Edward Arnold portrays the role of a timid, frail little bookkeeper whose tyrannical and nasty upper crust snob of a boss for 22 years is aghast at the idea that his son would want to “marry down” and take the bookkeeper’s daughter as his wife. The bookkeeper uncovers financial malfeasance by the sickly owner. He decides to to get even for his underpaid and unappreciated years of loyal service by taking some of the owner’s ill-gotten gains and to get revenge for the insults to his daughter. It’s a very good story with a surprising Whistler-like ending. Joe Kearns gives a superb (and marvelously despicable) performance as the horrible boss.
The script author is Robert Platt, who also wrote the episode The Story of Markham’s Death. This is the second of his three Suspense scripts.
Edward Arnold was not the original choice for the lead. Actor Frank Morgan was signed for the role, but he died in his sleep in mid-September 1949 at age 59. He had just finished filming his sixty-eighth motion picture, according to the newspaper coverage.
Arnold was an interesting choice because he was a physically large man playing a small, slim one. CBS publicity included a comment about that: “That's what I like about radio. Can you imagine me trying a thing like this in pictures?”
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
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https://archive.org/details/TSP491013
THE CAST
EDWARD ARNOLD (Timothy Baker), Joe Kearns (John Waterbury), Sammie Hill (Jessie), Ann Morrison (Miss Jones), John Dehner (Peter Galloway), Bill Tracy (Bill Waterbury), Paul Frees (Signature Voice)
COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Parley Baer (Hap), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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