
Beyond Midnight - The Phantom Coach
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Narrator / James Murray
In the year 1864, in the December of that year, to be more exact, James Murray, barrister at law, did a lot of grass shooting during the last few days of the season. He made several trips across the northern moors after the elusive and soon to be prohibited birds. December. The wind was due east, the moors were bleak and wild. On his last expedition, the very day before the ending of the season, James Murray became hopelessly lost. The first feathery flecks of a coming snowstorm fluttered down upon the heather and a leaden evening was closing in. All around the purple moorland melted into a range of low hills. There was not the faintest snake leaf, not the smallest cultivated patch or fence or sheep track. The world had changed, become hostile. Alien Money shouldered his gun and pushed wearily forward on and beyond midnight.
James Murray
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Narrator / James Murray
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James Murray
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Narrator / James Murray
It's. Hello.
James Murray
Is it possible to keep on throughout the whole of the night walking? Will there not come a time when my limbs simply fail me Walking in circles.
Narrator / James Murray
Circles.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Hello.
James Murray
Can you hear me?
Narrator / James Murray
Here. This way.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
This way.
James Murray
Here.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Can you find me here? I'd almost given up.
James Murray
I'd begun to think of falling down and sleeping. I must have been walking in circles. Thank God.
Shepherd / Rescuer
Thank God.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
What for?
James Murray
Praise be what for? Well, for you, Connor. I began to feel I should be hopelessly lost in the snow.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Why then? Folks still get cast away in about 50 time to time. And what to hinder you from being cast away?
James Murray
Likewise, if the good Lord is so minded that you and I shall be lost together. Friend, we must submit. But I don't mean to be lost without you. What part of my north and clothing?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
A good 20 mile, more or less.
James Murray
And the nearest village?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Nearest village is white. And that's 12 miles to the side.
James Murray
Where do you live then?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Out. Y I pray you keep that lantern steady.
James Murray
You're going home, I presume?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Maybe I am.
James Murray
And I'm going with you.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Oh, it ain't no use. He won't let you in nothing. We'll see about that.
James Murray
Who is he?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
The Master.
James Murray
And who is the Master?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
That note to you.
James Murray
Well, lead the way, please. And I'll engage that the Master shall give me supper and lodging tonight.
Shepherd / Rescuer
You can die.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Wait, man, wait. Is this the house? It's the house down there.
Narrator / James Murray
It.
James Murray
So then at least.
Narrator / James Murray
Yeah.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Not for you.
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Narrator / James Murray
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Narrator / James Murray
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James Murray
Who are you? How came you here? What do you want? James Mary, barrister at law, on foot across the moor, meet, drink and sleep. Mine is not a house of entertainment.
Narrator / James Murray
Jacob.
James Murray
How dare do you admit this stranger?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
I didn't admit him. He followed me over the moor and shouldered his way in before me. I'm no match for six foot two.
James Murray
And pray, sir, by what right have you forced an entrance into my house? The same by which I should have clung to your boat if I were drowning. The right of self preservation. Self preservation? There's a foot of snow on the ground already. It'll be deep enough to cover my body by daybreak.
Narrator / James Murray
It is true.
James Murray
You can stay here if you choose till morning. Jen, serve the supper. This is.
Narrator / James Murray
Your manners are not excellent, my friend.
Shepherd / Rescuer
You have a very fine head.
Narrator / James Murray
Like a poet's kind of scientist you must be if this room's a telescope. That goes saints and devils. Geological specimens, microscope at least have an organ there in the corner. Books, books and more books. Enough to keep a keen man busy for a year. Why do not speak to Red? Blasted. You don't even know your name. But there you look like a visit from bedhole. I wonder if you would consider it bad taste if I drew nearer the fire.
James Murray
On the table. I had only the homeless farmhouse fair to offer you, sir. Your appetite will I trust make up for the deficiencies of our larder. Ham, eggs, bread and what appears to
Narrator / James Murray
be a bottle of excellent sherry.
James Murray
My friend, I can think of nothing better. Thank you. Thank you a thousand times thank you. You will preserve my life.
Narrator / James Murray
Please. Isn't it the food upon you? Dis is the poisoned, I believe. I cannot help it. I shall expire with a full stomach.
