Inner Sanctum (A Corpse for Halloween)
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.
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00:00Good evening friends, this is your host to welcome you through the creaking door into
00:13the inner sanctum.
00:14Come on in.
00:15One prankish little fellow, whom we shall call maniac for lack of a stronger word, just
00:27set fire to the walls.
00:28He said a closed room made him feel confined.
00:33As a result, four other characters are slightly burned up now.
00:46Tonight's inner sanctum mystery, Corpse for Halloween, was written by John Robert and
00:51stars Larry Haynes in the role of Jimmy with Barry Kroger as Cavanaugh.
01:00And now, let's unhinge our minds a little, after all that's a little insanity among friends.
01:12Tonight's story dramatizes the fanatical hold of memory, the one scene, the one fragment
01:19that plays and replays over and over again in your mind, the one terror that's with you
01:27when you die, and when you walk, and when you sleep.
01:36Sleep.
01:37Who can sleep?
01:38I'm here in the 35 cent flop, and I'm in the Burma jungle, watching a scene that never
01:49gets stale, even though it's five years old.
01:52I can hear sounds travel across the brush.
01:57I pick them up as if I'm a receiver set, animal sounds.
02:03And I see, as if my eyes are in the sky, I see two grim figures standing with their rifles
02:10aimed at a pair of jungle beasts, a tiger and its mate in a crouch, ready to jump.
02:16They fire point-blank together as if by signal.
02:20So good.
02:21They miss.
02:22The beasts roar and leap.
02:24I hear them scream out, Cavanaugh and Boxer Dogger, just before they die.
02:35Five years, and you've been everywhere trying to forget, and you almost do forget.
02:44But it edges right back into your mind by itself, like when a guy suddenly sneaks up
02:51on you in the night.
02:52Do you have a match?
02:53What?
02:54Do you have a match?
02:55Sure.
02:56You popped up on me so suddenly.
02:59You're a nervous man.
03:05I have a parcel with me for you.
03:08For me?
03:10What, are you kidding?
03:11No.
03:12I have a parcel for you.
03:14Here, take it.
03:15Wait a minute.
03:16Hey, hey, hey, wait.
03:19But he's gone.
03:21Just the way he came.
03:24As if he's a chip off my sanity.
03:28As if there'd been nobody.
03:32But there is a package left with me.
03:34The mind doesn't dream up a package.
03:37A cardboard box, heavy kind of.
03:41And tissue, lots of tissue around something that had the feel of a head.
03:48It is a head.
03:51The stuffed head of a jungle tiger.
03:54Its mouth fixed in the snarl that sends the blood hammering to my head.
03:59Doesn't make sense.
04:01No good figuring it out.
04:02Toss it into the river, the box and all, and get away.
04:05Get among people.
04:07Yeah.
04:08Yeah, Rocco's got a Rocco's.
04:10Get the jukebox going.
04:12Slip into a fog.
04:15Coffee, Rocco.
04:17Jimmy, I got something for you.
04:20For me, Rocco?
04:22The package.
04:23The guy come in before and leaves a package for you.
04:26See?
04:28For Jimmy Fox.
04:30Your name on it.
04:31My name?
04:33My name's Jimmy Scott, you know that.
04:36Yes, but the man says your name is also Jimmy Fox.
04:40He says he knows.
04:42He knows?
04:46I took the package outside into the night, into an alleyway.
04:50Another cardboard box, heavy.
04:53And tissue, lots of tissue around something that had the feel of a head.
05:00It was a head.
05:02But not a tiger's this time.
05:05It was a human skull.
05:08It shone with a hard white light where the moon touched it.
05:13And then it seemed to speak.
05:15Do you have a match?
05:16What?
05:18You're being an idiot.
05:20It isn't the skull talking to you, it's me.
05:22You?
05:23Where are you?
05:24I'm behind you.
05:25I don't see you.
05:26That's because you're afraid to.
05:28See me now?
05:30Yeah.
05:32A black suit and a face grinning at me like, like a laughing mask.
05:38It is a laughing mask.
05:40Well, why are you wearing a mask?
05:42Why not?
05:43Tonight's Halloween.
05:45Halloween?
05:48Sure, Halloween.
05:50Not everybody plays jokes.
05:52Oh, George, I should have remembered it was Halloween.
