Yours Truly Johnny Dollar - "19 the Chesapeake Fraud Matter Part 3" (Old Time Radio)
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar presents “19 the Chesapeake Fraud Matter Part 3,” originally broadcast on CBS Radio on October 19, 1955. This archival recording is episode number 5510 and the third chapter of the five-part Chesapeake Fraud Matter, starring Bob Bailey as insurance investigator Johnny Dollar.
Following a Chesapeake Bay boating-accident claim, Dollar takes identification photographs, vital-statistics documents, and fingerprint records to Denver, where consulting engineer Frank Bowers may hold crucial answers. Written by John Dawson and directed by Jack Johnstone, this installment moves the investigation from Baltimore to Denver as Dollar enlists local investigator George Hanley.
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar presents the original broadcast with a newly produced contextual introduction, a short closing announcement, and gently cleaned/mastered audio for a more consistent listening experience.
Chapters:
00:00 Victor Sterling Introduction
00:56 Original Broadcast
15:32 Closing
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Speaker 1: During the week of October seventeenth, nineteen fifty five, CBS
Radio carried a five part Yours Truly Johnny Dollar serial.
Its third installment aired October nineteenth. Bob Bailey stars as
insurance investigator Johnny Dollar in The Chesapeake Fraud Matter, Part three,
episode number five thousand, five hundred ten. John Dawson wrote
the script and Jack Johnstone directed. Johnny is pursuing a
suspected identity fraud tied to John Reardon, a Baltimore man
presumed dead following a Chesapeake Bay boating accident. With photographs,
vital statistics, papers, and fingerprint material. Dollar travels to Denver,
where consulting engineer Frank Bauers and investigator George Hanley enter
the case. Now back to the golden age of radio
from Hollywood.
Speaker 2: It's time now for Bob Bailey.
Speaker 3: How Johnny Dollar?
Speaker 4: You, Brian, miss Dollar, how are you this morning?
Speaker 3: That's so good? I didn't sleep very well. How'd you
do I think.
Speaker 4: I have about what you want on John Rudon, Well.
Speaker 3: If you haven't, I can get it from missus Ridon.
Speaker 4: What I thought you didn't want to tell her about
the report that her husband might still be alive.
Speaker 3: She knows she overheard us talking last night.
Speaker 4: Oh well, what do you want to do?
Speaker 3: I might as well look at what you have and
get this over with. How about an hour from now,
I'll be.
Speaker 4: Waiting for you.
Speaker 2: Tonight and every weekday Night.
Speaker 5: Bob Bailey and the Transcribed Adventures of the Man with
the Action Packed Expense Account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.
Speaker 3: Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Expense account submitted by Special Investigator
Johnny Dollar to the Universal Adjustment Bureau Labmar Merland. The
following is an accounting of expendit yours during my investigation
of the Chesapeake fraud matter. Expense account Item six dollars
and a half one collect telegram from Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 6: I've located Frank Bowers as per your request. Cursory investigation
discloses little evidence that would lead me to believe he
might be the John Ridden of Baltimore. Looks like a
ham boone to me, Johnny, what do I do now?
Speaker 4: Sign?
Speaker 6: George Hanley, George Hanley Investigations, Incorporated, Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 3: Item seven two dollars same thing telegram from me.
Speaker 6: Things are about the same way here, Sit tight, I'll
see you in a day or two, Love Johnny.
Speaker 3: Once the telegrams are out of the way. I walked
three blocks from my hotel to the office building of
Hugh Brian. It was an impressive place full of lawyers
and doctors. Hugh Bryan looked a little haggard when I
saw him. It took me a while to get all
this together. The night that wasn't that big a rush. Oh,
get it out of the way.
Speaker 7: The sooner you have what you need, the sooner you
can make sure, and the sooner I won't worry about
it anymore.
Speaker 3: Did you talk to Elizabeth yet today? No, just last night.
Speaker 7: I thought maybe she might have called you this morning.
I'm I'm so sorry for that girl. Well, don't feel
too bad, mister Brian. We both did everything we could
to keep the report that her husband might be alive
from her.
Speaker 3: Awkward as it was. Yes, I know, I know. I
still don't understand it. I guess well. A man named Combs,
an insurance official, thinks he saw Reardon in Denver last
week using the name Frank Bowers. He's sure that Bowers
was Rearden. If he turns out to be Riardon, the
insurance company has been taken for twenty thousand dollars they
paid to Elizabeth Riddon just to set you straight.
Speaker 7: Let it make Elizabeth party to a fraud. And John
Lord knows that's silly, Ah, silly or not? Yes, well,
here's what I have. No, this is one of the
last pictures taken of John Riardon. Have the negatives? Yes here,
and these are some vital statistics on him. The physical
part I got from his doctor. He stood in examination
about a month before the accident.
Speaker 3: This is the doctor's name here.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Now, these other things are in his background and education.
Speaker 7: Here a copy of his marriage license, birth certificate.
Speaker 3: How did you get hold of these things?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 7: I handle a lot of business for John, filed a
lot of his papers for him.
