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See also "The Horror of Hemlock House".

Death-in-the-cemetery

The Chief attempts to decode a passage from Death in the Cemetery.

"Classic thriller" produced as part of writer-producer-director-actor Hannibal Day's eponymous radio program. Day himself essays the play's starring role of Spinozo, "the man who lived twice".

CONTROL is aware that the show is being used by KAOS to transmit messages to its agents around the world and Agent 99 is assigned to go undercover as Day's secretary. There she makes contact with sound effects man Windy Vasquez who is actually Cochran, an investigator with the FCC. Regrettably, Cochran is killed before he can reveal the identity of the KAOS agent, but he leaves behind a copy of the script with the following passage circled.

Please learn to control your extravagant nature, Will. Nobody wants to destroy friends like Aunt Kay or any of us, by losing your head and throwing nickels, quarters and dollars away. Stock investments and new home financing can make tomorrow a prosperous day.

By employing the every-fourth-word method of cryptography, 99 and the Chief are able to discover the message: "CONTROL will destroy Kay us (KAOS) head quarters, Stock home (Stockholm, Sweden) tomorrow."

After making a subtle change in the wording, the show goes on as planned.

Since Hannibal Day takes credit for the script he is an obvious suspect until he admits that the real author is sound engineer Rodger Hammerstein, proving that Hammerstein is the KAOS agent who has been transmitting messages overseas and, presumably, the killer of Cochran.

Hammerstein meanwhile had not waited for that revelation. As the play is still being broadcast he is hiding behind a curtain with a gun preparing to add to the death toll but is instead seen and shot by Maxwell Smart who has joined the program as Cochran's replacement sound effects man Tuttle.

The result is that the half-hour program is only twenty minutes long.

[Episode #126: "Moonlighting Becomes You".]

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