"Good evening." "How did you find me?" "I specifically asked for an unlisted channel." "I'm taking the week off." "I wanted a rest from television." "If you're one of those critics who thinks that television is frightful... all I can say is you should see it from this side." "I've been reading the want ads." "A man has a right to look around for a better job." ""Wanted: host for television program."" "Sounds like a job for me." ""Must be witty, charming, handsome."" "Why, this is perfect." ""Gracious." "And must be willing to work every week." ""Apply:" "Alfred Hitchcock Presents. "" "I think I better scamper back to the old job." "I don't want to miss the show." "And don't you miss it, either." "There, I guess that covers everything." "I've used a slightly different approach on this one." "Read it to me." "All right, dear." ""April 9." ""Box 111." ""Post Office Annex, City." "Dear sir..." ""Regarding your advertisement in the help wanted section of the news..." ""of this date." ""If the position has not been filled..." ""I should like to present my qualifications for your consideration." ""My age is 52 as of last October." ""I have been married for 27 years, have no family, my health is excellent."" "That's a blessing." "Now, Laura." "We're going to have you up and around in no time." "Just as soon..." "To go on." ""For 31 years, I was employed by the firm of Stowe and Baker..." ""the accounting and audit company, in the capacity of clerk." ""I believe my record for attendance and punctuality stands alone." ""The termination of my services was due entirely to my age..." ""a short-sighted policy..." ""which I feel certain already has been regretted by the individuals at fault."" "Now, dear." "You mustn't excite yourself." "That's all over and done with now." "It doesn't do any good to brood over it." "I know, Laura." "But every time I think of it... that personnel manager telling me I was too old." "Too old?" "I can still do that job better than anybody they can get... at the salary they were paying me." "It just makes me see red all over again." "We're not going to think about that." "You're right, Laura." "I just... get all excited and I just burn with shame." "In 52 years, Laura... it was the only time I really lost my head." "Makes you wonder sometimes how far you might let yourself go." "Hello." "Yes, this is Mr. Crabtree." "Yes, I answered the advertisement." "I have been considering your letter of application, Mr. Crabtree." "I must say I found it to be an excellent one." "Thank you, sir." "Thank you very much." "You gave as a reference the firm of Stowe and Baker." "I took the liberty of telephoning them." "Of course." "The personnel manager, while reluctant to discuss the matter... did inform me that when told you were being retired... you attempted to attack him physically." "Is this true, Mr. Crabtree?" "Yes, I'm afraid it is." "I don't know what came over me." "The terrible injustice of it, I guess." "You see, I desperately needed that job." "My wife, she's been ill." "It could never happen again, I assure you." "Very well." "My secretary will call on you within an hour." "Good day, Mr. Crabtree." "I wonder what could be delaying her?" "He said she'd be here in an hour." "It's longer than that now." "But isn't it rather strange that someone should come here to interview you?" "Yeah, if she does come." "Won't you come in, please?" "Mr. Crabtree?" "Yes." "I believe you were expecting me." "Yes, I was." "This is Mrs. Crabtree, my wife." "Miss?" "Brown." "How do you do?" "I'm happy to know you, Miss Brown." "Won't you sit down?" "Thank you." "Your job, Mr. Crabtree, will consist of preparing confidential reports... which must be mailed to your employer." "Mailed?" "But why?" "Because you will be working alone in your own office... with no direct supervision and no assistants." "You mean I'm going to be in charge?" "Miss Brown, I hope I didn't misrepresent my previous experience." "I've always held a job as an employee." "That has been understood." "Now, your office will receive subscriptions... to a number of financial journals." "You will be supplied with a list of important corporations." "Whenever one of these corporations is referred to in the journals... you will make a note of it, and consolidate these into a report... which must be mailed at the end of every day." "I quite understand, Miss Brown." "But to whom do I mail these reports?" "To the box number you already have, of course." "Oh." "The office is completely prepared for you." "And here are your keys." "Thank you." "Your hours will be 9:00 to 5:00, and half day on Saturday." "Can you start in the morning?" "Yes, I think so." "Yes, of course." "Now as to your salary." "You will be paid $100 a week." "Is that satisfactory?" "One hundred?" "Well, yes." "That's very generous, indeed." "You will receive your salary every Saturday in cash, by mail." "And here is the address of your office." "Are there any further questions?" "No." "Well, yes." "I'm afraid I don't quite understand the reason for all" "You are not expected to, Mr. Crabtree." "Your work is important and highly confidential." "The less you know of it... the less temptation there will be to discuss it with anyone." "I wouldn't do that." "You can absolutely depend on my