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Amber Eyes, the kitten	Castle Gate Hotel desk clerk	Nurse on duty
Helen Kendal	Special delivery messenger	Police at hospital
Uncle Franklin Shore	Man at house near reservoir	Dr Rosslyn
[Franklin's mistress]	Lieutenant Tragg	Nurse Dewar
Jerry Templar	Tragg's driver, Floyd	Templar's nurse
Aunt Matilda Shore	Police photographer	Angus MacIntosh, lab man
Uncle Gerald Shore	A nurse	Unidentified telephone caller
George Alber	Tragg's detective	Gertie
Komo, Korean servant	Matilda's doctor	Jackson
Dr Blakely	Rodney French	Hamilton Burger
Thomas B Lunk	Paul Drake	Judge Lankershim
[Stephen Alber, George's father]	Lunch counter attendant	Court bailiff
The cook, Mrs Parker	Drake's night man	Twelve jurors
Perry Mason	Tragg's policeman	Autopsy surgeon
Della Street	[Lunk's brother Phil]	Della's cab driver
Henry Leech	[Their mother]

This novel was written during WW II by a West Coast author at the time of Japanese internment. The use of Komo, Korean by his admission, Japanese by everyone else's judgement, plays on this theme.

1.	Amber Eyes was following Helen Kendal's hand, which held a crumpled paper ball. She is day dreaming about Uncle Franklin Shore, then her boyfriend Jerry Templar, finally Aunt Matilda Shore. Then she thinks of Uncle Gerald Shore, who has assured her he's going to force Matilda to give her her inheritance. Amber jumps for the ball and her claws dig into Helen's wrist. Matilda comes to the rescue, suggests she should show interest in George Alber. Komo calls Matilda to the phone. A second call is for Helen; it is Uncle Franklin. His call is cut off after he tells Helen to get in touch with Perry Mason. Amber Eyes takes sick, convulsions. Komo gets a blanket. Gerald Shore arrives, offers to drive the cat to the vet. Matilda berates Komo for letting him run out of stout.
2.	Dr Blakely gives Amber Eyes a hypodermic. While awaiting its effect, Helen tells George about the phone call from Franklin. Gerald wonders why Franklin didn't call him. Dr Blakely reports that the kitten was poisoned by tablets placed in small wads of meat, such as are used to poison dogs. They think leaving Amber Eyes with Tom Lunk in his bachelor shack would be a good idea. Gerald questions Helen about who was at her house; George Alber and Jerry Templar as well as Matilda and Komo.
3.	George Alber is surprised that the kitten was poisoned, which surprises Gerald Shore. They argue. George leaves. Helen explains that George isn't in the Army because of defective hearing in his left ear.
4.	Perry Mason explains to Della Street why he likes this new case, one of a careless kitten, because it has excitement. He recites the background as it has come to him. Harry Leech will escort Mason, with Street, and Kendal to Franklin Shore.
5.	Della and Perry meet Shore and Kendal near the Castle Gate Hotel. The desk clerk tries to reach Leech, gets no answer, tells Mason he has lived there for a year and went out earlier. A special delivery messenger gives the clerk a message, for Mason. It instructs Mason to follow a map to reservoir.
6.	As they drive Mason notes to Street that the way the message was written was the way a Japanese would write. At the reservoir, they find a car with a dead man, not Shore's brother, so probably Leech. At a house near the reservoir, Mason phones Lt. Tragg to come to see the murdered man. He then phones Matilda, gets the cook, who states the Korean servant has been out, and Mrs Shore is in the hospital, poisoned.
7.	Tragg arrives in a squad car driven by Floyd, who is told to drive slowly so the Lieutenant can question Mason. He gets little useful information but once he hears about the phone call from a Franklin B Shore, he tells Floyd to step on it. At the site, Tragg tries to keep Mason from seeing the body, but Mason calls the other three over. While a police photographer makes photos, Mason cautions Helen Kendal what not to say, namely that Shore refused go into Leech's hotel.
8.	Tragg brings a bundle of items wrapped in a handkerchief. Gerald identifies some of the items as his brother Franklin's. A special dial on a watch indicates it was wound up around four-thirty or five in the afternoon. Tragg says the body is Leech's. Mason insists he should go with Tragg to the Castle Gate Hotel so, of course, Tragg says no.
9.	Which gives them time to see Matilda in the hospital before Tragg catches on. Gerald tells Matilda that Franklin is alive. Confirmed by telephone that day. This catches Matilda's attention. A nurse tries to chase the group out but Matilda waves her off. Matilda explains that her poisoning was caused by her getting the wrong bottle out of the medicine cabinet. She is informed that Leech was killed by a .38 to the left side of the head. Tragg arrives with a detective. Tragg examines Matilda; wasn't she poisoned by strychnine, and why does she have that? It is a heart stimulant. Tragg then announces that there was no strychnine nor sleeping tablets in her medicine cabinet, which he's already searched! Matilda's doctor arrives to eject the visitors, five minutes too late!
10.	Perry, Della and Gerald drop Helen off at her home, then drive on. Gerald is worried, especially when Mason notes that Tragg might show his photo to the desk clerk at the Castle Gate Hotel. He'd then know Gerald had been there and was now the prime suspect in the murder. Gerald now admits that he was the one who called on his brother Franklin the night he disappeared. He was in desperate straits and had a deal with Franklin, which would bring him needed funds via a check. When Franklin disappeared, he forged the check he had not yet received. Also, he went out to see Leech but the man never returned to the hotel. Further, Franklin had made a check to Rodney French which Gerald could cash, so the forgery was perfect. A lot of Franklin's financial affairs became public in the newspapers, including that check. Mason agrees to take Gerald as his client, but he must keep his mouth shut.
11.	Helen has just relaxed when Jerry Templar shows up. After he accuses her of being out with someone else but finds it was Gerald, they hear a thump . . . thump . . . thump of a cane in Matilda's bedroom. Jerry goes to investigate, and is shot dead.
12.	Mason and Street drop Shore off. They stop at a lunch counter and Mason gives the attendant their order while Della charms Paul Drake over the phone. Drake's night man says the boss hasn't come in yet. Paul arrives shortly thereafter directly at Mason's office and is briefed and given his orders. After the phone rings several times at five-minute intervals, Perry has Della answer it. Helen Kendal says her boy friend is being operated on at the hospital. Mason notes that his client could have had time to reach the house and do the shooting.
13.	Perry tells Della she or he could provide Shore his alibi, but Mason can't do it as his lawyer. He wants to case the house before going in, but a police man catches him and escorts him to Tragg. Shore and Komo are with Tragg, as he begins his interrogation of Mason, since Shore won't answer any questions. Tragg and Mason spar over whether Shore could be a killer, and Mason beats Tragg. Komo is ushered out. Then Tragg brings up the question of three going into the Castle Gate Hotel, but four coming to the scene of the crime. He gets a phone call from the Castle Gate and is informed that Shore was there for most of an early evening. Tragg has Mason ushered out. Della has left.
14.	Mason's phone is jumping off the hook when he returns to his apartment. It is Della; she's got Thomas B Lunk, the Shore gardener in her car and she is stalling him by getting her car repaired while waiting until she could reach Perry. He hurries to join them, promises to get Lunk to Mrs Shore at the hospital, and pries information out of him while driving. Lunk always thought that Komo had poisoned Franklin because his brother died at the house and he, by leaving, immediately felt better. Franklin helped Lunk's brother and Lunk feels a bit obligated, because Franklin also paid for him to return east so the body could be buried and his mother could be at the funeral. Now he believes he was wrong, but the poisoning of the cat, then Mrs Shore, makes him think Komo is now doing just that. At the hospital the two can't get passed the two police guards or a nurse. They leave and Mason drops Street off at a cab. Mason figures that Lunk's need to see Mrs Shore immediately comes only because he's seen Franklin Shore, who must have come to the gardener's house. Lunk caves in, admits that Franklin is asleep at his house and he needs to communicate this with the Mrs and get back before Franklin wakes up. Lunk reveals that Franklin knew Leech and may have been involved with him in a mining deal. Also, Franklin may have trained a double to return west and try to fool Matilda. Mason suggests they send Matilda flower-shop flowers with a card from Lunk; that will get Matilda to call him, which is a way to get by the police guard.
15.	Mason and Lunk enter his bungalow, five rooms including bathroom. Franklin Shore is not there, and the kitten is contentedly asleep, paw prints leading from kitchen to bedroom. Mason makes a thorough survey of the premises, which doors are open, by how much, and how Lunk remembers them. There is a card signed by George Alber. Mason suggests he take Lunk incognito to a hotel.
16.	Helen Kendal is awaiting the outcome of the operation to Jerry Templar when Tragg arrives. He questions her about the shooting; wasn't it possible she was the target? He goes to Dr Rosslyn for the bullet, which nurse Dewar digs out of blood-covered cloth. Tragg then questions Templar, gets nothing, and chases his nurse out of the room so that Helen and Jerry can be together. Tragg drives to headquarters and give his laboratory man, Angus MacIntosh, the bullet from Templar and one from the house door that missed him. An anonymous phone call tells Tragg where an important witness (Lunk) is being hidden.
17.	Mason drives Amber Eyes to Della Street's apartment. She reports on her visit to Lunk's, and Mason asks about each door, how far it was opened, and so on, including that the pantry door was shut. She noticed a card, but not the name on it.
18.	Della fights the alarm clock, loses. After showering, she finds Lt Tragg at the door. She dresses, feeds Amber Eyes to keep him quiet, the heads out the door, but is foiled by Tragg who pushes his way in. Just as they are to leave, a piercing cry comes from the kitten. Della finds the cat clutching the clothesline, which caught him when he went to play with it, and sailed him over the yard. Tragg takes Street and kitten to headquarters.
19.	Paul Drake wakes Perry Mason at eleven-thirty, is pleased that he's done to the attorney at mid-day what the attorney does to him all too often at midnight or later. He reports what he's found, most of which Mason knows. When Drake says Tragg has the kitten, Mason reacts, calls Gertie to find Della is not in, instructs Jackson to get a writ of habeas corpus for his signature, then heads to the office.
20.	Mason is ushered directly into Hamilton Burger's office. Burger tells Mason he's going to get him disbarred by first convicting him of having Della Street spirit Franklin Shore, who is known to be wanted by the police, into hiding, then getting the attorney as an accessory. Mason says he'll see him in court.
21.	Court, Judge Lankershim presiding. The court bailiff calls things to order. Mason says he'll accept the first twelve persons called as his jury. Burger examines each but accepts the first twelve, who are now on Mason's side because he, not Burger, trusted them. Helen Kendal is called and recites the order of events from the phone call sending her to Mason to finding a dead body to Jerry's being shot. Tragg testifies. Matilda testifies. Others including the autopsy surgeon testify. Lunk is called, tries to avoid telling when Della left him and Perry. Mason asks him about the condition of the house, including the shut pantry door. Burger interrupts to interject the taxi driver who took Della to Lunk's, then Tragg to finding the kitten at Della's and Helen to identify the kitten as the one which was poisoned and taken to Lunk's. Lunk hasn't opened the flour tin since the thirteenth, well before Shore's arrival. A thirty-minute recess is called, for Mason has noticed Tragg rushing out of the courtroom, probably to Lunk's to check the flour tin. George Alber comes to Mason, says he stopped by Lunk's about midnight; a light was on inside but no one answered the bell, so he left his card.
22.	Tragg has returned. He found a .38 in the flour tin with three bullets having been fired. Four purposes of showing Tragg's bias, Judge Lankershim allows certain questions. Angus MacIntosh comes in, and testifies to finding $23,555 currency in bills in the tin. Burger is trapped into concluding his case, arguing that spiriting away of a witness "with the intent of preventing him from testifying . . . constitutes a crime." Mason points out that for circumstantial evidence to convict all elements must be accounted for. How does the D A account for the kitten jumping into the tin, then rushing into the first bedroom and jumping on to the bed, then jumping directly off and going to the next bedroom.
23.	Burger is baffled, and Mason is unhelpful. Lunk comes forward and volunteers that Franklin Shore didn't put the money in the tin. He gives the DA and Mason his story of Franklin being fair with him, and how he planned for a double to return to California as himself while he married his young woman. And so forth. Mason refused to solve the case, but notes that Lunk believes that Komo was testing poison.
24.	Perry and Della are dancing when Paul joins them. Five Scotch and sodas are ordered, three in one for Paul. Mason notes that only one person could have put through the call telling Tragg where Lunk was, Lunk himself who, Paul reports, has been killed in a hit-and-run. He reminds Paul how the kitten refused one bed and settled on the other.
25.	The jury took three hours and ten minutes, ten more than Perry said it would take, to acquit Della. The point is that the cat jumped first on the bed Franklin Shore was supposed to have slept on, but it had not been slept on so was cold. The cat then went to the bed that had been slept on and was warm, Lunk's. Which proves Franklin was never there, but Lunk was. The truth is that Lunk and Matilda Shore were in cahoots, and she was paying Leech blackmail. She shot Leech, made the mistake of putting the murder weapon in her desk. When she figured Tragg would search the whole house, not just the medicine cabinet, she called Lunk who got out of bed, went to the house, retrieved the gun just as Templar opened the door. He fired two shots and got away. Further, Franklin has been long dead, his body substituted for Phil Lunk and sent east, where there probably is no mother. Mason explains the remaining details; it all seems "so plain once you explain them" says Della.

