Episode 65: A Guest from a Waterfront Shack

Friday, September 23, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. Another touch of blackness has been added to the dark shadows that fill the halls of Collinwood. A shocking death has brought the past alive, carrying it to the doors of the great mansion on Widow’s Hill.

Burke storms in past Liz, wanting to know where Roger is, and he refuses to leave. Liz tells him he’s a very rude young man. He says he is when he has to be. He learned his manners in a waterfront shack. He sits down to wait and continues to be rude, which Liz objects to. She wants to know why he wants to see Roger. He brings up Bill Malloy’s death.

He admires the grandeur of the room, even though he’s just noted he could buy the house twenty times and never feel it. He offers to buy a chest.

Liz tells him the sheriff called about him, and he said to call him if Burke came over. Burke tells her to go ahead and call the sheriff. He’s not leaving.

Liz says they’ll both wait for Roger.

Roger is at the Blue Whale, calling Maggie to ask where Sam is. Maggie doesn’t know, but Sam comes in on cue and orders a drink. Sam and Roger sit down. Roger wants to know what Sam told the sheriff.

“Am I to recite my catechism now?” Sam asks. He tells Roger that he told the sheriff what they agreed on.

Roger wants to know what Sam told Burke. He knows Burke was at Sam’s.

Sam tells him Burke is on the warpath.

Roger says Bill was a friend of the family, which amuses Sam. “The only time he was a friend to you was when he very conveniently died,” Sam tells him.

Liz decides to make tea and treat Burke like a guest, which confuses him greatly. She makes small talk, asking him about his travels. Vicki comes in and she leaves her to entertain Burke while she gets the tea. Vicki asks him what he’s doing there.

“I’m not exactly sure. I think I’m having tea.”

“Burke, the last time I saw you, you weren’t exactly planning a social tea at Collinwood.” She wants to know if he’s there to accuse Roger of being involved in the death of Bill Malloy.

“Vicki, you were asked to entertain me, not question me.”

She says it’s probably none of her business. He says it should be, reminding her of how he’s advised her to leave since the first time they met.

“What are you going to do?”

“Reach the end of a road. Erase my debts. Settle my accounts. I’ve waited ten years for this, Vicki.”

“But Mrs. Stoddard—doesn’t she know?”

“She knows. I almost wish—” He asks how David is, noting he’s a nice kid.

Vicki says maybe he should think of him now. Roger is his father.

Burke advises her not to get involved. Her getting hurt isn’t part of his plan. He wishes there weren’t all these pressures and they could just sit and talk.

“About Collinwood?”

“Certainly not. There are other things in this world besides this big, dark house. There are people and place—excitement—and nothing to do with Widow’s Hill.”

“Then why can’t you settle for that?”

“I wish I could. God help me, I wish I could.”

Sam tells Roger about his conversation with Burke at his hotel room. He says Burke is determined to find the killer of Bill Malloy. Sam thinks he convinced Burke that he didn’t do it, so Roger is next on his list.

Sam asks Roger for some money to leave town, but Roger says he’s no longer interested in that, and he isn’t sure that Sam didn’t kill Bill.

Roger comes back, having changed his mind about the money, but Sam has changed his mind too. “It seems we’re guilty of the same vice.”

Burke tells Vicki about some of his travels.

Vicki tells Burke how she wanted to be a bareback rider on a beautiful white horse in the circus. 

Burke asks if she ever tried. How could she? She was in the foundling home.

Burke says she could have run away. Vicki tells him she isn’t the running-away type.

Burke wishes she was.

Liz arrives with the tea and Burke goes to help her with it.

Roger arrives home, and Liz tells him Burke is there.

                                          Cast, In Order of Appearance

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

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

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

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

Sam Evans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  David Ford

Fashion by Ohrbach’s

Directed by John Sedwick

Story created and written by Art Wallace