The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) s01e09 Episode Script

1
Good evening ladies and gentlemen
I'm pleased you can spend this hour with me.
Quite please if you don't mind.
I have some very interesting pets on sale here
For yacht owners I would suggest an
albatross.
they are intensely loyal and
will follow you anywhere
circling for
hours over the spot where your ship sinks.
For those of you with swimming
pools
if your friends and neighbors are
taking advantage of your generosity,
may I suggest one of two pets?
The ever popular hammerhead shark
or the Siamese crocodile.
Both are quiet but efficient,
They can clear a pool as fast as a TV
commercial can empty a room.
Which brings us to this next item
at pet TV.
Here he comes.
This is Ennsville, man. He knows you.
He ain't gonna see me.
Don't miss, huh?
You have the time, mister?
Yes, no problem.
Let's go.
Put him over there.
Take it easy, Mac.
What happened?
A couple of Bolvanchiks mugged him.
He's gonna get you something.
He must live around here.
I've seen him in here a
couple of times before.
Sorry.
You've got quite a while up.
What happened?
I got out.
I was paying you my fare.
I felt dizzy.
How's that again?
I told you I was feeling kind of funny.
You trying to say that you was in my cab?
What do you mean?
Oh, look, Mac, if you're trying to cook up
some kind of an insurance deal,
forget it.
You weren't in my passenger.
I had a bundle.
A package with my army uniform inside.
Two punks slogged you out there.
You saw it through the window.
You were taking me to City Hall.
I was going to meet my girl.
We're gonna be married.
At one o'clock in the morning?
You're not the same driver.
You could make book on that.
He must have had some bachelor party.
I better call a doctor.
No, no, I'm all right.
I think we ought to call the police.
No, no, no.
They couldn't have
gotten away with anything.
I'll report it in the morning.
That's your skull.
I keep telling everybody,
this is no neighborhood
for walking at night.
I gotta get to my girl's place.
She'll be worried.
What's your name? Phil Townsend.
Where does your girl live? Riverdale.
It's quite away from here.
Will you take me there?
Look, Mac, that's what I get paid for.
You said your name was Phil Townsend?
Yes.
I was just discharged from
the service this morning.
I went to buy some clothes.
Can we go, please?
Remember, I picked them up right here.
That's funny.
I thought there was a
vacant lot over there.
Thanks a lot.
Forget it.
I'm sorry about what
happened, but I thought
you were some kind
of a nut or something.
I don't blame you for that.
Good night.
Bye.
Virginia?
Virginia, it's me, Phil.
What's going on out there?
Virginia?
Virginia!
What do you want?
Tell your friend to be quiet, Mr. Green.
We've got other tenants.
I don't even know the guy.
Mrs. Fisher!
Who is it?
Who do you want?
It's me, Mr.Townsend.
Who?
Virginia's fiance.
There is no Virginia here.
Virginia Morrison.
She introduced us last weekend.
We were supposed to be married today.
You are drunk. Go away.
No, no, I'm not Hey, take
off before I call the cops.
What kind of a place is this?
I've got to get up at 6 o'clock.
He ain't drunk.
He's got a clap on his head.
He's looking for his girl.
Virginia Morrison.
I guess I must have forgotten.
Morrison?
She's not here anymore.
Look, I know she must be mad at me,
but if you could just
tell me where she went.
Can't you help the guy out?
I'll look if she left an address.
She must think I stood her up.
She probably got into
some friends or something.
Sure.
What was he? In a fight?
Nah, he was mugged.
Ain't you afraid of
getting cold or something?
I never catch nothing.
Other guys that get pneumonia.
This is the address she left.
It ain't far.
Come on.
All right, Frank, I'm coming.
How do you
Get out, Phil.
Get out of here.
Virginia, something happened to me.
I don't care.
Just get out of here.
What are you doing here?
Whose place is this?
What do you want from me now?
What do you mean?
Now?
That's my baby.
It's time for her feeding.
My husband may be
coming home any minute now.
You have to leave.
Your husband?
What husband?
We were supposed to be married today.
What are you talking about, Phil?
I haven't even seen you
for three years.
Three years?
I took a taxi to meet
you at City Hall.
That's all I remember.
Phil, you can't stay here.
You don't know what my husband is like.
I'm looking for three years of my life.
Well, you won't find them here.
I must have lost my memory.
Didn't you even try
to find me?
Oh, yes.
I went to the police.
Do you have any idea what that was like?
The whispers to each other?
The funny smiles?
It happens all the time, Miss.
