I'm out. From Hollywood, it's time now for Edmund O'Brien as... PHONE RINGS Johnny Dollar. You're the man who was sent here by the bonding company, aren't you? Yeah, that's right. Who's this? My name is Shade, Pat Shade, I'm private detective working on the case for the bank. Fine. I didn't know they'd hide one too. They called me every once in a while, tracing phonies mostly. Is there any chance that you know the missing messenger? Yeah, I know, Lillis. I had him tagged as a clean, honest kid. I still have. What do you think happened then? I'm afraid he was either snatched or killed, or both. But that's just my opinion. I wondered if you'd like to get together and compare notes. I don't have any notes yet, but I'll be glad to pick up your brain. I don't... Pick up your what? I don't have any notes yet, but I'll be glad to pick your brain. Anyplace you say. Edmund O'Brien in another adventure of the man with the action-packed expense account. America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator... Let's go back. Let's take the whole whole thing. You mean I'm screaming? From Hollywood, it's time now for Edmund O'Brien as... Johnny Dollar. You're the man who was sent here by the bonding company, aren't you? Yeah, that's right. Who's this? My name is Shade. Pat Shade. I'm a private detective working on the Cakes for the Bank. Fine. I didn't know they'd hide one too. They called me every once in a while, tracing phonies mostly. Is there any chance that you know the missing messenger? Yeah, I know, Lillis. I had him tagged as a clean, honest kid and I still have. and I still have. What do you think happened then? I'm afraid he was either snatched or killed, or both. But that's just my opinion. I wondered if you'd like to get together and compare notes. I don't have any notes yet, but I'll be glad to pick your brain. Anyplace you say. Edmund O'Brien, in another adventure of the man with the action-packed expense account. America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator... Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Expense account submitted by Special Investigator Johnny Dollar to Home Office Great Northern Bonding Insurance Company in Hartford, Connecticut. The following is an accounting of expenditures during my investigation of the Lilis Bond matter. Expense account item 160... Expense account item 162 dollars and 80 cents airfare and incidentals between Hartford and Chicago. A few phone calls after checking into a hotel brought out the details given me when I was assigned the case. Henry Lilis, the messenger, had left the Golden State Bank at 10.30 a.m. He was carrying $80,000 in cash and his destination was only a few blocks north on the South Street. He never arrived there. At five that evening and a bar near my hotel, I met the private detective working the case for the bank. Pat Shade was a puffy, florid man with past 50 beginning to show in his watery blue eyes. I've been in the business for a long time, more years than I like to think. Left the police force and opened my own office in 1931 when Chicago was still the rawest town in the country. Not exactly overdone right now, is it? Quieted down a lot, just as well for me and too old for the rough work I used to do when I'm getting older. I'll end up holding a sign of the school crossing one of these years. You younger fellas ought to think about it. Or to get out of the business before it's too late. There's no future in it. I've heard that said before, but never by anybody who left it for something better. I wish I stayed on the force. I'd be on pension now. You know, Scotty Dyer's old man and I walked a beat together. Scotty's a good cop, what'd he tell you? Nothing really, I just wanted to check in with him and he gave me a free hand. Tell me about this Henry Lillis. Nothing much to tell, bright kid, a couple of years out of high school, his father's dead and he's got a mother to help support. You think you know him well enough to be sure of the honesty you mentioned on the phone? Sure, no. I'm not sure of anything anymore, anything or anybody. But there's nothing in his background to tell you anything else. He had to have a pretty good record to be bonded by this company, you know that. That's why you think somebody grabbed him, huh? It's my hunch, yeah, I think so. Do you know anything different? No, but it strikes me that a snatch would be pretty hard to carry off and a street as busy as LaSalle at 10.30 in the morning without drawing some attention. Sergeant Dyer tells me none of the people who were near there at the time saw any trouble. It did depend on how it was done. Now, understand, this is only my hunch. I don't have the case solved yet. Has anybody talked to his mother, do you know? I think the cops went out this morning. I guess it'll be all right for me to go out this evening. Worrying about his son, he's probably not going to be in very good shape. Maybe not. But sometimes people who are in bad shape drop a lot of information they wouldn't drop otherwise. Shall we have another round? The Lellis House was a small one in a respectable but not plushy neighborhood. It had been painted recently and its yard was well-tended. I noted these things because they may not appear that except for widowhood, Mrs. Lellis and her son were a comfortable and average American family.  