discretion." "Very well." "Good luck." "Goodbye, Mrs. Crabtree." "Goodbye, Miss Brown." "Goodbye and thank you very much." "$100 a week!" "It's wonderful but..." "Now you can have your treatments, Laura." "And after we've saved a little, the operation." "It seems too good to be true." ""Crabtree Affiliated Reports."" "I can't explain it exactly." "It's like working in a vacuum." "All these weeks and I really don't know what I'm doing." "I'm sure there's a good reason for it, dear." "Take those reports." "Amalgamated, steady as a rock." "Efficiency Instruments, exploring new techniques." "Universal, this or that." "I can't make head or tail out of it." "Your work must be satisfactory or you would have heard from him." "Sometimes I wonder if he even remembers I'm there." "I have a feeling that I'm just a name on a payroll... and, someday, someone is gonna ask... who is this man, Crabtree?" "Why are we paying him $100 a week?" "And nobody will know the answer." "But you are being paid and that's a blessing." "Yes." "And the treatments are doing you a world of good." "A few more months and we'll have saved enough for the hospital." "If the job lasts." "We won't think about that." "No, of course not." "Now, don't overdo it." "Goodbye, dear." "Goodbye." "Come in, Mr. Crabtree." "And shut the door, please." "Yes, of course." "I seem to have startled you." "Yes, I..." "What are you doing here?" "Who are you?" "I think that should be quite obvious." "I'm your employer." "You seem surprised, Mr. Crabtree." "Why, yes." "I was beginning to wonder." "Of course, it's a very pleasant surprise." "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Mr..." "Have you any complaints about your job?" "No, it's been thoroughly enjoyable." "My reports have been satisfactory, I hope." "Very likely." "I haven't read them." "I understand... you'd hardly have time to give them your personal attention." "You're quite wrong there, Mr. Crabtree." "I personally burn them." "You burn them?" "On arrival." "But I don't understand." "You must be joking." "If you knew me a little better, Mr. Crabtree... you'd realize that I'm almost totally devoid of a sense of humor." "That's one of the penalties of devoting one's entire energies... to accumulating a vast fortune." "But why?" "Why pay me to prepare reports if you're gonna burn them?" "It had its purpose, I assure you." "Incredible as it may sound, Mr. Crabtree, I need you." "That is, I need a loyal, conscientious employee... to handle an important assignment." "Then you're not going to terminate my services?" "That depends entirely on you." "If this assignment is completed successfully... you will receive one year's salary in advance... and no more reports to mail." "One year's salary?" "Why, that's more than $5,000." "And $5,000 would mean a great deal to you... and your wife." "It certainly would." "It would mean that she could have her operation." "I hope you will consider me for this assignment, sir." "Excellent." "I rather thought you would, Mr. Crabtree." "I want you to kill a man for me." "I?" "You don't mean..." "This must be a joke." "Isn't it?" "You will recall, I think, that I have already told you I never learnt to make jokes." "And certainly not pointless ones." "No, Mr. Crabtree, I mean exactly what I said." "You are to kill a man for me." "But that's murder." "I couldn't." "I am absolutely incapable of such an act." "Are you, really?" "I was led to believe that had you not been restrained... you would have murdered the personnel manager for Stowe and Baker." "But that was different." "I lost control of myself for the moment." "I envy you, Mr. Crabtree." "I deeply envy you." "You have emotions." "I am entirely devoid of feeling." "Then why don't you kill this man yourself?" "That's a reasonable question and it deserves an answer." "Let me explain." "Some years ago, I married a woman... whose first husband we both believed to be dead." "Unfortunately, we were wrong." "For the past five years, I have bought his silence for a monthly sum... that would stagger your imagination." "He's blackmailing you?" "You could report this to the police." "That would only result in having... my wife revealed as a bigamist and destroy the lives of our children." "The scandal would ruin us." "No, Mr. Crabtree, this man must be eliminated by someone... not even remotely connected to him." "Obviously, that cannot be me." "But there must be people you can hire, gangsters or someone like that?" "And exchange one blackmailer for another?" "That's hardly a solution." "But you have no guarantee that I won't blackmail you... or, better than that, go to the police." "Right now, I mean." "If I told them the proposition you gave me" "My dear Mr. Crabtree, what could you possibly tell them?" "You don't know who I am or where I come from." "As far as you're concerned, I don't even exist." "But the advertisement you put in the paper." "Anonymously." "It's true that Box 111 could be traced to me, but I fail to see any connection." "Any connection?" "You hired me." "I wrote a letter of application." "Did you, Mr. Crabtree?" "Yes." "Then you were informed by letter that the position had already been filled." "A copy of my reply is in my files, in case the matter should come up." "But this office, the furnishings, the