Stand by for crime. Hi, Chuck Morgan again. You know, being a newscaster on a station like KOP is quite a responsibility. No matter whether you're liked or disliked, whether you're agreed with or disagreed with, you feel a sense of duty, especially when you know your listening audience is extensive. That's why when this tip came in about that accidental death, I thought I couldn't pass it up. It wouldn't be fair to the people who paid me or the people who listened to me. The tip said that the accidental death wasn't accidental at all, but murder. It occurred at a remote section town on the Southern Express Railroad. If I drive up there, I get some interesting copy for my broadcast. Well, it so happened that Carol Curtis, my blonde secretary, and I had nothing better planned for the weekend, so we wound up the old jalopy and headed out into the desert. You know, darling, I think it's a wonderful idea going to Las Vegas for the weekend. You do? Yes. I have a new gown I'll wear at dinner tonight. It's a strapless black taffeta with gold embroidery. Think you'll like it? Mmm. Chuck Morgan, you haven't heard a word I've said. What was that, Glamour Puss? I said, you think, what are we stopping here for? That sign board over there. Can you read it? Sign board? Why, yes, it says squalling Indian. For heaven's sakes, what does that mean? Well, maybe it means there's an Indian over there who keeps squalling. Come on, we better get started. Wait a minute, Chuck. You're taking the wrong road. Las Vegas is up that way. Who cares about Las Vegas when there's a squalling Indian over the hill? Chuck Morgan, you turn this car around right now. You promised me we were going to Las Vegas. I believe my exact words were, and I quote, Glamour Puss, let's drive out into the desert this weekend, up toward Las Vegas. Why, you, you fiend. You tricked me. You know I've always wanted to go to Las Vegas. Stop this car at once and let me out of here. What about my new dress? You don't know what it means to a girl to buy a new dress and then have no place to wear it. You stop this car at once and let me out. Well, what are you doing now? Stopping the car. What for? We're a million miles out in the desert and it's so hot I can hardly breathe. The least you can do is keep moving. Glamour Puss, you said you wanted me to stop the car so you could get out. What? I said that? Don't be silly. You know something, Glamour Puss? What? You're really pretty good looking when you're mad. Oh, is that so? Well, let me tell you something. There are plenty of men who would... What was that? Sounded like a shot. Yeah, there's a puff of smoke up there in the hill. Chuck, he's shooting at us. Yeah, our tires anyway. Glamour Puss, you're really going to get your wish. You ever work a jack handle before? Of course not. As a first for everything, out you go. I didn't want to alarm Carol, so I acted as though it were a regular routine for me to have my tires plugged full of holes by unknown snipers. Carol sat in the shade of the car and made sarcastic remarks about my integrity while I sweated with a tire iron. And finally dislodged the bullet that had deflated the inner tube. It looked to me like a 30-30 special, which proved nothing. Well, I got the spare in place and we headed down the road towards Squalling, Indian. An hour later we came to our destination. It was the most desolate looking place I've ever seen. A cluster of yellow painted buildings, partly shaded by two cottonwood trees. The double tracks of the Southern Express ran by the front door. Well, this is just great. This is simply dandy. Shall I change to my new strapless gown with a gold embroidery now or shall I? Glamour Puss, will you do me one small favor? Why? Shut up. Why, the idea, Chuck, all you're... Quintus, I'm here on serious business and if you... You're coming somewhere. Hello there. Looking for anyone special? We're looking for anyone. I know how you feel. Pretty desolate looking place, isn't it? Come on inside. It's much hotter and I can at least offer you a cold drink. Oh, that sounds good to me. How about you, Carol? Yeah, sure. I can hardly wait. My name's Jim Gainesley. I'm the signal maintainer. Oh, here we are. Hi, honey. We got visitors. Oh, how wonderful. Visitors are always welcome here. This is Betty, my wife. Hello, Betty. Nice to know you. This is Carol Curtis and I'm... You're Chuck Morgan, the news commentator. I'd know that voice anywhere. My golly, that's right. You are Chuck Morgan. How about that? Well, I didn't think my broadcasts were heard this far away. Oh, we don't get you around here, but I used to live in L.A. Jim and I've only been here six months. Don't you find it terribly lonesome? Oh, Jim and I are never lonesome if we're together. It isn't as bad as you think. There's another family living in that house over there. Ted and Jane Maynard. Ted's the boss of the work gang. Oh. Hey, but how about that cold drink, I promise? Great. And I think I'd better explain to you why we happened to drop in on you so unexpectedly. Well, sit down and make yourselves comfortable first. All