The Strange Doctor Weird.
Good evening. Come in, won't you?
What's the matter? You seem pale tonight.
Perhaps you're working too hard.
Suppose I tell you a story I've just heard
that might relax you.
It's about a killer who prided himself
on being too clever to be caught,
and what happened when he met another murderer
who was equally clever.
I call the story When Killers Meet.
My story begins in a small midwestern city.
It is late afternoon and two men are crouching
in the shadows of an alley in the downtown section.
They are Nick Randolph, clever jewel thief,
and his companion Mike Nelson,
and they are being hunted by the police.
Nick, listen, those patrol cars,
they're all around us. Nick, we're trapped.
I'll get us out of it. Have I ever slipped up yet?
No, but you did this afternoon when you plugged that jeweler.
Why did you have to kill him for?
Because he saw me substitute that phony diamond
for the real one.
His testimony could have sent us to the pen for ten years.
Yeah, and now he's dead.
And if we are caught, we get the rope instead.
A dead witness can't testify, and we're not going to be caught.
Once we get hold of a car, I know every back road around here.
I can get us onto one where they'll never dream of looking for us.
Yeah? And where are we going to get a car?
We're going to have one inside of one minute.
Look at that guy walking this way.
He's taking keys out of his pocket.
He's going to unlock that car parked there at the end of the alley.
Here. Here he is stopping.
It's his car, all right.
Come on, follow me. I'll handle this.
Okay, Nick.
Oh, excuse me, sir.
Yeah? What is it?
A gun. What is this, a holdup?
Not exactly. Call it an emergency borrowing.
All right, Mike, pick up his keys. We're on our way.
Well, Mike, are you getting your confidence in me back yet?
All right, Nick, I admit it. You got what it takes.
I've never been caught, never been jailed, Mike.
Why? Because I'm too clever.
No witness has ever testified against me.
I've never left a possible witness alive. See?
Yeah. Here I see, Nick.
What's the next move?
This road will take us out of the state in another hour.
We have to go through a couple of villages, but nobody will stop us.
They're not looking for us here.
Besides, it'll be dark in 20 minutes.
I suppose you turn on the radio. There might be some news.
Okay. Just time for the news, too.
Time for the invasion. And now, please, attention, everyone.
Attention, everyone.
Be on the lookout for two men fleeing the state in a stolen black sedan.
These two men are wanted for the holdup murder of John A. Smith
in Central City this afternoon.
Nick, they know about the car.
Please take down this license number.
K370154.
K370154.
That is the license number of the stolen car in which the killers are fleeing.
And they've got the license number too, Nick.
Shut up, Mike.
The owner, now in City Hospital, near death from a bullet wound,
reports that the left headlight of the stolen car is burned out.
So if you see a black sedan with only one headlight,
report it at once to the nearest authorities.
And now back to the new...
Blast the luck. I should have fed him more slugs.
Then he wouldn't have done any talking.
That's bad. What are we gonna do now, Nick?
Well, first, let's make sure about that headlight.
I'll turn it on and...
Yeah, the left one is burned out.
Well, that means we've got to get another car or they'll nab us sure.
How are we gonna get another buggy way out here in the country?
I'll tell you how.
Look. Up there on top of that hill ahead of us.
Huh? A bungalow with lights in the window.
Yeah, and a car parked in a yard.
That's the car we're going to get.
And nobody's going to know we have it because we're going to make dead sure
there isn't a living soul left in that bungalow to tell about it.
Hardly two minutes later, the two men stopped their car in the driveway
outside the little bungalow
and stared with hard eyes toward the brightly lighted windows.
Well, here we are. See anyone around?
No. Everybody must be inside.
What's up, Lee?
We better go up and knock, pretend we've lost our way.
Get inside, then make sure we have everybody in the house spotted.
And then we start blasting, huh?
That's right. And this time there'll be no slip-up.
Okay, let's go.
Nick and Mike strode up the gravel path and knocked on the door of the bungalow.
A little man whose face was twisted by horror and remorse
opened it for them and then startled them by crying out.
Sheriff, you're here. Thank heaven you came so quick.
What the? Sheriff, what do you mean, sheriff?
Sheriff, I didn't mean to do it. I really didn't mean to do it.
Nick, what's the guy talking about?
Here, Sheriff, take it. Please take it. It's a poker I killed it with.
A blood-stained poker.
She's been nagging at me all day telling me what a failure I was,
how sorry she was she ever married me.
And then I hit her, she fell and there was blood all over.
Say, what is this, Nick?
Mike, look.
Good grief, it's a woman lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs.
And there's blood all over her hair and on the floor beside her head.
Don't you get it? We've stumbled onto a murder.
This little punk has just killed his wife.
Doctor, with all your experience,
what is the first thing you notice about people?
Whether they're living or dead.
Well, that does make a difference, doesn't it?
And you know, Doctor, I notice the same thing only with hats, not people.
Some hats look alive, some are dead.
A hat that stays lively and in fine shape a long time after it's been bought
will naturally make the rest of your clothes look world better.
A colorless and dead-looking hat can kill the good effect of even the most fashionable apparel.
Hats can make a difference.
Gentlemen, wear a smart-looking hat that will keep it's shape
and help you look your best.
Wear an Adam hat.
