You Only Die Once (A Story from The Sealed Book)

Like many of the old radio show episodes of the 1940s, “You Only Die Once” is a story of hidden agendas and people who are not what or who they appear to be.

The story begins at the beautiful Winthrop mansion, on the Hudson River. It is the home of the wealthy financier John Winthrop and his new wife Vivian. The couple have only been married for three months and John has never met his brother-in-law Jerry, but all that is about to change because they have just received a telegram from him, telling them to expect him later that evening.

When he arrives Jerry tells his sister that he has given up his job and hopes to find an executive position in New York. John is keen to help. He has a heart condition and has been under so much stress at work that his doctor has advised him to take on an assistant. He offers the job to Jerry and he accepts straight away. He also invites Jerry to move into the mansion; then he goes to bed and leaves Vivian and her brother to play catch-up.

The two have not seen each other for six months, so there is a lot of catching up to do, but they are not brother and sister; they are man and wife and plan to get every penny out of John that they can before Vivian divorces him and sues for a big cash settlement.

Over the next few months, John lavishes expensive gifts on Vivian and pays Jerry a handsome salary but the truth about them comes out when John discovers some newspaper clippings that reveal them to be convicted jewel thieves, Mr and Mrs Philip Gordon.

John informs the scheming pair that he plans to see his attorney in the morning, but he never gets the chance. The Gordons cannot face going to prison again so they murder John in his sleep, dispose of his body in the lake, and then make it appear as if he went to Chicago for a business meeting. It’s a cunning scheme, and they almost pull it off, but justice sometimes has a strange way of working itself out and, one way or another, the guilty pair do not go unpunished.

The Sealed Book: You Only Die Once

(Listen to the Full Episode)