Alfred Hitchcock Presents s02e18 Episode Script

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and television fans all over the living room floor.
Tonight's drama is called "The Manacled," and features a pair of these attractive and useful charm bracelets.
These, of course, are stage handcuffs especially made so that one can easily get out.
Of course, as you may know, these little trinkets are not only used to cuff hands, they work very well on legs.
Regardez.
While I'm getting out of this, perhaps we better begin our play.
Ladies and gentlemen, "The Manacled.
" Announcing the departure of northbound train 146 for Bakersfield, Tulare, Fresno, Merced, Martinez, Richmond, Berkeley and Oakland.
Now boarding on track number three.
Coffee now? No rush, my dear.
No rush at all.
Take your time.
Now, miss.
And black.
And there, my friend, you will put your finger on the core of the world's trouble today.
No time for cream in one's coffee.
What a pity it's dark out, huh? I've never been through the San Joaquin valley before.
I'd enjoy the sights.
Oh.
I'll get it.
How many? Two, please.
Check.
Be a sport, Sarge, and make it a big tip.
What did I do? Isn't that what you'd like to ask? And did I really do it? You'd be disappointed.
I merely stole from the rich to help the poor.
The authorities did have one irrefutable argument.
The only poor man I was helping, they insisted, was myself.
Okay, Fontaine.
Time to see the sights.
Okay, Fontaine.
Back in harness.
Why, Sergeant, I'm beginning to think you don't trust me.
My coat, if you please, Sergeant.
Thank you.
Oh, young man, I wonder if you'd help me with my bag.
Delighted, mother.
May I trouble you for the key, Sergeant? Oh, thank you very much.
Was very nice of you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Pow, pow, pow! Billy, stop that.
Young man, you've made a dreadful mistake.
You just shot a most faithful servant of the law and allowed a desperate criminal to escape.
Tell him, Sergeant.
Skip it, Fontaine.
Oh, no, he should know.
Billy, look out.
Okay, buster, that did it.
Let's go.
This is it, Fontaine.
Sergeant, if you need anything, just ring for the porter.
We'll be okay.
Maybe, I'd better show you where the button is.
It's here.
If there's anything I can do, just let me know.
I mean, if you need some help with your prisoner Why don't you deputize him, Sergeant? Everything's under control.
Well, then, I guess you won't need me.
At least, for the time being.
No, much obliged.
A good citizen, our friend, the conductor.
Something left over from the old West, I'd say.
Something from a lynch mob that never went home.
Yeah? Oh, I forgot to show you how the door lock works.
You see, you can lock it from inside, and then, say, for instance, you had to leave your prisoner alone for a while, you can also lock it from outside.
This window's sealed and the glass is shatter proof.
Anyway, we hit 80 between stations.
Like if he was to break through that window, they'd be picking up pieces of him along the right-of-way for five miles.
I've been running characters north for a long time.
I never let them out of my sight.
Not till the warden signs them in.
Anyway, this one's smart.
He knows he's going nowhere but San Quentin.
He for the gas chamber? Can't you tell? Okay, Fontaine.
I run amuck every six hours.
There's this insatiable craving for human blood.
Knock it off.
Did you bring the serum, Sergeant? The shots have been a godsend.
I go almost 24 hours between victims now.
All right.
Close the door and keep it closed.
Look, Fontaine.
I told you this afternoon when I took delivery on you.
You act hard with me and I'll give you a trip you won't soon forget.
Checking it again, huh? Incidentally, Sergeant, what do you call this thing? Oregon boot.
There are only three in L.
A.
And you have one of them.
Are they always so heavy? Forty pounds.
That's the standard weight.
Snap your leg if you move fast.
See, the bolts are on the inside.
This key is the only thing that'll reach in and turn them.
It's got special threading on the ends.
Matches the threads of the bolts.
You interest me, Sergeant.
Your efficiency, your dedication, your single-mindedness.
You must have loving cups at home.
Or plaques, possibly.
Do you have plaques, Sergeant? You know, for faithful, unswerving loyalty above and beyond the call? You go in for sports cars? Read about them.
That's all.
Just read about them.
Ever drive one? Yeah.
Yeah, a friend of mine.
Somewhere, this guy.
Loaded.
Got himself a racing car.
Let me drive it once.
They're sweet, aren't they? Yeah.
I once owned a sports car.
Sure.
Like that 100,000 bucks you're supposed to have salted away.
