Originally Aired: May 1, 1956
Suspense #648, "The Waxwork," Raymond Hewson, a struggling freelance journalist desperate to support his wife and family, strikes a deal with the manager of Mariner's Waxworks to spend a night alone in the notorious Murderer's Den for a story. The manager warns him that the cellar filled with wax figures of history's most appalling killers creates an oppressive, sinister atmosphere that would unnerve anyone. Despite his own revulsion, Hewson needs the money from selling his article to the Morning Echo, plus the five-pound bonus the manager promises.
As the manager escorts Hewson through the dimly-lit chamber, they pass figures of infamous murderers: Crippen, Armstrong, Charles Peace, and others frozen in their waxwork poses. But one figure particularly disturbs Hewson—a small man with waxed moustaches and piercing eyes behind spectacles. This is Dr. Baudette, a French physician who killed for pleasure with a razor, mesmerizing his victims before slashing their throats. Though Baudette disappeared before capture and is presumed dead, his lifelike effigy seems unnervingly real as Hewson prepares to spend the long night surrounded by these silent, staring murderers.
