0458 - The Intruders (3/30/1976)

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater presents...

Come in.

Welcome.

I meet you, Marshall.

The difference between man and animals at Voltaire is that man knows he will die.

Animals have bodies, brains, instincts and desires as we do, but they do not have our fiendish comprehension that we are finite.

At one day, tomorrow or the next, this year or in one after, in this century or the following one,

our bodies, brains, instincts and desires will have perished.

Of course, that is why we seek so desperately to convince ourselves of the truth of reincarnation,

the promise of a life beyond this one of some kind of immortality to soften the implacable reality of death.

The host has whispered in it.

Too bad, really, really too bad.

They mutter to themselves.

What have I done to deserve this?

Sometimes they shout.

It's your fault.

It's not mine, it's yours.

The shut up, both of you.

Who would think they'd still be talking after all these years?

Our mystery drama, The Untruthers, was written especially for the mystery theater by Elspeth Erick and stars Lois Nettleton.

I'll be back shortly with Act One.

We all have minds, instincts and desires, and we all live with the knowledge that one day they will all run down and come to a stop.

And the world will spin on oblivious and indifferent to the fact that we no longer inhabit it.

So perhaps the fear that chills our blood is not so much that life will be over as it is that we will have so wasted it as to have left no impression whatever on the world we leave behind.

I walked the last half mile or so to the house because I wanted to come to it alone.

I had dreamed of it nearly every night for seven years.

The serene old house standing under great elms and oaks built of the mellowest old steel stone dug out of the resisting earth that surrounded it.

And now as I walked up the path and saw the front door painted a soft olive green, the great brass knocker shining softly, I knew that I had done the right thing.

I had come home.

I pushed the door open.

There was the great wide entrance hall.

There was a gently curting staircase that had polished mahogany ballastrades leading to the floor above where now I was certain I would find my own bedroom just as I had left it.

Yes, I had done the right thing.

I'd come home.

I started toward the staircase anxious to see my own, my own, my so familiar room with its long windows opening onto the gardens.

It's four poster bed all hung in muslin.

It's tiny fireplace crouching like a cat in one corner.

All, all would say, welcome home Elaine. We're glad you've come.

I had one foot on the first stair when something happened.

Wispers.

Very soft wispers.

So soft I couldn't distinguish the woman's.

But one thing was unmistakable.

I was not alone in my house.

I had come home.

But to what?

Such a bother.

It's too bad.

It really is too bad.

Why did it have to happen just now?

When everything was going so well.

Why did it have to happen to us?

It really, too much.

It's a shame. That's what it is now.

It's a shame.

Who had taken over my house?

Who had dared to move into my house?

Who was intruding on my property?

We have to do something.

Don't both of you look at me.

I don't know what to do.

I hope you don't think I do.

You certainly don't think I do.

Now let's not fight among ourselves.

Let's put our heads together and think what to do.

Now we have to figure out something.

Yes.

Everything was spoiled.

Strangers were in my house.

Three of them had sounded like.

They had broken into my house and now they were upset

because I'd come back to claim it.

They must have seen me coming up the path.

Ripped me open the door, walk in.

And now they were trying to decide what to do next.

She's so young.

That's not the point.

I know.

But she can't stay here.

Where can she go?

That's what we have to figure out.

She's so young and so frail, such, such a little thing.

The voices were coming from the front parlor.

I made up my mind.

I would simply confront them.

Tell them that I had come home to my own house

and they must leave.

Who's going to tell her?

Not I.

Yes, certainly not me.

You don't expect me to.

You're the logical one.

You can't make me do it.

I won't.

The door to the front parlor flew open

and a woman rushed out.

I'd braced myself against the post

and tried to summon my courage to find my voice.

But everything was happening so fast.

The woman hurrying straight towards me.

The two men after her.

You have to.

I won't.

You can't expect us to do your dirty work.

I won't.

I won't do it.

You know what happened then?

The woman rushed right past me and up the stairs.

She took no notice of me at all.

In utter astonishment.

I watched her run up the stairs to the second floor.

I was trembling all over.

Everything was being spoiled.

I come home and not my home is not mine.

It was filled with intruders.

I turned to see what the others.

The two men were doing.

The door to the front parlor had closed again.

They must have gone back in.

I kept towed across the hall and put my ear to the door.

And I could hear them talking.

It's up to you.

Why not you?

You're the head of the house.

Not when it comes to things like this.

Oh, you mean not when it comes to whatever you don't feel like doing?