Oh, I was trying for my second $100,000.
Had a brilliant idea going.
Doesn't pay to be greedy, does it? Ask the prison psychologist, Fontaine.
He's got the answers for guys like you.
Ten years you got coming, I figure you and he'll be seeing a lot of each other.
You know what he'd say? He'd have to agree that we all have larceny in our blood.
But most people are afraid of being caught.
These are the plodders.
The hard workers, the marks, the squares.
Then there are the trotters.
A handful who have the vision to cash in on the larceny that beats through all our veins.
Save it, Fontaine.
Now and then, a plodder gets smart.
He crosses over, joins the trotters.
And if he does it so nobody knows, if he can't possibly be caught, then he's got it made.
You, Sergeant, you can be such a man.
Look into your coat pocket.
The inside pocket.
Don't try anything with me, Fontaine.
I'd just as soon deliver you feet first.
I merely suggested you look into your pocket.
You'll find an envelope there.
Open it.
Can't figure it, can you? How'd that get inside your jacket? Wasn't there in the dining room.
It had to be when we got on the train.
It had to be The old lady, huh? The one with the suitcase.
Ah, you see.
Already you're beginning to think like a trotter.
Look, Fontaine, I've killed three men since I've been in the sheriff's office.
I didn't sleep for a week after each one and then I never forgot how they looked when I shot them.
But it was in line of duty and they'll stay buried for a long time.
Well, don't worry, the little old lady isn't going to break in here.
She's completely harmless.
Perhaps the best pickpocket in Los Angeles, but otherwise quite harmless.
When you lifted the bag for her, she planted the envelope.
That's right.
A key.
The key to the bag you lifted for her.
Inside the bag, there's $50,000.
It's yours.
Yes, Sergeant, I really do have $100,000.
I'm splitting it down the middle with you.
Of course, one good turn of a key deserves another.
Like the key you have in your pocket.
The key that unlocks this boot.
It's not easy, I know.
Take your time with it.
You have all night.
You had it figured, huh? Well, not exactly.
I didn't know who the lucky man would be.
I thought whoever it was would be wearing a ready-made suit off of a basement rack, his heels would be run down.
Be the kind of man who was living on the installment plan.
Doesn't really own anything, just pieces of things.
A piece of a cheap car, a piece of an ice box, a piece of a bedroom set.
And all the stuff he has pieces of is already falling to pieces.
But he'll keep paying on it and paying on it, month after month because that's the kind of man he is.
Just a piece of a man.
But you, Sergeant, you're not the man I just described.
Anyone can see you have imagination, ideas.
And so have you, Fontaine.
But you don't get to me.
You think this is the first time bums like you have tried to buy me? Your point of view is distorted.
I'm not trying to buy you.
I'm offering you the kind of life you could never make on your own.
I'm taking you out of slavery, like Abraham Lincoln.
You know what Lincoln said? Yeah.
"Fourscore and seven years " "And now they have him, as it were," Lincoln said, "bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, "which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key.
" Lincoln was speaking of the slaves, you see, but in a way, I feel, he was speaking to me and to you, Sergeant, and that we should listen and take advantage.
Like I say, take your time with it.
Bakersfield.
Aren't you at all curious? It kills cats.
You know this way when they discover you in the car and me escaped, there's no possible reason for suspecting you.
The key, for instance.
You simply attach it to your key ring.
Nobody will check.
Everyone carries a pocketful of keys.
Your pickpocket friend, the old woman.
Leaving, I believe.
Yeah.
Without the bag, is that not correct? You're wondering about the bag she left behind and the $50,000.
Your $50,000, Sergeant.
But, just so you begin to see the picture, it stays right where she left it.
When the cleaners come through the car at the station yard, they will find it.
It doesn't look like much and it's locked.
They'll turn it in to Lost and Found.
Either pick it up in a few days or if you're jumpy, pick it up when you're ready.
You expect me to believe she walked off and left 50,000 bucks sitting on the shelf? Notice, you are now thinking positively.
You did not say, "Oh, Fontaine, I know there's no $50,000 back there in a suitcase.
" No, you said, "How can she walk off and leave it?" Don't tell me what I'm thinking.
I know there's no money back there.
Anyway, if there was, my only interest would be to turn it in to my office.
Oh, you do that, Sergeant.
You go right ahead and do that.
Now, you're wondering how can you trust me of all people? A con man.
A swindler.
