Plot
The plot was that Dr. Eric Godfrey, a New York City scientist, and his assistants were searching for a cure for spondylosis deformans in children. A miner in Arizona sent one of his assistants a bone with the same deformity that was probably from an animal in the Pleistocene Epoch, about 50,000 years ago.
Dr. Godfrey went to Arizona to look for more bones in the mine. In the meantime, Godfrey’s wife Ellen falls in love with one of her husband’s assistants, Dr. Michael Forbes.
Godfrey fell in the mine, crushed his spine, and couldn’t be moved. His assistants Dr. Forbes, Dr. Robert Empey, and Dr. Anna Burkhart arrived and eased his pain with periodic opiate injections. Godfrey knew he’d never leave the mine – it would eventually be his tomb.
One day Godfrey was pronounced dead, and Dr. Burkhart said it was murder – or a mercy killing – by Dr. Forbes. At his trial, the love between Ellen and Dr. Forbes was revealed. He had wanted to protect Ellen, but now that their love was revealed, he changed his plea to “not guilty.”
Dr. Forbes tells his defense attorney that he once gave Godfrey two extra opiate pills – but they were not enough to kill him. The defense attorney then questions Dr. Empey and Burkhart and discovers they gave Godrey extra pills as well. Godfrey had palmed the extra pills and took them all at once. The coroner testifies that the overdose was found in Godfrey’s stomach – and was not from the injections. Dr. Forbes was cleared on the verdict that Godfrey had committed suicide.
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