Adele Blane	[Jameson's deputy, later. . .]	. . . William L Frankline
Harley Raymand	Coroner's representative	Jurors
Vincent P Blane	Switchboard operator	Frank L Wimblie
The Buried Clock	Storekeeper	Dr Claude Ritchie, autopsy surgeon
Jack Hardisty	Gertie	Judge Canfield
Milicent Blane Hardisty	Paul Drake	Unidentified witness
Hotel switchboard operator	Martha Stevens	Charles Renfew, Roxbury police
Burton Strague	Two Los Angeles policemen	Dr Kelmont Pringle
Lola Strague	Dr Macon's housekeeper, Mable	Fred Hermann, Roxbury police
Rodney Burton	Dr Jefferson Macon	William Smiley
Myrna Payson	Assistant D A Thomas L McNair	Hamilton Burger
Perry Mason	A Drake operative	Tire identification experts
Della Street	Frank Marigold	Sheriff's office representative
Kenvale Dep Sheriff William N Jameson	Jim Spencer	Jackson
	George Crane, deputy constable

One of the all-time favorite Perry Mason novels. Partly because Erle Stanley Gardner reaches new heights in his dialogue. Partly because of the clarity of plot. Every clue is laid out in front of the reader without obfuscation.

Mason still smokes. "Swell" is still a descriptive, but not every chapter. Mason still pushes his thumbs into the armholes of his vest when thinking and pacing.

