Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you our second Listener Support and Appreciation special.
But first I do want to encourage you if you're
enjoying the podcast, to follow us using your favorite podcast
software and our listener support and paying continues. You can
become one of our ongoing Patreon supporters for as little
last two dollars per month by going to patreont Great
Detectives dot nit. Well, we're bringing you something a bit
different today. In years past, we brought you twice Told Tales,
where we take a look at one version of a
radio script and how it was reused on another. This
is different. I could, I suppose call it four times
told Tale, but don't let that scare you or put
you off. And I know some people might think hearing
the same exact story four times in a row doesn't
sound very interesting. I think I'll skip to the next episode. Well,
let me explain a little. This is actually going to
be a look at a yours truly Johnny Dollar serial
that was written by E. Jack Newman under the pseudonym
John Dawson. What makes Johnstones Yours Truly Johny Dollar cereals
interesting is that they are rarely a case of take
one script, pad it out, and there you go. Plus
Crossfield did a few scripts that were like that, but
E Jack Newman tended to take elements and ideas from
different scripts and combine them into the Johnny Dollar Cereal.
In addition, you'll get to hear how different actors and
creative teams handled these particular stories. So we're going to
be bringing you Jeff Reagan, not beat Yours Truly Johnny
Dollar with John Lund and then the Yours Truly Johnny
Dollar Cereal with Bob Bailey. So now from October twelfth,
nineteen forty nine, here is Man in the Church.
Speaker 2: My name's Reagan. I worked for Anthony J. Lyon International
Detective Bureau. They call me the Lion's Eye.
Speaker 3: Jeff Reagan, Investigator, starring Frank Graham as Reagan, with Frank
Nelson as Anthony J.
Speaker 4: Lyon.
Speaker 3: So stand by for mystery and suspense and adventure. In
tonight's story of the Man in the Church.
Speaker 2: You'll find the Cosmopolitan Building on Seventh Street near Olive,
A pile of Mike granite holding up a brass clock
that hasn't kept time since nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 5: That's the Anthony J. Lyon.
Speaker 2: The guy I worked for took out a thirty year
lease on sweet three year eight. You can't miss it.
Right after you get off the elevator. International detect Bureau,
Good bargain counter if you want to buy your trouble wholesale.
Right after the se game last Saturday, I walked in.
The lion was at his desk. He had a sparkle
in one eye and a jeweler's glass in the other.
And even though he tried to cover up, I can
tell he was looking at a fifty dollars bill.
Speaker 6: Oh oh, oh you, Reagan.
Speaker 7: I I was just noticing the engrieving on this veil, intricate,
fascinating work of art.
Speaker 5: Really Grant took a good picture.
Speaker 7: Yeah it didn't, he though, ULYSSI Simpson. Grant was one
of our greatest presidents, Reagan.
Speaker 5: So you're starting a collection.
Speaker 6: I've already started one. This is my first showing.
Speaker 5: All right, who's the new client?
Speaker 8: Eh?
Speaker 6: Client? Oh?
Speaker 7: I didn't get this from a client really, rather an
old Friday. It just a little errand yes, I called
you in because I want you to do a favor
for a friend.
Speaker 2: Last time we did a favor for a friend, he
turned out to have a record as long as a
rolled up kite string.
Speaker 7: Oh, Pincole's not like that, not at all. Yes, Charles
Pencoll our my friend. He he wants a bonded licensed
operator at his place at six o'clock tonight, Capitol Hotel
on Elisha Street.
Speaker 2: And just what does Charles Pencoll Capitol Hotel, Aliso Street
want this bonded license operator to do at six o'clock?
Speaker 6: Now see here, Jeffrey, there's no need to take that attitude.
Speaker 7: Old Pencoll wants is someone to deliver a cash amount
of five thousand bucks.
Speaker 2: You took another job without asking any questions, didn't you?
Speaker 6: What do you mean to ask question?
Speaker 2: When a man who lives in a two bit hotel
on Aliso Street needs a license operator to deliver five
thousand bucks, there's questions to be asked.
Speaker 6: Well, I asked question.
Speaker 5: I don't give me some answer, all right?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 7: Oh I lied to you a little about his being
an old friend. He isn't that really, But the man
asked for help. I couldn't turn him down. He touched
me in some way, Jeffrey. Here there was a look
about him. Jaf saul a fifty dollars. I tell you,
mister Pencoll was a distress. So when he came in
to see me, if you could have seen him so disturbed,
so help bliss. It was our opportunity to help a
brother in distress.
Speaker 6: Choros. Pen Coal is our brother. Rica.
Speaker 5: Come on, answers, start talking.
Speaker 6: All right, all right, I'll tell you what I can.
Ben Cole has a problem, but it's in strictest confidence.
Speaker 7: I told him i'd give him my best operator you, Jeffrey,
but I had to swear I wouldn't divulge details, even
to you.
Speaker 6: But I promise it's nothing illegal, just a simple little job.
My word, Jeffrey.
Speaker 5: If you're lying to me again, I'm not.
Speaker 7: Go see this man, Jeffrey, take one look at it.
You'll see I'm telling the truth. I told him you'd
be there. The reputation of the agencies at State.
Speaker 5: It took fifty buck, yes, I took his fifty And
we're on the hook.
Speaker 6: Yes, we're on the hook.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, fat So I'll see him, just see him,
but you stay right here, stay here. What because if
this ball has a curve on it, I'm coming back
here around that fifty dollars right down your throat. Well,
the lion and put on a good act, and I
went for it again. Maybe it was because I figured
he lied so much he'd accidentally have to tell the
truth once in a while. Or maybe it was because
he looked different when he was describing Charlie Pencoll. Anyhow,
it was dark on Alisa Street and it was trying
to rain when I found a white blister over the
sidewalk that blinked up Capitol Hotel rooms one dollar anough.
Speaker 5: I walked through a.
Speaker 2: Lobby that smelled like last year's laundry. Nobody was behind
the desk, but I spun the register around and picked
up a Charles A pen Call in room age. It
was upstairs, in between a broom closet and a fire.
Speaker 5: Escape, but I didn't have to knock.
Speaker 2: A tall, big man with a lot of gray hair
had the shorter one by the lapels.
Speaker 9: Don't think it's well you went out of touch, yeh, Johnny,
I've been out of touch, but I don't know how
to handle a punk like you.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 9: Listen to me, get in my way once acond and
I'll break you in half.
Speaker 11: Oh, come one and your kid, all right, big shut out,
don't try a gun.
Speaker 5: You crossed the heater buster, I should drop.
Speaker 12: Got a lot of friends.
Speaker 13: Jolly, you always show up just in time.
Speaker 14: I remember you too, mister.
Speaker 6: I remember you got out of here, go on, get out.
I remember this, I remember all of this.
Speaker 9: You're a pretty good social what's your name? Oh yeah,
some thanks, thanks, Reagan? How to use that thing?
Speaker 15: You know?
Speaker 2: We try to keep our clients alive until we've earned
our fees. I'm from International, and if you're Charlie Pincall,
you're a client until fifty bucks.
Speaker 5: Is used up.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, sure, sure, come on in, Regan, make yourself
at home. Isn't much wire bedding the neon sign outside.
I've had better, Reagan. Yeah, hey, you want to drink?
Speaker 5: Why not?
Speaker 9: Probably got a lot of questions to ask, Gregan. I'll
answer him fast. Yeah here, yeah, don't you start with
the punk Johnny Lago. Okay, he hasn't got anything to
do with you and me. He's a separate fuse.
Speaker 2: Sure he's used that thirty eight before you know. I've
seen him in the mug files.
Speaker 9: I can handle him. I want you to handle something else.
What's a look for it.
Speaker 5: I've seen that kind of sup before the ten bucks coming.
Speaker 16: Yeah, just got out.
Speaker 9: Of sad Quentin that eighteen years. It's sober time served.
It shows, Hey, you don't do that much vacation standing
on your ear rig and it's hard to get any
exercise in that ten by eight room. And the nights too.
There always a couple of million years long. You got
somebody to worry about. Somebody like logo, No, no, I
tell you he's nothing.
Speaker 16: I was in twenty nine.
Speaker 9: He was a truck driver who had big ideas. He
still got him, but he's got nothing to back him
up with.
Speaker 5: All right, you got somebody else to worry about.
Speaker 9: Yeah, guy's name is Sydney Chambers. Owe him some money.
Speaker 5: You sure you want a detective.
Speaker 9: I can pay Chambers, but I can't see him. I'm
going to be busy. You're bonded. I can trust you
to carry.
Speaker 5: Them on messenger. Boys are bonded.
Speaker 9: Simple job, Reagan. That's why I'd only pay the lion
fifty bucks to have it done here. Yeah, five thousand,
right go ahead, count it.
Speaker 5: I'll take your word. Where do I find your man.
Speaker 9: Sydney Chambers will be at the planetarium in front of
the entrance. He will be in a black suit, wearing
a white carnation, the briefcase.
Speaker 2: And just like that, I walk up and hand him
five grand, just like that. How do you know I
won't feel like taking a trip?
Speaker 9: I don't, But then I still haven't got anything to
worry about. You got that much money, No Reagan, I
got me and Charlie Penkell never let anybody put anything
over on him?
Speaker 5: What about the state of California? Was a bomber? Oh sure,
it was good night.
Speaker 2: I left him sitting there. He looked as happy as
a ubangi with a fever blister. Maybe the lion was
telling the truth. So I put the five ground in
my pocket, but it felt hot, like a dynamite stick
with a short fuse. It was ten minutes awake. When
I parked in front of the planetarium. A little guy
in a black super is standing at the entrance looking
at his watch. I was afraid he was going to
get trampled, but the briefcase and white carnations saved him.
Speaker 5: Gonna lecture, it's all about a trip to the moon tonight.
Speaker 13: Oh, is it? Well, I don't think i'll go in.
I'm expecting a friend.
Speaker 5: And then Charlie Pencoll, what pen Call? You're going to
meet him here?
Speaker 13: Yes, but you can't be pen called.
Speaker 5: You're much too young, right, I'm not pen call.
Speaker 13: I don't understand. And mister Reagan, oh pen Call, promised
me faithfully he'd meet me.
Speaker 5: Here tonight, Clarence, didn't you name?
Speaker 13: No, I'm Sydney Chambers.
Speaker 5: But you got the briefcase to collect some money in?
Speaker 13: Did you bring it? Did you really bring how much?
Expecting five thousand dollars not a penny less?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 13: Well, well say now it certainly?
Speaker 18: Is it?
Speaker 13: Certainly? Is it? Most certainly? Is gay? Yes, indeed, thank you,
mister Reagan.
Speaker 2: If I hadn't seen him Patty's bullish pocket, I'd have
gone on home and played canast with my landlady. But
when I saw him drive away, I began to get
a slow feeling like all my troubles were already started.
So I crawled at my car and followed him. I
was still following when he pulled up in Pollo's Verotie
and parked in front of a little house stuck up
on a hill.
Speaker 4: All by itself.
Speaker 2: I had that same feeling when I cut my engine
coast into a stop and sat there thinking about nothing.
I watched a light go on somewhere in the back
of the house. I was just putting my cigarette out
when the place led up like I cut.
Speaker 19: I pulled my can and started for the door, but
I wasn't fast enough to stop that black hook that
was in the alley.
Speaker 2: I found Chambers wrapped around the dining room table. He
was holding onto that briefcase, and the five grand was
still there, but he'd never get a chance to spend it.
He was all used up.
Speaker 8: Anthony J.
Speaker 5: Lyons, you better have something good to say. Fat So, Reagan,
who you've been?
Speaker 8: I've been looking all over.
Speaker 5: You know what I've been.
Speaker 20: I called the Capitol Hotel, but no when I actually listened, Reagan,
I don't want you to take this job.
Speaker 2: I took it three hours ago, and now I need
those answers you told me pen Call had filled in
on the background of this thing.
Speaker 5: Well, it's time you shared secrets with.
Speaker 6: Me, Reagan.
Speaker 5: I can't tell you you need better.
Speaker 8: But I didn't get anything from me, Reagan.
Speaker 20: I I made up ched up about a personal problem
just to get you to take.
Speaker 5: The job, all for fifty bucks.
Speaker 8: There's no time for that.
Speaker 5: Now you said it, you left.
Speaker 8: I got worried, so I looked up pen Call. He's
really good time, Charlie pin Call.
Speaker 2: An old time racketeer, and he just got out of
Sam Quentin and somebody's already dead.
Speaker 5: I got this.
Speaker 2: I'm calling you from my house in Palace Verdes. It
belongs to a little guy named Sydney Chambers. I made
the delivery and decided to follow him home. Just as
I got here, somebody blew his fuse.
Speaker 8: What happened to the five thousand?
Speaker 5: The killer steel it?
Speaker 6: It's still here, still there? Good?
Speaker 5: I thought that'd good action.
Speaker 20: Hold on to it, get a national look, keep it
safely until the police go ahead. Achegate, Hello, you're still there.
Speaker 2: I was still there, but I wasn't listening to the lion.
I was looking at the traffic cops standing in the doorway.
He was looking at what was left of Chambers. Had
the money spread all around, and then it's me. I'd
go to feel helpless, like a fiddler without a chin.
I'll take your gun, go ahead, finish your call. I
won't listen to it. Isn't important dead Huh You got
any to say, mister, huh m hmm, nice gun yours? Yeah,
it's my gun, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 21: Yeah, sure m hmm, just been fired.
Speaker 22: Those bullets won't match up with the ones in him.
You got this all wrong. Money too well, well, weapon motive.
I've been playing closer this time tomorrow. Look the guy
who did it's making time right now.
Speaker 21: You'll be surprised the kind of drivers we have around
Los Angeles. I'm working Palace Verdi's. I stop a minute,
I hear noises, white guns, and I just cruise around
on my bike where I think I hear the noise
and I find you.
Speaker 5: All right, killer, move my turn to make a call.
I leaned into his guns.
Speaker 23: I'm not just missed down.
Speaker 5: The bullets went wild, and I hit the light switch
that give me time enough to get through the door.
He lost me when I ran up the hill in
back of the house, toward the oil there.
Speaker 2: Extent that I knew we'd keep out on looking, and
so would every cop in Los Angeles. I had as
much chance as a no ball in a Turkish bath.
None of it made sense. I delivered pencoes five grand
of a little guy named Sidney Chambers, and before I
knew it, a question mark in a black coop blew
out Chamber's life. But he left that five grand scattered
all over the place, and an eager cop who likes
up or breasted suits tagged me for the job. When
I broke away from that cop, I knew I'd have
to get some answers. I made my way back downtown
and dropped into the Capitol Hotel, any key fitted room age.
It was as clean as a bookie's stall when a
long shot comes in. No Charlie Pencoll Nothing, the newspaper
clipping on the dresser with an ad on how to
handle your muscles on one side and part of a
society column on the other.
Speaker 5: Men. Nothing but the knock on the door had possibilities.
Speaker 24: Oh are you in there?
Speaker 6: Are you asleep?
Speaker 25: Oh?
Speaker 5: She was a tall, gray haired woman in a fur coat.
She didn't look like Penco's kind of company.
Speaker 26: Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 24: I thought this was mister Penn called.
Speaker 5: He's left Tom. Maybe I can be No, I'm.
Speaker 24: Sure you kind of just did mistake, that's all. I'm sorry.
I bothered you. I'm sorry.
Speaker 11: Well, just a minute, I relax, you can see her later.
And so come on in, boys, come in. I wanted Charlie,
but you'll do no.
Speaker 5: You gotta parade form logo and I need one.
Speaker 14: It's is gonna be a quiet little party, you and
me and my friends.
Speaker 5: Don't they talk tu boys.
Speaker 14: There's a friend, that Charlie Pincle.
Speaker 5: You see.
Speaker 14: All right, friend, that Charlie Pincles. We had all the introductions.
Now let's sever. You took my gun away tonight. I
told you i'd remember. Yes, this is gonna be fun.
Holler ah, here we go. I don't matter what, just
getting a good stuff.
Speaker 5: It was almost morning when I started to come around.
I was still in room. Mate.
Speaker 2: Some cold water and I tripped to the drug store
didn't make me feel any better. I had some answers
to find. The morning papers were full of the brutal
murder of city employee Sidney Chamber.
Speaker 5: He ran out to tell how he worked in the.
Speaker 2: Hall of Records. My name was in the article. They'd
matched the bullets and my gun didn't figure. But homicide
had wanted some answers, and I didn't have any to
give them. I started with that clipping I'd found in
Pencole's room. It wasn't much, but it had names, something
about Meredith Gibbons and a Donald Thomson getting married. There
was an addressing phone book Sherman Oaks, nice house on
a nice treet.
Speaker 27: Good morning, Darling. I didn't expect you so. Oh I'm sorry.
I thought you were Donald.
Speaker 5: My name's Reagan. I'd like to see Meredith Gibbons.
Speaker 27: Why why, I'm Merredith Gibbons. Please comme in, mister Reagan.
Speaker 5: Thanks.
Speaker 28: I'll have to apologize for the appearance of the house.
I'm packing and all I'm being married this afternoon.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've read about that.
Speaker 28: Oh, mister Reagan, I'll have to apologize again.
Speaker 27: I don't believe I know you.
Speaker 5: No, you don't.
Speaker 2: Look I won't take a lot of your time. I
am a private investigator. I'd'd like to ask some questions.