James Murray
That was probably the finest meal I've ever tasted.
Narrator / James Murray
Thank you.
James Murray
To cast away on a desert island in a storm, a glass of uncontaminated water and a crust would seem manna from heaven. I have lived here in semi retirement
Narrator / James Murray
for three and 20 years.
James Murray
During that time I have not seen
Narrator / James Murray
as many strange faces. I have not read a single newspaper.
James Murray
You are the first stranger who has crossed my threshold for more than four years. Will you favor me with a few words of information about the art of world from which I have been parted for so long. Interrogate me, Sir. I am heartily at your service. My inquiries will relate primarily to scientific matters. If you are not a student of science, no matter answer to the best of your ability. More and more skeptical of all that lies beyond its narrow radius. Show me any fact in physics, in history, in archaeology, which is supported by testimony.
Narrator / James Murray
I believe he has forgotten my presence. There is a brilliant man. A man of vision, spurned by his contemporaries because of his greater knowledge. A man born out of his time. If it were not for my poor dear wife waiting for me anxiously, I swear I could listen to this man all night long.
James Murray
Branded as a visionary, Held upon ridicule for my scientific belief. Hooted from that field of science in which I've labored with honor. For during all the best years of my life.
Narrator / James Murray
These things happened just three and 20 years ago.
James Murray
Since then I have lived as you
Narrator / James Murray
see me living now. And the world has forgotten me. And I have forgotten the world.
James Murray
Androsa, you have my history.
Narrator / James Murray
It is a very sad one, but
James Murray
it is a very common one. I have only suffered for the truth. As many as a better man who suffered before me.
Narrator / James Murray
You shall have more sherry, pray.
James Murray
Why do you look suddenly so anxious? I was thinking of my wife. My poor little wife. We have only been married four months and she'll be waiting for me, Watching for me, not knowing anything about my fate. I promised to see that I should return before d.
Narrator / James Murray
It has ceased, Maggie. Ceased.
James Murray
If only it were possible. But no, it is impossible. Walk 20 miles across the moor. Even if I could find my way.
Narrator / James Murray
Walk 20 miles.
James Murray
What are you thinking of? My poor wife. She'll be breaking her heart with suspense and terror. Where is she at this moment?
Narrator / James Murray
At dwelling. At dwelling? Yes, it is true. The richness is 20 miles.
James Murray
Are you very anxious to save the next eight or ten hours? So anxious I would give ten guineas at this moment for a guide and a horse.
Narrator / James Murray
Your wish can be gratified at a less costly rate.
James Murray
The nightmare from the north, which changes horses at dwelling, passes within five miles of this spot.
Narrator / James Murray
It will be due at a certain
James Murray
crossroad in about an hour and a quarter. If Jacob were to go with you across the board and put you onto the old coach road, you could find your way, I suppose, where he joins a new one easily. Gladly.
Narrator / James Murray
The snow lies deep.
James Murray
A glass of escobar before you start. There are pleasanter journeys than the one
Narrator / James Murray
you are contemplating this night. James Murray drank the spirit and it went down like fire, Liquid fire. And took his breath away. There was more than one instant during the the next two hours or so when he wished fervently that he had stayed with a self exiled man of science, Rather than take the path through the snow to the old coach road that night.
James Murray
Yet I cannot remember such bitter cold. Not a single star. Your master is a very eloquent man, Jacob. A brilliant man.
Narrator / James Murray
Yeah.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Walking is difficult, to be sure.
James Murray
How much further to the coast road?
Narrator / James Murray
Yeah.
James Murray
As a talk from the master. Walking with a servant is like attempting conversation with a tailor's dummy.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
John. Pure road. Keep the stone fence to your right hand and then you can't sail of the way.
James Murray
This then, is the old coach road?
Narrator / James Murray
Aye.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
It is the old coach road.
James Murray
And how far do I go before I reach the crossroad?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Nigh upon three miles. The road's a fair road. Enough for foot passengers. But cause overstep and narrow for the northern traffic. You'll mind where the parapet's broken away.
Phantom Coach Passenger
Close again.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
The sign post. It's never been mended since the accident.
James Murray
Accident?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
What accident was that?
James Murray
Jacob?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Beg pardon?
