Arthur Godfrey, who usually comes around with his talent scouts at this time on Monday, has just about finished his summer holiday. Godfrey will be back with us two weeks from tonight on August 28th. Broadway's My Beat from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway's My Beat with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. Broadway, it's the shrieking edge of a numb universe that lies in the shadows and licks its wounds. It's wasteland, a tinseled wasteland that wears the motley, wears the scarlet of neon, the harsh gold of a trumpet scream, the kaleidoscope of color a tear makes when it's held up to the light. There's the color of the desolate wind that sighs through Broadway, nameless and cold. The wind that drifts, touches everything, seeps in through windows and under doors, lends its quality to whatever room in which it dies, like the room where I was standing. Mrs. Branch's rooming house, creton drapes, dusty, beaded lamp, dusty, wash basin, rust stain, the bed pulled down from the wall, the crumpled sheets, and the dead woman. And Mrs. Branch not believing a bit of it. I know it, I know it, I know it. What Mrs. Branch? Someone's going to come along and pinch me and I'm going to wake up and this whole thing will be a dream. Won't it Mr. Clover? No. Who is this girl? I'm going to tell you because it doesn't matter because it's a dream. Her name's Mary Deming. How long has she lived here? Four years, five. One morning she rang my doorbell. She had a black suitcase in her hand. I liked her, she liked me. Yes, she stayed. Always paid her rent. Now, oh I don't believe it. Now she's dead Mrs. Branch. She's been stabbed to death. You've got to convince yourself of that and help. Who were her friends? Oh, she was very popular. Whenever the doorbell rang or the phone was for Mary. I often wondered why she didn't marry with so many friends. Tell me how you found her. Well, I brought Mary her coffee this morning. She didn't smile when she saw me. Something was wrong I told myself. I shook her and then I saw the knife. And then I said to myself someone's going to come along and pinch me and this whole thing. But you called the police anyhow. I pride myself on presence of mind in any circumstances. Did you have any visitors last night? I wouldn't know. I wasn't home. Oh, that book. What about it? Mary loved it so. It was her dearest possession. A yearbook from high school, you know. She loved to look at it before she went to sleep. I suppose that's why it's on the bed beside her. Here, let me show you. What? You see. You see. Mary's picture in a yearbook. Uh huh. Mary Deming. Voted by the class of 1937 as... As the girl most likely to succeed, Mr. Clover. Isn't that nice? Fingers of sunlight reached through the windows hung with a torn soot-stained croton, reached out for the woman lying there, touched her face, her throat, her shoulders. For an instant, youth flowed over the dead woman's body. The youth, her dead hand held in the shape of a high school yearbook. For an instant, the girl lay there in sleep, sun warm in the power that is a girl's. Then the instant was gone. In a little while they came, the servicemen of death, the technical men, the photographers, the coroner, Muggerman. I gave Muggerman the notes I'd made, the yearbook, told him what I needed, sent him on his way. In a little while after it was done, the man in the white jackets brought up the wicker basket and the joke to fit the occasion. At headquarters, a man stood at my desk, a bald man, eating a big red apple, enjoying it. It was Sergeant Gino Tartaglian. Danny, I was saving this for you for my lunch, but it took you such a long time I couldn't save it no longer. I know, Gino. Did Muggerman... Yeah, yeah. He gave me your message, Danny, and I got all the dope right here in my pocket. Well, let's take it out and look at it, shall we? Huh? Oh, oh, sure, sure. I can tell you what's in the dope without you looking if you want. Okay, I want. The girl, lately deceased, Mary Deeming. She had a police record. Oh. Not that serious the way you said oh, Danny. A record that is not unordinary among certain type people. Reckless driving, driving while under the influence, bashing a cop in the eye because he stopped her while she was doing 90 on a Sunday afternoon. Disturbances of the peace on occasion, shoplifting, little ordinary things like that. Anything else? Not from me, Danny. You, Muggerman? Yeah, Danny. I checked and cross-checked the high school yearbook like you told me. Mary Deeming against everybody else in the book. Something? Maybe. Anyway, I came up with the names of four students that the Deeming girls seem to be most intimate with during the high school years. Who were they? I made up a list, Danny, here. I traced their addresses, their occupations. Three of them, anyhow. Fourth is gonna take more time. Thanks, Muggerman. Wasn't too easy, Danny. Cross-checking