1.	Adele Blane is driving Harley Raymand up to dad Vincent Blane's cabin. As they drive, she tells him about how Jack Hardisty has failed her father. Hardisty married Milicent, Adele's sister. He is exhausted, falls asleep outside the cabin after hearing a Tick-tick-tick which turns out to be a buried clock, twenty-five minutes slow. Jack Hardisty arrives with a garden spade. Adele and Harley leave; she tells him about Jack's losing $10,000 and expecting dad to cover it. Milicent comes up the mountain road, says hello, and quickly goes on.
2.	Harley showers, the quickly falls asleep. The phone wakes him and the switchboard operator advises him that Vincent Blane is there to see him. Blane's mission is to get Harley to stay at the cabin, because Hardisty has taken $90,000 from the bank when he refused to cover the $10,000. Harley agrees to stay at the cabin.
3.	Harley hears someone on the porch. It is Burton Strague, looking for anyone to help him with a car that's gone off the road. At the crash site, Harley meets Lola Strague, Burton's sister. It is Jack's car. Another car arrives, with Rod Beaton and Myrna Payson. They eventually turn the car over and find it empty. Back at the cabin, Harley falls asleep on the porch. When the sun comes up and he wakes, he goes in and starts breakfast, then goes out to find the ticking clock, which is still twenty-five minutes slow. Back in the cabin, he goes to the bedroom, and finds Jack Hardisty, dead.
4.	When Perry Mason arrives at the office, Della Street has a new case she thinks he'll take, since it involves a buried clock.
5.	Mason, Street, deputy sheriff Jameson, a coroner's representative, Vincent Blane and Harley Raymand convene at the cabin. They cannot find the buried clock. Aside, Blane explains to Mason how Hardisty stole $90,000 and how he was stuck for it since the bonding company wouldn't bond Hardisty until he guaranteed the bond. He also tells Mason how Adele met Milicent on the road to the cabin. Milicent had a gun which she threw away along the road. Milicent was supposed to be sleeping in a room at Blane's, but she's not there. Mason and Street sneak quietly off, to a telephone, where he makes two calls. He advises Adele to disappear. He then gets a switchboard operator to make a call to his office, and gets the storekeeper to give him change, so he'll remember this one call. Gertie answers and catches on why Mason has made this second call.
6.	At the Kenvale hotel, Mason sends Street off to get the specific location of the county line and the cabin. He then calls Paul Drake and gets him started collecting information. He then calls for Blane, gets the housekeeper, Martha Stevens, who tells him Mrs Hardisty is sleeping, not to be disturbed. Blane, Jameson, the Stragues and Beaton burst in. Lola has found the murder weapon. Beaton believes he saw Milicent throw the gun away between six-fifteen and dark. Aside, Blane says he recognizes the gun, which he gave Milicent for her protection. Two Los Angeles policemen have conferred with Jameson, now they come to Mason's group demanding to see Mrs Hardisty. They all go to Blane's house. Milicent answers their knocks. Yes, she knows of his shortage. She saw her husband about one or one-thirty. Yes, she was going to the cabin, but didn't get there and didn't see her husband. She did see Adele. Mason intercedes when the questioning goes beyond proper examination and forces the police to arrest Milicent on a charge of murder.
7.	Back at the hotel Perry confers with Della. He wants Raymand to go back to the cabin and look around. Mason has noted that Hardisty wore nose-pincher glasses, but no glasses were in the room. Further, his shoes were shiney, no sign of pine dust, and they were pointed towards the bed, not away as they would have been if he took them off sitting on the bed. There was a little dried mud on his trouser, even though it hasn't rained in Southern California for a month.
8.	Raymand goes hunting for the missing buried clock, but cannot find it. He does see a glint of light from a crack in a rock, but Lola Strague appears and he tries to conceal his find. They spar, exchanging some personal information. Eventually he quits concealment, finds broken glass from glasses. Lola and Harley spar further, over why Lola is annoyed with the presence of Myrna Payson. It is because Beaton, who photographs animals with a flash and camera tripped by threads strung across trails, has been taking Myrna out with him, not her. Mason arrives and is shown the glass, finds another. He also finds fresh auto tire tracks, owner unknown.
9.	Mason pays a visit to Myrna Payson. She is very forthright, a widow who has come to grips with the world and knows how to make it work for her. She did not see Milicent throw away the gun, because she was watching her face intently. It was the face of a woman who had made a decision. Myrna thinks Milicent may have taken a shot at her husband, then realized this would lead her to prison, so left, set on going forward regardless of the consequences with the man she loved.
10.	Perry has Della phone Blane for the name of Milicent's doctor. Then he confers with Paul Drake's. The clock is set to sidereal time, and thus, due to Pacific War (aka daylight saving) time, is thirty-five minutes fast. Drake's man reports on the autopsy; Hardisty was killed between seven and ten-thirty and the bullet is not in the body.
11.	At Milicent's doctor's office, Mason is led to the doctor by the housekeeper, Mable. Doctor Jefferson Macon plays cagey, tries to impress Mason, fails. Mason hits him with the two new tires; since rationing is in effect, it will be easy to trace the tire tracks at the cabin to the car that made them. Macon admits to ministering to Milicent, whom he met in Kenvale, not at the cabin. He met her between six and seven, finally administered a sedative about ten-thirty and then sent her into her home. Mason accuses him of driving her up to the cabin, proven by the tire tracks, and then of being in love with Milicent. As such, his professional confidentiality might not apply. Mason points out that not going into the house, putting her to bed, then administering the sedative, shows rather a strange way to do things as a doctor. Jameson and deputy D A Thomas L McNair have arrived. Mason has the doctor bandage his head, sling his arm and pour antiseptic over this so he can get out without being recognized.
12.	Drake has located Adele Blane, but his operative then lost her.
13.	Mason and Drake go to Blane's, find no one there. They go to Milicent's, find the door ajar. The see through a window a desk whose lock has been broken and the contents rifled. Then Mason finds a foot at the door, and an unconscious man on the floor. Two policemen arrive, one, Frank. When George wakes, he tells of leaving the lights off while the deputy sheriffs went for a key or a search warrant. He heard noises and saw a woman with flashlight looking into the desk. The front door was locked; he went to the back door and snuck in, was of a sudden confronted by a woman, fired a shot just as she knocked him out. This happened fifteen to twenty minutes earlier. Mason and Drake go to the garage where Adele had stored her car; she took it out forty-five minutes earlier.
14.	Raymand is alone at the cabin when Adele and Myrna come out of the woods near where the clock should be. They commiserate in the cabin when Rodney and Lola arrive from setting his cameras. Adele hides. Burt arrives looking for his sister, who claims to have left him a note, but which he didn't find. He's been searching the trails, tripped on of Rodney's cameras; Rodney noted the specific camera flash going off at nine-five. A scream reveals Adele in the bedroom. Dr Macon was apparently there and has just been arrested by Jameson and his deputy.
15.	Now Mason and Drake arrive. Jameson has the bullet Macon was trying to remove from its hiding place, and Adele Blane is witness to his coming through the window. As Macon and Adele are being taken out, Mason notes to Drake Beaton's shoes with reddish clay mud. This mud occurs near a tunnel on an upper trail. They all agree to go there.
16.	They find the red clay, then enter the tunnel and find an area recently cut by a garden spade. They head down the hill.
17.	The Kern County Bugle reports that the murder of Jack Hardisty may have been planned to happen when the stars were auspicious.
18.	The newspaper reports on the events at Milicent's house and the finding of a piece of broken glass from Jack Hardisty's glasses seventy-five yards from the cabin, which allows Los Angeles County jurisdiction in the case.
19.	Back at his office, Mason finishes reading the newspaper. Mason hasn't been able to get Milicent to talk to him. The case will be tried by Thomas L McNair from the east whose whirlwind career has him winning nine of ten cases. Paul charges in with the news that the D A has him dead to rights. It has to do with the glass piece Raymand found. Mason asks Drake if he's had the prescription of the piece he has checked. No. Do it.
20.	The jurors are chosen and McNair begins his examination, routine questions of Frank L Wimblie from the coroner's office, then specifics from Dr Claude Ritchie, autopsy surgeon. Not only was the bullet not in the dead man, but scopolamine, truth serum, was. The doctor says death was between seven-thirty and ten, most likely eight-forty-five and nine, giving the possibilities as chances out of fifty. Mason's cross first asks about powder burns; none. Then is the doctor a gambler, because he used odds to calculate time of death. Judge Canfield then asks Dr Macon, acting as his own counsel, if he has questions. He asks how the scopolamine was determined and is told three different tests. Vincent Blane is called to testify to the thefts by Hardisty. Adele Blane testifies to going to the cabin, seeing Hardisty there with a spade, meeting Milicent on the road. Milicent told her she'd thrown her gun away because she was afraid. Milicent lost her on the way into Kenvale, so she went to Dr Macon's; he returned at ten-thirty, saying he'd not seen Milicent. An unidentified witness identifies Hardisty's spade. Charles Renfrew of the Roxbury police force testifies to finding Hardisty's spade in Dr Macon's garden. Beaton testifies to seeing Milicent throw something down the hill, and of finding a .38 the next day. Lola Strague also identifies the gun. Then evidence showing that the gun was purchased by Vincent P Blane is introduced.
21.	Jameson's deputy Willliam L Frankline testifies to the surveillance they made at the cabin and finding Dr Macon taking a bullet from behind a picture. When Mason starts to cross-examine if Macon might not have been putting the bullet behind the picture, he sees McNair smirking, and quickly stops, to the trial deputy's consternation. Dr Kelmont Pringle identifies a .38 Colt revolver. Dr Macon's bullet was not fired from this gun. Blood on the bullet has red corpuscles of one thirty-five hundredths of an inch. Mason asks if a human being's isn't one thirty-two hundredths. Yes. The bullet blood is that of a dog. Fred Hermann of the Roxbury police testifies to finding a dog, buried in Macon's yard, killed by a bullet that had been removed.
22.	Mason explains the dog bit to Della. The Paul arrives with the buried clock, which is now almost exactly on sidereal time.
23.	Mason forces the court to allow introduction of the clock. Harley Raymand testifies to finding it near the scene of the murder on the day of the murder, then the day after the murder, and then not until they are trying the case. Jameson then testifies to finding a note in Macon's car from Milicent. It is a good-bye note, for she cannot stand what her husband has done to her father. On cross, Mason goes after the thoroughness of Jameson. Did he look for a gun tossed by Milicent? No, because they'd found the murder weapon. Maybe she threw a gun which killed the dog; has he looked for that? Mason thoroughly confuses Jameson and makes his testimony look worthless.
24.	Mason is pacing, thumbs in the armholes of his vest. He can't figure how the clock, or astrology, can be tied into the case. Drake, however, arrives with news that Myrna Payson is a student of astrology. The piece of glass he had is not from Jack Hardisty's spectacles, but someone about thirty-six years old and the only possible suspect that age is Myrna. Paul gives Perry a circular piece of carbon paper he found near the clock site. Then it clicks; Martha Stevens is thirty-eight, wears spectacles, is a practical nurse trained in giving of hypodermics. Adele went to the San Venito hotel and registered as Martha Stevens to meet someone with whom Martha could not keep an appointment. He calls Stevens and asks her to bring Blane's insulin hypodermic to Paul Drake's office, which will get her out of the house.
25.	The go to search Martha Stevens' room at the Blane house, and someone tosses gravel against the window. Mason lets him in; in the dark he thinks Della is Martha. He, William Smiley, was with Martha when her glasses were broken by Hardisty, who took a swing at Martha just after she gave him the hypo. He talked, before it took effect, and fooled them into going up to the tunnel. He had the gun and chucked it away when he had to subdue Hardisty after he swung at Martha. After finding nothing in the tunnel, they went into town, passing Adele coming up to the cabin. He expected to meet Martha at the San Venito, but she wasn't there. They exit, and Perry confides to Della that either Smiley is lying, or telling the unvarnished truth.
26.	Hamilton Burger has joined the proceedings. McNair has tire identification experts identify the tire tracks at the cabin as from Macon's car. Burger recalls Jameson, who has found a .38 Colt revolver, fully loaded, with Milicent's fingerprints on it. A sheriff's representative testifies that this gun was registered by Vincent P Blane. Beaton testifies that the gun he found had been recently fired; he is a collector of firearms. Mason asks if he, in searching for a place to put his camera, heard a ticking clock. Over various objections, the court adjourns without a decision on the clock situation.
27.	Mason sets Jackson to searching any case which would allow him to pursue the question of why Beaton was where he was when he found his gun. Drake reports that Payson is interested in astrology, but knows nothing about astronomy. Mason calls the county clerk and has him check the clock's time. The clock hasn't gained a minute since the day before, while sidereal time moves four minutes a day. Now Mason knows the solution to the murder.
28.	Mason goes after Beaton regarding how his pictures are made, and then of the one of Burton Strague. He was caught by the flash, yet the tracks he made showed consistent motion, not a reaction of surprise to the flash. Is the piece of circular carbon paper Mason presents (which Drake gave him) not the same size as the lens glass. Yes. Wouldn't it be possible for an alarm clock to trip the shutter when the alarm went off? Didn't the flash go off at about the same time the Hardisty house was being burglarized and George Crane was slugged? Burger calls for an adjournment to look at the new interpretation of the evidence.
29.	Mason offers Street and Drake some rare old cognac. The order of events is played out. Martha got Milicent to get her the drug and took Milicent's gun. Martha and Smiley used the truth serum, went to the tunnel. Jack Strague was Hardisty's accomplice and would go to the penitentiary if Jack talked. Milicent took another of her father's guns, but threw it away. Milicent and Macon found Hardisty dying. Macon thought Milicent had hysterical amnesia and had probably shot him. But Burt had gotten into an argument with Jack and learned that Jack couldn't go on but would tell what he'd done. Meanwhile Martha and Smiley were up at the tunnel, but Burt already had the money. Burt drove Hardisty's car over the embankment. He inserted the carbon in the lens, having already placed an exposed picture in the camera. He went to Hardisty's, dressed as a girl; he was slim enough. The clock was set to Beaton's notoriously inaccurate watch, not sidereal time. Vincent Blane arrives; the murder has confessed, and the group drinks the cognac.

Perry Mason	Peter G Sims	Lt Tragg
Della Street	Hayward Small	Sheriff Sam Greggory
Gertie	Dr Bruce Kenward	Sheriff's aide
[Banker or state senator]	Harvey Brady	Greggory's headquarters man
Salty (Prentice C) Bowers	Cowpuncher courier Joe	Paul Drake
Banning Clarke	Lucille M Brunn	Notary Public
Lillian Bradisson	[Hen Moss]	District Attorney Topham
James Bradisson	Dorina Crofton	[Mrs Banning Clarke]
Nurse Velma Starler	George V Moffgat	[Rupert Craiglaw]
Housekeeper and cook Nell Sims	[Jerry Coslet]

Erle Stanley Gardner's prose reaches new peaks of descriptive color with this novel. Most importantly, however, is the creation of a character the equal of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Mrs Malaprop in "The Rivals," housekeeper and cook Nell Sims. She mixes metaphors and whatever else she can get her mouth on; her first; "Many a time in jest we cast pearls of wisdom before swine."

