Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from
Voice the Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham. In
a moment, I'm gonna bring you this week's episode of
Yours truly Johnny Dollar. But first I want to encourage you.
If you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your
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Time Radio at no additional cost to you. So remember
when making your travel plans, check Johnydollar air dot com. First,
all right, well, from April fifth, nineteen fifty nine, here
is the Frisco fire.
Speaker 2: Matter time? No hoor Tonny Dollar. Yeah, what who's that?
Speaker 3: Smoky?
Speaker 2: Smoky? Smoky some of them? Yeah? Holy do you always
call people at five thirty in the morning. Oh, Hi,
you Smoky? How are things down to New York?
Speaker 4: I'm living out here in Frisco now, Oh you know
about the big fire out here?
Speaker 2: Now, Smoky, don't tell me you've enough to your old tricks.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't do nothing like that. Johnny after the good
way you've been treating me.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope not. What about this fire big warehouse
They're in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: Barnwell Warehouse. It's still burning, Johnny Arson. Yeah, I know
who did it.
Speaker 2: There must be insurance in a big warehouse.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So as soon as I can check it out, I'll
look where.
Speaker 3: I find you. Where you stay, Johnny?
Speaker 2: Uh, let's see at the Huntingdon Hotel of a.
Speaker 3: Knob Hill me in a nice place like that.
Speaker 2: Unless and I would to call you.
Speaker 3: It's okay, Johnny, I'll call you and you're sure.
Speaker 2: It's Arson. I'm sure, and I'll see you. Bob Bailey.
In the Exciting Adventures of the Man with the action
packed Expenser Car, America is fabulous freelance insurance investigator. That's
truly Johnny Dollar. A handcuffed thief makes a desperate bid
to escape a frantic dope addict crashes through a fiberboard
wall at the police station house. It's part of the
daily routine New York sixteenth Police Precinct Hell's Kitchen. In
the new issue of Look magazine, you'll follow tough, dedicated
cops as they track down the man who pulled the trigger,
run down a burglar, subdue a drug addict, and you'll
learn in Look the kind of guy it takes to
make a detective, what he thinks about his job, what
he thinks about the kinds of people he has to
deal with. It's all here in Looks exciting picture story
Detectives at work. An uphill fight in a tough city
where the crime rate has risen almost ten percent in
the last year, or forty percent of the nation's drug addicts,
fight steal or beg for a fix. Where an entire
neighborhood suddenly becomes silent when the police department tries to
track the man behind the gun. You'll see it all
in Look magazine's dramatic picture story Detectives at work. It's
in the latest issue of Look, and it's on your
newsstands now. Get your copy of Look Today. Expense account
submitted by special investigator Johnny Dollar that the Greater Southwest
Insurance Company San Francisco office following is an account of
expenses incurred during my investigation of the Frisco fire matter.
First of all, I had to make sure my expenses
to the West Coast wouldn't have to come out of
my own pocket, so expense account. I had a one
ten cents for a call that got Pat McCrackan, a
Universal Adjustment Bureau, out of his bed. I asked him
to dig up some facts and figures for me in
a hurry. Within twenty minutes he called me back, Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 4: Well, Johnny, I've been on the phone to San Francisco
ever since you called me.
Speaker 2: You were right about the big fire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how did you find out about it?
Speaker 2: I never mind that, Pat, just keep talking. H Well, it's.
Speaker 3: Aware use It's own and operated by mister Peter H.
Speaker 4: Barnwell, and he has an office at fourteen to twenty.
Speaker 2: Seven Comack Street, fourteen twenty seven. Come back, got it?
And the insurance three hundred and forty thousand wow, carried
by Greater Southwest Insurance Company. Pat if I hurry, I
can just make plane connections. No, wait a minute, thanks,
thanks a lot. I had them two two h one
eighty eight playing fair Hertford to New York to San Francisco.