right. Now you're here, we want to encourage you to stay as long as possible. That's very nice of you. Here's that cold drink. Here you are. Carol. Thanks. Take this one. Thank you. By the way, that man that was killed up this way last week... Oh, that was a real tragedy. Either of you or the Maynards got to talk to him? No, none of us even saw the chap till it was over. Then, well, there wasn't much left to identify. No one ever found out who he was? No. I understand that an inquiry was conducted, but nothing came of it. Where did the accident happen? In the cut, about half mile up the track. Apparently, the man had been walking along the tracks, heard the train, and climbed the embankment, then slipped and fell. There's a torn-out place at the top of the embankment that makes that theory almost a fact. What's your interest, Mr. Morgan? Well, it's remote. I had a friend who looked me up in L.A. two days before the accident. He's a geologist. Said he was coming up this way to look at some unusual rock formations he'd heard about. And you haven't heard from him since? No. Checked a couple of places without any luck. Oh, I'm probably borrowing trouble. Chances are he'll be calling me at the office tomorrow. Listen. It sounds like a train. Now, that just could be Glamourverse. There are a couple of tracks outside. It's the Golden Streak Streamliner from L.A. to Chicago. Right on the nose, too. Phew, for a minute. I thought it was coming into the room. She's doing 90 when she passes here. And the same when it goes through the cut? Oh, a little better. There's a slight downgrade there. No wonder there was nothing left of the man who was hit. How about you two staying overnight with us? There's plenty of room, and when the sun goes down, it really gets cool. Sure, that's a great idea. We'd sure like your company. I'll help you carry your gear in. Chuck, you promised. Sorry, Glamourverse. Thanks. We'll accept your offer. But there's something I want to say to you first. Oh, what's that? I don't think that man being killed was an accident at all. I think he was murdered. Jim and Betty Ainsley weren't as startled by my murder theories as I thought they would be. They seemed more amused than anything. They were willing enough to go along with the gag, however, apparently feeling that to do so would assure them of our company overnight. Jim and I brought in our bags from the car. They gave Carol a room in their own cottage and assigned me another. Beyond me was a cottage occupied by the Ainsley's neighbors. I took off my hat, coat, tie, splashed some cold water over my face, then strolled over towards the Maynards. Their cottage looked exactly like the one occupied by the Ainsley's, except that the low drooping branches of a huge cottonwood shut it off from view of the rest of the buildings. I knocked and waited. Wasn't any response. So after a moment I tried the latch. It opened. I went in. Anybody home? If anyone was home, they weren't admitting it. Standing in a corner near the bedroom door was a rifle. I crossed the room quickly, picked it up, opened the breach and sniffed. The gun had been fired recently and it was a 30-30 special. Drop that gun! What? Wait a minute, you must be Ted Maynard. Never mind who I am, drop that gun I said. Sure, okay. Only don't go getting any ideas with that revolver you're holding until you find out who I am. Ted, who's this? I don't know, some stumble bum thought he could get away with my rifle. Well why don't you plug him? If you found him trying to steal something, you have a right to. Take it easy. I'm Chuck Morgan, my secretary and I are staying with your friends, the Ainsleys. Who told you they're our friends? They did. Well aren't you? Now how could you possibly live in a remote spot like this and not be friends with the only neighbors you have for miles? Try it sometime and you'll find out, especially with two jerks like those Ainsleys. Well Ted, what are you going to do about it? I don't know. I'm going to check with Jim and Betty Ainsley to find out if he's telling the truth, that's for sure. Let's flag down number nine and turn him over to the conductor for the sheriff at Vegas. Maybe the heat was giving me hallucinations, but it seemed to me that these two were creating a situation out of thin air for no apparent reason. They were nervous, on edge, desperate, but more important they were scared and trying to cover it up. Maybe that's a good idea. Hand me that rope, Jane. Crazy as it seemed, they were planning to go ahead with their plan. Well I hadn't driven away up here to be trussed up and dumped aboard a train on some phony charge of robbery. All right, Ted. I'll take that. Why you, let go of my wrist. Drop the gun. Ted, Ted! All right, all right. Now then, let's talk this over and see if we can't add up the score. What are you going to do? Push it up the embankment in front of the streamliner the way you did that poor devil last week? You won't get away with it this time. You were seen coming up here, you know. Yes, I know. Seen by someone with a 30-30 special who plugged a hole in one of my