1.	Perry Mason is catching up on his mail with Della Street when Gertie informs him that there are two people waiting to see him, a banker or state senator, and a tramp. The tramp is Salty Bowers, a prospector, wants Mason to help him get his partner, Banning Clarke, free of his doctor.
2.	Perry and Della follow Salty to Banning Clarke's mansion in San Roberto. Banning is living not in the mansion, but in a little cove of cacti. When his wife died, she left all her money &emdash; he'd signed his property over to his wife &emdash; to her mother and brother, Lillian and James Bradisson. In court on his suit, however, the judge settled it by splitting the stock sixty-forty. Everything came tumbling down and his heart gave out.
3.	Salty's greasy food and moving Banning out into the open air have improved his health. Clarke identifies the people involved in the fraud suit and his current situation. He has a live-in nurse, Velma Starler and an eccentric housekeeper and cook, Nell Sims, whose husband Pete is a claim salter. Mining broker Hayward Small has told Pete about split personalities, so Pete uses his second personality to explain everything he does wrong. Pete has salted mines and sold them to the corporation. Banning wants Mason to lose Nell's suit. Starler arrives to get Banning to rest. Then Nell brings tomato juice. Finally Della types out a stock pooling agreement between Salty and Banning, which they sign.
4.	Starler is trying to sleep, but a mosquito's buzz keeps her awake. She turns on the light, tries to find the mosquito. The light has caught Nell Sims' attention, and she knocks. Lillian and James are sick. Velma determines that it is, as they claim, poison, and calls Dr Bruce Kenward to come. He agrees that it is arsenic poison, probably from the salt shaker only the two, not house guests, use at dinner. Sure, the shaker has arsenic in it. Velma retires, tries to get the mosquito, who now seems drowsy, using a flash light. AT her window, she sees a figure in the yard, trains her flash light on him, and is rewarded with two gun shots that crash the window glass about her. Banning comes out in underwear and fires at the fleeing figure.
5.	Harvey Brady has Mason and Street checking a boundary line on his huge cattle ranch when a cowpuncher named Joe acting as courier informs Mason that he is wanted on the phone urgently. While Mason waits the long distance connection, Della shows him the marriage intention in the newspaper; Bowers&emdash;Brunn, Lucille M. On the phone, Banning informs Mason of a regular annual stockholder's meeting being due today, of the poisoning and the gun shots.
6.	No one is eating at Banning's. Banning informs Mason of finding his forty-five bullet in a wall near a gate and of the arsenic in the salt shaker. Then he explains the myth around the Goler Lost Mine and how he, but no one else except the original prospector, Hen Moss, has found it. He shows Mason a rusted single-action Colt revolver with Goler an 1882 carved in its ivory handle. He thinks Bradisson knows of his finding. Dorina Crofton, Mrs Sims' daughter by an earlier marriage, joins them. Mason is worried that, by appointing Banning a director, he'd have to divulge any information he has that would be of fiduciary value to the corporation. Mason gives five dollars to Banning to purchase his stock. Dorina leads Mason to Banning's house bedroom where Mason gets the stock certificate, then forges Banning's signature to the transfer. The stockholder's meeting has broken up and Banning has been voted a director. Mason informs corporation lawyer George Moffgat that the carefully baited trap won't work, since Banning is no longer a stockholder. Nell chirps in, "Fear the Greeks when they bear olive branches," defining the situation succinctly. Young Bradisson admits they wanted information. Moffgat wants to get Mason to agree to a stipulation. Before Mason can get Banning to trace his signature over the forgery, Moffgat returns. He wants to depose Pete Sims. Mason counters with a deposition of James Bradisson at the same time. Mufti then tries to add Banning Clarke, Mason refuses, and Mufti says he has secured a court order and subpoena, but Clarke has already absented himself so cannot be served and Salty notes "the Devil himself couldn't find him!" "out there in the dark."
7.	Mason and Street finally get dinner including pie. They find a paper with a note from Dorina; she and Hayward Small are going to Las Vegas to get married. Nell thinks she'll regret it when the young men, such as Dorina's former boyfriend Jerry Coslet, return from war. Lucille Brunn arrives, is introduced, then Velma rushes in. Lucille doesn't like Moffgat's eyes. Velma heads out to see her patient. Della gets sick and Mason calls Velma back, then he gets sick, both from arsenic.
8.	Velma and Dr Kenward, having relieved the two new poisoned persons of their problem, discuss the evening's events. Salty and Banning have disappeared and the evidence at the camp site, neatly, tightly rolled sleeping bags as indicated by marks in the sand, suggest a planned departure of campers. With a bit of prompting, Banning rests, and Velma quietly gets two blankets from the house, places then deftly over him, then finally calls the police "to report an attempted homicide."
9.	Lieutenant Tragg, on vacation visiting his brother, wakens Mason. He informs Mason that the arsenic was on top of the sugar in the bowl. Clarke also had tea sugared from the bowl. Sheriff Sam Greggory joins them. Nell Sims has disappeared. A sheriff's aide informs he Nell has returned. She is asked questions and snaps back. She had sugar from the bowl, and did not suffer. Shots are heard from the cactus garden and Velma Starler screams.
10.	Greggory and Tragg find Dr Kenward wounded. They determine that he was stalked like a deer is stalked. Headquarters reports Salty Bowers with Banning Clarke heading to the hospital. At the hospital the find Clarke dead.
11.	Mason wakens at night, calls Paul Drake and gets him to pose as a prospector.
12.	Mason goes looking for Starler, sees Lillian Bradisson in Clarke's room rifling his private desk. She replaces one document with another. When it seems she is getting up to leave, he slips in through an open door. He hears a thump-thump-thump, then someone moves in the dark. It is Della. She understands Clarke was not killed by poison, but a bullet.
13.	Mason slips into Clarke's room finds that a will, dated the previous day, has been tacked to the bottom of a drawer; it leaves Salty and Velma bequests and Mason a fee. He finds a phial in a drawer with a dying mosquito. Della, on watch, lets Mason know that Tragg has arrived. Greggory is with him. Della stalls them long enough for Mason to play asleep. He brazens it out.
14.	Tragg suggests to Mason that it was the attorney who sent Bowers and Clarke in to hiding. Mason responds that it probably was the subpoena from Moffgat. Tragg tells Mason that Clarke left a will in the desk where Mason was sleeping.
15.	The Notary Public administers the oath to Pete Sims and Moffgat begins his questioning. Sims brings his alter ego, Bob, into the testimony, then is trapped by Moffgat. He suggests that Mason isn't going to contest the issue since Sims has all but admitted culpability. Mason still wants to take the testimony of James Bradison. Bradison brags about his own ability to judge character and to tell good gold in a mine. Mason thus traps him, for by his own knowledge he should not have trusted Sims.
16.	A newspaper's headline reads "PROSPECTOR LOCATES LOST BONANZA." Brady and Drake have pulled off Mason's scam. The newspaper gives full details. Mason phones Brady, finds Drake is having fun on the expense account. Drake's agency reports that some of Clark's claims are under option that expires at midnight.
17.	Della is navigator as Perry drives into the desert. They find Salty and Dr Kenward. The doctor says that the first poisoning, of the Bradissons, was false, it was ipecac. Salty shows Mason the effects of black-light for detecting minerals in the dark. The machine emits a low humming sound. Mason and Street watch the stars for more than two hours.
18.	A burrow bugles, wakening Mason. Then Salty shows up. Despite wartime, Clarke had laid in a supply of canned goods. After breakfast, Mason and Street go on to Mojave and find Nell's place, reopened. She offers just-cooked pie. Then Paul Drake and Harvey Brady come in, the former acting quite drunk. Pete Sims bursts in; Drake has told Mason he has a chance to get half ownership in a great mining claim and discovers it is Sims, chased by Sheriff Greggory.
19.	Sheriff Greggory rushes into Nell's, followed by Mrs and son Bradisson. Sims admits the bag he gave Nell for safekeeping was arsenic. She placed it next the sugar, and Dorina probably couldn't tell the difference! Mason reveals that the first poisoning wasn't poison. Lillian Bradisson and son James try to put Mason in the corner, accusing Mason of stealing the real will. Mason counters with their feigning being poisoned and is able to leave without giving up the will, because the sheriff is out of his bailiwick in Mojave. Mason now confides with Street that he believes that the drowsy mosquito was really the buzz of a black-light machine, and the shots fired at Starler were to scare her away from the window.
20.	By moonlight, Mason goes looking with black-light for clues in the masonry of Clarke's wall or house. He finds a Shooting Star, the ranch where Banning thought that he found the lost Goler mine. Nell arrives with Pete. The bag of arsenic has "GUARD CAREFULLY. PETE SIMS. PRIVATE" written on it and his gets Mason's attention. Sheriff Greggory arrives, now in his bailiwick, and takes Mason in custody.
21.	D A accuses Mason of larceny of a paper. Mason counters that it is within his rights as executor of the state. Greggory is not amused.
22.	Perry tells Della that he got off because the D A was concerned with the will and forgot about the stock certificate. When they arrive at Banning Clarke's, Drake is on the phone, with fact that it is Hayward Small who has taken the prospector bait, offering a fifty-fifty deal. He is with Drake, and Mason says to come on in to town. Mason questions Pete about salting a claim and gets a full explanation. Pete swears he'll no longer use Bob as an excuse. He says Small has some sort of hold over Jim Bradisson. Also, Dorina's soldier boy showed up and Dorina didn't marry Small. Mason has Street type out an assumed statement by Jim Bradisson accusing Small of putting the poison in the sugar bowl, and to leave it in the typewriter.
23.	Sheriff Greggory is in full steam, but D A Topham is worn out. Drake and Small arrive and Mason suggests Greggory use Banning Clarke's room to question Small. As the two head upstairs, Mason detains the sheriff to suggest Della take notes. Drake reports to Mason that Small only met Bradisson in January 1942. Greggory demands Mason come up; Small has read the paper in Della's typewriter. Now Topham doesn't believe Greggory's denials of there ever being such a declaration by Bradison. Small comes forth with the fact that he "did bring a little pressure to bear on Jim Bradisson about eighteen months ago." Greggory doesn't want to hear it, but now Topham is on Mason's side. Mason corners Small; he was a witness to a will which came after the one giving Mrs Bradisson and her brother from the deceased Mrs Banning Clarke. He's blackmailing Jim Bradisson. Mason suggests Bradisson tried to poison Small to get rid of him, but Small never took his usual cup of tea. Four people had tea without incident. When the stockholders came out of the meeting, Banning Clarke got his second cup of tea and the full dose of poison. Small now admits he was witness to a later will, with someone named Craiglaw. Mason admits to underestimating Moffgat, who should have given Banning his subpoena when he could but, instead, let him go out so he could later follow him and kill him if the poison hadn't.
24.	Salty, Perry and Della are out in the desert. Mason tells Salty that the mosquito he found in a phial in Banning's drawer was a hint, of the noise made by a black-light machine, and Salty is sole inheritor under Banning's will, who truly inherited under the earlier will. Salty says he and Lucille are going to Las Vegas to get married, as are Dr Kenward and nurse Starler, and maybe three couples would be welcome. Della says that Mason should never settle down, nor she, for it would kill the excitement.

