable chill got me in the small of the back. Something made me stop short and turn around. It was my first look at Karanana. Meaning against a phone booth, a heavy, set, ill-shaped man whose arms sloped weirdly from his neck into a heavy stomach. He was eyeing me impassively. The game was on, I knew. I grabbed a cab to get my story just in time. I phoned the stuff in from the cigar store across the street. When I stepped out of the booth, Karanana just bought some cigarettes. He turned to me as I froze, waiting. What a crisis, Jacob. How do you know? I get a, um... murder a hobby of yours? No. It's strictly a business. So long. The kind of thing that went on all day. McGrundy kept me on the hop, but no matter where I went, Karanana was there ahead of me. Afternoon, I got to my room long enough to pick up my Luger pistol and the license I've got to carry it. He was waiting for me when I came out. You better put it in your inside coat pocket. It shows on your hip. Be seeing you. It's a quarter to three now. Fifteen minutes. And he hasn't moved from under that lamp post in two hours. I'm not waiting, I'm not waiting another minute. I'm going to meet the devil and have it done with. He doesn't move. Will a bullet do it? Can I trick him into admitting Hazel's murder? Or will he kill me first? Well, here I am. Yeah. I see. What can I do for you? It's almost three o'clock. You know you're right. Time sure flies. Well, time for me to get on home, I guess. So long, Willie. What's the trick? A fiend's trick. He's deliberately leaving me with only a few minutes to go. I've got to stop this. I can't go through with it. I'll go to Beau's place. I'll tell him to call it off. I don't want to die. I don't want it. I was running for your place. You might be down this way. You look scared to death and you should be, I guess. I've got a high bow. Let's beat it somewhere. It's almost three. All right. Quick, cross the street, Willie. There's a broken down pier there. Come on. Pretty dark here, Willie. But it was safe for a while. I don't know why I carried it. Glad you did. Got a gun with you? Yeah, my Luger. Let me have it. You're two right up. Here. Good. Now be still a moment. Three o'clock. Yes. Three o'clock, Willie. Time for us to part. What do you mean? You are not a very astute person, are you, Willie? Why? Maybe Hazel's doll can tell you. The same water that received Hazel is at your back, Willie. The time is free and tomorrow you will be fished out with the doll under your arm. Your car on Earth. White. Farewell, Willie. Hazel, poor sweet child, learned the same truth by accident. You filthy filthy little... Farewell, Willie. And you shall take your... Stop him! I said stop the kid! How's the head feel now, Willie? Better, Mr. McGrundy. Thanks a lot, Betty. My professional pride hurts more. Well, it didn't. You followed through like an old time on that story, didn't you, Shay? Yes, he'll do. How could I have taken you for the devil, Inspector Shay? I've been cold-worth. How did you know where I was going to be in all that? How come you were on hand at the end? Well, I cover the morgue, Willie. When a young guy suddenly decides to claim a nameless cause, it's time to follow up on it. You seemed okay, but cousins turned out to be wanted as a professional killer. So you tagged me to get to him? Sure. He was after you, no doubt about that. Oh, there's your doll, Willie. Yeah. Well, I tilt the doll and... nothing happens. No sound. Must be broke. I guess she doesn't have to speak any more, Mr. McGrundy. I think the doll is dead. Want to buy a doll? I'll sell it to you, but there'll be the devil to pay. Take a tip from Willie Harper. There's no romance at the morgue. You'll find nothing there except cold, hard figures. Sorry I've got to skip along now, but I've got a date with Hazel's doll. She promised to help me in a grave situation. I've just got to dig up something for next week's show. I think if we work at it long enough, we'll turn something off. Don't you? Mmm. Good night, pleasant dream. This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, The Voice of Information and Education.