[MiSTed] "Death Laughs at Walls"
cs...@access1.net
[Bridge of the Satellite of Love. MIKE, CROW, TOM, and GYPSY are seated
in upholstered easy chairs arranged in a circle, looking up at the
camera. MIKE has a book in his lap.]
MIKE: Hello, and welcome to the Satellite of Love Book Club.
CROW: Also known as "Hey, It Worked for Oprah."
MIKE: My friends Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, Gypsy, and I have decided to
appreciate some classic literature to compensate for the flood of garbage
Dr. Forrester subjects us to.
TOM: C'mon, Mike. Do you really think David Copperfield is going to make
up for "Artemis's Lover"?
MIKE: It's worth a shot. Remembering that there are such things as good
stories and writers should give us the mental reinforcement to make our
times in the theater easier. And I've picked a great one for our first
meeting -- Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. You'll like it, trust me.
Here we go: "It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October,
with the sun not shining -- "
CROW [Mike, as Philip Marlowe]: Oh yeah, wait, it was actually night.
[MIKE, broken out of the story, looks up in astonishment.]
MIKE: What?!
CROW: Uh, just a riff.
MIKE: Crow, you can't riff The Big Sleep!
CROW: Sorry. It slipped out. Force of habit.
MIKE: Well, don't do it again. Ahem. "The sun not shining and the look of
hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-
blue suit -- "
TOM: Oh, Mr. Blackwell would *not* approve.
MIKE [shutting book with a bang]: Servo!
TOM: Well, it’s true! Who wears powder-blue suits?
CROW: Austin Powers.
TOM: Yeah, but --
MIKE [opening book again and speaking over them]: "My powder-blue suit,
with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black
wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I -- "
[TOM and CROW open their mouths simultaneously but don't make a sound.
MIKE looks up slowly and glares over the top of the book at them.]
MIKE [lethal calm]: Say. It.
CROW: Blazin' sartorial action!
TOM: Wasn't it Chandler who said that when a story got dull, you just had
to have a man come through the door with an ascot?
[Commercial light flashes. MIKE, rolling his eyes, hits it.]
[Commercials. Are you tired of all those ads for phony, so-called
"psychic" hotlines? Well, tough, 'cause here's another.]
[Bridge of the SOL. MIKE is slumped down in his chair with a hopeless
look on his face.]
MIKE: Can’t you guys pay attention and keep quiet for a single minute?
GYPSY: Well, I still think you should have gone with Memoirs of a Geisha.
TOM [consolingly]: It was a nice idea, Mike, but to be honest, I get all
the mental reinforcement I need from my Power Man and Iron Fist
collection.
[MIKE looks over at CROW.]
CROW: Soldier of Fortune. Especially the ads.
MIKE: Fine, whatever. I guess I'll just read to myself ... [reopens the
book at the exact same moment the Deep 13 light starts flashing] ... oh,
nuts.
[MIKE puts the book aside and hits the button]
[Deep 13]
DR. FORRESTER: Good morning, my little experimentalians! I have one word
for you ... Pronzini!
[SOL]
[MIKE and THE BOTS look at each other in mystification]
MIKE: You're going to make us spaghetti?
[Deep 13]
DR. F: No, although I do make a mean plate of spaghetti, if I say so
myself. The secret is to use plenty of garlic and -- [shakes head] Stop
distracting me! I meant Bill Pronzini, the writer! I was just cleaning
out the back room and I found his Gun in Cheek and Son of Gun in Cheek.
Two lovely books just chock-full of bad mysteries, the yellow streaks on
the underwear of the genre. With this sort of material, I should be able
to keep the experiment going for YEARS!
[SOL]
[MIKE is adjusting a noose that dangles from the ceiling; TOM has a tray
of raw hamburger balanced on his head and is studying a brochure from the
Bronx Zoo; CROW has a monkey wrench clamped around his neck and is
working the handle back and forth.]
MIKE [bleakly]: Gee, that's swell ....
[Deep 13]
DR. F: Unfortunately, the books are mostly just excerpts and summaries --
not enough to give the full putrid impact. But Pronzini does include the
complete text of one story. And it's a real prize, something from a time
when popular culture wasn't afraid to suck like a Sears wet/dry vac!
[SOL]
[Suicide implements are gone, and our heroes are back to normal.]
MIKE: The '80s?
TOM: The '70s?
CROW: The '90s? Dear God, no, you fiend ... !
[Deep 13]
DR. F: No, you thundermugs, 1930! It's a pulp detective story by Florence
M. Pettee, called "Death Laughs at Walls" -- and by the time you get
through it, the only one laughing will be ME!
[hits The Button, cackling madly]
[SOL]
[Lights flash. Alarums and excursions.]
MIKE: WE'VE GOT PULP SIGN!
[1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6]
[Theater. ALL enter and are seated.]
>DEATH LAUGHS AT WALLS
TOM [Christopher Lee]: HA. HA. HA. HOW VERY JOLLY.
>by Florence M. Pettee
CROW: If she's the pettee, who's the petter?
