Latest / Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas / Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Bilked Baroness Matter (EP0847)
Transcript
- 0:28Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho. This
- 0:34is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it
- 0:38to me Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net, Follow us on Twitter at
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- 0:49Slash Radio Detectives. Today's episode is brought to you by the financial support of
- 0:55our listeners. Thanks so much for all your support. Here now is today's
- 0:59episode of Your Truly Johnny Doller The Built Baroness Matter. Well, y'all listening
- 1:07in enjoyment John Lund as Johnny Doller hadn't heard of Johnny. How does your
- 1:14blood pressure react to hot nobbing with nobility? Well, so far, I
- 1:17don't feel the thing. Are you going to do nothing like the beautiful baroness
- 1:19older genres to provide impact? How much of a Joe has he given you?
- 1:23A hundred thousand dollars? Jules and first stowing from New York ten House
- 1:27last night. But if this two manches ago, the Baroness was a missus
- 1:32Thomas Bentley last week Bentley pile the petition a sycrafty is commercial photography on this
- 1:37about one hundred thousand dollars in the red well. One coincidence doesn't make a
- 1:41fraudulent claim. Did you read the gouts of comics a night? Why is
- 1:44that? Then? You know what beautiful Arnus has been seen? Billy and
- 1:48cooing with what broke next? Husband? Well, it's kind of late to
- 1:52scoop George Fischer now, but I'll try. Expense accounts submitted by such an
- 2:20investigator, Johnny Daughter to Home Office Eastern Indentity and Insurance Company, Hartford,
- 2:24Connecticut. The following is an accounting of expenditures during my investigation of the built
- 2:30baroness Matter expense a gun out of one six dollars and thirty five cents,
- 2:38gas and oil, sandwich and coffee between Hartford and New York. The penthouse
- 2:44of the baroness Auga Javas lay atop a thirty five story granite and glass apartment
- 2:50hotel on the east side. I ran the garfet of despicious doorman, supercilious
- 2:54desk clerk, and snob as elevator boy, only to find myself and what
- 2:59was dest to be a short lived interview with the baroness Oh I am subsetted
- 3:02to so it was the della but not cover very most inopportune time. Help
- 3:06that fairness maid of mine. It is her day off. I am rushing
- 3:09to attend a Cospier party, and I simply cannot find the thing, not
- 3:13one. It is the most inopportune moment. Well, I wouldn't want to
- 3:16keep you from a cocktail party, barness, but there is some information I'd
- 3:20like to have. But I have told the only thing I know to the
- 3:22party. If you want to run along like a deal man and get your
- 3:24information from them, oh my gloves made. We have to suppert my job.
- 3:31Well, why are you looking? Maybe you can tell me when you
- 3:34first noticed the laws. It was when I returned home last night, of
- 3:37course, to two three in the morning, asking attend at this time.
- 3:40A good point is you know I called any anybody with you when you came
- 3:45back home. My dear man, if all this question absolutely necessary? After
- 3:50all, I did not do my own fathers and jewels. Now why didn't
- 3:53I go out to the criminals who are responsible? Well, some cooperation from
- 3:57you might help me do that. Very yes, I will tell you all
- 4:00I know. Early next season I had a two friends up for Duke.
- 4:04We left for the tarette approximately eight o'clock afterwards there was a super club.
- 4:12I came home, my schoons was gone. Anyone come up with you?
