Original subtitles

Good evening.

I hope you'll excuse me for not being ready at showtime, but my watch is slow.

As a matter of fact, it hasn't even gotten here yet.

First, I would like to announce a change in our programme.

Shakespeare's Hamlet will not be presented tonight.

We don't feel it suitable to show in the home.

All those corpses, you know.

Instead, we are offering a story entitled The Hands of Mr.

Ottermole. Most of our stories have taken place in the United States, or one

the other colonies, but tonight we offer a new locale. The hands of Mr.

Ottomol is laid in that far -off land of mystery and enchantment, England.

And now, suppose you continue squinting at this little screen while I slip into

something more uncomfortable.

Perfect.

Well, here I am.

Is that you, Herbert?

Well, now, who'd you think it was, your gentleman friend?

Oh, Herbert.

Chippers.

You know, I've been having a discussion with myself all the way home.

One what she's got for tea, I said.

Attic or airing?

I bet it's attic, but I hope not.

Kippers would be just the thing on a night like this.

Well, all right, then. Your slippers are in the air waiting for you.

That's a blessing.

My feet are killing me.

Arthur, no, there's someone at the door.

Oh, hello.

Won't you come in?

We're just going to sit down for tea.

We're going to have kippers, you know.

Herbert!

Stop it!

I did terrible.

Not a single witness.

Let me see, can't you?

Now then, now then, now then. Keep back, everybody.

Outside the house. Keep the pen.

Keep the pen.

No, you have to keep it for you. Come on. Outside, outside the house. Come on,

get the pen. Get the pen.

Mr.

Wybrow's never even down the way. Oh, all right. Come in, come in. Come on,

on, come on. Go on home, go on home.

Come on.

Well, now.

You say you're his nephew?

Yes, I live down the road a piece.

Who did it?

Well, now, we don't know about that as yet.

I'll finish here, Sarge.

Why, search the back premises.

Nothing there. Not a trace.

All right. See if you can find anyone nearby who saw anything or heard

unusual. Right -o.

Now, come on.

What happened?

They were strangled, we know that much. As to who did it, that's something else

again.

I was passing nearby and I saw the door open, so I looked in and there they

were, just like that, dead.

And not a few minutes before I found them either.

But no sign of who did it and no sign of a struggle or anything like that.

Would your uncle keep any sums of money about the place or anything of value

like it?

Not that I know of.

I'm sure of it.

You didn't have no sums of money to amount to much?

I could swear to that.

Very well.

Would you take a look about the place, see if there is anything missing?

Or anything at all out of the way?

You know, not like it ought to be.

Yes. All right.

Well, you didn't hear anything at all in here.

Didn't hear him come home or go into his house.

Call out to anybody?

No sign of a struggle?

Nothing at all, eh? No, not a thing.

Me and the missus was in the back, you see, having our tea.

Say, what kind of a chap was he?

Do you know him at all, Will?

Lived next door to him for five years now.

Very quiet, dependable sort of fellow. Everybody liked him.

Can't find a thing on the ass that don't look every day and proper not anywhere

at all Well, I didn't think you would There weren't any young fingerprints

there?

No notice same.

Ah, that'll be the ambulance Why would anyone want to kill him? There's just no

reason to it. Oh, there's a reason. All right Must be their data

Pardon? Remember me? I'm from the Guardian. I'd like to know... How did

here so quickly?

I live around here. What I'd like to know is... Sorry, no time for the press.

Just at present, sir. You'll have to wait a bit.

Now,

now. Now, then.

Now, stand back.

I am sorry, gentlemen. That is all the information we have for you. Just at

present. You've read the papers, I suppose.

Yes, I have. It's kicked up an awful stir.

The senseless wantonness of these killings has everybody talking about

I've been told to stick with this story till it's solved. So have I.

So you'd better produce some results, eh, Sergeant?

You've made no progress so far.

What we might know and what we're able to tell you are two different things.

However, you may say that we expect to have something definite... A report at

early date. No, I'm afraid the public won't accept that in this case,

Now, see here, this only happened the night before last. You can't expect us

nab the man instantly when he left. No clues at all.

So you have made no progress, then?

Now, wait a minute. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Talk.

You're twisting my words.

Buy a flower.

Buy a flower for your young lady, sir. I ain't sold none all day.

All right.

Nearly closing time, Ben.

You were a bit late last night. We can't have that, you know. Don't worry,

Sarge. We're writing a doc tonight.

Ask over, Diggs.

Well, you call that fair?

I don't. I don't call it fair.

After all, we've only had four days.

These things can't be done overnight, you know.

