Answer the door, will you? Yes, the doctor Keegan here. Dr. Keegan? Yes, he's here. Take me to him. Wait a minute. What are you doing with that gun? Take me to Dr. Keegan, Mr. Nort. Or you die too. Mr. and Mrs. Nort. Starring Richard Denning and Barbara Britton. Listen as Pam and Jerry solve the mystery of Operation Murder. New York's plums are a jungle from which few people ever escape and which few are still ever returned voluntarily. But Dr. Charles Keegan is one who did return to stay, setting up an office in a crumbling brownstone building to serve the slums in which he had grown up. That was 20 years before Mary Allegro returned to the jungle. But unlike Dr. Charles Keegan, beautiful Mary Allegro hadn't returned voluntarily. Nor did she plan to stay as she stepped off the curb across the squalid street from her father's little shoe repair shop. But then... AHHHHHHHH! I just got from the hospital, Doc. Mary, she's still asleep. I know. Two days now she's asleep. She's not dying, Doc. Mary ain't not dying. You fix. Please, you fix. Listen, Joe. Your daughter needs an operation. Rather delicate brain surgery. With it she might have a chance, a very slim one, but a chance. Without it... Mary is dying. Yes. Then do the operation. Make Mary live. She's a good girl, Doc. I'm saying no. Mary's a bad believer, Father, and Mother. Go away with the man that... Who is the man, Joe? Hasn't. I don't see Mary for you, maybe. But Mary don't mean to be bad. Mary is just... just a baby, Doc. I find the man that drives the car that hurt the Mary... Charles. Yes, Helen. Hello, Mrs. Keegan. Hello, Mr. Allegro. Charles, Mr. North is on the phone. About the publisher? Yes, and there's only said Gauman waiting to see you. I go, Doc. All right, Joe. I'll telephone you. Thank you, Doc. Hello, Mr. North. Hello, Doctor. Look, I just finished your manuscript, and I like it. Well, that's very good news, Mr. North. When can we get together for a talk, Doctor? Anytime you say. The sooner the better. How about lunch today? I'm meeting Mrs. North at the Colonial Prophet One. Could you join us? At the Colonial Club? Yes, but the Auto-Mat's a little more in my class. Don't worry about the check. I'll deduct it from your first royalty payment. See you at one. All right, Mr. North. Helen, he likes the book. Lunch at the Colonial Club? I'm on it, aren't you? Mr. North is paying for it, Helen. Naturally. Well, I hope you're a bigger success as an author than you have been as a doctor. Helen. I'll have Mr. Gauman come in. Doctor, we'll see you now. Thanks. Sit down, Mr. Gauman. Thanks. What can I do for you? I'm a friend of Mary Allegro. Oh, are you the man that Mary... Yeah. I see. How is she, Doc? Her condition's very critical. I'm operating late this afternoon. Whether the surgery will save her, I don't know. What do you say the chances are? One in 10, one in 100, one in 100... This isn't a bookie joint, Mr. Gauman. I don't quote odds. Okay. Look, Doc, here's what I came for. Me and my friends know about the swell job you're doing among the poor folks down here, and we'd be willing to help to work along with a little donation of, uh, let's say $25,000. $25,000? If you guarantee that Mary's operation is a success. Well, Mr. Gauman, I can't guarantee that... Of course, your idea and my idea of a successful operation might be a little different. What's your idea? You know the old gag, Doc? The operation was a success, but the patient died. Are you suggesting that I deliberately... Yeah. Get out. Take it from me, Doc. Mary'd be better off. You'd be helping yourself and doing her a favor. Why, you... Now get out! That wasn't smart, Doc. I'm telling you for the last time, Gauman. Relax, I'm going. Call the police, Doc? Yes. That's not smart either, Doc. You've got a wife. You wouldn't want anything to happen to her, would you? Nothing's going to. You can't be too sure. Sometime next week, next month, next year, something might happen to her. Like what happened to Mary Allegra, maybe. You turned down my offer okay. No hard feelings. Just don't try to be a hero. Now how about it? It's a lot, Doc. In the past, the manuscript I read, Dr. Keegan, was fascinating. I didn't think the story of a doctor's work among the underprivileged could be so ungrossing. But there are the weaknesses I pointed out, Doctor, and well, I think if you... Something