Please sit down, Mr. Dollar. Thank you. The police have already been here, I suppose you know that. Yes, I knew they'd come. They didn't say it in so many words, but after they left I realized they suspect that my son is responsible for this crime, don't they? They aren't sure of anything yet, Mrs. Lellis. It's terrible and difficult as a mother to be fair and honest. If Henry did this thing himself, then at least he may be safe and unharmed and he may come back and take his punishment.  Of course I do. Naturally, my first instinct was to defend him against the suspicion. I couldn't believe it was possible that my son was a thief. But then I realized if someone else was responsible, then Henry had been kidnapped and would be in serious danger. So now, Mr. Dollar, I'm praying that my son is guilty and if he is, I'll do everything I can to see him brought to justice. I know it's a bad situation for you, but I'll make my part of it as easy as I can. Did your son say or do anything that would have indicated he was planning anything like this? Was he in trouble or was there anything he wanted to get away from? No, nothing that I noticed. Henry was forced into manhood quite early. He's been without a father since he was nine. He became quite independent and he shared very little of his outside life with me. He may have wanted to get away from me, however. You mean that he didn't like his responsibility? Yes, he wants me to marry again. I understood that he wasn't your sole support. No, my husband left me a small income from his insurance. I own his house, but Henry's earnings have always helped. Who are his friends, Mrs. Lellets? I may want to talk to them. He sees hardly any of the friends he made in school. Most of them went on to college. There's one I know of, Raymond Lockhart. He works in the service station on North Michigan Avenue.  I'm afraid I don't. Oh, I was very wise. I wasn't going to make the same mistake so many widows do with their sons, with possessiveness and too much prying in the name of protection. I let Henry work out his own life and asked very few questions. I was so wise. If Henry is guilty, I'm to blame for it. And he must be guilty and not dead. Thanks, Mr. Sprague. Come in again, huh? I'm sorry. You caught me in a busy night. I read about this thing with Hank Lellets in tonight's paper. Where's the hurt about it? You think you did it? There's one possibility, Raymond. As a matter of fact, I looked you up to ask you the same question. You mean, do I think you did it? Well, it turns out that way. It'll sure be a surprise to me. The paper said they were looking into the idea that somebody could have forced him into a car. Yeah, every angle is being covered. Yeah, I've known Hank for a pretty long time. I trust him with my paycheck any day in the week. As far as I know, the only trouble he ever got into was kind of his temper. Got him into a few brawls. When did you see him last? Gosh, I don't remember. You see, we used to get out in the town together once every two weeks or so, but we haven't for a couple of months. I think that he's pretty thick with his girl he's going with. Oh, I didn't know about that. Yeah, they stopped in here one night to gas up. It's her car. She's pretty all right. Blonde, but I don't know. She kind of struck me as a dish. It's been around quite a bit, if you know what I mean. Sometimes you can tell what it can look at, you know? It's a name, you know? Well, the more I think of it, if Hank isn't trouble, I'll let you tend to what it is, it's Blonde. The devil is her name. I don't know anything about it. Lily or Lillian, I think. Oh, what was her name? His mother doesn't know about her, I take it. She didn't mention any girl. No, this one is not the type to take home to mother. He said he met her at the bank some way. I can check that, then. Be right with you. Right with you. Her father is some kind of a guard there or something. Guard? Private detective by any chance? Was her last name Shade? Shade, Shade, that's it. Lillian Shade. How can I forget a name like that?  