That's an editorial, old boy. No good to complain to me about it. I just have to

turn in a story each day. And you must confess, you haven't given me very much

to turn in so far.

You or Scotland Yard? Now, look here. You can't expect us to tell you every

we make, you know.

Then the criminal would know what we're doing, too, wouldn't he?

Oh, come on now, Sergeant. We're talking about progress. And you can't report

anything because you haven't made any.

Have you? Time, gentlemen, please. Break up and pay up. All out. By the way, I

find it remarkable how you gentlemen of the press arrived at the spot so

quickly. Well, I'm a roving reporter now, and that's where I happened to be

roving at the time.

Good night, Sergeant.

Good night.

Thanks, sir. Bye now.

Buy a flower for the young lady, sir?

Good evening, sir.

It's been a long day.

Business ain't been so good.

And I was having a bit of a rest.

Good morning, Sergeant.

Have you seen the Guardian?

No, and I don't want to, thank you very much.

So, you've made no progress with the old flower woman either.

Mr. Summers, how about a cup of tea? Thanks, a little sugar, if you please.

You know, I had a theory about this at the start.

The why -briars, that is.

Since it seemed like there was no reason for killing them at all, I thought

maybe the reason why there seemed to be no reason was because there isn't any

reason.

You see what I mean?

He made a mistake.

Thought he was killing somebody else. Went to the wrong house or something.

I saw it.

Well, of course, it's no good now.

He wouldn't make two mistakes.

And now we've got two sets of killing and no reason at all.

It doesn't seem to make sense somehow.

I wonder what the motive could be.

Maybe there wasn't any.

Oh, there was a motive, all right, you can count on that. There has to be a

motive, you know.

No, no, no.

There have been crimes, murders, without motives before.

Oh, come now, you don't mean no motive at all.

That's right, there have, Neil Cream for one.

And William Palmer for another, eh, Sergeant?

That's right. He was another.

I say, if you're up against a man like that, you're in real trouble, aren't

Never know where he'll strike next or when.

Or what he's like or anything.

Let's visualize a man.

He appears ordinary, but yet he isn't.

Nothing so old -fashioned as a conscience bothers him.

And yet he has three murders to his credit.

And I'm sure he's sitting somewhere now, calmly drinking a cup of tea, just as

we are.

And smiling to himself, because the police are such fools.

He's got something to smile about, and that's a fact.

I bet he isn't an Englishman.

He's a foreigner.

They're all around this district, you know.

Why not an Englishman?

Because we British haven't got the nature for a thing like that. Nor that

either. One of these foreign Johnnies.

They know tricks that we've never even heard of.

And wouldn't practice, if we had.

Well, whoever he is and whatever he's from, he's a man to reckon with.

There's no escaping that.

You can't admire him, certainly, but you have to admit he's clever.

Do you realize what he's done?

Yes. He strangled three helpless, innocent people, that's what.

Much more than that.

Have you been around this district lately?

The people only talk about one subject.

The children aren't allowed to play in the streets.

Women do the shopping before dark, and bolt their windows and doors at night,

and watch anxiously for their husbands' return from work.

Men eye each other, even familiar faces, and think, it might be him.

This one man, with a pair of hands, has terrified this whole community,

and made them realize that the laws are powerful only so long as they're obeyed.

The police are potent, so long as they are feared.

You seem so positive we are dealing with just one man.

Would you say there were two men, Sergeant?

Like that?

Two men in the same place at the same time?

No, I'll own it seems unlikely.

That's right.

This is a singular man.

A man who comes along once in a lifetime, probably.

This one man.

with one pair of hands, has held the entire police force in Scotland Yard

helpless, with nowhere to turn.

Aye, he's done that.

Part of it, at least. But as for having us powerless with nowhere to turn,

that's something else again.

It is?

You have your informers out, I'm sure, in the pubs and the tea rooms.

But aside from that, what have you done? What can you do?

He's made some mistake somewhere, or he'll make one.

You can bank on that, and we'll be watching.

Never fear.

Maybe he won't, though. What then?

He will. They always do.

But they don't. Now, that's the thing.

What about Dr. Crippen?

And George Joseph Smith?

You've heard of them, Sergeant?

I have.

Well, those people killed and were discovered only years afterwards by

or belated confession.

Now, there must be many others who have never been discovered.

Now, you say the murder is always caught because all the ones we know of have

been caught.

But think of the others.

The ones we don't know about yet.

You seem to have made a great study of crime, Mr. Newspaper Man. I have. Tell

me, Sergeant.

In your professional opinion, do you really believe you can catch this man if

doesn't want you to?

Oh, I will catch him.

Because we have to.