wrong, Doctor? What? Oh, sorry, Mr. North. You haven't touched your lunch, Doctor. I'm afraid I have too much on my mind to be interested in food, Mrs. North. I have a rather critical operation to perform late this afternoon. Oh, well then why don't we discuss the changes some other time? Well, how about this evening? That'll give me some time to think about them and what you have in mind. No, all right, fine. Let's make it 8.30 at my place. Well, I'll be there. Waiter, check, please. Yes, sir. Could we drop you somewhere, Doctor? No, thanks, Mrs. North. Helen, my wife, came up town with me. She's meeting me here. Well, you should have had her join us. Some other time. Well, that's a date. See you later this evening, Doctor. Goodbye, Dr. Keegan. Goodbye. Mrs. North wears beautiful clothes, doesn't she? Helen, how long have you been here? Five minutes. Well, why didn't you come over and meet the North? Looking like this? No, thank you. Bad enough having a waiter look at me as though I belonged out in the kitchen washing dishes. Look, Helen, when the book is published and we get some money... We'll pay up our bills, buy some new equipment for your office, and use the rest to live on while you take care of a lot of people who haven't enough money to buy a bottle of aspirin. Don't make any promises, Charles. I know what will happen. Helen. Helen, what is it? What's the matter? You know what's the matter. I'm fed up. Right up to here. Come into a place like this, I see a woman like Mrs. North wearing beautiful clothes. I think how that could be for us, too, if you didn't have this missionary spirit. What do you want me to do? You had your chance this morning. What do you mean? I heard what that man Gorman asked you to do. Helen, are you proposing that I... Think of it. Twenty-five thousand dollars, Charles. What we could do with it. We could go away. We could set up a decent practice. We could have a home, a nice home. A place where we could look out our window and see something besides open garbage cans. Stop it, Helen. Stop it. How can you sit there and ask me to murder? Charles, listen. Even with the operation, no matter what you do... She isn't going to die. She mustn't. She can't. But she might, so I... Charles. Charles, where are you going? I need some fresh air. Charles! Charles! Is there anything wrong, madam? No. No, there's nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Hello. Mr. Gorman? That's right. This is Mrs. Keegan, Dr. Keegan's wife. My husband asked me to call you and tell you that he's changed his mind. He'll accept your proposition. Yeah? He wants you to meet me at his office at seven. I'll be there. With the money. Yeah, sure, Mrs. Keegan. With the money. Mrs. Keegan? In here, Mr. Gorman, in the doctor's office. Close the door at the reception room, please. Yes. Where's the doc? At the hospital. The operation should be over by now. I'm waiting for a call from him. Where's the money? You'll get it after the doc calls. There's no need... After the doc calls, Mrs. Keegan. Very well. Sit down. Sure. Why do you want Mary Allegro out of the way? Nice weather we're having, isn't it? We have a right to know. Okay. Okay, I don't mind. You got to know a lot about my business. Very inquisitive Mary was. So when I tried to tell her maybe we wasn't made for each other like she thought, she got nasty and threatened to talk to people she shouldn't talk to. The doctor. The telephone's ringing. Aren't you going to answer it? Yes. Hello? Yes, John? No, Mr. Allegro isn't here. I'm alone. Yes? Yes, Charles, I'll tell him. Well? Give me the money, Mr. Gorman. Mary Allegro is dead. Desperado's murder an innocent man to lure Marshal Matt Dillon out of Dodge City long enough for them to rob a bank. It's rootin', shootin' adventure in the lawless old time west, and there's plenty of gun smoke as it unfolds tomorrow night on CBS Radio. Don't miss gun smoke with the latest thrilling story on most of these stations tomorrow night. And now back to Mr. and Mrs. North. Where's the money, Mr. Gorman? Here you are, Mrs. Keegan. Count it. Fifty-one hundred dollar bills. Fifty? Well, that's only five thousand dollars. That's right. Where's the rest of it? There isn't any rest of it, Mrs. Keegan. That's it, all of it. You told my husband you'd give him twenty-five thousand. Sure, that's what I told your husband, but that isn't what I told