That'll be enough of you.

I am not going to argue with you.

The door suddenly opened and one of the men came out.

He was rather young, which surprised me for some reason.

About my only age I would suppose.

Hanson with black hair and blazing eyes.

I couldn't help but admire him.

He strode angrily out of the room in the hall and slammed the door behind him.

I watched him dash upstairs two steps at a time.

Perhaps to complete the woman.

Perhaps to enrage her further.

Now there was only one of the intruders left.

I would confront him, demand what right he had to be in my house and order him to leave.

When he had complied, then I could deal with the other two.

You will leave my house at once.

My voice lacked all conviction.

I was embarrassed, horrified.

The man, older than the other one who had just passed me in the hall,

was standing at a window looking out.

And it would seem hearing nothing.

He didn't even turn his head at the sound of my voice.

He simply stared, unseen at the window.

And his hands grit his head.

Quivering side turned into a deep sob.

His whole great body shook and his knees bent until they touched the floor.

Lord, help me, Lord.

I cannot bear it.

I cannot.

Lord, God and heaven help.

Help me, or I am lost.

I stood stuck still at the door.

All my anger had left me.

All my indignation, all my resolve to rid my house of these few serpers.

I had only a huge desire to cross over ten.

Put my arms around his big shoulders and draw his head to my breast.

Whatever his trouble, whatever his misery, I wanted only to comfort him.

I did what I could.

I did my best.

Lord, you know I meant nothing but good.

I never meant that things should be like this.

I meant only the best, only the best.

I felt sobs in my own throat.

A sympathy I had not known for years.

A love for another human, overcame me.

A human I did not recognize, did not know.

He turned slowly and started for the door.

I held out both my arms.

Forgive me.

I'm sorry.

For whatever it is I have done.

Then the most astounding thing happened.

As I stepped forward to embrace him, he lifted his gaze from the floor,

but straight into my face, into my eyes, which by now were as full of tears as his own.

And he said,

Am I never to be forgiven?

And having said those words,

not to me, not to anyone.

He walked to the door.

The jacket of his coat brushed my dress as he walked past me to the door, which was open,

went straight through into the hall and vanished from my sight.

I was alone on the parlor.

Whatever I had expected my homecoming to be, it was not this.

To be the outsider in a place that belonged to me.

I went upstairs,

but before I reached the room that had always been mine,

I passed another room,

a big square room with a big double bed,

and on it lay the woman.

I crossed over to her.

She was sleeping,

but her lips moved,

over to try to catch the words.

Baby.

Baby.

Baby.

That was all she said,

but she kept saying it.

Baby.

Baby.

I put my ear close to her mouth to try to catch another word,

but I heard only baby,

repeated over and over.

I was suddenly aware,

and I felt a chill sweep through me.

I was aware that from her mouth,

no breath escaped,

a breath.

There was no feeling of her breath upon my cheek.

I ran from the room across the upstairs hall,

the door to another room stood open.

Inside the young man with a black hair and blazing eyes

was pacing up and down.

I watched him for almost a minute from the doorway,

but he never looked up or took any notice of me.

Suddenly, he grabbed a vase of flowers from the table

and dashed it to the floor.

The explosion of his anger drove me away and downstairs.

I ran to the back of the house to the kitchen.

Seated at the big work table was the man,

not crying now,

not making any sound whatsoever,

but staring straight ahead,

with eyes that were bleak and passionless,

and did not move as I entered the room.

His big hands lay side by side on the table,

ponds down.

Love and pity stirred me,

I moved to where he sat,

and put both my hands over one of his.

Still, he did not move.

I could not move, I thought.

Oh, then I realized that his hand,

his big hand that lay in both of mine,

had no substance at all.

It was as though my hands held air.

I touched nothing,

I held nothing,

a hand big and strong and firm as it appeared to be,

was nothing.

And then I knew, certainly and surely,

I knew that I had come home to find my house

inhabited by ghosts.

What could be worse than coming home after a long absence

to find your house occupied by three ghosts?

Well, I'll tell you what could be worse.

To find that some persons had backed up a moving van

to your door and made off with all your belongings,

or to discover that a fire had burned it to the ground.

That would be worse,

but three fairly civilized, seemingly nonviolent ghosts?

What's so bad about that?

I'll be back shortly with that too.

Our heroine Elaine has returned to her home.

The home she firmly believed to be hers

and finds it kennented by three people,

or what she believed to be people,

but who she has now decided must be ghosts.

