And now stay tuned for the program that has rated tops in popularity for a longer period of time Than any other West Coast program in radio history the signal oil program the Whistler whistling S I G N A L Signal Signal Gasoline Signal the famous go-farther gasoline invite you to sit back and enjoy another strange story by the Whistler For extra driving pleasure the signal to look for is the yellow and black circle sign that identifies Signal service stations from Canada to Mexico and for Sunday evening listening pleasure The signal to listen for is this whistle that identifies the signal oil program the Whistler whistling I am the Whistler and I know many things for I walk by night I know many strange tales hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak And now the Whistler strange story incident at Pebble Cove Standing there on the boat dock which served as the main landing at Pebble Cove John Gaylord presented the picture of a successful relaxed young author. He was tall tan Self-assured in manner and bearing he liked it here at this hideaway resort on the Pacific Coast It was a place where he could work when he felt the mood Forget it if he didn't the other villagers a smattering of artists and winter vacationists kept pretty much themselves And when John did want conversation there was always Steve Carson a young constable who included Pebble Cove in his district It was Carson small boat that was approaching the landing at the moment and John moved forward to catch the line Steve threw and made the boat fast Okay, Steve I got it Well, what brings you in here something official just coming in pretty choppy out here today Yeah, worse at Shell Beach. I went down to watch the outboards race good crowd. No, not bad Come on. I'll walk you up to the house. Buy you a drink. I better take a rain check. I'll get back the office Oh Just wanted to let you know. I can't make that chess game. We plan. I have to run up the Gorman. Oh, well, that's two rainchecks By the way, hmm. Have you met your attractive new neighbor yet? Attractive you mean the new neighbor is a girl. That's right. Yeah surprised you tipped me off Well, I'm different. I figure competition breaks them or not. Okay What's your name? Benton, I believe yeah, Peggy Benton Peggy Benton, you know her no No, no, I don't well the way you react. No, I don't know her. No, the name sounded familiar. That's all Well, I'm sure you'll get around to making it sound more familiar Good luck. Yeah Thanks Well Johnny your past comes calling again doesn't it Changing your name from Harold Ferris to John Gaylord hasn't solved a thing Peggy Benton she's found you and you wonder what it means this time You watch Steve Carson's boat move away from the landing and walk back to the beach The rising tide tells you that it's close to six o'clock Not too late to make a call on your neighbor and you're anxious to get it over with As you reach your cottage about a hundred yards from your own you ring the bell and brace yourself to face it Well, mr. Ferris I've been expecting you how Hello, Peggy. Well come in come in neighbor Or should I call you by your new name? Johnny Gaylord, that's what everybody else calls me. I like it. Well, may I fix you a drink? Johnny No, thanks. Well, you don't mind if I no no, go ahead. Oh, thank you You look so well John so very well But I'm a little surprised Oh, yeah Yeah, so many successful young authors have their pictures on the jackets of their books You never have Not Hiding from someone darling. All right, Peggy. What do you want? What are you down here for? Oh darling, are we gonna talk silly or naively? You know what I want more of the same I can't give you another cent. Oh When you're doing so much better than before I should think it'd be easy thank you I I Wish you'd leave him. I'm sure you do. You also wish I'd drop dead. I Didn't say that you're as obvious as your cheap writing Johnny But little Peggy takes good care of herself understand and She's gonna take even better care of herself. So How much is it this time? Oh no special amount now. Wait a minute. I I'll give you five thousand dollars Peggy five thousand dollars Oh what you turn that diary of Helen's over to me and let me get rid of it. Oh So the world will never know that Helen's death wasn't accidental That she knew you were going to kill her. I was Peggy I won't forget it Helen meant nothing to me ever just a roommate. That's all But a mighty profitable one Now that you're so successful Johnny Peggy. Where is that diary? Oh Let's just say I have it in my hope chest shall we? It's not for sale not when it's practically an annuity a Nice yearly income and where is this going to end? It isn't Johnny darling Unless you want that drink You'd better run on home do some thinking until Say about 10 tomorrow morning 10 Isn't that when the bank? you see little Peggy wants a check a nice big check to cash and You'd better have it ready for me Tonight's $20 signal gasoline book goes to mrs. WG Reed of Long Beach, California for this limerick the Rabbit looks simply a gas as the tortoise went whizzing past Said bunny. I know what makes his crate go with signal go farther. It's gas Poor mr. Bunny He would have won by a hair and then some if he just kept in mind what makes signal gasoline give you such good Mileage it's because today's signal helps your motor run more efficiently and when your motor runs more efficiently You also enjoy more flashing pickup and smoother power in addition to quicker cold weather starting You can prove all of this for yourself if you'll try just try a few tankfuls of the famous go farther gasoline signal that