 Johnny dollar well Peters Johnny at Western identity company. Oh, hi, Paul. How's the weather out there in the city of the angels Johnny? Yeah You come out here right away. Now. What's up? Well put it this way How would you like to give so much needed help in the race for outer space? Oh, well, if you mean take a ride in one of those experimental space capsules No, I mean thanks Paul, but I'll stay in the cheering section for a while No, I mean put a stop to the trouble that's threatening to But Johnny we have no proof no proof at all no proof of what? These debts were anything but accidental that they weren't incidental to something much bigger Oh, and if you can find out who's in back of them who's in back of all this Hey, look, will you start making sense what the race for outer space remember? Yes, Johnny And you know it's important and I take it some company some client of yours has a hand in it Yes, but they're having trouble. Yes, what? Because although there's no truth I think Convinced Johnny yeah Well, come on Paul All right sabotage Oh Yes, Johnny sabotage ABS radio brings you Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator is truly Johnny doll Oh Spence accounts submitted by special investigator Johnny dollar to the Western indemnity company Los Angeles office Following as an account expenses incurred during my investigation of the flask of death matter Expense account item 180 dollars and 40 cents for a plane to New York then one of the big jets to Los Angeles Item 2570 for a cab to Paul Peters office on Wilshire Boulevard on the strip They call the miracle mile Rental car way Johnny so you can get on up there right away on up where Paul and you still haven't told me what this is all about Look here. There's detailed map just above Santa Barbara here Hey, it looks like that road runs off into the ocean And a high bluff overlooking the ocean is the bar bar manufacturing company bar bar from the names of doctors Joseph L Barham and Ralph T Barnwell. They're a couple of top-grade scientists. So what are they bills spaceships? Ostensibly they make small aircraft components, but actually well after they would drop from governmental service They begged and borrowed a lot of money to set up a little plant And they've developed a capsule. They're sure will enable a man speed return from outer space kind of competing with a government I think barman barnwell is determined to prove that private enterprise can accomplish more than a lot of inter-service Wrangling can more power to them and if they can prove their rescue capsule works They'll make millions Johnny literally millions. I should think so naturally we as their insurance company will benefit too So far though, it's cost us a lot of money Oh, how Paul insurance policies on a couple of their key men who died recently under the most peculiar circumstances Yeah, huh? During the testing of this device, but nobody seems to know exactly how or why those men died Now if you can find out for us Yeah, well, I can try Barman barnwell don't want you up there poking around Johnny, but I've insisted on it so they're expecting you I see So will you get on up there right away? Sure, why not? Thanks to a good freeway system. I arrived at the bar bar plant shortly after 2 p.m One of the guards led me on to a long steel platform that stuck far out over a wide cold at the edge of the ocean At the end of it surrounded by a lot of complicated machinery Attended by half a dozen men was dr. Ralph Barnwell the controls of a gigantic hoist a Long heavy steel cable on it was pulling something out of the deep waters of the cold Watched to my surprise dr. Barnwell didn't seem to resent my presence at all This time the test has to be picked up they tell me dr. Barnwell before it was fun Fired into this deep hole at the edge of the ocean under conditions simulating a return from outer space Everything within the capsule function perfectly the tests were a complete success Except for one thing. Yeah, what's that? The man inside it was dead See Yes All right now We're ready on the trailer And that's why dollar that's why my partner dr. Joe's apartment just did on making Insisted on making this test himself All right, man Release the pressure so they can open the door of the capsule already Yes, yes, I'll open it Like the others There was nothing Nothing inside that capsule that could possibly have killed Joseph Barnwell. Yeah, well now maybe the autopsy. Well, uh, dr Yes, of course We will have an autopsy the same as we have on the other two men who died this way that I know what the findings would be what sir asphyxiation But I tell you it's impossible If the atmosphere inside it became insufficient or fall for any reason at all It would have shown up on the tape recording that we so carefully checked over and these young scientists We