tires. You can't prove that. Can't prove what? That it was a 30-30 special. I can not only prove it, I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I can prove it. I knew who the dead man was, and who had murdered him, and why. All I had to do was prove it. The plan had already begun taking shape in my mind. I had to get back to Los Angeles, and I had to get back there fast. Because it was in Los Angeles that I could start the machine going, and would bring one of these four people up to the bar of justice, charged with murder. Now, the conclusion of Stand By for Crime. Carol and I got back to Los Angeles shortly after 10 p.m. I left at her apartment, drove over to KOP. Pappy Mansfield, owner and manager of the station, was still in his office. I told him where I'd been, and what I wanted him to do. He wasn't much impressed. Oh, you're out of your mind, Chuck. The heat must have soaked through that thick skull of yours and softened up your brain. Now go on home and go to bed. Okay, Pappy, so you don't believe me. Then you don't mind if I sell the story elsewhere. Story? What story? You haven't got any story. I will have before the night's over if you'll give me some cooperation. But I tell you, Chuck, it's unreasonable. You can't prove there's been a murder without a body. Yes, I can, if the murderer confesses to his crime. Well, how about it? No. Okay, then I'll peddle my wares somewhere else. Not while you're on my payroll, you don't. Then as of now, I'm off your payroll. I quit. Hey, Chuck. Yeah? Come back here. I thought you'd see it my way. Oh, you did? Hmm. Well, get this, smart boy. I'll make your telephone call for you, and your radio station isn't going to be mentioned, unless you come up with a real... Pappy and I had been through this sort of thing before. It was old routine. I threatened to quit, or he threatened to fire me, and then we'd agree to go along together. So I knew I could depend upon him, and it was a comforting feeling. I got the information I wanted from the morgue in the KLP newsroom, and then headed back for the desert. It was after two o'clock in the morning when I reached Squalling Indian, there was a light in Jim Ainsley's cottage. Otherwise, the place looked deserted. That's you, Mr. Morgan? It's me, Jim. I began to think you weren't coming. Come on inside. Right. Where's Miss Curtis? She had enough, decided to stay in town. Your wife in bed? I asked. And the Maidards? They stayed till about midnight, hoping you'd be back. Ted said if he heard your car, he'd be over. Gosh, Mr. Morgan, what's it all about? Well, I got the information I wanted, and if things should... Oh, hello, Ted. Come on in. Mr. Morgan just got back. Yeah, I heard his car. So you brought your rifle along, Ted, expecting trouble? I intend to be prepared, if there is any. Well, you can put the pea shooter away. You won't have any use for it. I'm keeping it. Suit yourself. Hey, now that's funny. Must be trouble along the road someplace. Hello, Squalling Indian. Yeah, that's right. Who? Morgan? Yeah, he's here. It's for you, Mr. Morgan. Oh, thanks. Hello. Oh, hello, Pappy. What? I don't know. I suppose I could go up there and take a few measurements. Sure, sure. Glad to. Call you back. Right. Okay, so long. That was Pappy Mansfield, owner and manager of Station KOP. Oh, wait a minute. How could he be calling on that phone? It isn't even connected with outside lines. Pappy Mansfield, my friend, can do anything, if he thinks it's important enough. Well, gosh, Mr. Morgan, what's so important? What's he want you to do? I'm going up to the cut and take a few measurements. I think the information I'll be able to phone back to Pappy will be all that's needed to sew up this case. Oh, what case? Oh, look, Mr. Morgan, want me to go with you? I could run you up on my scooter. No, you two stay here. There might be another phone call. I won't be gone long. So I started alone, walking up the tracks. There was a crescent moon hanging on the horizon. This and a sky full of stars shed faint light, bringing out in grotesque relief the shape of the giant cactus and the yucca trees. Up ahead, the cut loomed vaguely, a slit on a ridge that gave a backbone to the desert where it slipped down into a salt sink. A cold wind whooped through the cut and penetrated the thinness of my jacket. Once I looked back, I saw that the lights in Jim Ainsley's cottage had been extinguished. Well, this was it. Either I had a crazy theory or I was going to turn up one of the best news stories of the year. I didn't expect the thing to happen when it did. I expected it to come from another direction and in another form. I reached the bottom slope of the embankment that formed the cut and turned off the tracks. When I heard a sound like the clanking of stone against metal, I whirled. There was a quick step behind me. Something swished through the air and then... All the stars in that beautiful sky crashed around my head and the crescent moon shot out of its orbit and left the world to darkness and to me. I don't know how long I lay there, but after a while the moon got