Speaker 27: Private investigator.
Speaker 28: Well, certainly, mister Reagan, but I don't know darling. Oh Donald,
you're here, morning, Donald. This is mister Reagan. He's a
private detective. He wants to ask me some questions.
Speaker 12: Oh, well, glad to meet you, Reagan. What's this all about?
Speaker 2: Probably nothing, just a lead. Look, you people know a
man named pencoll call O. No no, I think it's important.
His name is Charles Pencall.
Speaker 27: No, No, mister Reagan, I don't know.
Speaker 12: I'm sorry, neither do I does.
Speaker 5: The name is Sidney Chambers mean anything to you?
Speaker 12: Sorry again, Reagan, nothing again. I can't think so well.
I'm marrying hurt.
Speaker 28: Oh Donald, No, mister Reagan, I've never heard that name before.
Speaker 27: You're looking for these names?
Speaker 5: One of them is dead? Oh? Which one Chambers you
shot last night? Oh I've got to find Pencoll.
Speaker 13: Well.
Speaker 12: Sure, wish we could help you more. But tell me, Reagan,
why did you come here?
Speaker 5: I found this clipping about your marriage in Pencoll's room.
Speaker 27: That's funny, truly, mister Reagan. I never heard the name Donald.
Speaker 24: You have so many things.
Speaker 27: Oh, mother, I want you to meet mister Reagan. He's
a detective. This is my mother.
Speaker 13: How do you do, mister Reagan.
Speaker 5: It was the same gray haired woman i'd met the
night before in Charlie's room.
Speaker 29: Had the handed to her. She didn't raise an eyelash.
She looked right through me like she was meeting me
for the first time. I didn't give her away. There
was something in her eyes and said.
Speaker 28: Don't mister Reagan, I know you'll excuse us. We have
so many things to do. Well, perhaps mother can help you. Sure,
I hope you find your man, mister Reagan.
Speaker 5: They looked like a real nice Pyramissus Giddon.
Speaker 24: They are wonderful children, mister Reagan, wonderful.
Speaker 5: You know what I have to ask her? Yes, yes,
I know man's been killed.
Speaker 30: Sit down, mister Reagan. Please thanks that.
Speaker 24: Lovely girl who just walked out of the doors. Charles
Pencall's daughter. Oh, yes, Charles married my younger sister in
nineteen twenty nine. She never knew what Charles did for
a living. She was in the hospital mister Hyden's dying.
Charles was in court when his sentence was pronounced. His
His daughter was born at a hospital in Glendale that'd
before Charles began his life's sentence. He he took what
money he had left and established an irrevocable trust fund
for her and for me. It was his plan I
adopted illegally. He promised that he'd never write a bother
in any way, and he hasn't. Oh, after so much
heartache for her real mother, he was trying to do
one decent thing.
Speaker 12: It worked, Yes, if he kept his word.
Speaker 26: He was parole last week.
Speaker 24: I read it in the papers.
Speaker 5: And you want to see him at his hotel? I
mentioned that.
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 24: As I went to see him last night, the parole
officer gave.
Speaker 31: Me his address.
Speaker 24: A little man had been here last week on some
pretext for another, and I was worried. I I thought
he was a friend of Charles who might want to
make trouble.
Speaker 32: Nobody else knows about the no, no, no one, no
one at all, just just Charles and I my sister.
Speaker 24: She had the baby under my name.
Speaker 17: I see.
Speaker 24: I read the morning papers. The little man, the one
who called on me last week and active strange labors
murdered last night. His name was Chambers. I read about
it in the paper. That's right, and the police are
looking for you, mister Reagan. Oh pza. I can't ask
you to continue being a fugitive. I know you didn't
kill him, but if there's any way anyway all.
Speaker 33: Mister Reagan, oh, listen to me.
Speaker 24: Meredith can't become involved in something like this.
Speaker 5: That's the only way to keep her out of it.
Missus Gibbons, I'll do it.
Speaker 27: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: When I left there, I had a pretty good picture
of the whole thing. A check with the Civil Service
Commission did the right as far as Chambers Pipe fitted in.
Besides working at the Hall of Records from nineteen thirty
two on, he worked at the City Morgue before and
before that the County Hospital was an orderly and before
that a private hospital in Glendale. But that still left
Johnny Largo on stage. The lion had part of it.
When I found him at the office, Reagan, would you expect.
Speaker 6: Never mind anybody see you. You're a hot boy?
Speaker 5: You know how I got that way?
Speaker 6: I know, I know, But those things will happen. It
is it? Pipe Gray.
Speaker 2: A cop on the palace. Verdie's Division is looking at it. Huh,
don't you read the papers. They're looking for me.
Speaker 5: They want to talk to me about a murder.
Speaker 6: Oh and I wanted to see how that much money
looked all at once.
Speaker 2: What have you been telling homicide that I don't know
anything about it? Well, maybe I better make a call.
Speaker 7: Not look, Look, Jeffrey, We've got to find out who
tag Chamber is.
Speaker 6: It's the only way we can square ourselves with homicide.
Speaker 5: You're afraid of that jail house coffee?
Speaker 6: Please please?
Speaker 32: I I had another one of my attacks today. Oh,
knowing you were out there somewhere in this vair city,
those of my indiscreetness.
Speaker 6: Jeffrey, I've done you role.
Speaker 5: You're gonna drown on those tears.
Speaker 6: Oh now, please please find out who killed that poor
man chamber, square yourself with the police, make a clean
breast of everything.
Speaker 5: Well, then you start giving me more answers, so.
Speaker 6: I'll help you in every way. I cared Jeffrey.
Speaker 5: All right? What is Johnny Largo tye in with Charlie
Pencore Lago?
Speaker 6: Oh it's an old time feud. I went through the
nineteen twenty nine Morgue piles. Largo tried to kill pen
call over some money or something. He claimed. Pencal held out.
Speaker 5: On nothing else, nothing else?
Speaker 6: Why you gotta lead?
Speaker 5: What does Lago do now?
Speaker 6: He runs a joint and guardina. The fronts were a
roulette wheel. Hey, hey, where are you.
Speaker 5: Going to try my luck?
Speaker 6: By the way, what happened to your fate?
Speaker 5: It got stepped on? Somebody had big feet, yeah, six something.
Speaker 2: Why I knew I was coming into the home stretch.
I made Largo's place about three o'clock that afternoon, but
I was too late. Three squad cars were piled up
in front, and the Morgue wagon was there. I checked
with the driver, looked inside and saw that their customer
was Largo. He was extremely dead. It was easy to
see Pencore was making the rounds, first Chambers, second Largo.
He figured to have one more stop, and I found
it that Black Coop was in front of Saint Anne's
Church in Sherman Oaks, inside Meredith Gibbons and Townshenre, kneeling
at the altar. There were a lot of people watching,
but the one I was interested in was the guy
in the dark suit. He was standing in the back.
Speaker 17: Hello, Riggan, I.
Speaker 5: Came to get you, Charlie.
Speaker 17: Yeah, I figured you would.
Speaker 5: They don't like murder in this state, no matter what
it's for.
Speaker 9: How the state doesn't know Chambers was trying to buy
that kid up there out of her life.
Speaker 2: So to keep your daughter from knowing who her old
man was, your hired kne so you could get a
line on Chambers, follow.
Speaker 5: Him, kill him.
Speaker 9: He was just a name on the phone to me.
You had to tag him for me. The only way
to treat him. Somehow, he knew she was my kid.
He had all the facts for black male. He waited
eighteen years to trap me. Lago was just a sideline.
He was until he found out I'd kill Chambers. You see,
he was following me that night and twas Verdes. So
you treated one black male for another. Yeah, and no
way off We better go, Penko. Yeah, I just a
met the Riggan. I want to see you walk. She
looks just like a mother.
Speaker 5: Wrecked. Does matter, but Logo.
Speaker 17: Threw some that connected here. Put your arm in back
of me.
Speaker 6: Hold me a freaking at least till she gets by.
Speaker 17: I don't want to ruin anything.
Speaker 27: Please McDonald. He came to our wedding.
Speaker 12: Nah, hello, thanks for coming.
Speaker 27: Oh, we're so happy. Did you ever find a man
you're looking for?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I found him.
Speaker 27: I'm glad. We're so very happy today.
Speaker 6: Sure are, mister Reagan.
Speaker 27: Do I know your friends he looks for me.
Speaker 17: No, No, you don't know me, not at all.
Speaker 6: Uh, good luck, thank you very much, Come on all.
Speaker 5: Right, okay, pencall thanks freaking Oh, get me out of
here quick.
Speaker 2: There were four of Lago's slugs in him. He died
in the ambulance homicide. Knew about the old feud and
not satisfied them. Why Pencall killed Johnny Largo in those
two hoods. But they were bending their eyebrows trying to
figure out why Pencoll killed Chambers. I didn't figure it
was up to me to explain it. The next morning
when I came into the office, somebody was just leaving.
The lion had one arm around her.
Speaker 6: Should Oh no, no, just part of our service. Glad
to be of hell.
Speaker 5: But oh well, missus Gibbons, I.
Speaker 24: Just came by to thank you, to thank you for everything.
I didn't know that people could be so understanding.
Speaker 27: I didn't know, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Fine figure a woman, Reagan, Fine figure a woman.
Speaker 5: And what else does she want?
Speaker 6: Oh? She just came to thank you, that's all.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Regid, you don't think that, after all it's happened, Yes,
I do.
Speaker 6: That certainly doesn't show a very good opinion of me.
Speaker 5: How'd she get the address?
Speaker 6: Well, I gave her a call.
Speaker 5: Give me, I shaid, give me.
Speaker 6: It's just a small check, a gesture of her appreciation.
Speaker 7: Reagan, that's do that got paid for this once, Yes,
but this was a bonus for the rest of them.
After all, international has expenses. This is a legitimate.
Speaker 6: Oh well, maybe this time You're right.
Speaker 3: Jeff Reagan Investigator is written by e Jack Newman, directed
by Sterling Tracy and stars Frank Graham as Reagan with
Frank Nelson as Anthony J.
Speaker 17: Lyon.
Speaker 3: Original music is by Dickoruh Welcome back.
Speaker 1: Well, this was pretty early in Frank Graham's run. The
similes were dropping locked nobody's business in this one, and
they were still trying to find the right balance in
the relationship between Reagan and the Lion. But this was
still an enjoyable episode with a good guest appearance by
Bill Conry had in a pretty good mystery. Before our
next episode, we're going to fast forward about a year
and a half to a very different series in not Beat.
The original air date on that one is March the fourth,
nineteen fifty one, and the title is Big John McMasters.
Speaker 34: Tonight, Nightbat returns to the air for a special broadcast
honoring the men and women of the working press. Oh,
day in and day out, find and write the newspaper
story is that keep us informed and entertained? And so
to them this special night Beat salute nine.
Speaker 10: Hi, this is Randy Stone. I cover the night Beat
for the Chicago Star. Stories start in many different ways.
This one began in a nightclub with jazz music and
laughter and ended in a church with organ music and dead.
Speaker 16: Pike beat, starring Bright love Joy as Randy Stone On
My Job.
Speaker 10: You sort of come to terms with the night. You
have to, because that's where you learn the lessons of
the day. Lesson one, The night is for sorrow, the
day regret. You can't hide in the darkness for the
night has a thousand eyes. Lesson three to one hundred.
Don't go looking for the dawn with a gun because
it might come up like thunder and leave you dead
on the doorstep.
Speaker 16: Sob stories chill the night.
Speaker 10: Unhappy love affairs, girls gone astray, bookkeepers who stole from
their tills, men who died drunken, friendless. Last night, I
decided to pass them up and stroll into the bright
lights and listen to laughter. So I picked out a
couple of fancy bistros on the Gold Coast and started
the rounds to watch champagne flow and eavesdrop. I'm a
happy stories of success.
Speaker 16: Promotion, love and friendship. But it didn't work.
Speaker 10: Like an iron filing, I was drawn to the magnet
of unhappiness.
Speaker 16: It happened in the Pelican field.
Speaker 10: He was sitting alone, all gray haired, rugged and face
full of some fifty odd years, I guess, and full.
Speaker 16: Of some other things no one could guess with three drinks.
Speaker 10: At the bar before I made out who he was,
A man who was once big in a way that
only politicians made.
Speaker 15: Them kill.
Speaker 10: Mind if I sit down, who are you, Randy Stone,
Chicago Star, Miss McMaster's.
Speaker 9: Well you're the first one. What first one who was
recognizing them? Not only from your pictures. It was a
long time ago time. I know more about time than
you or that old guy they always have around on
New Year's with a beard and.
Speaker 15: The hay cut it.
Speaker 9: I just thought there might be a story somewhere, Church
sit On saidan I'll tell you a story. Once upon
a time there was a guy who had everything, bunny, friends,
the future, and a bunch of old women made a
law called the VOLSTEEDA can remember it. Yeah, yeah, but
I wasn't first time. Well, a lot of people were everybody.
In fact, you see, the law was always supposed to
be for the other guy, not for them. If there
were no other guys. So this fellow I'm telling you
about got on the bandwagon. He bottled millions of violations
of the Bullstead Act.
Speaker 16: There's a lot of money and a lot of trouble.
Speaker 4: Am I boring you?
Speaker 16: If you are? I asked for it, but you're not well.
Speaker 9: The trouble got him a lot of jail nineteen years ago,
started in nineteen thirty one into.
Speaker 15: Just two days ago.
Speaker 9: I see all this guy's out and he's gonna stay clean.
And I can pass a thousand stupid laws and he's.
Speaker 16: Not going to fall for any of them.
Speaker 9: He's going to do everything the way it says in
the books and live happily ever after.
Speaker 16: How's that for a story as a good moral but
no drama?
Speaker 15: How's the spense good?
Speaker 16: I hope it's real bad because I don't want you
to print it. Stone.
Speaker 9: I'm flattered that you recognized me, but I paid back
ten days for every one I took.
Speaker 16: All I ask is that you just let me alone
in the papers.
Speaker 10: Okay, McMaster, As far as I'm concerned, you made your
last copy in nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 9: Stone is nice to come out of prison and I
have the first guy you meet and not like you.
Speaker 16: Let me buy you a drink.
Speaker 10: He tried to be happy and gay after that, and
I tried to help him, but there was a sadness
about himness stood him the way. I wanted to ask
more questions about times and places, but I didn't. Why
is it when you come across the best stories, you
fall all over your conscience. I know I couldn't print
anything about John McMasters, yet I was still thinking about him.
An hour later at police headquarters, while batting the breeze
with Lieutenant Fairly White. The lieutenant was on his way
out to cover a hotel shooting, and I.
Speaker 16: Went with him.
Speaker 10: It was a showy placed with glass doors and ebony handwriting.
Else the night manager was standing his alpaca jacket.
Speaker 31: With nervous sweats. Please please be as quiet as possible.
I don't want it to sound like an else's convention
in here.
Speaker 16: Just tell us what happened.
Speaker 15: We're putting for throughout this week.
Speaker 31: I don't know where to beginning. Dec If somebody phoned
down it happened on the fifth floor, said there was
a shooting. So I went up there, but I couldn't
hear any shooting or see any.
Speaker 10: You rarely can a for his other that's rather obvious.
I mean, just tell us there shooting or wasn't there?
Speaker 17: Well?
Speaker 16: Did you think I call you men all the way
out here?
Speaker 15: If there wasn't you think.
Speaker 31: I'm a crank or something that I like to have
loud policemen standing.
Speaker 16: For the lobby excitement?
Speaker 26: Where was it?
Speaker 15: Well?
Speaker 16: Pass, I'm gonna ask you, Ques sure?
Speaker 10: I wanted to answer a single declarative English sentence.
Speaker 15: Now you're ready.
Speaker 31: Ook here, I'm not a child, and you mustn't treat men?
Where was a shooting in Room five twenty one?
Speaker 16: All right? Don't you want to know who it was?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 16: A man named John McMasters.
Speaker 10: And Vohn McMasters. Lying on his bed. The rumpel silk
counterpane was slowly changing from chartrus to a bright crimson.
Two bullets had ripped ragged holes and then threw flesh
and bone. His face was a shade paler and a
lion sadder. But when Lieutenant White questioned him, he was
just as self contained as ever I know John in
a long time. Yeah, curly, you were just a flat foot.
Then I was only a small fire department. You were
strictly stuffed the commissioner.
Speaker 16: He did a good job. Yeah, how did it happened?
Speaker 17: John?
Speaker 16: This cleaning my gun. Yeah, I lose it. John, You're
not supposed to have a gun.
Speaker 15: Oh you know the in the law, curly, we.
Speaker 16: Sometimes didn't hit it off. And where is the gun?
I swallowed it? I want to say, yeah, no.
Speaker 35: I don't want to say what.
Speaker 36: Makes you guys like you are? But I know it
won't do any good to try and beat it out
of him. At doctor, get the ambulance, Waddy, we'll take
him to the police hospital.
Speaker 9: Now he's on I've served my time and I'm clean.
Being shot out, even in this state, doesn't make you
a criminal. Not take me to the general hospital. Yeah,
I can get a one. And when you gotta come
and see me, bring me some ice stream, Lieutenant. I've
always liked ice stream English coffee.
Speaker 10: I didn't have a chance to change a word with mcmathews,
so I followed him to the hospital.
Speaker 16: They put him in a room.
