Latest / Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas / Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Alkali Mike Matter (EP1513)

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Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Alkali Mike Matter (EP1513) · Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas

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Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho. This
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need to be either received or if you're mailing it in postmark by March the
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ninth. All right, well, now we're going to welcome back an old
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favorite to yours truly, Johnny Dollar. We're seeing once again the return of
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Meg. Meg first made her appearance back in the serial era of Johnny Dollar
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back in late September of nineteen fifty six. Today's program originally aired November the
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tenth of nineteen fifty seven, and the title is the Alkali mic Matter from
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Hollywood. It'd time now or Johnny Dollar? She enjoyed to me hard to
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be hearing device of me lover by Meg muccarthy even who could you tell the
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far away to long ago answer me that? Oh Meg, I'd recognize that
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soft doesn't voice of yours anywhere? How are you, oh, Johnny boy,
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I've got trouble. And where are you? By the way? What
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Hopeful is the name of the place? Port Hopeful? Huh? You just
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can't stay away from the sea and ships and standing men, Kenyon? And
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whose leg would you be after trying to pull it out? Port Hope for
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Nevada? Nevada the desert? What are you doing there? And why do
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they call it at? They were the very same identical things. I'll be
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telling you when you get here, and if you take to my advice,
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you won't waste no time along the way. There's trouble out here. Insurance
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trubbles, Oh what company? Western Life and Trust the Carson, very same
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identical company that's insured the life of this blessed man. What's land dead?
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It may feed dead? It's your feet Meg. You you know, man
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a minute, you're by way of implicating the night on him, and you're
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just an eble minded, suspicious you. Oh forgive me tree, hard boy.
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When he was worried about me, he wasn't well, certainly of course,
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But miss kirts are clean. Now when you get moved and come out
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here, well it can of depens Just what kind of fancy double talking is
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that supposed? Oh no, get your dirty Thursday can even hand here?
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You me? Really if it was wrong? Johnny, Yes, I am
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in trouble. Now I'll grab the first plane. Bob Bailey in the Exciting
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Adventures of the Man with the Action Packed expense account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.
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Yes, truly, Johnny Dollar, and now at one of yours,
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truly Johnny Dollars. Expense account submitted by a special investigator, Johnny Dollar.
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It was in Life and Trust Insurance Company, San Francisco office. Following is
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an account of expenses occurred during my investigation of the alkali mic matter expense.
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Ave cont out of one three seventy five telephone call to Bill Kemper, a
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Western Life and Trust who talked only long enough to order me onto the first
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plane for the coast. It him two one hundred and fifty three fifty transportation
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on the late eating flight to San Francisco. Fightem three. The next morning,
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four twenty five, cab from the airport to Bill Kemper's office in the
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Lawson Building. Ever hear of Alkali Mike Murphy Johnny, Yeah, sure,
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Bill, at least I think so. Isn't he the kind of legendary character
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who found so much gold somewhere out here over in the Black Rock Desert,
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Nevada. Yeah, place called Port Hope. Poland's right. The original Alkali
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Mike had been the skipper of a sailing ship where he got the lust for
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gold back in the last century. Well, what about it? Finally found
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it, plenty of it out there in the desert. He had the little
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town of Winnemacca and built himself regular palace out of rocks from the nearby mountains
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named at Port Hope. Settled down to spend the rest of his days enjoying
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his money. But then he died. Legend says it was suicide. Now,
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well, once I've got to do with you or me or the company.
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Alkalai Mike Murphy Junior his son who spent the last forty years living there,
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but now he suddenly died. And how he died effects payoff on the
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insurance policy. We're roating how much? Two hundred thousand straight life? Ah,
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we beneficiaries, two nephews, one niece, and an old housekeeper,
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all sharing equally provided him. Of course, that one of them didn't help
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him on his way to the great beyond. And you think maybe one of
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them did. Fifty thousand pieces a lot of money, Johnny, which one?
