A Likely Murder Story | The Tapping On The Window - The Haunting Hour

[00:00:00] No. No, stay where you are. inspector there hasn't been a murder here in three months and say that I miss it Gordon I've had my share who is a criminal reporter without any spain chilling crimes to report I can safely remark that the situation is not to my liking how about rehashing an old killing for the Sunday supplement inspectors well I don't know oh come on tell me a murder story and spread it

[00:01:41] over nine columns please hey come to think of course I was born just to go to party. That's a plausible explanation my dear

[00:04:03] What a night. A perfect night for lovers. Quiet, Lloyd. Do you want Carl to hear you?

[00:04:06] You know how suspicious he is.

[00:04:08] Well, he couldn't possibly hear me.

[00:04:10] I haven't told you, but I saw him on the patio a minute ago.

[00:04:13] Following us?

[00:04:14] Oh, not exactly. Carl will be taking Canoea himself.

[00:04:17] Oh, Betty's nearby.

[00:04:19] Ellen, I have a wonderful idea.

[00:04:21] What?

[00:04:22] Let's pretend I'm making love to you.

[00:04:23] Oh, no. Wait, no.

[00:04:25] No, just let's pretend.

[00:04:26] Whether how Carl would handle such a situation. I've neglected you. Forgive me, dear. Have you had a good time? Quite good, Ellen. Quite good. And Bert, with my debt paid, I bid you farewell. Good night. Good night, Ellen. Good night. And now it's my turn, my friend. Oh, Lloyd. Must you leave so early? Yes. Watch your hurry. I'm rewriting my new book, Carl, and I promised my publisher I'd work on it tomorrow. Very well, Lloyd. But remember, you're coming for dinner tomorrow.

[00:05:42] Ellen, dear, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Let me drive you home, Lloyd.

[00:05:46] Oh, that's nice of you, Carl. No. Like. I don't want to take off around

[00:07:01] the curve. Oh, there you are, darling. I was becoming worried. Did Lloyd get home all right? Well, of course, Ellen. Why shouldn't he? Well, I thought you two might have an argument. Why? Oh, come now, Carl. Lloyd must have told you. Told me what? Come to the point, Ellen. Why about the little game we were playing with you and Evelyn? Game? Of course.

[00:08:20] Evelyn took a traveling goth that when Lloyd and I saw her run into the house,

[00:08:24] we decided to teach both of you a lesson.

[00:08:27] Then it was it you lost? Nothing important. Go to sleep. I can't. It's been such a wonderful evening. I never knew you had a flair for acting, Ellen. You shouldn't have kept it so well hidden. Carla, you're still angry about Lloyd and me. Oh, let's forget it. Good night.

[00:09:40] Well, something's the matter. I can sense it.

[00:09:43] Don't be dramatic, Ellen. Just go to sleep.

[00:09:45] You did quarrel with Lloyd, didn't you? told you that exciting news I've just been at his home his housekeeper told me hasn't been home since he left to come over here to your place last night oh that's strange Carl drove him home right after the party well not exactly I left him off about a half mile from his house run out of gas old man no I'd said it was such a lovely night he wanted to walk home the rest of the way

[00:11:01] I wonder where he is we've got to call the police. What do you think you're doing.

[00:13:25] positive personal identification such as you've given. Well how did it happen? The driver of the truck has been completely absolved. It's been determined that

[00:13:28] Stanton walked directly into the car. Then the case is closed. Yes Mr. Gregory

[00:13:33] and thanks for coming down here. You've been a big help. Well it's quite all right.

[00:13:37] Goodbye sir. Oh Mr. Gregory. Three publishers have turned it down already. What makes you think it'll be accepted now? Well, Alec, it's got to be. I need the money. Don't you have other manuscripts I could take with me? No, you've seen everything else. Oh, come now, Carl.

