Latest / Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas / Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Mary Grace Matter (EP1495)

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Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Mary Grace Matter (EP1495) · 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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is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it
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to me Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net, follow us on Twitter at
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Radio Detectives, and become one of our friends on Facebook, Facebook dot com
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slash Radio Detectives. Well, before we do get started, I do want
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to encourage you as you're making your travel plans for this spring and the rest
0:56
of the year. Remember, Johnny Dollar Air dot com dot com is a
1:00
price line affiliate, so you can either name your own price on hotels,
1:06
rental cars, airline tickets or even more, or choose from great published specials.
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Plus, part of your purchase price goes to support the Great Detectives of
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Old Time Radio at no additional cost to you. So when you are making
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your travel plans, remember to check Johnny Dollar Air dot com first. Well,
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now it's time for today's episode of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar. The original
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air date is October the twentieth of nineteen fifty seven and the title is The
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Mery Grace Matter Well Holleywood, It's time now war Randy Singer Johnny Oh Hi,
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Randy how's the New York City Police Department these days? The apartment's fine.
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Me, I'm not so sure. Well, and maybe I better run
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on down there and see you have a bit hunh, Yeah, you'd better
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come down here. On accond of Mary Grace Marshall. Hey, how do
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you know Mary Gray? The point is you do? Oh? Matter of
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fact, I just got back from a weekend in that town of yours.
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Yeah, Mary Grace and I had a ball. We took in a couple
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of shows, did the Knife of routine. I know, even spent Sunday
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afternoon together out of the What do you mean, you know, Johnny,
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your little girlfriend's been murdered. Yeah, Brandy, if you got any leads,
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anything to go on, ye, then I'll grab the first plane.
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Yeah. Wow. Bailey and the Exciting Adventures of a Man with the Action
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Pact Expenser Cobs America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar?
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Fact one now if yours truly Johnny Dollar. Expense account submitted by special Investigator
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Johnny Dollar to the Mid Eastern Life and Casually Insurance Company Home Office, Hertford,
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Connecticut. Following is the account of expenses incurred during my investigation of the
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Mary Grace matter expense account out of won ten cents. Phone called at the
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airport reserve a seat on the first plane of New York Adam too. Phone
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called event paren at the claims department of Mid Eastern Life Fan. This is
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Johnny Dollar. Oh hell, John, listen, I'm on my way down
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to New York at your company's expense, though the expense party is beside the
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court. Mary Grace Marshall has just been murdered. Marshall, your company holds
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a policy on her, and I'm going down there to investigate. Will now
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wait, John, until we issue proper authorization for you to conduct the investor.
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Don't give me that, man, I'm going down there now. Well,
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then it's completely without sanction from this or any other Okay, okay,
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forget it. I was trying to save time, and I thought I was
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doing you a favor. Well I suppose you are. But until a request
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for your services can be right, I said, forget it, didn't you
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hear me? I gotta go gotta catch a plane for Heaven's sat Man,
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what do you sew up in arms about? Why you're so concerned about this?
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Particularly because that girl was a personal friend of mine, a very dear
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friend. Oh, John, John, I'm sorry. I can see now
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while you're so upset. Yeah, I'm upset by all means. Go ahead
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officially and if there's anything I can do, Yeah, there is. You
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can stop all this shammering so I can hang up and get out of here.
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Goodbye, John. Yeah what now? You really cared for that girl,
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didn't you? Yeah? Ben, I cant expensive con head of three
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nine twenty cave to the airport and plane ticket to New York. The trip
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down there gave me time to think, and thinking about it hurts. Mary
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Grace Marshall, tall, bounette and very beautiful and as straight a girl as
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I'd ever known. There was a time a few years ago and I'd hope
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she might marry me, but she wanted to stay with her successful career as
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a fashion designer. And she was right. I'm not the marrying type,
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Evan, So we just remain friends. We had a lot of fun together.