Speaker 10: While I was waiting for them to set up an
emergency operation to take the bullets out of him. Lieutenant White,
let me slip in alone for a couple of minutes.
Speaker 16: Describe. You got yourself a story, after all, didn't you? Well?
Speaker 10: Not much along. McMath's a good reporter. I should find
out a lot more like who shot you?
Speaker 9: And why well I shot myself and just for something
to do.
Speaker 10: Look, McMasters, I'm not as old as yours informed in
the ways of crime, but I have a fair idea
of how tough it is to come out of prison
and start all over. I want you to know I'd
be willing to help you if there's any place that
you need help within the law.
Speaker 15: Just forget a story.
Speaker 10: I have a job that says I'm supposed to bring
in stories. Sure, but that isn't what I mean.
Speaker 9: Still, It's just the way I said earlier tonight. It's
a pleasure to meet someone like you. And if it
was anything I could tell you, or any way you
can help me, you'll be the first to know. Let's
put it this way. I have nothing to say to
you now. They come and see me tomorrow. Maybe I'll
have a story for you.
Speaker 10: Today was a riddle, his way of life, his long
prison term. It equipped him with a certain stoicism was
on most impossible to penetrate. I can only stand in wait,
at least I thought so at the moment Lieutenant White
was standing in the corridor when I came out.
Speaker 15: Why not anything round me, nothing truly.
Speaker 37: Not Granby.
Speaker 10: You're not pulling professional immunity on me, are you. I'm
telling you the truth, Lieutenant say, don't be a favorite.
Speaker 15: Oh my badge in my ID card? Now what's this point?
Speaker 10: Why don't care those I'm a policeman when I don't
have him, I'm just a citizen.
Speaker 16: Now this is with a print. But in that room,
on that bed, eh, I's quite a man. You couldn't
fight it.
Speaker 10: Everyone who had contact with John McMasters felt the same way.
Speaker 16: Despite his background, despite his code, despite his.
Speaker 10: Record, there was quite a man. It occurred to me,
I should know more about him. So I went back
to the Star office. Isn't poked around.
Speaker 15: On the Morgue file.
Speaker 10: His folders started nineteen twelve and was sat with yellow
clippings all the way through in nineteen thirty one. The
cleppings didn't mention a family or much else except a
lawyer associate, a man named Julian Glass, and I found
out all I could from the clippings. I went back
to his hotel to see if I could wangle another
once over of McMaster's room.
Speaker 31: No, no, no, I'm sorry. A reporter or not is
simply count be done the police. Let explicit all.
Speaker 10: Yes, I know, but is there anything you need these days?
Like a new sport code or a couple of golf cubs?
Speaker 16: Mister Stone, do I look corruptible? Well? Excuse me, yes, madam?
Speaker 33: What did you want mister McMaster's room?
Speaker 18: Please?
Speaker 16: Oh?
Speaker 17: Well, I'm sorry.
Speaker 15: Mister McMasters were taken to the hospital shortly ago.
Speaker 33: What happened to him?
Speaker 15: Somebody shot him?
Speaker 33: He's still alive.
Speaker 16: I wouldn't know.
Speaker 10: Why don't you call find my ma'am? I can tell
you about John McMaster's. Oh, mister Stone is reporting he's
still alive at the County Hospital. As far as I know,
he's under excellent care.
Speaker 33: Thank you.
Speaker 16: Would you mind telling me what your connection is with McMasters?
Speaker 33: I have no connection?
Speaker 6: Goodbye?
Speaker 16: Oh just a minute. You must at least know it,
young man.
Speaker 33: You'd either get out of my way, I'll call it, and.
Speaker 16: She could do it.
Speaker 10: So I stepped aside and let her walk out of
a hotel, but I followed not far behind her. She
was middle aged, gray haired, well dressed, and she got
into a good looking car and I got her number.
Speaker 15: Then I called.
Speaker 10: One Randy Son, Lieutenant, can you give me a rundown
on the license numbers a lot.
Speaker 16: But you know where the key is? How about it?
What it for? For a story I'm working on.
Speaker 10: If you will help me tonight, maybe I'll help you someday.
Speaker 16: It's Illinois one three, seven, five nine six.
Speaker 9: I want.
Speaker 38: A callback.
Speaker 39: Lest I know it would take some time for White
to run it down. So I made my way back
to the County hospital for a check up on McMaster's condition.
Speaker 10: The reception does seemed reluctant to talk about them and
referred me to the head who sent me to the
surgical o day who took me to the chief doctor.
He told me to look into a crystal ball.
Speaker 15: He's gone and we have no idea where.
Speaker 16: How could he be gone?
Speaker 10: And we started to give him a transfusion, he jumped up, suddenly,
knocked down two male nurses, grabbed his pants and ran.
Speaker 35: Out of the hospital.
Speaker 15: As simple as that.
Speaker 16: I thought he was in a critical condition.
Speaker 24: He was.
Speaker 36: Now he's in mortal danger, running around town hemorrhaging from
two bullet wounds.
Speaker 15: All right, give him an hour, maybe two, with the
most to live.
Speaker 16: John McMasters is a walking dead man.
Speaker 34: NBC is bringing you Night Feet, starring Frank Lovejoy as
Randy's dogs.
Speaker 16: Take it from me.
Speaker 10: Cats aren't the only animals who have a corner on curiosity.
Consider also the species randous Sona's reporter type animal the tests.
When the next big shot of the Roaring twenties minus
a quarter two of blood from bullet wounds, walks out
of a hospital bed in the middle of the.
Speaker 16: Night, reporter walks too. Well, call it curiosity, or just
say I like what I've seen of the guy.
Speaker 10: All I know is I didn't want Big John mcmass's
to bleed to death walking around town.
Speaker 16: So I went out looking for him.
Speaker 10: And because I thought he might go to a friend's
I looked up as only known friend another man of
the same courier, Julian Glass, attorney at law. He lived
not in a glass house, but in Cicero, in the
cromea half of a yellow duplex.
Speaker 36: Young Man the drug store delivers what I need most
to telegraph opers what I drink most. Obviously, you represent
neither concern, and therefore you are no concern of my.
Speaker 16: Whatever are you, mister Glass, I am.
Speaker 36: He, and I am drunk and disheveled, and three o'clock
in the morning I'd like to talk with you.
Speaker 16: May I come in? You may not.
Speaker 10: This isn't exactly the hour for making calls, but I
did stop by and pick out something to take the
edge off.
Speaker 16: It's bonded.
Speaker 15: Inside. Perfect your apology?
Speaker 16: Are you honest?
Speaker 15: Glass?
Speaker 35: Ah?
Speaker 16: Now, then we'll make a bargain. As long as this lasts,
you will last speak. I'm looking for a man. The
entire world is looking for a man, just one man.
Speaker 36: A man may so blindly presume we'll break off these
shackles that bind us and lead his forth into eternal justice.
Speaker 16: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Sure, but that's not the man I'm talking about. I'm
a friend of John McMasters.
Speaker 16: You you come from that place.
Speaker 15: Sidons are not on you.
Speaker 16: The Paller's not with you. No, Oh, you lie.
Speaker 10: I didn't say that I was a convict. I'm a reporter.
Macmasters is out of prison.
Speaker 16: I'm well of that. But did you know he was.
Speaker 10: In an accident to night or he was attacked? I
don't know which. Anyhow, he was shot in an hour
ago he left his hospital bed. I thought he might
have come to you. What made you think that you're
the only man I know who might be his friend?
As he contacted you and I he has not.
Speaker 16: Is he here? He is not, mister Glass. If he
doesn't hospitalized soon, he'll die. Why is the phenomena of
death so persistently alarming? So you die? They all die,
usually from a bullet.
Speaker 36: Oh, mister Glass impressed me with the urgency of his situation.
For John McMasters, he is not here, nor has he
been here, nor has he contacted me.
Speaker 16: Well, I was just trying. I believe him.
Speaker 36: You're concern for him is a distressing irritation.
Speaker 15: What's the reason for it?
Speaker 16: As I said, I'm his friend.
Speaker 15: I like him.
Speaker 16: I think he deserves to live. You his friend? Now?
Speaker 36: His friends were the most part of Garden, like the years,
like Hamburg hats and the Charleston lime, Ricky one who
left broken tired with old faces, faces like mine, like his,
and they should be gone too, another ages here.
Speaker 16: Are you sure you're his friend?
Speaker 36: I once thought so, he once thought so, But now
I haven't enough strength to be his friends?
Speaker 35: Hello?
Speaker 15: People, who's your friend?
Speaker 16: Julie? Mister Glass?
Speaker 17: To you?
Speaker 16: All right, mister Glass, Now tell me who's this?
Speaker 36: This is mister Stone, mister Stone, Missus, mister Engel, Marty Angle.
I'm an associate of mister Glasses. Mister Stone, I haven't
seen you around before. Obviously you just met mister Glass,
or you'd never never offer him a drink.
Speaker 15: I wouldn't know.
Speaker 16: You, see, I sort of look after mister Glass. We're
all friends.
Speaker 36: I was his office boy once then no Republic, and
when I finally got my degree, I became his partner.
Speaker 16: More or less. Isn't that right, mister Glass.
Speaker 36: Mady, you don't have to do this in front of
mister And since mister Glass has fallen on some bitter days,
shall we say.
Speaker 16: I've undertook to a system. Perhaps I can help you.
Speaker 36: I don't think solicizal. Then there, would you be good
enough to leave? Said mister Glass. Give mister Stone his vitle.
Go ahead.
Speaker 16: Yeah, there you are, mister Stone. You were just leaving,
weren't you.
Speaker 10: Julian Glass stood helplessly by watching him, looking as I
have held the same sort of sadness I had seen.
Speaker 16: In McMaster's eyes. But they were different too, They held
a weakness.
Speaker 10: The strong, sad eyes were somewhere else in the city,
walking alone, and the life blood was slowly draining from
the body that sparked them. I wanted to find McMaster's
more than I wanted anything in my life. So I
went to the only other saw sign. You the license
number that belonged to a gray haired woman with a
kind face, where tennant Fight had done his duty.
Speaker 16: Annie, I shouldn't do this sort of time. I come on,
come on, tell me about the license nummer pleasure.
Speaker 36: Plate car owned by a pony named Constance Gardner, aged
twenty two, of this city.
Speaker 16: Addressed and sharing row number. You what I'm not supposed
to do already?
Speaker 10: I drove out there with a feeling that I was
racing death. I was in the nine hundred block riping
back of the Shawnee County probably nice big colonial house
in a nice neighborhood. The sky was beginning to quiver
and shake off the blackness of night. I talked in front,
wondering whether or not I should ring the bell, and
then I saw a light in the back at the kitchen.
Everybody seemed to be staying up that night.
Speaker 33: Oh, come in, you must be the man from the floor.
Speaker 10: No, no, I'm afraid not. My name is Randy Stone.
I'm from the Chicago Star.
Speaker 18: Oh.
Speaker 28: You reporters do work all hours, but we are being
married until seven?
Speaker 16: Are you Constance Gardner?
Speaker 35: Yes?
Speaker 27: But do you want to talk to Bob?
Speaker 16: Not me?
Speaker 27: He's the one who's rich and famous.
Speaker 33: I'm nobody.
Speaker 16: I think I want to talk to you, Miss Gardner.
Speaker 27: Well all, I'm mister Stone, but I have so many
things to do to.
Speaker 15: Say good morning to your bride.
Speaker 33: Bob, Bob, you shouldn't be here.
Speaker 18: It's sad lock or something.
Speaker 30: Mister Stone.
Speaker 33: This is my fiancee, Bob Meredith, Bob, mister.
Speaker 30: Stones from the paper.
Speaker 16: Hikay, mister Stone, I want to interview you now. Looking
at her, wouldn't you say I'm the luckiest man in
the world. I'm glad to meet you Meredith and congratulates. Thanks.
Speaker 33: Thompsons.
Speaker 16: Simply must hurry by, Bob.
Speaker 30: What are you doing here?
Speaker 16: You know it's not right.
Speaker 30: Mother, I want you to meet mister Stone.
Speaker 33: He's a reporter.
Speaker 30: Mister Stone.
Speaker 33: This is my mother, Missus Gardner. How do you do
mister Stone.
Speaker 10: It was the same gray haired woman i'd left in
the hotel a few hours before, and I had to
hand it to her.
Speaker 16: She looked right at me like she was made him.
For the first time we shook hands.
Speaker 10: Hers were steady, and firm, and her eyes didn't leave mine,
But there was something in her look that pleaded don't.
Speaker 33: Mister Stone. Perhaps mother can help you, excuse us, please?
Speaker 16: Sure, I'll have to get rid of Bob and get
some things done, of course, so that's my cue.
Speaker 34: So long, mister stonem gonna come with this wedding.
Speaker 10: Well, I don't one of the other boys, will. I
still met you by He looked like a real nice
pair of kids, Missus Gardner.
Speaker 33: They are, but I doubt if that means anything to
you and your newspaper.
Speaker 10: Well, you were trying to reach John McMasters at his
hotel tonight. You obviously have some connection with him. I
don't care about that or the story that goes.
Speaker 16: With it, Missus Gardner. I'm only looking for him. Is
he here, of course not.
Speaker 33: He's in a hospital. You told me that yourself.
Speaker 10: Well, he left the hospital, he walked out. He's wandering
Chicago somewhere right now, in a serious condition.
Speaker 26: Oh no, No, he.
Speaker 10: Must have had a good reason for doing such a thing.
I want to find him and take him back to
the hospital. And missus Gardener, if you know where he
is what he's doing, tell me. I only want to help. Please,
he may be dying. I believe you, mister Stone, you
have any idea where he could be.
Speaker 33: There's something you should know, something that shouldn't be written
in the papers. Please. That lovely girl just walked out
of this room is John McMaster's daughter. In nineteen thirty one.
I adopted her and raised her as my own. No
one knew about it. John promised he would never write
us or bothers in any way, and he's kept his word.
Speaker 16: But you were trying to see him tonight.
Speaker 33: Why two days before he was released, a man came here.
He said he knew confidence was not my real daughter.
He said he wanted money to keep it quiet. It exposures.
Speaker 16: Did you pay this man off?
Speaker 14: No?
Speaker 33: I contacted John and told him. He said not to worry, that.
Speaker 27: He'd take care of it.
Speaker 10: He got shot and I trying to take care of it,
and he's out right now, still taking care of it.
Who was the man?
Speaker 18: Why?
Speaker 33: I don't know, mister Stone. I never saw him before.
He just said that.
Speaker 16: John would know who he was. Oh was he big? Tall? Short?
Speaker 33: He didn't drinking heavily? It seemed cultured.
Speaker 10: Julian Glass a lawyer. He'd know about the trust funneling adoption.
He probably handled it all. Julian Glass was a drunkard crewe,
but he didn't strike me as a blackmailer. I was
thinking of his friend, Marty Angel as I drove out
to Cicero as fast as I could. Three squad cars
were already there. And then I noticed with a sinking
heart that a hearse was also there. I was too late.
A milkman filled in the details.
Speaker 36: It was awful.
Speaker 16: It happened so fast as all as you'll tell it fast.
Speaker 40: I'm delivering my milk when I see this tall guy
with a gray hair comes staggering up to the steps,
the sort of pale he pounds on this door.
Speaker 16: Here, mister Glasses, that's right.
Speaker 40: A young guy with a briefcase opened the door. The
police say his name is Marty Engle on a young
guy sort of wise life says hello, you have come
to pay.
Speaker 6: Off, huh?
Speaker 16: And the big guy says yeah.
Speaker 34: Marty, and he opens up an angle goes down, but.
Speaker 40: He ain't yet, and then Julian Glass wreaths into the
picture and he falls in front of Engele's gun just
as he pointed at.
Speaker 16: The other guy.
Speaker 40: Glass stops two slugs and he goes down. Then on
the big guy finishes off angle. Then he goes over
and looks at grass. He sort of size, maybe a tear,
and then he walks off.
Speaker 16: You try to stop him. You think I'm nuts.
Speaker 40: With two guys dead already was terrible, terrible. I need
myself a drink, That's what I need. I need myself
a drink, and I don't mean milk.
Speaker 10: It was pretty obvious that Julian Glass did have the
strength to beat John McMath's friend.
Speaker 16: After all, he died for him.
Speaker 10: The police had already thrown a cordon around the neighborhood
for the man three witnesses had described as the killer
of Marty Angle.
Speaker 16: As for me, I got out of talking distance right away.
Speaker 10: It was easy to see it had taken mcmasss half
the night and most of his strength to get to
Marty Angle, but I was certainly still had.
Speaker 16: Some strength left.
Speaker 10: The sun was up by the time I drove out
past Evanston, around the lake and the will met and
stopped at Saint Vincent's Church.
Speaker 16: The ceremony was just about over.
Speaker 10: I stood in the back as Constance Gardner and Robert
Meredith were not man and wife.
Speaker 41: The name of the father, your son, the Hoigo, I
now pronounce you.
Speaker 16: He turned around and started down the island.
Speaker 10: That was when I noticed the tall, gray haired man
leaning quietly against the door. Hello stuff, what are you
doing here covering your daughter's wedding?
Speaker 16: The glasses. I know you're a smart guy, and I
should find out about everything. They don't like murder in
this state, No matter what the.