There is a lady ghost whose sleeping breaths

cannot be felt upon Elaine's cheek.

There is a young male ghost

who cannot hear Elaine's knock upon his door.

And finally, there is a gentleman ghost

whose hand Elaine cannot feel

when she takes it in both her own.

Feeling perplexed,

but strangely, not in the least frightened.

I went upstairs.

I opened the door just as I had opened

it countless times before and went in.

I heard something

to my astonishment,

to my infinite delight.

There was a fire burning in my tiny fireplace.

How could this be?

Had the three unhappy and quarrelsome ghosts been expecting me?

Was it there where you're saying welcome to the owner of a house?

I sat down

and the winds were rocking,

sure that I remembered for a long ago.

Why?

That even creeped in the old familiar way.

How sensitive my ghosts must be

to know that I would be disappointed

if anything had changed.

My rocker did not still give off its well-remembered,

its well-beloved little squeak.

So, born gently and sweetly into my own past,

blown by the creaking of the rocker

and the crackling of the fire,

I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up feeling much refreshed.

I washed my face a little,

brushed my hair and went downstairs.

I wanted to go back to the kitchen

where I'd left the elderly gentleman.

My favorite,

I must confess,

though I felt pity for the woman

and in odd attraction to the young man.

This time, the old gentleman was not alone

at the kitchen table.

All three were there.

The boy still looked angry.

The woman still anxious and unhappy.

Only the older man seemed to have composed himself.

No, I've heated up with left the lamp still.

We had last night and I want you all to eat some.

Oh, I can't, Fredrick.

I want no nonsense from either of you.

We have decisions to make

and we are not going to make them on empty stomach.

There's something you'll Elizabeth.

Now, you eat it all

and oh, Fred's some for you.

Not one dig in, some for me.

Oh, and there's milk in that picture, so help yourself.

As we started to eat the stew and drink the milk,

I found that I was hungry too.

It had been hours since I'd eaten.

There was a fourth chair at the table.

What harm could it do if I sat down with them?

It would be cozy, it would be nice.

And there was always the chance that one more or more of them

would notice me, speak to me, make friends with me.

I picked up the old bent wood chair, sat in it,

and inched it towards the table.

No one looked up.

They kept right on eating.

Seems I was hungry after all.

Of course you were.

Didn't think I'd ever want to eat again.

Not after this morning.

That was dreadful.

I don't think she even knew who I was.

Well, the main problem is his house.

Yes, yes, the house.

She loves it too much.

Yes, too much.

What were they talking about?

This house.

That must mean this very house in which we were all sitting.

My house.

My very own cherished house.

And what did they mean?

I loved it, loved it too much.

And that was the trouble.

Is that what they were saying?

Oh, really?

My temper flared a little.

After all, I was mistress of the house.

They were simply guests and uninvited ones at that.

I was the owner of the house.

Meanwhile, I was hungry.

And no one was offering me anything.

The lady ghost did not even touch her stew.

I picked up her spoon and dipped into her bowl.

Hmm.

Delicious.

I couldn't think when anything had tasted so good.

I picked up the pitcher of milk since I had no glass.

And took a hearty gulp.

Life was going to be pleasant if my ghosts kept cooking and cleaning for me.

And there was always the possibility that one day they would see me

because I saw them.

And we would talk together.

Touch one another.

Be a close, if slightly peculiar little family.

I watched them finish their luncheon.

I volunteered a few remarks during the meal and no one had paid the slightest attention.

It was clear that I had not yet found a way to communicate with ghosts.

I'll clear the table.

I'll help.

No, no, let Fritz do it.

All right, Fritz, it's okay.

See you there now, mother?

You did have an appetite after all.

You ate a whole bowl of glam stew.

I hardly touched it.

Well, I didn't know I was doing it, I swear.

I could hardly hold back a giggle.

The lady didn't know I had eaten all her stew.

How long I thought will I have to go on sneaking food from their plates?

How long before they would notice it?

How long before they would notice me?

At Fritz, will you wash up?

Oh, sure.

I want to go out and pick the last of the roses.

I'll come with you.

Oh, God.

Those two must be husband and wife, I thought.

As I watch them go off the back door, hand in hand.

Walking a little wearily, leaning each one a little on the other for support.

I linger down in a warm bright kitchen, watching the handsome boy ghost at the sink.

I wanted to touch his wavy black hair with curl down the nape of his neck.

I wanted to kiss the long fingered hands that held the dishes under the running water,

scrubbed him and dried them and put them away.

