The Glacier Ghost Matter

The Glacier Ghost Matter

SYNOPSIS:

Johnny is called by Walter Bascomb. Walt has a $100,000 claim to pay but can’t. Walt wants Johnny to find the body.

Johnny flies to Los Angeles and gets a room at the Ambassador Hotel. The next day Johnny goes to see Walt who tells Johnny that the insured was Raymond R. Shelton, who was part of Rycoff-Shelton Plastics. The beneficiary of the policy is his wife, Gloria, who lives in Westwood. Ray and his partner loved to hunt and fish and had gone to a lake up near Palisade Glacier, California. They had gone to Lone Horse glacier and got caught in a blizzard. They made camp, but Ray fell into a crevasse. His partner came out two days later. Johnny’s assignment is to find Shelton’s body. Search parties have gone out, but they cannot find the body. The wife really needs the money and must wait for a year without the body. Walt also tells Johnny that he is in love with Gloria.

Johnny goes to the plant and talks to Al Rycoff, who tells Johnny the same story, and tells Johnny that he owes his position to Ray Shelton and will get the business.

Johnny goes to see the widow and she tells Johnny that her husband worked hard, but they were never close. He was thirteen years older and it was her social connections that got him his financing. Gloria tells Johnny that Al Rycoff was in love with her, and became like a member of the family, but now she is in love with Walter Bascomb.

While they are talking, Al comes in with a gun and tells Johnny that he will not let Johnny intimidate Gloria. He tells Johnny that he knows that he is the most likely suspect because he has the most to gain, but Johnny cannot prove that he killed Ray. Johnny calms him down and they arrange to go to the Sierras in Al’s plane the next day.

Al flies Johnny over the glacier and they spot a body, but Johnny cannot prove it is Ray. Al and Johnny land at Forrest Lewis’ Pack Station and Forrest tells Johnny that there is no way that he can get to the body to get it out, so it must stay there. Al leaves when Johnny tells him that he has accepted an offer from Forrest to stay and fish for a couple days.

After Al leaves Johnny gets some dynamite, some .30-30 cartridges and makes an impact fuse. After testing it, Johnny arranges with Joe Gracey to fly to the glacier with the dynamite. Joe and Johnny fly over the glacier and Johnny drops a bomb onto the glacier, causing the ice ridge with the body to fall into the lake. Joe lands his plane on the lake and they retrieve the body to discover a bullet hole in its back.

Joe takes off and heads back to the pack station when he spots Al Rycoff’s plane, which buzzes them and shoots at his plane. Joe tells Johnny that he will head for Anchor Pass, which has very bad downdrafts if you do not know how to fly there. Joe gets his plane through, but Al crashes.

"Remarks: Justice was done in its own strange way."

• The audio for this program was discovered by Dr. Joe Webb in June, 2025 on a reel of old audio tape in a collection donated to the Old Time Radio Researchers for transfer from reel tape into digital files.
• The announcer is Dan Cubberly.
• Music Direction is by Amerigo Marino.
• Story information obtained from the KNX Collection in the Thousand Oaks Library