Cathy and Elliott Lewis - Statement of Fact

Kathy and Elliott Lewis on stage. Kathy Lewis Elliott Lewis, two of the most distinguished names in radio, appearing each week in their own theaters, starring in a repertory of francecribe stories of their own, and you are choosing radio's foremost players and radio's foremost plays. Ladies and gentlemen, Elliott.

Lewis, good evening, May I present my wife Kathy.

Good evening, And before we start tonight, thank you all very very much for the letters and cards and telegrams wishing us well on our wedding anniversary. We do appreciate your thoughtfulness. We're very grateful.

Tonight. We're going to please some of you and make others of you angry because the story we're going to do is written for us by E Jack Newman.

And whenever we've done one of Jack's radio plays, we find that you have a remarkable reaction. You're either completely charmed by the party and Eddie and Casey at the bat, or you take a violent dislike to his plays. Now we hope to get a new reaction as we present E Jack Newman's new radio play Statement of.

Facts, Yeah Evergreen three one two nine one.

Yes, this is the long distance operator, Sir.

Evanston calling my party. We'll speak with anyone who's number.

Who's calling mister John Bradford.

All right, Ray, just a moment please, mister Bradford ready with your call.

Who ever greens for any one two nine to one and Jackson.

Hello, Chris, here's your party, go ahead?

Pee h thank you. Hello Hello, Chris, this is Bradford.

I'm sorry to wake up in the middle of the night.

She say, you're calling from Evanston.

Yeah, that's right, Chris. The sheriff here picked up Ellen Dudley half an hour ago. She was hiding in the restroom in an all night bus station.

Ellen Dudley.

Yeah, a friend of mine with the State Highway Patrol was in on him. Gave me a ring. Just a lucky accident. I found out about it at all. She's being held in communicado. Chris.

You're a friend on the Highway patrol.

Does he have just a patrolman, Chris, that's out.

There's something old John Bradford.

Oh, there's something wrong, Chris.

Yeah.

We have to work fast on this.

I know, I know, dear cat.

Whatever it is waiting until morning doesn't he realize you need your rest.

Let's keep quiet for a minute, will you? Sorry?

Dear?

Has she sent for anyone?

I don't think so, not yet. What do you want to do, Chris?

Wait a minute? What time is it? I can drive there by four fifteen. What's the sheriff's name.

Walter Martin?

You get to him, try, Chris, get to him and tell Sheriff Morrow that the district attorney will hold him personally responsible for the conduct of his office and his offices in this situation. Remind him that the accused is the state's prisoner. Chris, he can hold her for forty eight Let me worry about that part of it. You might certainly understand what I just told you right see a little while.

James, I think it's terrible.

He should call up Ellen, Randell, Dudley, after Evanston. They'll make a spectacle of this thing. Or it can be done right. Where's my blue shirt?

It's in the laundry, Dear, I sent it out this morning. Aren't you going to shave?

What time?

Would you like some car time?

Man?

Christ You can't just rush out of him and stop.

Please. A million things on my mind.

I'm only trying to help you down?

No, you know? Sorry? Here? Thanks?

Why do you always have to handle these things?

Eh?

When something had to be done right? You seem to be the only one they can count on. Maybe it's because you're the only one who get up in the middle of the night.

Flinks cut, flinks there.

When will you be home?

I don't know. I'll get a nap at the club this afternoon. Don't worry.

There was a time when you tell me.

About these I just haven't time now, Dear, where's my built?

Who's Ellen Randall Dudley?

Did you read the papers?

Yeah?

That's her.

She's a very beautiful woman, isn't she?

So they say? Coat?

What's she done?

I thought you read the papers.

I just noticed a picture on the front page.

I didn't write.

I wish I had some idea.

What you read about it? Dear? It's all over the papers, the whole story. All you have to do is read about it. You don't have to ask me.

I'll do that so long, Anne, Chris?

What now?

We aren't very happy these days, are we, Chris?

I don't know what we are? Bye?

Hi?

Why?

Why?

Hey?

Boys? Is Christian? I'd hate to be and missus Dudley's shoes when Christian gets through whatever? Alright, hold him as Christian? How about a statement, mister Christian comment? Is she crazy? It's not for me to say. We've let your opinion. Mister Krae have never met missus Dudley. Pardon me? Were you presenting indicting against him?

No?

Were you finally indicting, mister Christians And the indictment can only be presented and filed by the grand jury. Take your hand off my arm?

Uh?

Does the state have sufficient evidence against Missusdudley.

To get a conviction as a matter for the jury in the superiod courts of the side?

Uh?

How about one more picture, mister Christian?

Oh, John, Oh, hello, Chrag, I dig it in a miss Sheriff Morrow.

I told him you were on the way, and he called the paper blicity.

How I'm afraid so, Chris.