I believe me. Those jet flights on American get you
there in a hurry. I left New York at eight
am and pulled into San Francisco before noon Pacific time.
Of course, I had him three a time for newspaper
at the airport. Apparently the fire had burned itself out.
I had him four six seventy five taxi to Peter H.
Barnwell's office on Comack Street. The reception room was jammed. No, no,
there's no point in sending anybody over here because he
won't see them. Now listen, chick, I'll get your tickets
for any show in time.
Speaker 5: On.
Speaker 2: No, I tell you he won't see any of you,
not even me.
Speaker 6: No, Now, why don't you reporters just go back to
your papers and wait until mister Barnwell was ready to
talk to you.
Speaker 2: My card, miss, it's no use, miss. Will you read it? Please?
But he doesn't want to see any reporters, right, oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just a minute, mister dollar, how do you write that?
Speaker 2: Buddy? What paper are you from the Bingville Bugle? Huh yeah,
that's out near bum spung oklahol and our luck wise guy. Look,
mister dollar, mister dollar dollar, will you come in please,
mister dollar, sure, wait a minute to Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 3: In sure right in here, sir.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Hey, wait a minute, sit down, mister Dollar. Make
your shelveing home. I must say, you want it all
upset about the loss of your warehouse, should I be
sit down? Sure, mister Dollar, that building been a losing
promposition for years because of its bad location, because of
zoning restrictions, and the cost to tearing it down. I
have done nothing but lose money on it all. But
I've been very careful to keep up the insurance. So
now that it's gone up in flames, I shall let
long last collect on it. Three hundred and forty thousand dollars,
that's right, And with whatever I can get from some
of the misguided investor of the land itself, I'll be
sitting pretty I see now. Don't get any funny ideas,
mister investigator. The police have found nothing whatsoever to suggests arson,
No will they. You sound pretty sure of that. I'm
sure of it, even if it were a job that
you didn't have done. I'm sure of it. You know something,
mister Barnwell, I'm not so if you can be of
any help in putting through my can you hear what
I said? I heard? Mister Dollar doesn't worry me a bit, Hey, fellas,
Mike car filter maybe worth a thousand bucks how's that
hurt over the radio that the people who make PRAM
filters have a big treasure hunt on. So I checked
my oil and air filter, and I'll be dog gone
if there wasn't a specially marked PRAM air filter that
might pay me a thousand dollars. Oh kidding. My service
station man said, whatever I win, he'll win the same amount.
Told me a regular filter check is important to today's cars,
So important that PRAM Corporation is paying sixty thousand dollars
to get car owners to check their filters now cash money, sure,
this is Framsilver anniversary. Last year, ten thousand secretly numbered
PRAM filters were distributed all over the United States and
installed in cars during regular servicing. Every one of them
is worth cash, some as much as one thousand dollars.
Why one of you guys may have one in your car?
Not even low? Say what are we waiting for?
Speaker 3: Let's get those builders.
Speaker 2: Try hurry, folks, get in on the big brand treasure hunt.
You could win up to one thousand dollars in cash.
Check your car filters now, no act too of yours, truly,
Johnny Dollar and the Friscal fire Matter expense account at
him five two bucks for a taxi. In my opinion,
Peter H. Barnwell had the warehouse fire set. But opinions
don't count in my business. You've got to have proof,
and I hadn't yet got together with my informant, Smoky Sullivan.
Smoky wants a clever arsenist himself, later a counterfeiter, bootlegger,
just about everything in the book. But from the time
he helped me with a case a couple of years ago,
he'd stayed on the straight and narrow, and of course
I've always paid him well for his help. Before going
onto my hotel, I stopped in to see Bill Mullen
of the arsen Squad. Yeah, the papers say you're in town, Johnny,
glad to see you. Yeah, how are you, Bill? But
there's no reason for you to be here about that fire. Well,
that's so we've already found out how it started. Ah Bell,
some old derelict name of Stumpy Morane used to sleep
there every night, had an old iron bed and a
little sort of shack on one side of that warehouse. Yeah.