- 4:15HU must know yet Thomas courts home. That's Thomas Bentley, your farmer husband
- 4:20like you simply must excuse me, mister Dollar. I'm terribly late. My
- 4:25friends will never forgive me. You're so. I'm more worried about your friends
- 4:28and you do about the robbery. Of course at the north of dear friends,
- 4:31if you replace the birth not so far as those trinkist Some fathers are
- 4:34concerned. Yeah, I know you're insured. Expense account at them two fifteen
- 4:46dollars five apiece to the employees I met on the way up. But outside
- 4:50of learning that August penthouse was a gathering place for practically every screwball in New
- 4:55York, I came up with nothing. Thanks turned out a little better over
- 5:00streep Or. I met Lieutenant Lewis and of Robbery, who was in charge
- 5:02of the investigation. It looks like an inside job to me, Dollar,
- 5:06and what's the goow front of the lieutenants. Only two doors to the penthouse,
- 5:10shunts and service. Neither one was four service door bolted and double locks
- 5:14on the inside, so someone got in the front way with a key look
- 5:16in reasonable Outside of the furs and jewels. Nothing else in the problems with
- 5:20touched. Whoever did it knew exactly where to go? No ran second,
- 5:25the job was well planned and well carried off. You got a list of
- 5:29those who have kee's, you can't possibly narrow them down. The baroness hands
- 5:31them out to were friends. Like tossing confetti at a New Year's party.
- 5:34We checked the obvious and made hotel employees haven't come up with a thing.
- 5:40There were two full length coats, two jackets, and a stove among the
- 5:43missing furs. That's right, another jewelry might not be too hard to handle.
- 5:47But how did anybody get out with a load of fur like that and
- 5:49not be noticed? I don't think it's possible. Another thing that makes it
- 5:53look like an inside job. The baroness telling us he had some friends up
- 5:58last night. Yeah mentioned it didn't happen to mention Lesley UDSCOO did you no
- 6:05year? He was one of them. The doorman tells us that all the
- 6:09rest of the party came down around he who descu didn't be till eleven thirty.
- 6:12Might be interesting to know why, particularly and due of the fact he's
- 6:15got a record, suspected confidence game on a Fifth Avenue jewelry store, suspicion
- 6:19of shoplifting furs. No conviction could be will Cruise. This is who's who
- 6:25picked him up? Maybe bothered up? You know something we don't. Yeah.
- 6:31I haven't had an easy case in three years, and I don't think
- 6:34you've had too many either. My next stop was East fifty sixth Street and
- 6:45the commercial arts studios of Thomas Bentley. Inside the converted Brown's Tongue, a
- 6:53lovely blond and pur Parker and Stepants was posing on a big heap of artificial
- 6:58snow under the glare of I was ring light. All right, I've moved
- 7:00another big spot about a half foot to the left slee Yeah, that's it
- 7:05all right, mile Al makes like you were enjoying it. No, no,
- 7:10no, no, no, no, I said, smile. Uh,
- 7:13okay, try thinking of a nice cold, extra dry Martini lands one.
- 7:16That it all? It? Yes? Set up for the mix shop?
- 7:20Boy? Okay? Are you Tom Bempy? Yeah? What can I
- 7:28do for? My name is Johnny Dollars, insurance investigator. You want to
- 7:31talk about that stuff of August? Friends, we'll make it some other time,
- 7:33don I'm pretty busy right now. Yeah, I was wondering, no
- 7:36one are you could be in the full operation when you're supposed to be dead
- 7:40broke. Trying to figure some tie in between one hundred grand of insurance and
- 7:45my bankruptcy petitions might not be too big a jump. The beautiful Gann has
- 7:47always moved on with enough with DNA. You better break that down for me.
