Broadway's My Beat, from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, the most violent, the
lonesomest mile in the world.
Broadway's My Beat, with Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover.
The nighttime of early spring hugs close to Broadway, whispers.
There in the shadow pool, the promises, the dreams you've dreamed shut off from the rest
of the world with speckled light.
And there, beyond the floating laughter, all the silence you've searched for, and the long
foresight, and there, walking the easy wall of night breeze, the girl of silk and warming
cheek, the girl, the promise, and the light, here on Broadway, and it never lets you go.
And off Broadway now, police hospital, tax-supported room for emergency pain, enamel, polish, and
Dr. Sinskey, a man, wounded man, unhappy.
A knick with eight stitches that makes it a slice, which is medical talk for what happened
to your arm from here to here.
All right, you can talk to him for a minute, Danny.
I want to check your address, Mr. Stewart.
1212 8th Street, is that right?
You guys have been for real.
Doctor, you'd better sit back down, Mr. Stewart.
You've lost too much blood.
You'll stay here at the hospital tonight.
No.
You'll stay, Mr. Stewart.
I'll take care of him, then.
Just one more thing.
You feel like changing your story?
I was waiting for the express train in the subway.
Yeah, I know, and someone came up and stabbed you.
And I don't know who he was.
You don't have any idea why it happened.
And I don't have any idea.
Good night.
Me stabbed like this, Doc.
You'd think he'd believe a wounded man like me, wouldn't you?
Lie down.
And leave.
Leave the protestings of a wounded man against official concern for his life.
Walk out of a cone of sallow life that held a secret violence,
and through hospital corridor,
and the sounds of night pain hushed, muted.
And into street, and for a while, walk against the surge of a city's nighttime.
Brush against a woman's lacer, and it drifts through the spring.
Turn a corner, and you're straight, you're room, you're rectangle of night, and asleep.
In the morning headquarters, in the things of the morning, the coffee, the cigarette, the sergeant Artaglia.
Enjoy, Danny.
Sip the coffee, inhale the cigarette.
Take time.
Enjoy.
Thanks, Gino.
After all, what rule says a man must rush pail-mel into the pace that kills
without he first should settle his stomach?
As my great aunt, that's my great aunt Tia Severini of Paterson, once put it,
and nicely, I think, in her native tongue...
You have something for me, Gino.
Very well, if you insist.
A report on that chap of the knifing in the subway last night, that Mr. John Stuart...
What about him?
...are malcontent and ungrateful.
And there are such folks...
What are you talking about?
...to make a display of himself during the night to his fellow patients in emergency hospital,
to scream, to moan, to throw accessories in the face of the night intern,
till finally the young doctor can take it no more, gives Mr. Stuart his release.
To let him go?
Pain reliever pills and gauze, Mr. Stuart said he could buy in any drugstore.
A crime he did not commit, so he left.
And as for the bed...
As for his bed, his wife to the city was...
Just see who it is, huh, Gino?
Very well.
Yes, what?
What is it you wish, madam?
They said I was to see a Lieutenant Clover.
They said if it had anything to do with John Stuart, I was to talk to him.
I'm Danny Clover. Please come in.
That'll be all, Sergeant.
Here, take this chair.
Thank you.
It's just that I've come for John and whatever things I must do.
Mr. Stuart's a friend of yours?
My brother-in-law. I'm Leona Stuart.
This morning I read of the terrible thing that happened to John, and I just want to take him home.
Care for him, protect him.
Protect him?
John has enemies, people who want to kill him, and in my home I'll be with him and let no one harm him.
What people want to kill him, Mrs. Stuart?
Well, I really don't know what people.
John just says there's someone who'll kill him, but he won't tell me who.
He says it will sadden me more, and I shouldn't be saddened anymore.
May I please go to him, take him home? I'll give him the best of care.
He's gone.
What? He was hurt. Where would he go?
I don't know. He got out of the hospital last night. He didn't want what we were doing for him.
Oh, well, that's John. That's John, all right. He can't stand to have people fuss over him, but he needs to be...
Do you know where I could find him, Mrs. Stuart? Mrs. Stuart?
Oh, at work. John would go to work, I think, just to prove something to the world after his terrible ordeal.
That's John, too.
Where does he work?
