 Universal Adjustment Bureau. Hi, France, you've been neglecting me. Yeah, but think of all the trouble it saved me. Now what's that supposed to mean? Now I haven't had to breed over one of those fancy expense accounts of yours for nearly a month. Oh, France, you've cut me to the quick. Oh, sure, sure. But no, well, looks as though I'll have to take my neck out again. So what's the problem? Well, Johnny, it's a real funny one. So I'm lamping already? No, no, no, I don't mean funny. Ha-ha, I mean funny peculiar. Hey, you know the last time you said that, I got shot at, banged on the head, nearly run over by a truck, and half a dozen other pleasant little things. So come clean, Pat, what is it? Johnny, maybe you better run over here so we can talk about it. It'll cost you money. I'll risk it. OK, then, I'm on my way. The exciting adventure is the be-man with the action-packed fence-a-con. America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. George Cooley, Johnny Dollar. Revealed by Special Investigator Johnny Dollar. The Universal Adjustment Bureau, Home Office, Hartford, Connecticut. Following his account of expenses incurred during my investigation of the wayward sculptor matter. White kid about it. Pat McCracken has handed me some pretty wild cases in time, but they've always paid off. So Expense Accountant had him win a dollar twenty for a care to his office at Universal Adjustment Bureau. Well, that's it on, Johnny. Make yourself covered away. How are you, Pat? Cigarette? Oh, thanks. Here you are. Oh, you know that one of our big problems is discouraging and prosecuting insurance fraud. Not only against us, but against the company's research. Well, I should also. Now, what I've called you about is something that's been going on for a long, long time. OK, what kind of fraud is it this time? We never know. Huh? Look here. Yeah? A while back, International Life and Casualty received an envelope containing five hundred and twenty dollars in cash. Mm-hmm. And with it, there's notes that read. Please, put this in company treasury. This money I took from your company on false pretenses. Now I can have a clear conscience. And it was signed debtor. That's spelled B-G-T-T-E-R. Mm-hmm. Funny. Yeah, that's what I said to you over the phone. Here's another one. Eight hundred dollars in clothes. The sender identifying himself only as a sorry finish. More conscious money, huh? Yeah. That's right. People who collected on fraudulent claims or felt they didn't deserve the money they collected. I see. And Johnny had been dozens of them over the years, most of them have been small amounts, under a thousand dollars. Some of them only use five or ten bucks. In other words, not worth investigating to see what fraud they've literally didn't want. Yes, exactly. But now look here. This list of payments anonymously received all of them from the same person. Eight hundred thirty-three dollars, thirty-four cents, received on July 21st, 1956. Eight thirty-three, thirty-four on August 21st, 1956. Yeah. Same thing, September 25th. Same thing the twenty-first of every month. Yes. And no letter with him? Only with a first one. Yes. Here's to yourself. You can trust an insurance company gentleman. This is only a beginning against the amount paid out on me last month. Be sure that I shall make full restitution if it takes five years. Well, good for him. Or her. I hope it keeps coming. Johnny, I want to know who's sending the amount. Well, you know what? Yes, yes. Not only the law, but company policy demands that we prosecute anyone perpetrating a fraud. Yes, you can. All the other conscience money has been in single payments. No way to trace them whatsoever. Also, the amounts have been, well, negligible. Have all these come from the same post office? Uh, they've all come from New York City, but from as many different post offices, there's a number of payments that have been made. But I'll try to, if the man is paying up all the charge. Oh, well, how do we know, Johnny? How do we know he'll come through his promise? Well... And we don't know who he is, so we can't know how much he owes us, or for what. So all you want me to do is come through seven million people down in New York, and somehow find a one man. Oh. Now, I admit it's a challenge, Johnny. It sure is. But knowing you... You're right. There's only one thing to do. That's just to give up. Oh, now, listen. Now, now, now, give me a pencil and a paper, please. Oh, here you go. All right. He said even if it took him five years... Yeah. That's 60 months. And that's 8334 a month. Four. Well, it was 60 years. He's been three, here's four. $50,000.40. So? All right. He started in July of 56, so money paid out the month before he said it. Yeah. So, find me a policy where Eastern Trust and Insurance paid off 50,000 in June of 1956. Oh. And on what type of policy might I add? White insurance? Oh, really, Mr. Detective, why? Why to change those monthly payments to $833.33 and a third cent? But who would cut a penny in the first? Hey, Johnny, you're right. You're right. In fact, here's what comes up to exactly 50,000. And even for you like that, it's usually for life insurance. Yeah, usually. You'll find the policy issued by Eastern, paid off in June of 50... Yeah, it's a chance, Johnny, but let's try it. And then suddenly it all began to look too easy. In June 1956, the total number of $50,000 