I've got an extra bottle in my luggage. Yeah. Can you tell the police about this? Not yet. This'll be the end for me if she's mixed up in it. You know where she is? There she told me she was going to spend a couple of days with a friend. Why don't you check the friend? Maybe your daughter is there. She didn't mention any name, she never does. She's no good.  You mind? Where is her mother? She ran off with some guy. Lillian was about five. I shipped her off to my sister in Minneapolis, but I had to take her back when my sister died. She started running wild when she was 13 and I never could stop her. If they pulled this together, it's libelous that child psychology back 20 years.  Did you make a point of not mentioning that when we were talking about the Lillian skater earlier? I was waiting for you to ask that. I didn't know there was anything between them. She met him and she dropped in at the bank one morning. I guess I knew they met like that a few more times, but the rest of it, I didn't know anything about. Did she have a job? It doesn't work for a few months. When she does work, it's in some cheap bar, so that's worse. Was it your car she drove? No, it was hers. You know the license number? Sure, it was registered in her name. Well, I never noticed the slip. I suppose it was. She said some friend met some racists for her and she got it with the money she won. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be in her name. Yeah. Dollar. Huh? It's not decent of you to talk to me instead of going to the police. Instead? I hope you aren't going to ask me not to give this to the police. Of course not, but I was going to ask you to let me tell them. It's going to look mighty bad for me if you go in, you know, with Scotty Dyer in charge of the case and his old man and I on the force together in the old days. I don't want it to look like I was holding back information from him. Were you? No, but I won't be able to prove it to you until we find Lillian. She'll tell you I didn't know anything about her and Henry. All right, Shade, you going in tonight? Just as soon as I leave here, you don't have to do this, but I'd appreciate it if you could forget calling me down here. It would be better for me if they didn't know you had to tell me about Lillian. All I'm interested in is getting the money back. Doesn't make any difference what I say or don't say. You go to the police tonight and we'll play it as it comes after that. Oh yeah, Sergeant, you're on it early this morning. Anything doing? Henry Lillis just gave himself up. When? This morning? Yep, hitchhiked in from some place up the lake. Something about a fight with one of the men in the deal. He's messed up some. He needs some medical work before we can get a decent statement from him. Shocked, mostly. I put him in the hospital. Didn't he say anything? He kept mumbling something about somebody with a name like Saunders. We'll talk to him as soon as we can. I think he'll be ready to tell his part of the story anyway. I met Sergeant Dyer at 10 that morning. It was after some 15 minutes of conversation had passed by without mention of Pat Shade that I learned he hadn't reported the night before. I brought up the subject myself well enough to automatically reach for the phone and call the bar at my hotel. Shade had stayed there until it closed. Three more calls to his office, his home and the bank failed to raise him. But right then it didn't seem too important of the case since Henry Lillis was in custody. We got in to see him at 11.30. He was a slight fair-head kid by this time passed the feeling of fear. His face was pale and blotched with the disinfectant that put on some scratches and bruises.  I guess so. This man is from the company that bonded you.  No, I didn't. Where is the money? I don't know where it is now, but we took it to a house above Lake Bluff. Who is we? I don't care who it hurts now. Lillian Shade. She was with you then? When I was with her, I don't suppose it makes any difference. We were together. You mentioned hurting somebody. You mean her father? Yeah. He talked to me about her once. He told me she wasn't any good for me. I hated him then for saying that about his own daughter, but I sure wish I'd listened to him. I wish I'd believed him. None of this would have happened if I had. It did happen, Lillis. We want to know about it, everything about it.  