We've doubled our force the day after the first murder. And now we have four

where we usually have one.

We're just hoping he will try again.

If he does...

We've got him.

I see.

Of course, he might try someone else the next time.

You can't have quadrupled your force throughout the entire city.

That's true.

But he might just be the type of man who would like to show us he could kill

again beneath our noses and still get away with it.

Bye for now.

Good day.

You like to go across?

Right there. Here we go.

There we are.

Now.

Well?

Not a thing.

Keep a sharp lookout every second.

That's what it takes, you know.

Can't let up because we've had four days with nothing new.

I only spoke to Peterson.

It was 9 .32 by my watch.

And you found him at 9 .35. That's when you blew your whistle.

That's right.

Got one of their own men this time.

It's Peterson. I can't believe it.

Johnson, take over.

Make way.

Make way there.

You heard nothing? You saw no sign of anybody at all?

Nobody. Nobody. Not a blinking soul.

Except Jimmy, the blind bootleg.

And it can't... There wasn't a sound or a movement on this street as I came

along. Nothing. But it must have happened right under your nose, man.

Not seconds after he left him. What's the matter with you? I don't know. I

know. Blimey, Sarge, he must live hereabouts.

That's certain. But where?

Where? Nobody saw. Nobody heard. Nothing.

Right. You and the others spread out. Search all the buildings on both sides

the street.

Question everybody.

Pull him out of bed if need be.

Look in the cupboards and behind curtains.

Don't accept excuses.

Here we are, sir. Thank you, Ben.

Things have come to a pretty pass and now mistake.

When a man or woman walks out of town these days, there's nothing left to take

his life in his hands and et cetera.

They'll catch him soon, any time now.

What makes you so certain?

When a man kills you or me, that's one thing.

But when a copper gets killed, that's another story.

Then all the other coppers realise maybe they're next.

They won't wrestle a murderous court, see?

What'll you have, sir? Same as usual.

Don't even know what this creature is.

Man, beast or devil?

Well, I know I shan't run out of line again.

He's mad.

Unbalanced somehow.

Don't you agree?

Possibly.

Probably.

But there's something else about this.

Something obvious.

Something right in front of us. You see, when there's something right before our

eyes... We don't stop to ask how it got there.

Like the ham in that sandwich.

It's just there.

We don't think of it at all.

Much less stop to say, how did it get there?

How did it get there, by the by?

Well, somebody put it there, I dare say.

Yes.

That's right.

Somebody did.

Sergeant.

Is that you, Sergeant?

Oh, it's you.

Yes.

Well, see anything of the murderer?

No, nor has anybody else.

Doubt if they're their wealth.

Oh, I don't know.

I've been thinking about it. An idea came to me just now.

Oh, really?

Yes, came to me all of a sudden just a little while ago. Made me feel as though

we'd been blind.

It's been staring us in the face.

Oh, has it?

Well, if you're so sure, why not give us the benefit of this idea?

I'm going to.

We were talking in the bar now about things that are staring us in the face.

Things that we don't think about to question.

Like the ham in a sandwich, you know?

We never wonder how it got there, but somebody said, well, if it's there,

somebody must have put it there.

And that was it.

Now, if four people have been murdered, somebody must have been there to murder

them, you see?

Well, of course someone was there.

We all know that.

Question is who?

Yes, the answer seems so simple now.

But there's one thing I don't understand.

One little thing I'd like to clear up.

I mean the motive.

As man to man, tell me, Sergeant Otto Maul, just why did you

kill those inoffensive people?

Well, to tell you the truth, Mr.

Newspaperman, I don't know.

In fact, I've been worried about it myself.

But I've got an idea, just like you.

Everybody knows we can't control the workings of our mind, don't they?

Ideas come without our asking.

But everybody's supposed to be able to control the workings of his body.

Why?

Our legs, our heads aren't completely ours.

We don't make them.

And couldn't ideas come into our limbs just like ideas come into our minds?

Huh?

Couldn't ideas live in nerve and muscle as well as in the brain?

And couldn't it be that parts of our bodies aren't really us and ideas could

come into those parts all of a sudden?

Like ideas coming... My hands!

Are

you

all right?

Are you all right?

I didn't saw anything so quick or anyone so strong.

I thought I was done for for a moment. I know. We were following as close as we

did. It's a good thing we got the constable here in time.

The sergeant. I can't believe it.

His hands were like iron.

Yes, his hands.

Did you hear what he said about his hands?

He said ideas came into his hands.

He must have been insane.

Yes.

I suppose so.

I'll try it myself.

It won't take long.

I'm sure it'll be ready by next week's show.

And you'll be ready too.