Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Kalispell, Montana.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to 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 favorite
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check Johny Dollar air dot com first. But now, from
June fourteenth, nineteen forty nine, here is the Wayward Sculpture Matter.
Speaker 2: Universal Adjustment Funeral.
Speaker 3: Hi, Frank, you've been neglecting me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they call all the trouble and saved me.
Speaker 4: No, I'm supposed to me.
Speaker 2: I haven't had the bleed of one of those fancy
expense accounts.
Speaker 4: Of yours nearly a month that you cut me to
the quick.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, but no, well looks at all.
Speaker 5: I has to take my.
Speaker 2: Neck out again. What's a problem.
Speaker 5: Well, Johnny it's a real funny one.
Speaker 3: John Lamping already.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I don't mean funny.
Speaker 2: Ha ha, I mean funny.
Speaker 6: Hey.
Speaker 2: You know the last time he said that, I got
John had danged on my head, nearly run over by
a truck. And I have a dozen other pleasant little
thing So come clean bad.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 5: Johnny?
Speaker 4: Maybe you've better run over here so we can talk
about it.
Speaker 2: It'll risk okay, then I'm on my way. Bob Bailey
and the Exciting Adventures of the Man with the Action
Pact Expensive Count America's Fabulous Free Lance Insurance Investigators.
Speaker 3: True Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 2: Expense Accounts an Advice Special Investigator Johnny Dollar the Universal
Adjustment Bureau Home Office, Hartford, Connecticut, following his account of
expenses encourage during my investigation of the Wayward Sculpture matter
White Kid about It Pat mc crank and has handed
me some pretty wild cases in time to time, but
they've always paid off.
Speaker 3: No spens an out of one and done.
Speaker 2: At twenty for a kid to his office at Universal Adjustment.
Speaker 4: Girl, I sit on, Johnny, make yourself covered a figure?
Oh thanks? Hey yeah, oh m hmm. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Well, Well, Johnny, you know that one of Our big
problems is discouraging and prosecuting insurance brought not only against us,
but against the companies we served.
Speaker 4: Wow. So now what I've called you about is something
that's been going on for a long long time. Okay,
what kind of fraud is it?
Speaker 6: This?
Speaker 4: We never know?
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 4: Look here, yeah, a while back, International.
Speaker 2: Life and Casualty is he's an envelope containing five hundred
and twenty dollars in cash and with it this note
that reads, please put this in company treasury of money
I took from your company on false pretensies.
Speaker 4: Now I can have a fluor country.
Speaker 2: And it was signed debtor like spell btttp off funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I said to you over the phone.
Speaker 2: Here's another one, eight hundred dollars in closes the tender,
identifying himself only as a sorry sinner more content funding.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: People who collected on fraudulent claims or felt they didn't
deserve the money they collected. Nine and Johnny has been
dozens of them over the years. Most of them have
been small amounts undo one thousand dollars, some of.
Speaker 4: Them only five or ten bucks.
Speaker 2: In another word, is not worth investigating to see what
fraud they deliberated, Yes, exactly, But now look here, it's
with the payments anonymously received, all of them from the
same pustions eight hundred and thirty three dollars thirty four
cents received on July twenty first, nineteen fifty sixth rides
eight thirty three thirty four on August.
Speaker 4: Twenty third, nineteen.
Speaker 2: Fifty Yeah, same ding, September twenty, same thing to twenty
first of every.
Speaker 4: Month since, and no letter with it, only the yes
serious to yourself?
Speaker 2: Who's interested in serious company?
Speaker 4: Gentlemen?
Speaker 2: This is only a beginning against the amount paid out
on me last month. Be sure that I shall make
full restitution if it takes five years.
Speaker 4: Good to him or her.
Speaker 3: I hope he's coming, Johnny.
Speaker 4: I want to know who's sends any right now? Yes, yes, yes,
not only the law but company.
Speaker 2: Policy demands would re prostitute anyone steppating a fraud.
Speaker 4: All the other conscience money has been in single stavements,
no way to trace them whatsoever. Also, the amounts have
been well negligible.
Speaker 2: They've always come from the same post office. They've all
come from New York City, but from as many different
post offices as a number of famous.
Speaker 4: That have been made.
Speaker 2: But if a man is paying up all the ch well,
how do we know, Johnny, how do we know he'll
come to his promise? Well, and we don't know who
he is, so we can't know how much he older.
