 Hi Johnny this is Earl Foreman. Earl. You know tri-state life in casualty. Sure and dear old Los Angeles, California. I should say west Los Angeles. No sir. Only I thought you'd given up the insurance business to retire out there in the golden west. No more Johnny. If you would want to do nothing but laze around on that California sunshine maybe play a little golf. Hey wait a minute. I hear you throw in a no somewhere along the line there. You sure did. Note of what? California. Huh? I mean that Mike, my darling wife and I are back home in Florida again. No kidding. No kidding. Right back here in Sarasota. I'll be darned when that happens. A couple of months ago and by way of keeping out of mischief I've taken over the tri-state office again. Oh I get it. You're back to your old habit of putting in a pitch for me to get on down there and do some fishing with you. Maybe. Among other things. Other things like what? Like insurance investigation. What else? How's your musical ear? Well I think I can tell the difference between a fiddle and a bass drum if that's any help. It may be Johnny. It may be. What's up girl? As long as the company will pay your expenses why don't you come on down here and see? Okay. Why not? The CBS radio network brings you Mandel Kramer in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account. America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator, yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Now submitted by special investigator Johnny Dollar to the Tri-State Life and Casualy Insurance Company office in Sarasota, Florida. Following is an account of expenses incurred during my investigation of the fiddle-faddle matters. Spence account item one, 7940 Taxi out to Bradley Field and a plane heading south. The flight was quick and easy and by early afternoon I was in the office of 1306 Main Street that Earl shares with another old friend of mine, Don Boomhauer, a prominent real estate operator. Don't let Earl kid you for one minute Johnny. What do you mean by that Don? Only real reason he wants you down here to go fishing with him. And maybe in the hope she can get you to settle down here which wouldn't be such a bad idea Johnny. Now stop making with the pitch Don. You dig up Earl for me so I can get to work in his insurance problem. Well I try. He did very well. Tell me do you know anything about why he wants me down here? I told you. No I mean about the job he has for me. Oh that, that. Well Johnny it's probably the most unimportant case anybody ever had at you. Did you ever hear of Mr. Joseph R. Tetrick? Nope never heard of him. Real big in oil and steel and copper a while back came down here to retire, build himself a big house at the north end of St. Armand's Key, really on Lido's shores. And? Well that house of his includes an air-conditioned walk-in vault big enough for the average bank. And why? Why? It's to keep his collection of fiddles in. Collection of fiddles? That's right, violins. Fine rare violins. You must be quite a musician. Nope, doesn't know a hemisemidemic waiver from a G-string. What did you say? I wouldn't know the difference myself Johnny so don't ask. But that collection is his one pride and joy in life. A couple of genuine strads. You heard of a Stradivarius engine? And everybody? Plus one called an Amati and a Paganini or a Pagliacci or whatever it is and a Guglianarius. Oh boy that collection must be worth hundreds of thousands Johnny. Oh what's happened? Well now the one he cares about most is a was a Bisiac. Never heard of that one? Well now apparently this man Bisiac over in Italy and not too long ago at that made a whole lot of real good fiddles. You know worth a thousand, two thousand dollars a piece. Now take your word for it. But this one they call it the Canary on account of its almost yellow color unlike the others he made. This one the one Tetrick has had was just about the finest that he ever well anyhow Earl ensured it for ten thousand. Get to the point Don. Well like he always does every couple of months and I mean with all those good fiddles you know Tetrick took the Bisiac to a fiddle maker for a kind of a checkup just to make sure it was strung up properly and okay and all you know. Well you say that he doesn't play himself. No no no not a note sweeter sir. He's looking awful way. Yes I know it's a waste of all of them. But anyhow he took the Bisiac to this man for his regular checkup. Took it to home Don. Well he's an old Italian named of Antonio de Palito and he's been down here over a year now has his little shop at the end of Palm Avenue. De Palito. Yeah De Palito. Anyhow he took the fiddle to him yesterday and this morning early the police found the place broken into old man De Palito on the floor still out from a bang on the head and of course well that Bisiac fiddle was gone. Now have the police any leads and who got into that shop and how. There you are Johnny. But yeah now about two hours ago Tetrick called Earl up on the phone and told him to hop on out to his home on the key that he was certain he had the answer to the whole thing. That's where Earl is now. Yes yes