is Yes, Johnny the past is caught up with you Peggy Benton has traced you to Pebble Cove And she's the same determined girl that you thought you'd left behind in st. Louis Determined to make you pay for her silence concerning that oddly unsolved death of your former fiance Helen Walters But you don't go to the bank the next morning. Do you Johnny no? You're certain that Peggy will take her time not risk upsetting you She'll give you time to think to realize that you must pay her because there's no other way Unless of course you can get your hands on the diary of your late fiance Helen Walters the diary Peggy is using to blackmail you You've got to get it from Peggy and destroy it That afternoon you're pacing the living room of your cottage thinking about it and wondering when there's a knock on the door Oh Steve come on in I didn't think you'd mind miss Benton joining us Johnny I've been showing her around introducing her to some of the villagers Oh when I heard you were living here Mr. Gaylord I I insisted on meeting you right away Well it's a pleasure Thank you everyone's so nice and I suppose you know too that you've got the nicest constable here I bet she says that to all the constables eh Johnny? Yeah I'll get you a chair Miss Benton No no we mustn't stay I've heard Mr. Gaylord how writers hate to have their privacy invaded We'll run on I only wanted to say how I've enjoyed your work She's quite a fan of yours Johnny Particularly that murder story The one about the man who killed his fiance? The one where the police didn't even know she had a boyfriend? Oh that boyfriend was pretty smart What was that? Not one of the day of driskels there is Oh well it was an old one quite some time back The girl well she left a diary or something It named her fiance and told how she thought he'd kill her And it was just the way she died Oh it was terrific I can see you guessed wrong on that one Miss Benton Now you've made Johnny believe you don't read him at all Come on we better go Anyway I've got to get back to the office Oh well alright Steve Oh but you do forgive me don't you Mr. Gaylord? There's nothing to forgive Oh that's fine I'll see you again real soon Yes you will real soon You watch them leave walking down the path toward her own cottage And suddenly you realize that you must get that diary away from Peggy If necessary you will have to use force won't you Johnny? Yes you've got to get that diary which practically names you as a murderer The opportunity comes several hours later doesn't it? When the yelping of a small dog attracts your attention to the front door You see that the dog small and white is tagging along at Peggy Benton's heels As she walks down to the beach for an afternoon swim You slip out of the cottage and hurry after them On the beach a rock cave hides you from view Until you can slip up to where Peggy dropped her bathing robe in the sand Quickly you check in the pocket for the robe But the key to her cottage isn't there Suddenly the dog comes bounding out of the surf towards you You scoop up the struggling white bundle of fur and move back into the cave And you know that Peggy will follow it Queenie? Queenie? Are you in there? Where are you Queenie? Here Queenie Hello Peggy Ok Queenie you can run along now Here go fetch You see it now Johnny The reason you couldn't find Peggy's keys in her bathing robe They're fastened to her wrist on a small leather band What? What is it Johnny? What do you want? Oh no you don't Don't worry I'm not going to kill you no matter how much you might deserve No you're hurting my wrist Am I? Well isn't that too bad Peggy? It's these keys I want them No I'm taking them Peggy I mean it even if I have to I'm not too cold to do it No No While you're yelling no one's going to hear you over that surf Now give me those keys A few minutes later after leaving Peggy lying back in the cave Where you hit her hard enough to knock her out for a while You begin your search of her cottage looking everywhere Somehow you lose all track of time until nearly a full hour later You hear the clock on the mantel Six o'clock, six o'clock, the tide's in If Peggy hasn't come too she'll drown You rush out of the cottage down the path toward the beach And then suddenly you stop dead in your tracks You can see him standing there in the half darkness leaning against the tree It's too late to turn back isn't it Johnny? He's already heard you Hello, is that you Johnny? Yeah, hello Steve, what are you doing around here? Might ask you the same thing huh? Well I just stepped out You don't have to really, I know what you're up to What? Calling on your new neighbor huh? Oh, no, no really I wasn't Sure, I was just kidding, out for a walk? Yeah, yeah Oh, slam, not in any rush are you? Yeah, well as a matter of fact I do have to get back to the cottage Good, I'll go along with you, have a phone call to make anyway Don't mind if I use your phone do you? No, of course not And so you start back for the cottage away from the caves and Peggy You're hardly listening to Steve's idle chatter All you can hear is the pounding of the surf below smashing into the caves Finally at the cottage Steve puts through his phone call And you keep glancing at your watch There's still a chance you'll be able to reach Peggy in time isn't there? But somehow you'll have to get rid of some of the old stuff Then as he finishes his call How do you like that? Now I've got to get back to the village You do? Yeah, my own fault for calling I guess, another stolen car Well, sorry to rush away Johnny But then you have work to do Yes, I have work to do Nice You watch him as he hurries away to the