Episode 34: Inches. Feet. Miles.

Thursday, August 11, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. I began my search in Collinwood. There in the great mansion on Widow’s Hill, surrounded by the ghosts of the past, I’d hoped to unlock the secrets of my beginning. But the key has not yet been found, and the search goes on, carrying me to a meeting with a man I wasn’t sure I could trust.

Burke is surprised that Vicki showed up to talk with him. “What made you change your mind?”

“Inches. Feet. Miles.”

“That’s a very sound reason. What does it mean?”

“It’s very simple. I’ve come all the way from New York to Maine to try and find out something about my past.”

“And did you?”

“Nope. I’ve traveled so many miles, and if you can help, well, I’d be foolish not to come the short distance from Collinwood to here.”

“Miss Winters, the distance between here and Collinwood is a good deal farther than you think.”

They drink to “Happy discoveries.” Burke says he never figured Vicki for the sherry type. “Now, Mrs. Stoddard, she’s the sherry type. Her daughter, Carolyn, that’s strictly soda. She’d like to think it was something stronger, but it’s always soda.”

“And what am I?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a toss-up between a chocolate malt and champagne.”

“Well, that’s quite a range.”

Burke says maybe they can figure it out over dinner. Vicki is more interested in talking about the private detective’s report. Burke left it up in his hotel room.

“I want to see that report, Mr. Devlin, and if we have to go to your hotel room, that’s where we’ll go.”

“Champagne,” Burke says. “Definitely champagne.”

Joe wakes up on the drawing room couch at Collinwood, to Carolyn asking if he wants some champagne. He asks her not to shout. He wants to know how he got there. Carolyn says he flooooooooaaated. When he asks what time it is, she tells him it’s coffee time.

“Carolyn, did I do anything foolish?”

“You made an enemy, that’s what you did.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

Over coffee, Joe asks what he said to Carolyn’s mother.

“Oh, a few friendly little things like how she ruined my life by bringing me up in this house.”

“I don’t know how I could have said those things.”

“Because you meant them, Joe, you meant them.”

He apologizes, and she says everybody has to blow off steam sometimes.

He tells her about losing the boat and that he was feeling sorry for himself. She says he had a right to feel that way. Then he tells her that he ran into Burke at the bar and had a few things to tell him too.

“You really made a night of it, didn’t you?”

 Burke helps Vicki off with her coat. “You’re friends call you Vicki, don’t they?”

She acknowledges they do.

“Well, uh, couldn’t we pretend we’re friends, just for tonight?” He suggests having dinner sent up to the room.

“I’m here to read a report, remember?”

“Well, you do believe in eating, don’t you? Or are you afraid of being up here too long?”

“I’m not afraid of you, Mr. Devlin.”

“You needn’t be. Now, what’ll you have—steak or lobster? And the name’s Burke.”

“Burke, why did you have that report made?”

“Curiosity.”

“Why should you be curious about me? You’d never heard of me until I came to Collinsport.”

Because she went to work at the Collins house.

But what does that have to do with her? She’s just a governess, not a member of the family.

“Tell me something, Vicki, why does that report bother you so much?”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s almost as if you had something to hide.”

“I wish I did. How can you hide something you don’t know anything about? Burke, I’m not afraid of what your detective might’ve found. It’s just the opposite. I want those answers more than you do.”

Burke says he’ll get the report.

Carolyn comes back with more coffee and a sandwich and finds Joe looking at one of the portraits. 

“Now, that’s a man who had you beat by a mile . . . My great-grandfather. The days when he wasn’t drunk, those were the special ones.”

 She orders Joe to have some more coffee and eat the sandwich.

“I guess you still love me anyway, don’t you?”

“Shut up and have the sandwich.”

Joe remembers he forgot to pay for his drinks at the Blue Whale. He says he’ll stop off on his way home.

“Make it a quick stop, okay?”

Joe is gratified that she’s worried about him, but less happy that she wishes he would apologize to Burke—even though arolyn says he didn’t try to kill her uncle after all. It was all an accident. He still won’t apologize. Burke tried to make a pass at Carolyn.

“You’re not really jealous, are you?”

They kiss and Carolyn still tries to convince Joe to apologize. He won’t. Burke has his hooks out, and he’s out to get Carolyn’s family.

Burke orders dinner while Vicki reads the report. It has nothing in it she didn’t already know—and is full of the same questions she asked herself. Why did Mrs. Stoddard hire her?

Vicki thinks Burke would like to find something harmful to the Collins family.

Burke says he isn’t thinking about them.

“Why are you so concerned about me?”

“We all have our searches. We’re all looking for answers.”

“That’s no reason.”

“Maybe you’re the reason, Vicki. Just you.”

She doesn’t see how he could help, and she doesn’t want to be involved in his quarrel with Roger Collins—which would be hard to avoid, since she lives in his house. (Elizabeth’s house, actually.)

Burke convinces her to tell him the foundling home story and why she came to Collinwood. Apparently, she was left in a cardboard box.

He tells her things are going to be getting unpleasant at Collinwood. What she’s seen is just a ripple; she hasn’t touched the whirlpool, but it is there.

Burke thinks a knock on the door is dinner, but it turns out to be Joe, come to pay Burke for his drinks, which Burke paid for at the Blue Whale.

After Joe leaves, Burke reminds Vicki that he warned her about the whirlpool.

Vicki decides to leave him to eat his two steaks alone. He promises to help her in her quest.

        Cast, In Order of Appearance

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

Burke Devlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mitchell Ryan

Carolyn Stoddard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nancy Barrett

Joe Haskell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joel Crothers

Fashion by Ohrbach’s

Directed by Lela Swift

Story created and written by Art Wallace