A place of buttons and ribbons and novelties for women, for children. A wholesale place. Globe on West 12th.
John's always sneaking little things to give me, to make me laugh.
Please find him. I don't want him dead, whatever anyone else wants.
We'll do everything we can, Mrs. Stuart.
Thank you. That's kind. Goodbye, Mr. Clover.
Watch her get up and leave, tall woman and angular, a small black straw hat with linen flowers faded,
gray dress designed for modesty and women against whom 50 years had conspired.
Slow walk to door, the adjustments, straw hat, linen flowers and dress. Be neat. The world's out there.
And neatness is all you have left to show.
And sit with it for a while and consider.
Man, John Stuart, slashed in a subway by unknown assailant.
And he has enemies, a woman had just said, who want to kill him. What enemies? She doesn't know.
Suppose this question to yourself, a man, an ordinary man seemingly, dealer in ribbons and compacts and shoe trees.
What had he done that demanded revenge, if anything?
So find out. Go to his place of business, Globe Notions and Novelties.
Storefront painted with a planet that had a face that smiled and was tied round with a belt with an initial buckle.
Go in. The man who stood at the back of the merchandise tables and smiled at you was not Mr. Stuart.
My name's Robert. How are you?
Fine. I'm looking for John Stuart, Mr. Roberts.
Captain John stepped out a few days ago, hasn't been back. Something I can do for you?
I'm from the police.
Something I can do for you?
It seems like Mr. Stuart got into a little...
I asked you a question.
Mr. Stuart is your partner, is that right?
Since seven years. That answers...
Is Mr. Stuart in the habit of stepping out a few days at a time?
No.
How come it happened this time?
I don't know. John said I'll be seeing you. I take his word for it.
And this sort of thing's never happened before.
When did I say that?
You said that...
Who asked whether it was a habit once before and this time doesn't make it a habit? Now does it? Does it?
The last time.
The last time was a month ago when his brother died. He took off to care for the funeral arrangements to grieve to give solace to his brother's widow.
His brother's widow, Leona Stuart?
That's right. His sister-in-law, Leona.
How did John Stuart's brother die?
Took sick. Never got well.
Mr. Roberts, do you know anybody who would want to do away with your partner?
Do away with him?
Kill him.
What's the question I can't answer?
You.
I never got that jealous of his matchbox collection or his seashells. Anything else you want to know?
No.
That's a good answer. Goodbye.
Why don't I give you a look, see if Johnny Stuart's true. He'll open a whole new horizon for you. A way of life.
You know him well, Mr. Anderson?
I counter with a question of my own. I read you a whittem last night.
That's right.
I read his arm was sliced open from knuckle to elbow. I read also he clenched his teeth down on the whole thing.
You said you had a question, Mr. Anderson.
How well you got to know Johnny Stuart last night is how well I got to know him in ten years of relieving him of his room rent.
Gaze. Gaze yourself upon a rented room of John Stuart, dealing with notions and souvenirs.
Messy, ain't it?
Uh-huh. If any idea of where Stuart might be, where...
If I told you he was probably out collecting things to add to the collection the junkie's already got, I would probably be 100% right.
Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Anderson.
Hey, don't go. I got to show you a few things. Like this. These cardboard boxes full of match covers.
Collectors' items, huh? For a grown man, huh?
Look, Mr. Anderson...
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Over here.
Laid out on a bureau and not to be touched by a cleaning woman's hands or mine or yours.
Maybe three pounds of seashells. Laid out. Very neat, huh?
You got a big kick out of John Stuart's life, don't you, Mr. Anderson?
What's more, I don't often get the chance to share it with anyone.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. You ain't seen.
You know what's in here?
Rocks. Rocks my kids throw at each other, like things crawl under. And in this box, broken glass.
I peeked yesterday when he wasn't here. A collector of broken pieces of glass. A man.
And here, in this sack in the corner. Guess what's in.
Dates. A sack of dates. For flowers? For what?
Dates trailed all over my steps. Dates stashes all over...
You'll throw, Mr. Anderson?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. With one exception.
You'll find Stuart suggests he lives someplace else. Or dies someplace else. Either one.
That John Stuart is as yet not to be found.
All right, you know, what else?
The two talking to of Mr. Stuart's neighbors revealed he is a man who is a hat tipper and greeter. More than that, nothing.