It's the only important arrest he's ever.

Made, and he could queer everything with these kind of shenanigans. How long has he been in office? Oh? Ten years? Where is he in there? Where's missus Dudley?

She's in there with him?

What I told you?

This was something for him?

Here, Missus Morris sent over a tray, the accusing Sheriff Morrow having a snack together.

I'll have you no, come on where she's been these last three days. I don't know if mad Any calls yet. No, I'm sure of that. Somebody's gonna try and get to her.

Just a minute, Sheriff Marrow left orders he's not to be disturbed.

What's your name.

I'm Deputy PJ.

Taylor. Mister Taylor. I want you to go and stand by that door over there. Huh No, one absolutely no one has to come through that darn till I say so. I'd take my order from Sheriff Morrow. Taylor.

Hey, I thought I told you I didn't want anyone around here.

Sheriff Morrow. Yes, who are you Dale Christian?

Oh, mister Bradford here explained you were on the way. We can handle this situation, all right, Miss Christian and.

Missus Dudley in there, he guarded. No need to go there, John, don't take your eyes off y all right, Chris. No, look, no, you're a here, sir, if you're gonna do what I say, just.

A minute there, Bradford, he has no right.

To go in to my own He has every right to go in there, and I'll show you why.

Here.

You see this, it's a warrant issued yesterday afternoon for the arrest of Ellen Randall Dudley. When you see that seal and that's signature, your authority is automatically superseded. No one comes in here and tells me how to run my job. Telling you you're trying to get your name and picture in every newspaper in the country at the expense of this case, you've already jeopardized the state's position. I'll have no more of it. This is no pressman's holiday.

I'll take action against you for this.

Mister Christian, see if you can get Bert Pellerton out of bet Taylor. This man has overstepped his bombs.

Ellen Randal Dudley, Yes, my name is Christian, Missus Dudley, I'm the deputy district attorney. All right, John, what are you going to do? Just take a few notes, Missus Dudley, what kind of news. Well, mister Bradford's also from my office. He's here to take notes on what you say to me, Missus Dudley. Oh, I'm obligated to warn you that whatever you say right now may be used later in the court. You don't have to talk to me unless you want to.

Tired, Yes I am, mister Christian.

Well, this won't take long. I'd just like to have your story in your own words.

Pardon me, yes, I I don't understand you, mister Christian. You just told me that anything I tell you may be used against me in court. Yes, then I really shouldn't tell you anything.

Missus Dudley. Listen to me. Listen carefully. Yesterday afternoon I attended the coroner's inquest held in Jackson. It was an inquest into the death of your husband, Robert Ames Dudley. Yes, a coroner's jury there determined that mister Dudley came to his death as the result of wounds inflicted by you his wife. A hatchet was presented as evidence. Mister Thomas Unger of the Police Crime Laboratory positively identified it as

Yes? I think so.

In a few days, the grand jury will meet and charge you with murdering your husband. There is no doubt that they will make that indictment, Missus Dudley. From there you will be arraigned and later on taken into a court and tried. Do you understand that? Yes? Fine? Now, a frank, honest statement on your part before all these things take place can save a great deal of pain

What do you mean, mister Christian proper plea.

You murdered Roger Ames Dudley on the night of the thirteenth. Now, the sooner you admit that, the better off you'll be. You make a full confession here, mister Bradford will take it down and you'll sign it. You enter a plea of guilty, and I promise you I'll do all I can for you with the court. Is that okay?

Suppose suppose I I don't admit anything, then you can expect no clemency.

That, of course, is entirely up to you, Missus Dudley. But I'm going to tell you that the death house in the State Penitentiary has been filled with people who didn't listen to reason while they still had a chance. This is your chance, Missus Dudley, right here and now.

Well, I I don't know what to do.

I'll just explain what is best for you to do. You're hooked and you're going to have to face up to it one way or the other. If you don't take my advice, they'll hang you. I promise you, Missus Dudley. They'll hang you as certainly as you are sitting in that chair in front of me. But what do you have to say.

Now you are listening to Kathy and Elliott Lewis on stage Tonight's play.

Statement of Fact.

Another radio first for CBS Radio's Wonderful Friday Night music show, There's Music in the Air Tomorrow night, There's Music in the Air for the first time by Dmitri Tiamkin and Ned Washington Academy Award winning songwriters for high Noon, There's Music in the Air will present their song Returned to Paradise from the new Gary Cooper ROBERTA. Haynes movie of the same name that's on most of these same CBS radio stations.

Couldn't find the aspen around here, mister Christian. The drug store is not open yet, but I did find a couple of imperant tables.

I'll be fine, miss Christian. Thank you. Uh. How she feeling. She's alright?

Oh uh, mister Christian, Yes, I thought i'd better tell you. Sheriff Morrow ordered me to call mister Pelanton. Oh huh uh he ordered me to do it.