you. You can't get away with this. You give me the rest of that money, you're out. Oh, you're what? Tell the Doc? Oh, come off it, Mrs. Keegan. I wasn't born yesterday. Well, you might not believe it, but I've been up as far as 42nd Street several times. You think you've been kidding me? What are you talking about? Your husband, the Doc, he wasn't in on this? Okay, so the operation flopped. Mary died, but that wasn't his fault. He did the best he could. He wanted to save her like she was his own daughter. No. Yeah. Yeah, Mrs. Keegan. Listen, I saw the look in his eyes when he clouded me this morning. A guy with a look like that doesn't change his mind about a thing like this, never. He did, I tell you, he did. Mary Allegro meant nothing to him. She was just a little tramp. Why should he save her life? Because he's a doctor and you can't buy him for 25,000. I know, I tried. You bought my husband. I bought you. Just you. Now look, you were playing me for a sucker. I didn't have to give you a cent. Not a cent! So you take the 5,000 and be glad you got... Wait. What's the matter? I thought I heard someone in the reception room. Mr. Allegro! Mr. Allegro! And she died less than a half an hour after she came out of surgery. Oh, how awful. Have the police found the driver of the hit-and-run car? No, Mr. North, not yet. What if they do? How will that help Mary Allegro? You know, I'm not a particularly religious man, but I prayed every minute I was operating that I could save her. You mustn't blame yourself, doctor. You did everything you could so... I know, Mrs. North, but this wasn't just another operation as far as I was concerned. It was... Oh, well, I'd rather not talk about it till... Open the door. I'll answer it. Yes? Is Dr. Keegan here? Dr. Keegan? Yes, he's taking me to him. Hey, wait a minute. Put that gun... Take me? Jerry, dear, what... Joe! Joe, what are you doing with that gun? I kill you. Joe, what's the matter with you? Look, you crazy... You kill my Maria. I hear Mrs. Keegan say you make the operation fail. Okay, Doc, now you pay. No, don't! Look out, Pam! Get me that gun! Don't, Jerry! He's getting away! Let him go! Come back here, you... Let him go, darling! Please let him go! Okay. Dr. Keegan. Dr. Keegan, are you... I'm all right. Thanks to you, Mr. North. If you hadn't hit his arm... Who was that man? Maria Legro's father. The man's out of his mind. What did he mean when he said... Look, Mr. North, I've got to go. Go, but you just... There's something I must do right away. Good night. Dr. Keegan. What of all the... What are you doing, Jerry? I don't know what that little drama was all about, dear, but I'm going to call Bill Wagon. Well, well. Hello, Doc. I want to talk to you, Norman. Why, sure, Doc. Come in. Where's my wife, Gorman? How should I know? She wasn't at home or at my office. I thought she might be here. Why should she be? Let's not play games, Gorman. You paid my wife some money tonight, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. How much? $5,000. Why? Relax, Doc. I know you did the best you could for Maria Legro. Then why did you give Mrs. Keegan $5,000? She took a chance. She gambled that Mary would die. Well, I like gamblers. That's why I paid her. You didn't figure that the money would give you a hold on me through her? Doesn't it? No. Oh? You outsmarted yourself, Gorman. I was afraid of you this morning, afraid for my wife. But I don't have to be anymore. Helen and I are through. After I find her and make her tell the truth to the police. And that's the story, Bill. Legro didn't say anything more before he took his shot at the doctor. No, Bill, that's all. He accused Dr. Keegan of killing his daughter and yelled something about hearing Mrs. Keegan saying the doctor made the operation fail and then started shooting. Here's Dr. Keegan's office, Bill. Well, let's see if he didn't have a talk with him. I have a hunch this has something to do with that hit-and-run accident. That sounds like a pretty good guess, Pam. Keegan's office is the first door to the right. There's a light on in there, so someone must be... There! Shot! Came from Keegan's office. Let's try the door, Jerry. It's locked. We've got to get in there. Put your shoulder to it, Jerry. We can force it. Okay, Bill. Jerry! That did it. This is the reception room. There must be... Oh, Jerry! Bill, look! In the other