The novels are cross-linked to the TV shows made from them.

Click below on the title of the Novel of your choice to go directly to its synopsis.

Jebson workers	Motorcycle officer	D A Vernon Flasher
Frank Bernal	Della Street	Judge Haswell
Tom Munson	Harvey L Corbin	Ivanhoe County spectators
Ralph Nesbitt	Mrs Corbin	Harry Reedy
Perry Mason	Paul Drake	Sheriff Charles J Oswald
Deputy sheriff	George Addey

The placing of this in the canon of Perry Mason murder mysteries is problematic. The Case of the Irate Witness is copyright 1953, called a novelette some places, but actually a true short story, only one chapter long, written after The Case of the Grinning Gorilla though not necessarily after either of the 1953 novels, The Case of the Hesitant Hostess (the fortieth novel) and The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister, and was published by Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. One advantage of the short story format is the short cast of characters, with fewer opportunities for Gardner to suggest wild goose chases for us.

1.	The big siren on the Jebson Commercial Company screams shrilly. Men formed a line to learn that a jagged hold had been cut into one door of the old safe on this pay day, the fifteenth of the month. Manager of the Jebson mine, Frank Bernal, arrives to find night watchman Tom Munson in a drunken slumber. Ralph Nesbitt, who had pointed out the safe was obsolete when Bernal was appointed over him, is silent.
2.	Perry Mason, having had to wait until midnight for a jury verdict, is speeding along a mountain road when he is stopped by police. A deputy sheriff asks Mason for his driving license as a motorcycle officer looks on. The deputy thinks Mason "a live clue" as the attorney drives away. So the next morning, Della Street reads stories in the metropolitan newspapers indicating that Mason has been retained to represent the person or persons who looted the Jebson vault, even before his "client" was apprehended.
3.	Della tells Perry, long distance, that he has a client, Harvey L Corbin, who has a criminal record; robbery. He was fired the evening before the robbery. Mrs Corbin (and her daughter) are to be allowed to stay in town until her husband can find another place to live. She's been calling Della ever since the newspapers said Mason would defend him; she's standing by her husband.
4.	Paul Drake tells Mason that Corbin is guilty. Money he gave his wife came from the stolen vault money. The town is controlled entirely by Jebson, except one old coot, George Addey, who collects the garbage and keeps every nickel he has earned in cans he's buried. The watchman was drugged in the whiskey he took to keep awake. The nearest bank is in Ivanhoe City and the payroll is brought up to the mine twice a month.
5.	Vernon Flasher, Ivanhoe County DA, and Judge Haswell are ready, but local spectators look upon Mason as "a legal magician with a cloven hoof." Bernal is first to testify and he says that to save money he installed the best burglar alarm money could buy, employed a special night watchman, and made arrangements with Ivanhoe National Bank to have the twenty-dollar bills numbers recorded. Harry Reedy, assistant cashier at the bank, testifies to the system by which the numbers were recorded. Sheriff Charles J Oswald is stopped from testifying that Mrs Corbin got her money from her husband until Flasher points out that the money would be community property. Mason recalls Bernal, who explains that the money comes in a sealed package. He keeps the list of twenties in his locked drawer. The prosecution rests. Mason calls for a subpoena duces tecum on George Addey to appear with all his twenty dollar bills.
6.	Addey is outraged but Mason begins checking his twenties, an finds several match the list of stolen bills. The court recesses for an hour to check the list further.
7.	Della, Paul and Perry are in the lobby of the Ivanhoe Hotel when D A Flasher and Judge Haswell approach. Bernal has disappeared. The explanation has to do with the list of numbers. It was kept by Bernal, who got his pay on the first, and the numbers on his bills were on page eight of the list, which he then put in the fifteenth list. He then paid-off Corbin with these bills, which got passed on to his wife. That was the trap. Mason let Bernal know he knew by calling in Addey. When Bernal skipped out, his flight was evidence of his guilt.

Harry Fritch	Bartender	Daphne Howell, long deceased
Perry Mason	Tuxedoed man	Jim, Drake's man
Judge Egan	Mary Brogan	Gertie
Martha Lavina	aka Albert Brogan	Man tailing Mary
The defendant, aka	Smooth-talking man at the jail	Swedish janitor
Rodney Archer	Three Drake operatives	Dr Pete Hanover
Inez Kaylor	James Darwin	Pilot
Paul Drake	Unidentified woman going to Darwin	Arrapahoe Hotel operator
Della Street	Process server	Arrapahoe Hotel cashier
Drake's night switchboard operator	Two ambulance attendants	Purse manufacturer
Villa Lavina Number Three doorman	Detective Smith	Mr Kaylor
Villa Lavina Number Three headwaiter	Hard-boiled prisoner	Mrs Kaylor (mother)
Petty Kaylor	Two plain-clothes men	Dr Doyle
Villa Lavina Number Three hat check girl	A girl, later Janice Clubb	Lieutenant Tragg
Villa Lavina Number Three chauffeur	Sergeant Holcomb