>"The thing savors of the incredible, Sibly.
MIKE: "Savors of the Incredible" -- the Food Network jumps on the X-Files
bandwagon.
CROW: With Emeril Lagasse as the Salmon-Smoking Man.
>It isn't human. How can a man come to his death in so mysterious a way?
>There he sits, stark and stiff, in the cold gray light of the morning.
TOM: Like Mike before coffee?
CROW: Nah, that's more "lumpish and oblivious."
MIKE: Do you two mind?
>Both doors into his study are locked and bolted. The windows just above the gray >wall are securely screened and locked.
MIKE: Oh, cool, a locked-room murder mystery! No one writes those any
more!
CROW: For good reason.
>I ask you, Sibly, what possible grounds you can have -- you or the
>police -- for suspecting murder?"
TOM [Sibly]: Besides the foot-long butcher knife sticking out of his
back?
>John Sibly crossed a lank leg. He knew that Gresham, a private detective
>of considerable reputation,
CROW: With the skip-tracers, bunco squads, and sex crimes units of ten
states.
>was only trying to draw him out. Inwardly, he smiled at the attempt,
>although he replied soberly enough.
CROW: Which was amazing, since he'd just pounded an entire case of Natty
Bo.
>"I look to foul play as the answer to the riddle of Harrison Clay's
>death because -- I am his doctor."
TOM: And his family is preparing a malpractice suit you wouldn't believe.
>"Well? Are you hinting at poison, since you have intimated that sudden
>death from organic disease was impossible?"
TOM [Sibly]: Well, yes, because sudden death from organic disease would
mean I'm an incompetent clod.
CROW: What would an inorganic disease be, anyway?
>"I am not hinting at the *manner* of death. *I merely state that I know
>Harrison Clay came to his death by murder.*"
MIKE: So he doesn't know how the guy died, but he's positive it's murder?
TOM: Nice of Florence to provide that emphasis so we'd know Sibly was
saying something important.
>"Hm," murmured Gresham drily. "Well, the police are also working on that
>assumption. What more do you want? Why are you consulting me?"
CROW [Sibly]: Consulting you? You came in here to empty the wastebaskets.
>"Because the chief, who is a good friend of mine, has told me sub rosa
>that the department is shortly to arrest the dead man's son, young
>David."
>"Why David?"
MIKE: Because the police *always* arrest the wrong person in this kind of
story.
>"Unfortunately the young man has a high temper. When he was honorably
>discharged from service, he became set on a naval career.
CROW: He wanted to become a belly dancer.
>Now Clay, senior, was keen for the young man to follow science --
>chemical research. He was rabid against the marine program.
TOM: What's strange about that? *Everyone* hated "seaQuest DSV."
>They had heated words over the affair, even the day before Harrison Clay
>was found, a corpse sitting rigidly in the chair before his desk in an
>entrance-proof room.
CROW: Thanks for the recap. It's been, what, one whole page?
>Several heard the rash words, among which were hints of disinheritance
>in favor of his nephew, Percival Clay. On close bullying by the police,
>these witnesses have testified to the unfortunate scene between the dead
>man and his son.
MIKE: So the cops got the witnesses to testify by giving them swirlies
and atomic wedgies?
>The police, completely balked at the way foul play could have been
>consummated, propose to show their rigorous investigation by arresting
>young Clay.
TOM: Oh, yeah, sounds like a real rigorous investigation there.
>Subsequently, they hope to worm out of him the mysterious way Harrison
>Clay was done to death."
MIKE: They have no clues, no evidence, no eyewitnesses ... so they arrest
the first guy who looks vaguely suspicious in hopes of extorting a
confession? God bless Ernesto Miranda.
CROW: Welcome to New York City.
TOM: [makes rubber-hose-thwacking noises]
>"Just who testified to the police about the quarrel between young Clay
>and his father?"
>"Let me see. There was the nephew, Percival, the old cook, Malinda, Mr.
>Arthur Armstrong, a scientific friend of the deceased, who was visiting
>at the house when the dead man was found, and Johnson, a servant."
MIKE: Gentlemen, we have suspects! Make your picks now.
CROW: I call dibs on Percival. He's got that inheritance thing, and he's
got a creepy name.
TOM: I call Johnson. I don't trust servants -- sneaking, thieving worms,
the lot of them!
MIKE: I guess I'll take Arthur Armstrong, then. The cook never does it,
unless her name is Mary Mallon.
>"Hm," reflected Gresham. "Well, why your haste to prevent young Clay's
>arrest?
CROW: Because it's stupid, unjust, and pointless?
>Of course you don't believe him guilty. But I recall him as a husky
>fellow whom the incarceration in jail won't floor.
MIKE: For a detective, Gresham's got a pretty casual sense of justice,
doesn't he?
TOM: "Floor"?
>Besides, this act of the police, provided young Clay is innocent, will
>draw a red herring across the suspicions of the real criminal, so to
>speak.
TOM: The mangled remains of the metaphor were pronounced DOA at Mercy
Hospital, 2:53 AM.
