The Doting Dowager Matter: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (January 25, 1959)

“The Doting Dowager Matter” is an episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the old-time radio show, first broadcast January 25, 1959. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Insurance investigator Johnny Dollar is called to the Manhattan home of wealthy widow Mrs. Dora Harkness Ballon after a small statue of her Civil War general grandfather disappears from her reception room. When a ransom note arrives demanding $75,000 for the statue's return, Mrs. Ballon insists on paying despite the high sum, threatening to cancel all her insurance if Dollar doesn't recover it.

New York City, an elegant brownstone house on East 73rd Street in Manhattan

Characters: Johnny Dollar, Mrs. Dora Harkness Ballon, Harold Winters, Higgins, George (at Floyd's of England)

Listen for: The mysterious ransom note and Mrs. Ballon's obsessive attachment to the supposedly worthless statue; Harold Winters' cryptic warnings and Mrs. Ballon's controlling behavior toward her nephew.

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.