The foreword, in the paper edition, but not the Detective Book Club hardcover, honors by dedication, Dr. Milton Helpern. This eminent member of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City and author, with Dr Thomas A Gonzales and Dr B Morgan Vance , of Legal Medicine and Toxicology, is noted for his studies of spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (a form of damage to the brain) on which he lectured for Captain Frances G Lee at Harvard University's School of Medicine.

Here's an interesting twist; we don't even get the name of Mason's client until the fourth chapter. Further, we don't see Lieutenant Tragg until the penultimate chapter, by which time Mason has solved the case in his own mind, we the reader should know the important element that brings about that solution.

"Swell" may be outdated now, but it certainly wasn't in the fifties.

The Perry Mason mystery novels are an historical document of Los Angeles from the mid-thirties into the early sixties. Here we have hydramatic drive mentioned in the car of one witness. It is 1953, when automatic transmissions were still quite rare.

Readers in the new millennium may be quick to see what flying to Mexico City and Cuba might mean and catch on to the scam behind the scam. It is all there at the end of a cross-examination!

Previously, Mason has used a pseudonymous Los Angeles newspaper; here he identifies the Times and the Examiner.

Here we have one of the longest courtroom scenes, fifty-one pages in the Detective Book Club edition (and certainly longer in the original Morrow edition), chapter 14, a precursor to the courtroom scenes of the television series

Chilean red wine is noted here, long before it became popular as an inexpensive quality alternative to French red in the 1990s.

Here there is a Harry Fritch; in the next novel, The Case of the Green-eyed Sister, there is a JJ Fritch. Further, in the next novel there is a George Brogan, and here a Mary and Albert Brogan. To complicate things, here Dr Hanover is someone closely associated with Perry Mason. In the following novel Dr Hanover is the autopsy surgeon. Here we have a Dr Doyle, later an Edison Doyle. Finally, the re is Inez and Petty Kaylor here, and Judge Kaylor next.