all that stuff. The sororities. The Sansousi French Language Club, the Lettermen, the Acapella Choir, the Proms, the National Testpions. All that high school stuff. Wasn't easy. Tell Gino about it, Muggerman. He'll save you a big red apple. So it began. A woman dead in a boarding house. And her last identification of life, the high school yearbook. A woman, anonymous, except for that. Some were, if Muggerman's checking was correct, four people had intruded upon her life. Temperative, perhaps. Shaped for dying. Only perhaps. A policeman has to make sure. Call on number one, George Ferris, football player, who made all state back in 1937. Now department store floorwalker. Wave through the ladies word apartment, through the bookstore, down the escalator and seek out the man who brought her back to the bargain basement. And pose a name for her. Mary Deming, you said. That's right. What about her? Mary Deming. Mr. Ferris, will you okay this charge, please? Uh-huh. There we are. Thank you, Mr. Ferris. Now, now then, about Mary Deming. She's dead. Well, now. Well, well. I guess we're all getting old, Mr. Clover. Just last week I met old Palaiacoff. You know, Ferris to Palaiacoff. What a combination we were. I flipped him, he caught him. Ferris to Palaiacoff. Palaiacoff said we were all getting old. Yeah, rackety-racks in the locomotive for us. So Mary's dead. We found her this morning with a knife in her back. You know, she had to end that way. Why? Human nature. It's in the books, Mr. Clover. Mary Deming was wild for her age. Wild? What do you mean? Boys. Lots of them. That included you? I was a star quarterback. She wore my sweater for a week. Then one Monday afternoon I saw her on the drugstore with a left tackle. Yeah, Mary Deming was a wild kid. I liked her. For the week I knew her. Have you seen her since high school? Yeah, about a year ago when I was in ladies' lingerie. A woman with a shopping bag was stealing one of our 498 items. Mary Deming. Did you ever arrest her? Well... Well? Yes, I did. After all, I work for this store. Sure. That's the last time I saw her. Mary Deming. Well, well. The next on the list Markovan had compiled from the yearbook was a woman, Lillian Hess, address New Rochelle, occupation, unmarried. Her picture came to mind. A girl with a plain face, with gentle eyes, a sweet smile, her dark hair cut in a pageboy. The woman who opened the door was the same girl, the same plain face, the same gentle eyes, the same sweet smile, the same cut of hair. Time had only touched the corners of her mouth, had drawn the lips back and down, brushed her cheeks delicately with shadow, hollowed them slightly. That was all. Even her voice was a girl's voice. What is it? What do you want? I'm Danny Clover, the police. I want to talk to you about Mary Deming. Oh, of course you do. I'm practically the only girlfriend Mary has. Please come in. Let's go into the den. I call it a den. I suppose a man would call it that. You said you were practically... Practically Mary's only girlfriend. I'm proud of it. I like Mary. I like her a lot. No matter what the other girls say about her, there's more to Mary than they... Well, they just don't understand her, that's all. Miss Hess, Mary Deming is... What I want to say is that she's... You want to tell me that Mary is dead? I know that, Mr. Clover. I saw the afternoon paper. Here we are. This is my den. I was just playing some music and reading. I love that song, don't you, Mr. Clover? I play it over and over. Please sit down next to me on the couch. Thank you. Mary Deming was murdered. They were jealous of her. That's why they killed her. Who? Oh, almost all the girls. Some of the boys, too. All jealous of Mary for their own reasons. You know, Mr. Clover, Mary once came to my room and cried because she knew how they felt about her. She never showed it, but it hurt her. That's why she went on those reckless, dangerous drives at night. She told me so. Still, she was voted most likely to succeed. They voted her that out of meanness. They didn't mean it the way it sounds. They didn't say out loud what she was going to succeed at. When was the last time you saw her, Miss Hess? Mary? It was in the afternoon, just before... She congratulated me. She kissed me and said she wanted all the happiness in the world for me. In the afternoon before what did she do that, Miss Hess? Before the graduation dance. In June? It's always in June, Mr. Clover. You see, Paul and I were going to announce our engagement formally at the dance, but Paul died. That evening he died. Oh? Yes. I went to his house just before dinner to ask him... Well, to ask him, did he really love me. He ran down the stairs to answer me and fell and died. Just like that. Without any reason. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. It's all here in my diary, Mr. Clover. The last time I saw Paul, the last time I saw Mary. My last entry. June 12, 1937. It tells all about Paul and me and... I'm sorry, Mr. Clover. Will you stay to tea, please? I did. Tea poured by delicate hands into delicate china. Smiles and chitchat and small, fragile-ly iced cakes. Yesterday's time recaptured and held briefly until time changed and it was suddenly evening. The finger's on my arm when she showed me to the door. Number three on the list. Ona Webster. Cheerleader. Class of 37, the yearbook had said. Now, Ona March. Married five years before to a Keith March. Address, 8020 Andrews Avenue in the Bronx. You got here. You finally got here. What? You are the police, aren't you? I called. I'm looking for Mrs. Ona March. She's in there. In the bedroom. I told you she would be. Come on. Look, I... I just came home, went out for a walk. They've been prowling us. Maybe I shouldn't have... Wait a minute. I don't know what you're talking about. Who are you? Ona's husband. I told the policeman on the phone about my wife. What's the matter with her? She's in there. On the bed. She's been stabbed to death. You were listening to Broadway's My Beat, written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, and starring Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover. An old friend of yours comes back tomorrow night, Luigi Basco. And once more, you can live that wonderful life with Luigi. So join us on CBS this Tuesday night for Life with Luigi. On most of these same CBS stations. There's a special hour on Broadway, the hour between twilight and darkness. Dinner time. It's the time of the year. The time of the year. The time of the year. The time of the year. The time of the year. The time between twilight and darkness. Dinner time. It's the time of the swarming into the earth because home is at the end of a long tunnel and walk three blocks. Or it's the time of the fast look at the translux, the run out into the streets and say, Cooled off, huh? Coffee, hot dogs, cream soda, and the nickel tip. And Broadway tries to gulp its dinner the way it's seen ordinary people gulp their dinner. Wipes up the gravy with a second piece of bread and compares boyfriends, girlfriends, and recurring dreams. But my dinner time wasn't like that because it didn't happen because it was being preempted by something else. By a woman with a dime store knife pushed deep into her. By a man with a fright of death goading him, taunting him into screaming at me. Do something! Don't just stand there! Take her away! Whatever it is. That's why I called you police because I thought you knew how to... Please, please do something. Please. Take it easy, Mr. Martese. We'll do what needs to be done. I'm sorry. It's just that I... That's my wife lying there. I understand, Mr. Martes. Here, sit down over here. Come on. Thank you. Would you like some water? Anything? No. No, thank you. Do... Do they always look like that? No. When people die, do they always look like that? Who'd want your wife dead, Mr. Martes? What a strange way to say it. But then I suppose whoever killed her wanted her dead, or he wouldn't have done that to her. Who? I don't know. I told you, I thought a prowler, a thief maybe. But nothing's been disturbed, has it? I don't know. Maybe you, Mr. Martes? No. No. But you understand, Mr. Martes, that you'll be treated as a suspect until we... Yes. Of course. Of course. I understand. Good. Now, there's some questions I want to ask you. Did your wife know a woman named Mary Deming? Once she did. There were classmates in high school. And you? I knew Mary. She was one of my students. Oh? I'm a high school teacher, science. Only I recall that Mary Deming was in my class when we read about her murder. You think O'Neil and Mary Deming... You think the reason... You fell in love with your wife when she was in high school, Mr. Martes? I used to watch her at the football games. She was a cheerleader. She was young, exciting. You know how a girl can be... You fell in love with her then? I suppose so. But I didn't know it until five years ago. We met again by chance in a theater. After a while, we got married. Your wife and Mary Deming, were they friendly? Did they go around together, have the same boyfriends, things like that? I honestly don't know. O'Neil and I almost forgot we'd known each other in high school. We hardly ever talked about it. Mr. Martes, how well did you know Mary Deming? What? How well did I know her? Only as a student. You never saw or talked to her after she left high school? No. And Mrs. Martes, did she ever see or talk to Mary Deming? If she did, she never told me. What's that? I'll see. It's the police that called for Mr. Martes. I'll let them in. Hi, Danny. Oh, Gino. Come in. I brought you what to eat, Danny. A box lunch for supper. Thanks. Put it down. I'll eat it later. Okay. I already peaked in mine, Danny. I got an apple. How about you? Probably an apple. Box lunches never change. Oh, I don't know. Once I found a dollar