No hospital reports, nothing in the morgue.
Some people just get nervous and
they disappear on their wedding day.
You believe I'd leave you like that?
No.
So I went to a private detective.
I borrowed everything I could to pay him.
My furniture,
my car, my salary.
But who is he?
I've got to see him, talk to him.
No, you can't do that.
Why not?
Because he can't help you.
He never found out anything,
he never found a trace of you.
But what would be the harm?
He's my husband.
I was lonely.
And he was very kind to me.
Until after I married him.
And then it started.
He was just like the police.
That same smile,
the sly little questions about how
things had been between you and me.
After that, it was any
man I ever talked to.
I can't leave this house.
Because he might telephone and
come home and I won't be here.
You've had a life for three years, Bill.
Go back to it.
Go back to where?
Anything come to
you?
Initials again.
D.W.
A key to a place
I don't remember.
$87 and change.
It's a nice watch.
To David with love.
Ruth.
Does it ring a bell?
Well, at least we know
what the D stands for.
I guess you better take
me to the police station.
Maybe Ruth,
whoever she is, is looking for
me a little higher than Virginia did.
Ain't you got any relatives?
No.
You bling's drugs.
That's where I drove you from.
You didn't get these tonight.
Could I live around there?
The drugger said he'd seen you before.
Look, Mack,
maybe I'm sticking my neck out.
You know what I mean?
I don't think the police
is such a good idea.
Well, you know, the money, the
clothes you're wearing,
the watch.
It don't go with that neighborhood.
I don't get you.
Maybe D.W. is in some kind of trouble.
I've never been in trouble in my life.
I'm not talking about you.
I'm talking about him.
Well, I'm hot, Charlie.
Let's get out of here.
Hey.
You left your lights on.
I killed him for you.
Thanks.
The first time was maybe two,
maybe three weeks ago.
How often did I come in?
Not more than half a dozen times, I'd say.
Did I ever get a prescription filled,
anything with a name on it?
All you ever bought was cigarettes.
Always at night he came in?
Midnight till 8 a.m.
That's my shift.
Maybe you could talk to the day man.
And you ought to see a doctor.
Thanks.
If it helps any, it seems to me
you always come from that direction.
What do I do?
Do I knock on doors?
Who am I?
Where do I live?
I'd ask you to spend the
night at my house, but
but my old lady, she's
okay, you understand?
She gets upset easy.
You've done enough.
You want to get in touch with
me, call the company. Ask for Mari.
Mari Epstein.
Let me know how you
make out, huh?
Sure.
Well, what day is it?
It's Friday.
Oh.
It's Saturday already.
September 24th.
Virginia and I would have
been married for three years.
Ah, you never know.
That might have been worse
than the problem you got now.
After a good night's
sleep, you'll be a new man.
Look, there's a hotel over there.
It's cheap, but clean.
Everybody's known as John Smith.
Okay? Okay.
Thanks.
Let's go.
Let's go for a walk.
Let's get it.
All right.
All right, ready,
guys? Here we go.
Okay, ready? Ready, hike it.
One, two, three, four, five.
Hey!
Dave, what are you doing here?
Harlan followed me again.
Now, go back to your room.
Please, don't go.
He's just a few feet behind me, Dave.
Are you Ruth? No, I'm not.
What's wrong with you?
Uh, anything wrong there, miss?
Oh, no, no, nothing.
What?
He's a policeman.
Will you please go?
I've got to talk to you.
I'll come to you tonight.
Now, just go.
You remember the address?
Of course I remember the address.
Then tell me.
I want to be sure.
431
Come, Dave.
Where? Look back.
Harlan, no!
Let me go!
Why don't you get off my back?
I'll get off your back when you
start doing some work around here.
Couldn't even empty the garbage.
I don't eat here.
Where do you eat, I'd like to know.
With what? You don't work.
Horses work.
And mothers with sons like you.
My key seems to stick.
Bernie, come help.
The judge's key gets stuck.
After you?
The keys are kind of tricky sometimes.
Yeah, it's a tricky world.
Leave it open a minute.
I'm cut a tie.
I've got something I want to show you.
Hey.
What did you do that for?
I just wanted to see if it worked.
I found it.
In a parked car.
Here's something else I found.
What do you want?
Nothing.
Unless you want to buy this picture I took.
Careful.
You might ruin it.
And it might be the only one there is.
This guy D.W. for instance.
He never had a picture taken.
According to the newspaper
clipping in the wallet.
If you want to buy this
one you just let me know.
That was the first half of
the Alfred Hitchcock hour.