office slumped over the desk. Keegan, come on. Oh, Jerry. He's dead. The person who killed him must have gone out that door. Yeah. See anything? No. Well, I'll call headquarters and find out... Someone's coming. Charles! Charles, are you... Charles! Charles! And you've no idea what Allegro meant when he accused your husband of making his daughter's operations fail. I've told you, Lieutenant. No, not the slightest. The man must be insane. Do you have to ask me these questions now? I'm sorry, Mrs. Keegan, but I do. Excuse me a moment, please. Is the medical examiner through, Jerry? Yes, Bill. They just removed Keegan's body. Well, look, there's nothing more I want you and Pam for, so why don't you go on home, huh? All right, Bill. Oh, by the way, Bill, the envelope was on the desk under Keegan's body. It's the manuscript I gave back to him at lunch today. Well, do you want to take it? No, it's all right with you. Oh, sure, sure. Go ahead. Thanks. Good night, Bill. Good night, Jerry. Pam. Well, now, Mrs. Keegan, let's get that... What? Now, where the devil did she get to? I think I'll leave the car in front of the apartment tonight, Pam. All right, dear. Oh, don't forget the manuscript. No, I've got it. It's horrible about Dr. Keegan, Jerry. I can't admit... Is it all right? Yes. Who is it, Jerry? I don't know. I want to see you a minute. What about? That envelope. Hand it over. Who are you? Shut the chatter and give me that envelope. Look out, Jerry. Give it to me. Okay, so you and your gun makes you one too many, so take it. Here. That's better. Now turn around and start walking. Go on, move. Anything you say. Come along, dear. Yes, Jerry. Pam, dear, what are you doing? Getting a mirror out of my purse. Well, this is hardly the time to worry about whether your lipstick is on straight. I'm not, darling. I'm improvising your rear-view mirror. My, my, how clever of you. And what do you see? That man getting into a taxi. Come on, Jerry. Now we can get back into our car and follow him. Mr. Gorman. Yeah. Did you get the envelope? What's it look like? Oh, thank heaven. Now look, Mrs. Keegan, we're in trouble, bad trouble. And you running out on that homicide guy didn't help. Hold it. Who could that be? I don't know. Get me out of the room. Go on, will you? Mr. Gorman. Yeah? Who are you? I'm Major Allegro. Allegro? Maria Sepad. Yeah? What? What do you want? You paid Dr. Keegan to make the operation on Maria Fahill. What are you gonna do with that gun? I killed Dr. Keegan with it. What? Yeah. I killed Dr. Keegan. Now I kill you. Haven't you any idea why he'd want that manuscript, Jerry? Not a one, Bill, but whatever the reason, he wanted it badly enough to have used his gun to get it if necessary. And what's the address you followed him to? 231 Stanton Street. It's an apartment house. The elevator went up to the seventh floor, but there are only two apartments to a floor, so it won't be hard to find. We got the two names on the seventh floor from the mailbox. What are they? Well, one's a Mr. and Mrs. Craig, and the other one's a man named Tex Gorman. Tex Gorman? That name mean something to you, Bill? Yeah, a lot. And look, Jerry, Stanton Street's only a few blocks away. I'll meet you out in front of 231 in five minutes. I'm telling you, Mr. Allegro, you got it all wrong. Dr. Keegan did his best for Mary. No, you'll pay him to make it. No, no, believe me, I didn't give him anything. Not a cent. Now look, Allegro, put that gun away. Now don't do something, you'll be sorry. I'm not sorry. I killed the doctor. Why I be sorry I killed you? Put down that gun, Mr. Allegro. Mrs. Keegan. Put it down. So you hit too, eh? Okay, save me the trouble. Look out! Hold on to him! Get him! Oh, me, I kill you, I kill you! Drop that gun! Oh, no! Silly oldie! Hit him again! There. This old coot's as nutty as a coconut grove. Where'd you get hold of a gun? Never mind. Call the police. The police? You heard me. You're as nutty as this old guy here. He killed my husband, you heard him say so. Okay, but... Open up, woman! The police! The police. Open the door. No. Then I will. Stay away from him. Don't be a fool. He must know we're in here. Hide that manuscript and we'll be all right. All right, I'll put the envelope in this drawer. All right. Open up, Gorman! Okay, okay! Hello, Lieutenant. Well, Mrs. Keegan. So this is where you disappeared