Box 13 with the star of Paramount Pictures, Alan Ladd as Dan Holliday.
Box 13, Care of Star Times. Your advertisement in the paper has intrigued me. Naturally,
I wonder whether you are serious or insane. Either way, I think I should like to meet you
and perhaps offer a proposition which may intrigue you. Incidentally, there is a hundred thousand
dollars concerned. Does that get your interest? If it does, I shall expect you at dinner tomorrow night.
I shall expect you at dinner tomorrow night at eight. It will be informal, so don't bother to dress.
Yours for adventure, Charles Winthrop. There's a hundred thousand dollars interest,
may I ask? Brother, that much money would put new life in a mummy.
And now back to Box 13 and Dan Holliday's newest adventure, The Better Man.
Charles Winthrop. Charles Winthrop. You know, Mr. Holliday, that name sounds awfully familiar.
Well, it should, Susie. Mr. Winthrop is one of the richest men in the country.
Oh, sure. I remember now. He's a regular crisis. A what?
Don't you know, Mr. Holliday? Crisis was a rich king. Oh, don't you know, Susie?
Creesus, not crisis, was a rich king. Oh, someday I'll pronounce something right.
You do and you'll lose your job. Okay, Susie, it's dinner tonight with Charles Winthrop
to see what's on that mind of his.
Cigar, Mr. Holliday? No, thanks. More coffee, perhaps? I don't think so, thanks.
Curious, Holliday? Very. All right, my boy, we'll take care of that shortly.
Oh, excuse me. I want to tell my butler he needn't stay around. William, William, come here a moment, William.
Whatever Mr. Charles Winthrop had on his mind, it was hugely funny to him.
All through dinner he'd stop eating, slap his thigh and laugh. And I wasn't saying anything funny either.
I watched him as he told the butler what he wanted. I got a kick out of him.
Short, thin little man with wisps of gray hair that kept floating over his spectacles.
And when he talked, he craned his neck forward like an inquisitive bird his with lies twinkling.
Oh, he was enjoying a great joke and I wanted what it was.
All right, Holliday, we'll be alone and we can chin a little.
Think I'm crazy, huh? Mr. Winthrop, any man who can collect about 20 millions is crazy like a fox.
Oh, money isn't everything. No, some people die young.
Touche. Now, let's get right to the point.
As I understand it, you advertise for adventure to get plots for your fiction, right? Right.
So I'd say you'd like my little proposition. Well, that all depends.
Ah, surely. Well, some place in this city I have hidden a packet containing a hundred one thousand dollar bills.
Do you hear me? I'm afraid I do.
No one knows where it is but me. But you can find out.
I know a lot of people who would like to find a hundred thousand.
Oh, I know. That's why I thought of this wonderful thing. Wonderful, wonderful.
What wonderful thing? Ever been to Tibet, Holliday?
Not recently.
China? India? Japan? Africa? Malaya?
What are you getting at? At me.
I've been to all those places, Holliday. I went before they stank up the streets with gasoline,
commercialized the pyramids, lighted up the tombs with floodlights and made the world just one long big bore.
And? Well, I'm tired of being bored. I want excitement.
So you hid a hundred thousand dollars where you can find it. What's exciting about that?
You're going to hunt for it.
I am, huh?
So are three other persons whom you don't know, whom you've never seen. And these three other persons have never seen you.
We'll be a cozy little crowd.
Oh, think so. Never mind that for a minute. Now, I take it you've got a good income, huh?
Not like yours. But then I never eat caviar.
But you're comfortably fixed, eh?
All right, yes.
Oh, magnificent. That makes it perfect. I'll have a grand time.
Well, drop me a postcard. I'll keep in touch.
No, wait, wait. If you find the money, I will match it with another hundred thousand and give it to any charity or cause you name.
Cancer Research, Infantile Paralysis Fund or any of a dozen. Or split the entire amount any way you want. Now, how's that?
Sounds good. Now, what's the rest of this?
At midnight tonight, after you leave, I will drop four letters in the mailbox. These four letters will be identical.
