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The CBS Radio Mystery Theater presents... Come in.Welcome.I'm E.G.Marshall.I'd like to ask you something. What do you consider your most attractive feature?Your hair?Your eyes?Complexion?Your figure?
Whatever, each of us is abundantly aware, though there are some who would deny it, of his or her most captivating attribute, and make the most of it, though there are some who deny that, too.Be all this as it may.
We're about to hear of a woman whose most beguiling characteristic was her smile.And because of it, the horrible thing that happened.
Yes, I am dying.But I tell you, Ernest, I tell you, you will never be rid of me.Even when I am in my coffin in the family vault, you will never be rid of me.Never, Ernest.Never.
Yes, she's gone.Berenice is dead.No.No.
Ernest.Ernest, don't take on now.Don't.
Her mouth.Those lips bared.Her teeth.She is staring at me with her teeth, Anthony.Anthony, in heaven's name, close her mouth.Close her mouth!
Our mystery drama, Berenice, was adapted from the Edgar Allan Poe classic, especially for the Mystery Theater by George Lothar, and stars Michael Tolan and Norman Rose.
It is sponsored in part by Contact, the 12-hour cold capsule, and Anheuser-Busch Incorporated, brewers of Budweiser.I'll be back shortly with Act One.
You'd need six coal tablets, two every four hours, or three ounces of coal's liquid, one every four hours, or just one contact for up to 12 hours continuous relief of those symptoms.The tiny time pills do it.
Both the others contain things for aches and fever.The liquid, something for coughs, not found in contact.Your coal, your choice.
Give your coal to contact.
6 or 3 or 1.Take contact.Only as directed.
Who knows how to help you solve your shopping problems?Your Better Business Bureau.
Sam Spud, private investigator.Oh, Sam, I'm so glad you called.
You sound rattled, Angel.
I'm frantic, Sam.I went to buy the carpet for the office, and I got so confused.There are too many kinds.I didn't know what to ask or what to buy.
I'll help you, young lady.
I'm the man from the Better Business Bureau.Now, when you're choosing carpet, make sure you pick a long-wearing one that'll go with your walls, draperies, and upholstery.Beware of so-called fantastic bargains.
And don't buy a carpet that isn't labeled as to fiber content.
Oh, Sam, now I know what to look for and ask before I buy a carpet.
You floor me, Angel.Just another helpful tip from your Benefizner's Guild.
What we call a fixation, an idée fixe, is one of the most extraordinary and mystifying aspects of the human mind.For example, love.Young love, at least, is a fixation.For the lover cannot get the loved one out of his thoughts.
He thinks of her night and day, or she of him.And there is, I need scarcely say, no more wondrous person in all the world What cure can be found for a fixation?Well, when it comes to love, and I don't mean to sound cynical, I suppose marriage.
But when it came to Ernest Montresor and his wife, Berenice, well, that's our story.
Do not tell me, Anthony, what I must do or must not do.Ernest, please.You are my friend.You are my attorney.You have come here to Mangrove Manor to straighten out whatever legal matters attend Berenice's death.And that is all.
Ernest, I didn't mean to offend you.I am not offended.I am irritated.You can sit there and say, Ernest, your wife is dying.Try not to hate her as you do.Let me tell you something, my good friend.
Had you lived one month, one week, one day in this house with Berenice, that shrew, that spitfire, you too would know what hate is.But I don't understand.
I was at your wedding a little over a year ago, here at Mangrove, and you were deliriously in love with her.Not her.Her smile.What?I know you'll find it hard to believe, but that is the truth.Oh, there were other qualities that attracted me.
charm, her gentle manner, her warmth.But these vanished quickly once we were married.I soon learned that her charm was a veneer, her gentle manner a mask that concealed a vicious temper.I am sorry.I didn't want to hate her.
For months I put all feelings of hate from me.But while asking myself how and why I still went on loving her.
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That's when I realized it was her smile.I still fail to understand.Look at Berenice closely and you will see that she's really very plain.Almost ugly.But one doesn't look closely at first.I didn't, surely.Because of her smile.
Of what her smile was then.She had teeth so even, so white, so perfect.They are as matched pearls as for her lips. Nowhere will you find lips so beautifully modeled, so sensuously inviting, so absolutely enthralling.I remember, yes.
