The Strange Death of Charles Umberstein

This is the man in black. He had introduced Columbia's program, Suspense. Heading our Hollywood cast tonight is the distinguished American actor, the star of the Broadway suspense drama Angel Street, who has recently returned to this coast to resume his film career, Mr. Vincent Price.

Tonight's suspense play, which presents Mr. Price, and which is produced and directed by William Sperre, relates an episode of recent years in the unfriendly Nazi capital of Berlin, the strange death of Charles Humbenstein by E. Jack Newman is tonight's tale of suspense.

If you have been with us before, you will know that suspense is compounded of mystery and suspicion and dangerous adventure. In this series our tales calculated to intrigue you, to stir your nerves, to offer you a precarious situation, and then withhold the solution until the last possible moment.

And so with the strange death of Charles Umberstein, and with the performance of Instant Price, we again hope to keep you in... a sense. I had been trapped. The thought that someone had discovered my intentions maddened me to the breaking point.

Nothing had slipped. Everything had run smoothly as I had planned. No evidence, not the slightest trace. Nothing. And yet, I was trapped. But why, how? Let me see, papers in my briefcase, trained to get information forwarded safely to my office.

And he knew, how, how, how. But he did know, I stood quiet in my room watching him, watching him, watching me, waiting for me, standing by the lamp post beneath my window, knowing, knowing he attracted me, waiting for me.

I recognized him almost immediately. Captain von Heint. Once before I had seen him briefly in Hermillo's office, I'd been working on some corrections. Hermillo was escorting him through the plant on an inspection tour. They stopped for a moment outside my office.