and you ask me if Patrick does know who did it you've wasted your time coming down here and I better try calling Earl at the Patrick place you mind if I use this phone. Well hold everything Johnny don't bother he's just parked his car up front. Oh good. What's the matter with him. Yes yes he does look kind of funny doesn't it. I should say what's all the globe about. Hi Johnny I'm glad you got down here so fast. Tell me Earl did old man Tetrick really know who took his fiddle and how and why like he said he did on the phone. I guess he must have done I guess he must have. Not that yes Johnny by the time I got out there to his place Tetrick was dead. And the thirsty man can tell you outside eating takes on extra pleasure when you serve seven up it can be hot dogs on the grill hamburgers on the boiler or charcoal cooking that's really extra fancy seven up just plain makes them all taste better. That's because seven up sharpens up your taste buds trout fresh from a stream backyard barbecue picnic at the beach seven up is the greatest outdoor eating companion you can take along so pure and wholesome everyone can enjoy it regardless of age when you're planning a cookout include plenty of seven up fresh up with seven up. For the time Earl Perman got back to his office to tell us about the matter just as Tetrick the Sarasota police had arrived and a full-scale investigation was underway. Results so far nothing apparently someone Tetrick knew had gone to see him there were no signs of the house having broken into him he'd let them in himself and got slumped to death with just one blow with heavy crystal ash tray but the police had found no fingerprints no clues of any kind not yet. So if you want to go on over there and talk with the police well it might be a good idea Johnny. Yeah I suppose so. Don Earl either do you have an extra car I can use for a while. Oh sure Johnny sure here take these keys it's the like 10 job out in the back there. Thanks son. Oh better still I'll drive you over there. No to where I'm going I think I'd rather go alone. A little shop of Antonio de Palito there at the end of Palm Avenue was just that little and dirty and thoroughly cluttered with the tools of this trade. The dusty fly speck window he had half a dozen or so dark brown cheap violins in the stack of fiber cases inside on a couple of shelves serving as a counter was the usual stock of strings rosin mutes and so on. Mr. de Palito sat behind his workbench a bandage around his head concentrating on a refinishing job on the fiddle in his lap. Now let me say again that I'm no expert but it did strike me that he was doing a rather good job with the varnish that he so carefully painstakingly applied. Kids he's a crazy kid. The body of the violin took on a sort of old world patina under his expert hand. These are children they get us OK. They drop it the violin to make it the crack in the belly. That's a good violin Mr. de Palito is it maybe a fifty two hundred fifty dollars. Too good for the kid he don't take care of him. So I got to fix up on the varnish then he's a look like a five on it. Looks pretty good. Now I'm hanging it up to here. And now what am I going to do for you Mr. I'm an insurance investigator Mr. de Palito. Oh yes it's a terrible thing. So that I have a nice night B.C.A. at the beautiful beautiful canary B.C.A. I call it canary because of its color I understand. Yes it's had sort of a yellowish cast to it and because of the way it could sing like only the most beautiful violin of all my stick in the scene. Only my own a boy my young and Antonio have it and now the violin is a gun. I mean you are a terrible thing. You want to tell me what happened to the B.C.A. I was awakened on it at Mr. dollar Johnny dollars. I was alone. It was a very late. And because it was a beautiful B.C.A. I'm pulling down the shades and at the front I locked the door just like I'm a teller the police so that nobody would sing in a so late. Yes and I'm well I guess I fall asleep but and then I'm a wake up because I mean here is somebody in a behind me could you see who it was by the time I'm a turn in my head he's a hit to me and a hit to me I want to know only is a day light and I'm a see the police when he's a bang bang on the front door so I'm letting him in the door was still locked and yes yes I did come up behind you yes from the window in the back room come I'm going to show you where he's a break open at the window while I'm asleep yeah I'd like to see that. Here. You see where he cut at the glass we make it the whole to reach in a knock at the window. The glass cutter and probably some tape to keep the glass and falling and waking him that's what the place is like the work of an amateur the way you say that. Well you see instead of a clean round stroke with a glass cutter he made a whole flock of straight scratches with it and fill in the kind of clumsy groove that he cut. But he's making me hit to me. Now this is a bit of yes like I said a couple of times now I don't know very much about these things but you tell me where could a violin a fine violin like that where would a person be able