The strange Dr. Weird.
Good evening. Come in, won't you?
Why, what's the matter? You seem a bit nervous.
Perhaps the cemetery outside this house has upset you.
But there are things far worse than cemeteries.
For instance, knowing that you are cut off from the world,
and that death awaits you inevitably.
As in the story I want to tell you tonight.
The story I call The Secret Room.
My story begins late one night in a lonely section of the Hudson Valley.
A few yards away from the huge old Baxter mansion,
two men hide behind a large elm tree, studying the mansion closely.
By the half-light of the moon,
initials can be seen on the backs of their blouses.
The initials PW, standing for Prisoner of War.
Card, why are you wasting time watching that house?
Any minute now they discover back at the prison camp
that we killed that guard and escaped.
I'm not wasting my time.
See that little gray-haired man there in the house
talking to the big fat man?
Yeah, sure, what about him?
He's going to supply us with the best of his knowledge.
He's going to supply us with money, clothes, and food.
Ah, one of our secret agents?
No, he's my father.
Your father?
Yes, he brought me into this country as a child.
He's caretaker of the house.
For 15 years I lived in the house.
If I was old enough to run away and join the army to Third Reich...
Oh, 15 years in America, that's why you speak such perfect English.
Yes.
Card, it's your father, he's a Nazi.
No, the old man's one of those stupid fools who believes in democracy.
And the other man in there, who's he?
John Baxter, the owner of the house.
Come on.
What are we going to do?
We're going to get food, money, and clothes from him.
He'll give it to us because I have this gun.
Well, Hans, I'd better start back to the city.
You're sure you won't come with me?
No, thank you, Mr. Baxter.
I don't like leaving you all alone in this house now that you're ill.
But, Mr. Baxter, I don't mind.
There's a telephone here. Really, I'll be quite...
Good evening, gentlemen.
Carl.
Carl, no, it can't be.
Yes, Father. Carl.
I thought you were in Germany.
What are you doing here?
Hans, don't you understand?
Look at their uniforms. They're escaped prisoners of war.
So, Carl, you fought with a Nazi scum against humanity.
You are one of the scoundrels who...
Perhaps that'll teach you to speak with more respect to a soldier of the Third Reich.
Why, you dirty coward, striking your own father.
Quiet, you. You got the same thing.
Now, listen to me, both of you.
My friend and I need food, clothes, money.
If either of you gives us the slightest bit of trouble, I'll kill you.
Mother, you stand guard over these two men with this gun
while I get some food in the kitchen.
So, old man, you actually believe that the United States
can defeat the armies of the Third Reich.
What a fool you are.
Here, Hans, here's some food for you.
I've got it.
Hans, where's Baxter?
Baxter? He's sitting...
He's gone.
You fool, he escaped. Give me that gun.
But he was sitting right in that chair.
Come on, we've got to find him if he...
That's right, Sheriff.
Two escaped war prisoners.
One of them has a gun.
You'd better hurry over here before...
So here you are. Put that down. Put the phone down or I'll...
Sheriff, they've caught up.
Little teacher, you swine.
Mr. Baxter, Mr. Baxter.
You killed him.
Yes, Franz, hang up the receiver.
Jawohl.
Franz, what will we do? The sheriff knows we're here now.
You fool, if you'd watched Baxter closely,
this never would have happened.
But I only turned my back to him for a moment.
I had no idea.
The sheriff will be here in a few minutes.
There's no use our running for it.
They'd have every road blocked.
But we can't stay here.
Wait a minute. We can stay here.
There's a secret room in the cellar of this house.
A secret room in the cellar?
Yes.
I remember when I was a boy,
the high and mighty Baxter family had an uncle
who wasn't right in the head.
They were ashamed to let the world know about it
so they kept him a prisoner in a secret room.
My father can show us where that is.
Where is it, Father?
I'll never show you.
Oh, yes, you will, or I'll kill you just as I killed Baxter.
Then go ahead. Shoot.
Oh, no. No, no. That would be quick, easy.
I believe in putting a man to death slowly, like this.
No. No, Carl.
Don't go.
You see, this way, it takes hours.
No. No.
Will you show us the secret room?
Yes. Yes.
Now you're being sensible.
But hurry.
That stupid sheriff and his men will soon be here.
