Original subtitles

SERLING: Tonight's stars:

Harry Guardino,

Richard Kiley,

Julie Adams,

Ray Danton,

and Jill Ireland.

Good evening.

In another world inhabited by ghouls, goblins, gremlins

and the generally grotesque,

it's occasionally possible to put this sundry and myriad crew on canvas.

And this we do in this arcade of the outrageous.

Painting number one.

A small item of hope and faith and despair.

An excursion into the eerie,

in which we touch base with that fraternity of the dispossessed

who seek out something miraculous in the way of cures

and in the way of hope.

Our painting is called The Miracle At Camafeo.

And it's offering number one in this, the Night Gallery.

Who are they?

The lame, the sick, the blind, and the doomed.

Where do they all come from?

From everywhere.

They come by airplane, by car, by crutch.

And they all have two things in common.

Yeah. Suffering would be one.

Mmm-hmm. Faith would be the other.

They go to the shrine, and they pray for a miracle.

But you, Mr. Rogan,

you have youth and health.

And this is not Acapulco. What brings you to Camafeo?

Maybe I'm looking for a miracle.

Hi.

You mind if I join you?

Have I a choice?

Well, you can scream,

tell me that you don't want to be bothered,

that you're not that kind of a girl or...

Or what? Give me the bottom line.

Well, the bottom line is that you ask me to join you

and let me buy you a drink.

My name is Rogan.

My name is Melcor. Mrs. Melcor.

And I'll try a margarita.

Good.

Amigo, margarita for the lady.

It's haunting, isn't it?

Very.

Candlelight procession.

It's kind of a story book, don't you think?

I'm not much of a reader.

No?

Well, I kind of fancied myself a writer.

I make up stories.

Would you like to hear one?

Do I have choices on that one, too?

No. As a matter of fact you don't.

This story begins in Chicago.

Yeah.

A guy about 30, 35 years old.

Well, we'll call him Melcor.

Joe Melcor.

Why don't you drink your drink, Mrs. Melcor?

Now, about this hypothetical character that we'll call Joe Melcor.

About a year ago on a rainy day in Chicago

he enters an intersection

and a bus skids and sideswipes him, so he says.

And he's immediately rushed to the hospital.

X-rayed from his arches to his eyebrows,

and they can't find anything wrong with him, everything is in place.

Outside, of a few bruises,

he's okay.

But

now this Joe Melcor,

he's a thinker.

Yeah, he's a schemer, a conniver.

I don't have to listen to this.

Well, now you don't have to listen to it, Mrs. Melcor,

but it would be courteous if you did.

I'm almost at the end.

Mr. Melcor

decides while he's lying in his hospital bed,

or maybe even 24 hours before he had the accident,

that there are all sorts of ways to make a buck,

and only one good way to make 500,000 of them.

So he tells his doctor

and the nurses and the press that he can't move.

He's paralyzed.

So he sues the transit company.

They fight him on it, it goes to court.

Now here's the heart-rending part of the story, Mrs. Melcor.

Every morning he's carried into court on a stretcher

flat on his back, crippled for life.

Poor Joe Melcor.

So there's no contest.

Joe Melcor, lying flat on his back

versus that big, heartless corporation

and its insurance company.

Poor Joe Melcor.

That crippled, beautiful David

against two big, ugly Goliaths.

He deserved the half million.

No, he deserves an Academy Award,

that's what he deserves.

For best performance given by

a perfectly healthy con man in a three-day trial.

Either that or a swift kick in the keester

to get him back up on his two perfectly good feet,

and a few laps around a prison yard to keep him healthy

while he's serving time for fraud.

You got no right to talk about Joe that way.

Lady, I have $500,000 worth of right.

You see, I'm an investigator.

I work for one of those Goliaths.

I investigate claims for them.

So that's why you followed us down here.

That's why you've been hounding us.

Oh, I don't figure that I'm hounding your husband, Mrs. Melcor.

Let's just say that I'm a guy working out of an insurance office,

coming down to Mexico to do a job.