1.	Assistant D A Harry Fritch bides time until he has Perry Mason trapped with too little time to make his case as he wants. Mason tries to get Judge Egan to put off his cross examination until after the weekend. Mason is forced to cross examine Martha Lavina, who is certain she has identified Mason's client as the criminal who stuck a gun in the face of Rodney Archer, while she was sitting next him. They were en route to The Villa Lavina Number Two, stopped at a traffic light, when they were held up. While the police were interviewing Archer, she went on to the Villa Lavina with Inez Kaylor. Mason takes his time, gets her to admit that she was shown a photo of his client by Archer with a policeman, and was told that this was the criminal. Then she identified the man in a lineup, as Mason insists, more from the photo than from memory. He also gets her to think a hole in the car upholstery was caused at the time of the robbery. Judge Egan calls a weekend recess exactly at five. Mason was going to call in Inez Kaylor to refute Lavina, but she skipped, as Paul Drake ruefully notes. Archer comes to Mason, demanding to be allowed to sit in the courtroom and hear the other witnesses. Mason declines.
2.	Perry and Paul are greeted at the attorney's office by Della Street. Mason thinks Kaylor is the alibi for Lavina, who is the alibi for Archer, though probably not actually in the car. Mason explains how he got stuck with this charity case, and orders Drake to find Inez Kaylor, whatever the cost.
3.	9:45 in the evening; Mason asks Drake's switchboard operator if he is in, learns that the detective has been trying to reach him. Drake reports that he has found Kaylor, working at The Villa Lavina Number Three. Mason's car is parked by a Villa Lavina Number Three doorman, and the lawyer tips the headwaiter $5 to get a table with a good location. Another $5 eventually brings Inez Kaylor, known as Petty, to Mason's table. After friendly sparring and some dancing, and a couple of drinks, which Kaylor says are unnecessary, and a tip to the hat check girl, she leads him to a chauffeured limousine where, with curtains drawn, a twenty-two minute drive leads them to the back of a building and the smell of onions cooking. Inside they pass through a bar, are greeted by a tuxedos man who recognizes Mason and identifies him to Petty. They get $200 in chips from the cashier and go to the roulette tables, where Mason eventually wins, then loses, breaking even. Petty wins $600, cashes in on Mason's advice. The drive back to the Villa Lavina Number Three takes only six and one-half minutes, shortened due to Mason's questioning Petty about her involvement with Martha Lavina in the robbery. Mason returns to the restaurant, continues into back halls where he smells cooking onions, goes up some stairs and finds the gambling parlor, in which he is now unwelcome. Mason again plays $200 worth of chips, loses all before being joined by Martha Lavina. She cannot understand why he is defending "A down-and-out derelict of humanity." She tries to get Mason to have her client accept a plea with the D A, but Mason refuses.
4.	Della phones Perry at 11:15 a m. Mary Brogan, niece of Mason's client, Albert Brogan, took the bus straight from St Louis when she heard of her uncle's trouble. At his office he hears Mary's tale of work and more work, but she also understands a law office isn't cheap to run. She has $385 to help out, because her uncle would never ask for help. She says a smooth-talking man at the jail told her her uncle could plead to misdemeanor and would get probation, and that Mason asked too many questions and important people would throw the book at her uncle if he didn't do this. So she came to Mason, because she distrusts smooth-talking men. Mason learns she plays poker, strip, stud and draw. So he suggests a bluff, and that she should talk with Inez Kaylor. "So you want me to wade into the battle and smite the Philistines hip and thigh?" she asks. "That's the general idea."
5.	Mason explains how and why the gambling place is set up as itinerant. It is clear that important people, including the police who let a gambling place operate, will be arrayed against Mason. Another note; Kaylor is leading a double life, with apartments here and in Las Vegas. Drake is told to get the low-down on Rodney Archer, who is into real estate and sold two of the Villa Lavina to Martha Lavina, so must know police who listen to reason.
6.	Mason joins Drake's operative, one of three watching Kaylor's apartment, and through the binocular setup sees a woman ring 409, the apartment of James Darwin. Then the process server enters and, when he comes out, Mary Brogan goes in. She is not in long, comes out and goes straight to a telephone booth. Shortly Paul calls Perry; Kaylor has swallowed a handful of sleeping pills. Mason tells him to call the police. Shortly and ambulance arrives and two attendants take a woman out and drive off. Then a police radio car arrives, gets no answer at the apartment, and leaves. Mason and Drake's operative cannot decide why the ambulance arrived first.
7.	Mason tells Drake that things don't fit together. Perhaps there are two Kaylor girls, Inez and Petty, perhaps twins. Check everything, including "Lavina's" purse.
8.	Mason visits his client. Brogan tells him how a detective named Smith offered him an easy way out. Then he was ushered out into a tan Chevrolet with damaged fender. Two plain-clothes men can by with a girl who got into the car, then left. Back in his cell, Smith denied any offer, and Mason's last sight as he leaves the jail is of Brogan with Sergeant Holcomb. Drake passes on from his operative Jim the fact that Janice Clubb has identified Brogan as the murderer of Daphne Howell.
9.	Della knew when her boss walked in that things were not going well. Mason tells her about the police trick of putting Brogan in a tan Chevrolet with a banged-up bumper and having him identified as the driver of that car in which the body of Daphne Howell had been transported to a vacant lot and dumped. Now they want to be sure he is convicted of the robbery, so they can use that felony against him in a murder trial. Della has Gertie get Mary Brogan to join them and she tells her story of how Kaylor claimed that she was "hounded" and then got the pills and swallowed them. Then Mason explains the problem of getting fingerprints in Kaylor's apartment, to check if there are two Kaylors, Inez and Petty. Paul Drake brings fingerprinting equipment to the office and explains the technique of lifting a print and Mary heads off to Kaylor's apartment. She returns soon, with a tale of being followed. He sends the girls to Della's, goes to see Drake.
10.	Back at his office, he finds a note from Della saying she, with Mary, are at her apartment. Later he gets a frantic call from Della, who has decided to do the fingerprinting. When Mason gets to Kaylor's, however, there is an out-cold woman on the bed, rescued by Della from a closet. He phones Dr Hanover who rushes to them, thinks the unconscious woman will survive. Mason wonders if this is the woman Mary saw take the pills. He repeats his conviction that, though the name is the same, the character is different from the Kaylor he met, and the one Drake brought back from Las Vegas. Hanover gives a hypo to the unconscious woman. Mason phones the police, fakes a Swedish accent, asks why they haven't come to his suicide call earlier, why did they stop at the door and not come up. A doctor is now caring for her. He hangs up, having thus given Dr Hanover his alibi for being there.