Speaker 9: Reason, Marty Ingel was trying to buy that kid of
mine out of her life. He found out who she
was when he worked for Julie Glass had to stop him.
Speaker 17: Poor Julie.
Speaker 16: He did all he could, but I better get you
to a hospital.
Speaker 15: No, I want to, so just don't hold me up.
Speaker 17: Don't let me fall right here and run a wedding.
Speaker 16: Thank you, hold me up?
Speaker 18: Please, thank you coming.
Speaker 16: Oh Bob, Hello Stone, thanks for covering it yourself.
Speaker 9: You can tell all of your readers I'm the happiest
bride in the world and quote me.
Speaker 16: Please, I'll do then.
Speaker 30: Oh, mister Stoner, do I know your friends? He seems familiar.
Speaker 9: No, you didn't know me at all. I'm sort of
an associate of mister Stones. I was glad I could
be at your wedding. Well, I'm glad to thank you.
Speaker 15: Well, I told you you had a story this morning.
Speaker 16: Rannie, you're going to blend it. Nope, thanks stop. Like
I said, you're there.
Speaker 35: You're the kind of a guy I'm glad to meet.
Speaker 10: Big John McMaster's died in the taxicab on the way
to the hospital, and there's no maybe about whether it
was better that way or not. So I'm writing a story.
It's all about laws that made criminals and laws that
made them not criminals. It's kind of a wandering piece
of copy that doesn't really get anywhere and never really
solves anything. But it doesn't mention any names, because I
don't think that had solved anything either. Maybe Julian Glass
was right when he said they're all gone now, and
the one who are left are broken and tired with
old faces, and they should be gone too. I wonder
what he'd have to say now that he's gone with them.
Speaker 16: Copy Boy.
Speaker 34: Night Beat, darring Frank Lovejoy, is produced and directed by
Warren Lewis. To Night's story was written by John Michael
Hayes and E. Jack Newman, with music by Frank Worth.
John McMasters was played by Bill Conrad. Frank Lovejoy may
soon be seen.
Speaker 17: In Warner Brothers.
Speaker 34: I was a communist for the FBI, and now here
again is our star, Frank Lovejoy.
Speaker 10: Someone once said a guy meets so many interesting people
in the newspaper business, and somehow they all turn out
to be newspapermen. Well, in portraying a reporter on Nightbeat,
I've met my share of the press, and I'd like
to double at quotation and faith. Tonight, I want to
congratulate the new president of the National Press Club, Carson F. Lyman,
and salute Frank Rogers, Washington, correspondent of the Los Angeles
Daily News, who was elected secretary of that organization. There
are a great bunch of folks. These guys and gals
are the working press, and I'm proud to be permitted
to portray one of them.
Speaker 34: Good Night, Nightbeat, came to you from Hollywood. In thirty seconds.
Here Marlene Dietrich in a foreign affair on NBC.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. Well, who knew that Jock Omanagan had a
cousin who was a lawyer? Yeah, I could not help
but think Jock O Madigan the whole time, and that
I wonder if that was intentional in any way or
that was the type of character they wanted, because Tudor
Owen was capable of doing a lot of different voices.
It's kind of interesting that in both Jeff Reagan and
Not Bait, William Conrad plays the gangster role, but he
is really able to give so much more and Not Beat,
which I think does speak to the fact that he
was so appreciated or Not Beat and got such great
material and always delivered just great pathos. This is, of
course also such an unusual episode of Not Beat because
the series had been off the air for several months
and this was an interesting one to come back on
and really emphasize the humanity of Randy Stone.
Speaker 6: And he is.
Speaker 1: One of the most selfless characters that we featured, and
he really does get a chance to feature in that
and again continue to play really well off William Conrad. Well,
now we're going to fast forward a couple of years
to when this story came to yours, truly Johnny Dollar
with John Lund in the lead role. The original air
edate April twenty eighth, nineteen fifty three, and here now
is the San Antonio matter.
Speaker 38: Wrigley's Fairman Chewing gum. The refreshing, delicious treat that gives
you chewing enjoyment. Presents for your listening enjoyment. John Lund
as Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 8: Ed Quigley, Johnny, are you free?
Speaker 5: You mean him?
Speaker 17: I available?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 17: What's up? Ed?
Speaker 8: Remember Mark san Antonio the bootlegger?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 17: What about him?
Speaker 8: Somebody shot him this morning, shot him to death. And
Saint Petersburg, Florida.
Speaker 38: Oh yeah, great Eastern Finality set up a trust years
ago for san Antonio's daughter.
Speaker 8: A wonderful report before they come across.
Speaker 17: I see you know who killed him yet or why?
Speaker 10: Ah?
Speaker 8: Not a thing, Johnny, Yes, that he's dead. When can
you leave?
Speaker 17: As soon as I can get a plane.
Speaker 35: Good.
Speaker 38: The makers of Wrigley's Spearmint Chewing Gum bring you John
Lund and a transcribed adventure of the man with the
action packed expense account America's Fabulous Freelance insurance Investigator. You're
truly Johnny Doller. Wriggly's Spearmint Chewing Gum refreshes you. Wriggly's
Spearmint Chewing Gum gives you real chewing enjoyment. Yes for
chewing enjoyment plus refreshment. It's Wriggly's Spearmint Chewing Gum. The lively,
delicious flavor of wrigley Spearmint cools your mouth, helps keep
your throat moist, and gives you a nice little lift.
The good smooth chewing of Wrigley's Spearmint helps keep you
feeling fresh and alert, adds enjoyment to whatever you're doing.
So for chewing enjoyment plus refreshment, treat yourself often to
Wrigley's Spearmint Chewing Gum. Healthful, refreshing, delicious. Expense account submitted
by Special Investigator Johnny Dollar to home office, Great Eastern
Fidelity and Life Insurance Corporation, sixth and Jordan Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut.
The following is an accounting of expenditures during my investigation
of the San Antonio matter. Expense account Item one and
two dollars and three cents Transportation and Incidental's Hartford to
Saint Petersburg, Florida. I arrived exactly ten hours after I
received the call from Bed Quigley. The rainy weather there
was as bad, if not worse, than the weather I
just left. I checked in at the Saint Petersburg Hotel, shaved, showered,
had a meal and started in. My first contact was
a police officer, Lieutenant Benjamin by name, a big, swarthy
man who seemed to know what he was about.
Speaker 6: I don't quite get this dollar.
Speaker 18: What's your part?
Speaker 38: Just at my insurance company would like a full report
on everything that's happened.
Speaker 37: Oh you mean a report separate from what we have.
Speaker 17: Yeah, that's about it, lieutenant.
Speaker 37: Well it's there, dough. They can spend it anyway they
want to. What can I do for you?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 38: Maybe we can help each other, a lieutenant, I feel
sort of Let me tag along and see what's what
on the case.
Speaker 17: We'll see.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 37: San Antonio bought a big place over on the south
end of town eleven years ago, just after he was
released from Alcatraz. He's lived there ever since, quiet, minding
his own business, is keeping his nose out of trouble.
Speaker 17: Yeah, so I understand.
Speaker 37: As long as a man does that, even a man
with a background like san Antonio, as long as a
man does that, we don't bother him. He doesn't bother us. Well,
today it was the first.
Speaker 6: Peep we ever got out of him.
Speaker 37: What happened seemed six o'clock this morning. He phoned into
the station and said that somebody was watching his house.
Proulcar went out to have a look around. He told
the officers that two men had been hanging around the
front of his house, but they got away just before
the car showed up.
Speaker 14: Um huh.
Speaker 17: He give a description.
Speaker 37: Yeah, both about six feet dark or dark overcoats and hats.
San Antonio didn't recognize either of them. The officers put
the description on the air and tried to find them,
but they didn't have any luck. Oh, san Antonio wasn't
the kind of a bird to get excited about a
couple of guys taking out his place. He pretty well
knew how to take care of himself and handle trouble.
Speaker 38: Yeah, but you say that he hadn't been in trouble
or asked for any around here, that's right.
Speaker 37: Too, And I'm sure he didn't want any either. So
his call was treated like any other Prower call. We investigated,
didn't find anything, and promised to keep our eyes open.
The cook came on duty about eight thirty. She went
in the kitchen, made him some breakfast, took it up
to his room. She found him dead. He'd been shot
twice with the Luger lab has the slugs. Now it's
a close range job.
Speaker 38: Well, then the surest bed is the two men that
san Antonio reported watching his house.
Speaker 37: That's about it. Wish we could find them somewhere.
Speaker 17: What about the cook?
Speaker 37: She just worked their days, fixing his meals and taking
care of him. San Antonio must have been past.
Speaker 17: Sixty, he was sixty seven.
Speaker 37: I guess he was beginning to show. A little tread
man who's lived the kind of life he has and
done the things he's done, is bound to show somewhere
and want some rest sometime in his life. According to her,
he spent his days painting. Painting, Yeah, Mark san Antonio.
Every room in the house covered with pictures he's done
his last few years. Oil's pretty good too. And when
he wasn't painting, he was listening to record all kinds
of heavy stuff in the way of music around the place. Now,
you hardly figure a bootlegger like san Antonio thinking of anything.
Speaker 4: Like music and heart.
Speaker 37: Yeah, And all the time he was in action, running
booze up in New York and getting himself in trouble
with the tax people, he was bound to step on
a lot of toes and get himself a lot of enemies,
the kind of people who wouldn't forget you talk too much.
Oh yes, no, And then I'd meet him on the
street or in a store. He seemed pretty gentled up.
Speaker 17: How'd he lived?
Speaker 37: Apparently he saved something from the old days? A house
he paid for in cash Bank in New York. Used
to send him a statement every month. I suppose he
had some arrangement with him. Well that's about it so far.
Speaker 4: I see, I'm not sure appreciate the information.
Speaker 37: Okay, when I get anymore, i'll let you know. Grime
Lab's still working on some of the stuff in his room.
Maybe we'll get something there.
Speaker 17: Say, do you mind if I talk to that cook?
Speaker 37: Oh that's your privileged dollar.
Speaker 17: Name's Olsen.
Speaker 37: She's staying at the san Antonio house during all this. Okay,
san Antonio's daughter blew into down this afternoon. She's at
the house too.
Speaker 17: What does she have to say?
Speaker 37: Oh nothing. She didn't even know Mark san Antonio was
her father until your insurance company told her.
Speaker 17: Didn't know.
Speaker 37: Oh no, She's been living in Philadelphia all these years
with an aunt, all very legitimate. The girl's been using
the name Randall, Edith Randall.
Speaker 38: Yes, sir, how do you do you, missus Olson? Yes, sir,
my name is Dollar, missus Elson. I'm from the Great
Eastern Fidelity People. Do you suppose I could speak with
miss Randall?
Speaker 16: Oh? I don't think so, sir.
Speaker 26: She's not feeling Wales.
Speaker 30: All of these been quite a shock to her.
Speaker 17: I see it.
Speaker 4: Well, then, I guess my trip out here tonight was
for nothing.
Speaker 26: Will you come tomorrow, mister Dolla?
Speaker 42: Please?
Speaker 18: Yes, Miss Randal.
Speaker 30: Who isn't it.
Speaker 27: It's a mister Dolla. He's from the insurance company.
Speaker 26: Are your round company?
Speaker 30: Yes, I'd like to talk for him.
Speaker 38: The woman who said at the base of the iron
grilled stairway was tall and dark eyed, and she came
towards me, smiling, showing a frank, wide, happy mouth, young
kind of face that could have been twenty or maybe thirty.
Missus Olson excused herself and we were alone.
Speaker 30: I wanted to talk to someone who might be able
to give me a little more information about all this.
It's all quite new to me.
Speaker 17: Well, I'll tell you what I can, Miss Randal.
Speaker 30: Yes, I'm sure you will. From what mister Hurt and
the insurance officers told me on the phone. I'm to
be quite well off because this.
Speaker 18: Man was murdered here today, you mean, mister san Antonio.
Speaker 30: Yes, mister san Antonio. They tell me he was my father.
To awaken one morning and discover you're not one person
but an entirely different person. I mean, I'm the daughter
of a famous rackteer who's been murdered.
Speaker 17: You seem to me like a very nice person, and so.
Speaker 30: Do you, mister Dille. Will you tell me all about.
Speaker 38: This please, Well, just our part of it, miss Randall.
Let's see you're twenty six, now, is that right? That
is well, twenty six years ago, your father was on
trial for income tax evasion. Just before he was convicted,
he set up a trust fund with my insurance company
to provide for you. He's been paying money for your
support and education all these years. According to the condition
of the trust, the rest of the money reverts to
you now comes to well over fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 30: That's all there is to it. Yeah, except for this,
you mean my father. So strange to say that my
father's murder. I suppose I'm grateful to my father. I
suppose I should be grateful. I can't say that I'm
particularly sorry about his death any more than I would
be if any human being died violently somewhere. Strangely, life
treats he sometimes very strangely. You know, you've somehow made
me feel comfortable in this house. May I offer you
a drink?
Speaker 38: It was strange for me too, because I felt comfortable
in the house. Over the drinks, we talked of Mark
san Antonio. I told her what I knew of his life,
with his activities up until the time he'd been sent
to Alcatraz. She told me how she's been reared, far
removed from anything that might have connected her in any
way the san Antonio name. Altogether, it was a revealing
conversation for both of us. She'd never imagined any part
of the kind of life her father had lived, and
I never imagined that it was possible for anyone to
get away from a man like san Antonio?
Speaker 42: Was the road?
Speaker 6: Johnny?
Speaker 17: All right?
Speaker 18: How long would you be in Saint Petersburg till all
this is straightened out?
Speaker 30: You mean you'll be here until they find out who
killed him?
Speaker 17: How about you?
Speaker 30: I really don't know. I really don't even know why
I came here exactly, Yes, I do. I wanted to
see him, see what he looked like what kind of
a life he led?
Speaker 15: Here?
Speaker 17: Did you see him?
Speaker 43: No?
Speaker 30: I suppose I can if I want to. But I
have seen what kind of a life he had. He
was just an ordinary man, wasn't he. Have you noticed
the pictures he's painted?
Speaker 17: May I ask you something?
Speaker 44: Well?
Speaker 18: Yes?
Speaker 17: How do you feel about him? Now?
Speaker 30: Is this for your report?
Speaker 17: For myself?
Speaker 30: Since you've been here in these last two hours, I've
begun to think of him for what he was my father.
I mean, I'd like to know why he was killed
and who did it. Will I see you again?
Speaker 18: I hope so, Edith, Yes, I hope so very much so,
I Johnny.
Speaker 38: I left her at the door of that line with
a warm sensation inside of me, something I certainly hadn't
expected in the routine business of the investigating a murder case.
The next morning, I was back at the house talking
to missus Olsen. She gave me all the information she
could remember about San Antonio's activities up until the time
of his death, same information she given the police, all
of it accurate, but lacking any possible clues to the
identity of his slayer or slayers. I had breakfast with
Edith there and then went back downtown to spend a
solid twelve hours in the company of Lieutenant Benjamin, who
had still not located or identified the two mysterious men.
Speaker 4: However, there were other developments.
Speaker 37: Say this may be something. Oh, san Antonio's partner in
the old days, Pallalichi, was murdered in Newark last night.
Speaker 17: Timmy Palalici.
Speaker 5: That's the one.
Speaker 38: Any details, Oh, yes, that he was shot to death
with a luger. When the slugs taken from San Antonio's
body were compared with those that killed Paalolichi and were
proved to have been fired from the same gun, the.
Speaker 17: Case took on new proportions.
Speaker 38: Every available bit of information regarding the two ex big
shots of the twenties was located.
Speaker 4: Read and re read.
Speaker 38: It meant activity in such cities as Saint Louis, Chicago,
New Orleans, and Buffalo, but no new information as to
the identity of the killer.
Speaker 17: Johnny, Hey, what is it you're shaking?
Speaker 30: Hold me, Hold me please. I suppose I'm being a
terrible fool about it all, Johnny. But they've been after
me all day.
Speaker 17: The cheap little things.
Speaker 30: A newspaper syndicate wants me to write my exclusive story
is the daughter of Mark Saint Antonio, very princess, daughter
of racketeer.
Speaker 5: Hey, hey, no, take it easy.
Speaker 30: Even Hollywood called. Some producer saw my picture in the
paper and offered me a contract. He says, he has
a script already.
Speaker 12: Come on, come on, now, come on, I'll try.
Speaker 30: Women are fools, aren't they. I shouldn't have come here,
I shouldn't have shown up at all.
Speaker 17: Then what would I have done either?
Speaker 30: And what would I have done? It makes you talk
a drink, Johnny, I'll put on a new face.
Speaker 38: It had become apparent to me in the five days
I had known her, and the five days that she'd
known of her father, that she'd grown to love him
by the memory of him. She stated it very simply.
Speaker 30: Everyone needs a pother. If you find out you have
one or had one, really you love him.
Speaker 38: They were walking up the gravel path of the house
when she said that. I suppose I was thinking of
how nice it would be to kiss her at the door.
Speaker 17: When I heard someone behind me. I twisted, trying for
the gun in my inside pocket.
Speaker 38: But there was nobody to shoot at at least nobody
I could see me, Johnny.
Speaker 4: What Edith died right there, and I lowered it to
the ground.
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Speaker 4: Helpful, refreshing, delicious.
Speaker 38: And now, with our star John Lund, we bring you
the second act of yours, truly.