While Dr. Weird looks for skeletons in the closet,
let's take a quick look into your wardrobe.
If there's an Adam hat in there, that's fine.
If there's more than one Adam hat, that's even better,
because it takes more than one good hat to make a man's wardrobe complete.
Every well-dressed man knows this,
and well-dressed men also know that you can't go wrong with Adam hats,
for there's no better hat value anywhere in America.
Adam hats are made of fine fur felt, smartly fashioned, smartly black.
You can choose from a wide variety of shades
and a complete assortment of all the latest styles.
You can easily afford more than one Adam,
because they are sensibly priced.
You're welcome to stop in and look at the latest Adam hats
in your nearest Adam hat shop.
Now, Dr. Weird.
And now to continue my story, the secret room.
It is a few minutes later, holding a flashlight in one hand,
Hans Reiner leads the two escaped Nazis through the huge, musty old cellar.
Karl, his gun in his hand, cautiously follows a few feet behind his father.
In front, staggering under the weight of John Baxter's body,
brings up the rear.
At last, Hans comes to a stop.
Here we are.
Very clever. One would never suspect there's a secret room
behind that solid stone wall.
How do you make a section of the wall open, old man?
I press this concealed button here.
Karl, look, the wall has opened.
Yes. Old man, shine your flashlight into the room.
It's rather small, but it'll do for a few hours.
All right, Franz, go on in. You too, Father.
Very well.
All right, all right, old man, close the door.
Very well.
Now, it cannot be opened from the outside
unless you know where the button is.
Good. Now, all we have to do is stay in here
until the sheriff and his men have searched the house.
When they find it empty, they'll leave.
Then you and I, Karl, will be able to make plans.
Plans that will take us back to the Fatherland.
Yes. Once again, we shall have proven
the superiority of the master race.
Karl, they've been gone for over an hour.
Surely it's safe to leave now.
Yes, I think it's safe.
All right, old man, open the door.
Open the door. I'm afraid I can't.
You can't? What do you mean?
This door only opens from the outside.
Only opens from the outside?
No. No, I forced it open.
Franz, you fool, stop throwing yourself against the door.
Stop it, I said!
But he said the door only opens from the outside.
That means we're trapped.
What kind of a Nazi are you?
Going to pieces like that. Can't you see he's lying?
Would he be here if there weren't any way
to open the door from the inside?
Ja. Ja, you're right.
He would not have allowed himself to be trapped in here too.
So, you sly and you liar,
would you take this?
Now open the door quickly before I hit you again.
I told you, the door can only be opened from the outside.
So, you're going to be difficult, huh?
Well, we're quite experienced in making men talk.
Franz, hold his arms back.
Ja, bokeh.
Before I'm through with you,
you'll wish that you'd open that door
when I first asked you to.
No! No! No! No!
Karl, is he regaining consciousness?
Yes, we'll have to get out of him this time.
He can't last much longer.
Ja, he's already half dead.
Well, are you ready to show us how to open the door?
I tell you, it can't be opened from in here.
You're lying, I tell you.
If that were true, you wouldn't have allowed yourself
to be trapped in here with us.
Do you think I mind dying in here?
What do you mean?
My heart.
The doctors gave me only a few months to live.
What's that?
Yes.
That is why I was willing to show you this secret room.
I don't mind dying as long as you two die with me.
You deliberately let us into the trap.
Yes.
I should think of no better way to die
than taking you two Nazi rats with me.
No.
You'll never get out of here.
No.
Never.
Someday, they'll find us still here.
For a white skeleton.
Why you...
Karl, he's dead.
Yes.
Karl, be trapped.
You understand, he wasn't lying.
We can't get out.
We're going to die in here, McCoy.
We're going to die.
Too bad about Karl and Franz, isn't it?
Imagine being trapped in a small room with solid stone walls,
hour after hour, day after day,
going weaker all the time, until finally...
But perhaps they both took the easy way out
and used the gun they had.
By the way, if you're thinking of buying an old mansion
in the Hudson Valley,
I'd look very carefully in the cellar for a secret room if I were you.
After all, you wouldn't want to live in a house
that was haunted by the ghosts of two...
Oh, you have to go now?
Well, perhaps you'll drop in on me again soon.
Just look for the house on the other side of the cemetery.
The house of Dr. Weir.