11.	Mason tells Della that they are going to "take a powder," but their flight will not be evidence of guilt. The go to Las Vegas by private plane to find evidence. The pilot offers them a cheap return the next day, but Mason tells Della they will return by train. They go to Inez Kaylor's apartment and her key opens the front and room doors. The room has been ransacked. The kind of mess indicates to Mason that whatever was being looked for is "small, flat and valuable." Mason lifts a few fingerprints, then the door buzzer interrupts them, then a knock, and finally a man enters. Thomas Gibbs is allowed to believe Mason is a police detective, and that Della is the sister of the Kaylor with whom he spent the previous evening, losing $200 at a gambling place. Mason demands proof of who he is, and Gibbs picks up a circular letter on the desk, smears ink on his thumb, make several prints, has Mason compare them with the thumb print on his license, then stuffs the circular in his pocket. He has come to pick up a few things for Kaylor and send them back to Martha Lavina. He is very scared, but Mason smells something fishy, suggests he and Della scram after Gibbs leaves.
12.	At a quiet cocktail lounge, Della hears a radio report that she and her boss have come to Las Vegas go get a long -expected marriage consummated. Then Mason wakes up to the fact that Gibbs has gotten what he wanted, a circular letter. They go to the Arrapahoe Hotel at which Gibbs is registered only to find from the operator that he checked out a quarter hour earlier. Mason discovers from the cashier's records that Gibbs made three calls to Los Angeles in the four hours he was in town, and Della determines the number is of the Villa Lavina Number Two. The return to Kaylor's apartment and Mason notes the missing letter was for the Aphrodite modeling agency. Drake has discovered the manufacturer of the purse that Lavina carried the night of the robbery, specially made with a heavy mirror. Archer is a rich widower. Mason and Street search the two Los Angeles newspapers and find an ad from the Aphrodite Model Agency.
13.	Drake reports that he believes Lavina was with Archer during the robbery, because the stolen purse is Martha's. Gibbs is a phoney. The modeling agency sends girls to Cuba and Mexico for ads related to the plane company and resorts. Mason has Mary Brogan and Della, and some Drake operatives, answer the ad. Drake says that the hospitalized woman is Inez Kaylor, and her husband and mother have shown up, fired Dr Hanover and put in a Dr Doyle.
14.	Monday. Court. Mason makes a motion to dismiss the jury, whose faces have indicated they've read about Albert Brogan being arrested for the Howell murder. Judge Egan rejects the motion, admonishes Fritch for allowing the information to be leaked. Mason gets a stipulation to keep witnesses out of the courtroom except when testifying, and not after. Martha Lavina was on the stand Friday, but Fritch recalls Rodney Archer, who proceeds to "clear up" his testimony, saying he dropped the cigarette lighter on the seat when the robber entered the car, causing the burn hole that shows in police photos. Mason gets him to admit that, in the approximately ten seconds maximum he had to see the burglar, hardly a second was when the robber's face was open to Archer, and that in darkness when Archer had his eyes accustomed to the red street light and bright neon sign across the intersection. Martha Lavina returns, and is eventually flustered by Mason over her silver cigarette holder, which had to be stolen with her purse, yet which, in a convoluted explanation, somehow was not. Mason has notice that Lavina has done her best to conceal her open purse when she has had to reach into it, and he noted a yellow paper. He tells Drake to get it when Lavina tries to dispose of it. She has claimed to have not talked with Archer, but not replied directly to whether or not she communicated with him. During a recess, Dr Doyle is called and arrangements are made for Kaylor to testify in the afternoon, with the doctor in court. Drake gets the paper and it is a statement as to what Rodney and Martha had for dinner. Mason wants to recall Lavina, but the prosecution has rested, so Mason calls her as his witness! With the note and Judge Egan's help, Mason gets Lavina very flustered and discredits her. The Archer is recalled and is caught in perjury saying he never communicated since the robbery with Lavina; he did, in the D A's office, with the note not in evidence!
15.	Back at his office, Mason finds Lieutenant Tragg waiting. The attorney tells the officer part of the story, but is interrupted by a phone call, with no one at the other end. Mason rushes with Tragg lagging behind, to Drake, who says he didn't call, so Mason knows it was Della, the only other person with the number of his private line. They rush to the apartment of James Darwin, the Aphrodite Modeling Agency, and find Thomas Gibbs, and Della Street tied to a bed. She says Gibbs recognized her when she arrived, acted as if he didn't, then she was knocked out cold, woke tied to the bed. Mason finds a stash of thick mirrors, such as are in Lavina's purse, and one is broken open, revealing about $20,000 in uncut heroin. Tragg uses Holcomb-style rough tactics to get Gibbs to tell where Inez Kaylor is.
16.	"Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, Mary Brogan and Albert Brogan sat in the lawyer's office." Tragg arrives with the real Inez Kaylor, the one Drake brought in from Las Vegas, who now explains the operation. When her marriage failed, she came to Los Angeles, answered the modeling agency ad, and was eventually sent to Mexico with "a complete traveling outfit, suitcase, overnight bag and a purse . . .property of the modeling agency . . . the value of the purse was one hundred dollars . . . an absurdly high valuation." Next she went to Cuba. Then she worked for Martha Lavina. She knew they could hire someone in Mexico much cheaper than sending her, but she asked too many questions. When she left, another girl took her name. When she disappeared at court, it was because a man identifying himself as Perry Mason's associate asked her to come to his office. In the car, a woman in the back seat was introduced as Della Street. She stuck her accidentally with a pin and suddenly everything went black. They took her to the Windmore Arms Apartment where Petty lived, and Petty was ready to take a big shot of sugar pill in front of the process server, but the server left too quickly, so it was Mary Brogan that saw the act. They had an ambulance waiting, and spirited Petty away, while Inez, drugged, was left in the closet. It was Daphne Howell, who had figured the heroin scheme out and was demanding a bigger payoff, who was riding with Archer when he was robbed. She was replaced by Martha after the robbery. Archer wanted to get the situation off his back and actually didn't want the robber caught, so describe the car he knew Gibbs had stolen earlier. Gibbs, the big shot in the dope racket, took Howell, pretending he'd pay her off and get rid of her, then killed her. The police picked up Brogan and charged him, so Archer and Lavina pinned it on him hoping this would get the police off further investigation. Then Holcomb read about the tan Chevy with crumpled fender, put Brogan in and had Archer and Lavina identify him. Martha and Albert agree they wish they could compensate Mason. The attorney reassures them; both Archer and Lavina are rich, and deliberately planned to get Albert convicted. After Mason gets done cross-examining the two, the Brogan's will be rich.