bill in mine. Gino, I... Once I found an Easterling sterling silver spoon with which to eat my potato salad. Gino, I... I guess I'm born lucky. Gino, please, I'm tired. I've had a tough day. Two people have been killed and I'm no closer than out of the answer than I was when you... I'm sorry. Do you have anything to tell me, Gino, about Mary Deming or O'Neil March? No, Danny. I'm sorry. Danny? Yeah? What is it, Margobin? I found what we were looking for. What was that? Fourth name on the list, the one I couldn't trace down, Millican Polk. Hey, that Millican Polk. I was looking through that yearbook. That guy was the genius of the class. Got through high school in two years. The type I admire most highly. Where is he, Margobin? In the penitentiary, Sing Sing, a three-time loser, for selling oil wells to visiting movie stars and poor Texans. Don't stare at me, Danny. So his education turned him into a current man. So kill me. How come you had such a hard time finding him? Polk had eight aliases. I tracked down one, he'd suddenly dissolve into another man. Thank you, gentlemen. Hey, Danny, it's too late to drive up to Sing Sing tonight. You haven't eaten your supper. Don't worry about it. Margobin? Oh, yeah, Danny? Call Sing Sing. Tell him I'll be up in the morning and tell him to throw a guard around the cell for Millican Polk so he won't dissolve into another man. Stand right where you are, sir. Huh? Nothing personal, sir. It's just that the slightest movement, the slightest distraction, upsets the delicately balanced mental processes of my student here. Doesn't it, Jerome? Yeah, it does do that, Professor. Just what you said it does. Shall we show the policeman what we've learned today, Jerome? You are a policeman, aren't you, sir? I am, Millican. Oh, goody. Yeah, let's show the police what we learned today, huh, Professor? Go right ahead, Jerome. Today we have learned that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. That's excellent, Jerome. Excellent, isn't it, sir? Excellent. And now will you tell me about the Pythagorean theory, huh? Please, Professor. Even the slough said I was excellent. Later, Jerome. First we must find out what the slough wants with us. What is it you want with us, sir? Only you, Millican. Thank you, sir. You may take a recess, Jerome. But the Pythagorean... Take a recess, Jerome. And now, sir, we are in effect alone. What can I do for you? You went to high school with Mary Damming it. My congratulations, sir. However did you track me down to this, my private lair? I thought I'd successfully wiped out that puerile phase of my life. Not quite, Professor. Now that you've found me, I suppose you want all I can give you on Mary Damming, and let me see. On a march, ne'er on a Webster. Am I right, sir? How did you... I keep up with things. Newspapers, magazines. I'm the institutions librarian. I assumed it was only a matter of time before one of you would appear, asking me what you're asking me. You assumed right. So? I don't suppose you would arrange for this favor of a little time off, say, of furlough, so to speak? Uh-uh. I thought not, sir. But Mary, most delicious girl, provocative, stimulating, quite an experience to a youth who had the intelligence to appreciate her qualities as I did. You knew her well. Let's put it this way, sir. When I was in high school, I'd put my brain against any football letter on the campus. Mary was quite interested in me till I, tired of her, threw her to the athletes. What about on a Webster? A bore, always turning cartwheels, screaming through a megaphone. Ah, Mary, Mary. You really liked Mary, huh, Professor? There were so many things about Mary too like, like the way she could wriggle out of trouble all these years in trouble, out of trouble, like putting on and taking off a nightgown. Always somebody to take care of Mary. You have any theories, Millican, as to who might want the girl's dad? I haven't wasted my brains on it, sir. For the past five years, I've been occupied with Jerome here. Now, Professor, now you're going to tell me about the Pythagorean theory? Now, Jerome, I'm sorry, sir, I'm calling my class to order. Goodbye, sir. See you around. And the things Millican Polk had told me had their own place with the fragments I'd gathered up about two women. Ona March, cheerleader. Mary Deming, most likely to succeed. Classmates of the year 1937. Ona, the respectable wife of a respectable man who lived in a respectable house. Mary, a woman whose youth fled in a hurry because Mary was in a hurry. Too much of one. Back at headquarters, I went over a police record again. Reckless driving, 1937, license revoked. Drunk driving, 1939, fined $100. One night spent in jail, then released, fine paid. Drunk and disorderly, 1941, fined $50 in 30 days. Sent and suspended, fine paid. Went like that, fine paid, fine paid. Been a felony a year ago, shoplifting, but a lenient judge changed it to