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It is dancing, occasional night club sometimes along hair stuff or recital or
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the opera. We go to the zoo with a circus, boxing match or
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a baseball game. I'll just go for a quiet walk in the park,
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and often just a long quiet evening in her apartment over a tall, cool
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drink and good conversation, a good night kiss. Sure, but that was
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all. Now she was gone, And believe me, somebody was going to
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pay more six dollars even for a fast taxi to the eighteenth Precinct headquarters and
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Sergeant Randy Singer come on in, johnn ain't close the door, sure,
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Hi, better sit down? Uh yeah, probably when it happened, Randy,
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And howe you sat on the phone. You have some lee clues all
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over the place. They all point toward one person, toward the one person
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known who have been withered. About the time, the coroner says she was
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killed. I watched you kill struggle fell and struck her head on the base
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of the fireplace cigarette Johnny. Oh yes, thanks. Incidentally, so far
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I've been able to keep this thing out of the papers. Oh hey,
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give me light with you. How I seem to have forgotten my lighter?
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Yeah? Yeah, yeah, thanks. The coroner says she was killed Sunday
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night, late what by somebody who must have spent several hours with him?
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You said late Sunday night. That's it? Go on, Johnny, Hey,
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look, stop snapping that lighter and wait a minute, where'd you get
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that? According to all the evidence, it was left behind by whoever murdered
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Mary Grace Marshall. Here, look familiar? Are you crazy? This letter
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is mine? I yeah, Johnny, I know no Act two of your
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truly Johnny Dollar and the Mary Grace matter. Mary Grace Marshall an old friend,
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a very dear one, murdered in her New York apartment on the seventy
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seventh Street, Sagan Randy, singing, My old friend at eighteenth Precinct Homicide
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had called me immediately, and when I got there, showed me a very
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damning piece of evidence, presented Special Investigator Johnny Dollar by the International. Sure,
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of course it's my lighter, and I must have left it and Mary
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Grace's apartment. But that certainly doesn't mean that I killed her. Coroner says
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she died about the same time you were there. Oh, how do you
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know what time I was there? Wife of Charlie Walker, the building superintendent,
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Johnny, she saw you leave. That isn't enough evidence to convict a
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fly, and you know it, there's plenty more. Yeah, like what
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your fingerprints all over the place. Sure, I took a red butt,
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same brand juice s moke. So what is that? A lot of them,
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Johnny, like a very nervous smoke. Well I was with her all
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evening and what Oh now, look, Randy, surely you can't be serious.
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You can't think for a minute o'clock Johnny, this is my case.
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Nobody else is. I'm keeping it that way. I've kept it out of
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the papers. I think you know why. Oh sure, sure I know
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why. Because we've been buddy buddy for so long. You want to be
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sure that if anybody hangs me, you will for old times say ask you
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what you were doing. Let me tell you something, Randy, That girl
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and a lot to me. What were you? Tell me? What other
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evidence you have? What you know that can help me find out who?
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I'm sorry? Randy, Sure, it's your job. I'd probably do the
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same thing to you under the circus. If you didn't, I wouldn't have
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any use for you. But don't you see Okay, look, look we
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spent Sunday afternoon at the zoo, the Bronx Zoo went up on the subway.
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We walked a lot, got pretty tired, I promised her At dinner
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at the Shamboard over on Third Avenue, but she said she had some food
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of the apartment, so we went back there. Then we just sat around
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and talked, played some music, that's all, and had some drinks.