05:56Can you identify the skull?
05:59Identify?
06:01Look, what kind of a gag are you trying to...
06:03Suppose I give you an hour to identify the skull.
06:05It's eight now.
06:06Until nine o'clock then, Jimmy.
06:08Wait!
06:09Hey, hey, wait!
06:12He was gone again.
06:14As if there'd been nobody.
06:17Just another big chip off my sanity.
06:20I really had to get away from myself now.
06:22I hit the back streets.
06:24And then somewhere a big neon sign across a tenement pulled me off the sidewalk.
06:30It read,
06:31The Tillery Street Boys' Neighborhood Association.
06:34Halloween costume ball.
06:36Public invited.
06:38A girl in a boot.
06:39Masked like a witch.
06:41Stopped me at the door.
06:43Mask, mister?
06:44Mask.
06:45Oh, sure, sure, give me one.
06:47Black, green, yellow or purple?
06:49What's your favorite color?
06:51Yellow.
06:52Here you are.
06:53Fifty cents.
06:55Here you are.
06:56Oh!
06:57Oh, what?
06:58Just a description left with me.
07:00I'd almost forgotten.
07:01Are you Jimmy Fox?
07:04Suppose I was Jimmy Fox.
07:06What about it?
07:07This grocery bag was left here for you.
07:09A man told me to tell you.
07:11You forgot it somewhere.
07:12And he said that he'd meet you one place or another later.
07:15Here, take it.
07:17By the shape of it, I'd say you had a Halloween pumpkin inside.
07:21What if I told you there was...
07:24a human skull inside that grocery bag?
07:35He'd meet me one place or another.
07:39He did.
07:41It was under a street lamp.
07:43Waiting for me to happen along.
07:46Hello, Jimmy.
07:47Have you dared to call the skull by name yet?
07:50Or must I?
07:51Look, that gag isn't paying off, mister.
07:54All right, go ahead.
07:55You call it by name.
07:57Dolan.
07:58Boxer Dolan.
07:59Remember him?
08:00I never knew the guy.
08:02You've no doubt got me confused.
08:04Have I, Jimmy?
08:05You've changed your appearance cleverly.
08:07Except for one thing disguise could never conceal.
08:10One thing?
08:11Your guilt.
08:12You wear it like a badge of shame.
08:14Oh, what am I guilty of?
08:16Murder.
08:18A man left an encampment in the Vermont jungle just before dawn.
08:21Two men.
08:22Boxer Dolan and Cavanaugh.
08:24The third man remained behind.
08:27He played sick, pretended a fever.
08:30The third man was you, Jimmy.
08:33Must I tell you the rest?
08:35Tell me the rest.
08:36Dolan and Cavanaugh carried rifles.
08:39In the event of a jungle encounter.
08:42There was a jungle encounter.
08:44A tiger and its mate.
08:46I see.
08:47But an easy one to resolve for two expert hunters.
08:50Just one shot apiece and there'd be two more dead tigers.
08:54Just one shot apiece.
08:57They had their one shot apiece.
09:00But the tigers didn't drop dead in their tracks.
09:03Instead, Boxer Dolan and Cavanaugh dropped.
09:08Ask me what happened, Jimmy.
09:11What happened?
09:12During the night, someone had emptied their rifle loads and substituted blank bullets.
09:18You did that, Jimmy.
09:19You engineered the murder of two men.
09:21You murdered your two partners in crime.
09:23Just one day's push from the Hindu temple, you'd all teamed up to loot.
09:28They got within 24 hours of treasure.
09:30And then you murdered them.
09:32One more day to the temple.
09:34So why split three ways, huh?
09:37Ed, you know about the temple.
09:39But I never pushed on to that temple.
09:41No loot, no nothing.
09:42How about that?
09:43You lost your nerve.
09:44You just hadn't counted on losing your nerve.
09:46What are you, a detective?
09:49No.
09:51I'm your second victim.
09:52I'm Cavanaugh.
09:54Cavanaugh?
09:56But Cavanaugh was killed.
09:58Unfortunately for you, he wasn't.
10:02I'll show you what I had to survive.
10:06Feel my sleeve.
10:09Feel it.
10:11It's empty.
10:12Torn out of the socket.