Speaker 5: Or for what.
Speaker 2: So all you want me to do is to through
seven million people down in New York and somehow the
one man. Oh, now, I admit it's a challenge.
Speaker 4: God, it sure is. What knowing you?
Speaker 3: You're right, there's only one.
Speaker 4: Thing to do.
Speaker 2: That's just a move up. Now listen, give me a pen.
Oh all right, he said, even if it took him
five years, Yes, that's fifty months. And at eight thirty
three thirty four a month, there was sixty years, think
three third four fifty thousand dollars and forty cents. So
all right, you started in July fifty six on money
paid out the month before, he said, So find me
a policy where Eastern Trust and Insurance paid off fifty
thousand June of nineteen fifty. Oh, and what type of
policy might I ad?
Speaker 4: Life insurance? Oh? Really missed the detective? Why why you.
Speaker 2: Change those monthly payments to eight hundred and thirty three
dollars and thirty three and a third cent.
Speaker 4: But who was set a penny in the.
Speaker 2: Johnny, you're right, you're right, And here's that come up
to exactly.
Speaker 4: Fifty thousand even til you like that?
Speaker 2: As usually for life insurance, Yeah, usually you'll find the
policy issued right Easton paid off in June fifty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a chance, Johnny.
Speaker 2: But let's try.
Speaker 4: And then suddenly it all began. It looked too easy.
Speaker 2: In June nineteen fifty six, the total number of fifty
thousand dollars benefit paid came out to just exactly one.
Speaker 4: On the life of Henry Davidson Pollack.
Speaker 2: The one's being a scuffing beneficiary his wife, Sarah Norton Pollack,
and it gave her address in New York City, so
Pollack didn't really die at all, but she collected is
in sure now?
Speaker 4: Conscience fricken, She is paying it.
Speaker 3: That's what it looks like.
Speaker 2: But it's bill fraud.
Speaker 4: They'll go to it, Johnny.
Speaker 2: Right, expense account ad him two eight dollars in the
quarter train in New York, and I cared to the apartment
house at six fourteen. He's forty ninth Streets failing to
find missus Pollack's name on the mail boxes. I got
hold of the building, SUPERINTI this is Pollack. Sure, I said,
Polack lived.
Speaker 3: Here for years. Well where is she now?
Speaker 2: You know you're trying to be funny.
Speaker 4: What do you mean?
Speaker 6: I mean, she died last.
Speaker 4: Fall and it's too late.
Speaker 3: No, wait a minute, those payments are still coming in.
But that you're sure that she's dead. I was with
her when she died.
Speaker 2: And mister, what's going on around here happens to be
just plain impossible.
Speaker 4: Now, wait a minute, are.
Speaker 2: We talking about the same person, the same missus Pollack,
Missus Henry Davidson Pollack.
Speaker 3: That's it, the widow the sculptor so one on.
Speaker 2: And he lived here in his apartment too, that is
before he died. That was back in fifty six. Left
all his money, all his insurance to his wife.
Speaker 3: Oh goodness knows why? How did he die?
Speaker 6: And that big plane.
Speaker 2: Crash out over the desert.
Speaker 3: Don't you remember?
Speaker 4: Not a single as survivor.
Speaker 2: What what kind of a man was he?
Speaker 3: Ooh if himself didn't like people much?
Speaker 2: And his wife, okay, I guess she was let younger
than him, spent all his money all the time.
Speaker 3: He didn't like it. Man like that shouldn't be married.
Nobody must have thought a lot of it or leader
of everything. He just didn't like being married. Died down.
Letn't interfere with his work. Oh, his death got him
out with.
Speaker 2: And give her some money to spend before she died.
Speaker 3: But somebody's been playing that money back.
Speaker 2: Well you think maybe she suffered a change his heart
something like that. Do you think she realized she never
deserved what.
Speaker 3: He left it?
Speaker 2: That what you're thinking. Sure, that might have been a
possibility except for one thing. The money's still coming in.
Speaker 3: Oh, he has signed anybody to whom she might have
turned over.
Speaker 2: That insurance her give anything to anybody else not.
Speaker 3: Herm is it?
Speaker 2: And you're absolutely sure that she's dead.
Speaker 3: I carried her in off the street after the car
hit her.
Speaker 2: You don't believe me, Ask the doctor, duncan your maitland
o run Park Avenue?
Speaker 3: Ask the police?