Speaker 17: Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 38: Ten seconds after Ridith Randall died in my arms, I
was stumbling down the gravel path that led from the
house to the road. It all happened so suddenly and
violently that I can't say that what I did.
Speaker 4: From there on or what I felt was entirely rational.
Speaker 38: All I know is that a car was parked at
the deep end of the gateway and two men were
just climbing into it.
Speaker 17: Hey, hey, you two, shop.
Speaker 45: Stop, stop, get out of there.
Speaker 17: You get out with your hands up.
Speaker 10: My head, I'm afraid to get out.
Speaker 6: Come on, I'm gonna come.
Speaker 17: All right, you two, Come on, Come on, m No.
Speaker 4: Use on him.
Speaker 17: Mister, you see used up.
Speaker 4: You've got him really good.
Speaker 16: You.
Speaker 38: Hey, hey, stay away, you did what happened?
Speaker 17: I phone the police. Missus Olson, get over here right away.
Go on, do what I tell you.
Speaker 16: Hurry all right, mister all right, Yeah, you're pretty tough.
Speaker 42: Hello.
Speaker 17: What's your name? Just said?
Speaker 16: Pretty equal?
Speaker 17: Who's he was?
Speaker 16: My brother? John?
Speaker 6: Eat the dog?
Speaker 17: Listen? Oh, tell it to me. Tell it to me
right now. There's no policeman around the calvi. You're nobody
but you and me.
Speaker 4: If you don't tell it to me now, you'll never
tell it to anybody.
Speaker 17: Now tell it. Tell it. I die first. I had
one bullet left to my gun.
Speaker 38: I set the barrel back against his temple and pulled
back the hammer. I think I really meant to go
through with it, And for the first time I noticed
that my shoulder was covered with blood. My head began
to ring, and I had let go and straighten up.
That was not the thing to do. Oh hello their dollar.
Speaker 17: Huh oh, lieutenant.
Speaker 37: Quite a night this one. Huh yeah, Oh, you stopped one.
Speaker 17: Boy?
Speaker 37: You were sure curled up when we got there.
Speaker 17: Eatith.
Speaker 37: I'm sorry, Dollar.
Speaker 17: They thought I might have been wrong.
Speaker 37: No, you weren't.
Speaker 4: How long am I slated for this place?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 37: The doctor says, you can get out when you want to.
Speaker 17: If you like talking.
Speaker 4: They were just there and they shot her.
Speaker 17: That's it.
Speaker 4: Which one I don't know? They were together. That's enough,
isn't it?
Speaker 46: Sure?
Speaker 37: Sure, same Luga that killed san Antonio and Palalici. Just
trying to pin it down a little more. We can't
get much out of the one that's left.
Speaker 4: Let me ask him some questions.
Speaker 17: Lucian's easy.
Speaker 37: I know how you feel about her.
Speaker 4: Just lie back there now.
Speaker 17: Did he say anything at all?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 37: Nothing more than his name and his brother's name. Found
papers on him. That's say that From New York please.
New York are looking him up right now. So far
they haven't been able to find any connection with san Antonio.
People like san Antonio and Palaici make enemies. But that girl,
it doesn't figure. And those two flew here from New
York just to get her. Yeah, yeah, Dollar, you talked
to her a lot in these last few days.
Speaker 17: What'd she say?
Speaker 38: Nothing that has anything to do with this. You know yourself.
She didn't even know who her father was. They got killed.
Speaker 37: That could have been an act.
Speaker 18: No, it wasn't. I knew her well enough to tell
you that.
Speaker 37: Yeah, why would they gun her down?
Speaker 38: Why the trip ed Rico boy you're holding in the
jail hospital as the answer?
Speaker 17: Get it from him.
Speaker 37: We will doll her, We will Oh just a minute, sure,
old Dollar, Hue, I spoke too soon. Rico died five
minutes ago.
Speaker 38: As far as my investigation of the San Antonio case went,
could have ended right there. The logo found and the
dead Rico brother was the same gun that had fired
fatal bullets into all three victims. I got my release
from the hospital and late that afternoon walked into Lieutenant
Benjamin's office.
Speaker 37: Dollar, I don't get it, don't get what here? This
just came from New York on. The Rico boys, Oh,
came to this country when they were eighteen and twenty one.
Both of them were naturalized citizens. Records not a thing.
No trouble ever.
Speaker 17: Oh, that's funny. What else?
Speaker 37: What's about it? At least there can't seem to locate
their old man. He disappeared a week ago, lived on
the eat side somewhere.
Speaker 17: He naturalized citizen too.
Speaker 37: Oh, that's another funny thing. He's taking out his papers
and was due for examination with the immigration people this week.
They're looking for him too. When are you leaving tomorrow.
Speaker 17: Afternoon at one o'clock?
Speaker 37: Clean, Well, come on, I'll buy you some dinner.
Speaker 17: We had dinner.
Speaker 38: Together and talked about the case. It had been a
strange one. The deaths were useless, the motives unknown. The
killers weren't even associated with their victims. I parted company
with Lieutenant Benjamin and went back to my hotel to
trouble it out with sleep. About eleven o'clock, I had
a phone call Johnny Doller.
Speaker 17: I don't know, this is ben Oh, what's up?
Speaker 37: Old man Rico just walked into the city Morgue. He
wants to take his two sons back to New York
for burial.
Speaker 38: Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the corner's office
when Lieutenant Benjamin led a small, wizened old man into
the room, sat him down in one of the chairs,
gave him a glass of water, offered him a cigarette.
Speaker 4: Old man refused, no, no, no, no, thank you, mister Rico.
Speaker 37: This is mister dollar.
Speaker 17: Ill, mister dollst Rico.
Speaker 18: I read you you.
Speaker 4: Killing my boys.
Speaker 17: So yes, they tried to kill me.
Speaker 4: I know, I know, too bad.
Speaker 17: Why, mister Rico, it just seems you're washing the way.
Speaker 38: I don't mean about me, I mean about Edith Randall
and Palalchi and Mark san Antonio.
Speaker 17: Why I take her the water now? Please? Why do
you know? Why? See and tell me they're all dead? Now?
Speaker 47: I missed it that I.
Speaker 38: Pietro Rico was held in custody for the immigration officials.
He refused to talk about his sons or any of
their activities. He just stayed in his jail cell, silent,
noncommittal to all visitors, including the chaplain. I don't suppose
we'd never have gotten the story of it, except that
the will of Mark san Antonio disclosed that before her
marriage to him, his wife's name had been Maria Rico.
Speaker 17: Yeah, mot equations.
Speaker 38: No, I've got some answers. Mark san Antonio's wife was
your daughter, wasn't she? Wasn't she?
Speaker 8: She was?
Speaker 17: That all you have to say. I know talk.
Speaker 38: Well, and I do, mister Rico, because your daughter had
a daughter, a lovely, wonderful daughter, that your two sons killed.
Speaker 17: I happen to know that girl.
Speaker 42: She had to die to why pard Alichi said Antonio
and her they.
Speaker 17: Had to die.
Speaker 4: All the bad All of us are bad at one
time or another.
Speaker 17: Who made them die? You see? Who gave you the right?
Speaker 4: I'm the father.
Speaker 42: When a daughter marries a bad man on the bad,
they cannot come of it. He came to her village
many years ago, and he took her away. He and
the man Plichi help him to live with me all
this time. I live only to destroy him. For that,
I destroy him and the other man and the girl
to my sons, why the girl she could not have
been good?
Speaker 17: For bad?
Speaker 48: The man Vendetta was at it, if you would like Mendebt.
He was a bad man who did the bad, the things.
Speaker 47: Bad.
Speaker 35: The man.
Speaker 17: I smoke. Now you've got in Chicago.
Speaker 38: The disposition of old Pietro Rico is up to the
immigration authorities. I didn't stay around Saint Petersburg for all
the complex examinations would have to be made to test
his sanity. I had enough of Saint Petersburg. Expense accounts
Item three helen board seventy nine dollars and thirty cents.
Item four, Hospital one hundred and sixty eight dollars thirteen cents.
Speaker 17: Item five same as Item one.
Speaker 38: Transportation back to Hartford expense account total five hundred and
seventy three dollars and forty nine cents.
Speaker 17: Here's true, Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 38: Remember friends, Wriggly's Spearmint chewing gum refreshes you. Wriggly Spearmint
chewing gum gives you real chewing enjoyment. The lively, full
bodied flavor of wrigley Spearmint cools your mouth, freshens your taste,
sweetens your breath.
Speaker 17: The smooth, pleasant chewing.
Speaker 38: Of Wrigley's spearmint helps keep you feeling relaxed and satisfied.
Makes whatever you're doing more enjoyable. Yes for refreshment plus
chewing enjoyment. Treat yourself often to Wriggle Spearmint Chewing Gum.
Millions enjoy it daily, get a few packages, and always
keep some handy. That's Wriggly's Spearmint Chewing Gum, Healthful, refreshing, delicious.
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, brought to you by Wrigley Spearmint
Chewing Gum, stars John Lund in the title role and
was written by E. Jack Newman with music by Eddie Dunstead.
Featured in tonight's cast where John McIntyre, Joe Kerns, Jeanette Nolan,
Virginia Gregg and j Novello. Yours Truly Johnny Dollar is
transcribed in Hollywood by Him Delvay. The makers of Wrigley's
Spearmint Chewing Gum hope you enjoyed Tonight's story of Johnny
Dollar and that you're enjoying delicious Wriggly's Spearmint.
Speaker 8: Gum every day.
Speaker 38: This is Charles ly inviting you to join us again
next week at the same time when from Hollywood, John
Lund returns as Yours Truney Johnny Dolla.
Speaker 17: This is the CBS Radio Network Floorway.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. This one is interesting and you can see
in many ways it's an entirely different story. The big
similarity is that it involves an old bootlegger who has
a daughter who he has protected from being involved in
his rackets. But the story takes a very different turn.
There's a strong emotional element to it, but it is
also very steeped in the more grounded procedural approach. But
good performances all around, with a solid emotional outing for
John Lund. Now, let's go ahead and take a look
at how this plays out in the course of the
serialized version this one, and we will play all five parts,
aired from October thirty first to November fourth, nineteen fifty five.
Here now is the Valentine Manor.
Speaker 4: From Hollywood.
Speaker 17: It's time now for.
Speaker 49: Johnny Dillon Royan Vicker's new Britain mutual. Johnny, hi, Roy,
how'd you like to try some creole cooking?
Speaker 4: Okay, what's up?
Speaker 8: One of the bell hops at Saint Agnes Hotel in
New Orleans had quite a time last night. He opened
the safe and walked out with seventy five hundred dollars
in cash and a diamond necklace with a cool twenty
five thousand So.
Speaker 4: Help me, Roy, I didn't know bell hops had so
much fun That is no.
Speaker 8: You also stole a station wagon belonging to the hotel manager,
not to mention the manager's wife.
Speaker 4: What do you want back?
Speaker 8: Mainly that necklace is the property of one of our clients.
She was stopping at the Saint Agnes and had a
stote in the.
Speaker 49: Hotel safe any line on the bell hop not a
trade so far, my wife, don't be funny. Can you
have a play down there and see what's happened for us?
Speaker 8: Sure?
Speaker 50: Roy Tonight and every Weekday Night Bob Bailey and the
Transcribed Adventures of the Man with the Action Packed Expense
account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.
Speaker 4: Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Expense accounts submitted by Special Investigator
Johnny Dollar to the New Britain Mutual Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut.
The following is an accounting of expendit yours during my
investigation of the Valentine matter expense account Item one one
hundred and seventy five dollars and no sense airfare and
the incidental cost it takes to get from Hertford to
New Orleans. Once there, I was more than surprised to
discover the police had wound up the whole case. The
prodigal bell hop, along with the seventy five hundred, the
diamond necklace, the station wagon, even the vantager's wife had
all been recovered, everything and everyone tearful but intact. I
reported this development to all parties concerned, phoned the airport
for a reservation back to Hartford, which they said would
be the following afternoon, and then looked around for something
to do. I found a spot on Burgundy Street that
seemed to be less crowded than the others, and settled
down for the evening. That's where it happened. He was
sitting alone, tall, gray haired, rugged, a face full of
some fifty odd years, I guessed, and follow some other
things no one could guess. It was three drinks at
the bar before I made out who he was, who
he had been, A man who was once big in
a way that only prohibition made them be. The seat
taken no mind. If I sit down, mister Valentine.
Speaker 51: Well you can't be that old, howled old enough to
recognize me?
Speaker 4: Recognize you for your picture a long time ago.
Speaker 51: I guess I could tell you more about that than anybody.
Speaker 4: You're a cop, No, I'm an insurance investigating you were
a cop once? Once? Can I buy you a drink?
Mister Valentine?
Speaker 51: Damned enough? Sure you're doing better than the boys in
the force. I've been living in New Orleans for three
months now. Nobody's calling me any reason why they should.
Speaker 17: No, No, there isn't.
Speaker 51: Then, no one's ever figured out a way to stop
a policeman from making a visit when he wants to.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 51: They had a funny thing. There's a lot of policemen
I've liked in my day, visiting policemen. That is, on
certain days. You're too young to remember much about a dollar.
But a long time ago, a bunch of old women
made a law called.
Speaker 4: The Balstead Act, sure prohibition.
Speaker 51: Everybody heard about it, including the old women who passed
the law. You see, this law was supposed to be
for the other guy, not for them. Anyhow, a lot
of people started bottling up violations of this Balstead Act. Retired, No,
not a bit him. Well, I've got me a lot
of money and a lot of trouble. Thirteen years for
income tax evasion. Finally, and it just three months ago,
and I came here to live happily.
Speaker 4: Ever after, funny.
Speaker 15: No.
Speaker 4: New Orleans is a nice, quiet place to live, but
it's still no one's bothering you.
Speaker 17: That's the way I want to keep it.
Speaker 51: And they can pass a thousand stupid laws, and I'm
not going to fall for any of them. Everything the
book says, everything in order. Now that sounds pretty good.
Do you believe it?
Speaker 17: Yes?
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 51: Then I've got my point over. I'm flattered that you
recognize me.
Speaker 4: Dollar.
Speaker 51: I paid back ten days for everyone I took. All
I ask is that you don't ask the police to
bother me.
Speaker 4: Okay, as far as I'm concerned, Dan, you didn't even
have the dinner I'm.
Speaker 51: About to buy for you, Dollar. It's nice to come
out of prison be recognized by a nice guy. Where
we go to me Miriam.
Speaker 4: That's where we went, and it was a swell dinner,
only Dan Valentine didn't eat much of him. He tried
to smile and crack wise, but there was a sadness
about him that stood in the way. I wanted to
ask him more questions about those days back when, but
I didn't. We dropped into a couple of other places,
the absentth House, Joe Glorioso's We listened to some jazz
and drank Sazarex and walked along Canal Street. Finally we
shook hands and said good night. Expense account item two
twenty six dollars and twenty six cents, hotel board and miscellaneous.
The next morning, I packed my bags, checked out of
my hotel, and was about to take a limousine out
to Mobile Airport. Oh, miss Donna, Yeah for you? Oh? Thanks.
It was from a police officer on the New Orleans
Force and Inspector Debacca. Could I dropped by before I
left town. I went right over and met Tobacca, a tall, lean,
gray haired man with thirty years service who kind of
puzzled me at first. Thanks for coming by, Donna, Sure,
get down? What's up the bell hop? Take back his
confession on that necklace?
Speaker 14: Theft?
Speaker 52: No, No, there's something else, Donna. Dan Valentine, Oh, you
met him about six thirty last night. You had two
drinks with him, and he went over to Moran's and
had dinner. He went to two other places. You left
him at eleven thirty.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I also brushed my teeth when I got back
to the hotel. But I bet you can't tell me
what color my pajama.
Speaker 52: Take it easy, Just take it easy. Maybe I'm saying
this bad. He doesn't know it. We've been keeping an
eye on Danny ever since he showed up New Ones.
Speaker 4: Just so it happened.
Speaker 52: You were with him last night, and you did business
with us here yesterday afternoon. So we want to know
if you had any business with Dan Valentine.
Speaker 4: Don't be funny, inspector.
Speaker 52: Okay, okay, and now don't get huffy. Let me put
it this way. Dan came to New Orleans three months ago,
bought a house out in Jefferson Parish. He had a housekeeper,
brought himself a little car, took up fishing every afternoon
or just walking. Nothing wrong with that, Oh of course
there isn't We like it fine? The boys in the
car drive by now and then look at him.
Speaker 4: Just look.
Speaker 52: No questions, no knocking on the door. When we see
Danny in town, we turn the other way.
Speaker 4: Just look. You see.
Speaker 52: Sure, Now he doesn't have any visitors, No old pals
from Chicago or New York or Detroit come to see him.
Speaker 4: He lives alone and he likes it. That's what he
told me. You'res first visitor. Now I just wondered you
wondered wrong, Debaka Okay, okay, I had to ask about it.
Speaker 52: You know how it is? Yeah, excuse yeah, yeah, okay,
right on.
Speaker 4: Queue.
Speaker 52: And your pal just stopped a couple of bullets. Huh,
Danny Valentine, come on.
Speaker 4: According to the uniform officer who had put in the call,
a newspaper boy had found Valentine lying on the sidewalking
around the neighborhood. One of the residents had carried him inside.
The ambulance crew stood by the bed as we came in.