Uh. Mister Pelton's on his.

Way over here right now.

Thank you for the information. Uh, mister Christian. I worked out of here for Sheriff Morrow ever since. He's been in office. I think I ought to tell you i'd be a little careful about the way you handle it, mister Christian.

Thank you. I can handle Sheriff Morrow.

Oh, I'm sure you can, Miss Christian. Have never doubted that for one second. No, sir, I know you know your job. I know you're trying to get a job done here and you don't wanna know hocus focus about it. I guess I can't blame you one bit. I'd do the same thing if I was in your shoes and wanted the conviction as fast as I could get it. I just want you to know, mister Christian, that I'm on your side. I appreciate that when you're a mad

I'll remember you, mister Taylor. M feeling any better.

I guess so. I'm sorry.

Of course, here these will help.

Oh.

Oh, I hope you've decided to use your head about this, Missus Dudley.

I want to mister christ.

Sure you do. Suppose you start right from the beginning.

Yes, do you have a cigarette oh, sure, here you go. Thank you? You smoke my brand?

Really?

Thank you?

Sure? Okay? Now, yes, you were married to him eight years, is that right?

Yes?

I understand you met in Europe.

Yes, in London during the war. I've read about you in the papers, mister Christian. They say you're going to be the new district attorney. You don't look much older than Roger.

He was thirty six, I'm thirty four. You and mister Dudley had been having trouble for some time.

Oh, yes, for years. I imagine you've had some experiences being the position you are. Do you talk to many people in a situation like mine.

Quite a few, Missus Dudley. Last July you had mister Dudley arrested when he came home drunk and threatened you.

Yes, but he got out of that very easily. They didn't do a thing to him. Roger was awfully good at talking himself out of things.

You didn't prefer charges against.

It, No, it wouldn't have done any good. We would have gotten out of it anyway.

He had a law.

Degree too, you know, so I understand Roger never went into practice. He didn't have to. He didn't have to do anything. That was his trouble. His father left him quite a bit of money, and he simply didn't have to do anything at all.

Shall we get on with this, Missus Dudley. It's past five now.

Why wh I've been up all night long? This makes four nights in a row I've gone without.

So soon as we finish here, you can get some sleep.

I don't feel one bit sleepy. When I first came here, I was dreadfully tired. I thought I could sleep for a week. Now I'm not the least bit tired or sleepy. That's funny.

I if you'll just start with the events that night. What is today Friday? I'd be playing bridge this afternoon. There's a dog show tomorrow evening I wanted to go to, but I won't be able to go anywhere.

Now do you feel sorry for me? Mister Christian, I beg your pardon? Do you feel sorry for me?

It makes no difference how I feel, Missus Dudley, you're an accused prisoner. My job is to get a statement of fact from you. That's why I'm here. Oh, I've explained this once. I'm your friend. Here in a courtroom, I'll represent the prosecution and I'll do everything I can to see to it that you hang unless you make a complete confession. Now. Is that perfectly clear to you, Missus Dudley.

Yes, And if you have a record of always getting a conviction, that'll help when you run for office Walters.

Missus Dudley, my professional career has nothing to do with us. If I weren't here talking to you, someone else from my office would be here. It's a job that has to be done. I happen to be the one who is doing it.

But wouldn't it be better for you if you had more of an audience than mister Bradford over there wouldn't be much better if you had me in a courtroom with reporters and.

Dudley, do you want to talk to me now? Oh?

I don't mean to make you angry, mister Christian before you've told me is true about what happened at the Coroner's in question? What will happen when the grand jury meets? You can hang me right.

Now, I certainly can.

Yet you're here to get my story. You must be uncertain about something I told you.

I'm trying to help you, Missus Dudley, but I warn you I am not uncertain about anything where you are concerned. Make no mistake about that. I have a duty to the people of this state. That is to learn the facts of this case and present them before the court. I intend to do that with or without your cooperation.

Well, may I talk to you alone?

You understand why mister Bradford is here.

Yes, but I'd like to tell it to you alone. It can't possibly hurt anything to talk to you first, can it?

All? Right?

John? Wait outside, I'll cent Foy when.

They made you right, Chris, thank you? Alright, Missus Dudley.

I killed Roger.

Tell me how it happened.

I was having some people over for dinner that night. I was busy in the kitchen with the maid fixing the dinner. When Roger came downstairs. I asked him to do a simple thing, just a little thing. I asked him to start a fire in the fireplace. It was pretty chilly out, and the fire always made that room look so warm and nice. Have you seen my house?

Yes, Missus Dudley, go on, please.