Each will contain the first clue to the whereabouts of the money. The first clue will lead to the next and to the next.
And so on until the money is found. Is that it?
Exactly. Each of the four persons concerned will receive one of those letters at the same time. And the hunt will be on.
I take it you had one of these cozy little dinners featured the other three.
Yes, that's right. Each one agreed.
Each one agreed to turn the money over to charity?
Maybe I'm bringing back vaudeville. I'm killing you.
No, no, no, no. No, this is what makes the plan so perfect.
One of the persons is a man who would kill to get that much money. Oh, I chose him well. Oh, no, he'll not turn the money over to charity.
I see. And the others in this little game?
Well, I'm not so sure. But a hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. I've watched people grab and cut each other's throats for much less, Holliday.
In other words, you'd send four people against each other to amuse yourself. No thanks, Winthrop. I'll take my hat and some clean fresh air.
After all, Mr. Holliday, you advertised adventure wanted.
That's right. And that's not an entry blank into a cutthroat game to amuse a cynical old man who's down to his last 20 million. So long.
Wait.
What for?
Now listen, those other three who are going after the money. Now, now, one is a man to whom the money would mean cheap nightclubs, gambling, and everything else his stupid mind thinks is life and living.
The other two would keep the money, I'm sure.
Unless you keep them from getting it.
Oh, but I won't. I'll watch them play my game and let the one who wins take the stakes. But you, Holliday.
What makes you think a hundred thousand wouldn't tempt me?
Oh, I got my money by knowing people.
So?
You've got the chance to get $200,000 for a worthy cause if you play.
And if I don't?
The money will still go to one of the other three. And I'm inclined to think the killer will win.
Unless he's playing against a smarter man.
Well?
What if someone gets killed? How will you feel?
No better, no worse than now.
Did you ever stop to think it would be the same as murder?
What law could touch me, Holliday? I hid the money, I give out the clues.
If someone gets killed, the money is the murderer, not me.
I see.
Of course. If you refuse, you can always think of how much good the money could have done.
Why, you.
I'll send out the letters at midnight, Holliday. Four of them. You'll get yours in the morning.
So you have all night to make up your mind whether the money is squandered by a cheap, stupid fool or help some of humanity.
I went home. I went to bed.
I didn't sleep much. I had dreams.
Dreams that featured the grinning, wheezing face of old man Winthrop, thousand dollar bills, sick kids in hospitals.
They changed places with each other all night. Then in the morning...
All right, all right, who is it?
Special delivery, Mr. Holliday.
Okay, thanks. Shove it under the door.
Yes, sir.
It was from Winthrop. At first I wanted to burn it, forget the whole thing.
Because the thought of people running around a city fighting over that money made me, well, it made me a little sick.
Then, well, I guess I was mad at Winthrop and his cynical attitude that the killers would always win.
I opened the letter and later in my office listened to Suzy read it.
High swings the hunter, his dog's eye bright. Where science is king, the clue will be right.
What's it mean, Mr. Holliday?
I don't know. High swings the hunter, his dog's eye bright.
Hunter, hunter, me?
And his dog's eye bright. I never saw a dog with only one eye or a hunter with a dog's eye.
His dog. And why where science is king?
Gee, I never saw a puzzle like this one before.
Old man Winthrop is certainly having his fun.
I worked out a puzzle once about movie stars. The names were all jumbled, see?
Suzy, Suzy, say that again.
Say what?
What kind of a puzzle did you work out?
One about movie stars, why?
Stars, stars, stars. Suzy, you're wonderful.
Am I?
Absolutely magnificent, here.
Mr. Holliday, you, you kissed me.
All that and a raise too.
But what did I say?
The dog stars, Suzy, the dog star.
What dog star?
Hand me that encyclopedia quickly.
Gee, here.
Now, now, dog star, dog star.
Here, listen.
The dog star or Sirius, brightest star in the sky, in constellation Canis Major, the great dog.
Oh, but what about the hunter?
Listen, Sirius may be seen below and to the left of the constellation Orion, the hunter.
That's it, Suzy. High swings the hunter, his dog's eye bright.
Uh-huh, but what about the next line?