Valentine was lying on his back, the white chinneel spread
under him, changing to a deep red. Two bullets had
ripped ragged holes in one shoulder through flesh and ball,
but he was just as self contained as ever. I
got the idea you were going to stay out of trouble, Dan.
Speaker 51: I didn't know I was in any trouble. Are your dollar?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 51: You went to the police after all.
Speaker 52: No, the inspector called me in about you, Dan, But
let's forget that for now.
Speaker 4: How this happen?
Speaker 17: Yes, cleaning my gun.
Speaker 4: You're losing, Dan. You're not supposed to have a gun.
Speaker 8: Oh.
Speaker 51: You know me in the law, we sometimes didn't hit
it off?
Speaker 4: Odd? Where is the gun?
Speaker 17: What gun?
Speaker 52: The gun you were cleaning when you were walking down
the street and shot yourself.
Speaker 17: I swallowed it.
Speaker 29: Now.
Speaker 52: Look, somebody's taking a couple of shots at you, Dan.
Nobody can tell us anything about it, but you so far.
We don't want you murdered. Well, okay, boys, get the
eminence back. Wait a minute, Wait a minute.
Speaker 8: You're hurt.
Speaker 4: You're going to the police hospital.
Speaker 51: No, no, I've served my time and I'm clean. Being
shot out, even in this state, doesn't make you a criminal.
Dollar Yeah, Dan, do me a favor. Would you phone
a private hospital and have me take him there?
Speaker 52: Go ahead, Johnny, take it easy, Dan.
Speaker 4: I did as he asked. A crew from one of
the large private hospitals was out there in a matter
of minutes, and an hour and a half later, Dan
Valentine was operating on and the bullet successfully removed from
his shoulder. I waited around until he was taken to
a private room and inspected. The BACA waited with him.
Speaker 52: Dolla, Yeah, why don't you go back to Hartford. This
isn't any of your business.
Speaker 4: I know my plane takes off it for I'll be
on it. Why are you waiting around here? Oh, to
see how he is? I guess you, bally, I just
met him last night. You know that, But you're waiting around. Yeah,
you want me to tell you why you're waiting around.
You want to make sure he's okay. You met him
last night, and outside of what you ever read or
heard about him, you don't know him from a load
of coal. But you want to make sure he's going
to be all right. Well so do I, because in
that room, on that bed, that's quite a man. A
lot about summed it up. No matter what he had
been or what he had done, Dan Valentine was quite
a man. It was the same thing that had caused
me to go over to him the night before and
start a conversation, the same thing that caused me to
believe his plans for living a quiet life in New Orleans.
He came out of the anesthetic a half hour later,
and he sent for me.
Speaker 5: Hi.
Speaker 4: Hi, They say it's going to be okay.
Speaker 51: Oh sure, sure, this is nothing. I just wanted to
thank you for giving me a hand.
Speaker 4: Tobacca could probably help you more. All you have to
do is tell him who shot you and why.
Speaker 51: I shot myself? And just for something to do.
Speaker 4: Look, Dan, I have a fair idea of how tough
things were for you and how tough they can be now.
But inspected Debaca understands a tool. He'll do everything he
can to help you, but you have to help him. Dan,
Debacca is a good boy. You're right.
Speaker 51: You'll tell him who shot you. If there was any
way he could help me, I'd let him know first.
I'll handle this myself. I guess you want to be
getting your airplane. Yeah, good luck, kiddo, same to you.
Speaker 4: I went back to my hotel, picked up my bags,
and took a cab to Mobile Airport. My plane had
developed engine trouble and there was going to be a
five hour delay. I killed time at the bar and
in the restaurant and just standing around looking at the
field at night. By that time, the newspapers carried the
story of the amped on Dan Valentine's life. It was
as skippy as the story Dan had told himself. And
a troubled me, Miss Dollar. Yeah, a long distance off
you from Hartford. You can date you right in there? Oh, thanks,
Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 8: Roy Vickers, Johnny a New Britain mutual glad I.
Speaker 4: Caught him, just waiting for my plane back to Hartford.
Speaker 8: Now, this story about Nan Valentine's and all the papers
up here have you read?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was in on it in a way. Somebody
shot at him today. He won't tell who, says he'll
handle it himself.
Speaker 8: Can you find out, Johnny?
Speaker 49: I don't know why we carry a fifty thousand dollars
policy on him.
Speaker 8: Somebody's trying to kill him. We'd like to know all
about it.
Speaker 4: You mean I can stay here and work on this, Yes, okay, Roy,
Johnny Dollar, This.
Speaker 8: Is Charlie Debacca down at HEADQUARTERA You left.
Speaker 4: Calling me, that's right, inspector, But you went back to Hartford.
Speaker 6: What now?
Speaker 4: The company I represent happens to hold an insurance policy
on Dan Valentine. They asked me to stay here in
New Orleans and look into this attempt on.
Speaker 8: His Life'd they hear about it so fast?
Speaker 4: Well? It wasn't. All the papers and on the wire services.
Valentine's always been news ever since prohibition.
Speaker 8: Yeah, God like him would be, you know as much
as I do.
Speaker 4: Don lead Yet he's still quiet about the whole thing.
Speaker 8: Just lack a mouse who won't up when up, except
to see he'll take care of himself.
Speaker 4: Maybe it'll help matters when he finds out the insurance
company is interested.
Speaker 8: You know something I don't think me, you, the whole
Force insurance company, anybody else can see that bird alive
unless he helps us.
Speaker 4: Expense accounts submitted by Special Investigator Johnny Dollar to the
New Britain Mutual Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut. The following is
an accounting of expenditures during my investigation of the Valentine matter.
Expense account continued Item three three bucks. One telegram to
Roy Vickers in Hartford, requesting a copy of the policy
contracts between New Britain Mutual and Dan Valentine, plus the
name and location of the beneficiary and any other debt
on the case. After that, I walked over to the
police station and looked up inspected Debacca. Sit down, thanks,
I don't quite get this. Tell him what's your part? Well,
the insurance company would like a full report on everything
that's happened. That's all. You can give them that on
the back of your thumbnail. Couldn't you not quite inspector? Oh,
you mean a separate report from what we have something
like that. Yes, as they're do they can spend it
any way they want to. I guess if there's any
reason for them canceling the policy on Valentine, they'll do it.
The fact that somebody shot at them a couple of
times and came near killing him is one thing. The
fact that he won't open his mouth about it is another.
He's looking for a way out. I didn't say that.
They just want to make sure about everything. That's all.
An insurance policy is a contract mutually beneficial to both parties.
Both parties have to keep the line of that contract.
They don't figure Danny Valentine's run around shooting himself. Insurance
money inspector, They don't figure anything. Well, now that you've
been official, be unofficial, what's your idea. Well, Valentine's got
a legitimate policy with the company. They don't want to
see him kill. They tell me to investigate the shooting.
Actually they're telling me to see to it that he
stays alive. And well, well that makes sense. Good luck.
If you will sort of let me tag along on
the case, i'd appreciate it.
Speaker 52: Well, we'll see what's the matter now. It just could
me Valentine bought a house out in Jeffson Paris three
months ago, a couple of days after he was released
from federal penn He's lived there quiet, minding his own business,
keeping his nose up.
Speaker 8: Trouble.
Speaker 52: Yeah, as long as a man does that, even a
man with a background like Valentine, As long as a
man does that, we don't bother him, and he doesn't
bother us. Well, so what happens yesterday? You meet him
and have a couple of drinks with him? Hello, goodbye,
Boom boom. He gets shot twice by somebody somewhere. You
a bad newsboy.
Speaker 4: That's as wild as you can get. We had nothing
together except the drinks. You sure, I'm sure, but I'm
thinking about it just the same. Yere be back in
a minute. The bunky thick folder Inspector to Paka, shoved
across the desk at me was marked Valentine Daniel. It
started nineteen fifteen and was fat with yellowed clippings all
the way through nineteen forty two. It was a pretty
good history of Dan Valentine and the age he lived in.
He was born in Ireland and had fought in the
Irish Rebellion. He was regarded as both hero and scoundrel
for his own good. He came to America somehow. He
started out in the wholesale drug business, and understandably it
was an easy step to making prohibition alcohol and an
even easier step to make prison on an income tax
evasion charge. The fuller mentioned a wife and a daughter
who seemed to have successfully avoided most of the newspaper
headlines that had involved Dan Valentine. There was one picture
of Missus Valentine taken in nineteen twenty eight. That's about
as far as I got when Tobaca came back into
the room. Not alone. Interesting stuff, very inspector, very where
there is something more interesting. My men have been covering
the neighborhood where the shooting happened yesterday afternoon. This man's
a witness is mister Dolla, an insurance investigators Willie Blakeley.
Speaker 53: Oh hi, how do you do, sir?
Speaker 4: Hope you're gonna help us?
Speaker 17: Will he?
Speaker 53: Well, I can crime. I really didn't see too much. See,
I was on my milk truck, and I saw this fellow,
as this big fellow walking down the street of.
Speaker 4: What's Dan Valentine?
Speaker 53: Yes, sir, well, he was just walking like for an
early morning walk. And then I saw this car come
around the corner and there were a couple of men
in it.
Speaker 4: What kind of car?
Speaker 53: I think it was a buick seed then I'm not
sure it was a black car.
Speaker 4: You hap to get the license number, No, I'd go on.
Speaker 53: Well, so this mister Valentine, he looked up when he
saw it coming and he stopped, you know, kind of funny.
Speaker 4: No, I don't know.
Speaker 53: Tell me, you know, like he was surprised.
Speaker 4: Do you think he was surprised at who was in
the car?
Speaker 53: Yes, so that's it. He sort of smiled, not a hello,
kind of a smile, sort of a sad smile, didn't wave,
just stood there. I couldn't see the men in the
car by then, so I don't know how they were
looking at him.
Speaker 4: Did you see them as they round at the corner.
Speaker 53: Yeah, just a couple of fellas, dark coats and hats.
Speaker 4: Would you know them if you saw them again?
Speaker 53: I don't think so, capn Okay? Two men, yes, sir.
So this this mister Valentine stopped and looked at him
and give him this kind of smile. He recognized him,
you think, Oh yeah, And then I heard a noise,
you know, something like whack, whack, mister Valentine fell down
and the card drove off.
Speaker 4: Did Valentine go for a gun?
Speaker 53: Noser?
Speaker 4: What did you do then?
Speaker 53: I got out of there?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 53: I didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 6: I didn't want to get hurt.
Speaker 4: He didn't even try to help him, Nosa.
Speaker 53: I was scared. I didn't know what that whack whack was, sir.
Speaker 4: And it took you all this time to tell us
about it. I'm sorry, Kevin.
Speaker 52: Darling, Yeah, you got something to worry about. That noise
he was talking about didn't sound like regular gun shots,
or he would have said so silence.
Speaker 17: What else?
Speaker 4: Inspector Debaca continued to question the witness, trying to ascertain
more details about the shooting, the car, and the men
inside the car. Four hours later, when I left, he
was still at it. Some more expenses Item four two
dollars and a half cab fare from police station to hospital.
I thought i'd drop in and take a chance on
Dan Valentine coming across with some information. Sorry, no visitors,
it's pretty important. I'm a friend of his. I'm sorry.
One can I see him?
Speaker 53: That's hard to say. Mister Valentine's condition is not too good.
What well, nothing to be alarmed about. He lost so
much blood. He's in a weakened condition. The doctors ordered
a transfusion. You can phone in later. Do I excuse me, yes.
Speaker 26: Ma'am, I should like to sy mister Valentine. Please.
Speaker 53: I'm sorry. I was just telling this gentleman that's impossible.
Speaker 26: How is he?
Speaker 53: He needs rest? The doctor feels he'd be better off
without visitors at the moment.
Speaker 26: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I had a feeling about the gray haired, well dressed woman,
and I hurried after her down the long corridor outside
the hospital. I was just in time to see her
take a cab that had been waiting at the curb,
and it's to hail one myself and we tagged along
Canal Street behind her until she paid off the driver
in front of the Roosevelt Hotel. I was right behind
her when she stopped in the lobby and got a
key to room ten sixteen. I gave her five minutes.
Then I knocked on her door. Yes, hello, missus Valentine,
my name's Johnny Duman. Anne Valentine looked at me for
a long time. I had to hand it to her.
There were no tears, no frowns or screams, Just a wide,
frank look from a woman who, by any man's standards,
had once been beautiful.
Speaker 26: I haven't been called by that name for many years.
You're a reporter, of course.
Speaker 4: No I'm not. I'm an insurance investigator in a policeman's office.
Today I saw one of the few pictures ever taken
of you.
Speaker 26: At this hotel I registered under the name of Anne Ward.
Speaker 4: Ward is good enough for me? Missus Valentine? May I
come in?
Speaker 26: Yes?
Speaker 14: Now?
Speaker 26: What is it you want, mister Dollar?
Speaker 4: Possibly the same thing you want to keep your husband alive.
Speaker 26: I believe that's up to the doctor's isn't he not quite?
Speaker 4: If he was shot at once and he won't help
the police find out who did it, there's a reasonable
chance to be shot at again. Do you know who
did it or who it might be. Look, the police
have found a witness who describes two men as having
done the shooting. Can you add anything to.
Speaker 26: That, mister Dollar. I haven't seen Dan in over thirteen years.
I haven't written to him, talked to him, or contacted
him in any way, either while he was in prison
or these last few months he's been out.
Speaker 4: I see it was his idea, but he must have
had a reason he did.
Speaker 18: Our daughter.
Speaker 26: She believes that Ward was her dead father's name. Do
I make myself clear? Yeah, I read about the shooting.
I caught the first plane here because I thought I
might help Dan. My daughter thinks I'm on a little
vacation by myself. You don't believe me, do you?
Speaker 4: Well, in view of what you've just said about not
having written to him for thirteen it.
Speaker 26: Was the way he wanted it. I was never ashamed
of Dan. Never he was ashamed of himself and how
his activities might affect us. He gave me everything I
ever had out of life in New Salem. That's where
we live, and live very well. Because Dan thought of
that part of it before he went to prison. We
are considered very proper people. To rasay myself. Dan sacrificed
a great deal for that consideration.
Speaker 4: I think that you sacrificed a great deal yourself, Missus Valentine.
Speaker 26: When I go back to the hospital to see him tonight,
he'll probably tell me to pack my bag and go home,
that there's nothing to worry about.
Speaker 4: But there is something to worry about, isn't there, Missus Valentine?
He won't talk about it, and you won't talk about it,
and both of you know all about it.
Speaker 26: Oh, mister Dollar, you're a very young man. I am sorry.
If I sound like I could help you, I can't.
Speaker 12: Please go.
Speaker 4: I went back to my hotel and had some dinner.
Then after a while I put in a phone call
to the hospital and found out I could talk to
Dan Valentine between seven thirty and nine about Then a
special delivery came for me. It contained the information I
wanted regarding the policy on Dan Valentine. I noticed that
the beneficiary was a jewel affair wife and daughter, Anne
and Teresa Ward. I had to check with Inspector Tobacca
just once more, no luck. He had been unable to
identify or locate the two killers described by the witness
he was trying to trace the car. Seven thirty on
the dot, I was at the hospital. The reception desk
seemed reluctant to talk and referred me to the head nurse,
who happened to be out to dinner, who referred me
to the surgical nurse, who took me aside and told
me to find a crystal ball.
Speaker 26: Mister Valentine's gone. We have no idea where.
Speaker 4: How could he be gone?
Speaker 26: We started giving a transfusion, he jumped up, suddenly, knocked
down one of the male nurses, grabbed his clothes, and
ran out of the hospital, just as simple as that.
Speaker 4: I thought he was in a serious condition.
Speaker 26: Keep your voice down. He was in a serious condition
and it's going to be critical pretty soon, running around
town bleeding from two bullets. If you want to keep
him alive, mister Dollar, you better find him and find
him fast.
Speaker 4: I thought over what Dan Valentine had told me in
the hospital earlier about taking care of the matter himself,
and the more I thought about it, the more I
realized he was going to do just that, even if
it killed him. Johnny Dollar, this is Anne Ward.
Speaker 25: Missus Valentine. Have you heard anything about Dan?
Speaker 4: Nothing, Missus Valentine. The police are looking everywhere for him.
Speaker 25: I went to the hospital to night and they told
me you walked out. He might die.
Speaker 4: Mister I know, Missus Valentine.
Speaker 25: Did you tell you when I was here in New Orleans?
Speaker 4: If you mean, did I mention it to the police.
Speaker 8: No, thank you, mister darr It was very kind of you,
but it.
Speaker 4: Makes me mad that I didn't Missus Valentine. I know
you don't want anybody to find you're related to him
because of your daughter, But I also think you could
help the police in the situation. You could help them
find Dan and put him back in a hospital.
Speaker 25: Mister Donald, would you come over and talk to me?
Speaker 42: Please?
Speaker 25: Please?
Speaker 4: Expense accounts submitted by Special Investigator Johnny Dollar to the
New Britain Mutual Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut. The following is
an accounting of expenditures during my investigation of the Valentine matter.
Some more expense. I believe this is item five. Yeah,
four bucks, four drinks for myself. What a next big
shot of the roaring twenties like Dan Valentine carries a
fifty thousand dollars life insurance policy and walks down the
street one day and gets himself shot and refuses to
disclose who fired the bullets. I have to do the
worry for the insurance company. When he decides to leave
a hospital bed minus a pint or two of blood,
I have to worry some more. I needed those drinks.
