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Inner Sanctum Mystery, also known as Inner Sanctum, is a popular old-time radio program that aired from January 7, 1941, to October 5, 1952. It was created by producer Himan Brown and was based on the imprint given to the mystery novels of Simon & Schuster.
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00:07Good evening friends, this is your host to welcome you through the creaking door into
00:13the inner sanctum.
00:15Come in, come in, it's getting cold, we're all blowing on our hands, those of us that
00:22have hands, one character who hangs his sheet in our happy little inferno got frostbite
00:32so bad we had to amputate his leer, oh well, at least the big freeze has brought us one
00:41blighted blessing, the stiffs around here will keep refrigerator fresh.
00:56Tonight's inner sanctum mystery, Murder Faces East, was written by John Robert and stars
01:02Carl Swenson in the role of Steve with Charlotte Holland as Selina.
01:09Tonight's candidate for oblivion is a chap whose hobby is collecting nightmares.
01:18Oblivion comes with a crash when our boy discovers an idol is no idol jazz.
01:27Hang on everybody and we'll fill in the gory details.
01:31We're in a gloomy cell of a city prison in San Francisco.
01:35On the edge of a lower bunk sitting with bowed head is a man, a recent arrest.
01:40He's still dressed in street clothes, his tie is missing, so are his suspenders, confiscated
01:47as a precaution against suicide.
01:49His eyes fix intently on the stone floor, as if trying to stare a blind spot out of his
01:56vision, and his mouth twists into a distorted curve of amusement.
02:05I can't even buy a tie or a pair of suspenders or even five cents worth of freedom.
02:14Began for me with a penny postcard in the mail.
02:18Selina, my wife, read the card to me over the breakfast table.
02:23Public auction of the estate of Hanson Brokaw.
02:27Rare Oriental treasures.
02:29Mask, statuary, talisman.
02:32I went.
02:34Some fellas play chess or collect stamps.
02:38I hobbied in Orientalism.
02:40Selina came along to see that if my blood pressure didn't pop bids out of my mouth,
02:45it'd have bankrupt us for a month.
02:47A hundred lots had been sold, a parade of bronzes, ceramics, and brocades that were the
02:52haunting fascination of the Orient.
02:55Lot number 101 on the platform was a bronze Hindu idol, small, six inches high, with a sardonic
03:03grin that looked real, as if a human laughing face had been frozen into a bronze mold.
03:10Number 101, a Hindu idol.
03:12A bit lively, folks.
03:13Fifty dollars.
03:14Seventy-five.
03:15Steve, you're mad.
03:16Now I want it, Selina.
03:17Not over a hundred, darling.
03:18We can't afford it.
03:20A hundred dollars.
03:20Seventy-five.
03:20Seventy-five.
03:21Seventy-five.
03:22A hundred dollars.
03:22One hundred dollars.
03:23Now one hundred.
03:24One hundred.
03:24One hundred.
03:24I hesitated.
03:25I have one hundred.
03:26And then the idol decided it for me.
03:28I watched it move subtly, just from my eyes.
03:32It moved to the east, toward my aisle position, compellingly, as if an invisible string
03:38was drawn between us.
03:40Two hundred dollars.
03:41Steve.
03:42Two hundred dollars.
03:43Two hundred once.
03:43Two hundred twice.
03:46Sold, Mr. Kavanagh.
03:47I owned the Hindu idol.
03:53At the close of the sale, Selina and I were leaving when a man approached us, a gaunt,
03:57swarthy man with hollowed-out cheeks, wearing an eastern fez.
04:01Mr. Kavanagh.
04:02Yes?
04:03I am told you are the fortunate purchaser of the laughing idol.
04:07How about it?
04:08It was my intention to buy it, but I arrived too late.
04:12My car was delayed in traffic.
04:14Oh, that's too bad.
04:14Better luck next time.
04:15Perhaps I can be lucky this time.
04:18If you will sell the idol to me?