cottage You watch him as he hurries away down the road toward the village Then as he disappears from view you start down the path to the beach Running, stumbling, splashing through the surf And finally when you get there the waves are pounding into the mouth of the cave It isn't that you care what happens to Peggy Actually you'd be better off if she were out of the way But not before you find out where she keeps Helen Walters diary The diary linking you to her murder You go in and look frantically for Peggy Peggy! Peggy! The waves seemingly grow higher and higher every moment Battering, smashing their way into the cave Finally you give up and fight your way out And then up to a rocky ledge and drop, exhausted The hours that follow are agony, aren't they Johnny? It's the waiting through the long night Wondering if Peggy is dead, washed out to sea Late the following afternoon you go down to the village And in the post office you run into old Martin Hayes Say Johnny, you hear about the Benton girl? No, what? Found her body just a little while ago on the beach About a mile from here, drowned Drowned? Yeah, the riptides Pretty dangerous over that way, too bad She seemed like a real nice young lady It's done, isn't it Johnny? Peggy Benton will never bother you again But the evidence she was using against you and blackmailing you is as dangerous as ever You've got to find it some way and destroy it Before you make your next move you decide to find out what Steve thinks about Peggy's death When you walk into the constable's office he's standing with a window, his back to you He doesn't turn around even as you speak to him Steve, I just heard about it, Miss Benton Quite a shock Yes, quite a shock Well, well accidents do happen Was an accident of course Looks that way Although in the preliminary examination the coroner found a pretty bad bruise on the back of her head Oh? Might have struck her head against a rock, could have knocked her unconscious Yeah, probably when she was out there in the water We'll know more about it after the coroner brings in his autopsy report Of course Well, I'll be running along You're going to drop in tonight, Steve? Yeah, I'll be dropping in, Johnny You're anxious to learn of the coroner's findings, aren't you Johnny? But you're quite confident you'll be in the clear, at least of Peggy's murder And it was murder, wasn't it? Even though you hadn't intended it to be Early that evening as you sit across the chess table from Steve You can sense there's something on his mind, something more important than your little game of chess Steve, have you notified Miss Benton's family? Doesn't have one, as far as we've been able to find out Looked through a lot of her things, you know, the cottage? There wasn't much there She brought only a couple of suitcases with her I got a hunch she had a place in town, apartment maybe Mm-hmm, your move, Steve Sure, yeah An apartment, huh? Any idea where it is? Not yet, we have a tracer on it now City police are looking into it for us I'd like to find that apartment, Johnny Really important? I think so I'd like to get there before somebody else does Oh, what do you mean? Oh, maybe it's just a long shot, wild guess on my part But I have a hunch Peggy Benton's death wasn't accidental I see The coroner's report indicates that she was dead before she hit the water Oh, well then it wasn't drowning Mm-hmm Look, Steve, here's a thought That blow on the back of the head you mentioned Isn't it possible that Miss Benton was walking along the beach and perhaps slipped off the rocks? Hit her head when she fell? Yeah Sure, I suppose And then when the tide came in, why... It could have happened that way, Johnny, but there's one thing that bothers me What's that? I'm wondering about her keys, Johnny Keys? I was talking to her just before she went down to the beach yesterday She was wearing those keys on a leather wristband The body was found, the keys and the band were missing I got a hunch that when we find those keys, we'll find a clue to the murderer Uh... Sure move, Johnny Yes, then you've got to move fast now, Johnny You've got to get to Peggy's apartment before the police do it You're more than thankful when Steve leaves early And the moment he's gone, you pull the keys out of your pocket The keys on the leather wristband You examine them closely First is the key to the cottage The next is obviously a car key and the third You can barely make out the worn markings on it The Creston Apartments, apartment 10 Quickly, you drop the keys in your pocket and hurry out towards your car Glad there's only a 25 mile drive to town in Peggy's apartment It's almost 10 o'clock when you arrive at the Creston Slip quietly into apartment 10 You go through each room carefully And finally find what you're looking for The diary Peggy was using to blackmail you As you remove the rubber band around it and thumb through it Several photographs fall out and flutter to the floor You pick them up, look at them Snapshots of the three of you together You, Helen and Peggy You put them in your pocket with the diary And then slip out into the hall But before you can lock the door, you hear someone coming up the stairs Quickly, you step into an alcove and wait Two men, one of them in a policeman's uniform You got out of the apartment just in time, didn't you, Johnny? Steve Carson's call to the city police for assistance in tracing Peggy's apartment Almost trapped you House managers are gabby, old dammit Yeah, here we are, apartment 10 You got the key? Yeah, just a sec Hey What's that? It's not locked What? Wow, looks like somebody beat us to it Look at that room Looks like