Where science is king, the clue will be right.
I don't know, but it's got to have something to do with Orion, the hunter.
Uh, listen, Suzy, I'm going to find out a few things.
I'll be at the star times for the next half hour.
Okay, I'll say one thing for Winthrop. He made the game fun to play.
That is, if keeping one step ahead of a killer was any fun.
Anyway, at the star times, I talked to the science editor.
Say, what the devil are you up to, Dan?
Hey, look, Lou, give me some help, will you?
If I can, sure. What's your problem?
Uh, read this.
What is all this?
Never mind now, I'll explain later. But Orion is the hunter.
Oh, I see. Well, what do you want to know?
What about Orion? Does it swing high?
Sure, it rises roughly in the east, swings upward in an arc, and then sets.
When is it at its highest?
Oh, I should say around midnight.
Midnight, midnight. Okay, now what about that?
Where is science's king line? Make anything out of that?
Well, I should say science is king at an astronomical observatory.
At least that would tie in with the rest of this, Dogrel.
Lou, Lou, you're wonderful.
Oh, by the way, Lou, there's an observatory in town, isn't there?
Sure, the Winthrop Observatory.
The Winthrop?
Mm-hmm.
Somebody managed to squeeze a few shekels out of the old boy to build a thing.
He insisted it carry his name.
So, so it all fits.
Okay, Lou, tonight I'm going to be a stargazer.
It was hard to wait through the rest of the day, but I made it.
From that night, I drove up the long winding road that led to the Winthrop Observatory.
Again, the old man picked his spot nicely.
It was dark and a creeping, damp fog settled down in curling waves.
There wasn't a light within ten miles.
Then I broke out of the fog and the mountain leveled off.
In the sky, the stars were big and bright.
Then I came to the end of the road.
From here on, it was shoe leather instead of horsepower.
I looked up in the sky.
Swinging up in front of me was Orion.
Below and to the left of him, a white star shimmied in the night sky.
Sirius, the dog star.
I looked at my watch, the luminous hands were almost straight up.
Okay, midnight, Orion, Sirius.
Then what?
Ha ha!
Who's that?
Well, well, well, Mr. Holliday.
Winthrop.
Yes, yes indeed.
You didn't think I missed the fun, did you?
Well, come on, Holliday, straight ahead.
Stay on the park.
Good evening, Holliday.
And what now, little rich man?
So you figured it out, eh?
Why else would I be here?
Very clever.
All right, here's an envelope.
What do I do with it?
Oh, there's another clue in it, the second.
Ah, how long does this go on?
I'm having such a wonderful time, I'd like it to go on forever.
But I'll play the game fairly.
One more after this and that's all.
I see.
You're really making this great for yourself, aren't you?
You'll be at each stop, I suppose.
Oh, yes.
And I wonder how many clues I'll have to give out.
What do you mean?
Well, only you and one other person showed up here tonight.
What? One other?
Yes. And guess who it was.
Do I have to guess?
No, I'll tell you.
The only person beside yourself was the gentleman who would play rough, very rough.
I'm afraid, Holliday, that from now on, you'd better watch yourself.
And now back to The Better Man, another Box 13 adventure with Alan Ladd as Dan Holliday.
It was like playing tag with a ghost or fighting a mist.
I don't know why I kept at it, except by this time I would have crawled across the Sahara desert in a Novaco to get that money from Winthrop.
When I left him at the observatory, I went to my apartment.
There I opened the envelope.
Oh, this one was better than the first.
It said, he's king, yet a slave, and free, yet a captive.
And we, who are weaker, are yet stronger.
Those whom he ruled are close to his might, yet fear him not by day or by night.
This made a lot of sense.
It was after three in the morning when I finally gave up on it and went to sleep.
I don't know, Mr. Holliday. It just doesn't make sense.
Come on, Susie, think. Say anything.
Anything what? He's king, yet a captive.
How can he be king and yet be a captive?
That's the point. If we figure that out, we've got the rest.
I never was good at riddles. I...
Come in.
You Dan Holliday?
Yeah, that's right.