back into position and the stars returned to their velvet canopy one by one. I watched them for a while thinking how beautiful they were, wishing that Carol Curtis were in hand to enjoy their splendor too. Then it occurred to me that it was strange I didn't have to turn my head upward to see these stars. The answer was simple. I was already looking up. I was lying on my back. I tried to move and found I couldn't. That answer was just as simple. My hands and feet were tied. Worse than that, they were tied to the railroad track. No, it wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't a corny novel of 50 years ago. It was real. It was happening. To me, Chuck Morgan, wise guy news commentator. And now came the payoff, the climax to this lousy drama. The train, the streamliner, rushing across the desert at 90 miles an hour. Its headlights stabbing into the sky. Its impersonal whistle blasting out, shattering the desert stillness into a nightmare of sound. This couldn't be happening. I was watching one of those movies that used to give me goose pimples when I was a kid. And the minute the audience would see that the train was on another track, I could feel the vibration of the onrushing demon in the rails. I saw it frantically. The raw edge of the rail flange began to rub the rope thin. I worked wildly, jerking my wrist back and forth, forgetting in this concentration for the moment the train. Forgetting it until a beam of light flashed into my face, a red beam. I looked up. The signal tower, a hundred yards down the track, had turned red suddenly. The streamliner was slowing down, coming to a stop. Suddenly the ropes around my wrist parted. I untied my ankle, stood up, chafing my wrists. The streamliner's headlight showed me the man standing at the foot of the embankment. He had a rifle in the quick of his arm. You're not as lucky as you think, Morgan. They're still going to shovel up what's left of you after the train passes. Hello, Ainsley. I didn't think you'd come up with anything so corny as tying me to the rails. Why didn't you drill me with the rifle you stole from Ted Maynard and call it a day? Because I don't like corpses hanging around. They talk too much. Oh, of course. I should have remembered. Before I knock you off, suppose you tell me how much you know. Gladly. Anything to stall for time until the train crew gets up here? The train crew ain't coming up here. She only stopped because I got the signals crossed. You'll be underway again in a minute. I'm not too good at this sort of thing. Naturally not. You're better at signaling from the deck of a battleship. So you do now, huh? Yes. I've known for quite a while. You're Jim Ainsley's twin brother, Mike. You were married to Betty before you went to Korea. After you were reported missing, Betty married Jim. You came back, found your wife married to your brother, and killed him. It was Jim who was hit by the streamliner last week. Are you happy? An old trip, Ainsley, but as always, works out. Take the gun! Chuck Morgan! Over here, pappy! Chuck, are you all right? Glamorous. Take a look at those stars. Aren't they beautiful? You've probably guessed it was pappy Mansfield who was responsible for the streamliner stopping at Squalling End Inn, not the fact that Ainsley loused up the signals. Pappy never did trust me when he thought I was getting myself into a jam. Carol and I left Squalling End Inn in the cold light of an early dawn, heading for the main highway. Naturally, Carol was full of questions, but this time I had all the answers. Let's begin at the beginning, Chuckie Boy. What made you suspicious in the first place? Why, the fact that Jim, or rather Mike Ainsley, said he recognized my voice. Didn't he? No, how could he? He lived in Chicago all his life. My voice couldn't reach that far. Betty had heard me in L.A., but her husband picked her up too quickly on it. Oh, but how did you know that Jim was Mike? Well, Jim, or Mike, offered to help us bring in our gear from the car. The word gear in place of luggage is strictly a Navy term. And then there was the picture of the sailor boy on the wall. That's right, which Mike called a bulkhead, Navy again. Well, well, well. Now, who shot the hole in our tire? Ted Maynard. You see, Ted and Jane knew, or at least suspected, that Jim was a murderer. They were scared stiff. They knew if the Ainsleys realized their suspicions, the same thing would happen to them that happened to Jim. Well, how about Betty? Betty had to go along with the gag too. Although, I think she did it by choice. She really loved her first husband, huh? Hmm, that's right. So when Ted saw us heading this way, he shot a hole in our tire, hoping we'd find out he did it, and have him arrested and taken away from there. Glamour, Puss. You have an astute mind. Oops. Here we are. Back on the main highway. But Chuck, why are you turning right? L.A.'s back that way. Glamour, Puss. Las Vegas is this way. You're still going to have a chance to wear that black strapless taffeta with the gold embroidery. Oh, Chuck. What's wrong? What's the matter? I left it in L.A.