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe I will.
Speaker 2: I had him three fifty cents for a phone called
a Patma Cracken.
Speaker 4: Back in Hartford.
Speaker 2: But Johnny, if it was his wife who got that money,
she wasn't the kind of pass it off to someone else.
Speaker 6: She'd have to be the one paying it back.
Speaker 2: But if she's dead by last Paul, how about the
whole thing is impossible.
Speaker 4: Damon's still been coming in. There'll probably be another one
plucked down on my desk by the time you.
Speaker 2: Get back here. Now, I kind of somehow that woman
must still be alive, so finally.
Speaker 4: Find her chocolate.
Speaker 2: Why suppose by some merricle, she is still alive.
Speaker 4: Where's the fraud?
Speaker 2: Well, people, don't just handle the fifty thousand dollars for nothing.
Speaker 1: Somebody's conscience is hurting.
Speaker 2: What other possible reason could.
Speaker 4: They be for sending that money back to us this way? Well?
Speaker 3: No, wait, wait just a minute.
Speaker 2: Right, Look, Johnny, I'll be honest with you. Maybe there
isn't any fraud so far as the company's concerned. But
you know something, Johnny, this whole crazy thing has me
so curious.
Speaker 3: Now, Well, even if there isn't any insurance angle.
Speaker 2: To it, except for the money the company keeps getting. Okay,
But Johnny, I want to know what this is all about,
and if necessary, off for your expensive compan myself. Quite well, now,
this is the golden opportunity I've been learning for for years.
Speaker 4: Don't go over poor Johnny. Huh, but fine enough for me,
will you.
Speaker 2: Who knows, Dear pike Man, I hadn't four seventy eighty
five taxes that cant the doctor making No, there was
no question about it. A woman who had died when
the car stucker lasts fall was missus Henry Davidson, my
wife and the sculpting.
Speaker 4: The doctor had non work of them very well.
Speaker 2: I checked with my old parl, Lieutenant Granby Singer at
eight Precinct Police Headquarries. He too was sure the woman
had died.
Speaker 4: He'd been called in on the case.
Speaker 2: Then I remembered something the superintendent of the apartment house
had said to me about the way Pollack had wanted
to get away.
Speaker 4: From his wife.
Speaker 2: I went over to the New York Times and checked
the old newspaper file. Yes, Henry Davidson Pollack had definitely
been a passenger on the ill fated aircraft had perished
along the rest. I even checked the main office of
the airline and learned the same thing. So neither Taught
or his wife could possibly be sending back that money.
But then who could and why Doctor Nathan had mentioned
the little art gallery over on Third Avenue. The only
gallery that Pollack had ever dealt with directly. The owner
of the gallery was a nervous of a man with
any known w of vessons.
Speaker 4: No, those lister dollars strange as if we found. I
never mixed with the politar.
Speaker 2: But I thought you were the only outlet for his
sculpture very soon, very true. But he was a man
who said very much by himself the public eye, so
to speak. Yes, well, now, nevertheless you must have you see.
It was his wife who always brought his work to
help for me to tell, and asough was very sure
to collect the money for them.
Speaker 4: Quite frankly, I doubt tell it himself ever saw much.
Speaker 2: Of the money, but resulted from his artistry, where his
sculptures weren't very much. Mister presson the dollar, I had
yet to find anyone who sees his work without wanting
to possess some of it. His beautiful excited In addition
to his superb technique his originality of design, there was
a subtle charm about everything he did that was well eeries.
Speaker 4: To look here the.
Speaker 2: Only one I had left thorn at.
Speaker 4: Play differ.
Speaker 2: Hen't good?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I see it. That's such an old thing.
Speaker 3: But what surprised him.
Speaker 4: Fifteen thousand dollars. But the rights, Yeah, this one over here,
it is not a pollup.
Speaker 3: The dollar what well, what I'm on an extra on
these things.
Speaker 2: But it seems to me as though it has the
same well yeah, instile.
Speaker 4: The same charm, the same delicacy of lind. It too
is a fine work of art. And if I chose
I could pass it off as a genuine polus that
it isn't, then who did it? And this this one
over here?
Speaker 3: John Wesley Collins.
Speaker 2: He so admired Pollock's work that he took the style
at least could not be allowed to die. Therefore he
has subjugated whatever style he himself might have had for
that of the men he worshiped. Fortunately for him, his
work to command a good price so that.