But I soon tired of watching his brooding face.

And I remembered the elderly couple who were by now wandering among the roses.

My roses.

There had been gazes of them in every room of the house.

There had been a vase of roses that this grim young man had dashed to the floor.

I would go out and see my roses again.

There they were.

She would a basket over her arm.

He would a pair of clippers carefully sniffing off the roses.

The pink, the yellow, the white, and placing them in the basket she held.

I fairly danced up to them.

I felt I loved them so surely in this garden spot they would see me and know me.

But they simply talked quietly to each other.

The yellow ones are almost finished.

Yes, and white.

The yellow are my favorites.

We'll put in more next year.

We always do that.

But what for?

One never knows.

You may be right.

What?

Red, sir?

Just a thorn.

Well, you should be more careful.

Any when I'm cutting the flowers and putting them in her basket.

She put her injured finger in her mouth for a second or two.

Then went on arranging the roses.

The pinks together, the whites together, the yellow.

What now?

I did it again.

Oh, really Elizabeth.

This time she held out her finger for him to look at.

I looked too.

And what I saw bewildered me.

More than anything that had gone before.

From her finger, which she held up to him mysteriously as a puppy with an injured paw.

From her finger.

So drop after drop of crimson blood.

Blood?

My ghosts could bleed.

I told you to be careful.

I just wasn't thinking.

It's hard.

I know.

I know.

But I don't want you hurting yourself.

How can I be hurt anymore than I've already been hurt?

Tell me that.

I hurt too, you know.

I do know.

We've all been hurt.

We're all bleeding.

Let's go back.

We have enough roses.

I followed them as he tenderly shepherded her toward the house,

stopping now and then to comfort her and dry her eyes.

What was troubling my ghosts?

Who's the deep unhappiness that depressed them?

I ate with sympathy from my newly adopted family.

The doctor is here.

The doctor?

He wants to talk to you both.

Is it good news or something?

He wouldn't tell me.

He wants to discuss something with you.

What?

A possibility, he said.

What possibility?

A possibility of what?

He wouldn't tell.

He wants to talk to you.

We all went into the house through the kitchen,

into the front parlor,

where sat a strange man,

small, undistinguished with grey hair,

a parchment skin,

and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.

Pale blue they were.

But penetrating, bright and somehow kind.

I'm glad I found you in.

You have news for a stalker.

In a way, I have a...

She was asking for you this morning.

For me?

Did she...

She asked for all of you?

By...

By name?

Did she seem to remember?

Not everything.

No.

But enough.

Enough.

Enough to give you hope?

Well, I should think so.

Doctor...

She seemed concerned about three of them.

I must say it was a happy thing for me to hear.

When I saw her earlier this morning,

and she asked about all of you,

she spent some extra time with her.

I...

I asked her if she'd like to come home.

Come home.

Could she?

Could she wonder?

Well, I had to talk to you about it first, of course.

But if she's...

Well, not if she's better.

She's improved.

Then why not?

I want you to talk it over between yourself.

There's nothing to talk about.

What are we waiting for?

Let's go get it.

No, not so fast.

I insist that you sleep on it.

Then in the morning,

if you're all agreed,

you come here at the sanitarium.

If all of you are like-minded,

you can bring her home.

Oh.

No.

I think...

I think perhaps we're taking chances.

But then...

We never chance anything.

We never gain anything.

Am I right?

Was the doctor a ghost as well?

Frankly, I couldn't make him out at all.

That bit of homely philosophy.

Life is full of risks.

But we must risk something to gain something.

That didn't sound much like a ghost to me.

To a ghost.

After all, life is...

Well, what is it?

Something they've lost?

Or is it something they've found?

Or is it something in between?

Our heroine at the end of Act II

had made some slight progress

toward establishing herself as mistress in her own house.

She had met the three ghosts through dwell there,

though clearly they had not met her,

being apparently quite oblivious of her presence.

Still, she had developed real feeling for them,

no matter how they ignored her.

She had touched them,

though they did not react,

she had even sat down to luncheon with them.

Now at last I knew what was troubling my three sweet ghosts.

Someone they all loved.

A woman.

A girl.

Was very ill.

And now they're going to bring this invalid home.

Home to my house.

Perhaps they'd chosen my house

so that she would have a particularly lovely place to come to

after the sterility of a hospital.

When I went to my pale blue room that night,

there were fresh yellow roses

in a white vase next to my bed.

And surprise of surprises.

My bed had been turned down.