>What's your perturbation?"
MIKE [R. Lee Ermey]: What is your MAJOR MALFUNCTION?
>John Sibly shifted uneasily.
CROW [Sibly]: Oo, damn burritos.
>Then -- "Hang it all, Gresham. I suppose you will call me an old fogey
>and all that.
TOM: Old fogey!
CROW: Geezer!
MIKE: Coot!
CROW: Graybeard!
TOM: Dodderer!
MIKE: Wrinkly!
>But it goes against this crabbed brain of mine
CROW: Wow, I didn't know you could get crabs th -- [without looking, MIKE
reaches over and whaps him on the back of the net] -- ooowwhhh!
>to have the son of my old friend and patient hauled into jail as a
>suspect of patricide. I don't want David Clay so branded,
TOM: On the left buttcheek.
MIKE: They took criminal punishment seriously in 1930.
>even temporarily."
>"Then -- " suggested Gresham tentatively.
MIKE: -- you should hire a real detective?
>"I want you to get at the truth. *I want you to discover how Harrison
>Clay was killed and who committed the outrage.*”
CROW: Another handy emphasis. Thanks, Florrie!
> ***
>Red Gables, the summer estate of the late Harrison Clay,
TOM: Looked exactly like Green Gables if you were color-blind.
>occupied some acres beside the surf in the aristocratic shore-colony.
MIKE: Kennebunkport?
TOM: Martha's Vineyard?
CROW: Oyster Bay?
>A red tiled wall shut in the stucco house with its scarlet roof. Red
>Gables itself loomed a bright red-topped pile
CROW: I'm sensing a theme here.
>close by the wall sheering down to the heavy surf.
ALL: [hum surf music]
>Harrison Clay's den and laboratory combined, where he lay dead, was
>situated on the first floor at the rear of the house overlooking the
>sea-wall which sheered up close.
TOM: Sheer nonsense.
>Digby Gresham was admitted
ALL [simultaneously]: Digby?!
TOM: What the Helvetica kind of name for a detective is Digby? Detectives
are supposed to have names like Philip ...
CROW: Or Sam ...
MIKE: Or Mike ...
GYPSY [sticking head into theater]: Or Kinsey! [withdraws]
MIKE: Well, maybe it's supposed to symbolize the way he "digs" for clues?
TOM: I don't care if it symbolizes Man's role in an uncaring cosmos, it's
still a STUPID NAME!
>through the gates guarded by the blue-coats.
MIKE: How'd the French army get there?
CROW: Retreating from the Germans.
>The police department did not resent his introduction to the case.
>Rather did they welcome it.
TOM: Because the police in this kind of story are always incompetent
boobs, pathetically grateful for the help of any two-bit private eye who
comes along.
>The strange death of Harrison Clay had disturbed them mightily from the
>moment they had been summoned by young Clay, who had already broken down
>the door and found his father lifeless.
>Fortunately for Digby Gresham
TOM: [shuddering groan]
MIKE: You're not going to do that every time his name comes up, are you?
>the coroner in charge of the untoward in that little summer colony was
>away. For the seaport had been heretofore a model, free from major or
>minor crimes.
CROW: It's a *good* life!
>Much difficulty had been experienced in locating the coroner. Hence
>Digby Gresham congratulated himself in his rare good fortune in arriving
>in the death-chamber before the body had been disturbed -- the body or
>its surroundings.
[pause, then ALL start laughing]
MIKE [cop]: Aw, shucks, coroner ain't around. I guess it won't hurt to
leave the body where it is a couple days.
TOM [cop]: While we pursue our rigorous investigation!
CROW [David Clay]: Sure, officer, feel free to leave my father's
festering corpse sitting around our house as long as you like!
>Only a trusted inspector of the department had investigated there. And
>he had immediately posted a man outside the door with orders that no one
>should enter, except by his permission.
CROW: And except for any two-bit private eye who wandered in.
>So Gresham entered the somber house. Respectfully a uniformed man stepped >aside, permitting him to enter the room of death.
TOM: And then he slammed the door and turned on the gas. The end.
>With a quick eye Gresham saw the glass topped experimental benches, the
>intricate electrical equipment in the room, the vials, retorts and
>burners.
MIKE: Harrison Clay got his furnishings at the Frankenstein estate sale.
>For Harrison Clay was a private investigating scientist of unusual
>ability,
TOM: He could rub his tummy and pat his head at the same time.
>albeit the investigations he pursued had been largely of a mysterious
>nature.
MIKE: Never use the word "albeit" again.
>Gresham's eyes traveled to the two lone windows.
CROW: On stalks.
TOM: "Two lone"?
>Although they were not closed, yet they were heavily screened with fine->meshed wire netting. And the screens were strongly locked on the
>inside, making ingress from the sea-wall without an impossibility.
MIKE: Alternatively: making it impossible for anyone to get in.
TOM: Thesauri can be deadly weapons in the wrong hands.
CROW: Especially if you combine them with being paid by the word.