employed don't miss anything dollar. Oh, what about a poisonous gas of some kind in there? Poisonous gas well three of these in a row doctor. It looks kind of deliberate doesn't it the presence of any known Poisonous gas would have been recorded to any known Poisonous gas what well, isn't that what you said doctor and with all the people in the world Who'd like to see you fail with a rescue capsule? Don't you think a few of them might be clever enough to make up something you couldn't spot you're talking about some By that sort of nonsense is it nonsense nothing could be placed in that capsule without our knowing about it You're pretty sure of all the people you have working here, of course. We are as sure as we can be What's more if anything and made devices been placed in the capsule to release this this Poisonous gas you're talking about we'd have discovered it when we open the capsule We'd have small faces of it well, maybe and maybe it sounds wild doctor But have you considered the possibility of the man himself and they're really Suicide no good heavens know all right How is a breathable atmosphere provided inside that thing two oxygen tanks primarily and a minus pressure Tank system containing a co2 absorption unit post of course well, what's been done with the oxygen tanks that were aboard But they've probably been returned to the storeroom where they can be made ready for the next test. You're not sure I Tell you dollar the presence of any poisonous gas any knowing poisonous gas remember You know that rescue capsule inside and out don't you Every square inch even the most one you detail well I know nothing about it, but doctor that might be an advantage in my investigation Why because I have no preconceptions about why or how some device couldn't be put aboard I'm afraid I don't follow so maybe I'm just the one to find out how it was But that doesn't also I have a strange little hunch. I'd like to follow up Do you believe in hunches doctor? Hardly as a scientist I But mr. Dollar if you're a punch and result in finding the killer among them maybe it will talk to My hunch was a long shot and I know it but my hunch is usually pay off Dr. Bond will promise no deferences and gave me a pass that would get me by a security guards to any department I laboratory in the place I Talk with some of his bright young scientists and engineers and other technicians not because I expected to get anything from them And I didn't but to hide my real purpose Then I wandered into the storeroom where the oxygen summoners were kept I talked to a rather dull wooded character named Pete Proser You know just about the empty out these your little lucky bottles and go home Say didn't I see you up on the dock with dr. Barnwell this afternoon mr. Dollar? Yeah, yeah, that's right Pete And aren't you the one who opened some of the barrels on the outside of that capsule just before dr. Barnwell opened the door of it will release vows they call mr. Dollar Yeah, I open them up real slow so to let the inside pressure get what you call equalized with the outside air or to release Whatever was inside that killed it. Oh, what's same as the dog? Pete where do the oxygen bottles come from that are used to provide an atmosphere in that capsule right here in my Storeroom mr. Dollar, huh you put them up yourself from a master cylinder of the stuff something like that No, sir. I only issue them out when I get the orders mr. Dollar I guess they don't think I've got brains enough for anything much else, but I really have mr. Dollar I got a lot of but who does fill them up for you. Well, that's a funny thing mr. Dollar I don't exactly know it don't know but it must be some of the scientists They got all around here for all I know mr. Dollar is they're always full and ready when I get the orders to deliver Plastic number so and so and so on so what to the doc I come down here and get them and then help install them What happens to the bottles that we use this afternoon? Well, the first thing we done mr. Dollar was check them out up there on the top second I'm sure mr. Dollar to be sure they still had pressure in them in case they're running out with what killed poor dr. Barron, but it wasn't on a counter. They still had plenty of pressure you empty them up there Oh, no sir mr. Dollar. That's what I was going to do when you come here just now Yeah, if you see them here on this rack Yeah, what have you hooked them up to that pipe through the ceiling there? What's on that the exhaust? You see I just my focus valve and Empty out in the air where they can't cause no explosion. I don't know no way close that valve for sure Only we can't fill them up fresh if we don't empty them for a Pete. Well, listen Pete Yes, sir, mr. Dollar. Well, I I've kept you after hours, and I'm sorry for that. Oh, that's all right So why don't you