- 7:51I was only second number two on the list of four husbands. How
- 7:55could I stop number four? The barons Jarva? I did him a title
- 8:00with Boodoo. Let me picked off after one year under the train of keeping
- 8:03up with August. Believe me, she hasn't desight this inclination of getting involved
- 8:05in fraud to help out something number two? Then how come you're making a
- 8:09play for her again? My modems are purely mercenary. All I want from
- 8:13her is a loan of about twenty grands that would hold off the credit is
- 8:16until I get back on my teams. How are you making out that's so
- 8:18fine? No dance are your place is open? A deal with the credit
- 8:22is? I draw him easily one hundred bucks a week until they get paid
- 8:26off, if they ever do. So. That's my story, Donna,
- 8:28I know from nothing, Believe me. I'm sorry to bother you. Get
- 8:31Tom, but Joe says they're ready on the next set. Okay, Honey,
- 8:33I'm directing. I wanted you to take a look at this leopard skin
- 8:35costume for the jungle shot. What about it. We'll take a look at
- 8:39the way the thing fits. It's ridiculous. Doesn't give me a chance to
- 8:41really expand my chest. I was thinking if I wore some kind of loin
- 8:46cloth instead, it would give you the opportunity to shoot all my muscles in
- 8:50place. I'll think about it. Well, I brought one along with the
- 8:52dustin Take Tom, I'll put it on for you. No sense in hiring
- 8:56of forty four chest if you're not going to show it off, and with
- 8:58loin cloths you can show them much. You'll play at my entire Hey,
- 9:01okay, Holly, I'll be in the animut for sure, and I'll change
- 9:03cups. You mean one of the models. Lord, how did they make
- 9:07in that way? Buddy? The hercules in amount of a second fan sat
- 9:09Well, I guess we all have our troubles at the belly. Thanks your
- 9:13time. Yeah, sure, it's okay, coming, Oh I do.
- 9:16Yeah. What are you staying in town at the plaza? Why? Yeah,
- 9:24I understand insurance companies offer rewards for recovery stone property something like sometimes yeah,
- 9:31and no questions asked. Got something in mine? This meting? Just
- 9:37wondering. It was getting late in the day and time for the inner man
- 9:48to be cared for, so I headed for the plaza bar on road.
- 9:52I stopped the telephone with Tennant Lewis and you know, always taste my mompy.
- 9:56To top off, what have you come up with the dinners? Believe
- 10:00him up for a minute ago. Don't tell me you confessed. No,
- 10:03not that, baby, I didn't think it could be that easy. Oh
- 10:05it's not. We'll jump. Have to be a stolen jewelry we found in
- 10:09his apartment. It is an impact, a most indignant outweigh me. But
- 10:26they being a choose like a like a criminal element. I will show you
- 10:31before the court for every penny you have. You said that before. That's
- 10:35girl, and I will say it again and again until you have read what
- 10:39they exhibits A and B that one emerald ring, one diamond breakfast that's a
- 10:48million. I were covered under August poverty, all right, I do not
- 10:50care what is covered by way. I do not know. I do not
- 10:56know how they got into my apartment, and I want to call my I
- 11:00thought me, Well, at least I can be the last part of that.
- 11:01You were at the baronesses last night, right, and why should I
- 11:05not be? We have the most dear of pray for the rest of the
- 11:09party, rest of the theater at eight o'clock. You didn't leaven or somewhere
- 11:11around eleven thirty. Eleven thirty and this is a creamy ass. I presume
- 11:16no, but it might require a little explanation. So I think the play
- 11:20they were going to do? Why should I be bored all over again?
- 11:24I remained there, comfortable, having some dream something the what time to join
- 11:28them at Leglond? How'd you get the first out of the building? I
- 11:33took no past nowhere about from no susy. How about the rest of the
- 11:37jury? I know not stout and I will say no more until I talked
- 11:43from my atort. So okay, that's good this way and here riding around.
- 11:52Let me make a call as we get through Ryan book Mans and me.
- 11:56You will replected to Tennis. I will comment for seating who you are
- 12:00wrong? Okay, that's good. What do you think, don Why do
- 12:07you got enough to book? Amm? Meaning it's not enough for you now?
- 12:11Not quite? How do you hear? Well? That brace for the
- 12:13praises around ten thousand, the ring around three. I've still got eighty seven
- 12:18thousand, a gold expense, a gun Adam three one dollar and fifty ten
- 12:30double Scotch is the plaza bar. I could have saved the double. Halfway
- 12:33through I was called to the phone. Come over here to the two you
- 12:37right away. Why I've got something for your August robbery? Oh what's that?