Perry Mason	West Narlan desk man	Douglas Burwell	[Mabel, his wife]
Della Street	Negro elevator operator	Long distance operator	Jim, another officer
Jackson	Lieutenant Tragg	Burwell's hotel clerk	Yet another officer
Arthur Bickler	Carol Burban	Frances, Drake's switchboard girl	[Judge Roxmann]
Sarah Bickler	Carol's father, Roger	Autopsy surgeon, later Dr Colfax C Newbern	Two uniformed officers
[Truck driver]	Judson Beltin	Al, Drake's operative	Judge Newark
Paul Drake	Parking garage attendants	Della's taxi driver	D A Hamilton Burger
Gertie	Surf and Sun Motel manager	Gallant man, later Detective Harvey Teays	Maurice Linton
C V Sticklan	J C Lassing	Taxi starter	Surveyor
[Adelaide Kingman]	Dobe Hut hostess	Second taxi driver	Photographer
Frank Palermo	George Avon	Man in cab, later St. Claire	[Laboratory expert]
[Fred Milfield]	Office janitor	Woodridge Hotel clerk	Thomas Lawton Cameron
Daphne Milfield	Pierre	Mac	Two officers, one named Medford
Harry Van Nuys	Cornish Hotel night clerk	Police officer at headquarters

Perry Mason's longest courtroom scene? Chapter 16. Pages 121 through 174 of the 218 pages of text in the William Morrow and Company edition. 54 of 218 is ever so slightly less than 25%. One quarter of the book, and it is just the preliminary hearing!

Jackson has been heard but rarely seen, and we know little about this law clerk to Mason. Now, Gardner gives us a detailed appearance.

Eating out, Mason always has steak, Della steak or filet mignon, never fish. Paul Drake the same.

In his earliest novels, Gardner always ended with a lead-in to the next mystery. Here he returns to that practice.