I'd never known anybody like her before, and it sort of seemed as if we were in the same boat. What do you mean in the same boat? Well, neither one of us had all the things we wanted, and it looked like we never would. If everybody in that boat turned criminal, there wouldn't be enough banks to go around. Well, I never thought about it before, the way she did, but the longer I went with her, the more I began to. She'd done other things, never anything like this. What kind of thing? Well, the way she got the money for her car. We met this man, and she did it so that it could never be called blackmail, and she got the money. The magic game, maybe. I don't think I know quite what that is. Go on. Well, I don't think I have to go through all of it, but, well, one night she kept talking about how I carried large amounts of money all the time, and that we didn't have... I don't think I have to go through all of it. I don't think I have to go through all of it, but, well, one night she kept talking about how I carried large amounts of money all the time, that we didn't have any of her own. She said she wouldn't marry me unless we could be rich. So we planned this. She waited down the street in her car four days in a row until I knew she was... She waited down the street in her car four days in a row until I knew I was making a big transfer. You knew how much you were carrying? Not exactly, but I'd worked there long enough to know when it was... when it was a big amount, you know, according to where it was going and things like that. So yesterday morning I got into the car and by the time I was due back at the bank we were out of town. This house near Lake Bluffer, you weren't there? Who's it belong to? She said a friend who was on a trip someplace. She had a key. I think it belonged to the sanders or saunters or whatever. How'd he fit in? I didn't know anything about him until he showed up late last night. Then I found out that Lillian didn't have any idea of going away with me like she'd said. From the beginning she knew she wasn't. She was just using me and this man, she'd call him Red. He told me to get out. How much money was your share? None of it. Not any of it. But I didn't even care about that. But Lillian had used me. When this Red told me I went crazy, I guess. There was a fight that I barely remember. I left the house, but I don't know where I went. When it got light, I found the highway and started hitchhiking.  Finally this man did. He was a minister. We left him after he gave us the best he could in the way of a description. The only thing Lillian seemed sure of was the route to the house near Lake Bluff. The three-state alarm was put out on Lillian's shade and the Red-edded man in a Green Club poop. In less than an hour, the sergeant and I had made our 20-mile trip and were approaching the place on a dirt driveway that stretched some 50 yards of the road. Hey, hold it. It might not be as empty as it looks. The car on each side. I think that might be the girl's service station attendant described it for me. It means they both left them one car, don't you think? Probably does. I guess with 80,000, one abandoned car wouldn't mean much. I think the house is empty, all right. Wouldn't make sense for it not to be. I don't think it's a good furniture. It's where the fight went on. It must have been quite a ruckus. The front of his told me Lillian's packed quite a punch when he got started, pretty good temper. There by the wall, that lamp was thrown. He'd ought to carry some prints. And we looked through the rest of it and I dealt with the Lillian fight. Sergeant Iyer, over here in the kitchen, Lillian shade. She's dead. And so homicide entered the picture in a new alarm as broadcasts, sanders or saunders were left and murdered. I had a different idea. I couldn't sell it to the... I couldn't sell it to Sergeant Iyer, but it was one... I couldn't sell it to Sergeant Iyer, but it was one of those things that I couldn't drop. The police laboratory men started combing through the house and I went back into the city. It was about two in the afternoon and Pat Shade was in his office. Now, I can explain if you let me. Never mind that. You know that Henry Lillian surrendered didn't handle myself very well last night. I'm not talking about last night. I know what I'm trying to tell you is that I didn't get around until late today and I just read about it. Where is Lillian? You know the house she goes to up near Lake Bluff? No, I never heard of saying anything about a house up there. Is that where you found her? You were pretty drunk last night. Where'd you go? Yes, I was pretty drunk last night. It's not... every day you come to the end of your rope. That's where I got last night after more than 20 years in this filthy business. Where did you go after you left the hotel bar? I went home.  I don't remember. Do you remember leaving again after you got home? Where'd I go? Your daughter was murdered last night. But... Why are you accusing me of young man? I'm not accusing you of anything. I wish I could talk about this later. I don't seem to be thinking very well. I'm afraid we have to talk about it, Pat. Yes. You asked me if I knew about a house near Lake Bluff because you think I might have killed my daughter. That I might have waited until the red-headed man left for some reason and that I went in. How'd you know about the red-headed man? Henry Lill is a statement. Part of it was in the paper. Do you think I killed Lillian?  