I want to talk to you.
Who are you?
Makes no difference. Can you get rid of the dame?
I'm not a dame. I'm a secretary.
Hello, will you?
Hey, wait a minute, bud.
Didn't you get in the wrong room?
Sit down, Holliday. I'm not tired.
Okay, stand then. Get rid of the dame.
Susie, run down to the start times and pick up the mail, will you, please?
All right, Mr. Holliday.
But tell him I'm not a dame.
Okay.
Maybe you know why I come here, huh?
I can make a good guess.
Well, that's swell.
Now we don't have to beat each other's brains out.
I didn't know we were booked for it.
You could use 50 grand for the job.
You could use 50 grand, couldn't you?
Keep talking.
All right, look.
What's the sense in both of us running around in this rat race?
You're the rat?
Don't talk like that, Holliday.
Why don't you get to the point?
Okay.
You and me got the only clues.
We team up. We'll reach 50 grand of the good.
Which means you can't figure out this second clue from Winthrop.
Maybe.
If you had it figured, you wouldn't be here now.
So that makes sense.
Mm-hmm, that's right.
What do you say?
What if I won't make it a duet?
What makes you think you'll get to that money?
Nothing, right now.
I asked a question.
What do you say?
The answer is no.
That final?
You can close the books, lover boy.
All right.
Oh, wait a minute.
Yeah.
How do you know who I was and where to find me?
I didn't know you or where to find you.
You figure it, Holliday.
You got the brains.
But get this.
I'll be right on your trail from now on out.
If you change your mind about that split,
put an ad in the agony column of the papers.
I'll see it.
So long.
Well, well, well, that flat-eyed character knew me.
But Winthrop said none of us would know each other.
So I looked up Winthrop's number in the phone book,
dialed it, and...
Hello?
Winthrop?
Yes.
Oh, is this Holliday?
Look, I just had company.
No.
Yes, thanks for sending him, Winthrop.
How did you know I did?
Don't give me that house, but he knew who I was.
That's right.
I had to put a little zip into the game Holliday.
He's such a charming fellow, isn't he?
Okay, you've had your belly laugh, but that's it.
Oh, you're not quitting.
I don't like to be thrown to the lions.
What did you say?
I said I...
I...
Well, go on.
He's king.
You had a captive.
King of the beasts.
The lion.
Wonderful.
Now all you have to do is follow it up.
Nothing doing.
You're so close, Holliday.
And all you have to do is be careful.
I'm beginning to like you less and less.
I'm not a likeable person.
However, whether you go on or not is your affair.
But I should be very disappointed in you if you didn't.
Hello?
Well, I had the choice, and I was itching to get even with Winthrop.
Somehow I was beginning to suspect he had no intention of letting go of $100,000.
And that made up my mind for me.
I figured out the rest of his little note, and the only place I could see a lion free,
yet captive, was at a zoo.
So it was to the zoo I went.
The park was crowded.
Kids, grownups, all milling around.
Then I came to the lion pits, those semi-natural habitats without bars.
I drifted close with the rest of the cloud, leaned over the iron railing that ran along
the edge of the moat, and then...
Hang on, give me your hand, quick.
Hold me up, will you?
Hang on.
Hey, mister, what was you trying to do?
I didn't try it.
Thanks for helping.
Brother, they almost had real fresh meat.
What'd you do, lean over too far?
Yeah, much too far.
And I had help.
Lucky you thought to grab that rail.
It was a good thought.
Thanks again.
That's okay, mister.
Boy, oh boy, that was better than a fried butt.
Well, well, well.
Did you have a little trouble, Holliday?
Winthrop.
Ah, pretty close, wasn't it?
Did someone shove you?
You guess, Winthrop.
Yeah, what some people will do for money.
Winthrop, you're not very big.
A nice, easy shove and you'd be where I almost went.
Oh, but you won't, Holliday.
You won't because you're not the type that kills.
Now, your anxious friend is different from you.
I don't know what keeps me from seeing how tightly your head's on your neck.
Oh, you don't like me.
All right, Holliday, you've reached the end of the trail.
Be at my home at eight tonight.