to. There's the man, Billy. He's the one who took the manuscript. That's the guy, Billy. Bill, look over there on the floor. Mr. Legro! What's the matter with him? Nothing. Better knock him out. That's all he... Who's gonna kill me. Why? Oh, he's just got some screwy idea. I paid Doc Keegan to see to it his daughter didn't get off that operating table alive. That's why he killed my husband. How do you know he killed him? He admitted it. Allegro's coming around, Bill. Then ask. Go on. Do you understand what she's saying, Allegro? She says you admit killing Dr. Keegan. Now, is that true? Yes. I followed him from the hospital to the apartment. I killed him. You followed him from where, Allegro? From the hospital to the apartment. You there, you see me kill him? Wait a minute, Bill. Allegro thinks he killed Keegan when he took a shot at him at our place. I did. No, you didn't, Mr. Allegro. Well, in that case, it looks as though we'd better go back to you, Tex. Now, suppose you start by telling us what you wanted with Dr. Keegan's manuscript. What manuscript? The envelope you took from Mr. North and me. I don't know what you're talking about. I never saw you two before in my life. What about you? No, no, no, no. Take it easy, Pam. Take it easy. A story like Gorman's won't stand up in a murder trial. A murder trial? Why, sure, Gorman. What do you think you were going to get for killing Keegan, a two-week vacation in Florida? I didn't kill Keegan. Why would I? To keep him from going to the police about your little offer. We might want to know if you hadn't tried to kill Mary Allegro before in a hit-and-run accident. No. Then why'd you take that manuscript from the North? Okay. Okay, I'll show you why. No! Yeah! Here, Lieutenant, take a look at this. It was stuck in the envelope with the manuscript. What is it, Bill? A confession written for Mrs. Keegan this time. A confession of what, Bill? That she accepted $5,000 from Tex Gorman without her husband's knowledge or consent. Keegan wrote it. How do you know? She told me. After she took a pot around you, Lieutenant, she called me and told me I had to get the envelope from the North here. Okay, Gorman, but you wouldn't want this floating around any more than Mrs. Keegan would. So this doesn't help you very much. Oh, but it does. Does what? Help Tex Gorman. How, Pam? Obvious. Pam, dear, you always say something is obvious when you know perfectly well it isn't. All right, then it isn't obvious. No one in the world could possibly see that the person who killed Dr. Keegan is the person who first knew about the statement he wrote for his wife to sign. Oh, Pam. And it's the most obscure thing that since Mrs. Keegan told Tex Gorman to get the envelope from us, she knew about it first. Look out, Bill! Grab her, Jerry! I've got her! Sit down, Mrs. Keegan. Sit down and relax. It's practically incomprehensible that Mrs. Keegan couldn't have known about it first, unless she killed her husband, but couldn't take the statement with her then because we were right outside the office door. Okay, Pam, okay. You're right. You win. Darling, that's obvious. All right, Mrs. Keegan. You and Gorman are going for a one-way ride with me to headquarters. Jerry? Yes, dear? Darling, it's almost two o'clock. Aren't you coming to bed at all tonight? Oh, I'm sorry. I got to looking over Keegan's manuscript again and I forgot the time. I've been thinking about him. Oh, golly, Jerry, I'm glad you're not a doctor. Yeah, Dr. Keegan anyway. Just any doctor. Who could that be? I'll answer. Hello? Oh, hello, Mac. Yeah, I see. All right. Who was it, dear? Foreman of the print shop. They lost the plate to page 51 of that new novel we're bringing out and I've got to go down and help them find it. Mr. and Mrs. North stars Barbara Britton and Richard Denning and features Francis DeSales. Be sure to join us again next week when Pam and Jerry are let in for a hot time by a visiting fireman who comes to New York to claim his mail-order bride and finds he has lost the race with death in the mystery Murder by Mail. The characters of Mr. and Mrs. North are based on those originally created by Francis and Richard Lockridge. Tonight's script was by Ken Field. Music is by Del Castillo. Mr. and Mrs. North transcribed is a John W. Luftin production. Art Ballinger speaking. You hear America's favorite shows on the CBS Radio Network.