Yes, I did. I have nothing alive for any more so I can be truthful. If I had struck Lillian last night, I wouldn't remember. It may be quite possible that I killed her. I don't remember. I understand. You found Pat Shade, dollar. What do you have to say? I'm not sure what he said because I don't know if his mind was working well or badly. Here. This is the on-the-spot report from the lab, man. There more you can see before we start back. Thanks. This is almost enough, isn't it? Wait till you see the rest of us. Can I have a tough time squeezing out now? Don't you we go? If you don't mind us busting in like this. Hello, Lillias. Hello. We wondered if you could help us on a few details we're confused on. All right. Are you sure that the only cars that came up to Lake Bluff were Lillian Shades and this Saunders? The only ones I knew about were the Moor. That's what's confusing us. Now, this fight, it was in the front room and not in the kitchen, is that right? Well, it's hard to remember, I think so. And after you... And after that you left and then you caught a ride into town and gave yourself up. Yeah. Why'd you give yourself up, Lillias? I don't know why. It just seemed like the only thing I could do.  Murder? That's a dirt driveway, Lillias. The only car that drove up that driveway was Lillian Shades. Looks like there wasn't any redheaded man there at all, doesn't it? Like you messed up that room to make it look like it'd been a fight. I think a print man aren't... All right! I didn't mean to kill her. We got out there and we had the money and she got scared. We looked at all of it and she went to pieces. She wanted to take it back and I knew we couldn't. I lost my temper and hit her because I was excited. I thought she was faking, but she wasn't. She wasn't faking. I didn't mean to. We can go, can't we, son? Yeah. I'll come back later for a statement. Expense account item two, $183.30 miscellaneous. Item three, same as item one, transportation back to Hartford. Expense account total $308.90. Remarks? In his next statement, Henry Lillias revealed a hiding place where he'd put the stolen money so the company won't lose. That's more than you can say for the two parents involved, either the deserving or the undeserving. Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Yours truly, Johnny Dollar stars Edmund O'Brien in the title role and is written by Gil Dowd with music by Wilbur Hatch. Edmund O'Brien can soon be seen in the Paramount Pictures production, Warpath. Beeched in tonight's cast were Herb Butterfield, Jeanette Nolan, Tony Barrett, Tim Graham, and Gil Stratton Jr. Yours truly, Johnny Dollar was transcribed in Hollywood by Jaime Delvalle. This is Bob Lamond inviting you to join us next week at this time when Edmund O'Brien returns as... Yours truly, Johnny Dollar.  I'm afraid I don't. I let Henry work out his own life and tried to ask very few questions. I thought I was so wise. Now if Henry is guilty, I'm to blame for it. And he must be guilty. And not dead. When did you see him last? Gosh, I don't remember. See, we used to get out in the town together every two weeks or so, but not since we've been going with him. When did you see him last? Gosh, I don't remember. We used to get out in the town together every two weeks or so, but not since we've been going with his new girl. Oh, I didn't know about her. Yeah, pretty all right, a blonde, but kind of struck me as a dish that's been around quite a bit. You know what I mean? What's her name, do you know? What devil was it? Lily or Lillian, I think. His mother doesn't know about her, I take it. She didn't mention any girl. Well, she's not the type to take home to mother. Her father's some kind of a guard at the bank. Guard? Private detective by any chance? Was her last name Shade? Shade, Shade, that's it. Lillian Shade. How could I forget a name like that? Go ahead. Where is her mother? She ran off with some guy. Lillian was about five. I shipped her off to my sister in Minneapolis, but I had to take her back when my sister died. She started running wild when she was 13 and I never could stop her. Did you make a point of not mentioning her when we were talking about the Lillian's kid earlier? I met Sergeant Dyer at 10 that morning, and it was after some 15 minutes of conversation had passed by without mention of Pat Shade that I learned he hadn't reported the night before. But right then it didn't seem too important to the case, since Henry Lillis was in custody. We got in to see him at 11.30. He was a slight fair-head kid by this time passed the feeling of fear. His face was pale and blotched with the disinfectant the doctor had put on some scratches and bruises.