 Friends of the inner sanctum This is your host to welcome you through the squeaking door Into my dread domicile of disaster Come in Come into my parlour of panic Or would you rather sit out here on the Terrors of terror A bit cool out here All right, let's go indoors by all means the house itself is always warm. You see I had the paint To give it to coach All of it built solely for your poignant pleasure and dolerous diversion The price oh so Only a pint down and a pint a month for as long as you live Pint of wire You know Ah Tonight's inner sanctum mystery the eyes of my murderer was written by Emil Teppermann and Stars Donald Buker in the role of Barry with Charlotte Holland as Carol Let's get down to business Tonight we hear the story of Carolyn Medford and the strange things that happened to her when she came to visit her Aunt Loretta Medford on that grim evening of the 10th of June But before we hear Carolyn's story It will be necessary to consult a police report for the facts covering the three hours preceding Carolyn's arrival I auto-frain Lieutenant of detectives in charge of the Longview County homicide department make this report of my own free will It is well known that I have been collaborating with Loretta Medford the writer on a new radio series of half-hour shows Based on my experiences as a homicide detective, which was the star Barry Adams in the featured role Each evening at nine after finishing my regular tour of police duty It has been my custom to drive out to Loretta Medford summer place on the north shore about five miles from town There we three Loretta Barry and I would work on the series till well after midnight Last night the 10th of June I left my office as usual promptly at nine It was exactly nine sixteen and one half by my dashboard clock when I turned in from the highway to the private road Leading along the shorefront to Loretta's cottage. I Was a bit puzzled when I got out of the car because neither Loretta nor Barry Adams were on the porch where they usually waited for me At that instant. It was exactly 917 I Recalled checking the time on my wristwatch to make sure I wasn't too early 917 It was at that precise moment that I heard the screen It was coming from the direction of the private boat dock at the rear of the house I ran across the lawn toward the dock with my gun in my hand But when I reached the dock there was nothing to be seen or heard The darkness was thick thick and black And then not ten feet away from me. I heard Loretta's voice I couldn't see anything and yet I knew someone was here someone who had just stabbed Loretta to death and cast her body off the dock Someone who probably still had a bloody knife in his hand Then I saw him He was only a couple of feet away from me just a blur in the night too dark to see his face But when he spoke I knew him at you what oh Barry Barry Adam what happened on her for heaven's sake tell me what happened huh suppose you tell me what happened that was Loretta Yes, I know it was Loretta. Why are we standing here? Why don't we look for her try to help her you know There's no use looking for her a body went over the side And you know the current here is strong enough to carry her right out to see she was murdered right here in the dark And I wasn't ten feet away Were you that far away what? What did you say? Why did you kill her Barry? Don't be a fool Otto I was walking around on the other side of the house when I heard the scream Why I Must have got here about the same time you did sorry Barry. I can't buy that look here Otto You know I'm going to marry Carolyn. Don't you yes? I know you're gonna marry Carolyn Well, then how can you imagine I'd kill around it's no use Barry you can't talk yourself out of it You've got to be the killer. There's no one else here on the dock What about you? My you're on the dog. I I just got here. So you say Hadn't we better wake up my suspension later. We'll take a look in Loretta's library just to make you don't have to keep that gun Stuck in my back go on over in the door. I I can't What's the matter with you? I Have a feeling we'll see Loretta in there Has always With the dictating machine With a cigarette between her lips, that's your conscience I've seen lots of murderers their conscience usually gets them shortly after the crime. I didn't kill her Loretta were here. She'd tell us but she isn't she's out in the sea wet and cold No seaweed clinging to her and your knife still in her throat. Stop it. Stop it. Well You open that door Well, what what is it? Why did you close that door again Loretta? She's in there. Oh She's in there. I tell you her hair all matted from the sea a bloody wound in her throat Get out of the way. Don't don't open it trying to tell me you saw a ghost Well, if you didn't kill her her ghost won't hurt you Now Where is she? She isn't here So you saw Loretta you I saw her with a wound in her throat How did you know she'd been stabbed in the throat? What do you mean? Just before you said she was floating in the sea with a knife in her throat How did you know where she'd been stabbed? I I didn't know but you said it Well, that was just third degree stuff I was trying to paint a picture for you to break you down we do it every day with murderers That's the way I saw her just now sure my picture made it so vivid in your mind You thought you saw proves you killed her. This is no illusion She was right there. I tell you before the mirror. Yes What was she doing standing or sitting she or just floating? I don't know All I saw is her face her tangled hair her throat in one hand She She was pointing at something you've got it bad Barry want to sign a confession. She was looking right at me and Pointing over there to the dictating machine. Oh