You can just say. I liked what I'd seen of
the guy, and I didn't want him to walk around
New Orleans bleeding.
Speaker 17: To death.
Speaker 26: In here, please, mister Dolla.
Speaker 4: The wife, who hadn't seen or heard from him for
thirteen years, looked pale and want It was obvious that
the strain was beginning to tell on her, although she
tried hard not.
Speaker 17: To show it.
Speaker 26: Doesn't it ever cool off in New Orleans sometimes?
Speaker 4: But I'm not here to talk about the weather, Missus Valentine.
You know that, yes, Well, don't just stand there and
give me the tears. Then, if you've got anything to say,
say it. If you know anything that will help let
me know about it.
Speaker 26: You're perfectly right in being angry with me, mister Dowr.
I honestly don't know where Dan is.
Speaker 4: Well, do you know why he'd get up out of
a hospital bed and a dangerous life?
Speaker 26: I have an idea he might have wanted to see somebody. Ooh,
I don't.
Speaker 4: Know the two men have shot him.
Speaker 26: I just don't know.
Speaker 4: We aren't getting anywhere, missus Valentine. Look, I'm going to
talk to you, frankly, why did he come here to
live in New Orleans? Well, you live in New England
with your daughter Teresa. Obviously Dan thinks a great deal
of you in her he's given you everything, provided for
you with all of his troubles, spent thirteen years in prison.
I can imagine his thoughts about you and her while
he was in there, and yet he comes out and
lives two thousand miles away from you.
Speaker 26: He didn't want to interfere with Teresa in any way.
Speaker 4: Sure, but it seems to me he'd want to look
at you at her, Certainly, even if it was a
matter of living in Boston and taking a bus to
New Salemon, standing on a street corner one day to
watch the two of you cross the street. That sound
reasonable to.
Speaker 26: You if you put it that way.
Speaker 4: Well, look, there's some reason he picked New Orleans, some
reason he didn't give himself the little gratification of just
looking at you and Teresa. Why why here?
Speaker 26: I'm sure I don't know.
Speaker 4: And why is he running around now? I can't answer
that he but it must have something to do with
you and your daughter. Obviously you're the only ones he
ever cared about.
Speaker 26: Well, I honestly don't know.
Speaker 4: Well, and I can't help you, and I can't help
myself or him.
Speaker 26: You mentioned as having a reason to be in New Orleans.
Maybe what there was a man named Webster. Conrad Webster,
he was a member of the Illinois Bar once in
those days, did a great deal of work for Dan
and friends of Dan. I think he lived here.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, I've seen that name. Yeah, on copies
of the insurance policy. A man named Webster had the
power of attorney. He bought the insurance. There's a trust
in there for your daughter.
Speaker 26: Yes, Conrad Webster was an old friend of Dan's. I
don't even know whether he's alive now or not. Drank
a great deal later on. I think he lived here.
Speaker 4: Was he the kind of friend Dan would go to
if he needed help?
Speaker 26: Yes, I think so. All right, what are you going
to do.
Speaker 4: It's just something to look into. I'll try and find
Webster and maybe I can find your husband.
Speaker 26: Thank you for coming by. I needed somebody to talk to.
Speaker 16: Well.
Speaker 4: I hope he stays alive. Missus Valentine had him seven
sixteen dollars. The money had cost me to find out
the location of Conrad Webster. I started at his last
known address, followed a series of bars, and finally got
information from a bartender that led me to the crumby
or half of a decaying duplex on Gentilly Street. Everything
was quiet for Gentilly Street, young.
Speaker 42: Man in the drug store.
Speaker 41: To live is what I need most, the telegraph office
when I dread most. Obviously you represent neither. Therefore you
are no concern of mine.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, are you, mister Webster?
Speaker 41: Conrad Webster him, he and I am drunk and disheveled,
and it is three o'clock killer the morning.
Speaker 4: I'd like to talk with you. May I come in
you may? No, this isn't exactly the hour for making calls.
But I did stop buying, pick up something to take
the edge off. It'sponded inside inside.
Speaker 42: Now then you are going to.
Speaker 4: Apologize here you are, mister Webster.
Speaker 46: Well yeah, now, then as long as this lasts, you will.
Speaker 4: Last, all right. I'm looking for a man.
Speaker 41: The entire world is looking for a man, just one man,
a man they blindly presume will break off these shackles
that bind us and lead us forth into eternal justice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, sure, but that's not.
Speaker 42: An ironic anticipation.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about Dan Valentine. Yes, I'm a friend of his.
Speaker 41: No, now, you don't come from that place.
Speaker 42: The pallor is not with you, you lie.
Speaker 4: I didn't say I was in jail with it.
Speaker 42: And where else would he have made friends these long years.
Speaker 4: He's out of prison now, he's been out for three months,
and I'm aware of that. Did you know he was
shot at yesterday? Three hours ago? He left his hospital bed.
I thought he might have come to you. Is he here?
You know where he is, mister Webster. If Valentine isn't
back in the hospital, pretty soon he'll die.
Speaker 42: Why is the phenomenon of death so persistently alarming?
Speaker 15: So he will die?
Speaker 42: They all die usually from a bullet.
Speaker 4: And that's what's going to happen to him. Two bullets
he stopped yesterday. Do you understand me?
Speaker 6: Acutely?
Speaker 42: Acutely, you've impressed me with the urgency of his situation.
But Dan Valentine is not here, nor has he been here.
Speaker 41: Has he contacted me, nor do I know where to
contact him?
Speaker 4: All right, mister Webster? All right, I guess I believe him.
Speaker 42: Your concern for him is a distressing irritation.
Speaker 15: What is the reason for it.
Speaker 4: I'm an insurance investigator and it's my job to keep
him alive. More than that, I like him. I told
you I was his friend. I think he deserves to live.
Speaker 42: You his friends. No, you are too young to be
his friend. His friends, for the most.
Speaker 41: Part, are gone like the long years, like Hamburg Hats
and the Charleston and Lime Ricky. The ones who are
left are broken, tired and faded, with old faces, faces
like mine, like his, and we should be gone too.
Another age is here. Mhm, this is my sadness. As
for your Dan, Valentine should never have lived in that
age or this age. He was meant to be an explorer,
a pioneer who conquered a willerness, not a racketeer who
conquered a wesside.
Speaker 4: Are you sure you're his friend, mister Webster?
Speaker 42: I once thought so, He once thought so. Now I
haven't strength enough to be anyone's friend.
Speaker 4: What's your name, Johnny Dollar?
Speaker 42: Good night, mister Dollar.
Speaker 4: The look in Conrad Webster's eyes held the same sort
of sadness I had seen in Valentine's eyes, but they
were different too. They held a weakness. The strong, sad
eyes were somewhere else in the city, walking alone, probably
looking for two gunmen, and the lifeblood was slowly draining
from the body that sparked them. I went back to
my hotel and tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come.
I was still rolling and tossing at seven thirty the
next morning, when Orange Juice Coffee in the Morning Paper
came up. A nationwide Cinda Get had picked up the
new development in the Valentine shooting and gone to work
on it. Among other names, they mentioned and giving a
resume of Valentine's career, where his wife and daughter living
in New Salem under the name of Ward. Hello, this
is Johnny Dollar. I just read the Morning paper Missus Valentine.
Oh yes, I'm sorry it broke for you this way.
Speaker 26: That's very kind of you to say, so maybe it's
for the better. Anyhow, for years I've been wanting to
tell Teresa who her father is, what he's like. I'm
going to call her later today, tell her where I am,
explain why I'm here.
Speaker 25: I think she can take it.
Speaker 4: You're doing pretty well yourself.
Speaker 25: Thanks again, any word yet?
Speaker 4: No, No, we still can't.
Speaker 25: Find him, mister Webbs. Did you find him?
Speaker 4: Yes, he wasn't much help.
Speaker 26: The New England paper said that Missus Ward was out
of town. Sooner or later they'll find out what town
his Ward is in.
Speaker 4: I'm afraid well, maybe you'd better get another hotel, use
another name. Yes, all right, I'll wait to hear.
Speaker 25: From you, mister Donna.
Speaker 42: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 4: I put in another call who inspected Debacca and asked
him about developments. Valentine was still unlocated. They were covering
drug stores and doctor's offices where he might seek assistance.
The two unidentified men who had shot him were still unidentified.
The police weren't able to dig up any more witnesses
or get any line on the car. By four in
the afternoon, Missus Valentine had still not called me to
report a new address. I got worried and went over
to the Roosevelt to see what was what. I was
surprised to see inspected Obaca in the lobby talking to
the bell captain. All rights and remember anything else?
Speaker 52: Call me here, yes, sir, I sure will Hi, Hi Donna,
Well you want to talk first? Do you want me to?
All right, I'll talk first. Missus Valentine's been staying here
under the name of Anne Ward.
Speaker 4: You knew that.
Speaker 52: Yeah, why didn't you say anything to me, she asked me.
Not that doesn't make any difference now. Anyhow, that boy
over there called us a little while ago. He said
that Dan Valentine came in here this afternoon, went upstairs,
came back down fifteen minutes later with Missus Valentine.
Speaker 4: They both left together. Yeah, he must have seen the
story in this morning's paper and guess she was in town.
Speaker 52: That's the way I see it. Well, we're right back
where we started from. When I'm about sick of it, we're.
Speaker 4: A little better off. Two people are easier to find
than one. We found them all right at seven o'clock
that night, and it was easy. Three squad cars were
already drawn up in front of the little hotel, and
I noticed with a sinking heart that a hearse was
there also. Dan Valentine and his wife were dead. Johnny Dollar,
What is all this?
Speaker 8: Johnny?
Speaker 4: Who's this?
Speaker 8: Roy Vickers New Britton Mutual? What happened to Valentine?
Speaker 4: He was gunned down last night going into a hotel
with his wife. No, the police here are turning the
city upside down trying to get a line on two
unidentified gunmen.
Speaker 8: Couldn't you keep him alive?
Speaker 4: I couldn't even find him.
Speaker 8: Well, well, this is no time to be yelling at
each other. I just left his daughter, huh.
Speaker 4: She final claim already through that lawyer Webster.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 8: No, she didn't even know anything about him until the
papers broke the story. Well, I I'm sorry, I got
annoyed for a second. Do what you can, Johnny Hell.
Speaker 4: Wonderful report Sure Roy Sure expense account submitted by a
special investigator Johnny Dollar to the New Brinton Mutual Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut.
The following is a further accounting of expendit yours during
my investigation of the Valentine matter. It had them nine
seven dollars for dinner. I had it with Inspector Charles Debucca,
New Orleans Police. He was a haggard, tired looking man
about that time all of us were. He wants more coffee, No,
no thanks.
Speaker 52: Two men, both about six feet wearing dark suits and hats,
medium to slight bills, one possibly thirty five, the other
possibly forty.
Speaker 4: A lot about ties up with the description of the
two men who plugged Valentine earlier and earned him a
place in the hospital.
Speaker 52: Yeah, we got more of a chance this time, though
there be some other witnesses. Somebody has to tell us
what kind of a car they had and what direction
they went. One thing they weren't using silences anymore. No,
but they did a professional job. I think Valentine knew
him climbed out of that hospital bed to go out
looking for him.
Speaker 4: Sounds reasonable. How do you figure the rest of it?
Speaker 52: Inspector, Valentine saw the newspaper story and knew his wife
was in town. He went over, got it, and I
take it they were going to check into a new
hotel when their friends showed up.
Speaker 4: She just happened to get in the way. Huh Sure,
Why did anybody want to shoot her? Why would anybody
want to shoot him? Well, because no matter what he
was now or how he was playing it, he still
lived pretty hard way back then. Man who has lived
the kind of life he has and done the things
he is is bound to make few enemies will remember now.
I think it has something to do with his family.
I agree with you that Valentine probably made enemies all over,
but he wasn't the kind of man to get excited
about any of those kind of people. He pretty well
knew how to take care of himself and handle trouble.
That's why he was out looking for you. You sound
pretty certain. It seems to me that a Valentine had
been expecting trouble from some of the old timers. He'd
have carried a gun. You got a point.
Speaker 52: But then again, he was pretty gentled up. You know
how he spent most of his time painting.
Speaker 4: Huh. In that house he brought out in Jeffson Parish
has covered with pictures he's done since he's been out
oils pretty good too. When he wasn't painting, he was
listening to music.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 4: He'd hardly think of Danny Valentine taking up the arts.
I live. Well, I've got to make and get busy. Yeah, inspector, Yeah,
any objection to me going out and looking around that house,
it's your privilege. Personally, I'm gonna look around town for
a couple of gunmen. Anyone out there now is cook?
Speaker 52: Name's Yachino, nice woman.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll keep in touch with the inspector.
Speaker 17: Him, do that.
Speaker 52: Uh dollar Now, you forgot to tell me you looked
up the old family lawyer, Conrad Webster the other night.
Speaker 4: I was trying to find Valentine the same as you.
Speaker 52: Well, if you happen to run into Webster again, you
tell him to drop in and see me. Huh, he's missing.
I didn't know what to say to that.
Speaker 4: So I left him standing there and went back to
my hotel and shaved, changed clothes and tried to go
over the whole thing in my mind. I did phone
into the police station and find out that the slugs
that had killed Valentine and his wife were from an
Italian make pistol around Beryl thirty seven point five caliber.
So far, I'm traced expense account item ten cost of
cab from my hotel to Danny Valentine's house and Jefferson Parish. Yes,
how do you do? Are you, missus Zaccino?
Speaker 6: Yes? Who are you?
Speaker 26: Please?
Speaker 4: My name is Johnny Dollar, Missus Yaccino. I'm from New
Britain Mutual Insurance Company. I'd like to talk to you
if I.
Speaker 54: May, about mister Valentine. Yes, not right now, mister Dolls
some of the time.
Speaker 4: Well, if you prefer that way, Missus Yaccino.
Speaker 54: But it's been a hard day here. I mean mister
Valentine's death, his wife has been killed with him, all
of these policemen in and out of here.
Speaker 4: Now, Missus Ward and miss Ward his daughter, Yes.
Speaker 26: She's a here, arrived two hours ago. She's stay here.
You come tomorrow, mister dalla please now tomorrow, missus Yaccino. Yes,
mister Ward.
Speaker 54: Who is it, mister Dollar, He's from the insurance company.
Speaker 26: Insurance company. Yes, I'd like to talk to.
Speaker 4: Teresa. Ward stood at the base of the iron grilled stairway,
tall and dark, and I saw that, like her mother,
she had a quiet intensity about her face that made
it beautiful at the same time ageless. She smiled politely
at me. I could only stand there without speaking for
a long moment, looking at her. Then missus Ciaccino excused
herself and we were alone.
Speaker 26: I wanted to talk to someone who might be able
to give me a little more information about all this.
It's all quite new to me.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you what I can, Miss Ward.
Speaker 26: My name is Valentine. Isn't it really Valentine?
Speaker 17: Yes? It is.
Speaker 26: Well, suppose we correct that mistake right now.
Speaker 4: Sure, there's nothing wrong with Valentine.
Speaker 26: From what a mister Vickers from the insurance office in
Hartford told me, I'm to be quite well off because
of this man that was murdered.
Speaker 4: You mean Dan Valentine.
Speaker 26: Yes, Dan Valentine, tell me he was my father who
told her Oh reporters at home and your insurance company.
Mother told me my name was Ward. Poor thing must
have been difficult for her over the years keeping the
secret from me.
Speaker 4: Yes, she told me she thought it was the best
thing she uh, well, the same.
Speaker 26: As he did tell me about my father. Was he
a bad man?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 4: As good or as bad as the Volsted Act made people.
I only met him a couple of times.
Speaker 26: Awaken one morning and discover that you're the only daughter
of a famous racketeer who's been murdered.
Speaker 4: Look, miss Ward, if he had anything to do with
the way you turned out, with what you seem to
possess within yourself, I'd say offhand that whatever he was
or did he thought of you, are you flattering me?
I'm not trying to. You seem like a very nice person.
Speaker 26: And so do you, mister Donner. Will you tell me
all about this please?
Speaker 4: Well, let's see. You're twenty one, isn't that right? Yes,
Just about fifteen years ago or so, your father was
on trial for income tax evation. Just before he was convicted,
he set up a trust fund with my insurance company
to provide for you. It's been paying money for your
support and education ever since. According to the terms of
the trust, all of the money becomes yours. Now that
your mother and father are dead, it comes to well
over a fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 26: That's all there is to it. I suppose I'm grateful
to him. I suppose I should be grateful. I can't
say that I'm particularly sorry about his death anymore than
I would be if any other human being died violently somewhere.
But about mother's death, I.
Speaker 43: Miss her very much already, mister.
Speaker 4: She was holding up pretty well until that point. Then
she let go. I held her in my arms and
I talked to her. I told her what I knew
of her father's life and death. She told me how
she'd been reared so far removed from anything that might
have connected her in the least way with a Valentine name. Altogether,
it was a revealing conversation for both of us. Missusioccino
brought us some food and wine.
Speaker 26: How long will you been New.
Speaker 4: Orleans until all of this is straightened out?
Speaker 26: I mean, until they find out who killed my mother
and father?
Speaker 4: Yes, how about you?