- 12:41I just happen to know where the loot is. I'll be right there,
- 12:45benthy and now, with our star John Lund, we bring you the
- 13:09second act of yours, truly Johnny Dollar. I put in a call to
- 13:26Lewis, and after violating some minor traffic regulations and the composure of a few
- 13:31New York drivers, I pulled up in front of town Ethley Studios. The
- 13:35headquarters car was parked out in front of Lewis and was waiting for me just
- 13:39inside. I didn't take you very long, Dollar, No, I caught
- 13:45all the lights. Where's Bentley? Back? Kid. The funny thing about
- 13:52people, What's that if they stopped trying to sizzle the law, they paid
- 13:58themselves as a lot of time. See what I mean? Yeah, size
- 14:07of the hole and it looks like it came from that three seventy five megant
- 14:09winsets on the floor over there. Rifle of that caliber is more stupid for
- 14:13hunting elephants from a job like this, didn't They probably used it as a
- 14:16prop. It looks like they were taking some jungle shots in the studio.
- 14:20Has a few complications. After harmicide arrived, Lewis and and I went back
- 14:30to headquarters. Baroness Olga Jarvash was there with a cute blood but the name
- 14:33of herter Werner. I recognized her as the model Tom Bentley had been using
- 14:37in the snow scene. The Baroness had his little trouble recognizing the ring and
- 14:41bracelet. I of course they are mine, Lieutenant, It most definitely mine.
- 14:46I cannot understand how the good process team, which you're wonderful, done,
- 14:52so this is marvelous parties. Oh, then she should do something.
- 14:54My feats sus to be hot breaks. I have a formal complaint she here
- 14:58be I'd like you to sign it, but of course I will imagine,
- 15:03what are you doing such a thing to me? Turning out to be a
- 15:05common peak this way? Of course I will sign it. If you're doing
- 15:09a little hasty about this all that? Oh, what makes you say that
- 15:11happens? Brner? I was just thinking you found the brace one and ring
- 15:16in the silly department. That's right. I don't suppose they were in that
- 15:18shoquid cabinet in the dan with it. What makes you think that I can
- 15:22remember that party at the Still a week or ten days ago, the crazy
- 15:26one where I got the idea for that taffy for How could I forget it?
- 15:30Will be the best party we had all seasons. It's simply wonderful.
- 15:33One. What are you driving at this, Warner? It's simple enough for
- 15:37tenant if you've ever been do a taffy pull? Yeah, rings sort of
- 15:41get them away, don't say bracelets stand too. It's really on the moon
- 15:43part oh, part of cool. How forgetful can I be? Of course,
- 15:48keep the ring and bracelet wor in the way. So you took him
- 15:52off and put them on that tick with cabinet, Yes, said, it's
- 15:54exactly what ideas I had completely forgotten about the suite that you don't remember.
- 16:00Head said, you reported them missing on that atomized robbery list you gave us
- 16:03totally, I did, Lieutenant, there was a robbery. They weren't missing,
- 16:07of course I included them. Oh, poor dear of us, give
- 16:11it? What can he just dec? I really did to him to think
- 16:15I was about to sign a complaint that he was nothing but the common But
- 16:19now everything would be all right for him again. Yeah, as Warner has
- 16:23got a remarkable memory for the whereabouts of other people's jewels. The Baronets signed
- 16:34a statement covering the facts about the ring of the bracelet. It was witnessed
- 16:38with a flourish. I heard a Warner and more sedately by myself than the
- 16:41two of them left. Well there it is now if those two weren't lying,
- 16:48lastly, who descou is in the clear? Not? Even if they
- 16:52were, he couldn't have killed com Batley, Ima said, of anyone anything
- 16:57new about the employees in August building. There alibis are checking out one by
- 17:03one. Doesn't look like we're Lewis and robbery. Anything turned up on that
- 17:07Bentley killing on fifty sixth Street, Uh huh, Yeah, Well keep us
- 17:18posted. Ye, not much help. There seems pretty certain of three seventy
- 17:26five wins if he did the trick polistics for verifying about an hour. No
- 17:30prints on it so far, no witnesses. It's like we're right back where
- 17:33we started from expressive count item four one dollar and forty five cents caps there
- 17:45driving my own car, I knew I'd never have found that little back street
- 17:48on the far side of Grennish village. Oh the mixagon, I can in
- 18:00have been expecting you. Yeah, I gathered that you look like the t
- 18:03I could descrive enough to get what I meant that the police said forty Well,
- 18:07the way you underlined your address on that statement and then batted your eyes
- 18:11at me, it wasn't exactly subtle wasn't meant to be. Well, now
- 18:15that that's settled, what do you want to tell me about the robbery?