Speaker 4: The don't touch her.
Speaker 2: Sorry, how long has this man Colin's been doing this?
Speaker 4: Something over two years?
Speaker 2: Thanks, mister presser, I think you've just helped me side
a fifty thousand dollars insurance fraud. Well, mister Beson, I'll
see you later. I walked down the front door of
a little light gary on Third Avenue.
Speaker 3: Over my shoulders, I closed the door.
Speaker 4: I could see me on her.
Speaker 2: Water best and make a dance with a little office
inside and grab a telephone. I sneak back then and
stepped up behind a rack of picture frames and canvases
and listened and.
Speaker 4: Ray Thissus Walter, well the that's listen, no.
Speaker 2: Listen, something has just happened. But well there was a
man here, Johnny.
Speaker 4: Dollar, some kind of insurance investigator. So you no, don't
you buston? But if he comes back here, m very well,
I'll unlock the back door for you. But are you
who were you? Hello, Henry, Henry.
Speaker 2: When Busson went to the back door, I quietly slipped
out the front. I found a telephone move with a
drug store on the corner right him five a dime
for phone quarterback.
Speaker 6: That cheels me.
Speaker 2: Yes, mister Dowler, And I told you when you were here,
and they were both.
Speaker 3: Patient and mind for several years.
Speaker 2: All right, doctor tell me this. Did Henry Davidson pronack
have a scar, a deep scar on the front one hand,
the right hand.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: He told me that when he was a child he cut.
Speaker 4: Through the tip of that thumb very deeply, all the
way down to the ball.
Speaker 2: That's all I wanted to know.
Speaker 3: Thank you, doctor, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2: The tips of the corner on that phone call couldn't
have taken me more than five or six minutes. And
when I went back to the eye Gallery, Beson was
coming out of the little office, careful to close the
door behind him. Well, mister teller, I didn't expect you
to return if he'd not for food. Had we decided
to buy one of the sculptures by John Lesley Collins
fan No, of course, so far as the one remaining
genuine Pollock is concerned, but the method also? Would you
like to sit down and write a statement forming datement?
Speaker 4: I'm afraid I don't understand.
Speaker 2: Why would you rather call on the police what you're
talking about? I told you before, mister Besson fault. And
since it's pretty obvious that you're an accessory, you mentioned
the great similarity between the sculptures and Henry Davidson Pollock
and John Wesley Collins. Yes, and I told you.
Speaker 4: The reason for it. It's you, of course, all right,
Look here this one fawn at play.
Speaker 2: You called it the Pollock, the genuine polop.
Speaker 3: You'd swear to that, of course I would.
Speaker 2: And how could you pull it? Well? Well, there's one way.
The mark's left by the artist's right thumb here and there,
for instance, because that numb was split on the end,
left its imprint on the clerk with the dollar. And
I can prove that these recent things done by the
man you called John Wesley Collins were done by the
same person.
Speaker 3: They all bear that same mark very well with the dollar.
Speaker 4: But the world will never.
Speaker 2: Know now by some said thing down, Yes, put it
down the letter, Henry.
Speaker 4: I mean if the Collins, I.
Speaker 3: Henry, will do.
Speaker 4: Miter dollar. I suppose I should have known sooner or later. Yeah,
I give myself.
Speaker 6: Up to you.
Speaker 2: But Henry, if the stories are simple than mit the dollar,
I suppose you'd like to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I certainly WoT you see.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get away from my wife for reasons
that you don't do.
Speaker 4: Have to go too. I planned to fly out to
the West Coast to.
Speaker 2: Disappear, but at the last minute I gave the plane
to take it to someone else on the plane that
crash out there over the desert.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: Then, knowing that my wife thought me dead, and realizing
I could become lost in this tremendous city as well
as anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 4: But I've forgotten about the insurance.
Speaker 2: So then anonymous of the course, I started bringing back
in my saying all of this was very long. I know,
well I'm afraid of something for the course. Now it's
a party, mister Dollars.
Speaker 4: The works have done best.
Speaker 2: Columns are sold very low at good prices. Only this morning, listen,
I was able to.
Speaker 4: Mail the whole balance of the fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: To the insurance company.
Speaker 4: Do you think that will help? Sir A part?
Speaker 2: Here you have it, and you can take whatever action
you may think is necessary.
Speaker 4: Olig is waiting for the company, or the courts or whoever.