Speaker 3: These were just packed away. Took a while to find them. Hey,
a copy of his fingerprints with those help more than
any of this other stuff. Fingerprints aren't standard papers and
anybody's file.
Speaker 7: What John went in the army, He did some engineering
work with the proving grounds in Aberdeen and he was
fingerprinted there.
Speaker 3: It was a gag at the time.
Speaker 7: He had a set of his own blown up and
put on the wall in the picture frame.
Speaker 3: You know, just a joke. I dugged them out of
his personal things.
Speaker 7: Now, then here's a copy of his financial records, tax returns,
and whatnot.
Speaker 3: I spent an hour in you Bryan's office going over
material it would help me in the investigation. The pictures
and fingerprints were the most helpful items. After I'd finished,
I went back to my hotel, packed my bags and
checked out expense account item eate three hundred and ninety
eight dollars. My hotel and incidentals in Baltimore and Plain
Fair to Denver. I got there at nine in the morning,
the air crisp, thin and full of sunshine. I rented
a car at the airport and drove into town. Half
an hour later. I was talking to my detective friend,
George Hanley. How do you like Denver? Old Pal, I
haven't been here for a few years. Doesn't look the same.
Speaker 2: Bigger and better, huh.
Speaker 8: They're thinking of putting up buildings as big as those
mountains over there.
Speaker 3: I love it, so it's the white. I'm glad you
ought to try a place like this for a while, Johnny. Yeah,
maybe I won't want.
Speaker 2: To find yourself a girl and settle down.
Speaker 8: Let's us settle down, Georgie, Oh, sure, how to go?
You asked me to look in at Frank Bauers. I
looked into him as much as I could without talking
to him. They are Johnny, his bank account, his friends,
his troubles, his enemies, everything. How about his police record
one traffic violation two years ago, Never been in any
kind of trouble around here, gets along fine with everybody.
Speaker 3: Well, tell me about everybody, Georgie.
Speaker 8: His laundryman, the milkman, the guy who tends bar in
his neighborhood, the man he buys gas from.
Speaker 2: I talk to all of them.
Speaker 8: How about the people he works for, Well, he don't
do much of that, as far as I can see.
It's gotten office downtown, calls himself a consulting engineer, goes
there once or twice.
Speaker 3: A week to pick up his mail. Well, no, that's
a very nice way to be able to live. Is
he starving to death, Georgie. No, He's got a good
bank account, makes regular deposits. Money comes from a New
York bonding firm. He owns a little two bedroom house
out beyond park Hill. Paid thirty eight thousand dollars for it.
Speaker 8: Wow, sleeps in one bedroom, uses the other one for
kind of studio, hudders around with clay oils, and according
to the nosey dame who lives across the street, he tries.
Speaker 3: To write, how about his friends?
Speaker 2: Lots of them, pays his bills, gets drunk now and
then normal.
Speaker 3: Tell me about his wife.
Speaker 8: He hasn't got one, lives alone. Find out who he
goes with, Georgie. No, as much as I could find out,
he doesn't go with any enemies. Well, the guy that
cleaning shot hates his guts bowers, doesn't like his shirts
with stars.
Speaker 3: Did you check out their residency business?
Speaker 8: As far as I could, he bought that house out
in park Hill in nineteen fifty one, paid cash for it.
Record of the sale gives his former residence is Toledo, Ohio.
Speaker 3: Well, how long has he been a resident here?
Speaker 8: As near as I can figure, and this is just
rough four or five years ago. The first financial transaction
was the Hussey bought. The next was a car. He
could have been here a long time before.
Speaker 3: That, though, Well the time element would fit for reardon.
Speaker 8: What do you think, Georgie, I think you're probably wasting
a lot of money investigating this guy. He doesn't seem
like the kind of man who's hiding out from anybody here.
Speaker 3: Look at this photo. Is this Frank Bowers? Yeah, yeah,
I'd say so. Five eleven, one's seventy. I'll have complexion,
no scars, no glasses, brown hair, about thirty five.
Speaker 8: Could be him from that. Yes, there's a picture of
John Ruden and the description is Ruden's what do you
want to do?
Speaker 3: Now? Keep on it. I got George Hanley busy making
a check with some people in Toledo who could find
out whether or not a Frank Bauer had once lived there.
Then I took my rented car and drove out to
the address Hanley had given me. It was in the
east side of the city, near the airport, a one
story frame house, a fifty three mark in the driveway.
I'm looking for mister Frank Bowers. Oh who are you,
Johnny Dollar. I'm Frank barr Well, I'm an insurance investigator,
mister Bowers, I'd like to talk to you. Oh, come
on in, thank you take chair anywhere? Son. You might
just making a routine check. Mister Bowers thought perhaps you
could help me. I don't know anything about my name
is If that's that kind of thing. No, I'm running
down a report that came across our office in Baltimore.
I have ever been there, mister Bowers. No swell place
on Chesapeakere I like dinner? What's this all about it? Well?