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A glads, It's only a hunch. If I were you, I'd
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make a pretty careful check on that housekeeper, Meg McCarthy. She said,
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no, yes, what do you know about this McCarthy? Will oh,
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funny Bill? And you think my hunch is right? No, because if
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it is, I'll handle this case for nothing. But according to the police
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officers, more, I'll quit the insurance business. Thirteen twenty kve to the
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airport playing Fair an incidentals to Reno, Nevada. There I rented a car
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that's him five, and headed north and east on Route forty. After about
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one hundred and sixty five miles off nothing but stage brush and cactus, I
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pulled into the town of win Omacca. I dropped off my bags at the
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Hotel win Omaca, then headed for the local police headquarters. I was introduced
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to a sergeant Otis Framley. There's no point in driving out the port,
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Hopeful, mister dollar, we've got the number one suspect, right, Hey,
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I picked her up last night. Make McCarthy right, and you suspect
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her of what murder? She didn't poison old Alkalim Mike, I'll leave my
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shirt. Then you'd better decide right now if you wanted bake boiled or fry
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it? Where is she? And so come on? You mean you've got
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some reason for thinking she didn't do it? I know, Make McCarthy,
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don't you see she's the only one who was anywhere near him. Look at
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the motive. I suppose you tell me about it. She's only been out
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there and Hopeful taking care of him about six months. She gets under the
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skin of the old cud. You're enough to make him turn over a big
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hunk of his insurance money. And that takes care of motive, Oh doesn't
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it. Let's go talk to make Look, she's a pretty tough customer when
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she wants to be a pretty tough and stilly super income from start. All
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right, make take it easy, take it you really you can keep a
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decent, self respected lady. I said, take it easy, and I
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say and I, oh, Johnny, darn me ever love it. I
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know you'd come to see me hire a repeat. Yeah, well that pretty
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much depends on you and what you're able to tell me about this whole thing.
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You bet, I'll tell you only only, Johnny. Sure, I'll
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tell you all I know to be the honest truth, Johnny Boyd. The
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only evidence, since I can't give it, is enough to hang me.
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God, Johnny, I need your help. I need it back Act too
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of yours, truly, Johnny Dollar in a moment, and now Act two
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of yours truly, Johnny Dollar and the Alkali Mic matter. The sergeant left
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Meg McCarthy and me alone there at the jail, And when I'm walking about
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it, and she told me all she knew, Johnny, I just play
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got fed up with all the noisier rightstaurant drunken tailors that used to come to
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me fancy cafe back on the East Coast. So when I heard that Alkali
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Mike Murphy was looking for a nice quiet respectable lady to be his housekeeper out
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here and the peaceful, quiet desert. Why I took the job? You
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not heard about? Six months? Yes, Johnny boy and me and Alkali,
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we just got along fire. I cooked good meals for him and we
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played cribbage together in the evening, and it got me a real bank and
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keep in that old palace of his or neat and tidy for him. Sure,
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but now, Meg, I understand he named you as a beneficiary of
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his big insurance policy. I told him I didn't want it. And besides,
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they have plenty of moneys me own from selling off me cafe back east.
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Do you know the other beneficiaries? Huh? Do I know them?
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Them nephews and that niece just hang it around waiting for him to die these
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last twenty years. That's all they've been doing. Step maybe Eggers Edgar Edgar
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Murphy, the oldest nervy, the nice one. He had the fine job
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over to the bank in love Lock. Margaret, she's a disgrace to me,
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fine old name, playing around with every Tom, Dick and Henry she
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can get her hands on, looking for the one with the most money so
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she can snag him and live the easy life. She it's for Danny.
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Well, he's another nocoun be Dara's time around in gambling, they pot,
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hope or where else, each of them trying to tiosel the others out of
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all the fine furniture and old silverware, lovely china. You know when the
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state gets settled. All right, If I'm going to try to help you,
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there are some things I have to know, I'll tell you everything.
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Johnny boys, how did Alcohali might die? Pizon? The doctor said it
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was in something that he ate and who could have given it to him?
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Uh, there's the trouble, diner. I was the only one with him.
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I was the only one ever touched his food. Could it have been
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poisoned before I was brought into the Everything I bought for him and me come
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from the markets right here in Winniemuco. Besides, Johnny, I always did
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the same things he did, even the day he died. Yes, even
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that same fateful mornin. Well did the doctor say what the poison was?
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Yes? Quite, Tennygen, Yes that's what it's said or something Canigen somphony?
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Yes soon, Nate. That's strange because if I remember correctly, that's
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related to one of the old Indian arrow points. Ah, but Danny,
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there ain't you no Indians around here for years at least? Look Meg,
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I want to go out of that so called palace port hospol, but I
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want you with me only how can they get house? Let me worry about
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that. It's just a helpful a local attorney that sat in five one hundred
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bucks. But I managed to get Meg out of the clink as long as
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Sergeant Framley stayed with it. We headed out across the desert over a road
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that should have been traveled only by jeep, and finally, after about sixty
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miles every we came into a bare rocky valley and there in the middle of
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the palace port hoofole only should have been called to her spot, Johnny Boy.
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There was an coverity, a huge rambling jumble of native stone badly cemented
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together. There were almost as many doors sagging on their hinges as there were
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windows, so the whole place had been put together one room at a time.
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Windows were set in at cock eide angles, and most of them were
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dirty. Three family new cars were parked out in fun relative dollar. We've
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been here ever since the old who died like a bunch of buses. Yeah,
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and I what you mean? Well, come on, let's go on.
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Yes, now they've messed up our lovely palace. Whilst I've been languishing
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mitelical away and got Couscot a sergeon of whole alcohol. I was, of
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course he was. Where else would he get that poison? Or how about
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these relatives? That's what I've been trying to paraly hair brains? All right?