But Anthony, soon after our marriage, her smile changed too.The lovely contour of her lips became an ugly sneer.She no longer smiled.She bared her teeth like a vicious animal.
But there must have been a reason, something that impelled her to... I'll give you a reason if you must have it.Constance.Berenice's younger sister?Yes. You know, she came to live here at Mangrove when her husband died.I settled the estate, yes.
Not, I'm afraid, that there was much to settle.He left her penniless.Precisely why she lived here.Berenice began to think... Go no further, Ernest.I am well acquainted with what is termed the eternal triangle.In this case, there was no triangle.
Not then.But there is now.Constance is what Berenice pretended to be.Gentle, innocent, loving. Yes, I have fallen in love with her, and she with me.
But you may believe me, as Berenice never has, when I tell you that our love is and has ever been platonic.Neither of us has betrayed Berenice in any way.Yes, come?Oh, Constance, my dear.We were just speaking of you.You remember Anthony Lamb?
With pleasure.You were such a help and comfort to me when my husband died, Mr. Lamb.
I did what I could.You... You look upset, Constance.
Berenice wants to see you.And she's in one of her blackest moods, I'm afraid.
Is she ever in any other?
Try not to be harsh on her, Ernest.She's dying, you know.
I shall try.If you'll excuse us, Anthony... Perhaps I should come along.I have to discuss certain legal matters with Berenice, and it will be best if she knows I'm here.Come then.But I warn you, my friend. You'll regret every moment spent with her.
You wanted to see me, Berenice.
You.Not this army you've brought with you.Get out of here, Constance.Of course.And who are you?I've seen you somewhere. I remember you.
I'm Anthony Lamb, Berenice.I don't blame you for not recognizing me.It's been over a year.
Oh, yes.Yes, I remember you now.Ernest's friend, the pettifogging lawyer, the shyster.Why are you here?Well, now I... Yes, yes.
Ernest asked me to come because... Well, Berenice, I'm... I'm told you're quite ill and at such times it's... Well, it's best to...
To make sure that all will be legally neat and tidy when I'm cold in my coffin.Oh, you put it much... The only way it can be put.I'm dying and I know I'm dying and so do you.If you don't, you must be blind.And if you want proof of it, look.
Once my smile was the most ravishing smile on earth.Look at it now. Yes, the color leaves your face, Mr. Lawyer.
You all but shrink away because it's no longer the beautiful smile of the living Berenice, but the ghastly grin of the Berenice who will soon be cold in death.Stop it.Stop smiling.Dear husband, what is it?
You used to tell me my smile captivated you, enslaved you. And it be that it now repels you.Oh, don't turn away.
I won't look at you, not when you smile.
Don't look, then, for all the good it'll do you.You'll remember.Soon I shall be dead, but my smile will never die.It will live on in your brain, Ernest.Wherever you go, whatever you do, it will be with you.No.
this ghoulish grimace, because it was what you married, what you loved, then came the hate.And you will hate it till the day you die, Ernest.For till that day, awake or asleep, it will haunt you.
Would you care for more of the shrimp, Mr. Lamb?
Well, thank you.No, Constance.Oh, and do call me Anthony, won't you?It'll make me feel so much younger.
If you wish.Ernest, won't you eat?You haven't touched a morsel.
But you must keep up your strength.If you're not careful, you'll be having nightmares again.
Nightmares, Ernest?The most horrible you can imagine.Berenice has all but ruined my health.Ruined it.
Now we mustn't talk that way.
Another glass can do no harm.
No more, dear.For my sake.
For your sake, anything.Anything except to lie about my true feelings.You, Constance, you have lived in this house for nearly a year.You know the hell she has made of my life.You know that I could not mourn her passing.
What is more, you know that I love only you.
Ernest, it is not the proper time.I know, I know, but I... You are overwrought.It is not you speaking, but your nerves.Listen to me.Constance... My sister lies upstairs dying.
Whatever you think of her, in these last days of her life, though we cannot in truth love her, we can in all dignity and honor.
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Try at least not to hate her.You must try, Ernest, you must.
Yes.And with your help, I shall.
But you will not succeed.
How did you get here out of bed?I rang my bell, but no one came. I called, but you did not answer.
And so I found the strength, what strength remains, to come down and tell you I am about to die.No, no.When death is near, you know it.Full well, you know it.I have little time left now.Perhaps only minutes.A glass of wine.Of course.Of course.