So last night, like a lot of the darn fools
all over the country, every night he went to bed
loaded and lit a cigarette result. No more mattress, no
more shack, no more warehouse. Why are you holding him? Also,
no more stumpy morane. He died in the fire. Yep.
And you're sure that's how it started, Johnny. When you've
combed through evidence on as many cases like that as
I have, there's no mistaking it. But now, Belle, that's
all away, from the source of the blaze, to the
empty bottle, the carbonized paper from the cigarette, the foil
from the cigarette package, the hair from the mattress, one
thousand and one little things that the ordinary person wouldn't
even think to look for. So listen, Yeah, be a
nice guy and call off the papers, will you? Why?
Because they saw you over in Barnwell's office. They've decided
it was Arsonal. They're calling us a bunch of bums.
The only reason they do it is to make headlines.
So call them up and tell them to layoff. Will
you set them straight? Not until I'm sure they aren't
right Bill? Huh? Wait a minute, what's that mean? I'll
see you later. I had him six another taxi to
the hotel, hunting it up on knob Hill. I went
straight to my room and sat down to wait for
smoking saw him to call. I didn't have to wait long. Smoky. Yeah,
well I hear they've found out how that fire started.
Speaker 3: Stumpy.
Speaker 2: That's right, Stumpy Moran.
Speaker 4: He was a friend of mine. Not much brains, Johnny,
but a nice old guy.
Speaker 2: But Johnny, Yeah, he didn't do it, but they found
all the evidence. He'd been drinking and smoking in bed.
He never touched the drop, Johnny. You sure he didn't
smoke neither? I know he was my pal. Or are
you smoking?
Speaker 3: You know where the Hungry Angel is? Uh?
Speaker 2: The cocktail borrower on that that's right.
Speaker 3: Take the alley in back. I'm in the phone booth
at the end of it. I'll be waiting for.
Speaker 2: You, Okay, and all listen. Yeah, do you know who
did set that fire? Yeah?
Speaker 3: The only guy in the whole country who could leave
no trace.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, and they.
Speaker 4: Won't even question him because he's been living straight for
so long.
Speaker 2: Touchy Thompson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lives in.
Speaker 4: A nice house on Aldea Drive five twenty seven, but
he ain't there.
Speaker 3: Do you know a note Donnie's door says gone fishing.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely sure it was he.
Speaker 3: I'm the only.
Speaker 4: One knew where to look for his signer on that
fire and I found it there. I'll show it to
you proof, Yes, sir, Johnny, I can prove that warehouse.
Speaker 7: Oh no, Smokey, smoky, sociable, up to date, debonair a
new word game. Now I'm just mentioning the qualities that
people admire and other people.
Speaker 2: Oh, I see if you're sociable, up to date? And
what was another word? Debonair? Yes, debonair.
Speaker 7: But listen to it this way.
Speaker 6: Be sociable, looks smart, up to date with pept drink
light refreshing pep.
Speaker 2: Stay fair Deen, there be sociable, have PEPSI notice how
many of your friends are serving pepsicola these days. It's
the up to date refreshment. Be sociable, and Haley behind
the hungry Angel, I found a couple of policemen carefully
going over every inch of the phone both where Smokey'd
called me. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Conray heard the shots
and came running back here. You get the angle of
that bullet, Old Conroy. Listen, listen, what about Smoky City Hospital?
But he isn't gonna live dollar, not a chance, and
you have no idea who shut him? No, But you're
a smart dick, Why didn't you find out for it? All? Right? Now,
look now, let me tell you something else to Dollar.
If that warehouse fire had been a torch job, which
it wasn't, like you're blabbing it out to all our papers.
Your dear pal, Smoky Sullivan is the only one who
could have done it, so is being knocked off his
good riddance? Why Smoky, because we got every other firebug
in this time nailed down. That's why a bet, mister Dolla.