1.	Perry Mason finds Della Street "dusting the corners of his desk with secretarial solicitude." She prepares to take dictation as Mason looks over the three piles of mail. "It's Friday, Della" is his response. He doesn't want to get into a rut, and offers Jackson, his law clerk, as example. Jackson is perplexed by a case involving the Skinner Hills Karakul Company, one of whose trucks with rear-ended by Arthur Bickler who wants Mason to represent him and his wife, Sarah. The truck driver took Bickler's notebook when Bickler wrote down the license plate number. Mason instructs Jackson to get Paul Drake to look up the company. Gertie puts through a call from C V Sticklan of Sticklan, Crowe & Ross. Sticklan offers settlement in sum of three hundred dollars to settle the Bickler situation. Mason consults with Jackson who says Bickler will settle for $250, his wife for $500, the two together for $500. Mason then asks Sticklan for $2500, hangs up when Sticklan objects. Two minutes ten seconds later the phone rings and Sticklan offers $1250, then personally ups it to $1500. Mason demands $2000 within the next hour he'll settle. Jackson is, of course, baffled. They remember that an Adelaide Kingman had come to them but then didn't have sufficient funds to proceed. She has the record title to a tract of land in the Skinner Hills district but Frank Palermo claims to have title by adverse possession. Kingman is in a San Francisco hospital with a broken leg and no money. Mason asks Jackson to think things through. The settlement offer was made after ten o'clock, which is when the banks open and big executives go to work, so someone got the accident report on their desk at ten and decided a settlement was needed immediately. Now Mason really wants Paul Drake on the job. He tells Jackson to ring up Adelaide Kingman and tell her not to make any settlement or sign anything. She's moving out of the ward and into a private room with special nurses. Then the best bone specialist is to be called into consultation. Mason will pay the bills.
2.	Paul Drake jackknifes himself crosswise into the big overstuffed leather chair in Mason's office. He reports on the Karakul fur company. Its been buying land in the Skinner Hills district. Fred Milfield is the main salesman. He and his wife are Las Vegas connected. Harry Van Nuys is another. Who is behind it is unknown, probably named Burbank. Mason smells oil.
3.	Mason goes to Milfield's apartment house. The desk man gets approval for his visit. The Negro elevator operator misses the floor by several inches. Mrs Milfield has been crying, doesn't know where her husband is, but will try to get Mason's message to him. Lieutenant Tragg is announced from the desk. Mason warns Mrs Milfield that he is not a soldier, but from the homicide squad. Mason cuts an onion, tells her to tell Tragg she's been cutting them, hides in the pantry, hears Milfield scream. He is found. Milfield's husband has been murdered.
4.	Mason phones Street, admits he has no client despite a murder, and to charge it to Kingman. He returns to the office where Carol Burbank is waiting. She wants Mason to accompany her while she seeks her father. Milfield was murdered on dad's yacht, and dad will be claiming to have been on the yacht all night, though he was really elsewhere.
5.	Judson Beltin drives a car to a parking lot, checks it in, slips it secretively to Carol without sign of recognition. She retrieves the car from a different attendant and, with Mason, heads west, making quick turns in front of cars as the light changes, to be certain she's not followed. At the Surf and Sun Motel, the manager sends them to a room registered to J C Lassing. The place is vacant, but used, and Carol finds her father's shaving tools. The politicians Burbank was meeting in secret have all left.
6.	They stop at the Dobe Hut Restaurant on the way back to town and, before the hostess can seat them, find Roger Burbank seated with Lt Tragg and George Avon, fingerprint expert. Before Tragg can get his question answered, Carol prompts her father to admit where he really was, and Tragg is annoyed. Carol points out that her father was with big-shots from Sacramento, putting Tragg on the spot. Burbank finds the key to the Surf and Sun Motel in his pocket.
7.	Something after eleven at night, Mason finds Street asleep at his desk. He reports about the meeting at the Surf and Sun. "The significant fact may have been that (the governor) wasn't invited." The janitor is grouchy when he is called by a long second ring to bring the elevator. Perry takes Della to an unpretentious restaurant where the proprietor, Pierre, serves with gusto. Mason reads Drake's report. It indicates that "Burbank is a crank about sails. . . . Lighting is by candle" on the yacht. He calls Drake and learns that tight-fisted Frank Palermo found the body. Further, Van Nuys kept Mrs Milfield from going to San Francisco Friday afternoon. Mason notes to Street that he'd been given $500 in twenties, on a Saturday, so Carol somehow was thinking ahead to get the money to provide an alibi, which can never be checked by the police for fear of losing favor with the politicians.
8.	At the Cornish Hotel the night clerk thinks Perry and Della want a room, but they get him to tell Van Nuys he's sending them up. Van Nuys is very hospitable, but quite surprised when Mason asks why he kept Mrs Milfield from going to San Francisco. He explains that Daphne can't stand boredom and she's found a boyfriend. He went to Milfield's to get papers, found Daphne's good-bye letter to Frank. He was to give Milfield the papers about four, then Milfield had to see Burbank, at the yacht, with these papers. Pressured by Mason, Van Nuys gives up the love letters from Douglas Burwell to Daphne.
9.	In his automobile, Mason and Street peruse the purple prose of Burwell. A long distance operator informs Mason that Burwell is out of town. His hotel clerk says he's in Los Angeles at the Claymore Hotel.
10.	Burwell is reluctant to admit he knows Daphne. He says she had decided not to come; he didn't know a friend stopped her. Mason draws a picture of how Burwell could have murdered Milfield in order to get Daphne. Burwell admits he called Daphne about ten, then got her about noon; he came down on the Lark. Mason suggest, since he doesn't get talkative but sleepy, Burwell should go out and get drunk.
11.	Perry and Della go to see Frank Palermo. His speech indicates that he is not highly educated. He had a deal, unwritten, with Milfield, but another guy offered more. He thinks Mason should sue him and win proving he doesn't own property so he can take second deal, split with Mason. Guy wouldn't give name, but he got license plate (Burbank). Around noon. He found yacht with no skiff or other boat attached. Dead man, on one side of tilted boat.
12.	The return to the office and, as they go by Drake's, Paul appears, tells the switchboard girl, Frances, where to reach him. He reports that the autopsy surgeon thinks there was a fight and Milfield was knocked out from this, hitting his head as he fell. Frances calls Drake; his operative, Al, has J C Lassing who will give a written statement. Carol Burbank calls. Al returns to his car; Lassing has been taken by the police! Mason instructs Della how to get Carol and hide her at the Woodridge Hotel.
13.	Della's taxi driver assures her they are not being followed, and he'll protect her if she needs it. She finds Carol, who drops a slip of pasteboard unknowingly from her purse as she puts on her gloves. A gallant man picks it up and hands it to Della, who then claims a need to call Mason, who instructs her how to get the pasteboard claim check to him in an envelope. The taxi starter puts another man in the cab with Della and Carol. Della registers herself and C E Burbank. Just as she hands the envelope to the clerk, the man in the cab runs up and snatches it and tells a plain-clothes man who is with him, Mac, to watch the girls. Della forces him to declare "This is a pinch."
14.	The police officer at headquarters is thinking of his wife, Mabel, when Della interrupts his reverie with a demand to use the telephone. She threatens charges against him, perhaps loss of his pension, if she can't phone. He goes out for help from officer Jim. She is then ushered into Tragg's room, where she refuses to talk. Tragg shows her a pair of shoes, which Della says she's never seen. He claims Carol was told by Mason to put them in a brown paper parcel and check them at the station. She did that, passed the claim check on to Della who placed it in an envelope which she addressed to Mason. She asks, "What's wrong with those shoes" and he says "nothing wrong" with the shoes, but she, Della, who is wrong. Mason bursts in ahead of an officer who tries to throw him out. Tragg is delighted that it is Sunday and no magistrate is immediately available, until Mason tells him he has Judge Roxmann doing him a favor by waiting in his court. Carol, Della and Mason leave.
15.	Carol now explains that Daphne Milfield had made it possible for her husband to blackmail her dad over a fight in New Orleans where he had hit a man who fell against an andiron and was killed, and got off. Milfield made Burbank back the Skinner Hills deal. Since many of the payments were cash, Milfield had been reporting more than he actually paid and taking the overpayment from Burbank. When Burbank discovered this, there was a showdown on the yacht. She found Milfield dead, his head within an inch or two of the brass-covered threshold, though that is not where the police found it (she says that the boat tilted when the tied went out and the body rolled to the other side), and arranged the alibi. She and Beltin went to the Surf and Sun but Lassing was gone. She planted the stuff. Beltin gave the police an anonymous tip so they'd find Burbank at the Dobe just before Carol got there. Her dad produced the key at the right moment. She describes the man who picked up the ticket and gave it to Della; he had a broad, perhaps broken, nose. Mason calls Drake to find the police detective. Tragg and two uniformed officers arrive to take Carol into custody.
16.	Judge Newark is presiding at the preliminary hearing in a crowded courtroom. District Attorney Hamilton Burger is assisted by Maurice Linton, who deems it necessary to give an opening statement. Tragg identifies the corpus delicti. A surveyor locates the yacht, and a photographer introduces photos of the yacht. Daphne Milfield testifies that Burbank had asked her husband to meet him. (Jackson continually makes comments which Mason then proves superfluous or wrongly interpreted.) She has known Burbank longer than her husband. Mason leads her into telling about the New Orleans incident, to prove her bias. The only reason, she must admit, that her husband went to Burbank was to get backing. Also, when Tragg arrived, she already knew her husband had been murdered. Lassing is forced to admit he called Judson Beltin to get drilling contracts for the Skinner Hills property. Later he got a call from Carol Burbank who asked him to refuse to identify anyone who was with him. In cross, Mason gets him to state that Carol never asked him to make any false statements. Tragg is recalled. He is an honest cop, so refuses to state anything he can't remember perfectly, and at no time did either Roger or Carol claim Roger was at the Surf and Sun. Mason traps him on the issue of what he deduced, and what he knows was actually said. Yes, Burbank said he would deny he'd stayed at the motel the night before, but he took it as an admission he was there. The denial came even after he produced the key! Mason moves on to Tragg's finding the body, and the bloodied shoes. From a photograph he sees a candle, burned about one inch, and inclined about eighteen degrees. This is Mason's defense. Arthur St. Claire, the man in the cab with Della and Carol, is called. He testifies to the events that led him to claim the envelope with the claim check. He claimed the parcel, opened it at Police Headquarters, identifies the shoes that were in the parcel, and notes that a laboratory expert found blood on them. Mason asks him if he was shadowing Carol Burbank. Yes, with another man, Harvey Teays. It was Teays who picked up the claim check and gave it to Della Street, and he has suddenly left on vacation. Dr Colfax C Newbern identifies the body on which he performed an autopsy. He explains how the body would have rolled before rigor mortis sets in. He sets time of death at five-seventeen to nine-seventeen Friday. Mason gets acknowledgment that the second pool of blood was not drainage, but probably due to hemorrhage. He admits that a large blow to the chin, where there was a bruise, could have sent him into the threshold, thereby causing death (and manslaughter, not murder). Linton tries to get him to state that death could not have happened were he not hit very hard while off guard, rather than prepared for the hit, but fails. Thomas Lawton Cameron, caretaker of the yacht club, testifies that Burbank went to his yacht at noon, returned an hour later, then apparently went back out about five. Milfield went out at five-thirty in a rowboat which they found over twenty-four hours later, aground, below where the yacht was anchored. He saw Burbank return to shore in less than an hour after Milfield went out. Later, about dark, he heard the motor of the dinghy going out. On cross, Cameron admits that he first thought the return of the dinghy was Milfield, not Burbank, and he realized that it couldn't have been Milfield after finding him dead and talking with the police. He knew Burbank wanted to be left alone on the yacht and he liked to spear sharks. He'd anchor a couple of hours before high tide and stay until a couple after high tide. The boat would be mercilessly pounded at low tide. Friday low tide was about five-forty, high three minutes past midnight Saturday, the next high at six-twenty-six a.m. Saturday morning and, finally, a high at twelve-forty-five Saturday. If you weren't off the mud flats by eight Friday evening, you couldn't get off until a couple of hours before next high tide. Linton decries "the rankest sort of hearsay" when Cameron starts to tell about Palermo, but the judge allows it as general background. Cameron saw Palermo sculling, very proficiently, to shore. Palermo's admissions to Cameron are admitted in testimony because it is what Cameron told the police Palermo told him! Palermo told him how he sculled around the yacht, yelled, got no answer, boarded and found the dead Milfield. Now comes a surprise. A man named "Smith" rented a rowboat to study nocturnal habits of sharks. He rented at nine and returned about ten twenty. He handled the rowboat poorly. He was bundled in a good, heavy, light gray overcoat. Probably not over thirty, he was slender with a dark complexion and a sort of a stoop. He knew where he was going. Mason shows Cameron a photograph. The body could have rolled from where it was when the murder was committed to its final place during the dead low tide just after midnight. Yes. Mason gives the judge a protractor and the judge notes that the candle is at about seventeen degrees off vertical, yet the boat had heeled over about twenty-five to thirty degrees according to Cameron. The wax running down from the candle is even on all sides. It is now approaching five o'clock, and the court adjourns for the evening.
17.	Mason, Street and Drake discuss the murder. They go over the tides, the candle, the two positions the dead man had been in, the bloodied shoe print on the threshold stairs. Only the latter cannot be made to fit, for everything else points to the crime being committed between nine-twenty and nine-forty. The yacht would be tilted then, so one would walk up the stairs on the low side, not in the center! Carol is lying. The footprint could have been made the next morning; blood could have remained moist in the very thick carpet in the yacht long enough for her to wet her shoes with it.
18.	Perry and Della have Cameron take them out to the yacht, which has been returned to the scene of the crime. Mason lies down in the first body position, falls asleep in Della's lap. She nods off, then both are rudely awakened when the yacht tips fully over, four hours and one minute after high tide, with Mason now in the second position, where the body was found. Only the glow from the warming stove fire lights the room. They hear a rowboat approaching, hide in the cabin. Someone comes aboard, then quickly leaves. Mason cannot find his flashlight until the rowboat is too far away in the fog. Cameron arrives, and they try to find the rowboat, zig zagging in the fog. Boom! The yacht explodes violently. Back at the dock, drinking hot buttered rum, they are questioned by two officers. One (named Medford) refuses to search for the rowboat, and takes Perry and Della to police headquarters.
19.	Tragg holds out an olive branch to Mason. Judge Newark agrees with Mason that the candle is important. Burger has found Burwell. He didn't come to Los Angeles on the morning Lark, but on a Friday afternoon plane. Burwell took Mrs Milfield out to the yacht to try to make an agreement with her husband. She went aboard, found him dead. Mason offers the "key clue to the whole business," "A person climbing a tilted companionway would leave a bloody footprint on the low side&emdash;not in the center."
20	Judge Newark asks if the District Attorney can provide evidence of the exact time lag in tides at the scene of the crime. No, says Hamilton Burger, and he asks for a continuance. Jackson opposes, even a short continuance. The prosecution, then, asks for a dismissal, and Jackson accepts. Newark asks counsel for both sides to appear in Chambers. Jackson calls Gertie and tells her to get Mason there. In Chambers, Burger offers that Mrs Milfield, with one with whom she's infatuated, went to the yacht and she found her husband dead at nine-thirty. The judge figures that the murder had to be committed when the yacht began to tilt but wasn't at its maximum. Mason, "buoyant and well-groomed," enters. He offers that the boat makes its final tilt four hours after high tide. "The man was killed and the body originally fell in position number two. The murderer rolled it back to position number one and then after a while the tide rolled it back again to position number two. But by that time the hemorrhage had stopped. Simply because we found bloodstained carpet under the head of the body when it was lying in position number two, we jumped to the conclusion that there must have been a hemorrhage when the tide rolled the body into that position." Judge Newark is quick to grasp that "the man didn't meet his death by striking his head against the edge of the threshold." The death was caused by "The heavy iron poker that goes with the wood stove on the yacht." "Even a woman could have smashed the poker down on Milfield's head with sufficient force to have cracked his skull," notes the judge. Mason points out that the body was moved to implicate Burbank.
21.	Mason, Della Street, Carol Burbank and Roger Burbank are in Mason's office when Paul Drake arrives. He reports that Mrs Milfield has caved in. Only someone who know of Burbank's New Orleans altercation could have known how to frame him, Van Nuys. Milfield went to Burbank to try to convince him Palermo was lying, and there was no overpayment. When he left, he was to signal Van Nuys, in a collapsible boat like Palermo's, if he were successful or not. If not, Van Nuys would slip up and plant a bomb. The fake note gave Van Nuys, with whom Daphne was truly in love, a needed alibi. Burbank, however, lost his temper, knocked Milfield over, decided to have him arrested, so set Milfield's skiff adrift and went ashore. Van Nuys then found Milfield on the yacht, lost his temper, got Milfield with the iron poker. Since he knew about Burbank's New Orleans fight, he staged the murder to implicate him. Gertie gets Della on the phone. A black-eyed blonde is in the outer office. Mason tells Della to get a check for one hundred thousand dollars made out to Adelaide Kingman, and goes to see the blonde.