It was eight o'clock when I walked up the steps in front of the Winthrop home.
There were little chills chasing each other on bicycles up and down my spine.
But I rang the bell.
Oh, good evening, Holliday.
Come in.
What have you got lined up for tonight?
Come this way.
Aha, in here.
There, sit down, Holliday.
Thanks.
I suppose you'd call all this quite fantastic, wouldn't you?
You're insane.
Oh, well, aren't we all?
I'm just able to indulge my whims.
Most people aren't.
I suppose you want the money, huh?
You're not kidding anybody, Winthrop.
There isn't a penny hidden anywhere.
Oh, yes, there is.
But the game is not quite over.
What do you mean?
You may come in now.
I believe you two know each other.
Yeah, sure.
Thanks for almost making me Daniel in the lions, Dan.
I think nothing of it.
What is this, Winthrop?
A patience, Holliday.
I have a proposition.
The best part of the game.
It is $100,000 in cash.
Now, you two can decide what to do about it.
You can divide it equally, or may the better man take it all.
I looked at Winthrop.
He was grinning.
I looked at the other man.
He wasn't grinning.
He was eyeing that package of money.
Then he looked at me, and it was easy to see what was on his mind.
And Winthrop saw it too, because he leaned forward.
$100,000 is much better than $50,000, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
As you see, I am armed.
You two are not.
Suppose we decide to split.
That decision will have to be unanimous with both of you.
I ain't splitting it.
Good!
I thought I'd chosen well in you.
Well, Holliday?
What if I just decide to leave?
You won't, because I won't let you.
I want my fun, Holliday.
Don't spoil it.
He looked at me with his little black eyes,
and he kept that gun pointed out at me too.
I can shoot you now, and your friend here will be a witness that you attacked me.
A $100,000 witness.
Well?
Let's get it over with.
Exactly.
There are no windows in this room, no servants in the house, and only one door.
The money's on the desk.
It will be merely a fight over money if the police come into it.
When you've had your little argument,
the one who's left can knock on this door, and I'll come and unlock it.
Good hunting, gentlemen.
This is it.
The man left with me got up off his chair, walked slowly toward me.
I thought maybe I could reason with him.
But what argument can you use on a killer?
Then...
The
Holliday.
Surprise, Winthrop.
Right.
Congratulations, Holliday.
Brains and brawn. Rare combination.
All right, there's the money.
Take it, and I'll match it with another $100,000.
You'll match it with a half a million.
What?
You heard me.
Your pal there is out right now, but in a minute he'll come too.
And I'll leave him alone with you with that money still on the desk.
But you can't.
Get away from it, Winthrop.
Listen, Holliday.
You're not a killer. You wouldn't leave me alone with him.
No? Watch.
And I'll take your gun with me and lock the door behind me after he wakes up.
Wait.
And I could be a witness.
A $100,000 witness that he killed you in self-defense.
You wouldn't. You're not that kind.
You want to play dog, eat dog, now play it.
All right, all right.
What do you want?
Sit down at your desk, make out a check for a half a million.
We'll decide where it goes later.
And we'll both go to the bank tomorrow and cash it.
Something funny?
It's just that I could refuse to have it honored at the bank.
Yes.
Yes, you could.
But you won't.
All right, Holliday.
You've almost restored my faith in people.
Give me that pen.
A half million dollars to charity and medical research.
Look, he gets his picture in the paper.
Uh-huh.
But you did all the work.
I'll tell you something.
What, Mr. Holliday?
I got even with a man who called you a dame.
Satisfied now?
Well, I don't know.
He was kind of cute at that.
Oh, no.
Good night, Susie.
Next week, same time, through the courtesy of Paramount Pictures,
Alan Ladd stars as Dan Holliday in Box 13.
Box 13 is directed by Richard Sandville with an original story by Russell Hughes.
Original music is composed and conducted by Rudy Schrager.
The part of Susie is played by Sylvia Picker.
Production is supervised by Vern Carstensen.
This is a Mayfair production from Hollywood.
Watch for Alan Ladd and his latest Paramount Picture.