Talks hardly to anyone. However, he has been seen doing a very peculiar thing.
No.
He has been seen stopping in stride to pick up from the sidewalk cigar bands. It is my surmise that...
Danny, I found your man, Danny.
John Stuart?
Yippo. John Stuart.
Where is he?
Queens Bridge.
Huh?
Being photographed on his face.
Hunted with a knife, Danny. Murdered. Stabbed to death.
You are listening to Broadway's My Beat, written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, and starring Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover.
America, answer the call of the 1953 Red Cross campaign now underway. Whoever you are, wherever you may be, if disaster strikes you or those you love, the Red Cross will be on the job to save life and property.
To give survivors a fresh start. America's young sons in Korea know the work of the Red Cross. They can measure its effectiveness and lives saved time and again through the blood program.
This month, now, give generously to your local Red Cross.
In the soft night of March, Broadway's heart beats fast and the walk is slow. Dream walk, languid, rhythm to the even pulsings of light, to the cadence of muted trumpet drifting out of loudspeakers, out of upstairs halls where dancing is to be had.
And the face of the crowd is veiled with memory of other spring night times, when also the sheen of neon floated through a girl's hair, when also laughter spilled swiftly out of doorways and shadows were scented with fleeting perfumes.
So follow close on the heels of night. Maybe this one, this time, this year. Maybe it won't get away from you.
In a room of a house, suburban home in Queens, a window opened to the warmth of March night and a woman looking out at it, reacting to it.
Mrs. Stewart.
Oh, I'm sorry. I remember something. Something very long ago when I was a girl.
Something I thought I'd never, never remember.
You were saying something to me, Mr. Clover, and I, I'm sorry.
About John Stewart, about your brother-in-law.
He's dead.
The things you told me about him in my office yesterday.
I know. Vague, useless, unimportant things. The way my life is, the way my house is. Everything now.
You said he knew someone wanted to kill him.
And I said I didn't know who because he never told me.
On the Queensborough Bridge, he must have been coming here to me.
You saw him often? He came here often?
After my husband's death almost every day, to putter in the garden, to do little fixing jobs about the house, the screens for summer, paint for summer, try to end my grief by summer.
For my husband's death, Kenneth's death, his own brother's death.
Mrs. Stewart.
No one cared about my husband's dying, Mr. Clover, or how I felt about it, except my brother.
My husband was a drunkard.
Lived and died a drunkard.
A neighbor found him in a gutter and didn't help him home.
Just came to my door and told me about it and went away.
When I got there, Kenneth had been lying there in coldness and wetness and drunkenness.
I don't know how long.
I brought him home and I called our doctor and he couldn't save him.
But he performed an act of penance.
What do you mean?
He came to the funeral. He was the only outsider there.
Then he was a close friend?
I suppose so.
Kenneth and I had known him almost all our married life.
Dr. Sherwood, Henry Sherwood, he has an office on Ruxton Avenue.
He signed Kenneth's death certificate.
He came to the funeral.
I suppose you called him a close friend?
Except for John Stewart.
Except for John, who is dead, who was taken from me, as my husband was, as everything in my life has been.
It was through this window.
I remembered something a little while ago.
What was it?
What was it?
Woman and a day's dying, with sorrow and infinite tears that washed backwards with a bitter chemistry.
A woman who forgot how to cry so that other people could see, whose stricken eyes didn't match the rest of her face.
Lever.
Street and home and sleep.
Sleep and the alarm clock.
The punctual awakening, the jolt.
Roll over and see how the day is.
Gray.
So dress and go out to live with a gray day.
Go to your own headquarters and leave word you weren't coming in right away because you had a stop to make.
Friend of the family and doctor, healer and signer of death certificates, go there.
The cardboard sign in the door window tells you the doctor is in to enter and be seated.
Through the doorway and the vestibule and into a waiting room of old oak chairs and a table of flimsy wooden woven straw,
which held magazines catering to handymen about the home, druggists, and those who missed the April 1937 report on the Denver Medical Conclave.
Also to be noted, large painting of a tiger and an autographed photograph of one dr. Buford Cosgrove in memory of the medical conclave Denver, April 1937.
And later a door opens at one end of the room and a man with a pink face beckons.