Perry Mason	[A gruff officer at headquarters]	Garbage collector Nick Modena
Della Street	[Radio officer]	Ballistic expert
Diana Regis	Paul Drake's night operator	Fingerprint expert
Jason Bartsler	Ella Brockton	Mrs Jerry Krason
Carl Fretch	Sergeant Holcomb	[Garbage contract woman]
Mrs Bartsler	First plain-clothes officer	Jim Melrose, Drake operative
Frank Glenmore	Second plain-clothesman, Jim	Officer in Diana's apartment
Matronly woman at Bartsler's	Jail matron	Mrs J C Kennard
Mildred Danville	Jail officer	Operative Anita Dorset
Man at cigar counter	Trial deputy Claude Drumm	Kennard's male neighbor
[Robert Bartsler]	Diana Regis' apartment manager	[His wife]
Helen Chister Bartsler	State meteorologist	Thurston
[Bartsler's grandson]	Dr George Z Perllon	Mrs Ruffin, Mrs Kennard's sister
A Drake operative+	Judge Winters	A radio officer
Lieutenant Tragg	OfficerPhilip C Rames	Man with goldfish
Tragg's driver

This is as fast-moving as it ever gets in a Perry Mason mystery. Further, it is one of Gardner's patented time-shift murder mysteries, where he gets the time of the murder right and the police, as usual, get it wrong. Gardner is also master of giving the reader red herrings, so that they dislike, even hate, certain characters, but none of those hateful ones are the murderer.

Still smoking, and "swell" is still occasionally in the vocabulary.

In his earliest novels, Gardner always ended with a lead-in to the next mystery. Here he continues that practice which he restarted in The Case of the Crooked Candle.

1.	Perry Mason is intrigued by Della Street's description of "a blonde with a black eye." She has little more than a black house coat under a fur coat. Diana Regis says she is a radio actress. Jason Bartsler has hired her to read to him since his eyes have gone bad. Her problem is Carl Fretch, son of Mrs Bartsler by earlier marriage. They and Frank Glenmore, a mine operator, live at Bartsler's house. She lives in an apartment with Mildred Danville. She gave in to Fretch's imprecations for a date; he got fresh, gave her a black eye, and she took a cab back to Bartsler's, leaving her purse in his car. At Bartsler's, she found Fretch in the room given her, with a piece of his mother's jewelry planted in it. She had to hide while a matronly lady with a limp, who had paid her taxi fare when she arrived, left Bartsler before she could leave, then stayed in the bus station when she couldn't get into her apartment, finally came to Mason. Perry tells Della to take care of her.
2.	Mason goes to Bartsler's. Bartsler listens to Mason's story and demands, calls Fretch and mom into the room, hears their fabrication, lets Mason cross-examines Fretch. As mom and son leave, Bartsler calls Fretch back, calls him a "little s-o-b," and says he knows about an earlier identical stunt with a maid. He settles with Mason after approval by phone with Diana. He makes an appointment for Bartsler.
3.	Mason chats with a cigar counter man, then goes to his office to fine Bartsler early. He explains a complicated order of events. Robert, his son who died at Pearl Harbor, married a circus trapeze acrobat, Helen. Four weeks ago he learned Helen had a child, his grandson, then wouldn't tell him where he was. Diana Regis car was seen at Helen's, however, her roommate Mildred Danville was probably the visitor he learned after hiring Diana. Because Robert is dead, he can't force Helen to say where the child is. Mason suggests that Robert is still "missing," and seven years haven't expired, so if the child was given up in adoption, they can find out, since both parents must give consent.
4.	In mid afternoon, Mason receives a special delivery letter with a check from Bartsler. Shortly thereafter Diana calls to report her purse has been stolen out of her room at the Palm Vista Apartments while she slept. Mason goes home to relax. Della's call says it was a false alarm, Mildred has returned the purse, and she's left Diana at Paul Drake's with an operative. Diana wants Mason to go with her to Helen's.
5.	Mason and Street drive up to her apartment to wait for Diana. She doesn't show up, so they drive to Helen Bartsler's. Her house is dark, locked, but in a depression at the back there is a body. They get back to their car as Lt Tragg and another officer drive up, and they act as if they just arrived. The officer finds the body, then Tragg finds Diana's purse on the sidewalk, and thinks the murdered woman is Diana.
6.	Perry and Della return to her place. Diana is in her car, across the street, waiting for them to go to Helen's! They go up to Della's apartment, and Mason has her sneak out and knock on the door. Mason takes Diana down the back stairs where she has to admit she's been to Helen's by taxi, saw the body, returned in her car which Mildred had taken. Della joins them and, aside, tells Mason that while he was out, Tragg arrived and knocked on the door, then left after a few minutes. Mason has Della get her coupe, write him a note telling him where the keys is, then spirit Diana away. He goes back to the apartment, and Tragg returns. Tragg tells Mason just enough about their case against Diana Regis to leave the lawyer in a bind if he doesn't reveal certain information he knows. A gruff masculine voice on the phone tells Tragg about the taxi that took Diana to Helen's. The lieutenant suggest Diana then drove her car back, which is now out front. Della phones in and Mason tells her to bring Diana in. Tragg calls a radio officer to pick them up! Shortly thereafter Della phones in to admit she didn't notice the police car following her and that Diana has been picked up.
7.	Mason tells Paul Drake's night operator to get men to cover the Palm Vista Apartments, also the home of Bartsler. Della has Diana's apartment key. Mason surmises that in Diana's purse was something that showed where the Bartsler child was being kept. Drake's night operator reports that the first operative to get to Diana's saw a woman driving a car registered to Helen C Bartsler trying to get in, then drive to an unrelated address. The operative removed the car's distributor cap. Mason says to "Tell him to throw it in the river" and he and Street drive to the new address. They find Helen trying to start her car. When Mason tells her Mildred Danville has been murdered. Helen thinks they are looking for Ella Brockton. They go up to interview her. Helen coaches Ella not to talk. Ella has kept the child until Mildred kidnaped him. Helen worries how Mason found about Robert, then admits she's settled with the father.
8.	Using the mailbox key, Mason gets a note left by Mildred for Diana. It tells where the diary is. They go to Diana's apartment. As they search, they hear someone at the door, turn off the lights. Carl Fretch comes in and , in the dark, begins checking rooms. Three horn blasts from the street are Drake's operative warning Mason the police are coming. Fretch exits out the back. Sgt Holcomb arrives with two plain-clothes officers, finds Mason. One officer sees Fretch running down the alley. Holcomb says he's heard that Mildred Danville left a diary. He searches. Holcomb arrests Mason on charge of burglary.
9.	Holcomb releases Mason on his signature. Della tells Perry she hid the diary in a loaf of bread in the garbage pail.
10.	Drake reports that the police have Fretch downtown. He reports on the comings and goings of people at Bartsler's. A phone call for Drake brings the news that the murder weapon has been found and it is covered only with Diana's fingerprints.
11.	Diana Regis, overlooked by a big-boned matron and a sharp-eyed officer tells Mason about the gun. She found the gun in her apartment just as it started to rain! After he leaves, he reminds Della that he saw the cistern draining at Helen's house, and that would have been done early to rid it of old water as new rain approached. So maybe the murder was not during rain.
12.	Trial deputy Claude Drumm has a bulletproof case. He calls the manager of Regis' apartment house, who identifies the body. The state meteorologist testifies as to when the rain came and how and when heavy. Dr George Z Perllon says the death occurred between eight and nine. Under Mason's cross-examination, he states the outside limits as early as four. Tragg testifies to finding the body and the purse, marks maps with requisite information. Drake tells Mason he has found the cop, Philip C Rames, who gave Mildred the ticket.
13.	Rames tells the expected story. Additionally, the car was overparked five minutes but had been there perhaps an hour and a half. When Mason shows him a photo of Mildred Danville, he clams up. Mason asks Drake to get the name of the garbage collector at Diana's.
14.	Judge Winters calls the afternoon session to order. Tragg is shown photographs of the crime scene and Mason examines each. (None show the cistern faucet clearly.) He then recalls Diana's statement about finding the body. Mason is unable to get Tragg admit the faucet of the cistern was open. Helen Bartsler admits knowing Mildred Danville, who has kidnaped her son, who is still missing. She threatened Mildred with being arrested. She was to get her son at Ella Brockton's at ten in the evening. Mason attempts to get Helen to admit to having opened the cistern faucet, but the judge gives away his line of reasoning, and she denies it. She admits she never advised the grandfather of his grandson. A ballistic expert and a fingerprint expert connect the murder gun to Diana.
15.	Drake reports that Mrs Jerry Krason, who lives across from Ella Brockton, says the Brockton house was dark until nine when Ella returned by taxi, then the Bartsler car arrived at eleven-fifty. Drake give Mason the information on the garbage contract to a woman, then the name of the collector. Operative Jim Melrose calls in with the location of the collector. Mason and Della Street drive out and catch him just before the Palm Vista Apartments. He gets fifty dollars for collecting the garbage from Diana's apartment. Mason gets the diary, and the police officer covering the apartment sees him with the garbage collector, which pleases Mason as he and Della drive away.
16.	Perry Mason and Della Street read the diary. It was Mildred who had the child, out of wedlock. When she gave birth, she used widowed Helen Bartsler's name, and Helen and she shared the child until Helen saw a way to get revenge on her dead husband's father. The diary also mentions Diana and the murder of her husband, of which she was suspect but never arrested. Mildred helped her to a radio job. Mason mails the diary to Della, then while driving is stopped by Holcomb and Tragg. Mason admits to having the diary, but it is safely in the mail.
17.	Mason remembers there was a number on the back of the paper with the note from Mildred to Diana; he asks Drake to find the person who used that as a box number for a reply to a newspaper ad. It would be the matronly woman Diana saw the night she was given the black eye by Fretch. Drake reports that a Mrs J C Kennard placed the ad. There is a children's store in the same block as Mrs Kennard's and Mildred was in there buying some garments the day before she left Diana's car near there. Mason tells him to join him and Della with an operative, who he is informed is Anita Dorset. They find Mrs Kennard's abandoned, but clearly a day nursery. Drake and Dorset, posing as future nursery operators, speak to a male neighbor who gets from his wife some information. The nursery closed and Mrs Kennard disappeared without notice. A man named Thurston did the carpentry of the yard playthings.
18.	Mason confronts Bartsler regarding Mrs Kennard, but Glenmore brought her in and she only wanted to talk about selling him her mine. Mason suggests she, who ran a nursery, might have had his grandson in his custody. Glenmore, who was present during Mrs Kennard's interview, is surprised at this revelation. He's not certain that Mrs Kennard and Regis came separately. He suggests Fretch may have talked, shortly, with her while she waited in the reception room. Mrs Bartsler comes in and announces she is filing for divorce. Carl is on a date. Bartsler berates her and her son. She assures him Carl didn't talk to Mrs Kennard. Drake reports that he's gotten Mrs Kennard's address from Thurston. She's staying with her sister named Ruffin.
19.	Perry Mason with Della Street ask for Mrs Ruffin. She is out, but Mrs Kennard has answered the door. Mason asks a few innocuous questions, then asks about the child Robert Bartsler. She denies everything, but Della, coached by Perry, drops a heavy dictionary on the floor so that it makes a loud noise, and she screams. A "thin, reedy wail of a child" is heard, and they find Robert Bartsler in an adjacent room. Mrs Kennard disappears.
20.	Mason calls Police Headquarters for Lt Tragg. Sgt Holcomb is on duty and refuses to send anyone to Bartsler's. Then Mason tries to phone Bartsler, but the line is out of order. He gets the Drake Detective Agency and has them call Drake at dinner to send him to pick up Mason. While waiting, Mason explains things in terms of the time element of Diana Regis' getting to Bartsler's after Mrs Kennard- to Della and why they must get to Bartsler's. When Paul arrives, Mason takes over the driving and, at times on but two wheels, heads to Bartsler's, soon followed by a police car, siren screaming along with the "blaze of a red spotlight." At the house Mason runs to enter, the police warn him to halt, but gun shots from the house change things. Bartsler is wounded. Tragg arrives. Mason informs him that one of his radio officers shot Glenmore. Bartsler says Glenmore got a phone call, seemed excited. Then when he went to make a call, the phone was dead. Before he could get his gun, Glenmore came in and shot at him. Mason now explains that, when Mrs Kennard arrived, she first told her story to Glenmore, and he then bargained with her to change her story to a mining sale. He was in trouble with cooked books, and Bartsler was getting wind of it. When Mildred learned through Diana that Glenmore had talked to Mrs Kennard (the call when Diana told her of her black eye and Mildred became excited, not for that, but the Glenmore-Kennard connection), she made the fatal mistake of telephoning Glenmore and telling him what she knew. When he went to Mildred, she made a further mistake of trying to use her gun on him but he got it and shot her, wiped it free of fingerprints, left it in Mildred's apartment. Helen, of course, is lying. Glenmore has been found by Drake and Tragg grabs Della to go with him to take down a dying statement. Mason takes young Robert Bartsler from Della and takes him into Bartsler's room.
21.	Of course, Della has taken down the dying statement and it is mostly as Mason conjectured. As they drive away, they see Carl Fretch, walking, and looking as if he's been held up and robbed. Mason tells Della "The boy's an orphan now. No one knows his father. His mother has been killed. He has a birth certificate that describes him as the son of Robert Bartsler, Junior. Bartsler has a lot of money and the youngster will bring Helen and Jason together and . . ." When Della queries if Bartsler won't notice little family resemblance, he tells her of how quickly Bartsler was finding "his mother's forehead and his son's mouth, and his eyes were the exact image of Bartsler's mother, and . . ." So he'll never tell Bartsler the boy is really not his son. He'll burn Mildred's diary, though he'll "keep the diary out of circulation" if Helen is "a good girl and treats Bartsler properly." Then, at his favorite eatery, Drake shows up, in need of another dinner. He reports that the operative Mason had him date Fretch was a boxer so, when Fretch got too frisky, she did a job on him. She "thinks she has a broken knuckle. She also has his car." Also, a couple of his teeth were knocked out and he has a lisp. A man approaches their table; he has a problem with a goldfish.