somebody gave it a fast frisk Come on The moment you hear the move into the apartment, you race down the stairs Through the lobby and out into the street Rounding the corner, you slide in behind the wheel of your car and drive off It was close, wasn't it, Johnny? As you reach the outskirts of town, the highway, you pull into a gas station You want to be certain the police didn't see you leaving Peggy's apartment And aren't following you As the station attendant fills the tank, you keep an anxious eye on the rearview mirror The police are nowhere in sight and you're certain that you've given them the slip, aren't you? Yes, and you're feeling a lot better now that the only link between you and murder Is safely tucked away in your inside coat pocket Check the island water, sir? Oh, oh no, no, thank you Here you are Everything else okay? Yes, yes, everything's fine Just fine Baby, it's cold outside That's not only the name of a popular song But also the reason many of you will soon be needing a new battery for your car Naturally, you'll want to be sure you're choosing the battery that gives longest trouble-free service At lowest cost per month So just consider these facts You get up to 35% more power from a Signal Deluxe battery For quicker starting and to take care of the many electrical gadgets on your car That's because Signal's microporous all-rubber separators Hold twice as much acid solution between the plates And you don't have to add water so often to a Signal Deluxe battery Because of its improved design all-rubber case As a result of finer quality construction like this Signal Deluxe batteries last so long They're now guaranteed a full 30 months on a service basis When you take this into account Plus Signal's liberal credit terms And generous trade-in allowance for your old battery You'll find you're actually saving money by choosing a Signal Deluxe battery The extra powerful, extra long life battery Sold only by Signal Service Stations It's over, isn't it, Johnny? And now you're back at your Pebble Cove cottage It was a lucky break, wasn't it? Finding Peggy's apartment Getting away before the police arrive You've only to destroy the diary, the snapshots of you, Helen and Peggy Dispose of the keys and you're in the clear But before you do, you want to take a look at those pages in the diary, don't you? Yes, you're curious You remove the rubber band that's around the small book Thumb through the pages It's all there, isn't it, Johnny? Enough evidence to hang you It wouldn't do at all if this fell into the hands of the police, would it? Someone's at the door, Johnny And you wonder who's calling on you at this time of night You drop the diary to the table Glance out the side window It's Steve Quickly you pick up the diary, the snapshots and the keys Tie them together by stretching the rubber band around them And drop them behind the sofa Hello, Johnny Steve, how are you? Just passing by, saw your lights Been working? Yes, I had some things to do Just thought you might be interested in the latest developments City police located Miss Benton's apartment tonight Newspapers in town ran a picture of her Apartment house manager where she lived saw it, called police I see Looks like my hunch was right The keys were important Maybe that's why Miss Benton was murdered I don't follow, Steve Somebody got to Peggy Benton's apartment tonight Just before the police The place had been ransacked Really? What? Well, there you are, Queenie I wondered what had happened to you Been following me around all night Miss Benton's dog, you remember Sure, hello Queenie, girl Queenie, here Queenie, here Oh, there she goes inside Here, here Queenie, here girl Where'd she go? Here, here Oh, there she is Under the sofa What? Come on, girl, come on You got something in her mouth Looks like a book Here, Queenie, my knife That's a good dog Let me see what you... Wait a minute What's this? Miss Benton's keys Steve, I don't know how they could have gotten back It's a diary And these snapshots You photographed very well, Johnny I thought you told me you didn't know Peggy Benton Let that whistle be your signal for the signal oil program, The Whistler Each Sunday night at this same time Brought to you by the Signal Oil Company Marketers of signal gasoline and motor oil And fine quality automotive accessories Remember, if you would like the fun of having your friends hear a limerick of yours on The Whistler The address to which to send it is The Signal Oil Company, Los Angeles 55, California All limericks become the property of The Signal Oil Company Those selected for use on The Whistler will be chosen by our advertising representative On the basis of humor, suitability, and originality So of course they must be your own composition Featured in tonight's story were Larry Dobkin, Marion Ladd, and Don Harvey The Whistler was produced and directed by George W. Allen With story by Steve Hampton, music by Wilbur Hatch And was transmitted to our troops overseas by the Armed Forces Radio Service The Whistler is entirely fictional All characters portrayed on The Whistler are also fictional Any similarity of names or resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental Remember at the same time next Sunday Another Strange Tale by The Whistler S-I-G-N-A-L, signal, signal gasoline Don't forget when you give to the community chest You're helping not just one organization But many worthy causes that directly benefit four out of every ten families Think of that when you're deciding how much to give to the community chest Marvin Miller speaking, this is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System