He hurries to assist me, to comfort me, when in his heart he would kill me.No.
No, Berenice, I would not.
Liar.Berenice, I... You hate me.Say it.You hate me.Say it!
Here.The glass of wine you asked for.
That's your glass of wine, sniveling, nightmare-ridden fool. I had hoped I'd at last found a man when I married you.You were like all the others.
Berenice, let me help you back to your bed.
And as for you, did you think I wasn't on to you and your little tricks?Did you think me blind, that I couldn't see what went on between you and my husband?Nothing.Before heaven, I swear that... Liar!I saw, I know. Little Constance.
Innocent, saintly little sister.Sinking her claws deeper and deeper into the man who was mine.Madam.You address me?
Madam, you are ill.Yet there is in you a kind of strength I have recognized before.
In, I say to you, the worst kind of criminal.
I don't know that I can.I've never understood what made these people what they were, but This I know.There are angels on this earth and there are devils.
And you, madam, I say it to you, even in your dying moments, you are a devil.I don't blame you for looking at me like that.I spoke on impulse.I'm ashamed.
Ashamed?You are the first man who has ever dared to... Berenice!Stay away!Stand back.Don't touch me.Only listen. You will be haunted by the magnet that drew you to me.The weapon with which I ruined your life and will destroy you.My smile, Ernest.
Look at me!Sensuous lips bearing milk-white, perfectly matched teeth.Look at me!
Keep falling across the table!
I think... yes.She's gone.Berenice is dead.No.
Her mouth.She is staring at me with her teeth.Anthony, in heaven's name, close her mouth.
I said at the outset, you'll recall, that because of Veronese's smile, a horrible thing happened.What has just happened in the dining room of Mangrove Manor is indeed horrible, but nowhere near as horrible as that which is about to take place.
I will return shortly with Act Two.
Inside you're free.Inside you're free after all. You're driving a car you knew you were gonna buy the minute you saw it.Skyhawk.Buick Skyhawk.
You just knew a car this streamlined would be easy on gas.And you were right.In published EPA mileage test results, SkyHawk got 25 miles per gallon on the open road and 16 in the city.
Sometimes a gentle rain in one place adds up to a raging torrent in another.A torrent that can uproot lives as well as trees.To remedy the things that can be remedied in a disaster, America has a unique emergency force.The American Red Cross.
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I think it was Sir Winston Churchill who said that when the human brain grabs hold of a thing, a worry, a concern of some sort, an anxiety, it grips that thing as in an iron fist and will not let it go.
Clearly, then, this is what has happened to Ernest Montresor, who, even while she was alive, could not get his wife's sneering smile out of his head.
And now that she has been placed in the family vault on the estate near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, well, listen.Ernest.
Ernest.Yes, Anthony, what?It's more than half an hour since everyone left. Constance and I are getting chilled to the bone here in the vault.Let's go back to the house.Not till I'm sure the lid of Berenice's casket is nailed tight.
It's... It's madness, I know, Anthony.But I have the fear that somehow, in some way, she'll get out of her coffin and haunt me.
You're letting your imagination run away with you, Ernest.You're tired, overwrought.My sister is dead.She'll not get out of her coffin.Come now.
Ernest.Yes? Let us return to the house.I'll close and lock the gate.No, I will.There.She's well nailed down in her coffin.Well locked in, too.Yes.Now let's... No, no.No, wait.Good Lord, man.What now?I must make sure the lock is strong.
Now, Ernest, dear, that's enough.
Don't tell me what is enough.Don't... Ernest!
Dearest, what is it?Why are you looking at me with such fear?
Never, Constance.Never so long as you live smile at me like that again.You... You look like Berenice.But, Ernest, I... My nerves are shaking.I need a drink.Excuse me.
He's in trouble, Constance.We'd best catch up with him.But Anthony... Nothing to worry about, really.You just upset him a little when you smiled.
But that's the point.What?I didn't smile.Will you take another brandy, Anthony?
Thank you, no, Constance.As they say, one is as good as more.
I wish Ernest thought so.
He is drinking a bit too much, though he doesn't show it.
His nerves burn up the spirits quickly.I have never seen him in such a nervous condition, never so exhausted.
Let's hope he's having a good, deep, restful sleep.