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Yeah. I picked up a bottle of Scotch on the way. How many
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drinks? All? One? Or two light ones? Is all? Sorry,
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Johnny, that bottle was nearly empty. But that's him who discovered the
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body, Missus Walker, wife of the apartment super, the one who saw
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you leave shortly after hearing the screams that made her screams. Yeah, that
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made her finally go up and look in the Marshall girls, it's crazy,
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Randy are lying? Can you prove it? I'd like to talk to that
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woman. I think he's not a rocker. Or if she told you,
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what did you say? I think you ought to see her. H But
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if I'm a big suspect, sure you until you can help me prove I'm
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wrong. We drove over to the place on seventy seventh Street in the Prowl
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car. Everything was exactly as it had been when I'd left Sunday night,
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except that there were signs of a struggle. As Randy had said, A
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chair and a lamp at the knocked over the high five, shoved aside when
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she'd fallen at the fireplace, even a bottle of scotch from which I'd poured
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a couple of small hmm, what's the matter, Jenny? Well, I'm
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not sure any but might have sworn I left this bottle on the kitchen itt
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where I huh, Hey, are you making more prints with this bottle of
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soda three quarters four? You don't kill most of a bottle of scotch with
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only this one soda unless you're drinking it straight. Oh who drinks it straight
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these days? An alcoholic on? Somebody who needs a jolt for his move.
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Maybe want to go downstairs and talk to the super's wife. Yeah,
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let's The superintendent's wife turned out to be a living doll, young pretty with
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too much makeup. The sort of looked like she decided to get out of
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the chorus line for a quieter life as the wife of a building superintendent.
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I noticed a peculiar, spicy kind of odor when she first let us in,
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but thought nothing of it at the time. Now you're sure this is
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the man you saw leaving this Marshall Department missus walker, I was standing right
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here in this doorway. It was after I heard her screaming up there around
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midnight. You sure you heard a scream? Well, my husband heard it
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first. He woke me up, pounding on the wall between our bedrooms.
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Or didn't he get up to investigate? Oh no, the lazy Well he's
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been sick. He's still sick. But then I heard the screaming. So
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I run into his room and ask him what to do. Go back to
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bed and forget it. He says, it's probably just a party upstairs.
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Then you went up and found a body. Huh. Well, first I
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tried. I had to sleep, but I kept thinking I heard noises from
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upstairs. Oh no, you're sure. It was like maybe my husband was
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getting up or something. Go on. I'll Finally, about two am,
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I went up to her apartment. When she didn't answer my knock, I
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let myself in and there she was dead. We'll call the police. You
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were your husband him beside? I told you he was sick. He still
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is. I went to talk with him. Oh sure, if he's sober
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enough, come on. That was a funny crack. If her husband really
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was sick. She led us toward the rear of the apartment, and I
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mistakenly started and went at her bedroom. That peculiar odor again, only more
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pronounced. Believe me, it was in our page here, mister this way.
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Her husband's bedroom was pretty much of a miss I'm tidy, with pictures
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of bathing beauties, calendar I and some striking pictures of Mary Grace. I
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shall plast it all over the walls. This room had an order about a
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tool of stale booze here ye are yody? No, no, I tell
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you I don't want any more of that stuff. Well, you seem to
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think it did make you feel better, I did. What did you do?
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Oh? Oh, the coup again. That's right, mister Walker.
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And this is the guy seen coming down from your girlfriend's apartment after all the
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screaming. His name's Johnny Something. You were actually heard screaming up there,
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mister Walker. Yeah, yeah, awful record. Woke me up. Scared
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me. What do you mean that poor girl up there all alone? Only
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she wasn't alone, but he stopped. I figured maybe I'd been wrong,
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had a nightmare or something. Yeah, sure, I dream about her.
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You think about me for a change stead of dreaming about that day. Sure,
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talking about her, dreaming about her, sneaking around to have a look
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at her when' you change the laboratory. If you wasn't sick, I think
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you'd sneaked up there and done her in because you couldn't have her here.
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It wouldn't be the first time I'm drunken Bomas killed somebody shop, Missus Walker,
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I thought I told you this man was supposed to be kept quiet.
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I well, now, look, Jock, you're yet I walk in here
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and find this sort of thing going on. Come on, all of you
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out of here while I attend this man just a minute, doctor out immediately.
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This is a heart case complicated by a very serious virus infect shock.