Now a word from the provinces.
And now ladies and gentlemen.
We are about to begin the second half.
Or flip side of the Alfred Hitchcock hour.
The first number will be
a solo from our sponsor.
Followed by the second half of our story.
What are we hanging around for?
Did you think of something better to do?
You're a regular bundle
of joy aren't you? Sure.
We're all going to be rich.
Look you really think you're going
to get any money out of that guy?
You leave it to me.
Maybe there's a reward we can get.
No cops.
Hey.
Hey now that's nice.
You looking for us baby?
Care to go to a party tonight miss?
We're going to have seven violins and a
dancing band and flowers and everything.
Come on.
Wait a minute.
It's your house.
Yeah.
Who is she?
I'll let you know.
Wait here.
Who is it? Ruth.
Oh honey.
Well.
Excuse me.
I don't know how to begin.
But except for this afternoon.
I don't remember ever
seeing you before in my life.
My name.
My real name.
Is Philip Townsend.
Does that mean anything to you?
I don't know what you're
in with me or why so.
If you want to walk out go ahead.
But whoever you are I need you.
I'm trying to open a door that's
been closed for three years.
And you're the only key I've got.
Help me.
Yes sir.
Detective.
Private detective.
Have you ever seen this man?
It's an old photo.
Recognize him?
No.
You barely looked at it.
That's all I ever do mister.
Even with the regular police.
I have two professions.
Pharmacist and coward.
You don't remember anything at all?
No.
Not even me?
I told you.
I'm sorry.
That's all right.
I guess I always knew this would happen.
We used to talk about it
sometimes when you try to
remember who you were before
you came to work for my uncle.
I was afraid that when you did remember,
you might be in love with someone else.
Are you?
I don't know.
I was.
Married?
No.
Three years were too long for
her to wait to marry somebody else.
How long have I
known you?
Three years.
Well, then I must have gone to work
for your uncle, but that had happened.
How did I get there?
How did I get another name?
Carlin brought you.
He said your name was David Webber.
My fellow shorty thing?
Who is he?
He's a private investigator.
My uncle hires him sometimes
to get evidence in his cases.
Ah, private investigator.
She hired a private
investigator to find me.
Is Carlin married?
His wife had a baby a few months ago.
He found me.
He found me.
Don't you understand?
They didn't tell her.
Dave, please.
Don't call me that.
All right, now calm down.
If you get one of your headaches,
you don't know what you're liable to do.
What do you mean?
What I'm liable to do?
You know how you get.
I don't know anything!
Honey, honey, please.
I'm sorry.
Sit down and have a cigarette.
Here.
I'm all right now.
Go ahead.
Where do you want
me to start?
The murder.
When did it happen?
About a month ago.
The newspaper clipping said that
your uncle's place is in Westchester.
You live there with him?
Yes.
I also said I was a bodyguard.
Why does your uncle need a bodyguard?
He's a criminal lawyer.
He turned down a racketeer
in a tax evasion case.
There were some threats.
Maybe that's how she was killed.
The man was convicted.
He's been in jail for over two years.
No, no, no.
No coffee.
But then your uncle didn't need me anymore.
Why did he keep me on?
Because of me, I guess.
What was I to you?
Was.
Past tense.
I love you.
Not that it matters now.
Sorry?
It's a big house.
You had a separate
apartment over the garage.
That's where her body was found.
How could it happen?
It's like a black curtain.
I lived there.
Somebody died there.
I can't even remember.
The afternoon of the night it happened.
Uncle Bob gave you some errands to do.
He was in the study preparing
a case waiting for Carlin.
I could see that you were
getting one of your migraine
headaches the way that
you'd get before you'd pass out.
I mean, actually pass out?
Not always physically, but mentally.
Often?
Three, four times, I'll told.
Anything else?
You smashed up your room once.
You wouldn't remember the weekend
we went to San Francisco together.
No.
It was just shortly after
Uncle Bob married Janice.
I thought you were getting too friendly
with her and I was jealous and we quarreled.
Did I hurt you?
Tell me.
Yes.
I ran out.
In the morning.
You didn't remember anything about it.
And the night she was killed?
I had some things to do in town.
When I got back it was dark.
Your door was locked.
You didn't answer.
So I went up to the main house.
Uncle Bob and Carlin were in the study.
They hadn't seen you.
So I walked.
I walked all around the
grounds trying to find you.
Gone?
You were down by the fish pond.
Just sitting and staring.
You looked up at me and
you said, God help me.
I just killed her.
Well?
Who is she?