In my office please.
Sit down please.
What seems to be your trouble?
I'm not here as a patient, dr. Sherwood.
I see.
Who sent you to see me?
The police.
My diploma is on the wall, sir.
If you'll be kind enough.
Thank you. I always ask to see the bed.
Always. The police drop in here often.
What do you want?
Information about a man named Kenneth Stewart, a patient of yours.
Who died.
Information about him.
Gladly. An alcoholic.
He died from alcoholism?
You might say that. Six months ago he contracted low-bound pneumonia while out on the drunk. He was cured. Close, but a cure. I want it.
And last month?
Exactly the same thing. Pneumonia, same type. I lost. Kenneth Stewart died.
You had been in his position for quite a time, I understand. I need to know something about him.
An alcoholic. I'm no psychologist. He drank. I have no idea why. I couldn't get him to go to the sanitarium. I lost there too.
Were you his brother John's doctor too?
No. However, that man was in a couple of days ago. He asked me how his brother Kenneth had died. I told him the same thing I'm telling you, pneumonia.
He threw a handful of dirt at me.
What?
He had a brown paper bag of dirt in his pocket. He threw a handful at me. If you were me, you wouldn't look like that, sir. Dirt in a brown paper bag is fairly mild for some of the neuroses that I...
Anything else you can tell me, doctor?
Nothing. Now, you'll excuse me, won't you?
A regular little runaway were beating at Johnny Stewart's door, huh? He never had this much traffic in all the years. Man, girl, a dog.
You'll just unlock the door for me, Anderson.
I'll do more than that for you. I'll stick around because it's my rooming house and I got a niche to know what goes on in my house.
See? It hasn't changed. It hasn't been touched. I could have sold tickets, but I got to respect for the dead.
Don't let it eat you, Anderson.
You got a yen for a brown paper sack of dirt. It doesn't bother me hardly at all. You going to take it out of here?
Uh-huh.
Yeah, it makes it more sanitary that way. Anything else you want?
This box with the broken glass.
Close my eyes. Won't let out a peep.
You got a pocket for the seashells? They'll hardly take up any space at all.
Yeah, you looking for somebody, mister?
Uh, Mr. John Stewart. Is he here?
He's dead. That's where he is. Cold, stoned, dead someplace else. You don't read, mister?
Oh, I didn't know.
What do you want with Stewart?
Look here, I don't want...
I'm from the police. What do you want with Stewart?
Well, only to give him this. This envelope. I'm sorry. I didn't know he was dead.
You can have it. Thanks.
It probably won't do you any good to read it. It's all very technical.
Chemical symbols, aren't they?
Yes, but of course. You see, Mr. Stewart brought in a little sample of earth the other day.
You're a chemist?
Oh, no, oh, my, no. I have a little garden supply shop down the street, and Mr. Stewart came in and gave me some earth out of a brown paper bag, like you have in your hands.
He said he was doing some gardening, and would I analyze the sample of soil he had, whether it was acid and all, and I said I'd have to send it out and take a day or so.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much. You too, Anderson.
Danny Clover speaking. Anderson, Danny. I'm down here in technical. Do you want their quantitative on these samples?
Huh?
Do you want to know how much of what are in the samples or just what are in them?
Just what are in them.
Well, here's what you want to know, then. Dirt scrapings from the bits of broken glass you sent out here have the identical chemical composition on that report.
You mean the gardener's report?
Yeah, that's right. Also, the broken glass is the type used for whiskey bottles. You didn't want me to try to piece together the fragments of glass, did you?
No.
Anything else?
Yeah, get up here.
Dr. Simsky speaking.
Danny Clover, doctor. Can I see you in my office for a minute?
Sure, Danny, sure. I'll be right up.
I still say it's tough to believe, Danny. That's all.
Dr. Simsky just told it to you, Dennison, and Dr. Simsky just showed it to you in books. That's why he keeps those books in his office, to prove things to skeptics like you.
Okay, okay.
Ring the bell.
Yes, what? Oh, hello, Mr. Clover.
Hello, Mrs. Stewart. This is Detective Dennison.
How do you do? Please come in.
Thank you.
Well, what can I do for you, gentlemen?
We have to talk with you some more.
Well, I don't see why.
