 Mr. District Attorney, starring David Bryan. Mr. District Attorney, champion of the people, defender of truth, guardian of our fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And it shall be my duty as District Attorney, not only to prosecute to the limit of the law, all persons accused of crimes perpetrated within this county, but to defend with equal vigor the rights and privileges of all its citizens. This is David Bryan. In a moment we'll bring you another case from the files of Mr. District Attorney. But first the word from our sponsor. And now here is our star, David Bryan as Paul Gareth, Mr. District Attorney. The welfare of a city or county is not jeopardized by criminals alone. Nature itself is capable of sudden and unexpected violence that can lead to terror and death. This case started as part of a natural calamity. A gasoline truck skidded on a wet street hitting a power pole near the city gas works. Sparks exploded the truck and like a chain reaction the storage tanks. In a matter of seconds the entire section was rocked with explosions as flames swept a quarter mile area of warehouses and tenements. 72 hours later the combined fire departments of several cities were still struggling to get the flames under control. The death toll and damages were appalling. Look, just look at that smoke. Did you get the late addition of the papers? Yeah, 300 deaths so far, more than 100 still missing. Lots of bodies unidentified. What are the names of that? The list of deaths. Right there in page one. Only about 20 identified so far. What? Ralf's name? What is it? No, no, no. He's probably alright. A working square like him would be alright. But he had a job washing dishes and that diner right by the gas tank's explosion started there. Stop blubbering. Do you want to draw attention to me? No, but he has my brother. I've got to worry about him too, don't I? He's probably dead. Yeah. Yeah, he probably is. Your brother Ralf is probably one of the unidentified deaths. You'll have to go to the emergency headquarters. The police have set up in the high school, Lil. If Ralf is dead, you'll have to identify him. If he is there, in with the ones they don't know, there's nothing you can do to help him. But you can help me, Lil. What do you mean? If you find him there, baby, what harm can it do if you identify the body but tell the police it's me? Don't you see, baby, it's a chance for me to get in the clear. They'll stop looking for me if they think I'm dead. Now look, I'll leave town right now. See, I'll let you know where to meet me. Maybe at that resort place we pass near Lake Bluewater, we'll be free, baby. You and me free from there on. But then how? What do we do for money? There's a safe and landstone I've been itching to get at for a long time. One less safe job, baby, and enough to see us through. From then on, we'll be riding the gravy train. Nobody ever arrests a dead man. Now, get going. All right, baby. Good girl, go on. You're sure your husband isn't at any of the other places where bodies are being held? I don't know. Only the identified ones are there. Are you a teacher at the school here or a detective or what? No, ma'am. My name is Garrett. I'm the district attorney. Keep your hopes up, but don't hope too much for a while. I'll be all right, baby. These are pretty bad cases. I understand. Does this one seem familiar in any way? No. Are you sure? I know it isn't easy, but try to get a grip. I'm all right, ma'am. You'd better give me his name for the identification tag. His name? His name is Vance. My husband, Vance Young. Vance Young? I'm afraid I'll have to ask you a few more questions, Mrs. Young. Would you mind stepping over here into the alcove? I know this is most unpleasant for you at a time like this, Mrs. Young. It's unpleasant for me too, but I have to ask you. It may be just a similarity of names, but did your husband have a criminal record? Yes. Yes, he did. Did you know he was wanted in several states for burglary, safe-cracking? Does that matter? Now he's dead, isn't he? Yes. I'm sorry I had to do this, Mrs. Young. You will find several men at desks outside that door at the back of the gym. They'll help you with the funeral or anything. All right. Oh, Chief. Hello, honey. The mayor and the head of the disaster committee want to see you. Where are they? Riverside Garage. They're converting it into a temporary emergency hospital. Regular hospitals overflowing. You'll be ready for your hospital yourself soon. You look tired. I'm all right. I'll be glad when this is over, though. I hope we never see anything like it again. Yeah. This identification job is the worst of it. I'll help with five today. You stand there with somebody once their lives fall apart. It's possible a freak accident. That woman I just saw you with, did she find somebody? Yes, her husband. Harrington, the man she identified was Vance Young. Vance Young? The safe quarter? Yes. Was he hiding out in a tenement district? No. She said he had gone to visit a friend at a diner near the gasworks just about a half hour before the explosion. I guess the explosion closed our files on him for good. Well, when you check back to the