>Then Digby Gresham's eyes went to the dead man sitting there.
CROW: Geez, Digger, try and keep them in your skull! You're creeping me
out!
>In the swivel chair before the wide-topped desk sat Harrison Clay,
>rigidly, like some wooden martinet.
MIKE [Mark Twain]: The difference between the right word and the almost
right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.
>The figure leaned back against the chair, one hand lying across his
>knee, the other >grasping the arm of the chair stiffly. The latter stood
>so close to the desk as to bring the knees of the dead man against the
>wood.
CROW: I'm sure all this exhaustive detail will be vital to the solution
of the crime, right?
TOM: Or at least it earned Florence a little extra pocket change.
>The head slumped forward on the chest almost as though Clay were asleep.
>Only the eyes themselves, glassy and basilisk,
TOM [Mandy Patinkin]: I do not think that word means what you think it
means.
>belied this assumption. They seemed starting from their sockets as
>though their >owner beheld some fearful apparition. Yet the dead man sat
>sidewise to the window, with papers strewn over his desk. Beyond him
>yawned the wide fireplace.
MIKE: I know how the fireplace feels. [yawn]
TOM: [yawn]
CROW: [yawn]
MIKE: [yawn] Now cut that out!
TOM: [yawn] You started it.
>Digby Gresham examined the flue. It was too small to permit even the
>entrance of a kitten.
CROW: Clay had a pathological fear that the Grinch would sneak in and
steal his Christmas.
>Yet there were other animals smaller than kittens which had been trained
>in Oriental countries to bring about subtle and insidious death.
TOM: Foul! She's ripping off "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"!
MIKE: Would that be Pettee larceny?
[agonized pause]
CROW: Mike ... leave that kind of thing to the experts, huh?
>A monkey now --
TOM: Put out an all-points bulletin on Mrs. Coulter!
>Frowningly Digby Gresham turned to the stiff figure. He made swift and
>microscopic examinations.
CROW: Wouldn't it be easier to use a magnifying glass?
>Yet the cubicle seemed unbroken.
CROW: I'd make a Dilbert joke here, but I'll be damned if I pay royalties
to Scott Adams.
>No tiny pin-point showed the whisper of some fine and poison-dipped
>point. Yet the coroner's autopsy would prove that fact more absolutely.
MIKE: If the coroner ever comes back from Tahiti!
>*But if Harrison Clay had not met death by some such subtle poison, how
>had he, a man organically sound, come to his sudden, inexplicable
>death?*
TOM: Again with the "organically"! What are you implying, Florence, that
inorganic life forms are unsound? Huh? Huh? Biotist!
>Intently Digby Gresham scanned the dead man's features.
TOM: But scanners live in vain.
CROW: You want to get a little more obscure there, Servo?
>He looked at the papers spread out carelessly on the desk. Chemical
>formulae they were, betokening a man highly trained in such research.
MIKE: Badly constructed that sentence was, betokening a woman who should
never have been allowed within thirty feet of a typewriter.
CROW: Looks like Florence suddenly channeled Yoda for a moment there.
>Swiftly Gresham went to the glass-topped tables. He looked over their
>contents extensively. For Digby Gresham was no mean dabbler in chemistry
>himself. His laboratory was one of the finest private ones in his own
>city.
TOM [bored]: Wow. A regular Renaissance man.
CROW: What do you want to bet he bought that "laboratory" for thirty
bucks at Learningsmith?
>Digby Gresham whistled softly.
MIKE: [whistles "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'"]
>He strode back to the desk and the dead man sitting there.
>Then the crime sleuth
TOM: Department of Redundancy Department. Please hold and wait on the
line, and we will answer and respond to your call in turn and when your
number comes up.
>examined the doors meticulously. But no enlightening scratch rewarded
>him there. He studied the strongly locked and fine-meshed screens of the
>windows. They were absolutely without marks of tampering. Obviously, no
>poison-point could have been shot through them as had been done in the
>case of the Pulsifer poisoning.
MIKE: Which had been solved by a better detective.
>*How had Harrison Clay been killed?*
TOM: Don't ask US! You're the detective!
>For certain facts which Digby Gresham had already unearthed led to his
>absolute belief in the theory of murder.
CROW: And those facts are ... ?
>Until the autopsy should disclose whether or not the stomach or the
>intestines showed traces of poison administered before Harrison Clay
>locked himself in the room, Gresham went noiselessly about the house and
>grounds.
[TOM begins to rattle back and forth in his seat rapidly]
MIKE [urgently]: Tom! Stop trying to understand the sentence! Emergency
override, eject grammar core!
[With a *poit*, something the approximate size and shape of an AA battery
shoots from the top of TOM's head and falls out of sight. TOM slows to a
stop.]
TOM: Whew! I will have been thanking him! Grammar core mine, almost to
burn out that one on!
>Finally his tall figure climbed to the tiled top wall.
CROW: JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!
MIKE [chiming in]: JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!
TOM [chiming in]: TO HAVE JUMPED! JUMPNESS! IT WILL BE JUMPING!
