 From Hollywood. It's time now for Randy how's the New York City Police Department these days the department's fine me I'm not so sure well, and maybe I'd better run on down there and cheer you up a bit Huh, yeah, you'd better come down here on the kind of Mary Grace Marshall. Hey, how do you know Mary Grace? The point is you do well matter of fact I just got back from a weekend in that town of yours. Yeah, Mary Grace and I had a ball We took in a couple of shows did the night club routine Even spent Sunday afternoon together out at the what do you mean, you know Johnny your little girlfriend's been murdered What yeah Randy if you got any leads anything to go on yeah, Johnny plenty then I'll grab the first plane Yeah You'd better Exciting adventures of a man with the action-fact expense account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator is truly Johnny dollar Act one of yours truly Johnny dollar Expense account submitted by special investigator Johnny dollar to the mid-eastern life and casualty insurance company home office Hartford, Connecticut Following is an account of expenses incurred during my investigation of the Mary Grace matter Expense account item one ten cents phone call to the airport to reserve a seat on the first plane to New York Item two phone call to Ben Perrin at the claims department of mid-eastern life And this is Johnny dollar. Oh, hello, John. Listen. I'm on my way down to New York at your company's expense Though the expense part is beside the point Mary Grace Marshall has just been murdered Your company holds a policy on her and I'm going down there to investigate Well, now wait John until we issue proper authorization for you to conduct the investigation. Don't give me that man I'm going down there now. Well, then it's completely without sanction from this or any other Okay, forget it. I was trying to save time and I thought I was doing you a favor Well, I suppose you are but until a request for your services can be read. I said forget it. Didn't you hear me? I gotta go gotta catch a plane. Well for heaven's sake man. What are you so up in arms about why you're so concerned about this? But because that girl was a personal friend of mine A very dear friend. Yeah, I'm upset. Why all means go ahead officially And if there's anything I can do yeah, there is you can stop all this yammering so I can hang up and get out of here Goodbye, John. Yeah, what now? Yeah, Ben, I Can't sense a kind of three nine twenty cab to the airport and plane ticket to New York The trip down there gave me time to think Thinking about it hurt Mary Grace Marshall tall, brunette They're very beautiful And a straight a girl as I'd ever known There was a time a few years ago and I'd hope she might marry me But she wanted to stay with her successful career as a fashion designer And she was right. I'm not the married type eating So we just remain friends We had a lot of fun together. It is dancing an occasional nightclub Sometimes the long hair stuff for recital or the opera I go to the zoo with a circus boxing match or a baseball game Or just go for a quiet walk in the park And often just a long quiet evening in her apartment over a tall cool drink in good conversation A good night kiss but that was all Now she was gone and believe me somebody was gonna pay Item floor six dollars even for a fast taxi to the 18th precinct headquarters and Sergeant Randy singer Come on in Johnny close the door sure Hi Better sit down. Yeah All right, when that happened Randy and how you set on the phone you have some leads clues all over the place They all point toward one person oh toward the one person known to have been withered about the time the coroner says she was killed How was she killed struggle? Felon struck her head on the base of the fireplace Cigarette Johnny. Oh, yeah, thanks Incidentally so far. I've been able to keep this thing out of the papers. Oh, hey, give me a light. Well, yeah I seem to have forgotten my lighter. Yeah, you have Yeah, the coroner says she was killed Sunday night late What by somebody who must have spent several hours with him You said late Sunday night. That's a fun Johnny Hey, look stop snapping that lighter and Wait a minute. Where'd you get that according to all the evidence it was left behind by whoever murdered Mary Grace Marshall Yeah Look familiar. Are you crazy this letter is mine? I? Yeah, Johnny. I know Back to of yours truly Johnny dollar and the Mary Grace matter Very Grace Marshall an old friend a very dear one murdered in her New York apartment on East 77th Street Sergeant Randy singer my old friend at 18th Precinct homicide had called me immediately And when I got there showed me a very damning piece of evidence Presented a special investigator Johnny dollar by the international sure of course It's my lighter and I must have left it and Mary Grace's apartment Sunday night But that certainly doesn't mean that I killed her coroner says she died about the same time you were there Oh, how do you know what time I was there white for Charlie Walker the building superintendent Johnny She saw you leave that isn't enough evidence to convict a fly and you know it's plenty more Yeah, like what your fingerprints all over the place sure I took a red butt same brand you smoke So what is that a lot of them Johnny like a very nervous smoke? I was with her all evening and what oh Now look Randy surely you can't be serious. You can't think for a minute. Look Johnny. This is my case nobody else's I'm keeping it that way. I've kept it out of the