04:21Oh, I don't think so.
04:22The honorable Hansen Brokaw, its late owner, was found mysteriously killed in Burmese axe
04:30embedded in his skull.
04:31Oh.
04:32Why do you want the idol?
04:34Likely late, Mr. Brokaw.
04:36I am a collector.
04:37Oh.
04:38I will pay you a very handsome profit.
04:40How much?
04:42Five thousand dollars.
04:45No sale, mister.
04:47No sale at any price.
04:52Outside, we were hurrying up a deserted side street, me clutching the idol,
04:56when the promise of things to come began in a rush.
05:01Five thousand dollars, Stevie, offered you a fortune.
05:03No, I couldn't sell it.
05:04Don't ask me why, Celine.
05:06I just couldn't.
05:08Rifle shot.
05:08Came from across the street.
05:09Someone firing down from an open window.
05:11Quick, come on.
05:11Back out of the alley.
05:20Somehow, we got home alive and whole.
05:22Selena went to bed in tears.
05:24Her brother, Howard, who lived with us, coaxed the story from her.
05:28I hate to play patsy between a man and his wife, Steve,
05:31but isn't possession of that idol kind of borrowing trouble?
05:34We don't know that, Howard.
05:37Someone tried to kill you.
05:39There were two rifle shots from a window.
05:40That's all we know.
05:41We don't know that they had to do with the idol.
05:43Well, someone did offer you five thousand dollars for an idol you picked up for two hundred.
05:47Now, how about a little sense?
05:49Get rid of it, Steve.
05:51No.
05:52That idol was on the auction stand facing the middle aisle when the bidding began.
05:59And I was sitting on the side aisle.
06:02When I wanted to quit bidding, it moved to the east toward me.
06:08See, see, I was meant to buy it.
06:09I was meant to own it.
06:14I was meant to own it.
06:18I set the idol on a strip of oriental silk in the center of my desk and sat looking at
06:23it, studying it.
06:25It sat grinning at me, as if enjoying a secret surprise it had already prepared for me.
06:33I was meant to buy it.
06:34I speak with sub Stephen Kavanaugh.
06:38You are?
06:39You were pleased to come to the mosque on Street Caracas, house number 24.
06:46What for?
06:47When you come, you will know, sub.
06:50And pleased to come after dark with the idol.
06:59After dark, I was to come to a mosque in Frisco's Oriental Quarter after dark.
07:07Another man, any other man, would get on the phone to police headquarters.
07:12But I went.
07:1424 Caracas Street.
07:16A cop's whistle out of Frisco's Chinatown.
07:21Place was empty.
07:23No furnishings, just a few scattered prayer rugs.
07:27A makeshift altar and a bony old man wearing a fez.
07:31It was chalk white, as if he just climbed off an embalming table.
07:36The sub Stephen Kavanaugh.
07:38In person.
07:39I am Jin Khan.
07:42Okay.
07:43Tell me why I am here.
07:45Because you possess the laughing idol.
07:47And because it is written that Jin Khan must serve the possessor of the idol.
07:54Serve me?
07:55How?
07:56Your danger is great, Sahib.
07:59Huh?
08:01Now, see.
08:03Your enemies will strike.
08:06But you will reach riches and power.
08:09The idol will show you the way.
08:12And Jin Khan will serve you.
08:15Serve me?
08:16How?
08:16Now, the city attorney ruled other enforcing agencies may have jurisdiction.
08:20The city council is about to receive an...
08:22Okay.
08:23Here we go.
08:25This is number one of two.
08:28Come to you.
08:34I wrapped the idol up and left.
08:37A thousand doubts were whispering in my head.
08:40Outside, I had to pinch myself to remember that I was in the States.
08:43Everybody had closed up shop and gone home.
08:47The street was deserted, not a sound.
08:50Except the cat was whining meow.
08:54And then I got a sample of what Jin Khan had meant by your danger is great.