Della Street	Paul Drake	Judge Kaylor
Perry Mason	Drake's operatives	Bailiff
Sylvia Bain Atwood	Edison Doyle	Spectators
Hattie Bain	Sam Atwood, deceased	Deputy D A Delbert Moon
Jarrett Bain	Sergeant Holcomb	Dr Hanover
Phoebe Bain	Elevator operator	Emma Lorton
Ned Bain	Two or three passengers	Emma's neighbor
Jeremiah Josiah ("J J") Fritch	Dr Flasher	Frank Haswell
George Brogan	Lt Arthur Tragg

Erle Stanley Gardner dedicates this book to Ralph F Turner, author of Forensic Science and Laboratory Techniques, whose work, nationwide and at Michigan State (then) College, spread the value of the field of Police Science study.

The solution to this murder mystery is one of the most famous of all written by Erle Stanley Gardner.

In another demonstration of recording history, literally, in the first chapter Mason demonstrates a high fidelity wire recorder of German manufacture. Wire recorders gave way to tape recording because of the poor fidelity of wire. This was caused by the thickness of the wire; only the part closest to the recording head had a high signal and in playback the wire rotated, so the signal level went up and down much like a roller-coaster. Flat tape solved this. Germans invented tape recording. Here, the wire is apparently so thin, that it takes a full sound image on its entire circumference.

Coincidence, or what? Here are a J J Fritch and George Brogan, while in the previous novel, The Case of the Hesitant Hostess, there is a Harry Fritch and Mary and Albert Brogan. Dr Hanover here is the autopsy surgeon for the prosecutor, in the previous novel, Dr Hanover is Mason's close friend and confidential doctor. Here there is Edison Doyle, there a Dr Doyle. To top it off, we meet Judge Kaylor here, and the Hesitant Hostess is Inez Kaylor.

We've met Lt Tragg in earlier Perry Mason novels, but here we learn his first name for the first time, Arthur.

If the previous novel, The Case of the Hesitant Hostess, had a long trial scene, here that trial, Chapter Fourteen, is even longer, fifty-four pages (in the Detective Book Club edition), the longest so far in all the Gardner novels.

