The Black Curtain

Originally Aired: January 3, 1948

Suspense #278, "The Black Curtain," begins with a terrifying mystery. Frank Townsend regains consciousness on an icy street after being knocked down, only to discover that the year is December 1944—three years later than the July 1941 day he last remembers. A black curtain of amnesia has erased three entire years of his life, and the evidence suggests he's been living as someone else entirely. A cigar case and hat in his possession bear the initials D.N., not his own. As the dazed Townsend tries to piece together what happened, a menacing stranger with gray eyes spots him, calls him by a different name—Thompson—and chases him with a gun.

Frank flees in terror and eventually makes his way to the office building where he and his partner Johnny once ran their advertising business, desperate for answers from the one person he trusts. But the building is now heavily guarded by security police requiring passes, and Frank quickly realizes that everything about the world—and his place in it—has changed during those missing three years. Who has he been, what has he done, and why does someone want him dead?