Adam Hatt presents...
The Strange Dr. Weird.
Good evening. Come in, won't you?
Why, what's the matter? Your hand is shaking.
Surely you're not afraid of me?
I'm not afraid of you.
I'm afraid of you.
Surely you're not afraid of me?
Perhaps it's the cemetery outside my house that has upset you.
Speaking of cemeteries, it reminds me of a story I want to tell you.
A strange murder and a strange burial.
The strangest ever known.
I call the story...
Murder 1 Million D.C.
The Strange Dr. Weird.
In a spirit of reverence, we of Adam Hatt join our fellow Americans and allies everywhere
in a tribute of humble gratitude to the brave men and women in our armed forces.
Let us pray that they who have brought us so far along the road to freedom have not sacrificed in vain.
And finally, let us hope that the end is near, that Japan will soon be defeated,
that our men and women overseas will return to a safe home in a peaceful world.
And I'll fore the story on tonight's Adam Hatt program as told by Dr. Weird.
My story, Murder 1 Million D.C.
begins in a house on the outskirts of a small city in New Mexico.
The home of Professor Timothy Jordan, a renowned scientist.
Inside his laboratory, engaged upon a mysterious experiment.
In the living room, his wife, Florence, and his financial advisor, Harry Smith,
confer with each other apprehensively.
But, Flo, you say you don't know why Timothy asked me to be here at 11 this morning?
No, Harry, I haven't any idea.
I'm sure he doesn't suspect anything about it, I guess.
It must be about his money.
Money? What do you mean?
Well, you know, I've been handling all his business affairs for the last two years.
Yes?
Well, a lot of money's been coming in from those new X-ray machines he invented.
So much that I didn't think he'd miss a little of it.
You mean you've been taking it?
Well, just borrowing some of it for some investment, but making a wish.
Harry!
If he finds out I'm stuck, he'll send me to jail. He will, too.
What are you going to do?
I don't know, but...
If we were only out of the way,
there could be you and me together always.
Be careful. Here he comes.
Oh, Harry! Is that you?
Yes, Tim. Harry just got here.
Oh, good, good. Excellent.
Harry, Flo, I'm about to show you the most amazing thing science has ever achieved.
What do you mean, Tim?
I'm going to show you why I've had to ask you for all that money lately
and why I'll need another 100,000 immediately.
Another?
Come along, both of you, in here in my laboratory.
Tim, what's this all about?
Tim, darling, his room. All his machinery.
What have you been doing in here?
Suppose I told you that I've been building a time machine.
A time machine? Yes, yes.
Look, both of you, you see this big archway of white waves?
A doorway that leads back into the unknown past
as far as the year 1 million B.C.
Tim, you're not serious.
I'm perfectly serious.
All I have to do is to close this switch.
Now... watch.
The archway. It seems to be getting all misty.
Yes. That's a sign the current flowing through these coils
is only a hole in the past.
A hole we can step through as if it were a doorway.
Now, come. Follow me, and in ten seconds
you'll find yourself on this earth as it was a million years ago.
Startled, Harry and Florence saw Professor Jordan
step into the amazing machine he had built and vanish.
Then, fearfully, they followed him and abruptly found themselves
standing at his side on hot, dry desert sand.
A brilliant sun burned in the sky overhead
and strange birds flew through the air above them.
Half a mile away to their left, their vast body of water,
in which monstrous, nightmarish creatures were flashing.
Harry and Florence stared about them
as if they could not believe their eyes.
Tim! Tim, is this real?
This is New Mexico as it was a million years ago.
Tim, I don't know what to say.
Well, I just can't believe it.
The past! We've come a million years into the past.
And just by stepping back the way we came,
we'll be in the present again in my laboratory in the year 1940 A.D.
Think what that means.
Think of being able to watch the burning of Rome,
see Columbus discover America,
view the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
But it'll all be possible as soon as I can get more radium.
More radium?
Yes, radium provides the power my time machine needs.
That's why I have to have $100,000 at once, Harry.
Yes, I see.
Excuse me, Tim, this...
Huh?
Stone.
What's this thing?
Stone? Oh, that's just sandstone covered with clay.
Harry, about the money.
There isn't any money.
No money?
What do you mean?
Just what I say.
You've stolen it, embezzled it.
You'll go to jail, do you hear?
I'll send you to the jail if it's the last thing I do.
Oh, no, you won't.
No, Harry, don't!
His head, it's all crushed in.
I had to kill him.
Was that a good jail?
Oh, what are we going to do?
I'll tell you what we're going to do.
We're going to bury him right here.
But his body, it may be found.
And then...
Oh, listen, don't you understand?
This is the world a million years in the past.
We'll bury Timothy here in the sand,
then step back through the time machine into the laboratory.
When we get there, he'll have been dead for a million years.
Don't you see?
He'll have been dead and buried for a million years,
and there won't be any body left to be found.
There won't be any evidence at all.
After Harry had struck down Professor Jordan,
he and Flo hastily dug a deep grave in the sand with their hands.
They put the body and the blood-stained rock into this grave
and covered both with sand.
Then hastily they stepped back through the time machine into the laboratory
and partly dismantled the machine
so no one else could stumble on the secret.
Then, after waiting,
they announced Professor Jordan's disappearance.