10:15Now the face behind this laughing gargoyle I wear.
10:22See the left profile.
10:24It isn't pretty, is it?
10:26The eye?
10:28The eye's gone, too.
10:30I spent five years finding you, Jimmy.
10:33I've waited a long time to let you see my face.
10:36You came after me to kill me?
10:38After you've had the same 24 hours you arranged that Dorum and I would have.
10:43What do you mean, the same 24 hours?
10:46Unarmed, in the jungle, helpless.
10:50I'm going to hunt you for 24 hours, in this jungle, the jungle of the city,
10:55with every beast of prey I can find.
10:58I'm going to hunt you, Jimmy.
11:00And in the end, when I've wrung every suffering from you,
11:04I'm going to kill you.
11:06What do you mean, every beast of prey you can buy?
11:10The denizens of the city jungle, the riffraff, the murderers,
11:14the men and women who buy and sell murder.
11:19I can afford them, Jimmy.
11:22See this, Ruby?
11:24Hey, is it real?
11:27And I have dozens, Jimmy, dozens.
11:30I didn't lose my nerve.
11:34It's 10 o'clock, you can go now.
11:36Go and see if you can escape me and my pack.
11:39You're going through with this?
11:40Get along, Jimmy, hurry.
11:41The beasts will be coming at you from the sewers and the cellars,
11:44ambushing you from the shadows, into the dawn and through the day for 24 hours
11:49until 10 tomorrow night.
11:51Or you win.
11:54You live.
11:56Hurry, Jimmy.
11:58See how painful death can be.
12:05The End
12:11That Cavanaugh is one fella I never want to hunt me up.
12:18No, sir, that guy slays for creeps.
12:2524 hours, Cavanaugh's got 24 hours to kill,
12:30and Jimmy has just enough time to die.
12:36Yes, you know, Jimmy might win out over Cavanaugh,
12:40now that he's got an extra skull to go with the one he's stuck with.
12:45After all, two heads are better than one.
12:51Let's live out the terror now, shall we?
12:57An animal game of murder for 24 hours.
13:01I was to be hunted down in a jungle where human beasts came at you from the sewers and cellars,
13:06where killers and the harrow of a homicidal lunatic lay in ambush.
13:11Well, I had to win.
13:13I had to save myself, I had to.
13:16Hide, the thing to do was to hide, fade into an alleyway and find a cellar
13:20and stay put for 24 hours.
13:25Just stay put with a sickening rake of garbage cans until 10 tomorrow night.
13:34Was I alone?
13:37Movement.
13:39There was a whispering movement somewhere in the cellar.
13:43A faint rattle of ash cans as if...
13:46as if the wind was rattling them.
13:49Wind in an airtight cellar.
13:53Hello?
13:55Anybody there?
13:59Oh, that's it.
14:01I've been imagining.
14:03But then something winged at me,
14:05goring into my shoulder sharp and deadly like a knife.
14:14It came to, bleeding from a shoulder gash.
14:19I got out of there and back into the streets.
14:22Into a jungle of faces.
14:25It was Halloween night like I'd never seen it.
14:28Masks and costumes on kids of six and old clones of 60.
14:33A crazy jungle of witches and snarling speed captains and lunatics.
14:37They couldn't all be in the Harrow of Cavanaugh.
14:41And then,
14:43where a fence was plastered with circus posters of jungle animals.
14:47A zany-looking guy was shooting from the hip at the poster while making menacing faces like a batman.
14:52I caught a whiff of powder in the night air.
14:55The shot had burned into the poster.
14:58I crept up behind him.
15:00Faking a gun with my fist in my coat pocket, I rammed against his back.
15:04Get him up, pal.
15:06I got nothing. I'm not a shaman.
15:08It's your gun. I want your gun. Hand it over.
15:10Sure.
15:11Now walk. Walk up the block and don't turn back to look.
15:18I had a gun now and the tables were turned.
15:22I was the hunter now.
15:24I drifted to the docks and took up a position with my back to the river.
15:28Thinking of suicide, Jimmy?
15:30Not anymore, Cavanaugh.
15:32You sound as if your morale had suddenly improved.
15:37My morale's going great, Cavanaugh.
15:40Your animal hunt's about to boomerang blow right up in your face like this.