Do you happen to remember a few days ago when
you were at a place called the Ship's Tavern that's
in the Brown Palace. This was the last Friday, to
be exact?
Speaker 9: Should I remember when I do steal an ashtray or
walk out on a check?
Speaker 3: A man from Baltimore was there that day, mister Bowers.
His name was Coombs, Paul Coombs. You met him, yes,
right at the bar? You had a drink or two
with him? Well, I might have. I don't know whether
to admit it or not. What are you kidding at?
I don't understand this. I know it seems confusing. Maybe
this will help. Take a look at this.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: You must admit you look a great deal like the
man in that picture. Yeah, I suppose I do. Well,
I'll be done. I do it that this could be
a picture of me. That's why I'm here, mister Bowers.
You see the company I represent, and sure the man
in this picture for quite an amount of money. His
name was John. It was lost in a boat accident
in Chesapeake Bay five years ago. The mister Coombs who
met you at the bar here last week, thought you
were John Ririton. I don't blame him, but I'm not
close though. Now I'm smoking. Oh thanks, thanks sure. Mister
Coombs was a lifelong friend of John Riuden's. I have
his sworn statement here about that meeting with you, in
the certainty of his identity. You do, yes, right here?
Would you like to see it? Not particularly? I understand
you went to Ohio State. What year did you graduate?
I didn't go to Ohio State. Look what is this? Well,
that's what you told mister Coombs. It's in the statement.
Speaker 9: Oh I remember that bird now, No, I might it
to him any name, mister Dolly. You know he's one
of those inquisitive kind re assure himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember. Look, don't tell me they sent you
all the way out here from Baltimore. They did. I'm
that guy. Say so, it's funny. Did you go to college,
mister barrs I'd like to clear up that detail. Did
you go to college?
Speaker 9: Well, yes, yes, I went to Carnegie Tech thirty six
through forty You.
Speaker 3: Haven't lived all your life in Colorado? Then where else
have you lived?
Speaker 2: Look?
Speaker 3: Do you have any right to ask me questions like this? No? No,
but you'll help me a lot if you'll answer them. Well,
why not?
Speaker 9: Okay, I've lived in New York, Pittsburgh, Kansas City to
lead around the country. Came here a few years ago.
My health seemed good to my ass. Ever been married
once in nineteen forty two. It didn't last long.
Speaker 3: Oh why don't you want to know? If you in
a hurry, I can come back later.
Speaker 9: No, no, it's not that well. Look it seemed like
a nice guy, Dowla. But it just makes me uncomfortable
answering these questions yours. I appreciate the time you've given
me already. Mister Power, Please understand it's a matter of
establishing identity. But you know I am. I just told
you that's true. I don't like this business much as
is there any way you can eliminate it?
Speaker 3: The most positive identification would be from fingerprints. Oh, mister Power,
I'm not so much interested in who you are as
improving that you're not John Ririden. If you volunteer to
set a fingerprints, it had saved me a great deal
of work and you a great deal of trouble. Well, sure,
why not? We drove downtown together at George Hanley's office
and used the portable fingerprint kits. I took a complete
set of Frank Bauer's prints he attached. I thanked him
for his time and trouble, and he left. If he
was trying to cover something, it certainly wasn't a parent.
From his conversational reactions. There had been a moment when
I was sure he wasn't Frank Bauer. On the other hand,
I was sure that he wasn't John.
Speaker 8: That cuts it, Johnny, right thumb an index princes don't
match at.
Speaker 3: All, not even close.
Speaker 2: George and I thought I was getting somewhere.
Speaker 8: I found out he was never in Toledo, or at
least never registered or licensed as an engineer.
Speaker 2: Well, these prints do it when.
Speaker 8: You're going home, Johnny, Oh, there's no reason to stick
around any longer.
Speaker 3: This is crazy.
Speaker 2: You approved your case with the prey.
Speaker 3: He was too anxious to help me prove a Georgie.
You ask any ordinary man on the street two personal
questions about himself, and he'll tell you to go jump
on the lake. He ask him for his fingerprints. He's
able to smash you. So get on him. Stay with
him twenty four hours a day, get a couple of
other men.
Speaker 2: It'll cost you money.
Speaker 3: Get busy expense account Item nine two hundred dollars detective service.
I didn't believe Frank Bauers. I didn't believe his background,
and most of all, I didn't believe his fingerprints.
Speaker 5: There'll be another exciting episode in our story of the
Chesapeake Fraud Matter tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow another man comes to Denver. He doesn't check in
a hotel or carry luggage, at least not much luggage,
just a thirty eight colt Join us, won't you? Yours
Truly Johnny Dollar?
Speaker 5: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar is starrying. Bob Bailey is transcribed
in Hollywood, written by John Dawson. It is produced and
directed by Jack Johnstone. Be sure to join us tomorrow night,
same time in station for the next exciting episode of
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Roy Rowan speaking.
Speaker 1: This concludes Yours Truly Johnny Dollar's The Chesapeake Fraud Matter
Part three. Follow Yours Truly Johnny Dollar for more classic broadcasts.