James Murray
What accident?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
The night mail pitched right over down into the gully below. A good 50ft or more. Just the worst bit of road in the old country.
James Murray
Horrible. Were many lives lot. All four were found dead and t'
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
other two died next morning.
James Murray
How terrible. How long since this happened? Jacob? How long since the accident?
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Just nine years.
James Murray
Near a sign burst, you say? I'll bear it in mind. Good night, Jacob.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Good night.
James Murray
And here. Thank you. I'm deeply obliged to you.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Good night, sir. And thank you.
Shepherd / Rescuer
Doc.
Narrator / James Murray
With dark.
James Murray
But there's a stone fence.
Narrator / James Murray
Silence. Honestly.
James Murray
Feel terribly lonely.
Narrator / James Murray
Lonely somehow.
James Murray
As if. As if I've been deserted by the last man in the world. Citizen of scaling some dantic elk.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
A light.
Narrator / James Murray
Is it? Yeah.
James Murray
Jacob. He's coming back again.
Narrator / James Murray
Why?
James Murray
No. There's a second light. Parallel finishing. It must be carriage lamp.
Narrator / James Murray
Must be.
James Murray
Private vehicle. But what will be out in a night like this? This is to be some coats or the other.
Narrator / James Murray
But that would be possible.
Shepherd / Rescuer
Coming on fast.
James Murray
Cannot hear a sound.
Narrator / James Murray
The snow looks strangely rocky. It is possible.
James Murray
Having crossed the crossroads in the dark. I think I spent three miles long. Nothing of water. Can I lift to the coach?
Narrator / James Murray
I can meet? No.
James Murray
I would never have missed a fine coach.
Narrator / James Murray
And then the coach for coach it certainly was. Bore down upon Marion. Came around a bend in the road
Phantom Coach Passenger
and came towards him fast.
Narrator / James Murray
One outside passenger. Four steaming grays.
Phantom Coach Passenger
The lamps blazed like a pair of fiery meteors.
Shepherd / Rescuer
Hello.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Wait.
James Murray
Wait there.
Narrator / James Murray
And the coachman pulled up. The guard muffled to the eyes in capes and comforters and apparently sound asleep.
Phantom Coach Passenger
Neither answered Murray's hail nor made the
Narrator / James Murray
slightest effort to dismount. The outside passenger did not even turn his head. Murray crammed on inside the coach. And the coach started again. As noiseless as ever. Seems as cold in the coach as it was outside. Three passengers only. And well. Welcome. Yes. This is scarcely the friendliest part of
Shepherd / Rescuer
the world I've been hearing how intensely
James Murray
cold it is tonight. The winter seems to have begun in earnest.
Narrator / James Murray
Most friendly. He heard me. I know he did. Or he turned his eyes upon me. Damp. Most disagreeable. Snowy head. White. Nice. It's warmer in the night air by far. I can't bear the smell in here. The window down could hardly let in more cold than was already present.
James Murray
Have you any objection to an open window? I said, have you any objection to an open window?
Narrator / James Murray
Very well.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Then I take it you have none.
James Murray
Rotten.
Narrator / James Murray
Quite. Quite rotten. This window.
James Murray
I'm sorry. Excuse me. This window is covered with mildew.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Have you noticed anybody?
James Murray
Have you? The whole coach is in the very last stages of dilapidation. Decaying.
Shepherd / Rescuer
Look.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
It's hardly safe, is it?
James Murray
How can it possibly be safe?
Narrator / James Murray
Why, the old machine is quite foul.
James Murray
And it must have been dragged from some outhouse somewhere.
Narrator / James Murray
It been.
James Murray
Must have been moldering away for years. Quite deplorable. The regular mail, I suppose, is under repair.
Narrator / James Murray
Yes. The passenger to which James Murray addressed
Phantom Coach Passenger
this last remark turned slowly and looked at him.
Narrator / James Murray
Mar knew that he would never forget
Phantom Coach Passenger
the sight of that face as long as he lived.
Narrator / James Murray
Returned cold at heart under its scrutiny.
Phantom Coach Passenger
The eyes glowed with a fiery, unnatural luster.
Narrator / James Murray
The face was livid as the face of a cross.
Phantom Coach Passenger
The bloodless lips were drawn back as if in the agony of death and
Narrator / James Murray
showed the gleaming teeth between cook money.