the machine, huh? How do you make this thing work with the needle back to the start of the cylinder? Now press the playback switch right there. I don't hear anything press the button on the speaking tube. Oh Well I am going to die. I Am going to be murdered. I Know because I've seen it in the eyes of my murderer I even know the plan The current that runs past the boat dock the freak current that catches up any object thrown to it and carries it out to the sea my Body is to disappear. There'll be no corpus delecta Anyone else might be frightened But I'm not I Know that I shall come back. I Know that I shall be able to point to my murderer and What's more important? Protect Carolyn at the end the end of the record. She knew she was going to be murdered and she knew the killer. She She said she'd come back She's dead, but she did come back She pointed at the dictating machine and Carolyn's in danger, too She's coming in on the midnight train. I've got to meet her. I'll have to leave now You're not going anywhere Barry I'm arresting you for the murder of Loretta Medford. You can't do that Otto who'll meet Carolyn Don't worry about that after I get you safely in a cell. I'll meet your Carolyn for you You want to get me out of the way in a cell so you can meet Carolyn and kill her too You're the killer now look that kind of talk won't get you anywhere. I won't let you do it I'm getting out of your seat now Let Barry get away. I'll never find him in the dark Sworn Mrs. Finch these excuse the night clothes. I was rudely awakened in the midst of the trouble, please Mrs. Finch. Did you Did you just call out to me just now? Did you say? Don't shoot Otto I'd not be likely to say such a thing to you lieutenant Frank and Was it mr. Barry you were going to shoot whom I just saw scooting out of here like a street for lightning I don't understand a thing like this a thing like what I just heard or thought I heard Loretta Medford say something to me and not being scotch like me you don't understand how it was that a Dead woman spoke to you. How did you know she was dead? Become so excited It was in my sleep. I saw So high in your sleep Yes, and it troubled me so that I awoke Came before me with her hair all dank and tangled and the salt water glistening on her face in the dark and her throat bleeding and raw You saw her like that. Oh, yes And she spoke to me. I don't believe you. I I don't believe in such things. You don't Then who was it that spoke to you a moment ago and told you not to shoot. I I Don't know Remember I told you this was really carol and medford story You've heard lieutenant Otto Frane's report of what happened before midnight. That was just the introduction Now we come to the crux of the story What happened? After midnight when they'd get about ghosts really started to walk And here's Caroline herself the talent It's not difficult to imagine a sense of shock With which I read Otto's report of the murder of Aunt Loretta It was Otto who met me at the train instead of Barry Barry He didn't explain her Barry was in instead He had me the report that she had typed at the headquarters before coming to meet me. I Read it in his car with the aid of a flashlight While he drove to Aunt Loretta's when I finished reading I just sat there with the papers in my lap. I Felt something tight catching in my throat Couldn't cry If I had been able to cry it might have been better I'm sorry Carolyn about Barry. I Don't believe it. How well do you know him? When did you first meet? Last time I visited here in April when school closed for Easter. Oh, you were only here for a week We've written regularly ever since he proposed to me if I'm there so you don't really know him very well Well enough to marry him Arthur a man could be that kind of killer and you'd never guess it to look at him or talk to him or Even from the way he made love to you I'm sorry You know how I feel about you don't you? Yes, I know If it weren't for Barry if it weren't for Barry, I might have a chance Oh, please be kind to him You love him so much All right, Carolyn I'll tear up that report. Oh, no. No, I don't I don't mean that I don't I mean prove that he's innocent Find the real killer. I don't don't you see it might have been somebody else a madman may be an escape lunatic There's only one trouble with that theory Carolyn. What I was the only other person on the dock The college was brilliant with life in every room when we arrived as if to drive away evil spirits and ghosts I Was so tired and numb from the long train ride and from the shaffering news I had heard but I stood with my eyes half closed while auto rang the bell Mrs. Finch open the door I'm in miss Carolyn. Oh, okay. I'm in the pen and My men all gone. Yes. They left a little while ago. Oh miss Carolyn You look exhausted. Come I have your room ready. You'll be wanting to sleep If only you'll not be bothered by any apparition on just a minute Yes, I don't Mrs. Finch, what makes you think she'll be bothered by an apparition? Didn't it come to me? Didn't mr. Barry see it? Didn't it even make itself heard to you a scoffer? Then it will surely come to miss Carolyn. You believe that Carolyn. I don't know auto Loretta was so interested in the supernatural the possibility of communicating with the dead if you look in her library You'll find she has almost every book ever written on the subject that may be so but do you believe in it? Loretta often told me if she died before I did She'd managed to get in touch with me Mrs. Finch Who could have hated Loretta enough to kill her? Don't bother your pretty head with that now There'll be time to talk in the morning. No, I want to know now be better to sleep now No, please Mrs. Finch. You knew her you knew her so