repetty theft. Fine, $500 in probation, fine paid. The fine was always paid. Go back again and start all over. In 1939, the money for the fine was furnished by Joe Sage, bail bondsman. And in 1940, by Joe Sage, all of them, every one of them. Maybe Joe Sage had a fragment to hand me, too. What is it? Oh, hello, Danny. I didn't recognize you. Maybe it's because you haven't been in here so long. I need some help, Joe. For you, the house. Thanks. About a client of yours. Except about clients. Ah, Danny, you know in this bail bonding profession we ain't required to give information about clients. Like a doctor, like a lawyer, Danny. Look, you're talking to me, Joe. You know as well as I we can subpoena your books. Sure you could. With a good reason. Try murder. Which of my clients do you wish to ask me about, Danny? Mary Deming. Like the back of my hand. I know her that well. Good. You know, tell me all about it. Sure. Here is a dame who used to get herself into trouble, peck after peck. Drunk driving, disturbing, heisting underwear, little things, but you could count on her. And her fines got paid every time. I'm just trying to find out how Mary could afford to pay you back. You know I went her fines, huh? Uh-huh. Because I had a standing order. About ten years ago a man came to me and he said this girl Mary Deming ever gets in a trouble helper. This man said he would personally guarantee I would be paid back. What man? A professor. High school teacher. He wrote after the word business on my client's card. Named Keith March? Named Keith March. Why do you ask me questions when you know the answers? Oh, Mr. Clover, please come in. Thanks. I will. I was expecting you sooner. I came back to check something with you. Yes? You said you hardly knew Mary Deming. You only knew her as a student. Would you like to add to that, Mr. March? No. Why should I? You were in love with her, weren't you? You're being ridiculous. It wasn't the owner you watched in school. It was Mary because you were in love with her. What are you talking about? She was a child. Your wife's age. How old are you now, Mr. March? Thirty-nine. Thirteen years ago you were twenty-six, just starting out as a teacher. A man twenty-six can fall in love with a seventeen-year-old girl. There's nothing unusual in that. But I still don't see... Every time Mary got in trouble with the police, you got her off, got her fines paid. We've records that you helped Mary. Why should you do that? Mary... Mary... Mary's the kind of a girl who never looks twice at a man like me. You'd have to take my word for that. I helped her. Why? Because the times I helped, paid money to help her, she would thank me, let me do other things for her. There's this, Mr. Clover. What? I did love Mary. Then why do you accuse me of killing her? You didn't, did you? No. I told you I loved her. Sometimes I hated myself for it, but I loved her. But you know who killed her, don't you? So do you. Your wife? She hated Mary. Hated her for what she could do to me. I never kept it a secret from owner. That's why owner killed her. That's why you killed owner. From my point of view, that was the only thing to do. Owner had killed the thing I loved. After Mary was dead, nothing had any value. Not even taking another life. You understand that, don't you? Let's go. It's not going to be that easy. Keep her in that desk. I'm going to kill you, Mr. Clover. You're a fool, Mr. Clover. You did just what I wanted you to do. I wanted to die. That's all I wanted. You fell into my trap. I didn't have the nerve to do away with myself. So I used you. Sergeant Otaglia speaking. Danny, Gino, get an ambulance up to 8020 Andrew Street in the Bronx. Roger. Wilco. Anything serious? Just a shoulder wound. Nothing serious. Who, Danny? Not you? Not me, Gino. The man who lived to go on trial for murder. It's the gathering place of all the sleepless nights this Broadway. And all the unwept tears. A place to come to. Erase what's happened. Start all over. Make a memory. The street is littered with odds and ends. Fit them together in any design you want. Only nothing slips into place. It's Broadway, the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway. My Beat. Broadway's My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover with Charles Calvert as Tartaglia. The program was produced and directed by Elliot Lewis with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage. Included in tonight's cast were Jay Novello, Hi Aberbeck, Peggy Webber, Sammy Hill, Lou Merrill and Jack Crouchon. There's always plenty of fun on hand when you hear Columbia's Monday night program, Too Many Cooks. The hilarious adventures of a father, mother and their ten children. Stay tuned now for Too Many Cooks, which follows immediately on most of these same CBS stations. Bob Stevenson speaking. This is CBS, where you live life with Luigi on Tuesday night, the Columbia Broadcasting System.