She's nothing.
But he's a gold mine.
Hey.
You guys want to make a buck?
Know him?
Eisenhower.
Is there a price?
20 bucks.
I don't know him.
You know him, Chuck?
I don't know him.
You guys live around here?
No, we're from Palm Beach.
Hey, Bernie, 20 bucks.
Don't blow your nose.
We've got a chicken to pick.
And when the cops stop snooping around,
we're going to pick him clean.
I'll fix you something to eat.
I'm not hungry.
Didn't anybody try to help me?
Don't you remember
I'm sorry.
I begged you to see a
psychiatrist, but you refused.
The doctor asked me to let him know
if you showed any signs of
Of what?
Destructive tendencies,
were the words he used.
Like smashing up the room?
Would you let him know?
No, I
I was afraid of what they might do to you.
Like sending me away some place?
Locking me up?
Some place where I might have been helped.
You didn't want help.
You really believe I killed that woman?
Do you?
You didn't do it intentionally.
But I did do it.
Is that what you mean?
I'd better go.
Where?
Home.
Look, I want help, Ruth.
You offered to give it to me.
Help me to understand why a murdered woman
was found in my
apartment after I passed out.
Explain to me why I ran
when there were three other people
on the estate who might have killed her.
Did you tell me to run, Ruth?
You're dead, didn't you?
I didn't want the police to get you.
Neither did Carlin.
Nobody wants the police to get me.
Could it be that the trial
might bring out something?
I'm getting out of here.
If you can't go out
there, Carlin will kill you.
How do you know he's there?
He knows you live in the
neighborhood from this morning.
Thanks to your expert guidance.
Phil, I'm only trying to help you.
Are you really?
Of course I am.
Well, I can't go out there.
And you bring Carlin here.
What? He's the answer.
He'll be looking for you.
Find him, let him follow you back here.
It shouldn't be too difficult.
You said he's in the neighborhood.
He's got a gun.
What's a gun at this point?
Do I have any choice?
I've got to see him, talk to him,
try to make some sense out of this.
I can't go on hiding from
something I don't even understand.
Please, Phil.
If you want to
help me,
get Carlin.
There she is again.
Hey sweetie baby.
Love has come into my life once more.
I'm in love, I'm in love.
Hey baby, you want to
reconsider that party now?
You know you're breaking my
heart wandering around here.
I wonder where she's headed.
Hi baby, have a little
drink and it'll warm you up.
Come on.
Now listen Townsend.
Oh.
You know my name, don't you?
I knew it for three years.
And I didn't.
Why didn't you tell Virginia?
I fell in love with her.
You had amnesia.
You wouldn't have remembered her
anyhow, don't you understand?
I understand.
I understand I've been
living like a wild animal.
Hunted and shot at.
Who killed Mrs.
Burke? You did.
Why?
Why would I do it?
She was much younger than
Burke she was chasing after.
How do you know that?
Burke had me watching.
Oh, you weren't the only one.
Were you one of the others?
No.
Who killed her,
Colin? I told you.
She was found in your apartment.
Yeah, I know that in my apartment.
The time when I had one of those
headaches you all knew about.
The perfect Patsy, the guy
from nowhere with no memory.
But who killed her?
Look, you did know what you were doing.
Temporary and Saturday, I'll help you.
Will you?
For life in a cage?
Life you've taken from
me twice already?
Dave.
I told you not to call me that.
Oh, no, Colin.
If I lose this life it's going to be
for something I do remember.
For you.
No.
All right, Colin.
Burke killed her.
Not Uncle Bob. He couldn't have.
I can prove it.
I have the clothes he was wearing.
I have blood stains.
Go on.
Burke got the idea to frame
you when you blacked out.
He took a wrench from the garage.
He killed her.
Put her in your room.
When you came to and
ran, he told me about it.
Asked me to help.
You're trying to kill me
to cover up for Burke.
If a man named David Webber
could be found face down in the street,
my wife would never
know that I'd found you.
I wouldn't lose her.
Your wife.
I'd better call the police.
I'll have to go to the
station to make a statement.
You don't have to come back.
Will I see you again?
I'm going into a veterans
hospital for a while.
Find out how things
really are with me.
Some of the things that David
Webber did
must be in me.
I could have killed him.
We've really known each other
less than a day.
I know.
I hope I see you again.
I hope so, too.
I really do.
That is all for tonight.
I'm afraid I must
abandon the pet business.
They're eating me out of house and home.
Listen to the poor dears
and I'm completely out of food.
But soft, I see the
sponsor approaching.