1.	"Della Street, Perry Mason's confidential secretary, handed the lawyer a scented, engraved oblong of pasteboard." She warns Mason about the green-eyed prospective client. Sylvia Bain Atwood opens with "The best is always the cheapest." She is a widow with no children. Her family; sister Hattie Bain, brother Jarrett Bain, his wife Phoebe, and her father, Ned Bain. She is being blackmailed, and wants to protect her family from it. Her father got into oil with a loan from Jeremiah Josiah Fritch ("J J"), who may have gotten it by way of a robbery by acting as a bank examiner. George Brogan, private detective, has indicated the bank may claim Ned Bain's oil properties belong to them. Mrs Atwood wants Mason to meet Brogan and pay J J's demands and get a tape that supposedly has her father talking to J J. Mason phones Paul Drake, and learns that Brogan lives the high life. After getting a big retainer from Mrs Atwood, Mason phones Brogan and gets an appointment. He gets a German wire recorder that operates from a microphone that appears to be a hearing aid, demonstrates its high fidelity.
2.	In Drake's office, Mason learns what Drake wouldn't say over the phone with a client next Mason, namely that Brogan is a clever blackmailer who works as a go between, so he's never been caught. Mason tells Drake he intends to record the tape, and Drake tells him to be careful.
3.	Mason and Atwood are greeted by Brogan who is affable, but wary. Brogan won't leave either Mason or Atwood alone with the tape, so they go together into the kitchen and mix each his own drink, so no one can put knock-out drops in the other's drink. Brogan and Atwood go back to the living room while Mason, having found a magnetic knife holder, removes first the knives, then the magnet. Mason slips the magnet under the cloth covering the table on which the recorder is located. After hearing the recording, the tape is set on the cloth. Mason demands to see if the tape is spliced. The recorder is turned around so the lawyer can see the tape pass through the machine but, when played, there is no sound. Brogan is panicked, but assures Mason and Atwood it is the machine, not the tape.
4.	Paul Drake joins Perry and Della and Mason explains the operation and how a tape was inter-spliced with an innocent conversation between Ned Bain and J J Fritch in a room with normal echoes and specially recorded leading statements by Fritch in an echo-free studio, then a splice-free copy made. Drake can hear this. Brogan calls, says he is at his office and the machine is fixed. Mason now knows Brogan has the master tape in his apartment, as Drake's operatives know he has not left since Mason and Atwood departed. Sylvia phones to say that Fritch has phoned Ned Bain directly.
5.	As Sylvia drives Mason to the family home, he learns of Edison Doyle, Hattie's boyfriend who, having first taken a liking to the quiet at-home girl, may now be waking up to the livelier life Sylvia leads. Mason learns, too, of Sam Atwood, who died a year and a half earlier. At the house he meets Hattie, Edison, and Ned Bain. A phone call from Drake lets Mason know that Fritch has an apartment directly across from Brogan. Mason explains the making of the fake tape to Bain, who wants no publicity.
6.	Della and Perry go to Brogan's. There is a note on the door indicating Brogan has been delayed by a poker game. Mason realizes they've been set up. Before he can cover, a scream comes from Brogan's apartment, the Sylvia opens the door. Fritch is dead, inside the apartment. Mason works a cover, and goes into Fritch's apartment. He finds a freezer stocked for a long stay if needed. At the prearranged signal, he follows Sylvia into Brogan's apartment, and Della has the note, which she gives to Perry. Brogan finds the body, accuses the trio of murder, and calls the police.
7.	For two hours Sergeant Holcomb has been interviewing everyone but Mason. When he interrogates Mason, the attorney outfoxes him, carefully avoiding answers that will give Holcomb a chance to pin anything on him or his client, Sylvia, or Della. Even after Holcomb threatens Mason with a charge of first-degree murder, the lawyer is able to state he's going to walk out unless charged, which Holcomb, reluctantly, realizes he hasn't the evidence needed to do.
8.	Drake reports that Fritch was stabbed with an ice pick. Brogan had an electric icebox and had ice cubes for his drinks, as did Fritch. The Bain household has both an electric icebox and an old-fashioned ice chest. The murder was between midnight and three, and Brogan was playing poker with friends at this time. At five he went out for about a half hour to raise money and he finally left about eight-thirty. A witness at the apartment saw Sylvia Atwood parking her car about eight-thirty. Fritch had enough food to withstand a year's siege. A phone call from Della informs her boss that Ned Bain is dead. Mason dashes for the building elevator, causing curiosity among passengers as the operator takes the machine quickly to the ground floor. At the Bain's, Dr Flasher states Ned died of natural causes and he'll sign a death certificate indicating death about five or six in the morning. Jarrett Bain has arrived from prowling ruins in the Yucatan. Sylvia tells Mason that her dad killed J J. She followed her dad to the apartment, and wants Mason to tell the police. She has the original tape, which she found under her dad's pillow, and the ice pick, which is a Bain ice pick! Edison Doyle joins them, with the tape. As Della and Perry leave, the secretary says she can "count two" murders.