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If I can have just one later, officer, I must save this man's
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life. Come on, Randy, you too, missus Walker, than you
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he's been getting an alcohol again strictly against my order. Now look here,
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missus walking on always come on upstairs with me again. Oh, would you
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think a couple of things, Randy, that I believe will clinch this case
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so fast? Come on, act three of yours, truly, Johnny Dollar
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and the Merry Grace matter. What do you mean clinch the case? Johnny
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didn't you hear enough from Charlie Walker and his wife. Yeah, I heard
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plenty, Randyn. What's the point of coming back here to the dead girl's
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apartment. Let me show you something here in the kitchen, at the Scotch
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bottle. You shouldn't pike that up, Johnny Print. Yeah, Prince well,
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your boys dusted over them to show them up. But look, yeah,
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right here they smeared see by a piece of cloth. Sure he tried
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to erase him when he killed that bottle. I come on back to the
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living room here. You take a look at this. What's the high five
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set got to do? I told you Mary Grace and I sat here Sunday
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night talking and playing records. Oh, this record on the turntable is the
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same one we were playing just before I left her. Look at it,
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dol Rima by Vinjetty. Never heard of it. We shut it off because
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it got too noisy. And the death scene from that opera, huh,
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listen, I heard this holy sounds. What shut it off? I'll be
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sure the screams that Walker and his wife said they heard, and that records
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what gave him the idea. And now it's a matter of pinning on him
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all right, what have you got for his morning? Moby? Are you
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kidding? Didn't you see those pictures of all those beautiful happening those babes he
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has on the wall of his room, and the pictures of a Marshall girl.
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All right? He was gone for Mary Grace, talked about her,
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dreamed about her, had her pictures all over his room, but she wouldn't
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give him a tumbled all right, all right, So he hits the bottle
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heavier than ever on account of this frustration over the Marshall gurd It'll be the
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first time that sort of thing has happened. Happens all the time. So
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if he can't have her, he's going to kill her. You see my
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point? Yeah, and it's well taken right there, all right? Last
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weekend you're taking his dream girl out on the town, having a good time
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with her, doing all the things he wished he could do. Come on,
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well, that's too much for him, driving him out of his rum
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soaked mine. Then he hears that screaming on that opera record. It gives
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him the idea. He wakes up his wife so she'll hear it too,
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So his wife will think somebody's getting killed up there. But he doesn't let
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her go up there. Right, sounds good, Randy. After his wife
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goes back to bed, that's when she saw you leave. He goes up
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there and kills the girl. But if he was as sick as he appears
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to him, John, the time like that, a man gets superhuman strength,
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strength of a madman, they call it and listens. His wife said
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she thought she heard him walking around, Remember I remember, so that's it.
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She finally got up, came up here, and found the body.
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So naturally she tied it all in with the screams of old man woke her
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up to here, and that suited him perfectly. She couldn't help, but
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Alibi, come on, let's get downstairs again. I realize, Johnny,
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it's all circumstantial, and I still have to pin it on him or her.
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But I'll hold him on suspicion or her. The same circumstances would work
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just as well for Walker's wife if she were the killer. But what about
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the motives? Jealous wife? Jealous? Is somebody taking that drunken bomb out
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of her head? Funny odor I noticed about her when I first stepped into
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this place. I finally remembered what it is. Hey, I noticed that
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like a like a cooking spice. Oh, there's sometimes cardiman seed. Cardiman.
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Yeah, they used to call it a drunkard's friend. A man could
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booze all night. You a couple of cardiman seeds kiss his wife good night.
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She'd never be the wiser that odor was so strong in her bedroom that
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or maybe she's lalasha hey and tried to make the same thing out of her
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husband. How the excuse it would make him feel better? You mean he
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isn't a heavy drinker. Doctor, No, he is not, doctor,
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you said. He is a high condition, a very serious one complicated by
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a SI I know. Could he possibly have got out of bed, climb
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those stairs Sunday nights, goggle with and kill someone? The yards against your
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surviving such a thing or a million to one one hundred million? All right,
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I heard it. All that means you're going to start a killing me.