to buy one. I mean surely a little place like this of yours wouldn't sell them. At least if you have in the window or any sample of a stock you'd carry or no find a violin is like a. That's exactly what I'm thinking of and it's a lot more conspicuous so whoever stole the thing like the Visiak would either have to hide it away for years or get rid of it immediately before the alarm was out. The only place I know of that would handle a fine but oh yeah I kind of thought you might be coming over here any better just leave it. See thank you Mr. Bowman good. The only place I know of that would trade in a fiddle like the Visiak and the Stras and the rest well matter of fact that's where old Tetrick got all his violin. Well the famous well it's their collection up in Chicago. I could be wrong but the way I understand it practically all the great violins in the world have passed through their hands. OK then I'm on expense account run. Well of course but Johnny what just happened to Mr. Tetrick is far more important than the fiddle right now or is the fiddle the key to that murder. I'll leave down the car here. That is if you'll drive me out of the airport. Item two is seventy nine oh five plane fare to Chicago. I had a late dinner and spent the night at the Blackstone Hotel. That's item three call it 15 dollars. In the morning within five minutes of the time they opened the business I was talking with one of the experts at the Warlitzer collection. Well of course Mr. Dollar will immediately notify every one of our branches to New York Los Angeles and so on to be on watch for that Visiak. Good. And of course we'll let you know right away if it shows up on that however I don't know what we can do. Well I don't need it. Terrible shame if it's called into the wrong hand. Only two artists could do justice to that violin but then of course no such artist would dare to use it. Why is they then because it's now known to be stolen to easily identify because of its unique almost yellow color. I see. Well I'm here will be heartbroken when he learns of this. Amiel Amiel Victor once owned it played it in concerts all over the world before he brought it to us and we sold it to Mr. Tetrick. Tell me why did the Amiel Victor ever sell it. You didn't know. Tragic accident was hands that also left him blind. Oh sorry. No I didn't know. Matter of fact I I'm afraid that I never even heard of Mr. Amiel. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That name of course. Amiel. No no. Son of a gun I knew that name that run the bell. Oh who's Mr. Dogg. Stupid. Can I be. I'm afraid I don't. Amiel Victor played that Visiak for years both this teen or 20 at least. All right then blind or not he'd recognize it immediately if he heard it but I thought you just said Emile's was not the name that rang a bell so to speak. Don't you worry about that. Just tell me where I can find this Amiel Victor and get me a list of concert bookings anywhere anywhere in this country concert bookings. Now I don't understand. You will when I recover that Visiak. Alpine always tastes which never smokes rough. Try Alpine filter cigarette. Item 4 is 420 for a couple of phone calls to Earl Perman. Yes the man I was now looking for had been in Sarasota on a brief stop over before assuming a concert tour. OK now with the help of the concert schedule I knew where he was going to play next at very night as a matter of fact. Item 5 $1.90 for a cab to the flat with a once famous violinist poor blind old Amiel Victor lived. I told him about my suspicions of what I plan to do with his help. But I cannot believe it Mr. Define young musician could and that his own father and perhaps he didn't know what he was saying because of that bang in the head who really knows how hard he was hit. Maybe that wallop on the head was faked. But if he was unconsciously the rest of the night that's what he says. We can prove otherwise. But he distinctly told me the shades were down so that no one could see him working on the Visiak. Yet later later he told me that when he came to he could see the cop could see him outside knocking on the door. Now one of those statements is false. But I really deserve a kick in the pants because of those scratches because I didn't get wise to them right then and there. Scratches. Yes from a glass cutter on the window in the back of the shop to make it look like that was the way somebody had got in there. Don't you think I could feel them. I could feel the glue there with my fingernail on the inside of that window. But that only pulled another thing. Now I don't know how much the old man knows about fixing fiddle. But when it comes to refinishing him he is great that much I saw for myself. Refinish recolor call it whatever you like. But my biggest boner was in failing to pick up the cue when he was talking about the Visiak. What do you mean. He said if only my own boy my young Antonio don't you see when he was trying to get across was if only his own boy could have could play a fiddle like that he tried to play the idea that the boy never would. But Mr. Dollar let's go. But don't you see if it was as you suspect