Speaking of what is good for Ernest, I hope you'll be able to stay with us a while, Anthony.
I should like to, but I have pressing business in Baton Rouge.
A few days?It would be such a comfort to Ernest.
I'm sure, but the comfort he really needs is... is what you can give him. Constance, may I speak frankly?Of course.
In ordinary circumstances, by which I mean, had Ernest and Berenice still loved each other, I'd not suggest anything of the sort, but for all things considered, Constance, I should like to see you marry Ernest as soon as possible.
Berenice not yet cold in her grave, and you?
I do, yes.Constance, you alone can give him the love and the warmth he so desperately needs.
I know, but, oh, Anthony, Whatever she was, Berenice was my sister.How can I in all conscience marry her husband within so short a time?It would be an act of indecency.
Oh no, an act of charity and of love.My dear, no immediate decision is needed.Think about it and should... No!
What in the name of heaven?
It's Ernest!No!Come!Quick!
No!Ernest, merciful Lord, what is it?Oh, it's you.You, good friend, and Constance.Then it was a dream.
I dreamed that I was awake, that I'd awakened from a sound sleep.It was all so real.I heard the storm outside and saw lightning brighten the room and thought, oh good, I did manage to sleep and get some rest and now I've awakened.
And then... then I saw it.Hanging in the darkness of the room.Burning bright in the black pitch of night.Saw it.
Gently, my darling.Gently now.Saw what?
Her smile.Berenice's smile.Her disembodied smile.Nothing else.It hung suspended in the dark before my eyes.The lips drawn back.The teeth shining in the blackness.Oh, Ernest.Ernest.
And then her teeth, those terrifying white even teeth parted as she began to laugh.The most hideous laugh I have heard in all my life.Her mouth, her bodiless mouth as it laughed, it started coming closer to me, closer, closer.
And I, I screamed, I screamed.
Anthony, what's to be done?
We must fetch the doctor and at once.
Ernest, Ernest, stop for a bit.Oh, let's rest.
Of course, my dear, of course.Here, let me help you down.
Thank you, Ernest.There's a log over there.Shall we sit?
I would rather stand and hold you.
Oh, you are feeling better.Come, let's sit down.
No, no, wait. Ernest?Please listen, Constance.Anthony returns to Baton Rouge tomorrow.I had a talk with him this morning.He knows I'm devoted to you and you to me.He urged, not that I needed urging, that I ask you to marry me.
Ernest, I... Do say yes, Constance, I beg you.Say you'll marry me.
That's exactly what I was going to say once you gave me the chance.
You... you will?You'll marry me?
Constance.Oh, Constance.Let's hurry back and tell Anthony.
Yes, that dear good friend.
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End of yours will be relieved to know, I'm sure.
Here, I'll give you a hand up. Anthony I must go up patients good friend the doctor should be down any moment, but he's been with her for more than an hour I I knew she was seriously injured.I knew it the instant I picked her up.
The way you described it, it was a bad fall.The horse, running away, for what reason God alone knows, tried to leap a high fence, failed to make it, and came down rolling on Constance as she lay beneath him.Oh, terrible, terrible.
But no sense anticipating the worst.Constance may not be seriously hurt at all.Constance is dying.
She is dying.Oh, come now, Ernest.You carry even your nerves too far.There's something I... I didn't tell you.When I got to Constance, she was unconscious.I knelt beside her, got my arms under her, raised her and stood up.
I began to carry her to the house.A long distance.I'm not very strong.I tire easily.And so after a short time, I stopped for breath and looked at her.Looked into her face, Anthony.Yes.Her eyes were open and she was smiling.
The lips pulled back, the teeth showing.For an instant, she looked like Berenice.For that instant, she was Berenice.Doctor?Doctor, is she... Don't bother him now, Ernest.But I can bear no more of this waiting, this interminable waiting.Look at her.
So deathly white, scarcely breathing, if at all.
She called my name.Constance.Oh, my own dear Constance.
Hush now.When?When I am gone.
No, you must not go.You cannot leave me.You cannot.
When I am gone, I say, no longer with you.Remember that it will be only on this earth I am not with you. In spirit, I shall be beside you always.
You are not going to die.You will be at my side, alive and beautiful, and my own dear, adored wife.
No.That is not to be.Berenice has seen to that.