Peeking in on one Joe Melcor

to see if he's still horizontal

and to keep him honest.

There were doctors who said that he wasn't lying.

They said that under oath.

No, ma'am. They didn't say that he wasn't lying.

They testified that they couldn't be sure he wasn't lying.

Oh, wait a minute, Mrs. Melcor.

I'm almost finished now.

It's the last chapter.

Joe Melcor's halfway home now. Yeah.

He's got a half million dollars voted to him by 12 compassionate dupes.

But how does he spend the money flat on his back, hmm?

Drugs, medicine, surgery?

Some dramatic breakthrough at somebody's clinic

where good old Joe Melcor can get up and walk right out the door?

Negative.

Because there was nothing wrong

with Joe Melcor from the beginning.

So we strike out medicine.

And now, Mrs. Melcor,

comes the finale.

Yeah.

There's a small Mexican village called Camafeo.

There's a shrine there where people come from all over

to pray for miracles.

And this is where Joe Melcor gets his walking papers.

That's right.

They carry him up on his stretcher to the shrine

and he comes running down.

Now who do we call as a witness to this miracle?

God?

I don't care for the story, Mr. Rogan.

I suggest you stick to insurance.

Mrs. Melcor.

Could you deliver a message to your husband for me?

Tell him there's a man named Rogan down here,

who has a nose for fraud.

It's an instinct, a sixth sense.

You tell him that I can smell out a bunco quicker

than a beagle can smell out a bird.

You tell him that for me, huh?

I'll deliver the message, Mr. Rogan.

Mr. Rogan.

I know it's none of my business

but you derive pleasure treating a woman like that?

No, amigo.

No pleasure.

You want to know why I was tough on her?

Look at those people out there.

They limp, they stumble, they grope,

trying for a miracle.

And that husband of hers

is going to get carried up there first class.

He's going to go through the motions of moving his lips in prayer

and then walk down

with no regrets, no conscience.

Well, when he robs me, that's fraud.

But when he robs the kingdom of heaven, that's sacrilege.

I'm desperate.

And I want him caught before he dirties up your shrine.

Close the door.

Keep it dark.

Where have you been?

Out for a walk.

And then I stopped at the bar for a drink.

Well, I envy you on both counts.

But that doesn't look too good, does it?

I mean, you down there drinking,

while your poor, paralyzed husband lies up here all alone.

Joe?

You know that man, the one who keeps popping up?

His name is Rogan.

He's from the insurance company.

Yeah, well, that figures.

He has that look.

That tough, bulldog, flatfoot look.

He'll probably come nosing around here.

And if he does,

he'll find poor old Joe

just like the bus company left him.

Joe.

Oh, I don't know. I don't know.

You don't know what?

Well, I don't know if what we're doing

is right.

You don't, huh?

When I was outside, I was watching those people,

the ones on their way to the shrine.

They go up there to pray.

We go up there to cheat.

We go up there so that people like Rogan

won't be waiting for us every place we check in.

I don't want my life bugged.

So, tomorrow,

after I say my prayers and I get up and I walk down that hill,

I want you smiling, because that's part of the deal.

And if you blow it, honey,

if you start acting like the fallen woman on her way to a confession,

then my first act as a whole man

will be to play handball with you against the wall.

And you'll be up at that shrine asking to have the blue marks removed.

Do you dig?

Yeah, Joe.

I dig.

Here, let me help you.

Would you like me to carry him up the hill for you?

That a boy.

Here we go, son.

I pray the child will see again.

I pray for a miracle.

The fruits of prayer. No longer needed.

Left here as a token of the cure.

God, of course, does make promises

to those who come here and pray.

It is all left up to Him.

But there are miracles.

Frequently.

Camafeo is a shrine city, my son.

The Virgin appeared here many years ago,

so we know that God has blessed this place.

It is a holy spot.

Tell me something, Father.

The ones that don't get cured, what do you say to them?

I'm not sure I understand.

Well, what happens to their faith

when they come here with crutches and they leave with them the same way?