We'll tell you why, Mrs. Stewart. Police officers just don't knock on doors without reasons.
What is your reason, Mr. Clover?
It's about the death of your husband.
Well, that's strange.
And about the death of your brother-in-law. How strange is that, Mrs. Stewart?
Mr. Clover.
Yes?
Forgive me. Suddenly I'm tired. Suddenly I want to...
Oh, sure, sure. Sit down, Mrs. Stewart.
I don't like your friend, Mr. Clover.
Oh, yeah, I'm not very popular. Something I've always carried around with me.
Please tell me what it is you want.
Your husband was a drunk, wasn't he?
I told you that myself.
How come he was a drunk, Mrs. Stewart?
He had a taste for whiskey, that's all I know.
But there's always other reasons. Didn't you get along, or what?
I told you before, Mr. Clover. I'm tired.
And I told you before I didn't like your friend.
For the next few minutes, Mrs. Stewart, you're going to have to bear with it.
What about you, Mrs. Stewart?
What do you mean?
What kind of life you've led with your husband.
What kind of life do you think it's been?
Rough, huh?
Now will you tell me, Mr. Clover, just what you came for?
You murdered your husband, didn't you?
Listen.
Yes?
I...
I have pictures of myself when I was young.
Would you like to see them? They're upstairs.
We've seen pretty girls, Mrs. Stewart, and you must have been pretty.
I was.
Simply...
I was.
I was considered very pretty.
That's what I meant when I asked you what your life has been.
The night before...
Yes?
The night before I made up my mind...
To kill your husband?
Yes.
I lay there and I thought about how my life has been.
With him lying there.
With the...
Reek.
And that was my life.
And you poisoned him?
In the booze?
Yes.
Mrs. Stewart, a little while ago we found out from our police decision that the gross symptoms of the poison you used and pneumonia are the same.
How did you know that?
It's irony, isn't it?
Yeah, but how did you know it?
The first time my husband got sick, six months ago, I've got a book.
A whole medical book.
And the symptoms, I saw them.
They were almost the same.
And last month when he was pulled out of a wet gutter drunk, you fed him the poison, killed him.
And your doctor thought it was the same thing?
Yes.
And you killed your brother-in-law because he suspected what had happened?
I should have known better than to bury that bottle in the garden.
My brother-in-law always liked to putter around there.
He found that broken bottle and dug up the dirt around it, huh?
I know.
He came into my house and looked at me.
Then he threw a handful of dirt in my face.
Then he told me.
I tried to kill him in the subway.
We'd better get going, Mrs. Stewart.
If only he hadn't found out.
It would have been all right.
Then the neighbors would have come and sat with me and talked with me.
And not been embarrassed because I had a drunken husband.
You're a cold-tempered person.
Yeah.
He was better off dead.
And so was I.
I'm 51 years old.
It had to stop sometime, the life I had.
Someone had to stop it.
So I did.
Here, I brought your scarf, too, Mrs. Stewart.
It's cold outside.
There's the special moon over Broadway tonight.
It dips low and mixes with the laughter.
It curves across the street and softens the shadows.
You look at it, point at it, wink at it, then run away from it into whatever darkness they've planned for the night.
It's Broadway.
The gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world.
Broadway.
My Beat.
Broadway's My Beat stars Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover, with Charles Calvert as Tartaglia, and Jack Crouchon as Muggervon.
The program is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis, with musical score composed and conducted by Alexander Courage.
In tonight's story, Paula Winslow was heard as Leona, featured in the cast were James McCallion, Lou Merrill, Herb Butterfield, Billy Hallop, and Steve Roberts.
Bill Anders speaking.
Later tonight, as a matter of fact, it's coming up next on most of these same stations, don't miss the Vaughan Monroe Show.
Thirty minutes with Maestro Vaughan, The Moon Maid, The Moon Man, their singing guest Cindy Lord, and the top tunes of the week.
Vaughan and company are up in Boston College tonight, ready to play the tunes you made your favorites with your requests and your purchases this week.
Speak to an angel, she wore red feathers, have you heard, and many others.
So stay tuned now for the Vaughan Monroe Show, following station identification on most of these stations.
And remember, you'll find Western Adventure and music with Gene Autry, Saturday evenings on the CBS Radio Network.
And we'll see you there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.