She was there.Just before my horse leaped the fence.I did not fancy it.She was there.She stood on the other side of the fence, smiling,
And I knew in the second that I saw her, the second before the horse crashed, I knew that she is a tormented soul, a soul that cannot rest until she is forgiven the sins she committed on earth, the sins she committed against you.
There is no forgiveness for what she did.
There is.It is in your heart, my darling, if you will only search for it and find it.
You are asking me to forgive her?Yes.Never.I could never.
You must.You must.For my sake.Will you try?That is all I ask before I leave you, my dearest.Will you try?
And I, in another world, will love you for it more than I have ever loved you in this.
Oh, no.No, not if by saying that you tell me the time is near.Not if you tell me that.Kiss me?Yes.Oh, yes.Constance?Constance?I'm sorry, Ernest.She's gone.Oh, no!
Leave her to me, Doctor.You have other matters to handle.Come, Ernest.Sit down. Here in this chair.Sit and I'll pour you a brandy.
I know how you feel, but you mustn't go to pieces.Think of what she said, that she will be with you, at your side always.What good is that if I cannot see her?Touch her.What is he doing, the doctor?What must be done.
Closing her eyes, straightening her limbs, placing her hands in repose.When he is finished, I shall sit with her, Anthony.Of course.And not leave her side till we take her to the vault.What's that?What?Listen.Someone laughing.
No one is laughing at us.Berenice.It is Berenice.She is laughing from the vault.From the vault.You doubt me?Here.I throw wide the window.You hear? You hear?I hear nothing.
Laughing in triumph.Vicious triumph, because once again she shattered my heart.
Laugh, damn you, laugh!But I shall have done with you yet!I shall!I shall!
Doctor, quickly.He's fainted dead away.
So in fevered imagination, in the sickened mental state brought on by unbearable grief, Ernest fancies he hears the hideous laughter of Berenice, pursuing him, haunting him, driving him mad in death as she did in life.Or is it fancy?
We'll know more about that when I return for Act Three.
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Just letting beer sit in lagering tanks makes it older, not necessarily better.That even goes for keeping a case around the house for a couple of months. But there is one kind of aging that's good for beer.The Budweiser kind.Beachwood aging.
In this kind of aging, something happens.It lets all the flavor of the choicest hops and best barley malt that go into Budweiser get through to you.
Sure, it takes more time and trouble to brew Budweiser that way, but brewing beer right does make a difference. Anheuser-Busch, St.
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Many of these people can continue in their jobs for years, while the anti-cancer drugs, which we call chemotherapy, control their disease. but many types of cancer remain difficult to control.
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This is a public service message from the Chemotherapy Foundation.
Scarcely has the breath of life fled the body of his beloved Constance than Ernest Montresor hears, or thinks he hears, the triumphant laughter of his dead wife, Berenice.
Even though Ernest's friend and attorney, Anthony Lamb, did not hear the laughter, can we say the laughter echoed only in Ernest's imagination?If it comes to that, who can say that imagination is not reality?Be that as it may,
Let us now join Ernest and Anthony in that family vault.
It would seem that you're right, Anthony.Berenice must still be in her coffin.The lid is tightly nailed.Of course.But her laughter, so horribly clear.Ernest, there was no laughter.You imagined it.No, no, I heard it.She murdered Constance.
She made the horse run away, fall and kill her. Oh, Anthony, how can I rid myself of Berenice?Can I get rid of her?She was vile, vicious, clever.Clever.What?Clever.That's it, clever.
We look at this coffin lid, we see it tightly nailed and so we think she's still there.Of course she is.No, don't you see?She was clever enough to nail it shut again after she left it.Here, give me that pry iron.You're not going to... I must be sure.
I must make absolutely certain she is still in her coffin.Otherwise, I dare not bring Constance here.Oh, Ernest.Can't you understand?Constance will lie here in the same vault with Berenice.
If Berenice has the power to leave her coffin, what might she not do to the sister she hated as she hated me?You see?You see?You understand?Yes, yes, Ernest.So then?There.Are you satisfied? The body seems not to have moved.She is dead.
No doubt about it, Berenice.Is dead.
You can set your mind at rest.Anthony, would you nail the lid back on?I want to go to Constance.Be with her until... until we bring her body here.