Where's the gimmick? Oh, Sergeant, your mind is traveling faster than those sports cars you dream about.
All right, I'm up to here with you now.
Shut up.
Board! Why don't you go and look? Remember what the conductor said? Eighty miles an hour between stations.
With Stephen Fontaine spread all over the landscape if he tries a swan dive through this window.
And the door, don't forget about that.
All aboard! It locks from the outside.
And my What did you call it? Oregon boot? All right, Fontaine, I'm going to call your bluff.
You and your 50,000 bucks.
Not mine, Sergeant.
Yours.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang! Billy, stop that.
You've got to be quiet now.
Well, I'll get a reward when I turn it in.
Sure you will.
Maybe a big 500 bucks.
Let's see now.
Two, maybe three children.
Am I right? Four.
Four? That 500 bucks will go a long way, won't it? What'll you do with it? A big weekend with the wife and kids in the family car? Or just pay up some bills? I don't discuss my family with strangers.
Then don't.
Just sit back and listen.
Because your life is spread all over your face like a billboard.
You've never been east of the Rockies, I'll bet, or south of the border.
You've never caught a Broadway show.
Never had breakfast in bed in a hotel suite.
Never seen a bullfight in Spain.
Look, Fontaine.
Maybe I haven't been around.
But I've got something you'll never have.
And you don't even understand what.
Oh, yes, I do, Sergeant.
I do understand.
You've got self-respect, haven't you? And a wife who knows the very sound of your footsteps.
And four kids who probably scream with joy every time the old man pulls up in the family jalopy.
I see the whole picture.
Yeah, you see it sure.
But you don't see it the way it really is.
You see it out of the corner of your mouth.
To you, it's a big yack.
Maybe I want it, too.
Just what you've got.
Maybe all I want is another chance to go out and get just what you're talking about.
It'll still be around in another 10 years.
Sergeant, I can't go to prison! Look, Fontaine, inside another hour we stop at Richmond.
We take a taxi there, courtesy of the sheriff's office.
Then we take a ferry across to Quentin.
We land at the end of a jetty, Fontaine.
It's a short jetty, they tell me.
It doesn't seem short to me.
It seems like a long walk.
But the guys I've walked down that jetty and into the prison gates tell me it's a short jetty.
Maybe you won't think so.
But we'll see.
Sounds like the jetty I know on the island of Majorca.
You know about Majorca, Sergeant? There's no prettier or healthier place in the world for you and your wife to take a vacation.
Rockwell, listen to me, I can get it for you.
I can make it come true.
Every insult, every slap in the face, every cheap compromise, I can make it up for you.
All it takes from you is a little courage.
Courage? All right.
What if I can guarantee that nobody will ever suspect you let me escape? What if I fix it so that there can be no possible suspicion? Your name is clear, your job is clear, you're $50,000 ahead.
Because I can.
How? I propose to shoot you with your own gun.
When we pull in at the station, as the train whistles, I'll fire.
Sound of the whistle will cover the shot.
Just how do you intend getting my gun? Oh, come, come, Sergeant.
You're about to handcuff me, suddenly I grab for the gun.
And then, what? Look, Sergeant, I have great respect for you.
I trust you.
I think you're learning to trust me.
When I have your gun, I shoot you.
As I said, just a flesh wound.
Your arm may be a little stiff for a while but with $50,000 you can exercise the stiffness out in no time.
I leave you on the floor here.
Nobody will ever believe you were in on a plan to get yourself shot.
Ordinary people don't think that way.
Okay, suppose you've got the gun.
What if you decide to keep all the money? You mean, suppose I No, Sergeant.
I'm a con man, not a killer.
Ten years is one thing, the gas chamber is another.
Look, you'll get a lot of sympathy, they'll slap a bandage on you.
Then you go pick up the bag at Lost and Found.
You ever tried to pick up anything at Lost and Found? You'll be identifying a specific bag.
One which you can describe, for which you alone have the key.
Believe me, Rockwell, nothing can happen to you.
Richmond! Richmond! Sergeant, we're coming in.
It's all right, Sergeant.
It won't hurt.
This won't hurt either.
Rockwell, there's no trick to what I told you.
The money's yours.
Rockwell, I'll give you everything.
I'll give you all the money.
The bullet.
At least, I can get home now.
I hope to have my hand free next time you see me.
If I do, we should be able to present another story.
Why not tune in and see? Good night.