9.	Mason and Street return to the office, where they play back the tape, quietly. They are interrupted by Lt. Arthur Tragg, who has a warrant. He plays fair with Mason, warning the attorney that Brogan had a microphone picking up whatever was said in the hall or apartment. Tragg leaves with the tape, after repeating Brogan's alibi.
10.	Sylvia tells Mason how she knows it was her dad she followed to J J's apartment. She saw someone come out of the elevator, not her dad, but woman, so she went up to Brogan's apartment, found the note, went in, but didn't find Fritch. She went home, came back after eight-thirty, found the body in the closet. She thinks she should tell the police.
11.	Paul Drake reports what is on the news, that Ned Bain killed J J Fritch, and the tape has been found through "vigorous, intelligent work" in the office of "a prominent downtown lawyer" whose initials were P M. Jarrett Bain joins them, admits to having arrived before the four o'clock his telegram indicated, and that Ned Bain never left the house, but Hattie did. Only Doyle knows he arrived before one o'clock. Bain goes off to tell Holcomb his story.
12.	Sylvia is back, with yet another story. She now realizes it must have been Hattie she saw leaving the apartment building. Hattie has been arrested. The police found the ice pick in the same drawer Sylvia had hidden the tape, in Hattie's room. Sylvia thinks a wire of a new finding could get Jarrett out of town, and she also thinks Mason is too conservative. She writes him a check to defend Hattie.
13.	Hattie tells Mason she went to see J J, and she has told this to the police; "It's the duty of a good citizen to cooperate.
14.	Spectators crowd Judge Kaylor's court as the bailiff brings events to order. George Brogan is called by deputy D A Delbert Moon to prove the death of Fritch, having seen the body at the morgue. Mason goes after him regarding when he first saw Fritch dead, which Brogan dodges. Questions then lead to the relationship between Brogan and Fritch. Dr Hanover, the autopsy surgeon, testifies to post-mortem lived-in and rigor mortis as the means by which he has decided Fritch was killed between midnight and three. Mason shows that the doctor is prejudiced against the accused. A question of how the body fell out of the liquor cabinet, and whether blood stains were found on the carpet, is inconclusive. Emma Lorton, apartment resident , testifies to seeing Hattie come to J J's apartment down the hall while she was awaiting a neighbor. Mason confuses her and discredits her testimony by showing she was coaxed by the police to identify a photo of Fritch and Hattie alone, not in a lineup. Frank Haswell states he found fingerprints of Harriet Bain, Perry Mason, Sylvia Atwood, J J Fritch, George Brogan and Sergeant Holcomb. Mason gets him to admit any of these could have been made up to seventy-two hours before he too the latents, so, of course, even Holcomb could have committed the murder. Brogan is now recalled to testify to two tapes, the one he made in the hall and apartment, and the one of Bain and Fritch. Mason stops admission of the former, because it has nothing to do with his client, who was not his client at the time the tape was made. Brogan admits he was concerned when Mason made the Bain-Fritch tape go blank, and also concerned when he learned it was not the original as claimed by Fritch. Mason queries him about his relationship with Fritch, and why he should want to help the Bains. Then he bears in on the time element, the poker game in which Brogan was involved. Brogan asks, "Now then, Mr Mason, suppose you figure out how I could have possibly committed a murder that was committed between midnight and three o'clock in the morning by leaving a poker game at five o'clock." Mason tells the judge he wants to answer Brogan, and explains how it could have been done by removing the frozen food from Fritch's deepfreeze icebox, putting Fritch in there around five, then taking him out at eight-twenty, when he was supposedly having breakfast in a restaurant (which he cannot name), and putting him in the liquor cabinet where Sylvia found him. Courtroom uproar. Now Brogan takes the fifth. Dr Hanover is brought back , Della piles books on the defense table, and Mason cautions Hanover before asking if the conjecture about use of the deep-freeze could be possible. Mason suggests a trip to the apartment.
15.	Mason takes a pasteboard container of ice cream from the deep-freeze and shows the judge that the ice cream has thawed and been refrozen. A livid Holcomb is forced to remove all the foodstuffs, and blood stains are found in the bottom of the freezer.
16.	The trio, Mason, Street and Drake, are in the attorney's office. Mason has figured that post-mortum lividity indicated the body lay on it s back, but this was impossible if the body was in the liquor cabinet. Someone tampered with the evidence, since Hattie saw Fritch alive after midnight. Drake gets a phone call; stains in the bottom of the icebox match Fritch's rare blood type. Fingerprints outlined in blood on packages taken out of the deep-freeze are not Sylvia's, Hattie's, Ned Bain's, Mason's, nor George Brogan's! Mason points out they could be Doyle's, or Jarrett's. They'll never know about Jarrett, because he's already gone back to the Yucatan, courtesy of "the green-eyed sister. Little Miss Fix-It" who sent him a telegram about a new find.

