Originally Aired: November 18, 1954
In Suspense #572, "Blind Date," Gloria Le Fay, a contortionist performing her late mother's act in a Chicago theater, waits in her dressing room after closing night. She's agreed to meet a mysterious admirer named Vincent Hawthorne who sent her a note earlier that day. Against her better judgment and relying on a fortune-teller's assurance that the handwriting shows him to be a gentleman, Gloria accepts this unusual blind date. Vincent arrives with champagne and roses, insisting they celebrate in her dressing room rather than at Gregory's restaurant where Gloria had hoped to go.
As Vincent becomes increasingly controlling and unsettling, Gloria grows uneasy. He produces an enormous trick knife to open the champagne bottle, knows disturbing details about her stage act, and seems determined to keep her isolated in the empty theater. The callboy's earlier warning that her stage door Johnny is "no improvement" begins to ring true. Gloria realizes too late that she may have invited danger into her dressing room, and with everyone else gone for the night, she's completely alone with this strange man who seems to have sinister intentions beneath his polished gentleman's facade.