Speaker 8: I honestly don't understand it, considering the way one of
those bullets nicked his heart. But it looks as though
that man Sullivan will live. The point is, doctor, can
I talk to him? Well, you can try, of course.
Oh this way, mister Dollar. But he was not able
to give anything to the police who just left. And listen, doctor,
do everything you can. From where do you out of
the bill?
Speaker 2: Oh? Very well, right in here? Okay, you mind if
I talk to him alone, if you like, and if
you can minks.
Speaker 9: Smoky, Smoky, Hi, Jenny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the doc says you're gonna be okay. Yeah, can't
get rid of me?
Speaker 9: Had a boy, Smoky, I didn't talk to the cops
just looked at.
Speaker 2: Him like I was dead of you. They smoky. Did
you see who put the slugs into you?
Speaker 9: No, Johnny, but it must have been Touchy, Touchy Thompson,
same as he set that fire.
Speaker 2: All right, No, listen, you're in no shape to go
over there and show me. But if the arsen squad
found no trace, and believe me, they know everything to
look for.
Speaker 9: Chemic goods, what Touchy had? Chemicals? Special chemicals never left
the trace.
Speaker 2: Everything leaves a trace of some kind.
Speaker 9: Nah, he had to use a gas mask. That's what
must have knocked out Stumpy morane in Touchy could plant
the liquors, cigarettes.
Speaker 2: And I guess the only thing I can do is
try to find Touchy Thompson. Johnny.
Speaker 10: Yeah, if you do, Johnny, be careful, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Act four off yours truly, Johnny Dollar In a moment,
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expense account at him seven five twenty more taxi fares.
There was nobody home at Touchy Thompson's place, only the
note in the door smoke he'd told me about gone
fishing fishing. Huh. He was probably hiding somewhere around the
town waiting for the atmosphere to clear. But how to
bring him out in the open then I suddenly remembered
an old friend of mine, Mary Webster, head man at
station KCBS. I'd have made a dollar even for a
kid after the Sheraton Palace and the KCBS studios. Johnny,
it is a pleasant surprise, although I had heard your
in town. How are you, Maury? Up to my neck.
We're in the midst of a big celebration, you know,
our fiftieth anniversary. Oh yes, sir, we were the first
broadcasting station in the country, and we're kind of proud
of me. Well, I should think you would be. Let
me add my congratulations. Thank you, Johnny. What brings you here? Maury?
When is your next news broadcast? Let me see and
mostly we'll hit the air in just about seven minutes.
That'll just give me time to knock out a news
item for him to read on the air. Oh what kind?
I tell you a while I'm scribbling it If you
don't mind, Well, yeah, John go ahead, Maury, I have
a sneaking suspicion it'll flush out an arsonist. Oh yeah,
and killer as briefly as possible. I told Mariy Webster
my plan. The wirelet handed in the news item I'd
cooked up He penciled in a couple of minor changes,
then gave it to his top man in the news bureau,
Don Mostly. A few minutes later. There in his office,
we listened to it being broadcast over the powerful facilities
of KCBS.
Speaker 11: The international situation on the local scene. Whether it took
insurance investigator Johnny Doller to clear up the matter of
the Barnwell warehouse fire.
Speaker 2: Here it comes.
Speaker 11: Solar has proof inclusively that it was sent by an
old hand at that business named Smokey Sullivan, his reason
to kill another man by the name of Moran, whose.
Speaker 2: Body was later found buried in the embers.
Speaker 11: Incidentally, Sullivan himself has just died as a result of
bullet wounds, no doubt inflicted by some friend of Moran's
who sought to avenge his murder. Well as for the
hold up that occurred earlier this morning on the Embarcadero.
Speaker 2: I hope it does the trick, Johnny. What are you
going to do now, Maury? There's going to be a
stake out at the home of one John I. Thompson,
formerly known as Touchy Thompson, out on al Dia Drive. Oh,
then you're turning this whole thing over to the police.