08:59The first I knew of it was a cold breeze whistling an inch past my head.
09:06A sharp-edged instrument had narrowly shaved me and buried into a building side.
09:10It was an ancient Burmese axe, one inch closer, and I would have been dead.
09:28Nothing like a hobby keeps you mentally fit to be tied.
09:36But what gives?
09:37A chap buys an auction sales bargain and some creep applauds him with a blast of gunfire.
09:43And to top it off with a hand-tooled coffin lid, a second creep chirps Bravo with an axe.
09:50Looks like that Hindu idol is going to make Saab Kavanagh permanently idle.
09:56Oh, let's see exactly how said retirement is accomplished, shall we?
10:03Hmm?
10:05I sat around at home for days with the idol right in my view.
10:09My wife, Selina, avoided me.
10:11She suspected my sanity.
10:14I was moving the dark ages right into the middle of my home.
10:19I watched the idol for hours, hypnotized by it.
10:24It sat grinning at me.
10:27And then I saw it move to the east.
10:32A gong I'd once picked up in an eastern bazaar and hung in the foyer of my den sounded.
10:38Saab Kavanagh.
10:40Jinkan.
10:42How'd you get in here?
10:43There are informal ways, Saab.
10:47The idol faces to the east.
10:50Yes.
10:51Right, right under my eyes it moved.
10:53I have spoken to my ancestors.
10:56Now I will offer you the second of my humble services, Saab.
11:01The second?
11:02What was the first?
11:04The axe that buried harmlessly into the wall when you left the mosque.
11:09You lived, Saab.
11:11That was my first service.
11:14And the second?
11:16What's that?
11:17It is written that the Chandra ruby will fall to you.
11:21What is the Chandra ruby?
11:24You will know, Saab, when you seize it.
11:28On this paper you will find your instructions.
11:32Go after dark.
11:36Goodbye, Saab.
11:40I opened the paper.
11:43It was a message scribbled on old rice parchment.
11:46A drawing like a surveyor's map with some writing on it.
11:50It said, Mount Fiore Cemetery.
11:54The drawing was a picture of an exposed coffin.
11:58And in it was a figure dressed up like a mummy in a sarcophagus.
12:02And markers showed the exact position of the grave.
12:05And an arrow pointed to the left eye of the corpse.
12:10That night after dark.
12:13Feeling of omen tying my spine into knots.
12:17I stole into the Mount Fiore Cemetery.
12:21The storm was threatening.
12:24The grave had no markings.
12:27No tombstone.
12:32I dug.
12:34I dug four feet down.
12:37I reached the coffin.
12:40It lay exposed.
12:42With the rumbling skies giving it a ghostly glow as if someone had rubbed it with phosphorus.
12:48I wedged the edge of a pig into a side.
12:51And tried it.
12:53It opened.
12:57Exactly as drawn.
12:58It was a mummified corpse.
13:00A strip of face.
13:01What was left of it.
13:02Peaked out.
13:04Just the nose.
13:06The eyes and part of the brow.
13:09One socket was empty.
13:12And the other.
13:13The left eye.
13:14The eye marked by an arrow on the drawing.
13:18Gleamed red.
13:20A lightning spear in the sky caught its radiance.
13:22And the eye seemed to burst with a ruby fire.
13:25And then flickered.
13:27And dim.
13:29As the lightning passed.
13:32The Chandra Ruby.
13:33Jinkan had said.
13:35I was the owner of the Chandra Ruby.
13:46A rare oriental ruby set in the skull of a corpse.
13:54Well, I didn't swallow that.
13:55Going home, I dropped into Saperstein's jewelry store for an appraisal.
13:59Rubies, as you know.
14:01Fluctuate in value.
14:03Well, yes, I know.
14:03I know.
14:04But just give me an approximate idea.
14:07Is it worth, say, a thousand dollars?
14:11You can safely multiply that figure by fifty.
14:15For an approximately fair price.