- 18:18And how much do you want? Very subtle yourself? Are you You aren't
- 18:23thinking about my personality when you issued that invitation? No, I was thinking
- 18:29about a thousand dollars. You've got expensive ideas. One hundred thousand dollars loss
- 18:33is even more expensive. Do you know where the stuff is? If I
- 18:37could tell you that i'd ask the twenty percent? Oh what can you tell
- 18:41me? Can you end up beay on mister dollan? Yeah? I can't
- 18:45show you any adds you. There's some pretty fine photos hanging on the walls.
- 18:51What do you think of them? Yeah? Very nice? But I
- 18:53like my cheesecake on the feminine side. Hey, didn't I see that mass
- 19:00of muscled down at Bentley's earlier today? He did? His name is Harley
- 19:03Townsend, your boyfriend my husband? Oh, congratulations father. He won't be
- 19:10for long. A big hand has on his minder, his muscles and other
- 19:12people's money. What's he got to do with a thousand? You had on
- 19:15your mind? Funny? He has a key dog the penthouse. He was
- 19:21would a dinner party last night and only left like round about twelve thirty,
- 19:25And he came back at one thirty with Tom Dnsley starting to add up to
- 19:30a thousands. Mister Dillon, not yet, and try this. Tom Bentley
- 19:34called him around seven tonight. Harley blew up said he wouldn't settle for ten
- 19:38thousands when he could get fifty, and Dentley better wait for him and get
- 19:42over there. And he tore out of his affairs, and he took some
- 19:49of these carts with him, pretty big caliber. There are the rifles of
- 19:56Harley's they were using the studio. Where's Harley? Now? I haven't a
- 20:00slide this idea you're not telling everything you know, maybe not that you can't
- 20:03prove it, And I'm not interested in being booked as an accessory. Sounds
- 20:10reasonable expensive con item five one dollar and seventy five cents cab there back to
- 20:22Center Street. So her Werner came up with something. Hold on well of
- 20:27a thousand dollars is the going price on selling out husbands? He is my
- 20:30pain, is said its Holly and Tom Bentley worked it together. Bentley wants
- 20:34to take a safe twenty grand for turning a stuff back, and Holly objects
- 20:38with a three seventy five wind test. I can't think of anither answer.
- 20:42Check it out. Let me pick Holly up. Not much we can do
- 20:45in men. We could try to figure how those birds got out of the
- 20:48building without being seen. I got a couple of possible answers. They could
- 20:52have been worn out on some woman's back or snuggled up by an employee.
- 20:57So a lot of those buildings have their third of us pick ups at night.
- 21:00Nothing, yeah, says traffic games. Why well, somebody posing as
- 21:04a cleaner storage man that carried him out without anyone paying too much attention.
- 21:11I thought of that too, doll Puble. It is the side people's altenceance
- 21:15opens on was torn up to repair it. No service calls or deliveries were
- 21:18made yesterday or last night. When is that repaired job supposed to be over
- 21:22sometime late this afternoon? It's to night. Why well, and maybe our
- 21:26boy could studio as the service man. Gag, not unless the stuff is
- 21:30still in the building, you know, that's the thought, Petendant. The
- 21:40side street by the Baroness's apartment building might have been under repair yesterday, but
- 21:42there was nothing wrong with it by the time we got there. They went
- 21:45into the service entrance and checked with a night superintendent who was on the door.