Steakeout'll be me. What if Thompson did set that fire
and killed Morales? I still have to prove it. But
don't you think it's a little dangerous Johnny? It could
be well in just a minute. Thanks Marie, Thanks a lot.
So I went out to Aldea Drive again and I
parked myself rather uncomfortably behind a hedge across the street
from Thompson's place. Funny it must have been around ten pm.
An expensive car pulled up and a man loaded with
fishing gear went into the house. I waited a couple
of minutes, and then I went over, knocked on the door,
walked in, introduced myself and laid a few cards right
on the table. Yeah, crazy, Della, I didn't even know
about that fire until you told me.
Speaker 3: Just now?
Speaker 2: Why lie about it? Touching? Look, I'm in fishing.
Speaker 5: Yeah for what?
Speaker 2: Alibi? Give me that the trout? Look? Look look here
for the ah trout.
Speaker 3: Have you see a nice mess? Him?
Speaker 2: Pick him up? It anymore? Not me? All right? Who
was with you? I was alone. I was over there
camp beside the lake all the time. I'm my sleeping
bag still out in the car. What lake Mono Lake.
It's a little over two hundred miles easter here. Yeah,
I know it. Wow, well that's why I caught him.
I know it well enough to know that because of
the high mineral content of that water, no trout could
ever survive in it. What huh? Hello, Wait a minute,
it's no good, Touchy. And with the proof I have
that only you could have set that fire with some
of your fancy chemicals. What do you know about that?
You got you got the proof? Look, haf she has Touchy. Well,
I'm glad to see you two know each other very smart.
Weren't you Touchy? What do you mean? I mean the
way you fell for that phony news broadcast and came
back here and Dollar, thanks for setting the stage for me. Yeah,
what does that mean? You came here because you suspected Touchy.
You had a big argument, you both pulled your guns
and killed each other. No, no, what's the only conclusion
the police can pass reached when they find your buddies lying?
Look now, don't make a single move. Dollar, Neither of
you will do anything because five seconds from now you'll
both be dead. Sway, You're wrong? What all that trigger?
Barn William's the last thing you'll ever do, Bill Flim
Just when the boys take care of you, Irison, I
need for violence, officer. Yes, my barn will there is well, Johnny, Now,
just one under the sun ever led you to come
out here? Bill? Your old friend Smoky Sullivan call me
to the hospital. He was a little worried about you.
You mind mine? You gotta be kidding. Yeah. They were
both in it up to their ears, each and trying
to defend himself. Just put the other in that much
deeper and by the time the courts get through with them,
they'll be sorry they ever lived. Expense account total including
the trip back to Hartford and a good hefty gratuity
for Smoky Sullivan plus all his hospital bills nine twenty
three ninety one. Yours truly, Johnny Deller. Our star will
return in just a moment. Yeah, I'm a mean widow kid,
And are you pleased with yourself?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 12: Because I'm a germ a bathroom germs. Bathrooms is where
the meanest germs get to wear ha ha. Do I
have fun causing odor and spreading the team?
Speaker 2: Are you better watch out? Sona? Your landlady may find
out about Lysol brand disinfectant why sauce? Oh, Lysol?
Speaker 3: That's what I said?
Speaker 2: Why saw? Well? Anyway, a lot of women are finding
that a dash of lysol in their cleaning sauce every
week wipes out nasty bath room disease germs like you
disinfect from one cleaning to the next. As no other
product can wipes out many deadly viruses too. Lisol makes
every cleaner work better. It's the easy modern way to
get bathrooms really clean and free of odors.
Speaker 3: Why sall can do that?
Speaker 2: And what's more? Now, besides regularly saw, there's a new
sweet smelling, pine scented lysol and they're both out to
get you. Hey, were you ever a mean widow kid?