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You're killing that girl up there, missus Walker. I told you to
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stay out of your husband's room. Yeah, well he's dead. Doc.
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Did I don't know what you give him, but he's dead. Did you
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give him more liquor? No, but you gave him enough Before I came
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to we hear all of you. Well, you're going to try to pin
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that martial dame on me now that Charlie's gone. You've already pended on yourself.
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Missus Walker. What you thought you'd left no fingerprints on that bottle up
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there? I didn't I used to handkerchief. Yeah, that's what I thought.
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No, no, no, wait a minute, I didn't mean that.
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I have that gun, missus Walker. All right, so I killed
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that dame on the second floor. And if I have to kill you,
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yeah, thanks, doctor, It's quite all right, sir. Oh Mandy,
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there's your killer happy. Yeah, I guess I ought to be you.
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It doesn't bring back Mary Grace expense account total including transportation back to Hartford.
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No, no ways, I took on this case myself because of Mary
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Grace and well whatever she may have meant to me as none of the company's
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business. Oh sure, you'll have to pay the claim on her policy,
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but let it go at that on you. The rest is on me.
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I want it that way, I understand. For old time sake. Yes,
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truly, Johnny Dollar. These trying to join us next week, same
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time and station for another exciting story of yours, Truly, Johnny Dollar,
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this is Dan Coberly speaking. This is the United States Armed Forces Radio and
21:33
Television Service Welcome back. With all of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service
22:55
ads removed from this particular transcription, We're lived with a running time of twenty
23:00
one minutes in ten seconds, which gives us an idea of how short at
23:07
the time actually allotted for the plot had gotten to be. But to their
23:12
credit, they did a lot in those twenty one minutes, and particularly Bob
23:18
Bailey, and I think Bailey really showed his solid acting talents, because we
23:23
not only cared about Johnny Dollar in this, but he really The way that
23:29
Bailey did this performance really drew us in to this whole thing of Mary Grace.
23:34
And there were some clever ways written here, particularly at the beginning where
23:37
Johnny is acting totally out of character and you realize just how grief stricken he
23:44
was, and then to get to New York and find himself accused of the
23:47
crime. They probably could have benefited by a few minutes more, but I
23:52
think the acting here was very good and a pretty good twist on the mystery.
23:56
They've given us a lot of reasons to believe the high husband guilty and
24:00
then they managed to switch things up on us at the end. So again,
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very well done radio here, even in the limited amount of time they
24:08
had. All right, Well, now we turned to some listener comments and
24:11
feedback, and Bobby Lee says, I agree with Adam on two more points.
24:18
First, I was surprised by the fact they talked about the show,
24:22
and I should say this references episode fourteen eighty three, the Bumsteer matter,
24:27
but I knew who the killer was. But it's always fun to go along
24:32
with Johnny for the ride. But I do have a question when he says
24:36
give it to the Community Chest, is he talking about the actual cities funds?
24:41
The answer the question, Bobby is no, they're not talking about the
24:45
city's funds. The Community Chest was a predecessor to the United Wayam Haignes we
24:52
have in the United States today, and it used the same concept one organization
24:59
raising to be distributed to charitable organizations that meant the needs of the community.
25:06
And this would occasionally also be known as the red feather campaign. All just
25:10
pretty much the same concept. Very good question, Bobby, and glad to
25:15
answer it. And then we have one final comment from Collin says, I
25:18
really enjoy Johnny Doller, thank you for playing this show, Yours truly,
25:22
Colin Kingston, Well, thanks so much, Colin. I'm glad you enjoyed
25:26
the show, and that will actually do it for today. We will be
25:33
back tomorrow with Dragnett and join us back here again next Friday for another episode
25:38
of Yours Truly, Johnny Doller. In the meantime, send your comments to
25:42
Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net, follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectives,
25:48
and become one of our friends on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash
25:52
Radiodetectives. From Boise, Idaho, this is your host, Adam Grahamson and off