[00:15:00] There must be something lying around at the bottom of your desk which you've never shown The. Hello. All of you been to the public. It accepted the book you get the jackpot on. A book will be

[00:16:21] a best seller inside one week of its publication it's getting the biggest promotion

[00:16:26] campaign in the firm's history which one I like which one time I remember a time just before he was killed in that accident. I'd gone to his house to invite him to a dinner I was having with some friends. He practically refused to see me. Why? He claimed he was writing a very important book and just couldn't be disturbed. What was the book? Old some nonsense about his childhood.

[00:17:42] He hid the book from me as if I were a thief.

[00:17:45] Then you didn't see it. Allec. The following month proved Allec's prophecy to be quite accurate. Things went well. The two books were me right after we left the theater. I was quite in love with life just then. And now? I'm tired, Emma.

[00:20:20] Quite tired.

[00:20:25] Well, here's your mansion.

[00:20:27] Oh, can't you papers, who was he?

[00:21:40] A man who dropped me when I wandered into the city

[00:21:42] after you hit me that night on the road.

[00:21:44] Why have you been hiding away all these months?

[00:21:46] Oh, I haven't name was Lloyd Stanton. You... you didn't need the book anymore. You had taken for a... Where, Ellen? I want to see her. She's dead. You killed her, didn't you, Carl? Yes. I killed her. Just as I've got to kill you, Lloyd.

[00:23:04] We thought you were dead, but you're still acting, aren't you are. Do not break the stillness of this moment, for this is a time of mystery, ago back in New York that I heard the tapping, that it came to me out of the night to shatter my reason and almost to scare me. Oh, well, I remember. Tim, do you want to wake up?

[00:25:41] Uh-huh, huh? What?

[00:25:43] Tim, please. Tim, on the light.

[00:25:47] What's the matter, Laura? I tried to go to sleep, but it was no use. The tapping was real. I'd heard it there on my window, and all the memories came back. They pounded perfectly against my will to shut them out.

[00:27:00] And finally, when I couldn't fight them any people just as a matter of course. I see. I feel it is getting late. I must go in. You're not angry then? Of course not. Good night. Good night Miss Harding. I hope we'll meet again. Several days past and I've always forgotten that chance meeting when...

[00:28:26] What's that? That was how our strange love affair began. At first, I was aware only of Courtney's charm and his talent as a painter. He was handsome, self-assured, and successful. I couldn't help feeling flattered by his tensions. One morning evening, as we sat together in the garden,

[00:29:41] I had my first glimpse of the Courtney

[00:29:43] I was to learn to fear the real Courtney.

[00:30:44] of doubts and fears that can be turned into sources of power, provided he isn't afraid of them.

[00:30:47] Courtney, I've never heard you talk like this before.

[00:30:50] You're psychic.

[00:30:51] You can understand this sort of thing.

[00:30:54] I'm psychic?

[00:30:55] Oh, Courtney, really?

[00:30:56] But you are.

[00:30:58] I sensed it the first time we met.

[00:31:00] You're super sensitive to things, to people, thoughts.

[00:31:05] You've got that kind Yes? What? You were thinking of me, right? Oh, yes, but that has an obvious guess on your part. No, there's more to it. You were thinking of the way I tap upon your window when I come to call for you. Why couldn't? That's exactly right. How did you know? Well, it's particularly easy for me to hear any sound in a thought. You heard the sound in my thought? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[00:32:20] I'm sorry.

[00:32:21] I'm sorry.

[00:32:22] I'm sorry.

[00:32:23] I'm sorry.

[00:32:24] I'm sorry.

[00:32:25] I'm sorry.

[00:32:26] I'm sorry.

[00:32:27] I'm sorry.

[00:32:28] I'm sorry. I should have left you then, Courtney. I should have run away. I knew that you were strange and even dangerous. But I thought I loved you, and I stayed. And then one day... I want to talk to you seriously about something, Laura. Yes, Courtney, what is it? I'd like to paint your portrait.

[00:33:41] Why, Courtney, I am really terribly fattered.