office tonight, have Miss Miller put out a bulletin to all law enforcement agencies. Take Vance Young off the wanted list. There's no point in looking for a dead man. Hey, fellas, that's all the breadcrumbs for today. See you for lunch tomorrow. I thought I'd find you up here on the roof. Oh, hello, Miss Miller. I was just feeding the pigeon this. Elevator boy told me Harrington called from the basement garage he wanted to speak to. He's on his way up. Oh, there he is now. Hello, Harrington. Hi, Chief. You busy? No. What's the matter? Well, I had to stop in at the county sheriff's office a few minutes ago. While I was there, his deputy called in from Landstone, something he thought we might look into. What? A safe at the Landstone Mercantile Company was legalized last night, a payroll job. Watchman was knocked out, but he's been treated and he's okay now if you want to go out there and question him. No, we've been to go right away. The elevator. Howling. Cracking? Yeah, yeah. Well, at least there's one safe specialist we can eliminate right from scratch on this one. Who? Lance Young. Oh, yes. I'd almost forgotten about him. Dead men don't rob safe, do they? Here's the old lady now. Basement garage, Joe. Well, this is the layout, Chief, according to the deputy's report. These back rooms are used for storage. He came in through the back, went through that door over there to the general office. That's where the safe is. You want to see it? Yes. There it is. Out over there beside the farming cabinets in the corner. Yeah, look, it's herculean. Yeah, new model too. Steel and wrought iron plates and more alarm wires and a police switchboard. Yes, but a good safe cracker could divert the alarm circuit without tripping it. And the box is a cinch because he's got the wire holes to start working on. Take a look. All right. Back plate is blown clear off. Doesn't even look like he used a drill. No, small nitro charges in the wire holes and it was as good as having a combination. I'll give you help with the watchman, will you? Yeah, sure. Hey. Hey, you from the sheriff's office. Yeah, yeah, you. Send that watchman in here, will you? Oh, here's where the circuit was jumped, Harrington. Neat hookup. Mm-hmm. Well, crew take a complete set of photos and they always do. Oh, here comes the watchman. You fellas want to see me and the watchman? Yes, what's your name? Edwin Winkler. Everybody calls me Winky. I understand you were knocked out. How's your head? Well, as per name card, I help it, and I tell you. I think you're going to get that fellow that did it. We'll be able to answer that better when all the fingerprints are checked. He didn't leave none, I tell you. He's wearing gloves and some. Looks like our best bet is going to be an M.O. check, Harrington. Yeah? M.O. check. What's that? Motis operandi. All people have definite work habits, even criminals. They repeat the same procedure on each job they do. It forms a pattern. Yeah, we've got a pattern here, all right, Chief? I can think of three men suited by that M.O. He's safe crackers, whose work we've seen before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's see this. He's a bit lockin', but he's still doing carbon fulsome for a job he pulled on the coast. Yes, and the other two are Jack Fontaine and Vance Young. Yeah, but Young is there. That just leaves us Fontaine. You mean you know who did it with nothing to tell you? M.O. can be almost as good as fingerprints on a signature. Well, I'll be deemed. Maybe that fellow paid for slugging me after all. And for hurt my arm when he grabbed me in the alley, I think. You said he grabbed you? Fine, yeah. With my arm up behind me, then jabbed his thumb up behind me. It hurt like crazy. I got it, Chief. That's still Fitts Fontaine. And Fitts Vance Young, too. When did the burglar slug you, Winky? After he made me open the back door and let him in. Sneaked up on you before you could draw your gun, huh? Sneaked nothing. That's why I didn't suspicion him at first. He came walking up the alley whistling like somebody taking his short cuts through. I didn't see the mask he was wearing until I let him out. He asked for a light. See, then he grabbed me. He got me in here and then beat on me and kicked me. That doesn't sound like Fontaine, Chief. It wasn't Fontaine. He always wears sneakers, comes up on a watchman from behind without a sound. That trick of asking for a match is Vance Young's. Gets the watchman's hands high and away from his gun. But Chief, Vance Young is dead. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I know one thing. We're going to find out. This is David Bryan. Before we continue with Mr. District Attorney in the case of the living dead man, here is an important message from our sponsor. And now back to David Bryan starring as Paul Garrett, Mr. District Attorney. Explosions and fire in a natural disaster had destroyed a section of the city, killing more than 300 people. One of the dead had been identified by his wife, who admitted him to be a notorious safecracker wanted by the police. But now suddenly we were faced with a crime having all the earmarks of being committed by the man we thought to be dead. I went back to the office and started to check through the records. Here's the information you wanted on Young's wife, Mr. Garrett. Oh, thanks. She gave her name as Lilian Young when she arranged burial with the disaster committee. Did she give an address? Yes, 1310 Morton Avenue. There's something the police made a notation on, though. What? That ring she said she identified the body by? Yes. Well, the undertaker turned it into the property claims division, but she's never showed up to claim it. I don't understand it. I swear to you, Miss Miller, that woman was not putting on a night. She was hurt. Very deeply hurt, and she made that identification. Come in. What'd you find, Hardin? Well, I checked on the tag name on the body, Young's body, or whoever it was. Fight-apartment code showed that it was found in the vicinity of that diner by the gas wicks, all right. That's where the wish was came from, the heart of that first explosion. All right, here's what we do. Mrs. Young didn't claim the ring she used in identification. Get her from the property section. I'll give you an order. Yeah. Lots of workers who escaped the blast, truckers and people like that, might have eaten at that diner. Only one of them can remember seeing that ring before. See if they can tell you who owned it. Right. Meanwhile, Miss Miller, I want you to check the Hall of Records. Find out when and where Young and that woman were married. I want her maiden name, where she came from, everything we can get on her. Yes, sir. Where would you be, Chief, when I get finished? I'm going to try the home address Mrs. Young gave. You can follow me out there if you get anything. Now, this was the room, mister. If there was anything they did, I didn't know about it. My wife and I run a respectable place here. I'm sure you do, Mr. Johnson. I just want to look around. Well, as I said, they didn't leave a thing. They only lived here five, six weeks or so. You get to know the husband very well? I tell the truth, I hardly ever saw him. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in more than a week since the big fire. He went out one night while that was going on and never did come back. But you say his wife left only yesterday. Yeah, right after the morning mail come. She get in the keys to the room and packed up and left. After the mail? You know if she got a letter from anybody? Yeah, but I didn't see who from or where from. She waited for the postman most every morning. I got her house to take care of. Maybe Charlie can tell you where she went. Charlie? Yeah, a cab driver has the hack stand right up in the corner. She called him when she got packed. Well, there's Charlie's cab now. You can see through the window. He just pulled up. Thanks. I'll talk to him. So long. So long. Yes, sir. Where through? What makes you think I want a cab? The way I seen you coming to me. I can spot a fare a mile out where through. And that's up to you. Here are the police station. Oh, God, man. What I do, forget the answer. Take it. I'll ask the questions. You pick up a fare yesterday at 1310. The rooming house up the street. Yesterday? Now let me think. Thank you, pastor. The landlord said you did. A woman named Lillian Young. Okay, sir. I picked her up. So what? Where'd you take her? Bus depot. You know which bus she took? No, I don't. But whatever it was, it left 11-5. You're sure of that? I ought to be sure. Almost got a ticket for speeding to get to it. We'd had plenty of time. She didn't make me come dash him back here the first time after we was almost halfway to the depot. Dash him back where? Back to the rooming house? Oh, no. Back to the laundry at the street there. I guess she had some stuff in there. Although she didn't bring a bundle out with her. Plays up the street, huh? That's right. Hop in, Lord, right here. Oh, thanks, but there's a friend of mine I can ride with. Hello, Haringdon. Come on, hop in. Ah, I was just heading for the rooming house when I spotted you talking to the Cali. What's up? Young's been missing since the fire. Mrs. Young checked out yesterday after getting the morning mail. Caught an 11-05 bus. Mmm, 11-05. Yeah, that's a northbound, I think. Upstate the mountain areas. Well, we can check it later. You got anything on the ring? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. A guy who was off duty at the gas wage when they blew, he used to eat at that diner. Said the ring belonged to a counterman named Ralph Brenner. He must have been our dead man. And Mrs. Young must have known him to cry the way she did. Oh, she knew him all right. Miss Miller checked on her. Her maiden name was Lillian Brenner. The guy in the diner was her brother. And that's why she was so broken up. And what's her move? The bus depot? No, a laundry up the street. Why? Because that's the last place Lillian Young stopped before she left town. Yeah, she was real upset because the things wasn't ready. Few know how things was. We're five days behind on our regular work because of the fire. Funny thing, the only one who complained about the laundry being late was Mrs. Young. Maybe that was the only cause she had to leave town. She had taken the stuff where they're