benefits paid came out to just exactly one. On the life of Henry Davidson Pollock, a once-being-a-sculpting, beneficiary of his wife, Sarah Norton Pollock, and it gave her address in New York City. So Pollock didn't really die at all, but she collected his insurance. Now, conscience-trickin', she is paying it back. Doesn't look like it, but it's still fraud, so go to it, Johnny, right? Expense account at $2.00 in the quarter trained in New York and a cab to the apartment house at 614 East 49th Street. Training to find Mrs. Pollock's name in the mailbox is like a hold of a building superintendent. Mrs. Pollock? Sure. Mrs. Pollock lives here for years. Well, uh, where is she now, do you know? You trying to be funny? What do you mean? I mean she died last fall. Oh, great, great, and it's too late. Oh, no, wait a minute. Those payments are still coming in. What, then? You're sure that she's dead? I would with her when she does. Then, Mr., what's going on around here happens to be just plain impossible. Are we talking about the same person, the same Mrs. Pollock? This is Henry Davidson Pollock. That's it. The widow of the sculpture. That's the one on her. And he lived here in his apartment, too. That is, before he died? That was back in 56. Left all his money, all his insurance to his wife, so goodness knows why. How did he die? In that big plane crash out over the desert. Don't you remember? Not as single survivors. What kind of a man was he? Oh, gift to himself. Didn't like people much. And his wife? Okay, I guess. She was a lot younger than him. Spent all his money all the time. He didn't like it. A man like that shouldn't be married. Nobody must have thought a lot of it. I leave her everything. He just didn't like being married. Died down. Let her interfere with his work. So his death got him out of it and give her some money to spend before she died. But somebody's been paying that money back. Well, you think maybe she suffered a change of heart? Something like that? You think she realized she never deserved what he left her? Is that what you're thinking? Sure, that might have been a possibility. Except for one thing. The money's still coming in. Oh? Is there anybody to whom she might have turned over that insurance? Her give anything to anybody else? Not her, Mr. And you're absolutely sure that she's dead? I carried her in off the street after the car hit her. You don't believe me? Ask a doctor. And you'll make them over on Park Avenue. Ask the police. Yeah. Maybe I will. 350 cents for a phone call to Pat McCracken back in Hartford. Died last fall, Pat. But why? Suppose by some miracle she is still alive. Where's the fraud? Well, now wait. Wait just a minute. All right, all right, look. Except for the money the company keeps getting back. Yeah, so okay. But Johnny, I want to know... For hell, now, Pat. This is the golden opportunity I've been waiting for for years. If I can. Item 4, 785 takes you there. That's not to Dr. McCracken. No, there was no question about it. A woman who had died when a car stuck her last fall was Mrs. Henry Davidson Pollock, wife of the sculptor. The doctor had known both of them very well. I checked with my old pal, a Tenedrandi singer at 18th Precinct Police Headquarters. He, too, was sure the woman had died. He'd been called in on the case. Then I remembered something the superintendent of the apartment house had said to me about the way Pollock had wanted to get away from his wife. I went over to the New York Times and checked the old newspaper files. Yes, Henry Davidson Pollock had definitely been a passenger on the ill-fated aircraft and perished along with the rest. I even checked the main office of the airline and learned the same thing. So neither Pollock nor his wife could possibly be sending back that money. But then who could? And why? Dr. Nathan had mentioned the little art gallery over on 3rd Avenue. The only gallery that Pollock had ever dealt with directly. The owner of the gallery was a nervous little man by the name of Walter Besson. No, no, Mr. Dollars. Strange as it may sound, I never met Mr. Pollock. But I thought you were the only outlet for his sculpture. Very sure, very true. But he was a man who stayed very much by himself, aboard the public eye, so to speak. Yes. Well, now, nevertheless, you must have. You see, it was his wife who always bought his bricks in here for me to sell. And was always very sure to collect the money for them. Quite frankly, I doubt that Pollock himself ever saw much of the money that resulted in his artistry. Were his sculptures worth very much, Mr. Besson? Mr. Dollars, I had yet to find anyone who received his work without wanting to possess some of it. It's beautiful. Exciting. In addition to his superb technique, his originality of design, there was a subtle charm about everything he did that was well irresistible. To look here, the only one I have left, formed at play, you can do this. You're going to... Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah. That's such a little thing, but what's the price of it? $15,000. Oof. But now, right, here, this one over here. It is not a Pollock, Mr. Dollars. What? Well, look, I'm not an expert on these things, but it seems to me as though it has the same value. Yeah. The same style. The same charm. The same delicacy of line. It, too, is a fine work of art. And if I choose, I could pass it off as a genuine Pollock. But it isn't. Then who did it? And this, this one over here. John Wesley Collins. He so admired Pollock's work that he felt that style, at least, should not be allowed to die. Therefore, he has subjugated whatever style he himself might have had to that of the man he worshipped. Unfortunately for him, his work, too, commended a good price so that... Oh, please, don't touch... Oh, sorry. How long has this man Collins been doing this? Well, something over two years. Thanks, Mr. Besson. I think you've just helped me sell the $50,000 insurance fraud. Well, Mr. Besson, I'll see you later. I walked down the front door of the little light gallery on the third avenue. Over my shoulder, as I closed the door, I could see the owner, Walter Besson, make a dance for the little office inside and grab a telephone. I sneaked back in, stepped over behind a rack of picture frames and canvases and listened. Henry, this is Walter. Walter Besson. Listen. No, listen. Something has just happened that... Well, there was a man here, Johnny Dollar, some kind of insurance investigator, so you... No, no, you mustn't. But if he comes back here... Very well, I'll unlock the back door for you. But are you sure you... Hello, Henry? Henry? While Besson went to the back door, I quietly slipped out the front. I found the telephone booth with the drugstore on the corner. I had him fired a dime for phone call to Dr. Jules Mason. Well, yes, Mr. Dollar, as I told you when you were here, as they were both patients of mine for several years. All right, Doctor, tell me this. Did Henry Davidson Pollock have a scar, a deep scar on the thumb, one hand, the right hand bone? Yes, yes. He told me that when he was a child, he cut through the tip of that thumb very deeply, all the way down to the bone. That's all I wanted to know. Well, now, tell me, sir... Thank you, Doctor. Thanks a lot. The tip of the corner on that phone call couldn't have taken me more than five or six minutes. Now, when I went back to the art gallery, Besson was coming out of the little office, careful to close the door in the behind. Well, Mr. Dollar, I didn't expect you to return, at least not so soon. Had you decided to buy one of the sculptures by John Wesley Collins-Bang? No. Of course, insofar as the one remaining genuine pollock is concerned... Simple as that, sir. Besson, would you like to sit down and write a statement for me? Statement? I'm afraid I don't understand. Oh, would you rather I call in the police? What are you talking about? I told you before, Mr. Besson, fraud. And since it's pretty obvious that you're an accessory... Fraud and accessory? You mentioned the great similarity between the sculptures of Henry Davidson Pollock and John Wesley Collins. Yes, and I told you the reason for it. Did you? Of course. All right, look here. This one. Fraun at play, you called it. The genuine pollock. You'd swear to that? Of course I would. And how could you prove it? Well... Well, there's one way. The marks left by the artist's right thumb. Here. And here, for instance. Because that thumb was spit on the end, left its imprint on the clay. No, no, Mr. Dollar. And I can prove that these recent things, done by the man you called, John Wesley Collins, were done by the same person. They all bear that same mark. Very well, Mr. Dollar. But the world will never know. Oh, now, by some set thing down. Yes. Put it down, Walter. Henry, I mean, Mr. Collins, I can really do. Mr. Dollar, I suppose I should have known sooner or later. Well, I'll give myself up to you. Henry, the story is as simple as Mr. Dollar. I suppose you'd like to hear it. Yeah, I certainly would. You see, I wanted to get away from my wife for reasons that we don't really have to be mean to. I planned to fly out to the West Coast to disappear. But at the end of the last minute, I gave the plane ticket to someone else. On the plane to Christ, out there over the bus. Yes, yes. Then knowing that my wife thought me dead and realizing I could become lost in this tremendous city, as well as anywhere else in the world, but I'd forgotten about the insurance. So then, anonymous to the course, I started paying it back. And I say, all of this was very wrong. I know. Well, I'm afraid it's nothing but a course now, Mr. Collins. Mr. Dollar, the works of John Bessie Collins have sold very well at good prices. Only this morning, listen, I was able to mail a whole balance of the $50,000 to the insurance company. Do you think that will help, sir? So, Pat, there you have it. And you can take whatever action you may think is necessary. Pollock is waiting for the company, or the courts, or whoever. And, well, the best of us two scared to go with him. As for the expense account, I think the company can afford it. The total, including the trip back to Hartford, is $26.15. Yours, Julie, $20. Now, here is our star to tell you about next week's story. Next week, one of my oldest and wildest friends in one of my rarest and wildest adventures. Join us, won't you? Yours, Julie, Johnny Dollar. Johnny Dollar, starring Bob Bailey, originates in Hollywood and is written, produced, and directed by Jack Johnstone, serving our cast, worker, migrant, Edgar Berrier, Carlton G. Young, Will Light, and Lauren Subkin. Be sure to join us next week, same time and station, for another exciting story of yours, Julie, Johnny Dollar. This is Dan Coverley speaking.