The Blackmail Matter: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (May 5, 1953)

“The Blackmail Matter” is an episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the old-time radio show, first broadcast May 5, 1953. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Insurance investigator Johnny Dollar arrives at Dale Martin's gym to find a man named Fred Royal dead with a broken neck. Martin insists it's murder, not an accident, and Dollar begins questioning the gym's staff and clients to uncover what happened. A key to a safety deposit box found among Royal's effects suggests there may be more to the story than a simple gym accident.

Dale Martin's gym at 1084 Sixth Avenue in downtown, and later Fred Royal's apartment.

Characters: Johnny Dollar, Dale Martin, Fred Royal, Lieutenant Nathan, Bernie Carroll, Jack Olson, Johnny Morgan, Michael Darling

Listen for: The details of Fred Royal's death and what the safety deposit box might contain; clues about Royal's background and why someone would want him dead.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.