run along and I well, I'll take care of emptying these flasks for you, huh? Well, now that's real nice. Yeah, sure. Sure. I'll see you in the morning. Yes, sir. Well, good night, mr. Dollar And thank you sir When he was gone I tore over to one of the laboratories I visited earlier there I borrowed a couple of healthy-looking white mice then back to the store. I Hooked a tube onto each of the oxy bottles and slowly fed the contents supposedly pure oxygen and of the cage of the mice What for a while they courted about very merrily and I wondered if a once my hunch had been a wrong one But then suddenly the mice keeled over lay there gasping for breath And by the time I could shut off the valve Both of them were stoned dead How dr. Barron and the others have been killed inside the space rescue capsule, but by whom? and more important at the moment I and Then I remember the old latin phrase Cui Bono who benefits and the answer came so easily. I could have kicked myself How to prove all this? Maybe if I could leave the oxygen tanks up to dr. Bono's office, and Maybe there was a better way. Yeah, a little less dangerous And I came I don't have dinner together What's that you have there? Oh, it's just one of the oxygen bottles. It was taken off the rescue capsule this afternoon Yeah, I'll tell you here by the door May I ask why? Well, because I think the valve has developed a leak and I just thought you ought to know about it the valve It leaks. Yeah, did you hear it? Yes Yes, well, then we best get it out of there. Oh, no, that's all right Sit down doctor. I want to talk with you. Yes, but a lot of Additional oxygen in here if that if you were to forget and like to figure out like a mat. I won't forget Probably wouldn't do a thing. Now mister, you know in spite of your nice reception. I Understands you didn't want me to come up here and poke around Sorry if you got that impression. It's probably because dr. Barman I thought that you and farm got out of government service, didn't you? Yes, we did because we because the security boys found out some things about you. They didn't like I know that's Ridiculous doctor. I'm not gonna beat around the bush any longer I should have known there was something phony about you ordering the pressure released in a capsule before you'd open it up this afternoon It was really to dissipate the poison gas and it wasn't what poison gas Mr. Dollar, I told you my opinion of your poison gas theory earlier But now about this flask of oxygen doctor now that the capsule works it's worth millions isn't it works By killing three good men the first two I suspect were to convince everybody was accidental Well, what sure so nobody'd be suspicious when dr. Farrell dollars. Yeah, leaving everything to you You know what it's nonsense in there. Listen about this leaky bottle of ox. Well, I guess you're upset about That's it out. No, I don't care. I said to now buddy Done yes, that's right I'll move over so I can call the police to come and pick you up from there You can't move it into who isn't losing me. Well, we just get out of here quickly. Oh, I'm in a hurry I don't get one. Well, that's flashed there, but the door leaking the gas in here I thought it was harmless oxygen. Yeah, it is of course. It is only just Please let me out actually you try to move and I'll pull this trigger That that heart of an oxygen gas. Oh, is that what you really put in that harmless looking little flask? Yes, the same slow-acting gas you used to kill your partner and the other two Yes, I killed my eye killed by one because the platform is over. You'll put that in writing anything Anything but let me out before the gas gives me to like Oh Stop blubbering One of those out of the capsule what no no I pulled this one off the shelf all it holds is pure oxygen. I hope Of course, but I suspect the government will take over it. Maybe they'll have something in that space rescue capsule But it's for money I'm sure that barnwell won't be able to spend my living in prison Expensive on total including a couple of days and nights in Santa Barbara on the trip back to Hartford $431 even yours truly sunny It's called the holy unexpected matter and believe me the title fits It involves a wild trip across the country in search of a killer a killer who just happens to be looking for me Who apparently knows more about my plans and where I'm going than I do myself? All of which leads up to a really unexpected twist at the end of the yarn I think you'll like this one like it a lot. So join us. Won't you yours truly Johnny dollar? Originates in Hollywood and is written produced and directed by Jack Johnstone heard in our cast where Paul Duboff Parley Bear G Stanley Jones Boris Lewis Tom Hanley and Bill James Be sure to join us next week same time and station for another exciting story of yours truly Johnny dollar