14:18Fifty thousand dollars?
14:26For days, I hardly slept watching that idol.
14:30And then on the fourth day, the idol moved again to the east.
14:36I have spoken with my ancestors.
14:40Yes.
14:40It is written that you will reach great wealth and power.
14:45But first, an unhappy task awaits you, Sade.
14:50Oh, an unhappy task?
14:53You must kill to save yourself.
14:57Kill?
14:57Yes, Sade.
14:59Who do I have to kill?
15:03Your wife.
15:06Kill Selina?
15:08No.
15:09No, that's insane.
15:11Why?
15:12To save yourself.
15:14Her hatred for you rages in her mind like a fever.
15:18Her wish to destroy you is overwhelming.
15:21Selina killed me?
15:23No, I don't believe that.
15:25It is so written.
15:28Search her mind, Sade.
15:30And you will know.
15:32Search her mind.
15:35And convince yourself.
15:38Jen was gone.
15:41Murderer.
15:43Or be murdered.
15:44That was something to swallow.
15:46Search her mind, Jen Conn.
15:48It said twice as if there were a clue in a speech.
15:50Search her mind.
15:52And how?
15:53How was I to search her mind so that I could know?
15:57I thought about it hard all through the evening.
15:59And then, her diary.
16:03Selina kept her diary faithfully.
16:09I found her diary in the drawer of the night table.
16:12Selina was fast asleep.
16:14I thumbed through it noiselessly.
16:16Reading into Selina's secret mind.
16:21Jim Conn was right.
16:23Selina lived only to hate me.
16:26A page written just the day before proved it.
16:29The unbearable agony of life with Steve.
16:32The bleak, sick days.
16:34And the terror.
16:35When he touches me, I wither and fall away.
16:38One day I will destroy him.
16:41I must.
16:42Or be destroyed.
16:43Destroyed.
16:45Destroy.
16:46Or be destroyed.
16:48Murder.
16:50Or be murdered.
16:52I stared over at Selina.
16:54And then there's something, the intensity of my thinking maybe, awakened her.
17:00Steve.
17:01Steve, you've been prying into my diary.
17:04No.
17:05Not into your diary.
17:06Into your mind.
17:07I've been prying into your secret mind.
17:09Steve, what's come over you?
17:11A revelation.
17:12What?
17:12I have been living with a fraud.
17:15A murdering fraud.
17:16Steve, you're out of your mind.
17:18Kill or be killed.
17:19Do you hear, Selina?
17:21Marriage boils down to a comical simplification.
17:24Kill or be killed.
17:26Murder or be murdered.
17:28Isn't it funny, Selina?
17:29No.
17:30No.
17:30No, Steve.
17:31Steve.
17:32No.
17:32No.
17:40In two minutes, it was over.
17:44I left her curled in her last sleep and turned the key in the lock.
17:49I had thinking to do and planning.
17:52How did a sudden widower explain his deceased wife away to a curious world?
17:58I still hadn't finished.
17:59I hadn't found the answer when Howard came to the breakfast table.
18:04Steve, if I could speak up frankly, just once.
18:09Straighten the shoulder.
18:10Go ahead.
18:12That orientalism mania of yours is degenerating you into something unhealthy.
18:18Now, why not call it quits?
18:20Selina's edgy and depressed.
18:23She feels rejected.
18:25They push her too hard.
18:26She's capable of harming herself.
18:29Harming herself?
18:32You're hinting at suicide?
18:34Yes, Steve.
18:36I'm hinting at that.
18:38Exactly.
18:40That was my way out.
18:42Suicide.
18:44Selina just wouldn't come back from her early morning walk.
18:47They'd find her in a lake.
18:48A victim of despondency and hysteria.
18:52When night came, I'd transfer the corpse to another setting.
19:00Somebody is at my door.
19:04Yes?
19:05Western Union.
19:06Telegram for Mr. Stephen Cavanaugh.
19:08Well, I'll take it.