Everything went just as Harry planned.
It was true that the Inspector Leroy of the local police department
seemed a little suspicious of Professor Jordan's disappearance,
but of course he had no evidence.
So in due time, Harry and Flo were married.
As they were returning from a long honeymoon, Harry said,
Flo, I've been thinking about that time machine of Timothy's.
What about it, Harry?
That machine can make me the richest man on earth.
For example, suppose I took it to New York
and used it to go back a hundred years.
Then suppose I bought up all the land where time's square now.
Harry!
What is it?
This clipping Grace Miller sent me.
I just opened a letter and look at it.
Let me see.
Bones of ancient man found near residence of late Professor Jordan.
While excavating for Highway 37,
workmen today found fragments of the skeleton of an ancient man
buried in a formation of sand and rock.
Robert Thompson, state geologist, states geological formation
indicates the bones between 500,000 and a million years old
have been preserved by the extreme dryness of the soil.
The great scientists expect that a rock
found beside the crushed in skull of the skeleton
was apparently the weapon with which the prehistoric man was killed.
Timothy's bones and the rock you killed him with!
Harry, you said there wouldn't be any evidence left after a million years.
We have nothing to worry about.
Even if they did find a few old bones.
Just the same, Harry. Let's not go back home.
Let's get off the train. Turn around. Go someplace far away.
That's absurd.
In the first place, we'd look suspicious if we didn't go back.
In the second place, we've got to go back to get that time machine.
Because it's going to make me the richest man in the world.
Harry succeeded in calming Florence's fears.
The next morning they arrived home.
They were having breakfast when an unannounced caller,
Inspector Leroy, walked in.
Good morning, folks. Welcome home.
What's the idea of barging in like this, Inspector?
Mrs. Smith, do you recognize this locket
which was found and turned into the police department?
Locket?
Well, that's my gold locket that's been missing for months.
But what happened to it?
It's a warren scratch. Looks a million years old.
Yes, doesn't it?
Oh.
And we found an inscription inside, as good as new,
indicating your former husband gave it to you for a birthday present.
All right, so it's Florence's locket, so hot.
As a matter of fact, I want to talk to you about that skeleton
which was found out back of this house last week.
You know about it, I suppose?
Yes, we know about it, so hot.
It was a very interesting skeleton, Mrs. Smith.
A million years old, the scientists say.
But this locket was found lying underneath it.
Oh, no!
Hot? It's impossible.
Another thing about that skeleton which is puzzling the scientists,
it has gold fillings in its teeth.
Gold fillings, Professor Jordan's dentist identifies
as fillings he put into the professor's teeth himself.
You're crazy.
No, it's the scientists who are going crazy trying to figure out the answers.
But I'm no scientist, so I didn't have any trouble.
My answer is that that body is Professor Jordan's
and you two killed him and buried him there.
And Mrs. Smith, that's when you lost that locket.
No! No, it isn't true! It isn't true!
I said you're crazy and I mean it.
Not crazy enough to believe dentists were putting gold fillings
in people's teeth a million years ago.
Those are Professor Jordan's bones, Smith,
and I can prove that you murdered him.
You can't! I didn't!
Yes. You see, that rock that killed him just fits the wound in the skull.
And you know what?
The killer left his fingerprints on that rock.
Fingerprints? It's not possible.
But it is.
The scientists say that a million years ago, that rock was covered with clay
and that the murderer left four nice, clear fingerprints in the clay.
Since then, the clay has hardened to become part of the rock itself.
And those four fingerprints there in that solid rock
match specimens of your prints that I got from your office.
How's that for evidence?
Fingerprints embedded for all eternity in the solid rock
with which a murderer struck down his victim.
The jury found Harry and Florence guilty.
Without even leaving the box, the evidence was so conclusive.
Of course, nobody believed that Professor Jordan's bones
actually had been buried for a million years before they were found.
But nobody could explain how Harry's fingerprints
came to be embedded in a solid chunk of rock.
Perhaps Harry could have, but he didn't dare to,
for fear of making matters worse.
I remember another scientist who...
Oh, you have to go now.
Perhaps you'll drop in again soon.
Just look for the house on the other side of the cemetery of Dr. Weird.
Dr. Weird returns shortly to tell you about next week's story.
Meanwhile, here's a thought for all of us.
While the war in Europe is over,
the war in the Pacific is far from won.
Our land troops still have many hundreds of miles
of tough island hopping to go
and may even have to fight Japan's armies in China.
That means we must continue to keep up the flow of ships,
guns, munitions, and food to our far-flung Pacific outposts.
And that means we must continue to buy bonds.
The mighty seventh war loan drive is now on.
Let's support it to the utmost.
Buy till it hurts and then some.
Now, let us hear again from Dr. Weird.
I hope you plan to drop in on me again next week.
I want to tell you a story I call Picture of a Killer.
It's an unusual tale about a killer who had never had his picture taken.
And when a photographer finally did snap his picture, it was...
But the rest of the story will have to wait until your next visit.
Good night.
Join us again next week at this same time
for another visit with the strange Dr. Weird.
The Strange Dr. Weird, directed by Jacques McGregor,
is written by Bob Arthur and David Cogan.
It's presented by the makers of Adam Hatch,
the hats that are always top in quality.
This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.