>There he continued until he stopped just outside the fatal room.
CROW: Nice going, Nelson.
MIKE: Well, it does give us an excuse to get out of here.
CROW: Oh. [pause] Nice going, Nelson. Come on!
[6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1]
[SOL Bridge. A box labeled ONE ACME GRAMMAR CORE is sitting on the
counter next to Tom as Mike tinkers with his innards.]
MIKE: Okay, it's installed. Try it out, Tom.
TOM: Wrrrr ... initializing ... whanne in Aprille with its shoures soote
... out, damned spot! Out, I say ... see Dick run; run, Dick, run ....
CROW: Talk to us, buddy!
TOM: Wrrrr ... I’m okay. But boy, what a stinker!
MIKE: Yeah. It’s like Florence read a bunch of Sherlock Holmes stories
and tried to copy them. She’s got all the little touches right ... the
way Digby’s an science genius, the allusion to another case ...
CROW: The way the cops bend over backward for him ...
TOM: The stupid name ...
MIKE: But without Holmes’s personality or Conan Doyle’s talent.
TOM: You know, I was thinking ... if Florence were alive today, she'd
probably be writing fanfic.
[Thoughtful silence. Eventually:]
CROW: Thanks for sharing, Servo. Now we're all going to have nightmares.
MIKE: Let’s take a break while we try to force that thought out of our
minds. [hits the commercial light]
[Commercials. Sci-Fi Prime: Yes, we’d rather produce and promote this
crap than Babylon 5: Crusade or MST3K. Something has to make Sliders look
good.]
[Deep 13]
[DR. F is busily going through a copy of Gun in Cheek with a
highlighter, giggling now and then. Abruptly he stops and stares out of
the screen.]
DR. F: Why aren’t you in the theater, Nelson?
[SOL]
MIKE: We had to make some, uh, emergency repairs.
[Deep 13]
DR. F [flagrantly false sympathy]: Ohhhhhh, emergency repairs. [menacing]
Nelson, how many times will I have to endure your lame excuses? "Please,
sir, emergency repairs." "Please, sir, we ran into the Hubble Space
Telescope." "Please, sir, my appendix just burst." GET BACK IN THERE!
[SOL]
[Alarums and excursions ... again.]
MIKE: We’ve got PULP SIGN!
[1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6]
[ALL reenter theater and take their places.]
> ***
>"No, sir," said Malinda, the cook. "I know the master couldn't have died
>at the hand of his son. David is quick-tempered enough, but not that
>hot-headed."
>A canny look sifted across her face.
TOM: Don't strain yourself, Malinda.
>She whispered dramatically, "*I think the master killed himself.*"
TOM: No, the Time Lords handed him over to the Daleks for execution.
CROW: Fanbot.
>"Why?"
>The woman moved restively. She picked uneasily at her dress. "B-be-
>because he's been acting queer o' late."
CROW: The earring, the ACT UP rallies, the Tinky Winky doll ...
>"Then why didn't the doctor notice it?" shot out Gresham.
>"Oh, doctors!" flung back the woman scornfully.
TOM: He shot her, and she flung it back?
MIKE [Wise Old Master]: When you can snatch the bullet from the air, then
you will be ready to leave, Grasshopper.
CROW: There’s the solution! Malinda is a ninja! Locked doors don’t stop
them!
>"What they don't notice would fill books! I've been with Mr. Harrison
>for years, and I know him. And he has been acting very nervous and
>excited of late. He would work far into the night, behind locked doors
>in that room of his.
CROW: He's probably meeting some hot nineteen-year-old nymphomaniac in a
chat room.
>I think he went suddenly crazy from overwork and killed himself."
>Narrowly Digby Gresham studied the cook. Why had she voiced the insanity
>theory
MIKE: Because it had worked for John Hinckley.
>and, most surprising of all, suicide? Was it an offensive or defensive
>suggestion? Just what lay in back of it?
TOM: A pretty Japanese-style rock garden.
>"How did he kill himself?" asked Gresham gently.
>She shrugged. "He's got stuff in those bottles of his to kill a hundred
>men."
MIKE: New Coke, Orbitz, Fruitopia, Zima, stale Yoo-Hoo, Crystal Pepsi,
Sunny D....
>"But," insisted Gresham, "Dr. Sibly gave no intimation of a nervous
>breakdown, of coming mental trouble."
CROW: Of course, Dr. Sibly is a podiatrist.
>"Humph, *he* wouldn't. I wouldn't have him to a sick cat!"
[ALL laugh weakly]
>"Then you don't think David Clay killed his father?"
>Her eyes flashed balefully.
CROW: As, somewhere in the cavernous depths of her skull, her sole
synapse fired.
>"Of course not! Ridiculous!"
>Thoughtfully Gresham next interviewed the servant Johnson.
TOM: He did it! He did it!
>He was a short, florid man with straw-colored hair, wide blue eyes and a
>red complexion. He looked the part of English butler to perfection.
MIKE: Right. Cadbury, Jeeves, Jarvis, Mr. Belvedere ... all short, ruddy
blonds.