if the boy if young Antonio does have it if his father did change the color that's exactly what I'm betting on. But then who could prove it's the canary Visiak. Are you kidding. You me. Come on we got to get to a plane of that concert in El Paso tonight. Item six one seventy two fifty taxi to the airport and plane fare for the two of us to Fort Worth and a hot westward well past all their thanks to a captain police our tickets for the symphony concert cost us nothing because yes the soloist for the evening was young Antonio de Toledo. I'll say this form the short dark intense looking kid could really play beautifully on the rather reddish brown colored violin . Absolutely sure how could I be mistaken when that instrument of heaven was my own for so many years. Would a father not recognize his own child and I tell you the BC was far closer to me than a child could ever be. It was a part of me as much as my own hands mind and spirit. When you first know that young Antonio played I knew it was the beat. Even though it does not quite sound the same as it did. Because of the bar and she must have used the old man to change the color and there is a dryness to the phone that was not there before. It is just as robust as commanding all that ever. Yet there is a dryness to that only I was here. But you use the beat. Of that it can be no question OK then come on we'll pick up the police and wait for him in his dressing room after the concert was finished there in a dressing room and he was faced with the fact that I now knew them. Temperamentally young Antonio screamed and fought like a tiger literally had to be held down by the police. But then when the old master and he will turn when we really put his heart in it the kid broke down and confessed. Not only the fact of the fiddle with the father's help but to the murder of Mr. Tetrick. It seems that Patrick had called him in to tell him that he suspected him and when Patrick picked up the phone and called the poor man Tony struck him down and killed him. So I told you I told you everything so you can take me away and kill me too. But he deserves to die. He thinks that your price was intimate locked up in a ball. It had to be played and played and played as only a true artist like like he can play it through an audience with a warmth and color and sound that only I Antonio can bring from anything I touch. And now. Thanks to you I shall play no more. No all this talent of mine this matchless technique wasted all the years that my father spent working begging even feelings that I could study the hours of days and years of practice that I spent developing this wonderful gift that I have wasted. But it's the world that loses. Never again will an audience be able to feel the outpouring of my soul with the music of my violin without an audience to feel the power of my every note I shall play no more. Why not Tony. What. Well if an audience is only me it seems to me that where you're going you can be pretty sure of a captive one. From here on out it's up to the courts. And that means for his father to. You know I wonder if the Tepica state will put the priceless spittles in that collection in the hands of musicians where they can be used and appreciated. I hope so. Expense account total including back to Chicago with a little bit during the trip home. That is after a few days of fishing with the rope home and back in Sarasota. Six eighty one eighty. Yours truly. Johnny Dahlin. If you ever suffer a touch of arthritis or rheumatism and you've never tried mental item deep heating rub you can't know how good it's deep heating action can make you feel as you massage it into painful areas you feel it's deep heating action. You know relief is on its way. Mentalism deep heating rub is an extra strong combination of active ingredients for safe temporary relief of minor arthritic rheumatic pain. Use. Stainless. Mentalism deep heating rub often. Now here's our start to tell you about next week's story. Next week the old fashioned murder as if there was anything new fashioned about it. Join us won't you. Yours truly. Johnny dollar. Johnny dollar is written by Jack John. Produced and directed by Bruno Zerato Jr. musical supervision by. Johnny dollar is played by Mandel Kramer. Also heard in our cast with Santa Sortega as the political Leon Johnny as Amiel Victor. Richard Holland as Tony Frank Barron as Don Boomer Sam Gray as Earl Foreman and Bill Lipton as the violin expert. Be sure to join us next week. Same time. Same station for another exciting story of. Your truly Johnny dollar. This is our time. This word in speed the last for accuracy expanded CBS news on the CBS radio network. Once there was a smoker. An ordinary cigarette smoke. He was neither happy or unhappy about his cigarette. Then one day he tried a Salem cigarette. Because he heard that Salem refreshes your taste. He soon learned that Salem does refresh your taste. So softly so gently that when you take a puff it's spring time. And Salem is mental fresh with rich tobacco taste and a modern filter to and air softens every puff. Now he is a Salem smoker and very happy. CBS radio.