Episode 23: Corroborative Evidence

Wednesday, July 27, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. On the surface, the day at Collinwood seems calm and serene. What could be more normal than my preparing to teach a young boy his school lessons? Yet there is an undercurrent, a tension that is felt everywhere, a tension that reaches out and builds and waits to break free.

 Constable Jonas Carter arrives at Collinwood to speak with Roger. Liz wants to talk with Roger too, about Vicki’s letter, but he puts her off. Roger tells the constable about the bleeder valve. The constable deduces that Roger thinks Burke tried to kill him.

David is reading aloud to Vicki. It’s the end of a story about a little girl who ran away and is found by her father and taken home. David wants to know what happened to the girl, if she was punished. (Maybe Vicki could have assigned him to use his imagination and write a story telling about that.)

David keeps asking about punishment and prison. What would happen if Vicki killed someone? Would they send her to prison?

Yes, she finally says dramatically, they’d lock her up and throw away the key, and she’d be there till she was old and grey. (She is wonderful!)

The constable isn't happy that Roger went to see Burke before contacting him. Amateurs. Of course Liz calls the constable by his first name. She knows everyone, and everyone thinks she’s a fine woman (except the kids at Carolyn’s school), although she never leaves the grounds of Collinwood.

Vicki is telling David about the first Christmas tree in the United States. (This might be as close as we ever get to Christmas at Collinwood, even though ghost stories were once a Christmas staple.)

Liz asks Vicki to come down to talk with the constable. David is upset that the police are in the house. Of course he comes down to eavesdrop.

 

 

 

 Vicki tells her wrench story. The constable is smart. He looks at all the angles and doesn't assume anything. This time Vicki says she’s “sure” Burke was telling the truth, forgetting the important distinction between belief and fact she made earlier.

The constable makes a phone call to get someone to check up on Burke in New York.

Roger, Vicki, and the constable—let’s just follow Liz’s example and call him Jonas, shall we?—go to the garage.

Liz catches David at his eavesdropping. She understands (she thinks) why he’s curious, but she suggests he go upstairs. David has questions. Why does the constable keep saying it wasn't Burke Devlin? Liz tells him Jonas didn't say that. He said it might not have been.

That’s what Vicki says too. She just wants it to be somebody else. What does corroborative evidence mean?

Liz explains they’re going to check for fingerprints on the wrench, which will corroborate that Burke touched it. David becomes upset. Anybody could have touched that wrench. That doesn't prove anything.

Vicki, Roger, and Jonas return with the wrench. When Jonas gets a phone call, he leaves the wrench lying on the table. David tries to reach out to it, but Vicki stops him. They she allows herself to become distracted and David knocks the wrench on the floor and picks it up.

Roger is irate. Jonas says it’s okay. There could still be other fingerprints besides David’s. At least they know how his got there.

  

Vicki becomes suspicious of David.

                          

                        Cast, In Order of Appearance

Victoria Winters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alexandra Moltke

Roger Collins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Louis Edmonds

Constable Jonas Carter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Currie

David Collins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .David Henesy

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan Bennett

Fashion by Ohrbach’s

Directed by John Sedwick

Story created and written by Art Wallace