They continue to pray

and they continue to look for a miracle.

Their faith stays with them.

It is all that keeps them alive.

I carried a four-year-old boy up here.

He was blind.

What about him, Father?

Who is to tell?

Perhaps God will not see it fit to cure his blindness.

But what God will cure is all sickness of the soul.

That every person here can count on.

Except one.

I'm sorry, my son, I did not hear you.

Oh, nothing, Father. I was just talking to myself.

Thank you.

Well, Mr. Rogan.

I didn't know you were a religious man.

I'm a deeply religious man, Mr. Melcor.

What about you?

Well, what does it look like?

I'm on my way to pick up a little miracle.

If you stick around, I'll see you on the way down.

Just look for a guy wearing a gray suit and looking properly grateful.

I'll tell you what I'll be looking for, Joe.

I'll be looking for a two-bit bum,

and he'll be the smallest thing in the parade.

Anything else, Mr. Rogan?

Yeah. Tell me something.

Don't you feel a little ashamed?

Let's move it.

Good morning, my son.

May I help you pray?

Don't trouble yourself, Father.

I can handle this myself.

May God hear your prayers, my son.

You can count on that, Father.

I want to add something, Mr. Rogan.

Add something to what?

To the story you were telling me last night.

You don't have to. I already know the ending.

That conniving night crawler you're married to,

in a few minutes, he's going to walk past here

and there isn't a bloody thing I can do about it.

He'll be walking by himself. He won't have me alongside.

That's the one thing I can do about it.

Oh, there's another thing you can do.

You can sign a deposition

admitting that there was nothing wrong with your husband

and you can state that you'll testify to that in court.

No, Mr. Rogan, I won't do that.

I won't hurt him.

I haven't got that much courage.

I just won't help him.

I still have that much honor.

He makes the lame to walk and the blind to see.

Hey, Father! Look, huh?

Now here's a...

Here's a little token of my appreciation.

Now don't look so surprised.

You'll give the place a bad name.

Help me.

Somebody please help me.

Help me, somebody, please.

Joe?

What's the matter?

Help me.

Somebody.

Help me.

I can't see! I can't see.

I can't see.

I can't see. Help me.

Somebody please help me.

I can't see.

I can't see.

Somebody please help me.

I can't see.

A bit of gossamer and lace as befits a beautiful woman,

fragile and ephemeral,

in keeping with the soft mystery of the female.

But to the gentlemen amongst you

who like, all your male predecessors since the beginning of time,

have been mystified and miffed by a female counterpart,

this one is for you.

A beautiful lady in a strange house

and also inhabited, alas,

by the Ghost of Sorworth Place.

Oh, good afternoon. I think I'm lost.

You're at Sorworth Place.

Sorworth.

I meant to be in Drymen.

I don't think Sorworth is even on this map.

Got no need to be.

Anybody comes here knows where it is to begin with.

Who's out there, Mrs. Ducker?

It's a gentleman out on a walk, got himself lost, ma'am.

Good evening.

How do you do?

You've gone astray, then?

Yes.

There's supposed to be a bed waiting for me in Drymen.

Oh, it'll go unslept in tonight.

You'd have to run like the wind to reach Drymen before 12 struck.

Oh, well...

Well, is there anyplace around here I could put up for the night?

A hotel or an inn or a pub?

There's the King's Arms in Sorworth town itself.

Would I have to run like the wind?

Walk with a purpose,

keeping Sorworth Water to your left the whole distance.

You should be there in time for two nips and your dinner.

If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Loring,

I've set out your tea for you.

And you know, darkness is coming on,

and you know that Tom Ducker, as he always wants me home before dark.

Of course. Good night, Mrs. Ducker.

Good night, Mrs. Loring.

Good night, sir.

Well, good night. Good night.

Mrs. Loring?

That's right.

I'm Ralph Burke.

From America.

You guessed.

Well, I guessed it wasn't from Glasgow.

Well, this certainly is a wonderful old place. I...

If you cut it too fine, Mr. Burke, you'll lose yourself again.