papers. I think you know why oh sure Sure, I know why because we've been buddy buddy for so long You want to be sure that if anybody hangs me you will for all time I asked you what you were doing. Let me tell you something Randy that girl meant a lot to me What were you going to shut up? Tell me what other evidence you have what you know that can help me find out who I'm sorry, Randy Sure, it's it's your job. I'd probably do the same thing to you under the circumstance if you didn't I wouldn't have any use for you But don't you see? Okay, look look we spent Sunday afternoon at the zoo the Bronx zoo When up on the subway we walked a lot got pretty tired I promised her a dinner at the Shambord over on 3rd Avenue But she said she had some food at the apartment, so we went back there Then we just sat around and talk play some music. That's all and had some drinks Yeah, I picked up a bottle of scotch in a way how many drinks all one or two light ones is all sorry Johnny That bottle was nearly empty, but that's him Who discovered the body? Mrs. Walker wife of the apartment super the one who saw you leave shortly after hearing the screams that made her scream Yeah, that made her finally go up and look in the Marshall girls apartment crazy Randy are lying Can you prove it? I'd like to talk to that woman. I think he's off a rocker if she told you she What'd you say? I think you ought to see her, huh? But if I'm your big suspect sure you are Until you can help me prove I'm wrong We drove over to the place on 77th Street in a prowl car Everything was exactly as it had been when I'd left Sunday night except that there were signs of a struggle as Randy had said a Chair in a lamp had been knocked over the high-fives shoved aside when she'd fallen at the fireplace Even the bottle of scotch from which I'd poured a couple small Hmm, what's the matter Johnny? Well, I'm not sure Randy, but Might have sworn I left this bottle out in the kitchenette where I Huh? Hey, are you making more friends? Yeah Look this bottle of soda three quarters full You don't kill most of a bottle of scotch with only this much soda unless you're drinking it straight Oh, who drinks it straight these days an alcoholic or somebody who needs a jolt for his nerves maybe Want to go downstairs and talk to the Supers wife? Yeah, let's The superintendent's wife turned out to be a living doll young pretty with too much makeup The sort of look like she decided to get out of the chorus line for a quieter life as the wife of a building superintendent I Noticed a peculiar spicy kind of odor when she first let us in But thought nothing of it at the time now you're sure this is the man you saw leaving this Marshall Department Mrs. Walker I was standing right here in this doorway It was after I heard her screaming up there round midnight. You're sure you heard a scream while my husband heard it first He woke me up pounding on the wall between our bedrooms Didn't he get up to investigate? Oh, no the lazy Well, he's been sick. He's still sick, but then I heard the screamin so I run into his room and ask him what to do Go back to bed and forget it. He says it's probably just a party upstairs Then you went up and found the body, huh? Well first I tried to sleep, but I kept thinking I heard noises from upstairs Well, no, you're sure it was like maybe my husband was getting up or something Go on. I'll finally about 2 a.m. I went up to her apartment when she didn't answer my knock. I let myself in and There she was Dead who called the police you were your husband Beside I told you he was sick. He still is I'd like to talk with him. Oh sure it'd be sober enough. Come on That was a funny crack if a husband really was sick She led us toward the rear of the apartment and I mistakenly started and went to her bedroom That peculiar order again only more pronounced and believe me it was an arpeggio Here mister this way her husband's bedroom is pretty much of a miss Untidy with pictures of bathing beauties calendarite and some striking pictures of Mary Grace Marshall plants it all over the walls This room had an order about a two of stale booze Here you are Charlie. No No, I'll tell you I don't want any more of that stuff. Well, you seem to think it'd make you feel better. I did What did you? Oh How did it cop again? That's right, Mr. Walker And this is the guy seem coming down from your girlfriend's apartment after all the screaming his name's Johnny something You actually heard screaming up there, Mr. Walker. Yeah Yeah awful racket Woke me up Scared me. What do you mean that poor girl up there all alone only she wasn't alone ended stopped I Figured maybe I've been wrong Had a nightmare or something. Yeah, sure a dream about her you think about me for a change that a dream about that day Shut up talking about her dreaming about her Sneaking around to have a look at her when she came out if you wasn't sick I think you'd sneaked up there and done her in because you couldn't have It wouldn't be the first time I drunk and bomb has killed somebody I thought I told you this man was supposed to be kept quiet. I will now look doctor I walk in here and find this sort of thing going on go on all of you out of here while I attend this man Just a minute doctor out immediately. This is a heart case complicated by a very serious virus infection Shock if I can have just one later officer. I must save this man's life. Come on Randy. You too, Mrs. Walker He's been getting alcohol again strictly against my own now look here, Mrs. Walker. No, no wait Come on