One more remark like that? And I'll open this bottle
of lysol. Now here's our star. I tell you about
next week's story. Next week, A quiet little ranch in Oklahoma,
quiet that is until the shooting starts. Join us, won't
you yours? Truly? Shiny dollar yours truly? Johnny starring Bob Bailey,
originates in Hollywood and has written, produced, and directed by
Jack Johnstog. Heard in our cast were Virginia, Greg vic Parn,
Larry Dobkin, Alan Red Gil Stratton Junior, Paul Duba, Bartlett Robinson,
Don Moseley, and Tony Barrett. Be sure to join us
next week, same time and station for another exciting story
of yours, truly, Johnny Dollary. This is Dan Coberly speaking.
This is the CBS Radio Network, Welcome back.
Speaker 1: I had to chuckle when Johnny mentioned that the paper
he was from was in Bums Bom, Oklahoma, a reference
to the hometown of Durango, Laramie. Another one of those
deep cuts that we talked about last week. I do
question a bit the newspapers covering his involvement in the case.
It does add to the nationwide celebrity of Johnny through
the radio, but it also raises concerns, increases some of
the suspension of disbelief you have to have when he
tries to be more anonymous about things. And of course
we got a little bit of a shout out to
radio station KCBS, which began broadcasting in nineteen oh nine, although,
as John Abbott notes in his great book The Who
Is Johnny Dollar Matter, that there is some dispute over
who exactly started the first radio station in the United States.
But this sort of service to the radio stations is
one of those hallmarks of the Johnstone era and certainly
was a way I think to keep radio drama still
relevant and rooted to the audience. Television by now had
vastly surpassed radio in terms of the ten of the
American people, but this is kind of a way to
really tie it back into the local stations and into
the real world in a way that you just weren't
going to have on television. Now it's time to thank
our Patreon supporter of the day, and I want to
go ahead and thank Monica, Patreon supporter since March twenty nineteen,
currently supporting the podcast at the Master Detective level of
fifteen dollars or more per month. Thanks so much for
your support, Monica, and that will do it for today.
If you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your
favorite podcast software and be sure to rate and review
the podcast wherever you download it from. We'll be back
next Friday with another episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.
But join us back here tomorrow as we give way
to the great adventurers of old time radio and Counterspy.
Speaker 5: Where comn missus Peters counters five Plane one bound to Mexico.
Speaker 2: Victoria is about forty.
Speaker 3: Miles north of the uranium discovery.
Speaker 2: You don't want to stay in Victoria. There's another town
forty miles to the south of the uranium field of
better you would, even though, how I can get rooms
there in a rank house.
Speaker 5: That would be fun for a while. We want to
keep under cover.
Speaker 3: That's all.
Speaker 2: Our number of theaters.
Speaker 3: I'm amplying to Mexico at your request.
Speaker 5: I brought along this map of Mexico, Matadi. I'd like
to show you.
Speaker 2: The publicity that's gotten.
Speaker 5: One of the papers about a uranium deposit in Mexico
has certainly scounted something. What did the reports of the
Mexican polifs say about it?
Speaker 2: There?
Speaker 5: The port said that persons of questionable character were flocking
to Victoria.
Speaker 2: Victoria.
Speaker 3: Let's right here on the map.
Speaker 5: Huh Unless I'm is my guest, barn agents are swarming
there like flies.
Speaker 2: To my lass.
Speaker 5: What are you talking about.
Speaker 2: This for me? Yes? You, oh I am.
Speaker 3: I was thinking of a funny story.
Speaker 2: You've got something up here sleeve.
Speaker 3: Somehow, Peters.
Speaker 2: I have a hunch the hunts they are going to
become very interesting development in those mountains within the next
few days.
Speaker 1: Hope you'll be with us then in the meantime, send
your comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net,
follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectives, and check us
out on Instagram, Instagram, dot com, slash Great Detectives from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham signing off.