TOM: I tell ya, the butler did it! Old Digby's gonna crack him like an
egg! Confession, here we come!
CROW: I miss Mr. Belvedere.
>Johnson added nothing except a nervousness of manner which all those
>implicated in the affair displayed.
[ALL look at the screen blankly. After a pause:]
TOM: Well ... that was concise.
MIKE: So much for her being paid by the word.
CROW: You'd rather read more of Florence's dialogue?
>But the nephew, Percival Clay, was strong in his suspicion of his
>cousin.
CROW: Trying to shift the blame -- classic murderer behavior! You're
toast, Percy!
>"David was always hot-headed," he declared. "He'd fly off the handle at
>the least thing. Not that I'm hinting at anything," he interposed
>hastily, yet very clumsily, Gresham thought.
TOM: Oh, certainly not.
MIKE: For a diabolically clever murderer, Percy's about as subtle as a
sledgehammer.
CROW: It's a trick! He's just trying to put Digby off!
>"And the war, too, has blunted him to any form of death."
TOM: Even the one that involves the suit of armor, the octopus, the
fishbowl, the flippers, the boa constrictor, and the string of Christmas
lights?
>Percival Clay shivered.
>"You were not in the service?" questioned Gresham quietly.
>Percival Clay regarded him over his heavy-bowed spectacles. "Defective
>sight prevented my acceptance," he said stiffly.
TOM: He's got a pansy name, he's blind as a bat, the thought of violence
makes him nervous, and he's a draft dodger. Some murderer!
CROW [halfhearted]: It's all a trick, you'll see ...
>Gresham's interview with Arthur Armstrong elicited nothing further.
CROW: The part of Arthur Armstrong will be played by The Little Man Who
Wasn't There.
TOM: Looks like your horse is out of the running, Mike.
MIKE: Not fair. Can I pick David Clay instead?
>And David Clay himself only stoutly averred his innocence.
MIKE: Aw, shoot.
>Then came the coroner's report.
CROW [coroner]: Club Med is *such* a goddam ripoff ...
>"I find, Mr. Gresham," said that official,
MIKE [coroner]: ... no reason why I should be sharing my report with some
two-bit private eye.
>"no trace whatsoever of any known poison in the entrails of the dead
>man.
TOM [coroner]: However, the entrails do show that tomorrow will be an
auspicious day for business ventures.
>Moreover, the skin discloses no scratch or suspicious prick
MIKE: No, Crow.
CROW: Don't tell me you aren't thinking the same thing.
>where poison could have been introduced into the system in that manner.
>I confess that I am absolutely in the dark as to how Harrison Clay met
>his death."
MIKE [coroner]: There, I'm done. Aruba, here I come! I love working for
the government!
>Some hours later Digby Gresham received a bulky communication in answer
>to a hastily sent wire. And the long legal envelope bore the imprint of >the government's official rank.
TOM: But what does Marilyn Monroe's FBI file have to do with this case?
>Then Gresham drove away to a neighboring city. There he was gone some
>hours. When he returned, some of the frowns had been smoothed from his
>forehead.
MIKE: And you can look like this, too -- with a chemical skin peel from
Dr. Zizmor!
>He called up the police headquarters and addressed himself to the chief
>of the department.
>"Send over to my quarters a couple of men in plain clothes. Let them
>come heeled
TOM [Digby]: And in nice evening gowns, matching handbags ...
>and with entirely dependable steel bracelets."
CROW [Digby]: And entirely dependable leather whips, and entirely
dependable rubber --
MIKE: We get it.
>"What for?"
MIKE [Digby]: I'm bored. I thought we could get a pizza, rent a couple
videos.
>*"I am out to take the murderer of Harrison Clay."*
CROW [Digby]: But I'm not going to tell you who he is. [singsong] I know
some-thiiing yooou don't, I know some-thiiiing yoooou don't ....
> ***
>Shortly Digby Gresham, accompanied by the men from headquarters, parked
>outside the main door of Red Gables.
>"Station yourselves in the shadows behind the portieres here," ordered
>Gresham, for dusk was already heavy in the hall.
MIKE [cop]: Uh, what's a portiere?
>"When I make the accusation and flash on the lights, you snap on the
>bracelets. Keep your man covered, for he is a dangerous one."
TOM [cop]: Sure thing! Always glad to back up some two-bit private eye's
grandstand play!
>The two men from headquarters slid out of sight,
TOM: Look! Someone's greased the cops!
>although they were but three feet from Gresham's elbow.
CROW: Or was that his ass? He was never sure.
>In the dim half-light the detective rang for a servant.
>A little silence followed. A big car roared by.
TOM: A dog barked.
MIKE: A clock ticked.
CROW: Grass grew.
MIKE: The audience left.
>Heavy footsteps came through the corridor. They paused just before Gresham.
>"Yes, sir?" inquired Johnson. "You rang, sir?"
CROW: The part of Johnson will be played by Maynard G. Krebs.
>"I did," Gresham gestured alertly.