magazine subscriptions... you paid for them." "By mail." "In your name." "In cash." "And if you're thinking of Miss Brown as a witness, she was never my secretary." "Like myself, she never really existed." "But the reports..." "I have one here that's almost finished." "There it is." "To be sure, the reports." "A completely useless jumble of words which for some unknown reason... you persisted in sending to me despite my letter that I had no use for this service." "Visualize the scene if you will, Mr. Crabtree." "You go to the authorities." "You tell them your incredible story." "As proof, you have your pathetic little reports and nothing else." "Why, you'd be fortunate not to be committed... to an institution for the mentally deranged." "That would be preferable to being hanged for murder." "Come now, Mr. Crabtree." "You should realize by now that I wouldn't be that inept." "I have made such careful preparations that... there isn't the slightest possibility of your arrest." "Let me explain." "I don't want to hear it." "You will notice that this office, chosen after much searching... is so small, so narrow that anyone not sitting behind the desk... must necessarily stand where I am now." "Directly behind me is the window overlooking the street... 20 stories below." "One hard shove and it will be over." "You make it sound so easy." "I assure you it will be." "The gentleman in question will be in the office first thing tomorrow morning." "He will request a contribution to a good cause." "You will take this envelope from the drawer and hand it to him." "He's a methodical man." "Not once in the past 18 months... has he bothered to open the envelope on receiving it." "He will put it in his inside coat pocket." "At that precise moment, Mr. Crabtree, you will shove him out." "Then you close the window and go back to your reports." "But the police are certain to come here." "Of course." "And they will draw the only possible conclusion:" "the unfortunate man leaped from the roof above you." "They will know it's suicide because that envelope you hand him... will contain not money, Mr. Crabtree... but a typed note explaining why he took his own life." "You have until tomorrow morning to decide." "If you carry out this assignment, I shall mail the money to your home." "If you do not... you will never see or hear of me again." "Of course, your salary will automatically cease." "For your wife's sake, Mr. Crabtree, I think you'll have to do it." "Come to bed, dear." "It's nearly 3:00." "Huh?" "Yes, dear, in a moment." "You need your rest." "You won't be any good at the office tomorrow." "Laura, how did you feel today?" "I'm feeling a little better every day." "Dr. Foley is coming tomorrow." "Do you think I should ask him when I ought to go to the hospital?" "Dear?" "Yes, Laura?" "What do you think?" "I think you might ask him." "Come in." "Come in." "Mr. Crabtree?" "Yes." "I was hoping you'd like to make a contribution." "Yes, I have it ready for you." "That's mighty good of you, Mr. Crabtree." "I'd like to tell you..." "Don't tell me anything!" "Just get out of here, quickly, before I..." "It's parasites like you who should be exterminated." "Now, look here." "Do you have any idea of what you've done?" "You've taken away my job." "I was out of work for a year, one whole year... through no fault of my own because of a stupid little man who..." "Now you're ruining me and my wife." "She'll be an invalid as long as she lives." "Somebody ought to have the nerve to..." "I wish I could, I'd kill you." "Hello." "But I didn't." "It was a..." "You don't understand." "I'm not concerned with your rationalizations, Mr. Crabtree." "You've completed the assignment." "That's all that interests me." "Your year's salary is in the mail." "You'll never hear from me again." "Congratulations and goodbye." "Detective Grant." "I'd like to talk to you for a minute, if we can." "Yes." "There's been an accident." "A man fell from this building and was killed." "Have you been in all morning?" "I always get here at 9:00." "I haven't left this office." "The door was closed, I suppose." "Yes, I never leave it open." "And you didn't see anybody go up the stairs across the hall?" "No." "Must have fallen right past this window." "You didn't see it?" "I was working." "I'm closing out the office." "I very seldom look at the window, anyway." "It's closed, you probably wouldn't hear anything." "Well, I guess that's all." "Was it suicide?" "All the way." "He had a suicide note in his pocket." "Sorry we bothered you." "That's quite all right." "Mr. Crabtree?" "Are you a reporter?" "Uh-uh." "I came to pick up a contribution from a mutual friend." "I don't think I have to mention any names." "Well, what about it?" "Where's the money I was to pick up?" "The wrong man got it." "You came too late." "Only it wasn't money." "It was your suicide note." "Suicide?" "Look here, I'd like to know what's going on." "That's something you'll have to take up with the man you're blackmailing." "And if he asks for me, tell him I no longer work here." "As far as he is concerned, I never existed." "A brilliant play." "Sneaky, but brilliant." "And now, please keep your eyes on this space." "For I shall return here next week... to bring you another story." "Good night."