19:10I'm Mr. Cavanaugh.
19:12Sign here.
19:15A telegram for Selina.
19:16I opened it.
19:18It came from New York.
19:20Firm of Englander Fowler and Barbanel, attorneys at law.
19:24The wording was a formal invitation to appear
19:28and collect about a million dollars.
19:31This is to inform you that the will of your late uncle,
19:33Thomas de Haven Chalmers, names you as sole beneficiary.
19:36Please communicate to us the date of your arrival in New York.
19:43A crap-pot recluse that we'd often joked about
19:47had left Selina a million dollars that she didn't have the slightest use for now.
19:56Great wealth and power, Jim Connett promised.
19:59By succession, the fortune was mine now.
20:01If I could make murder the perfect crime.
20:05When night came, I drove Selina toward Apple Lake.
20:08It was just outside of town.
20:09Selina was fully dressed, gloves, shoulder bag,
20:12right down to the last accessory.
20:14A frantic wife on a solitary walk had taken a fatal plunge.
20:19I got to the lake.
20:22I carried her carefully to the water's edge,
20:25ready to complete her suicide.
20:28I never got to carry out my plan.
20:30It won't work, Cavanaugh.
20:32You can't get away with murder.
20:33Four of the troopers, besides myself, are ready to blast you.
20:36Try to make a fight for it.
20:37Huh?
20:39How'd you know to follow me here?
20:41Five minutes before you started for Apple Lake,
20:43your brother-in-law got a peek into your wife's bedroom
20:45through the porch window.
20:52I'm in a city prison on the first lap
20:54that leads to the electric chair.
20:57Uh, Cavanaugh.
20:59Yeah?
20:59That hysterical yarn you laughed at the prison stenographer
21:02when we brought you in.
21:03Yes, yes, yes.
21:04We checked every detail.
21:06Nothing checked.
21:07Okay, so I'm nuts.
21:09I had a nightmare.
21:10We stopped in at Saperstein's jewelry store,
21:12just for the sake of routine.
21:14At Saperstein's, your zany story suddenly ranked true.
21:17Oh?
21:18We ran into as ingenious a plot as I've ever encountered.
21:21Ingenious plot?
21:22It was at Saperstein's that your brother-in-law, Howard,
21:25purchased the stone you called the Chandra Ruby.
21:27Howard?
21:28Mm-hmm.
21:30We got a confession out of him.
21:32Why?
21:33To capitalize on your weakness for Oriental Buncombe.
21:36It was worth investing $50,000 for a genuine ruby,
21:40worth forging entries in your wife's diary,
21:42and putting you through the paces as he did.
21:44All to sell you the idea for murdering your wife.
21:47He knew an uncle had died in New York.
21:50That after Selena, the sole heiress, you came.
21:53That after you, burned for the murder of your wife,
21:57he came.
21:58Uh, but Chin Khan.
22:01A hired stooge.
22:03Like the man who offered to buy the idol from you
22:05after that auction sale.
22:07Everything that had happened to you
22:08was taped from a script prepared by your brother-in-law.
22:12And you played leading man
22:14as if you were born to the role.
22:18Sucker.
22:29An Oriental onion peeler once remarked,
22:33Examine your relative carefully, Bob.
22:36What looks like an ill law
22:38might actually be an outlaw.
22:43Anyhow, it's an ill win.
22:45Hmm.
22:47A hobby.
22:48There's nothing like an auction sale
22:49to pass the time
22:51right into tomorrow.
22:53Ha, ha, ha, ha.
22:55There are three little words.
22:57Going, going, gone.
22:59Steve's going.
23:01Howard's going.
23:02And Selena's gone.
23:04Ha, ha, ha.
23:05The only thing left standing up
23:07is that unclaimed million dollars.
23:10Interested?
23:11Somebody?
23:13Hmm.
23:20This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service,
23:23the voice of information and education.
23:25The United States Armed Forces Radio Service,
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