MIKE: Funny time to start speaking in sign language.
>*"I arrest you for the murder of Harrison Clay."*
TOM: WOO-HOO!
CROW: Aw, felgercarb.
MIKE: Figures. The butler really *did* do it.
>Blinding lights dissipated the darkness as the two officers followed
>their instructions to the letter.
TOM: This arrest is brought to you by the letter P.
>Johnson, white and hard-eyed, regarded the detective.
>"Perhaps, sir," he said with his usual dignity, "you will explain what
>you mean. If it is a joke you are playing, it is a mighty poor one."
TOM [Digby]: Really? Here's a better one, then -- what's green and red
and goes 90 miles an hour?
>"It is no joke, Nicolai Dombrosky," retorted Gresham.
ALL: Huh?!
>"I have it on good authority that you have patented several admirable
>though diabolical devices for your government.
CROW: Marvel as Digby Gresham, Magic Detective, pulls clues out of HIS
OWN ASS!
TOM: Or is that his elbow?
>I have specified knowledge as to the nature of these patents. Moreover,
>I can pretty well surmise *why* you killed Harrison Clay.
CROW [Digby]: A lovers' spat, right?
MIKE: Crow, it's 1930.
CROW: Like they didn't have those back then?
>A man of your stamp,
TOM: Can't be licked.
>still aiding your country
TOM: Sweden?
MIKE: Upper Volta?
CROW: Ruritania?
>by the inventions you have disposed of would be a bitter enemy of a man
>like Harrison Clay.
CROW: So he's aiding his country by disposing of his inventions?
MIKE: Maybe he's the guy who invented the Flowbee and the Pet Grooming
Mitt.
>For Clay perfected many admirable devices for the United States
>government, although these were done in secret and were quite unknown.
TOM: The pill that turns water into gasoline, the cure for cancer, and
the orbital mind control lasers.
>Even at this time Clay was perfecting a new high-power explosive which
>could be manufactured at a surprisingly low cost and from common
>materials we have at hand.
MIKE: Oh, Clay wrote the Anarchist's Cookbook?
TOM: Hello there, Mr. FBI Person! Enjoying your job?
>The formulae for this invention of which he apprised the government are
>missing from his private effects. But I found them, hidden away under
>the carpet in your room, Dombrosky.
TOM: And he knew those formulae were missing ... how?
CROW: And he searched Johnson's room ... when?
MIKE: And you two are talking like this ... why?
>"You felt a bit too secure, because nothing seemed to implicate you,
MIKE: At least nothing the author cared to share with us, anyway.
>and because young Clay was suspected. Harrison Clay's new explosive
>would have been a big boom
TOM: Did Florence just make a pun there?
MIKE: Do you call *that* a pun?
TOM: [pause] No. Carry on.
>to the dastardly archfiends you serve.
>"B-but," interposed one of the men from headquarters, "I see *why* Clay
>was killed, but I can't for the life of me understand *how.*"
TOM: It's perfectly obvious and logical. Death rays.
CROW: A really small neutron bomb.
MIKE: He's not dead. He just turned invisible and killed a clone of
himself.
>Gresham answered, "One of this man's recently patented inventions on
>file in Washington
CROW: I call no way! Why is an evil commie scientist spy filing his
patents in Washington?
>is a pistol for shooting liquid gas
MIKE: Wesley Dodds, call your lawyer.
>-- lethal gas. I have no doubt but that this weapon for shooting fatal
>gas was held against the screen in the open window and a charge of the
>death-dealing fumes shot into the room -- killing Harrison Clay almost
>instantly.
TOM: B-but the coroner said no poison ...
MIKE: No poison in the entrails. Apparently he was so eager to get back
to his beachcombing he didn't bother to check the lungs.
CROW: Geez, that's more improbable than anything we suggested.
MIKE: That's why she's the writer.
>I was immediately struck by the appearance of the dead man. His eyes
>seemed strained from their sockets as they would when the lungs had
>suddenly been filled with suffocating and deadly gas."
CROW [bitterly]: Wow, a clue that Florence actually bothered to mention
beforehand!
TOM: So Clay just SAT THERE with his eyes bugging out out while he choked
to death?
>The erstwhile Johnson started to answer.
MIKE [Johnson]: If that isn't the biggest bunch of hooey --
>"Don't deny it," interrupted Gresham, pulling something from his pocket.
>"For sewn inside the feathers of one of your pillows I found irrefutable
>proof of your guilt."
>*In his hand, Digby Gresham held forth a rubber gas-mask. *
TOM [Dragnet announcer voice]: Tony Johnson’s case was thrown out of
court so fast it would make your head swim. The judge suffered a hiatus
hernia laughing at what Digby Gresham considered “irrefutable evidence.”
Johnson proceeded to sue Gresham for everything he had, and Gresham is
currently living under a railroad bridge.
CROW [Dragnet theme music]: Dum dum dum dum ...
MIKE: Dumb is right. Let’s get out of here, guys.
[Exeunt omnes.]