- 21:51Yeah, that's right. Destendant Street was fixed about five in the afternoon,
- 21:55getting regular service calls since then? Do you keep a checklist of those
- 21:59calls? And it's you're a thing right over here, check him in and
- 22:03out. I don't seem much sense to it, but we do, yea
- 22:08here. It is anything unusual about any of the tradesmen I don't know what
- 22:12you call unusual. Lieutenant Foster came in three four florist boys. I will
- 22:18get a lot of them, and cleaner like her delivered to a couple of
- 22:22part when you will run anybody take any packages out. I wouldn't know about
- 22:27that particular. Ears don't pay much attention coming in and out all the time.
- 22:32I guess maybe the laundry man's going to take something out, so Nasuly
- 22:34does. But London man is that new teller. I don't think I we
- 22:38sew him before, real big yids kind of busting out a uniform. Nice
- 22:42enough fellow, though, could be highly Yeah, it sounds like it.
- 22:48What laundry was he from? I don't think I noticed, just though he
- 22:51was a new one. If you want to know, I don't tell him.
- 22:53You know where we can find him? Sure, he only checked in
- 22:56maybe ten minutes ago, probably down in the basement angry room. Right now.
- 23:04The laundry room, lined with wooden storage compartments and cluttered up with washing
- 23:08machines, dryers and stubbs, looked like a mad welfare of confusion under the
- 23:14dim night lights. See him gone, No, I said, you've gotta
- 23:22be down here, somewhere listening all the way out one of the story's compartments.
- 23:30Yeah, it's out at the end. Hey, there are you.
- 23:37It's Honey pushing that laundry cut. Yeah, okay, Holly, stop right
- 23:42there, please offer he should have listened to it. Yeah, there they
- 24:03are dollars the firs under the slumber two over two les to keep him in
- 24:11an empty stoye room overnight. You know, one of us is better sharpen
- 24:15up on the target range. There's a bullet hole to the sleeve of this
- 24:19meet. It'll cost your upfit something dollar. Well, under the circumstances,
- 24:26I don't think they'll mind expensive count Atom six nineteen dollars and thirty cents.
- 24:45Hotel Dyner miscellaneous expense to count Atom seven five dollars and ten cents. Gas
- 24:51and oil back to hertspit expense to count total fifty dollars and forty five cents.
- 24:57Yours truly got welcome back. Well, a lot of dialects in this
- 25:19particular episode. I'm not a pretty good mystery. I like the twist in
- 25:26that perfectly reasonable explanation for why that guy had those jewels. All right,
- 25:33Well, now we turned to listener comments and feedback and Bobby Walker rights in
- 25:41on Facebook. Just got done listening to the frustrated Phoenix matter. Great show
- 25:47as always, plane tickets, Sure we're cheaper back then, Thanks so much
- 25:52for the comment, Bobby. The plane tickets weren't cheaper, just things cost
- 26:02last in general. There have been a lot of research on old time radio,
- 26:07in the particular the show, and some folks have gone over the expense
- 26:11account and what they found is based on the numbers and the episodes. It's
- 26:19the cost for airlines travel has actually gone up slower than the overall rate of
- 26:27inflation, perhaps partially due to some of the b regulation and stuff that occurred
- 26:33in the airline industry. But they were actually somewhat meticulous when the show was
- 26:40at its best. They would actually check these numbers make sure that was really
- 26:44what a flight would cost. And this does sound about right for that time
- 26:48period. Bobby posted a separate comment saying, my wife and I fall asleep
- 26:52every night listening to Johnny Dowler. Thank you for providing us with great entertainment.
- 26:57Well, thanks so much, Bobby. I'm glad to everyone's enjoining the
- 27:00show. And then we'll actually do it for today. We'll be back tomorrow
- 27:07with the lineup. In the meanwhile, send your comments to Box thirteen at
- 27:11great detectors dot net, follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectors, and call
- 27:15us to e eight nine nine one four seven eight three from Boise, Idaho,
- 27:18This is your host, Adam Grahamson and off.