They are made of fine quality material, tailored and blocked in the latest styles.
And an Adam will fit your head perfectly.
You're not always tugging at the brim and adjusting the crown.
Remember the name, Adam.
An Adam hat does make a difference.
Now, back to the strange Doctor Weir.
And now I'll continue my story when killers meet.
For a minute, Nick Randolph and Mike Nelson, startled by stumbling onto a murder
in the very house where they had planned to eliminate all the residents
and steal another getaway car,
could only stare at the dead woman lying in the hall
and at the little man blurring out his pitiful confession.
I didn't mean to kill her. I didn't, I tell you. I didn't.
Then brutally, Nick grabbed the little man and shook him.
Listen to me. You here? Listen to me.
Yes, Sheriff.
What's your name?
Harry Williams. But I told you that over the phone just now when I...
Yeah, I know. But now let me get this straight, Williams.
Your wife's been nagging you all day.
So just now you hit her with a poker, is that it?
Yeah, I just couldn't stand her nagging me anymore.
Something in me snapped, but I didn't mean...
Now get control of yourself.
You say you telephoned the sheriff 20 minutes ago?
Yeah, but aren't you the sheriff?
No, I'm not the sheriff. I was just passing, see?
The sheriff will be here in a minute.
Now you sit down and wait for him.
Wait for him?
Yes, I'll stop in town to make sure that he's coming.
Now you go back in and sit down.
Go back and sit down?
Yes, yes, that's right.
All right, if you say so.
Nick, what is this?
Don't you understand? This guy's a murderer.
The sheriff and his deputies will be here any second.
We've got to get away from this place, but fast.
But Nick, I still don't get it.
Why didn't we bump him off?
Why didn't we even take his car?
Because we didn't have the time, you dummy.
Don't you see he'd committed a murder?
He'd sent for the cops.
If we'd hung around even a minute more,
we might have bumped into him.
Yeah, and that's the last thing we want to do now,
to bump into any cops.
As it is with the sheriff hustling out there
to pick up this Williams guy, he won't be thinking of us.
We can get into the next town, maybe pick up another car there.
But one place we had to get away from fast
was that house back there with that dead woman in it.
Sure, I see that now.
And Nick, if I...
Nick, look, down the road,
a car pulled right across the road,
and a bunch of guys with rifles.
A trap.
Well, we're not stopping. We're not going to be caught.
Yeah, what are we going to do?
I'll swing it around it. I'll hit the ditch.
Hold on. Here we go.
Nick, Nick, they're shooting at us.
Well, hang on. We're going to make it.
No! No, don't make that noise!
We're going to hit it!
A few minutes later,
the local sheriff was interviewing little Harry Williams,
whose murder of his wife
had thrown such a monkey wrench into Nick Randolph's plans.
Now, Mr. Williams, I'd like to get this whole story straight,
if you don't mind.
Well, you see, Sheriff,
I was sitting here in the living room with Nancy, that's my wife,
listening to the radio,
when the broadcast came on warning everybody
to watch for the two men in the sedan
with one burned out headlight.
Yeah?
And that instant, I happened to look out the window there.
Way down the road,
I saw the single headlight of a car blink on for a moment.
I get you. Go on, Mr. Williams.
Well, I realized it must be the two killers in that car.
And I knew they might decide to stop and take my car.
Now, if they did, I was sure they'd kill both Nancy and myself,
so we couldn't warn anybody.
Right. Why they didn't do it, I still don't know.
Well, you see, Sheriff, it's like this.
Nancy is recovering from a broken leg,
so we couldn't run out of the house and hide.
Yeah?
Yet, if we stayed here, the two killers might murder us.
I had to think fast because it was a very tight spot.
I'll say it was.
So I quickly carried Nancy out
and put her down on the hall floor.
I told her to play dead,
and I emptied a bottle of ketchup on the floor
and her hair to look like blood.
Now, when those two killers knocked on the door
half a minute later,
I opened it and pretended to be a man
who had just killed his wife and his son.
He had just killed his wife in a sudden rage.
Holy smoke.
Yeah, I told them I just murdered Nancy
and phoned you to come at once.
They thought Nancy was really dead
and that you and your men were actually on the way.
So they turned right around and got away from here
just as fast as they could.
Well, I'll be darned.
You see, I figured to myself,
when a killer is trying to escape,
the one individual he most wants to avoid
is another murderer whom the police are closing in on.
Yeah?
They were so anxious to give me a wide berth
that they never even touched me.
As soon as they left, I phoned you.
You set the trap for them.
Well, I guess everything worked out pretty well.
It worked out perfect.
Say, Williams, with an imagination like yours,
you ought to be a detective story writer.
Well, to tell you the truth, Sheriff,
that's just what I am.
So that's what happens when one killer meets another.
He gives him as wide a berth as possible.
Only, of course, poor Nick was fooled.
Harry Williams wasn't really a murderer at all.
Now, what would have happened
if instead of being just a make-believe killer,
little Harry had, uh, been killed?
Well, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
The fact that a killer, little Harry,
had, uh, really been the real thing.
But you suppose that the...
Oh, you're leaving now.
I'm sorry.
I hope you'll drop in again soon.
Just look for the house on the other side of the cemetery,
The house of Dr. Weird.