Speaker 2: And while the rest of is too scared to going
every that's account, I think that company.
Speaker 4: Can afford it.
Speaker 2: The total, including the trip bank on Harford, is twenty
six dollars and.
Speaker 3: Fifteen cents, Your truly, Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 2: Now here is are story to tell you about next week.
Story next week one of my oldest and wildest friends
in one of my rarest and wildless adventures. Joy us,
thank you, yours truly, Johnny Dollars, yours truly, Johnny Dollar.
Stirring Bob Bailey originates in Hollywood and has written, produced
and directed by Jack Johnstone for an oar cast worker, Biglan,
Edgar Barrier, Carlton g Young, Will Light and Laurence Subcos
He's going to join us next week same time, and
Fasion or another exciting story of your Johnny.
Speaker 4: This is Van Coverly.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. Pat seemed a little too fixated on missus
Pollock somehow being alive. My first thought was that the
sculptor was alive, even not thinking of the title, but
the facts of the plane crash I think gave Johnny
a good reason to presume against it. Johnny's deduction on
the thumbprint was able to flush out the altar and hiding.
And when you think about it, the scheme that the
art gallery owner worked up was a bit too cute
by half an admirer of the sculptor whose work looked
almost identical to the sculptor being imitated, and pieces for
both are being sold by the same dealer. Well, now
we turn to listener comments and feedback, and we have
some regarding the big h matter. Dawn writes, anybody else
bothered Johnny didn't bail for that pack of cigarettes. It's
sad to see the great ones lose a step. I
will say that when you get towards the end of
Johnny Doller, the expense accounts become a lot less detailed
and are used a lot less in storytelling. It becomes
even more pronounced when you get into the Reddick Kramer years.
And then Elwood writes, I was waiting for the homeowner
to talk about her actor brother John, and of course
the name of the big h was Helen Dayner. Now
I will say, looking at John Abbott's book, that who
is Johnny Dollar matter? And he went through the scripts
over at Thousand Oaks Library when they were there, now
moved to the Pailey Center at CLA. But he spelled
her last name as da.
Speaker 2: N E R.
Speaker 1: So her last name sounds like John Dayers, but apparently
it would be no relation because the spelling is different.
Then we turn to YouTube, where we have some comments
on the Cask of Death matter. Kathy Wright's congratulations on
your milestone. Jeffrey writs, your voice sounds husky. Hope you
feel better, Suit of six, Thanks Adam, Well, thanks so much, Jeffrey,
and I am feeling better. Generally, when my voice is
a bit off, it's corrected Before the episode even comes
out in the podcast, but appreciate your concern. All right, well,
now it's time to thank our Patreon supporter of the day,
and I should say supporters, because I am thanking those
Patreon supporters who have been supporting the podcast for five
years this month, and I want to thank Joel and
Doug both supporting the podcast at the Detective Sergeant level
of seven dollars and fourteen cents or more per month.
And I want to thank Eliza currently supporting the podcast
at the Shawmus level of four dollars or more per month. Again,
thank you so much for your support, and that will
do it for today. If you're enjoying the podcast, please
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those great things that help YouTube channels to grow. We'll
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True Leads don't need allar but join us tomorrow as
we give way to Counterspy and the great adventurers of
old time radio ware.
Speaker 4: You're quite a character. Horn.
Speaker 6: While addressing me doctor, kindly use my type.
Speaker 5: Of course professor, Horn only who made you a professor?
The only person in the world who's qualified myself? All
arm gods, I'm still. We're in the prison walls. Within
the prison wall, doctor, hold still now. I don't understand
why your upper lipids and healing. This is a bad infection.
I believe the lack of healing is due to hyperprotonemia
because the food is lacking simeon.
Speaker 6: Hydro chloride and near cinemaid.
Speaker 4: No, really, thank you, no medicine.
Speaker 6: Don't you pardon me if I speak medically over your head? Doctor?
But then ignorance always irritates me.
Speaker 5: A have hair, Robby, I'll have to cover your whole
upper lip with adhesive again.
Speaker 6: How long will you a horse? Doctor?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Man.
Speaker 5: Really, hey here you may takes attempt to escape in
two months, horns our news does travel. That's only ten
days more you're transferred to the death house.
Speaker 6: You have a morbid mind, haven't.
Speaker 1: Zero No If 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 Kallispell, Montana.
This is your host, Adam Graham signing off.