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All right, man, these burns the only one shut up? Yes,
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no, I loved you, Yes, nice, my dear the parking
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husband god, yes, yes, all right, Well what about it?
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You mean his own Kim No, no, missus Dellar. People out here
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in this front of the company have good, much respect for our own kids,
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even when there's a lot of money involved. Yes, I even go
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so far bringing that killer back here. Well it's this way, you look
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at all, perfectly legal legal. This woman killed our uncles Dollar here.
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There's no insurance investigator, Johnny Dollar. That's right, I've heard about you.
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Well I haven't. I'm Margine, and believe me, Edgar. Everything
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will be all right with him here, John Willa, I'm sure. Well
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we'll see you want to come in. What do you mean do we want
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to come in? You think we're going to stand out? Sure? In
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our seat? Are Day? Why don't you drop Day? Oh? All
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right, mate, come on, come on to damn Johnny here. Incidentally,
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where's the other nephew? Was? Danny? I'm Danny Murphy Dollar,
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and I agree with it. You've got no business bringing that old witch that
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murdered our uncle back into this house. He had no business ever being here.
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Kizzled her way into his affection so she could cut in on whatever door
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we'd leave, and then to make sure he'd leave it in a hurry,
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she knocked him off. Wouldn't that same reason make all three of you want
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to see him out of the way? Just I'm just take it easy,
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Danny. What do you mean take it easy? He's practically accusing us of
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killing alcohol. I if the shoe fits anyboy? Whyre you dirty? You
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may one hand on Johnny Dollar not tear your right out from lim to lima
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meg, Yes, l mister Dollar's right, Danny, Manchie, and you
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know it. You know it as well as I do. Sho. We
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wanted him gone, We wanted his money, that insurance. If Danny here
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hadn't talked him into that insurance, we wouldn't even have that to look forward
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to. Can you blame us, Johnny for not wanting her to share it?
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But she will unless you can prove she kills your uncle ever done knowing
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him for only a few months to make her deserve a share, Margie,
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I suspect Meg is the only one who showed your uncle any kind of care
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and consideration in years? What did you expect of us, mister Dollar's right?
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Why kid about it? Heaven know she deserves his money as much as
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any of us, Whether we like it or not. The fact remains,
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Dolla. Somebody killed our uncle, and you've all carefully made sure that Meg
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would be suspected. Yes, John Look, I'm gonna play a hunch that
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maybe he wasn't murded at all. But the evidence dollars what evidence, sergeant
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poison? Yeah, all right, we'll accept that, but I'm still going
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to play that hunch. Act three of yours, truly, Johnny Dollar in
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a moment, Fact three of yours, truly, Johnny Dollar. On the
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Alkali Mic matters. No, look here, Dollar, we know that old
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Alkali Mic was poisoned. That isn't murder. What is it? Have you
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ever thought of suicide? Sergeant? Suicide? Oh? Of course not this
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money grabbing old did he here? Did he? Man? Sure? Why
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would old Alcali ever commit suicide? I don't know, Danny disappointment over you
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three? His only relative. He paid no attention to it. Oh,
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wasn't the other way around? You paid no attention to him? He didn't
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want us around? Step maybe Edgar well off hand. I can't say that
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I blame him, but he did welcome the care and whatever affection they may
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have given him. Yes, mister Dollar, that's true. She was after
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his money. That's all I told him. I didn't want his money.
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And if you don't check off, he didn't squirm? And all right,
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what are you looking so thoughtful about it? Suicigine, Old Alkali? They
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chose to go that way. Yeah, I know. No one understood why
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he had everything he wanted money, even this so called palace, this atrocity
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that he named thought hopeful. You mean he had no more reason to take
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his life than your uncle, That's what I mean, sergeant. How did
19:14
his father take his life by drinking poisons and Indian poison? When canadan softening?
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Oh? No, oh, what what are you talking about? Making?
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Come here? Come here, and here wad hitar the old children in
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China and richitie bract He is here in time. If if she's a cup
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of mother on the top shelf dollar, is that the one his father used
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to drink the poison? Yes, but it's never the new thing. Oh
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no, no, he said, that's where you're wround. What does it
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make get to the point, yes, journey, but it's cercing. Well
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every night she's seen it a I got resk his sword. It had his
20:02
twitch key from one of the clay mugs on that chair. It's a different
20:04
smug every night. Yes, that's true. If it never would he touched
20:07
that one eleavender one called it the death crop. Only he joked about it
20:14
in the Nice to Far he died, he talked about it again. Let
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me see that I'll get it for He set it twitch, making a superstitious
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old fool out of him. He said his father drank somerum and died,
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but that he would bring proms and blue. But he's sure he weren't superstitious
20:32
about it. Oh, and I hard to drink the heavy deposit in the
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bottom of this mug hard as a rock, but still the poison. Yeah,
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the same deep purple color of cointanigen soffonating after forty years. I tried
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to wash it out, Johnny before and after she used water wouldn't touch.