well. You've been with her for 14 years 14 years long enough to learn to hate her What what did you say don't look so startled you too have caused a hater and so has mr. Barry What are you talking about her with her 38 years weighing heavy on her and all those peroxides and creams and Poos that she used you know why? Because she wanted mr. Barry for herself. Oh, no, I can't believe that burned her inside to think of mr. Barry marrying you She would gladly have died to stop it And hasn't she done it? She voted mr. Barry into killing her and now he'll be hunted and caught and executed and Wherever she is at this moment if she can laugh She's laughing. Oh, no, no How long I lay there after mrs. Finch had left. I don't know I Was cold cold and shivering My eyes were wide and sleepless as I lay taught in the bed and my nerves were raw So raw that the slightest sound graded That sounded the window My eyes flew toward it and I glimpsed the shapeless form out there in the night And I saw the window slowly inching up and must have leaped up by anything And I was at the door and it's matched to The corridor was still there wasn't sound I didn't know look back into my room at the window I ran across the hall and pull up in the door of mrs. Finch's room. Mr. Finch. Mrs. Finch There was no answer the room was empty mrs. Finch wasn't there Blindly I turned and ran to the stairs how I got down them without falling. I'll never know But if the foot of the stairs I stopped And everything within me seemed to congeal For there at my feet say the body of mrs. Finch And her eyes were wide and staring And her mouth was set in the terrible grin and her head rested at a crazy angle on her shoulder For her throat was cut Almost from ear to ear I felt the glaze leaving my eyes in the rush of blood subsiding for my pimples And then I saw Barry He was standing there in his hands with a knife and Blood was dripping from the blade Barry the knife you killed. Oh, I didn't kill mrs. Finch I just picked the knife up in the kitchen. The killer must have thrown it away Who's that? It's Otto. He must have heard me screaming he was watching for you outside in his car. I've got to get away Kelly Why are you looking at me like that? You don't think I'd kill mrs. Finch all the red Still Barry or I'll shoot to kill. Don't move while I climb in through this window All right, Barry drop the knife Well Can you talk your way out of this one? Now look here? It stood there arguing and I didn't know what they were saying. I only felt it great and terrible Worry as if I had had enough living and would welcome death if the only it meant sleep And I awoke Everything is still I must have fainted. I realized with a shock where I was I Was in Loretta's bedroom Her bedroom which had joined the library I'd pushed myself off the bed and went over to the library door I couldn't hear Barry and Otto talking in the library. Their voices were heated Numbly my fingers found the catch and locked the door then I went to the other door leading to the corridor And I turned the catch on that one too All I wanted was to be alone forever Along with the terrible throbbing in my temple and the emptiness that had inside of me I had to believe Otto though in spite of myself. I had to believe him. I had seen Barry with that knife in his hand That's from the library and in the library one of them had killed the other which Other would had the gun, but Barry might have tricked him somehow Which was dead, which was alive No one was trying the library door Which one? Carolyn, can you hear me Carolyn? Are you awake? Open the door Carolyn. I must talk to you. I won't answer you. You'll think I'm asleep. Carolyn! Someone has killed Otto. He was shot through the window. Let me in I tell you I best to protect you I ought to let him in. Let him kill me What's the use of living? Loretta said she would come to me Maybe if Loretta comes she'll take me back with her to the land of the dead and I don't have an idea Carolyn Loretta You did come back as you promised as you see Carolyn But but why isn't your hair all matter than dank and the way the others saw you and the wound in your throat The others saw what I wanted them to see I don't understand Loretta Do you mean that you're really not dead? Exactly my dear But you were murdered out on the dock Barry and Otto heard it. They heard it But they didn't see it Is it a trick? Yes, dear. It was a trick. I Was never on the dock. I was beneath it in a rowboat And I screamed from the rowboat and made Barry and Otto Each think that the other had murdered me That gun you're holding you you just shot Arthur with it. Yes, of course So Barry is really innocent Yes, dear Oh Loretta you've done all of this because you really hate me. Yes, dear. I Hate you so terribly But I'd be happy to die if I could destroy you with myself On the count of Barry isn't there? Yes, I could have forgiven you everything your youth your look Everything but Barry I Could have had him if you hadn't come along But now you shan't have him because I'm going to kill you then when Barry's caught He'll pay for you and for all the others I had to get on Darling don't There'll be no more go between us ever Well that ends in a clinch Yeah, I really don't know what to say about this It's so seldom anything on in a sanctum ends in a clinch That's because it takes two to make a clinch and we rarely have two characters left alive at the end of our story Anyway, I suppose I could call tonight's Taylor's success story You know, it's usually a story about a self-made man Well Loretta was a self-made ghost We invite you to join us again next week at this time for inner sanctum This is the United States Armed Forces radio service the voice of information and education