The Story of Mr. Maggs is an episode of the radio show Lights Out. It first aired December 1, 1942[1]
Story[]
Taking place in pre-WWII England, Mr. Maggs is a meek older man with a hateful and domineering wife named Agatha and a weaselly adult stepson named Freddie at home. The story begins with Mr. Maggs at an auction interested in a chest the auctioneer is talking up as having a mystery cargo since it was locked shut and had no idea of the contents. Maggs ends up winning the chest for very cheap being one of the few to bid on it. Fearing his wife’s wrath for the purchase, Maggs tries to arrange with the auctioneer not to deliver it to his home to no avail. As he’s leaving, the auctioneer lets slip under his breath that there might be something sinister to the chest.
Maggs comes home to his wife who is already angry he bought the chest despite getting it for very cheap. Maggs asks where the chest is and she says Freddie is breaking the lock to look inside. This distresses Maggs because it’s a good lock and rushes upstairs to stop him. His wife takes Freddie’s side and prevents Maggs from stopping him. She then took the hammer herself and rained more brutal blows onto the lock than Freddie had, breaking it. Opening the chest, all they find are bloody newspapers and Agatha mocks and derides him for taking a chance on an item that ultimately ended up being worthless.
Later that night, the couple hear a loud bang upstairs followed by their son screaming. Afraid of what may be waiting there, they slowly creep up the stairs to see the chest slammed shut over Freddie’s head, killing him. They rush downstairs with Agatha blaming him for their son’s death since he brought the chest into the house. Maggs would call the chest an evil force, which Agatha dismissed and ordered him to go upstairs with her to retrieve and lay out their son for funeral services. Maggs refuses because he is afraid of the evil of the chest. His wife calls him a coward and heads upstairs to do it herself. Soon after, he hears his wife scream, but Maggs remains in his chair, paralyzed with fear.
Maggs sits in the chair for hours, afraid to go up. At one point, he hears the thudding of something, possibly the chest, moving towards the stairs. Maggs then knows that it’s either the chest or him and picks up an axe to confront the chest. Upon finding it, he swings wildly at the chest, destroying it and to his horror finds out he hacked right through the chest into the skull of his wife, murdered by the chest.
Back at the auction house, the auctioneer is laughing to a co-worker on how he got one over on Maggs because he knew it was a chest that belonged to a serial killer that was hanged after the bodies of his victims were found in the chest, leaving listeners with the question: Was the chest a malevolent spirit that killed people and the man that was hanged innocent (a fate likely to befall Maggs), or did the man kill those people and the evil of his deeds curse the chest?