Speaker 26: Oh? I really don't know. After the funerals, I suppose
I'll go back. But I wanted to see him, to
see what he looked like what kind of life he led?
He was just an ordinary man, wasn't he? You seen
these pictures before?
Speaker 4: No, this is my first time in the house. Looked
like Italian landscapes to me, very good.
Speaker 26: Must have been something he had with mother. She was
from Italy.
Speaker 4: May I ask you something?
Speaker 18: Yes?
Speaker 4: How do you feel about him?
Speaker 35: Now?
Speaker 26: Is this for your report?
Speaker 4: For myself?
Speaker 26: Since you've been here these last two hours, I began
to think of him for what he was my father.
I mean, I'd like to know why he was killed
and who did it? Will I see you again?
Speaker 4: I hope so, Terry, Yes, I hope so very much.
Speaker 26: So do I Johnny.
Speaker 4: I left her at the door that night with a
warm sensation inside of me, something I certainly hadn't expected
in the business at hand. The next morning, I was
back at the house talking to missus Yccino. She gave
me all the information she could remember about Valentine's activities,
all of it accurate, but lacking in any possible clue
as to the identity of the two men who had
killed him and his wife. I had breakfast with Terry
there and helped you with funeral arrangements, then spent a
solid twelve hours with inspected Tobacca, who had still not
located or identified the two mysterious men. However, there were
other developments. This may be something.
Speaker 52: Johnny oh Comrad Webster has been found huh up by
Lake punch train just identified him. He was shot to
death with a thirty seven point five Italian gunyah, just
like the one that killed Dan Valentine in his way.
It later developed that the slugs taken from Webster's body,
when compared with those that had killed the Valentines, were
fired from the same weapon.
Speaker 4: The case took on proportions. Every available bit of information
regarding the two X big Shots of the twenties was located,
red and reread. It meant activity in cities like Saint Louis, Chicago, Detroit,
and New York, but no new information as to the
identity of the killers. I went back to the house here,
what is this you're shaking?
Speaker 43: I suppose being a terrible for about old Johnny, but
they've been after me all day. Cheap little things newspaper
sending it wants me to write my exclusive story as
the shadowed daughter of Dan Valentine, fairy Princess.
Speaker 5: Of a racket.
Speaker 26: Two take it ease, take it easy, even I.
Speaker 43: Would call a producer. Oh, Johnny, I shouldn't have come
here at all.
Speaker 4: Then what would I have done, Terry?
Speaker 26: What would I have done? You get yourself a drink, Johnny,
I'll go put on a new face.
Speaker 4: It had become apparent to me in the short time
I'd known her that she'd grown to love the memory
of her father, also that the pressure of all that
had happened was beginning to take its toll on her.
We were walking down the gravel path away from the house.
She was quieted down. I suppose I was thinking how
nice it would be to kiss her. I twisted trying
for the gun inside my pocket, but there was nobody
to shoot at. The two men who had fired the
guns were already out of sight. I was alone with
Terry Valentine, who was hanging on the gate. I caught
her before she fell. She was dead before I could ence.
Johnny Della, Hey, what are you doing at the Valentine house.
Get a car out here, quick, Inspector. Terry Valentine has
just been shot. Two guys showed up.
Speaker 8: Down, slow down. When doll this happened.
Speaker 4: A few seconds ago, eminently good Tobacca. She died in
my arms.
Speaker 8: Do you think they're still around there?
Speaker 4: They must be. I'm going looking.
Speaker 8: Wait a minute, Wait a minute, this is a police matter.
Speaker 4: You stay putt.
Speaker 8: I'll have a car. Then five minutes and you can. Johnny,
I heard that you're gone. Now look you're all around up.
Don't do anything.
Speaker 4: Expense account submitted by Special Investigator Johnny Dollar to the
New Britain Mutual Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut. The following is
an accounting of further expenditures during my investigation of the
Valentine matter. Dan Valentine ex gangster and of course your
policy holder. But then his wife was killed two then
his lawyer, then his daughter, the girl that I thirty
seconds after Terry Valentine died in my arms. I was
stumbling down the gravel path that led from her house
to the road. It all happened so suddenly. I can't
say that what I did from there on or what
I felt was entirely rational. All I know is I
hadn't heard a car leave the area, which meant the
two killers were still somewhere nearby. Then in the dim
light I saw the car. A man was climbing into it. Hey, hey,
stop stop row shot stop.
Speaker 23: Get out of there. Get out of there and get
your hands up.
Speaker 4: I'm a hit.
Speaker 53: I'm afraid to move.
Speaker 4: Come on, get out, tron. I'm coming on coming yo too, Come.
Speaker 42: On, come on, no you son him, mister used up.
Speaker 4: You've got him real good.
Speaker 47: I need a doctor.
Speaker 6: Help me get to it.
Speaker 4: Right there, Doc.
Speaker 23: Sands till.
Speaker 4: You pretty tough fella?
Speaker 23: What's your name?
Speaker 17: She just know what?
Speaker 42: It's good enough for you.
Speaker 51: I need a doctor, bad listen.
Speaker 4: Tell it to me. Tell it to me right now.
If you don't tell it to me now, you'll never
tell it to anybody.
Speaker 8: Tell it.
Speaker 29: You know.
Speaker 53: I need doctor.
Speaker 37: Tell it.
Speaker 4: I die first. Johnny, Johnny, what is this? Who's he?
Speaker 6: He's gonna kill me.
Speaker 53: He's got to kidded me.
Speaker 52: You better give me that gun, Johnny stay, will take careim. Thanks.
Speaker 4: I should have done it. I wanted to do it,
I know, sir. Come on, let's get out of here.
But I didn't get out of there. I waited around
while they dug the body of the other man out
of the smashed up car, and while they carried the
still limp form of Teresa Valentine away. She was the
third member of the family who had died violently within
three days. I'm sorry about it, Donna, Inspector. I was
hoping I might have been wrong, but she wasn't dead. Oh,
you weren't wrong. Which one shut her?
Speaker 17: Huh?
Speaker 4: The dead one or the one we still got in
the hospital. Oh, I don't know both of them. I
guess you don't feel like talking about I'm just trying
to pin it down.
Speaker 52: What about him? Can't get much out of him so far.
He's in pretty bad shape.
Speaker 4: Let me ask him some questions, Inspector. I'm no police officer.
I don't have to obey any rules. Takes it easy, kid.
Speaker 52: You were about to do that once and we'd be
holding you for murder if you're going ahead. I know
how you feel about Rasa Valentine. Has he said anything
at all?
Speaker 4: Nothing?
Speaker 52: We found papers on him and the other one that
makes some brothers, sister and Darby Chanity in New York.
So far, it doesn't seem to be any connection with
the Valentines. People like Valentine make a lot of enemies,
but that girl doesn't figure. Yeah, I know you talked
to her a lot. He's least couple of days. Johnny
what you say.
Speaker 4: Oh, nothing that had anything to do with this. You
know yourself. She didn't even know her name was Valentine
until her father got shot at Yeah, it could have
been an act and you could have been twenty feet tall,
just trying trying with that punk you got upstairs in
the hospital.
Speaker 52: We will Johnny, we will just Johnny your bad news.
Maybe I spoke too soon. Why sister Cianny died five
minutes ago?
Speaker 4: Expense account I had of ten ten bucks, carratt. I
went out to the Valentine house once more. Oh, mister
don hello missus yet.
Speaker 54: You know please, so many police and so many reporters.
Speaker 26: I've been trying to close the house.
Speaker 54: Sure, I know how you must feel, I mean about her.
Speaker 26: Yeah, what are these cis?
Speaker 4: Well, we don't know much about them yet. The New
York Police is still doing a rundown on them. Don't
let me stop you. Whatever you're doing. I'll just look
around if you don't mind.
Speaker 42: It all right?
Speaker 4: Oh, well, one thing, Yes, did mister Valentine make any
provision for you?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 26: He thought a thousand dollars.
Speaker 44: Whatever he was the man I knew was kind and good,
and he scenes had been forgiven him.
Speaker 4: I spent two hours or better than going from room
to rome looking at the oils that Dan Valentine had painted.
Pastoral scenes, happy scenes, gay scenes, all of them with
colorful Italian backgrounds. I was thinking about that when I
walked into Inspected Debacca's office late that afternoon. I don't
get it, Johnny, don't get what here.
Speaker 52: It came from New York on the Chandy boys. Oh,
they came to this country when they were eighteen and
twenty one. Both of them were naturalized citizens, live with
their father records.
Speaker 4: Not a thing, no trouble ever. What else that's about it?
New York police can't seem to locate the old man
disappeared about a week ago, lived on the side. What's
about him?
Speaker 52: That's another funny thing. He's taken out his papers and
was due for an examination with the immigration people this week.
They're looking for him too.
Speaker 4: We went out and had dinner together and talked about
the case. It had been a strange one. The deaths
were useless, the motives unknown. I parted company with Inspector
Tobacca and went back to my hotel to trouble it out.
Was sleep about eleven o'clock. I had a phone call.
Johnny Dollar is Debacca.
Speaker 8: Old man Chatty just showed up, but I saidy Mark
and wants to take his two cents back to New
York for burial.
Speaker 4: Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the corner's office
while inspected. Tobacca led a small, wizened old man into
the room and sat him down at one of the chairs.
It's Channy, it's mister Donna. How do you do, mister Channy?
Speaker 47: I read about you. You killed my boys?
Speaker 4: Sure, yes, they'd killed four other people, No I know,
But why did they kill the Valentine family? Mister Chanty?
Why did they kill Conrad Webster the lawyer? Do you
know why?
Speaker 6: She?
Speaker 47: I know?
Speaker 4: Then tell me they're all dead now.
Speaker 17: I am.
Speaker 47: I was still alive for mister Dollar.
Speaker 4: He refused to talk about his sons or any of
their activities. Debacca held him to answer to the immigration officials.
He remained in his cell, silent and non committed to
all visitors, including the chaplain. I appeared before the coroner's
jury the following morning, was clear of any charges. Pietro
Chianti still had said nothing, and he looked at me
as though he was going to keep on saying nothing
a chanty.
Speaker 47: I see you, mister, more questions.
Speaker 4: Dan Valentine's wife was your daughter?
Speaker 8: Wasn't she?
Speaker 4: Wasn't she? All right? You don't have to admit it.
I have a copy of the marriage license right here.
It came from New York this morning.
Speaker 47: She was my daughter?
Speaker 4: Is that all you have to say? Now?
Speaker 18: I had no talk.
Speaker 4: Then I will, mister Chandy, because your daughter, Missus Valentine,
had a daughter herself, Teresa, a lovely, wonderful girl that
your two sons killed. I happen to know that girl.
I might have been in love with her. I don't know,
but I do know.
Speaker 55: She had to die too. What this ship, Conrad Webster,
mister Valentine, and my own daughter and granddaughter had to die?
Speaker 47: All bad?
Speaker 4: You see?
Speaker 16: I order it?
Speaker 17: You ordered it?
Speaker 4: And who are you God? I am of the father.
Speaker 55: When a dollar marries a bad man, only bad can
come from it. The granddaughter was lenbad. He come to
our village many years ago, take her away. He and
the man Webster help him.
Speaker 17: It.
Speaker 55: It lived with me, his stealing over my own of
flesh and blood. All this time it grow inside me.
I am old, but I keep on living only so
I can come here and find him and destroy him
and her and the daughter and the lawyer of man
who help him, and I destroyed them through my sons,
a whole family.
Speaker 4: Vendetta was that it.
Speaker 55: If you like Bendetta, he was a bad man who
did bad things.
Speaker 18: Bad man.
Speaker 47: Okay, I smoke, Now you have a sigatto.
Speaker 4: The disposition of old Pietro Cianti is up to the
immigration department. I didn't stay around New Orleans to learn
the results of all the extensive examinations that would have
to be completed to test his sanity. I'd had enough
of the town expense account adam eleven one hundred and
forty dollars and twenty cents. Hotel and board item twelve
twenty eight dollars car rental miscellaneous that includes flowers to
the Valentine family Item thirteen, same as I have one
one hundred and seventy five dollars transportation back home expense
account total twelve hundred ninety dollars thirty eight cents. Remarks.
Whenever I close my eyes, I can see a lovely
girl standing at the bottom of a long curving stairway,
smiling because I'm in the room. That's all yours truly,
Johnny Dollar.
Speaker 50: Remember please, there'll be another exciting story for you beginning
next Monday Night.
Speaker 4: Monday the Local Diamond Matter and which your trip to
Algiers makes Come with me to the Cosba sound like
an invitation to a Sunday school picnic? Join us, won't you?
Yours truly, Johnny Dollar?
Speaker 50: Yours truly Johnny Dollar is starring Bob Bailey, is transcribed
in Hollywood. Written by John Dawson, It is produced and
directed by Jack Johnstone. Heard in this week's cast where
Lillian Baief, Betty lou Gerson, Barney Phillips, Will Wright forst Lewis,
Marvin Millard, Janeavello, and Jack Boyles be sure to join
us on Monday night, same time in station or another
exciting story of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Roy Rowan speaking.
Speaker 1: Welcome back.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: There are a few notes here. It's interesting that both
the thirty minute and the serialized version featured Geneavello, although
in different roles, as the fall in the San Antonio
Matter and the lawyer in the Valentine Matter. The Valentine
Matter combines ideas and plots from the previous stories and
combines them together while adding its own unique spand there's
a great performance in this from Virginia greg and of
course Bob Bailey. But it also reflects very clearly some
different storytelling approaches. I think that the biggest thing I
would say about the Valentine Matter is that it is
a much more emotionally charged story. And there are some
subtle changes, such as this is the only version in
which the gangster's wife is alive, but she's killed, which
means that Teresa not only is dealing with the loss
of the father that she never knew, but also the
loss of her mother who's been there her whole life.
And then you have the final part, which is far
more intense than what you get in the San Antonio matter.
I mean that opening is one of my favorite old
time radio openings. Even though I know if you try
to make the chronology of how this happened in the
episode makes sense, it does begin to seem a little
bit absurd, like Johnny compulsively answers the ringing telephone while
chasing the people who shot down a woman he cared
about greatly. But it works dramatically. I love it draadically,
and the whole tenor is just so much more intense.
I think the confrontation with the Suns, and even when
you get to the part where Johnny is confronting the father,
it was much more understated. In the San Antonio matter,
the material Bailey is given to work with is great.
I mean, the way that he delivers that line, who
do you think you are?
Speaker 25: God? Is?
Speaker 1: You know, it's original to the Valentine matter, and again,
it just makes it such a powerful story. And you
can argue over which approach was better. But to me,
the Valentine manor leaves more of an impression. But then again,
your knowledge may vary, but it definitely shows a difference
in how Johnstone would approach a story versus Jim Delvai
in terms of what he was going for and what
went out on the air. It's a fascinating comparison, and
it's just interesting to see how elements from not Mate
and the other stories were kind of weaved in and
mixed together to create this overall feel while still making
it work within the confines of the five part Johnny
Doller story. I did also have an experience just listening
to this, because I've listened to the Valentine matter several
times and I'd never noticed before. But in the first
time that Debaca is talking to Johnny, he says that
Valentine all he does essentially is go fishing every day,
and then towards the end of the story, he says, well,
Valentine spends all of his time painting or listening to music.
No mention a fishing, which may be an indicator to
the This is still relatively early in the serial run
that there may have been a bit of rushing, and
that's one of those sort of continuity things that could
be missed when they were trying to make these stories
work as five parters on the radio program. But at
any rate, I hope you found this a fascinating a
comparison and enjoyed finding out how these particular stories mixed together.
But now it is time to thank our Patreon supporter
of the day. Thank you to Rob, Patreon supporter since
May of twenty twenty four, currently supporting the podcast at
the rookie level of two dollars or more per month.
Thanks so much for your support, Rock 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 Sunday with our final listener support
and appreciation special, But join us back here tomorrow for
the adventures of the Falcon.
Speaker 6: Where you're getting here, old Superintendent?
Speaker 26: I was a friend of yours.
Speaker 4: Good for you.
Speaker 17: I'm glad you made yourself at home.
Speaker 26: You know my night taking off my teeth another dude.
Speaker 18: I'd like to keep people comfortable.
Speaker 10: You got to get some better reading.
Speaker 18: There there's a rating for you overlooked.
Speaker 33: No, I didn't last week.
Speaker 4: I'm terribly sorry, miss Hall.
Speaker 33: Piggy Hall?
Speaker 26: Are you piecee? And I'm the way to be sorry?
Speaker 30: That back?
Speaker 5: Why be formal?
Speaker 30: What are your welcome things?
Speaker 23: For most of the pot detectives?
Speaker 18: I know you know what man?
Speaker 34: I got one of the family the Hall.
Speaker 30: Have you hear of them?
Speaker 10: Unfortunately, my husband I whidn't say he'd never.
Speaker 26: Did a hit to me.
Speaker 16: It's a wonderful recommendation, that's what I thought.
Speaker 37: I think my husband's playing around.
Speaker 18: Wow, what do you want me to do about it?
Speaker 30: Find out who the girl is?
Speaker 26: You want their plans up?
Speaker 17: Your fucking curdivus?
Speaker 30: How about your think?
Speaker 5: I don't think so either.
Speaker 34: Look Targin, I'm busy.
Speaker 1: I 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 Idahol. This is your host, Adam Graham's son and
all