And I wouldn't want it on my conscience

if you ended up drowned in Sorworth Water.

Sure.

Well, nice meting you, Mrs. Loring.

Thanks for getting me turned around right.

Goodbye.

Good night.

Good morning, sir. Good morning. Good morning.

Did you find your bed to your liking?

Yes, I did indeed.

Thank you for everything, Mr. MacLeod.

I didn't akin that you were acquainted with Mrs. Loring, sir.

Well, I'm not.

You're not?

No.

I only met her yesterday afternoon.

Why? What makes you think...

I beg your pardon, I'm sure, sir.

But when she stopped by here a wee bit earlier...

She was here? How long ago?

Oh, she'd have gone back to Sorworth Place by now, sir.

Her shopping bag was full when she left the letter off.

Letter?

Yes, right here, sir.

Thank you.

Mr. Burke, if the demands upon your time do not forbid it...

Mr. MacLeod.

What can you tell me about Mrs. Loring?

Nothing, sir, that wouldn't break your heart in the telling.

Well?

Well, sir?

Mrs. Loring.

And Mr. Loring?

She's a... She's a widow, sir.

Oh.

About...

About a year, sir.

Well, how did her husband die?

It's...

It's opening time, sir.

To your good health, sir.

Thank you.

They gave out that it was the drink that destroyed him.

And many's the time I've had to send him home from here in the dog-cart

with Boots driving him.

But it was never the drink, sir.

It was the evil.

And I'd take an oath on that in any court on the land.

The evil?

Oh, yes.

In those days there were servants up at the home.

Cooks, butlers, parlor maids.

And there were talks

about his doings, his drinkings, his smashings.

And there he was, sir,

with a bride that was the beauty of the county.

But was he satisfied? Oh, no.

Not Alistair Loring. Not he.

There was not a chambermaid in the whole of Sorworth Place

that wasn't expected to obey the master.

And obey him in any way that took his fancy.

And there were whispers about those fancies of his

that were a disgrace to all the lairds of Sorworth that ever lived.

And he beat her, sir.

He beat her until they could hear her cries

down to the gardener's cottage.

Why did she stay?

Why did she stay indeed? Why does she stay there now?

You've seen Sorworth Place.

Only the outside.

Well, you'll do yourself no favor by seeing the inside.

Oh, it's cold, sir.

It's cold and clammy like a grave

with hardly a bench to sit on,

or a lump of coal to light a fire with.

When he died, the creditors came.

When they moved on,

they left an empty shell behind them.

Why does she stay there now

when she could have the pick of the countryside if she wanted it?

Like another drink?

No. No thanks. One's my limit.

Is this what brought me to Sorworth?

It was something.

It wasn't me.

Was it you,

Ann Loring?

Oh. If everything's to your satisfaction, ma'am,

and with darkness coming on,

and you know how Tom Ducker is.

Thank you, Mrs. Ducker. Good night.

Good night, ma'am.

Good night, sir.

Good night.

Milk and sugar, Mr. Burke?

Yes, please.

He's sounds like quite a worrier, this Tom Ducker.

Oh.

It's Mrs. Ducker who's the worrier.

She won't let the sun set on Sorworth Place with her still here.

Oh. What's she afraid of?

Of me, I think.

Oh, is this too strong for you?

No. It looks just fine.

Afraid of you? Why?

You know, she's rather got the idea that I killed my husband.

Seriously?

Oh, she's quite serious.

She's got it little backwards, hasn't she?

According to Mr. MacLeod at the inn...

Oh. What's he been telling you, Mr. Burke?

Well, not... Not very much. Honestly.

It's about Alistair, I expect.

Well, I'm sure it was all an exaggeration.

Oh, I shouldn't think so. Quite the reverse probably.

You see, my husband was landed gentry,

and Mr. MacLeod's great grandfather

was the third Duke of Sorworth's steward.

So he'd naturally prefer to represent Alistair

in as favorable a light as possible.

Well, he did a lousy job of it,

if you don't mind my saying so, Mrs. Loring.