Ernest, it's two o'clock in the morning.Not for her.Not for Constance.For Constance, there is no time now.Ernest, please go to bed.To bed?To dream?Once again to ride a nightmare?I asked the doctor to give me a sedative for you.
Now, if you'll take... It will do no good.More harm than good.I've taken them before and I... I cannot leave Constance alone. Not to the awful loneliness of death.I will stay with her.No.I will.I must.Ernest, hear me now.
You will drive yourself mad if you go on like this.As your friend, I... What?You heard it?I am not hearing things.That sigh.It was Constance.And look.Ernest, look.Color.Her cheeks.Color coming into her cheeks. Pulse?How do you feel for a pulse?
Now let me... Yes?Yes?There is no pulse.And yet, a faint warmth.Her wrist beneath my hand feels... Ernest, I tell you, there is warmth!Alive!She is alive!Oh, God, God, in your merciful goodness, I thank you.Thank you!
And while you're thanking God, I'll fetch the doctor.
Thank you, doctor.I'm sorry to have put you through all this trouble.Thank you and good night.I'm... I'm sorry, Ernest.
Strange.Strange.Very.There was color in her cheeks, warmth in her body.Yet by the time the doctor arrived, the warmth had fled.The color vanished.She was once again a corpse.Anthony, what do you make of it?I cannot say.I don't know.It's one of the...
The most baffling things I've ever seen.But then, Mangrove Manor seems alive with strange things.Not so strange if you had lived a year with Berenice.If you had come to know her as the devil she was.I begin to believe you.
It's four in the morning and I've been up.We both have been since early yesterday.There'll be much to do tomorrow and both of us must get some rest.
No, not I. I will stay with Constance.All right, Ernest, but be sensible.
But take that large armchair in the corner and see if you can at least doze for a time.Very well.I'll go to my room for an hour or two of sleep.
All right.And Anthony.Thank you for all you've done.That's nothing.
Constance.My lovely Constance.I'll not leave you.I shall be there in that chair across the room. In this chair, Constance, still very near you, still watching you, waiting with you through the long silence of death.Again?It was you, again?
You... you are sitting up.You are leaving the bed and coming toward me.You are not dead.You live.Oh, let me see your face.I cannot see it.The shadows and burial shroud hiding it from me. Take the burial shroud from your face.Let me see you.
Constance, beloved, let me see you.Why do you laugh, my darling?Why?Is it happiness at finding yourself alive?Is it joy in knowing you're not dead after all?
Here, let me take away the shroud.There.Why?The lip?Why?
The teeth! Berenice!You are Berenice and Constance's body!
No, Ernest.No, it was not a nightmare.I thought it was.I thought I'd had another horrible dream that I'd gone to sleep in the chair and dreamed it all.I might have thought so, too, if I'd only found you lying on the floor unconscious.
But, my dear friend, I... I cannot describe my shock. Constance's body was sprawled across yours.Constance's body.But Berenice's spirit.Don't think about it.Put it out of your head.Impossible.It is etched in acid in my memory.
I shall see it in every moment of my life, waking or sleeping.The lips curled back in that fearful sneer.The teeth.The teeth, the terrifying teeth.If only I could block them from my mind, but I can't.Perhaps you can.
Perhaps there is a way.What?If, as you think, Berenice is using Constance's body to haunt you, torment you... She is.
She is.Then all we need do is what we must do in any case.Bury Constance in the vault.But of course.I sicken at the thought of placing my own dear, lovely Constance in that cold, moldy chamber.And yet it must be done.
And with her body locked within the vault, Berenice will be unable to haunt me.
But I must leave, Ernest.I have stayed as long as I can, far longer than I anticipated, and I do have other business, pressing business in Baton Rouge.
The thought of being alone in this huge and empty house, is there no way to persuade you?I'm sorry, Ernest, but there isn't.I've done all I can for you, you know I have.Of course I know it.
There is no better friend in all the world than you, and I have no right to urge you to stay, none at all.But I am afraid.Afraid to be alone.Afraid.Of all things, it is a madness.Afraid of Berenice's teeth.I suppose it is a form of madness.
Berenice is dead and buried.
Constance is dead and buried, and so Berenice cannot inhabit her corpse to torture you. She'll find a way.She will not.She will.She lies in that vault out there, and in time her body will rot.But teeth... teeth do not.