[6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 .. 1]
[SOL Bridge]
[There’s a strange figure prowling around the bridge as MIKE and THE BOTS
enter. He looks exactly like you’d expect someone named Digby Gresham to
look. Our heroes stop in surprise.]
MIKE: Uh, hello?
[GRESHAM whirls around and points a finger at TOM.]
GRESHAM: Aha! I’ve caught up with you at last, Tommaso Servicelli! The
game’s over! You thought you could escape, but murder will out!
[TOM tries to hide behind MIKE.]
MIKE: Who are you?
GRESHAM: I’m Digby Gresham. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?
CROW [grimly]: You could say that.
MIKE: What do you want with Tom?
GRESHAM [chuckling]: Tom indeed! What stories have you been telling these
people, Servicelli? Well, you can tell them to a judge now. Come along.
MIKE: Wait -- wait just a moment here. You want to tell us what’s going
on here?
GRESHAM: I’m aiding a prominent man I’m not at liberty to name. He was
framed for murder and asked me to help him find the real killers, because
it was much more urgent for him to improve his golf game.
MIKE: Uh ... huh. But why do you think Tom’s your murderer?
GRESHAM: It’s obvious ... to the trained mind, at least. [speaking
double-time] The murders were committed with a knife, which is the
favored weapon of underworld assassin Tommaso Servicelli. And my client
blew the point spread in a football game on November 18, 1973, which my
contacts tell me cost Servicelli $125. Now, the authorities told me that
Servicelli died of emphysema in 1982, but clearly that was a ruse to
throw me off the trail. I assumed that Servicelli, clever criminal that
he was, would try to get as far as possible from the scene of the murder
-- so I began my search in low Earth orbit. And here you are, Servicelli,
just as I predicted!
MIKE: But ... Tom didn’t exist in 1973.
CROW: And he’s not an underworld assassin.
TOM: And my arms don’t work, so how could I hold a knife?
GRESHAM [scowling]: Uh ...
[A cell phone rings in GRESHAM’s pocket. He takes it out.]
GRESHAM [crisp]: Hello? [pause] Don’t worry, Judge Starr -- I’m on the
case! I just have to stop in Boulder to fill the Ramseys in on the
results of my investigation, and then I’ll be in Washington to brief you.
[pause] No, I’m absolutely certain this time. Right. Goodbye. [hangs up]
[GRESHAM puts the phone away.]
GRESHAM: You may have outwitted me this time, Servicelli, but watch
yourself. No one eludes Digby Gresham twice!
[GRESHAM strides offstage.]
CROW: Well, that was surreal.
TOM: I don’t know. I was getting into being a murderer there. It was
kinda glamorous, like being a guest star on Columbo.
MIKE: Then get out of it. [hits Deep 13 button] Hi, Dr. F. I’m sure
you’re glad to know we’ve survived.
CROW: Just like Gloria Gaynor!
[DEEP 13]
DR. F: Laugh it up, lab rats! That was just ONE Digby Gresham story!
Florence Pettee wrote an entire series of them! And I’m not even
mentioning her Beau Quicksilver stories, either! And when I run out of
those, I'll be tracking down stories by Robert Leslie Bellem, Anthony M.
Rud, Sydney Horler, Michael Avallone ... the pain is just beginning! [Mad
scientist laughter]
[Knock at door.]
DR. F [breaking off in mid-laugh]: Just a moment.
[DR. F crosses to door and opens it to reveal -- DIGBY GRESHAM.]
GRESHAM: At last I’ve tracked you to your lair, Nicolai Dombrosky! You
thought you could escape by changing your name, but I recognized your
handwriting on the patent application for the Flowbee! You won’t escape
so easily this time!
DR. F: I see. Why don’t you come in and we’ll discuss it?
[As DR. F moves back from the door, he reaches behind it and comes out
with a baseball bat in his hand. Gresham steps into Deep 13 obliviously.
The screen goes black a second before we hear an almighty BANG.]
[Roll credits.]
-------
Well, this is my first MSTing. Hope it satisfies. MST3K and all
associated characters are (c) Best Brains, Inc. Digby Gresham and “Death
Laughs at Walls” used to be (c) Florence M. Pettee, but are now public
domain, in case anyone wants ‘em. Gun in Cheek and Son of Gun in Cheek
are (c) Bill Pronzini, and I've plugged 'em enough, I think. Anything
left, what little there is of it, is mine. Comments to cs...@access1.net,
sil vous plait.
Stinger:
>Much difficulty had been experienced in locating the coroner. Hence
>Digby Gresham congratulated himself in his rare good fortune in arriving
>in the death-chamber before the body had been disturbed -- the body or
>its surroundings.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
bookw...@my-deja.com
cs...@access1.net wrote:
[The Big Snip]
*rofl* Very good MiSTing, especially for a first time! I hope you do
more of those stories--I wouldn't even deign to call that tripe a
mystery! They *need* MiSTing. (-:
--
Sarah "Bookworm" Heiner
bookw...@my-dejanews.com
MSTie #53681