15:45Who's hunting who, Cavanaugh? Who's hunting who?
15:51Cavanaugh kept standing up.
15:54Three bullets point blank enough to blow his head off, but Cavanaugh kept standing up on one.
16:02How does it feel to hunt game with blank cartridges like Boxer Dolan and I did once?
16:08Blank cartridges?
16:10But that crazy-looking guy I saw burned a hole in the circus poster.
16:13Only one bullet. The first one was real.
16:17Simple?
16:19Yeah, simple.
16:21I get it.
16:24Deadeye Dick was another one of your beasts.
16:28Who's hunting who, Jimmy? Who's hunting who?
16:33No, Cavanaugh! Cavanaugh, wait!
16:35Cavanaugh, kill me! Get it over with and kill me now, will you?
16:38Cavanaugh, you gotta kill me!
16:44I had to get out of there. The subway.
16:47Get on a train and ride to the end of the line, right out of the jungle.
16:52An empty station. No one in it.
16:54No. No someone. Two people.
16:58A dapper little guy buried behind a newspaper.
17:01And an old lady in ragged clothes carrying a pet half-hidden under a coat.
17:05A pet that looked like a cat.
17:08She came up to me, close, like to ask me something.
17:11Uh, this side goes to Leopards Avenue station?
17:16Uh, Leopards, I don't know. I'm a stranger here.
17:19Oh, hush, Genevieve.
17:22Oh, Genevieve is hungry.
17:25That's not a cat.
17:27No, son. A cub. A tiger cub.
17:33A tiger cub?
17:34Would you like to stroke Genevieve?
17:37No, no, no.
17:38Don't run away, son. Genevieve won't hurt you.
17:43I ran away with the old crone after me, hobbling in her skirts.
17:47And the little dapper guy behind the newspaper circling at me from the opposite direction, cornering me.
17:52I jumped to the tracks, my only out, and I ran.
17:54I ran deep into the bowels of the subway, deep, very deep.
17:57The little dapper guy after me as if he meant business.
18:00And then the train.
18:02It had a Halloween look, too, bearing down on me.
18:05An eye and face with banjo eyes.
18:07I ran against the wall and flattened off.
18:09The train flashed past and the dapper little guy screamed.
18:17Cavanaugh was shy, one beast in his jungle.
18:24The little guy had been hit glancingly and hurled against the subway wall, pulverized.
18:28I got to him quickly and fished him.
18:31I had a gun now.
18:33A gun with bullets that killed.
18:36I ran.
18:38I ran a half mile underground to another station and then back on the streets.
18:43Back in the animal game.
18:46It was three in the morning.
18:49A neon sign read,
18:52Tillery Street Boys Neighborhood Association.
18:55Halloween costume party.
18:58People were straggling out.
19:00The fun was over.
19:02What?
19:03Do you remember me?
19:05No.
19:06I'm the witch who gave you a free mask and a grocery bag that you forgot somewhere.
19:11And you're Jimmy Fox.
19:13Jimmy Scott.
19:14I used to be Jimmy Fox.
19:17Sister, are you all right?
19:18Am I all right?
19:19I mean, are you just what you look?
19:21A sweet kid with brown eyes and a heart.
19:23Are you drunk?
19:24No, no, no.
19:25I'm dead beat.
19:26I've got to hole up somewhere.
19:27Get some shut eye.
19:28I've got to or I'll die.
19:29You're sick.
19:30Yeah, I'm sick.
19:31Jimmy, if I could just sleep around the clock until ten tomorrow night.
19:34If an angel came along and said, come home with me, I'll put you up.
19:38Come home with me, Jimmy.
19:40I'll put you up.
19:50I fell asleep on the sofa.
19:53With a gun under my pillow.
19:56And the girl on a chair watching me anxiously.
20:01I had a friend.
20:04I could drop off and live in dreamland until ten that night.
20:10At ten, I could wake up and live.
20:15Coming awake, I heard the alarm which said, go off.
20:21The alarm stopped.
20:24And there was a sound.
20:27An animal sound.
20:29And then a claw scratching at me, tearing at my cheek.
20:34I jumped up.
20:35The girl was gone.
20:37A guy was sitting watching me now.
20:40A skinny kid with a heavy shock of hair, not a day over 21.