And so long as a tooth remains in her skull... Ernest, it's ten o'clock.I have a long, hard ride ahead of me tomorrow.I must get to bed, and so must you.We are both very much in need of rest.Rest?
So long as I live, there will never again be any rest for me. What?What?Berenice, that laugh.Did I hear it or only dream?Open the window and listen.
A dream, another nightmare.But what is this? I'm wet to the skin, my... my nightclothes are drenched, my... my feet caked with mud.Oh, wait.Wait, it comes back to me now.The dream.The nightmare.Was it a dream or did I... Anthony!
Anthony!Anthony! I'm coming.I'm coming.
Good Lord, man, what is it now?Come in.Come into my room.Yes, but what is it?What's happened?Another of your awful nightmares?Well, I don't know.You don't know if you had a nightmare or you didn't?If it was a dream, then that's what it was.
But if it wasn't, if I really did the thing I thought I dreamed, then, then, Anthony, I am mad.What do you mean? I mean that if I really did it, I've done something so horrible it could only be the work of a madman.Ernest, what did you do?
I dreamed... Oh, make it a dream!But look at me.My... my clothes soaked through.My... my feet muddied.I... I must have done it.Done what?What?I... I left my bed and went outside to the tool shed.The tool shed?And found what I was looking for.
And then... I went to the vault.In this storm, you went... Yes, to the vault.I unbolted the gate and went in.And then I pried open Berenice's coffin.Oh, no.Yes, yes.
There she lay, moldering in death, with the lips drawn back and the teeth, those white, even perfect, gruesome teeth exposed.I... I stared at them, stared in a horror of fascination.
And then taking the instrument I brought with me, I... I did what had to be done to save my sanity.What did you do?I dare not speak of it, put words to it.Nor can I bear to look.Look?To see, was it dream or reality?Look at what?
When I... When I had done it, I returned here to my room.I... I placed the instrument on the mantle.In my dream, I placed it there. You know, it must be a dream.Please, go to the mantel.See if the instrument is there.Very well, Ernest.
I... I see nothing here but a pair of pliers.This... This is the instrument you used in your dream?No dream.No dream.Can't you understand that now?No dream. The pliers are there, I did it!By a merciful God, forgive a madman, I did it!
The... the table.My bedside table.Look there now.Look.They... are there.
They're here. On your bedside table, all of... all of Berenice's teeth.
Well, a toothsome tale, was it not?Something to let your imagination chew on? Sorry, couldn't resist that.Seriously though, this story, as many another, reflects that certain mystery which has puzzled mankind since the first tick of time.
Which is the reality of our lives?Which the dream?You got me. I'll be back shortly.
It's such a good place to begin, a room to grow, getting to know just where you want to be.Join the people who joined the Army.You could go a long, long way.
If you want to do something positive for yourself and your country, take your place with us.Join the people who've joined the Army.For more information call 800-523-5000 toll free.
So, once again, we have, you and I, as Will Shakespeare put it, let our imaginary forces work, coupling them with the febrile genius of Edgar Allan Poe, bringing to this strange tale our own vivid and viable fancy, an exercise very much worthwhile, good friends, for a lively and disciplined imagination can make our mundane lives a heaven on earth, or
A hell.Our cast included Norman Rose, Michael Tolan, Joan Lovejoy, and Roberta Maxwell.The entire production was under the direction of Hyman Brown.And now, a preview of our next tale.
Neil, where is that coffee?
Here's my wife with it now, madame.
Magna let me help you with the tray I don't intend to skip anything if you're implying that I've been up to anything.
Now stop it the two of you.
Well you just tell your girlfriend.
You watch your tongue.Flossie isn't my girlfriend she's my fiancee.What's more.What the devil.
Sorry sir I'm very sorry my wife the tray slipped from her.Magna look out she's collapsing.Magna. Oh, my dear.Let me give you a hand with her, Nils.No, sir.Stand back.But, Nils... No, get back, sir.Get back.Don't come near her.Can't you see?See what?
Her face.She's sweating blood.Yes, I'm afraid she has the red plague.It's worse than that.She's brought it here.
Radio Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Buick Motor Division. This is E.G.Marshall inviting you to return to our mystery theater for another adventure in the macabre.Until next time, pleasant dreams.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater continues with Edgar Allen Poe's The Mask of the Red Death.Tomorrow night at 10 30 on KRNT.
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