I heard him down in the basement getting things ready for the fire. When I looked at the clock, it was past seven. The fire hadn't even been started in the fireplace. Our guests were arriving at seven thirty. I asked Roger to come up and make some martinis and let the fire go for a moment. He called me a name. Why I never knew why he did things like that. I went dow downstairs to ask him why he was so angry he called me another name. Wasn't

Then what did you do?

I ran upstairs and put on my coat and left the house.

Or have you been these last three days?

Right here in Evanston? I had a room at the Evanston Hotel until last night, and I thought I'd try to get away, go to another city, Chicago or New York. Found out who I was at the bus station.

Did you ever think about killing your husband before this?

Oh? Yes?

Did you know you were going to kill him when you went down to the basement.

Yes?

Did he go out with other women not?

Did I know of?

Did he ever beat you? Oh? No? It gave you a nice home or you needed.

But he took my life away from me, mister Christian? What he took my life away from me? He stole my life.

I don't understand that, missus Dudley.

When I was going down the stairs that night, and so I'm standing there, I suddenly realized, Oh, he had taken from me everything that was young and fresh and wanting, and I despised him for it. So I killed him.

But but why did you have to kill him? You could've divorced him, left him.

Don't you see what he had taken from me, mister Christian? There was nothing left for him to steal from me, or nothing left for me to give another man. Are you married?

Yes?

Then you know what a man can take from a woman. Mister Christian, nam I somewhat you'd want to be married too, if this terrible thing hadn't happened. Am I someone you'd be proud to have for a wife?

You might be?

That's all a woman needs is to be wanted? Am I old and ugly and unattractive? My shallow of flighty? Look at me, mister Christian, I am no stand up? Please look at me close?

Yeah?

Would you want to be loved by me.

You're very lovely, miss Dunny, would you, yes?

Well, I was nothing to Roger Dudley, nothing, and my love was nothing to him. I was a fixture, a decoration, an animal, and he took all of it, my love and my life. And then he stood at the bottom of the stairway and called me a name.

Was it Udily, Missus Dudley. Listen to me. Listen to me. No one saw this happen. The maid was upstairs in the kitchen. Missus Thompson only heard it from next door. Listen to me. You can claim that you did it in self defense. He came at you when you picked up the hatchet and you hit him with it to protect yourself. You tell it that way. When mister Bradford comes back in here. There are a dozen good men in this state would be glad to represent you in

Yes, yes, mister Christcha.

All right, let's have mister Bradford in here now, please.

Right, wait a minute, hold him. I can never be free.

You know what you're saying.

You have and understood anything I've said. He took my life away from me a long time ago, can't you see, mister Christian, I don't have any life to live now.

Missus Dudley, you have everything to live for. Look, you're young and beautiful, and you want to need all of the things that I that life can give you.

Too late, mister Christian, you'll get at.

Least a life sentence. Listen. Listen.

A few minutes ago, you were telling me about your duty to the people of this state. Mister Christian, tell me about it now.

Yeah, alright.

I wanted to talk to you alone like this to make sure I was right. You're no better than he was. Mister Christian. You'd take a woman and do the same thing to her that he did to me. Until you kissed me just then. I wasn't a person to you. I was an animal, a trapped animal, and if I'd let you help me escape from this trap, I'd just be escaping into a smaller one, a worse one. With you, you're another Roger Dudley.

Okay, Chris, Chris, Are you ready to make your stake in the fact, Missus Dudley, Yes, alright, yeah, I'll take it down from the beginning, Missus Studley, just as you told it to me.

Statement of Fact, starring Kathy and Elliott Lewis on stage. In a moment, mister and Missus Lewis will tell you about next week's play. This Saturday morning, it's the most unusual challenge for Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. The famous adventurer of Darkest Africa meets a juvenile delinquent and encounters problems of a very different sort in Tarzan and the

And that was another of v Jack Newman's searching studies of ourselves, this time set melodramatically.

He's an excellent writer.

Some friends new to on stage joined us tonight, Joan Danton who was the telephone operator, Jack Krushian, who was special Deputy Sailor, and Tyler McVeigh publicity happy Sheriff Marral, while Joseph Kerns played my assistant.

John Bradford, true.

To Marson rejoined us to play your wife, and Byron Kine was the reporter. We thank them all.

Since this is spring and through the window we can see the sun and the green grass and the new flowers and the days that have gone by, we thought it a good time to present a story that suits the season, and.

So next week we're going to do a dramatization of a warm and charming book almost forgotten now that perfectly states the season for us. It was written by the late Leonard Merrick, and it's called Conrad in Quest of his Youth.

You'll like it until next week. Thank you for listening. Good Night, Good Night Music.

Fortnight's story was composed and conducted by Fred Steiner.

The Kafi and Alliott theme is by.

Ray Noble, and the program is transcribed and directed by mister Lewis George Walsh, speaking America's forty five million radio families listen most to the CBS Radio network