James Murray
Turned to his office.
Narrator / James Murray
He too was staring at him with the same startling pallor in his face and the same stony glitter in his eyes.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
What are you? What are you?
Phantom Coach Passenger
And then Murray realized that none of the passengers in that coast were living men. Not living men as himself. A pale phosphorescent light, the light of secret suction played upon their awful faces. Upon their hair dank with the views of the grave. Upon their clothes, earth stained and dropping to pieces. Upon their hands, which were as the hands of corpses long buried.
Jacob (Guide/Servant)
Only their eyes.
Phantom Coach Passenger
Their eyes. Their terrible eyes were alive. And those eyes were all turned menacingly upon James Murray in that single instance, brief and vivid as a landscape beheld in a flash of summer lightning. He saw the moon shining down through a rift of stormy cloud. The ghastly signpost rearing its warning finger by the wayside. The broken parapet, the plunging horses, the black gulf below. Then the coach reeled like a ship at sea. Then came a mighty crash. A sense of crushing pain. And then.
Narrator / James Murray
Darkness. Brilliant man. Flightless. Exile. Find food. Ceased snowing. Ceased snowing. Ceased snowing. Ceased snowing. Now hopeless. Walk 20 miles across the. Across the moor.
James Murray
Across the where is scolding? Scrolling.
Shepherd / Rescuer
Close against the junction of the old coach road in the new oh, thank
Narrator / James Murray
God you were saved.
Shepherd / Rescuer
Thank God. You must have laid a long snow, Soft snow. They found you at daybreak. Two shepherds. The matters of the your pocketbook showed your name, and I was summoned. You were so long in danger. So long, so many days, weeks. The surgeon said you had dreamed in your delirium. Such a frightful dream, my love, such a frightful dream. Oh, James, my darling. Safe now.
Narrator / James Murray
Graves Others may form what conclusions they please. I know that I was the fourth inside passenger in the phantom coach. Sam.
Podcast: Harold's Old Time Radio
Episode Date: March 12, 2026
Host: Harold's Old Time Radio (Curator)
Original Broadcast: Beyond Midnight, "The Phantom Coach" (By Michael McCabe)
Theme: Classic supernatural radio drama - the suspenseful tale of a lost traveler, an eerie mansion, and a spectral coach.
This episode of Harold's Old Time Radio features the chilling radio drama Beyond Midnight - The Phantom Coach. Set in the winter of 1864, it follows barrister James Murray as he becomes lost on the northern English moors, only to encounter mysterious strangers and a haunted carriage. The story blends atmospheric suspense, encounters with reclusive characters, and ghostly apparitions, all heightened by the immersive style of vintage radio storytelling.
Murray arrives at a remote house owned by the so-called Master. Initially hostile, the Master is persuaded to provide food and lodging out of pity for Murray’s predicament.
The host is revealed as a once-renowned man of science, now living in self-imposed exile and isolation after being ostracized by the scientific community.
Murray feels the pull of home and concern for his young wife, and inquires about a way to return.
Jacob leads Murray through a desolate, freezing night toward the crossroads.
Jacob warns about a notorious accident on the coach road nine years prior, where the night mail coach plunged into a gully, killing all aboard.
Murray, now alone, perceives two approaching lights—eventually revealed as the lamps of a seemingly normal coach, which mysteriously makes no noise.
The coach picks him up without a word from any of the crew or passengers.
Murray attempts conversation, but is met with silence and chilling details:
Murray realizes, in horror, that the other passengers are not living men. Their faces and hands are ghastly, corpse-like, and their eyes glow with an unnatural luster.
The coach crashes at the site of the old accident, the same broken parapet Jacob mentioned. Murray experiences a "mighty crash," pain, and then darkness.
Murray awakens—rescued, delirious, and in the care of his beloved wife.
Murray closes the tale with conviction that what he experienced was real:
"Beyond Midnight - The Phantom Coach" delivers a classic supernatural mystery, expertly narrated and acted, that plays on timeless themes of isolation, the unknown, and the thin veil between life and death. Its chilling conclusion and atmospheric details make it a standout in the tradition of Golden Age radio horror, leaving listeners with a lingering unease and wonder about what lurks in the shadows—beyond midnight.
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