He said Mr. Loring...

Mr. Burke, would you mind?

Sorworth Place is tumbling around my ears, I'm afraid.

Is there anything the matter, Mr. Burke?

Hmm?

No. I'm all right.

You've gone positively white, Mr. Burke.

Oh, do sit down. I'll fetch you some brandy.

No, no. No, thanks.

I'm all right. Brandy'd only lay me out.

Mrs. Loring, do you live here alone?

Well, when stout-hearted Mrs. Ducker flees at dusk,

I've no company here at Sorworth.

Except of course, for all the ghosts of the Lorings

who were ever born, or whoever died here.

Why do you ask?

Nothing.

One could almost believe there were ghosts in this place.

Oh, indeed you could, Mr. Burke.

Almost.

Hello, Mrs. Ducker. Well, here I am again.

Mr. Burke, could I have a word with you?

Mrs. Loring is expecting me.

Please.

Well? Not here.

Is anything wrong?

You've been here for the best part of a week, Mr. Burke.

Your friends in Drymen,

won't they be wondering where you are?

Don't worry about me, Mrs. Ducker.

There's nobody waiting for me in Drymen.

There's nobody waiting for me anywhere in the whole wide world.

Oh, yes, there is, sir.

Really? Who?

Take my advice, Mr. Burke,

from one who's seen the blackness of evil descend on this house.

Go to Drymen before you get caught up in it yourself.

Mrs. Ducker, what the hell are you talking about?

I'm talking about the one in there,

waiting for you.

That's hardly any way to talk about one's employer.

My employer, Mr. Burke, is Alistair Loring,

the seventh Duke of Sorworth.

Oh, really?

Well, I hope I'm here next payday.

I'd like to see him hand over your salary.

Please.

You wouldn't be so quick to make the jokes, Mr. Burke,

if you've seen what I've seen in this house.

Aye, and you'd have a little bit more understanding

why you'll never catch me out when darkness is coming on.

Just exactly what have you seen, Mrs. Ducker?

The master, that's who.

Lying dead and broken at the bottom of the stairs in there.

And herself, with the look of a sorceress upon her,

standing there at the top.

Are you trying to tell me that Mrs. Loring...

What was he doing there, may I ask?

He was so deathly ill, so wasted with sickness.

He was like a skeleton.

What was he doing there at the bottom of the stairs,

dressed in his clothes?

Dressed?

Aye.

In his heir's tweeds with the patches on his elbow,

as if he was going out for a day's hunting.

Ralph.

You're here.

Yes.

I'm so glad to see you. Shall we go and have some tea?

What is it?

Hmm?

Oh, nothing.

Well, how about that tea?

Of course.

You should get rid of that Mrs. Ducker.

Short of burning Sorworth Place to the ground,

I really can't see how I'd do it.

She was devoted to my husband.

I believe she really thinks of herself

as the rightful heir to the family fortune,

what's become of it.

Sometimes I'm tempted to hand her the keys

and run until I reach Glasgow.

Well, why don't you, Ann? Why do you stay here?

Why did you come here? Drymen's miles to the south.

I lost my way.

Or found it?

Have you wondered at all these past days,

why I asked a stranger to tea?

Have you wondered why you accepted?

When a lovely lady sends me an invitation,

I'm not about to go for a hike or for the moors.

But, okay, why did you ask a stranger to tea?

When I saw you standing there that day,

I heard a voice. It was my voice.

It said, "This is the one.

"This is the one to do it, perhaps."

To do what?

To protect me.

From what?

From my husband.

But he's dead, Ann.

Yes, quite.

He's dead. And I'm in deadly fear of him.

You've seen him, haven't you?

What? Who?

Alistair. You've seen him. I could tell.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Tell me. Tell me what you've seen?

What did he look like?

Was he a skeleton of a man

in a tweed suit with patches on the elbows?

It's almost a year since he died.

And in the past fortnight I've begun to see him, too.

Ann, these... These things just don't happen.

Yes, now I'm sure of it.

You are the one.

Let me tell you.