finished or not. Hadn't been in the tubs. Well, why did she leave? Oh, just shirts. Her husbands, I guess. Real good shirts, though. The kind you don't have to start too tall. And fancy colors. My old man wouldn't be found dead in some of them. She says we'd back to pick up the shirts? No, no. She wanted them sent to her C.O.D. Said she needed the money she had on her for traveling. Shirts like that. She'd think her and her man was rolling in money. We understand, but did she give you a forwarding address? Yeah, I got it right here in this book. Here we are. See, she wrote down herself. Let me see. General, only general delivery chief. Lake Bluewater. She's ready now. They're there on that their shelf up there. I'm going to wrap them a mailman out tonight. We'll save you the trouble. Just wrap them and we'll deliver them for you. Young's laundry isn't going to get there until we do. There's the road sign now, chief. Bluewater. 25 miles speed limit. Better slow down. Yeah, not. There's any need to. That's mostly for summer. Season's over now. Regular residents turn in early. Aren't just the same. It's a lot. Yeah. Looks like you're right, though. Main Street's practically deserted. Mm-hmm. Looks like everything's closed up for the night already, except for the movie, the drug store. Hey, we better find the hotel and turn in. No, I think we better drive out of town and find the motel someplace on the highway. Motels up here aren't much. Mostly cabins with kitchens along the shore of the lake when we get past town. Now, here's the end of town now. Now, I can let her out here a little. I won't mind spending the night beside the lake. Air is crisp and fresh. By midnight, it'll be crisp and frozen. Here's the lake shore turnoff. I hope we find a place open. We will. Some of the owners must stay on to do postseason repairs. You know, chief, it's funny thing about young's wife remembering his shades even when she was getting ready to run. I guess it's force of habit for a woman, huh? Strong thing, habit. Young's safe-cracking habits tipped us that he was still alive. Now, maybe his wife's habits are going to make him wish he were dead again. I think it's not the car hiring him, huh? What is it? What's the matter? I just saw something. It's back up about 50 feet. What was it? That's the flash of something through the trees. Back up. It's picked it up as we came past. Little road goes down there, that's all. Wooden sign on that tree. Forsters' cabins. Oh, yeah. See the backs of the cabins down there? It's all dark though. I see something else, don't you? Put the bright lights on again. Yeah. Wash hanging on the line behind one of the cabins. Look at the two men's shirts on the end of the line. Looks like a couple of rainbows even in this light. Hey, hey. That's the kind of color scheme Vance Young goes in for. The shirts we have in the laundry bundle are just like those. You better put out the lights. Don't slam the car door getting out. Let's walk down and have a look at those shirts. Right. You know the laundry mark on the ones we picked up? Yeah, it's four numerals. One, three, one, oh. Same as the address of the rooming house they lived in. All right, man. Got your flashlight handy? Yeah. Let's have the light. See that as much as you can. Marks will be inside the color. There it is. One, three, one, oh. Vance? Is that you? Who are you? What do you want? Come on, Harrington. Oh, Mrs. Young. I won't tell you any good. Grab her. Vance, it's a police. Where is he? Down there, Harrington. Where? The boat docked by the lake. Now, so a shot of moving. Another go. We'll pick her up later. There he is, Chief. All right. He's getting ours out of the boat house. He's pushing off. I'm going to jump, Rudy. You're just real. Over here, Harrington. I'll give you a hand. Grab him. Grab him. He's starting to come, too. I got him. Heave. Ooh. Couldn't smoke. Well, where you're going, Mr. It won't matter. Vance. Look at him. Look at him. That water's freezing cold. Don't just stand here with him. Well, he's no worse than I am, lady. No, he isn't, Harrington. As a matter of fact, he's much better off than you are. What's that supposed to mean? You'll see when we get back to our car. At least we have a nice dry shirt waiting for you. Come on. Come on. Get over. This is David Bryan again. I hope you've enjoyed this case from the file of Mr. District Attorney. I'll be back in just a moment after this message from our sponsor. The power of Mr. District Attorney, David Bryan, with a word about the program you have just heard. Having been convicted three times previously for felonies, Vance Young, on this fourth conviction for burglary and assault, was sentenced to life imprisonment as an incorrigible criminal. His wife, Lillian Young, having no previous criminal record, was sentenced to five years in the woman's penitentiary for aiding a criminal, obstructing justice, and carefully giving false information to law enforcement authorities. Now, this is David Bryan inviting you to join us when we present our next case based on the facts of crime from the file of Mr. District Attorney. Mr. District Attorney was originated by Phillips H. Lorde.