upstairs with me again. Oh What'd you think of a couple of things Randy that I believe will clinch this case so fast come on Three of yours truly Johnny dollar and the Mary Grace matters Clinch the case Johnny didn't you hear enough from Charlie Walker in his wife? Yeah, I heard money Randy Well, then what's the point of coming back here to the dead girls apartment? Let me show you something here in the kitchen that The scotch bottle you shouldn't pick that up Johnny print yeah Prince and where your boy is dusted over them to show them up But look yeah, right here. They smeared see by a piece of cloth Sure, he tried to erase them when he killed that bottle like come on back to the living room Here take a look at this What's the high-five set got to do I told you Mary Grace and I said here Sunday night talking and playing records Oh, this record on the turntable is the same one. We were playing just before I left her look at it Dolarima by Vingetti never heard of it We shut it off because it got too noisy in the death scene from that opera Huh listen the screams that Walker and his wife said they heard and that records what gave him the idea And now it's a matter of pin it on him. All right, what have you got for his money? Motive are you kidding didn't you see those pictures of all those beautiful happening those those babes? He has on the wall of his room and the pictures of the Marshall girl. All right He was gone for Mary Grace talked about her dreamed about her had her pictures all over his room But she wouldn't give him a tumble all right all right So he hits the bottle heavier than ever on the count of this Frustration over the Marshall girl wouldn't be the first time that sort of thing has happened happens all the time So if he can't have her he's gonna kill her you see my point. Yeah, and it's well taken Randy All right last weekend you're taking his dream girl out on the town having a good time with her doing all the things He wished he could do come on well It's too much for him driving him out of his room soaked mind Then he hears that screaming on that opera record it gives him the idea He wakes up his wife so she'll hear it too so his wife will think somebody's getting killed up there But he doesn't let her go up there right sounds good Randy after his wife goes back to bed That's when she saw you leave he goes up there and kills a girl But if he was as sick as he appears to about John the time like that a man gets superhuman strength strength of a madman They call it and listen. I'm listening his wife said she thought she heard him walking around remember I remember so that's it. She finally got up came up here and found the body So naturally she tied it all in with the screams her old man woke her up to here and that suited him perfectly She couldn't help but alibi. Come on. Let's get downstairs again. I Realized Johnny. It's all circumstantial and I still have to pin it on him Or her but I'll hold him on suspicion Or her the same circumstances would work just as well for Walker's wife if she were the killer Yeah, but what about the motive jealous wife jealous of somebody taking that drunken bum out of her hair Funny odor. I noticed about her when I first stepped into this place. I finally remembered what it is. Hey, I Noticed that like a like a cooking spice. Well, it is sometimes cardamom seed cardamom Yeah, they used to call it the drunkard's friend a man could booze all night you a couple of cardamom seeds kisses wife good night She'd never be the wiser. Well, I'll be that odor was so strong in her bedroom that Well, maybe she's the Lasha. Hey and tried to make the same thing out of her husband On the excuse it would make him feel better You you mean he isn't a heavy drinker doctor. No, he is not Doctor you said he is a heart condition a very serious one Complicated by a study I know Could he possibly have gone out of bed climb those stairs Sunday night struggle with and kill someone the odds against his surviving such a thing They're a million to one a hundred million. All right. I heard it all That means you're gonna start accusing me of killing that girl up there. This is Walker I told you to stay out of your husband's room. Yeah Well, he's dead doc dead. I don't know what you give him, but he's dead Did you give him more liquor? No, but you gave him enough before I came to wait here all of you well You're gonna try to pin that marshal dame on me now that Charlie's gone You've already pinned it on yourself. Mrs. Walker. What? You thought you'd left no fingerprints on that bottle up there. Why didn't I use the handkerchief? Yeah? I that's what I thought No, no, no wait a minute. I didn't mean that late. I'm afraid. Oh, no, it ain't what now that gun mrs. Walker All right, so I kill that dame on the second floor and if I have to kill you It's it's quite all right sir Well, Randy There's your killer Happy Yeah I guess I ought to be You It doesn't bring back Mary Grace Spence account total including transportation back to Hartford No, no wait I took on this case myself because of Mary Grace and Well, whatever she may have meant to me is none of the company's business Oh sure, you'll have to pay the claim on her policy. Yeah, but let it go with that. Would you the rest is on me? I Want it that way understand for old-time sake yours truly Johnny dollar Be sure to join us next week same time and station for another exciting story of yours truly Johnny dollar This is Dan coverly speaking. This is the United States Armed Forces radio and television service