He lay at the foot of the stairs.

At the foot of the stairs?

It was our first wedding anniversary.

How did he get there?

I poured his medicine down the drain,

and he needed it to keep his filthy body alive.

And he knew the nearest place he could get it

was the chemist in Sorworth.

We're not on the telephone, you see.

So he dragged himself out of bed,

flung on a suit of clothes.

He was cursing me all the while.

But why did you do it?

Because I could no longer stand his vile tongue and his scornful talk

or the humiliation of his hands on me,

tearing at my clothes, and then leaving me in my nakedness

to go to the servants' hall and have his way with the scullions.

He called me cold.

Cold as the stones in the ancestral burial ground.

And he swore that only a corpse could have love out of me.

And as the sickening worsened,

so did the foulness of his accusations.

Until at last I knew

that one of us must die before another day came.

And if it wasn't to be me, then it had to be him.

And that's why I did it.

What happened?

He lasted as far as the stairway,

and there he sprawled, and down he went,

and there he lay.

Dead?

With what was left in him,

he looked up at me and he said,

"You think you've won free? Well, you're wrong.

"In a year's time, I'll return,

"and I'll celebrate our second wedding anniversary."

And then he was dead.

It's tonight.

What's tonight?

The anniversary of our wedding.

He's back already. We've both seen him.

But he hasn't come for me yet. But he will tonight.

To do what?

That's what I don't know.

And why I'm frightened,

and why I need you.

What can I do?

Keep him from me tonight.

Get between us.

I have a feeling that if tonight can pass without him reaching me,

then he'll stay in his grave forever.

Can you do that, Ralph?

Can you battle my ghost for me?

It has to be an outsider.

I couldn't trust my story and my life to a local.

Having met Mrs. Ducker, you can understand why, surely.

Yes.

I've waited 12 months for that special someone to arrive in Sorworth.

And when I saw you standing at the door that day,

with your haversack and the look of the wanderer about you,

I had the wild feeling that it could be you.

You were right, Ann.

And you were right about the other, too.

I didn't lose my way,

I found it.

I'll bury your ghost for you, Ann.

Maybe

because, you see, I have some ghosts of my own as well.

Maybe I'll bury mine in the same grave.

When they're back in the ground where they belong,

we're free of them forever.

Maybe...

And now I'll tell you the final thing.

And you'll take your hat in your hand

and slam the door behind you,

and be done with me forever, as well.

There's no love in me.

Not for a tree,

nor a blade of grass,

nor man, nor beast,

nor any other thing that breathes God's air.

That's what turned Alistair against me from the start.

And what sent him to the servants' quarters the whole year we were wed.

I did the duties of a wife on our wedding night,

and when that was done, he never touched me again.

There can be nothing between us, Ralph, as it is.

And if your ghosts need that to send them to their rest,

you'll be making a bad bargain for yourself.

One ghost at a time, okay?

We'll deal with yours tonight.

Tomorrow, well...

We'll let tomorrow take care of itself.

Now we've got work to do.

Where is your bedroom, Ann?

Ann, what do you take me for?

I'm going to stand guard duty outside your door.

It's the far end of the second story on the left.

I'll wait down here.

When you've locked yourself in, I'll come up.

Shall I put a chair outside then?

And risk me falling asleep? No.

I'll walk guard duty until daylight.

Good night, Ann.

Good night.

Get back in your grave, you lousy corpse.

You're not getting in here tonight.

How the devil did you get...

What are you doing here?

I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing here.

I must have wanted to run, to escape!

No, no, Ann. He's out there.

Go on back up and lock your door, quickly!

Take this. Hurry. Hurry!

No, no!

How many times do you need to be buried?

Well, my friend, you'll soon be as dead as you're supposed to be!

He's gone, Ann.

Midnight's past, and he's gone for good.

You're free of him forever.

Ralph.

You left your door unlocked, Ann.

And you went down to unlock the front door.

But then you said you could never love anything alive.

Come to me, my Ralph.

In a year.

In a year I'll come to you.

My Ann.