[00:33:45] In that blue dress you waterflowers with, B.C. It was during those weeks that I posed for the portrait that I began to be convinced that Maris and Courtney was right. That I did have a strange power in my mind to see beyond the perilous edge of reality. I began to read the books I found in Courtney's studio with twisted mystical books.

[00:35:00] Books on spiritualism, telepathy, scopias, books that dealt with pathology and new elegy.

[00:36:03] Wondering I think you know that I've fallen deeply in love with you

[00:36:06] So much so that I'm beginning to be afraid for us

[00:36:08] afraid Of what well all these weeks. I've been tapping out a tattoo upon your window and

[00:36:14] You've come running to me

[00:36:16] Now the portraits finished, and I'm wondering if you'll go on responding whenever I call Oh Courtney of course I will

[00:36:24] When all your message sounds upon my window, and when it was finished, he took me to his studio where some friends were gathered for the unveiling. And when they were gone, Courtney said, Well, darling, now that you've seen it, tell me, how do you like your portrait? Courtney, I'm sure it's a beautiful piece of work, artistically, I mean, but...

[00:37:42] What, what?

[00:37:43] Well, don't be angry with me, but it seems to me that there's something Zola, remember you gave your promise to come when I tapped upon the window for you? Zola! Zola, where are you? She's gone. But she'll come back. She'll come back.

[00:40:22] I ran away to New York and tried to forget Courtney. He died last night. What, what along, what's the matter? Courtney's dead. That's what the tapping meant. I knew. Let me see the paper, Kim. Yeah. Oh, darling, I'm sorry. I didn't know... Courtney Lang, well-known artist, died in an automobile accident near his Los Angeles home last night at 11 o'clock. Kim met with 2 o'clock near Old Town.

[00:40:24] That's right.

[00:40:25] It was Courtney then. He kept for me.

[00:40:27] I knew I would have the gallery at two thirty. Yes, at two thirty. I'll be there. The gallery was a haunted place. And Courtney looked down upon me from every frame upon the wall.

[00:41:42] I could feel his presence all around me.

[00:41:44] His spirit reaching out for mine.

[00:42:43] Oh, this portrait is by far the best thing courtney ever did, Laura.

[00:42:45] Yes, I remember every line of it, every shadow.

[00:42:50] The eyes, the eyes, oh, strange, but somehow,

[00:42:55] rather beautiful.

[00:42:56] They're horrible and ugly, but they're real.

[00:43:00] They're my eyes, Florence.

[00:43:02] Look at me.

[00:43:04] Those eyes in the portrait are just like mine, aren't they?

[00:43:06] Well, I don't know.

[00:43:07] Yes, thank you. I'm all right. Well, goodbye then. I'll call you in the morning. Yes.

[00:44:22] Goodbye.

[00:44:29] The door closed. Help me! No, it kept down. No, no, he's out there. Courtney, he, he kept for me. Yeah, you heard it, Tim. You heard it. The tapping is Courtney's. Oh, Tim, let me go. You can't hold me any longer. Courtney, come for me. I've got to go to him. Courtney, I want to come to you with Tim, or I'll get you. Laura, Laura, listen to me. I'm going to open the window now and we'll look out together. Open the window. There. Do you see Courtney? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

[00:45:40] I'm not sure.

[00:45:41] I'm not sure.

[00:45:42] I'm not sure.

[00:45:43] I'm not sure.

[00:45:44] I'm not sure.

[00:45:45] I'm not sure.

[00:45:46] I'm not sure.

[00:45:47] I'm not sure.

[00:45:48] I'm not sure. The next morning Jim and I were on a plane bound from Mexico City. I don't know how Jim managed it, but he did. During the flight, Jim was very quiet, almost despondent. But now I understand the reason for that. Jim had his own fears. This morning at breakfast he asked me... Laura, you're feeling much better since we arrived here, aren't you?

[00:47:03] Yes, Jim. Much, much better.

[00:47:06] Then you're going to be a little bit more confident.