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That's why I thought it was part of the clay. The alcohol in this
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whiskey. Would it released enough of that poison to kill? Oh? Only
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I just know. The police took a long time over this one, but
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they finally reached the same conclusion. I had accidental death. So relatives will
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collect the insurance and make bless their heart, But I'm afraid that mere money
21:27
will never take the place of a friend. Alkali might expense account total including
21:33
incidentals and fairback of haybrid five hundred and twenty five dollars even truly, Johnny
21:40
dollars. Welcome back. So good to have Virginia Gregg back in the role
22:32
of Meg. The Makes Palace Matter is one of my favorite of the Johnny
22:37
Dollar serials, not because of the strength of the mystery, but because of
22:42
Virginia Gregg's performance in that story. She just elevated the story to being something
22:48
great. Doesn't quite do it here just because of the limits of the format,
22:53
and Meg is this I think a very special character though, even in
22:56
this story, because it'd be easy to have them as a flat stereotype.
23:02
But there's a little bit more to this character. And I guess the one
23:07
thing about the limits of this episode is she has to move so quickly between
23:11
moods to get it all in, while in the Meg's Palace matter, she
23:15
had more time to make it play out. Though I do have to say
23:18
that scene before they discovered the glass, where everybody was essentially saying the same
23:25
thing or something similar about his relatives being good for nothing and Meg only scheming
23:32
for Alkali Mike's money, I was expecting somebody to say, Okay, let's
23:37
go ahead and go through this again. Johnny taking the case for a real
23:41
life insurance investigator perhaps could come off as something that would be called the conflict
23:47
of interest matter. But the one thing about Johnny Dollar is he has shown
23:52
himself willing when a friend commits a crime, let alone murder, to still
23:59
do the right and bring them in. Otherwise, working for an insurance company
24:03
to investigate a murder where your friend is both a suspect and beneficiary on a
24:08
great formula solution sounded pretty realistic, though a little bit surprising. I guess
24:15
if there's a wall to the story, before assuming that something is just a
24:18
superstition, if it's a bit obscure, maybe you should make sure there's nothing
24:23
behind that superstition. I do hope we get another episode with Meg, and
24:30
hopefully it'll have a happy ending. And both stories she's been in, she's
24:34
had a bit of a tough time of it. Well, on to some
24:37
listener comments and feedback, and we have this from John. He says,
24:42
just want to say how much I enjoyed the podcast. I'm a blind person
24:47
and the old time radio shows really mean a lot to me. Thanks a
24:51
lot. Thanks so much, John, appreciate your comment. Allowed to be
24:55
of service in that regards. I've been a comment regarding episode fifteen oh one,
25:00
The Three Sisters Matter. Bobby Lee says, I actually liked the fact
25:04
that Johnny did not have any closing remarks. It showed the case really got
25:10
to him. Well maybe, but another listener had a comment very succinct short
25:18
regarding this episode, and I tend to think that the length of the episode
25:23
may have had more to do with the lack of the closing remarks you know,
25:29
I continue to get shock that how little time we have compared to previous
25:36
episodes to actually tell stories. It's the one unfortunate thing with this era of
25:41
Johnny Dollar. I am actually glad though, but I've still found the episodes
25:48
to be enjoyable. I wasn't too sure of because heard at least one episode
25:55
of Johnny Dollar from nineteen fifty eight where all of these acts kind of ruined
26:02
it for me, and it just wasn't that good of a story to start
26:04
with. And then some of the episodes of Have Done Will Travel from the
26:10
same era really hurt by the limits of all of these commercials and the short
26:15
length they have to do an actual drama. But I found these still to
26:19
be entertaining with little bits of character pieces, Bob Bailey's acting, and I
26:26
continue to be impressed by just how much entertainment they get into nineteen or twenty
26:33
minutes. And you have to say, you had a good creative team with
26:37
Jack johnstoneheading it up, a lot of great character actors available, and the
26:41
star really pulling this thing together week after week so that it'll still be something
26:48
that would be entertaining and worth listening to. All Right, Well, that
26:51
will do it for this week. We will be back tomorrow with Dragnet and
26:56
join us again next Friday for another episode of Your Truly Johnny Dollar. In
27:02
the meantime, send your comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net,
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follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectives, and become one of our friends on
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For a donation of one hundred dollars or more, happy send along one
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this series, complete episode log with synopsis, some fun facts about most episodes,
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and plus a a listing of what happened in lost episodes for those shows
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instructions for mailing in the meantime. From Boise, Idaho, this is your
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host, Adam Grahamson and off