20:43Oh, that's a lousy way to have to wake up from a sleep, pal.
20:47Lousy way.
20:48It was an animal clawing at me.
20:49My cheek's bleeding.
20:50Genevieve, she isn't housebroken.
20:52Still a little wild.
20:53You should have seen her dash for the kitchen when you let out a scream just now.
20:57Genevieve, who are you?
21:00You're Jimmy Fox, huh?
21:01Yeah.
21:02I got something for you.
21:03For me?
21:04Yeah, it was given to me to give to you.
21:06Here.
21:07A rupee.
21:10Hey, wait a minute, look.
21:12It's ten o'clock.
21:13I set the alarm for ten and it's ten.
21:14Well, it's only a quarter of.
21:16That clock's always 15 minutes ahead.
21:17Now the game's over.
21:18It's ten and you can't cheat.
21:19I've got one, Kavanaugh.
21:20You can't go back on your promise, Kavanaugh.
21:22You can't.
21:23What are you trying to get over, pal?
21:24I know...
21:25I've won.
21:26You can't cheat.
21:27I won't betray...
21:28A gun.
21:29Pal, you're crazy.
21:30Hey, wait.
21:31Look.
21:32You're crazy.
21:33It's ten and I won't betray, Kavanaugh.
21:35I've won.
21:44I'm still on the sofa.
21:47My arms are rigid.
21:50And my legs rigid.
21:53Like something exploded inside me and paralyzed my nerves.
21:59I can just look and hear.
22:03She's in the room now.
22:06A girl with a sweet face and brown eyes.
22:11On the horizon, red.
22:13Swollen from crying.
22:15I hear her talking to a cop.
22:18She's taking down what she says.
22:20He was a stray.
22:22He was like a sick dog in the street.
22:25So I picked him up and brought him home.
22:28Hey, Sarah.
22:29Why did he kill your brother, Buddy?
22:31I don't know.
22:33I was taking a shower.
22:35And I heard him scream like a crazy man.
22:38I heard him talk all mixed up.
22:41And I was taking a shower and I couldn't get here in time.
22:45There must be something you can tell me, miss.
22:48Oh, officer.
22:49Everything is so mixed up.
22:52At the Tillery Street costume ball,
22:55a man gave me a cat with tiger stripes
22:58and he begged me to keep it for him for a while
23:00until he found a new home for it.
23:02He'd been evicted.
23:03He said it.
23:04Yes.
23:05Well, then, in the all-night restaurant my brother works in,
23:09a man gave Buddy a ruby to give to Jimmy Foxx.
23:12Just when he woke up, he told my brother the ruby belonged to Jimmy Foxx.
23:16This piece of glass?
23:18Yes.
23:19That's something off the Woolworth time counter.
23:22What else?
23:23That's all.
23:25Really, that's all.
23:28I watch and I hear.
23:31I see through Cavanaugh's trick.
23:35Get me crazy so I'll murder a stranger who called himself Buddy.
23:40The brother of a girl with brown eyes and a heart.
23:45Frame me so I'll just want to die.
23:48The weeks of the murder trial and months in the death house
23:51and four minutes in the death chair.
23:54I kept listening to them talk.
23:57The girl and the cop.
23:59Okay.
24:00We'll have to get the rest from Jimmy Foxx here.
24:03Yeah, look at him.
24:05He's paralyzed with fright.
24:07I wonder what kind of a crazy Halloween story
24:10he's going to try to palm off on us when we get him talking.
24:16Captain Devereux speaking.
24:18McAvoy, send a police ambulance to 445 Tenite Street,
24:23apartment three rear.
24:26And McAvoy, see that a straightjacket's on that ambulance.
24:38Well, quite a chase, hmm?
24:43It got so poor Jim didn't know whether he was coming or going.
24:47Nuts.
24:51What got his goat most was the way he kept seeing animals everywhere.
24:56Very confusing to a guy on the lam.
25:01Yeah, it got so he couldn't tell who's who.
25:08Tomorrow? Oh, sure.
25:11I read this Halloween notice on a tree somewhere.
25:15Never hunt out of reason.
25:38Good night, pleasant dreams.
25:53Inner Sanctum was heard in the United States over CBS,
25:57the Columbia broadcasting system,
25:59and has been rebroadcast for service men and women overseas.