Perry Mason	Sergeant Dorset	Scattered spectators
Harrington Faulkner	Two or more policemen	Judge Summerville
Process server	Jim, outside Faulkner's	Bailiff
Elmer Carson	Adele Fairbanks	Ray Medford
Golddigger Sally Madison	Wilfred Dixon	John Nelson
Waiter	Alberta Stanley	[An assistant teller]
Della Street	Lt Tragg	Louis C Corning
Paul Drake	Two plainclothes officers	[Mrs Staunton]
Genevieve Faulkner	Kellinger Hotel night clerk	[A female Drake operative]
Tom Gridley	Radio officer	[Charles Menlo]
David Rawlins	Deputy coroner	Dance-hall waiter
Jane Faulkner	[Judge Downey]
James L Staunton	Police photographer

Erle Stanley Gardner is unfair in this one, giving us an important clue as late as page 218 of 248 (in the edition used for this outline), then finding something many pages later during the preliminary hearing that changes the course of the entire case. To give the reader a fair chance to solve the puzzle you should know that peroxide of hydrogen, mixed one to one with water, cures tail rot on goldfish.

1.	A man has come to Perry Mason's table to consult him about a goldfish. Another man approaches and queries, "Harrington Faulkner?" The first man answers in the affirmative, and is given a summons from the process server for defamation of the character of Elmer Carson to the tune of one hundred thousand dollars. As Faulkner puts the summons away and returns to his table and his companion. A waiter hovers over Mason and Della Street as Paul Drake joins them. They discuss the companion. Faulkner returns; his case concerns a Veiltail Moor Telescope goldfish, "a crooked partner, a secret formula for controlling gill disease, and a golddigger."
2.	Faulkner describes the prize goldfish he's been raising, says the golddigger, Sally Madison, is only interested in cash. Mason reads the summons. Faulkner is in real estate, incorporated with Genevieve Faulkner, his former wife, and Carson. Carson introduced a disease into this goldfish aquarium, tho he cannot prove it. Carson claims the fish belong to the corporation. Mason goes to the golddigger. She wants five thousand today. Yesterday it was four. She's only concerned with her boy friend, Tom Gridley, who has T B and needs complete rest. He is overworked by David Rawlins at a pet store, where he found a remedy for distemper. He also has a cure for the gill disease infecting Faulkner's goldfish. All she wants is a payment towards one-half of the royalties. Stinking rich Faulkner is trying to get the cure for free because it was developed in Rawlins' pet shop, and Faulkner can easily buy an interest in the store from Rawlins and then sue for the cure. When Faulkner states that "Sally Madison's proposition amounts to blackmail" Mason admits that "There's a lot of blackmail in the world."
3.	In a pea-soup fog, Faulkner leads Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake to his home and office. As they approach, Mason gets from Faulkner the fact that, though the aquarium is the company's, the fish were fully bought by Faulkner, are not a fixture of the building, thus are his alone. Sally Madison and her boy friend, Tom Gridley. When they enter the office, the goldfish are gone, and Faulkner accuses Carson, calls the police. The room was locked, doors and windows. Police arrive. Jane Faulkner arrives and takes everyone but the police and her husband into the house for drinks. The police leave; "there's no law against kidnaping fish!" Faulkner is outraged, his wife calm. A call to Faulkner about signing papers and transferring title. Faulkner has bought David Rawlins' business outright, threatens Madison and Gridley for obtaining money under false pretenses, as the business, not Tom, owns the formula. Mason informs Faulkner that his "case doesn't interest me in the least."
4.	Mason is relaxing at home. His private phone rings; Paul Drake informs him that the golddigger is desperate to reach him. Mason calls her and she tells him of James L Staunton, who had Tom fix his goldfish. He twice claimed his wife was sick when Rawlins delivered the cure to keep him from seeing the fish. Then she had to make the delivery and put the panels in the tank, and discovered Faulkner's goldfish in the tank when Staunton's very healthy wife let her in. She has told no one but Mason. Faulkner paid only two thousand dollars for Rawlins' business, has offered to keep Tom on at his old salary without time off to cure himself.
5.	Mason and Madison go to Staunton's. Staunton bluffs, but Mason beats him at his game, gets him to admit he was brought the goldfish by Faulkner. Mason points out that since he lied about his wife being sick, when she wasn't he is involved in the fraud. Faulkner brought the fish in an ordinary galvanized iron pail before dinner time. Mason and Madison leave, but watch from outside, expecting Staunton to phone Faulkner, but he doesn't.
6.	Mason and Madison go back to Faulkner's. No one is there. A car skids around a corner and slides to a stop when the driver sees Mason's car. It is Mrs Faulkner. They go in, and Jane finds her husband dead, in the bathroom. Mason has Sally quiet her while he investigates. A dozen motionless goldfish are on the floor. The bathtub was half full of water in which a lone goldfish was swimming. Another on the floor shows signs of life but when Mason puts it in the tub it floats to the top. Mason has Sally call Paul Drake, then the police. Mason investigates in detail. The man had been shot in the left side over the heart. There are three magazines on the floor, the most recently dated on top. It had a three-inch ink smear. On a shelf over the washstand were two sixteen-ounce bottles of peroxide of hydrogen, one almost empty, and shaving tools not yet cleaned. A graniteware cooking pan of about two-quart capacity was in the tub, lying on its side.
7.	Sergeant Dorset with policemen arrives. He questions about who arrived and when. Now two goldfish are swimming in the bathtub. Mrs Faulkner is nauseated, wants someone to stay with her. Dorset chases Mason and Madison out and tells the outdoor officer (Jim) to keep watch. Drake arrives and Mason has him investigate Mrs Faulkner's car; he thinks she was just waiting around the corner for something to happen. Drake finds Mason is right. Mason tells Sally what to do when questioned, and to go to Della after. Shortly into the questioning of Sally, Dorset comes out to ask Mason questions, especially about the theft of the goldfish. Mason explains how he doesn't understand why a ladle with a four-foot extension was found next a tank that is four feet deep and set three feet six inches from the floor in a room with a ceiling nine and a half feet above the floor. The ladle would bump the ceiling before the fish was out of the water. Staunton now has the fish. A taxi delivers Adele Fairbanks. When Drake is given leave and jumps in his own car, Jim shouts to the Sarge that he's not in his car. Dorset understands, but finds nothing important in Jane Faulkner's car when he investigates.
8.	Paul Drake signals Mason to pull over, then explains how cigarette butts on the street around the corner revealed where Mrs Faulkner had parked, a place where she could see who arrived at the house thru a vacant lot. Mason tells Drake to save the evidence, looks up Elmer Carson's address, and pays a visit. He finds the living room "scrupulously clean, save for a try containing cigarette stubs, a champagne cork and two empty champagne glasses." Carson brings up an earlier attempt on Faulkner's life, which he and stenographer (Alberta) Stanley knew about only when the police showed up. He demanded a body search to prove he didn't have it. Later, it