The blue and white coverlet had been neatly folded

across the foot of the bed.

The pillow and its embroidered slip had been plumped up at the head.

And the turned down corner revealed

the loveliest of winning sheets.

I laughed aloud in my great joy.

My new family was about to be complete

and all of us would be very, very happy together.

In the morning, I came downstairs to find them

chattering excitedly.

Fritz, we've decided you should not stay here.

Why?

Because three of us might be too much company for her.

You know how she's behaved those other times.

Oh, but Frederick, this time will be different.

Remember what the doctor said? It's only a chance.

That's more than we've had before.

All right, all right.

Fritz, you go over the whole house

and if you see anything, anything at all.

Anybody who does store a piece of scrap,

everything must be absolutely perfect.

And be sure this food in the ice box

and petty of soft drinks.

Fritz will take care of everything.

Everything. Don't excite yourself.

How can I help it?

My baby.

My baby is coming home.

Oh, so it was her.

Her baby.

The day before when I had been over her,

she lay sleeping in the bed

and had heard her whisper in her sleep

over and over again, the word,

baby.

It was her child who was ill

who had been taken away from her,

kept away for so long.

Not a baby anymore, I suspect,

but a girl.

How big?

How old?

Would she be pretty?

The older man brought a car around to the front door.

He left it for a minute to go inside to get his wife

and that gave me just an up time

to clamber into the back seat

and scrunch myself way down in the floor

that way they would never see me.

For I was becoming more and more certain

that the time was very near when they would see me

when I would introduce myself properly

and offer to share my house with them forever.

But not just yet.

We must all wait till the family was complete,

till the one I'd never seen

had been brought back from the sanitarium

till she was settled in, felt comfortable,

then, then they would begin to see me.

Hear me.

Touch me.

Love me.

It was only a short drive to the sanitarium.

Tomorrow, she and I will go shopping for clothes.

That's too soon.

Next week then.

No, we must be patient.

Very gradual about this whole thing.

I know, I know.

But let me dream.

Dream away, darling.

I felt the car make a turn off the road to the right.

Only then did I get up off the floor

and look out the window.

There's sort of great white house.

Pretty enough.

I'm not nearly so handsome as mine.

The couple got out and hurried up the broad marble steps

and went inside.

I slipped in with them before the door closed.

The doctor I'd seen at my house,

but they before came out of a room,

greeted the man and his wife,

and took them back with him into the same room.

Once again, I managed to slip in before the door closed.

I hid myself behind a chair.

Please sit down, both of you.

Yes.

Thank you.

Well, now...

How is she, Doctor?

Yes.

How is she this morning still?

She's still improved.

I'm not sure.

How can you be not sure?

You talk to her.

She still wants to come home.

We have everything ready for her.

Does she want to?

Yes.

She still wants to come home more than before.

Well, then.

Well, wait.

Doctor, there's more, isn't it?

Yes.

There's more.

Will tell us?

She's anxious to come home, very anxious,

but her attitude toward all of you over...

Yes.

You said yesterday she was concerned for us.

That's changed.

Yes, her.

It's changed.

Changed back.

What?

Back.

Back.

Back to what it was.

To what it was.

When she first came here...

Oh, no.

Kathy.

She...

She hates her.

Let's go now.

Now, now, now.

Love and hate live together.

You understand that?

Don't you?

They live side by side in every human being.

There is never just love, never just hate.

Now, we have a...

a glib sounding word for it,

ambivalent.

It is sound so impersonal, so technical,

but believe me.

Its substance is anything but impersonal.

It is the state of being

that rips us apart every moment of our lives.

It is the condition that brings great joy

and great sorrow.

A condition that rules us, confuses us,

threatens to destroy us.

It is...

Now, to put it briefly,

it is the human condition.

But what does all this mean?

That Elaine is capable of loving you very greatly

and hating you just as much?

You see, there is an imbalance in her,

so she rocks from one side to the other,

unable to regulate her feelings.

Now, if she goes home with you,

you must bear this in mind

if she comes home with us.

I wasn't paying much attention

to what anybody said,

especially the doctor whose talk I didn't understand at all.

Crouched as I was behind the chair,

I simply wanted the whole thing to be over with,

for them to be united with their darling girl,

and bring her back to my beautiful home

so that we could start being a family.

Yes.

What's that?

Oh, I understand.

How long ago?

Well, no, that's not too bad.

No, I'll hold everything.

I'll be right out.

Excuse me, will you?

Of course, doctor.

Was that coal?

Did it have to do with Elaine?

Yes, she's wandered off somewhere.

They're looking for her now.

Don't worry, she's still on the ground.

I'll be right back.

I was beginning to get impatient.

I was exhausted by my efforts

to become part of their lives,

to make them realize who I was,

and what I was,

and how important they were to me.

How important I must become to them.

I went up to them.

I put my head in his lap.

I took one of her hands in mine,

and I kissed it,

over and over.

Then the door opened.

Doctor?

What is it?

I, uh...

I hardly know how to tell you this.

What is it?

Your daughter is dead.

No!

She drowned herself.

It's a little pool on the property.

It's not deep, she...

She must have drowned herself purposely.

I can't think how she managed it.

She's dead.

I'm so very sorry.

Then I knew...

the two who were still sitting there

were not ghosts at all.

They were people.

Flesh and blood people.

Real people.

Very real now in their grief.

They had come all this way to fetch their daughter home.

And she was dead.

She had drowned herself in a little pool.

I looked at my hands.

There was water on my hands.

And my hair was...

was trenched in a water.

So very sorry.

I wish there were some things.

There's nothing, Doctor.

It happens sometimes when a patient feels the beginnings of his own recovery

starts to feel afraid of what may lie ahead.

Yes, I suppose.

We see it rather often.

It's hard to be sane.

And they know it.

We'll go home now, Doctor.

You'll let us know when to come back and get her in.

Take her home.

The doctor nodded his head

and the two people left.

Slowly, walking slowly, out to the car.

Getting into the car and closing the door.

I hardly knew what to do.

In what relationship did we stand now?

If they were living people, what was I?

Clearly I'd been confused in my analysis of the whole situation.

There were real people.

And I...

I was nothing more than a ghost.

I still loved them.

And I could not desert them.

I slipped back through a back window and crouched down on the floor.

They didn't say a word to each other all the way home.

I had no idea what I was to do next.

The boy I had thought to be a ghost and now knew was as real as the other two

came out to meet them.

And my heart was wrong with pity when I saw the look on his face.

He'd expected her to get out of the car, not just them.

And I wanted to run to him and say,

but I'm here. You see, I'm right here. I'm really here.

Only, of course, I couldn't do that because I was only a ghost.

I lived here for a whole year now.

The house stays the same.

I sleep every night in my pale blue room.

Every night the bed is turned down.

I crawl between the pretty sheets.

The next day it is made up again.

The summer the roses were more beautiful than ever.

I would go out to the rose garden every morning at daybreak and pick a yellow one

and put it at her place at the breakfast table.

She thinks he does it and he lets her think so.

Just this morning I left a particularly beautiful one.

Oh, Frederick, you've done it again. My yellow rose.

Oh, oh that.

I don't know how you manage.

I never hear you sneak out.

You're always asleep.

She loved them so. The yellow roses.

Yes, I know.

Frederick? Yes, love.

Do you feel sometimes that she's here in this house with us?

Many times.

So do I.

I'm staying on.

The boy has gone away to school and they really need me.

Everyone needs a ghost.

No matter how busy our lives, how interesting our pleasures,

there are depths of loneliness that neither work nor pleasure can plumb.

A little core of ourselves that needs someone to talk to or simply to be with.

Who can feel this need better than an understanding ghost?

I'll be back shortly.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that each of us

not only needs a ghost, but has a ghost.

We cannot see it or touch it or hear it, but it is there.

And it keeps us company when there is no one else.

A ghost perhaps is no more than a memory of someone once well-loved.

Our cast included Lois Nettleton, Carmen Matthews, Fred Gwynne and Russell Horton.

The entire production was under the direction of Hyman Brown.

And now a preview of our next tale.

One was short, squat and fat.

The other was huge.

As tall as a basketball center and built a solid as a tackle,

I estimated him at 285, with four arms, pretty near as big as my thighs,

except that on the end of the left one, instead of a hand,

he wore a prosthetic device best described as a hook.

It was the first time I knew for sure I was out of my depth

and I stood a good chance of drowning.

So I'd like you to meet my employer and his associate.

If you be, this is Mr. Gil Stevens.

No, he isn't.

What?

Or maybe you don't know it, but Karen, you've been me already do.

Starting as a vow, you are the number one mystery man in the world and the richest.

You, my friend, Mr. Derwood Drake.

This is E.G. Marshall inviting you to return to our mystery theater

for another adventure in the macabre.

Until next time, pleasant dreams.