Della Street	Erin Apartments manager	Malden cook	Switchboard operator
Perry Mason	Ramon Castella	. . . aka Edna Colebrook	Ed Duarte
Dr Summerfield Malden	Ray Spangler	[Harry Colebrook]	Taxi driver
Steffanie Malden	Erin spectators	Judge Telford	A Denver man with Burger
[Charles Amboy]	Erin bystander	Courtroom spectators	Two Denver officers
Gladys Foss	Photographers and reporters	Carl Hurley	Airline hostess
[Gertie]	Drake's photographer	Assistant Madison Irwin	Mrs Charlotte Boomer
[Two stenographers]	Information officer	Airport employee	Court clerk
Well-dressed woman, aka . . .	Hamilton Burger	Dudley Lomax	Sgt Holcomb
Paul Drake	Holding officer	Millicent Kirby	Dr Reedley Munger
Drake's operatives	Darwin Kirby	Horace L Redfield	Dr Charles Ennis
Restaurant waiter	Malden maid	Paul Winnett	A dead mob boss

In his Foreword, Erle Stanley Gardner dedicates this book to S R Gerber, M D, Coroner of Cuyahoga County; Ohio. Gerber became the coroner of Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and many of its suburbs, in 1937. Recognizing the need of a coroner to understand the legal implications of his fin dings, he studied law and was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1949.

From steak Mason now goes to prime ribs of beef, and his preferred drink is a Bacardi cocktail.

Without simply transcribing several chapters of this novel complete, it would be impossible to reveal the complexities woven into it by Gardner. This is one you have to read yourself.

1.	Della Street announces Mrs Summerfield Malden, Steffanie, wife of the doctor who died in an airplane crash. She does not seem to be in mourning. Stephanie explains that the Bureau of Internal Revenue has been investigating her husband, whom they think has secreted a hundred thousand dollars. He takes large cash payments, and this is managed by Gladys Foss, his nurse and bookkeeper. Her husband was flying to Salt Lake City, where Gladys was to meet him. She knows her "husband carried a leather key container" in which there were two keys she could not account for. He had a private place in the Dixiewood Apartments, possibly a love nest, under the name of Charles Amboy. She gives Mason photostats of a small notebook her husband kept; when she is walking out, Mason discovers that it is some sort of code. She is being shadowed, so expects Mason to go to the love nest.
2.	Gertie and two stenographers have gone home. Mason and Street go to the Dixiewood Apartments, find a sumptuously furnished four-room apartment, with an open, empty safe. The are quick to leave but Mason thinks a well-dressed woman entering the building recognizes him, or thinks she does. On the way to his office, Mason stops to phone Paul Drake, and order him to put operatives on to Gladys Foss in Salt Lake City and on to Steffanie Malden to see if she is being tailed. Then he calls Steffanie and tells her to meet him in forty-five minutes at his office. Then he and Della get a quick dinner from a waiter who knows them. Mason reports to Steffanie that he has gone to the love nest, but found no money. She thinks he is saying this because he must but, of course, he found the hundred thousand dollars. After she leaves he conjectures with Della on the problems now existing, including Gladys having taken the money, or the books balancing . . . In the photostats, Mason discovers what appears to be the combination of the safe. Steffanie could make him look like a thief.
3.	Drake reports that no one is shadowing Steffanie Malden. He had an operative trail an operative, so he is sure. She went to the Dixiewood Apartments. He has Drake arrange to have men cover 928-B, the Malden apartment, at the Dixiewood building.
4.	Now Drake reports that there are tails on Steffanie. She left the Dixiewood, went home, then to Erin Apartments, and was followed there. She went to a room where, according to the manager, a (Ramon) Castella, Dr Malden's chauffeur, lives. Mason drives Della home, returns to his apartment. The phone is ringing; Drake reports that Gladys Foss is now at the Dixiewood. At the Dixiewood Mason is met by one of Drake's operatives who says Foss came down with two heavy suitcases and left but a few minutes earlier. Mason goes to 928-B and finds the safe shut and covered by a picture, and all the feminine garments removed. Mason follows the trail to the Foss bungalow. She is more than gorgeous. She admits to playing the horses through bookie Ray Spangler, possibly using cash from the cash drawer from which Dr Malden also took cash, and put in cash payments when he felt like it. She suggests she might also have won on the horses, which will confuse the income tax people in trying to determine how much cash there should be. She denies knowledge of any safe in 928-B. She explains that Ramon was not only chauffeur but cared for Malden's airplane and motorboat.
5.	Mason leaves the Foss bungalow, seeks a phone. He tells Drake that he wants men watching Gladys Foss. Drake reports that Mrs Malden has been arrested, by Narcotics men. At the Erin Apartments Mason finds a little knot of curious spectators. A bystander says it has to do with dope, tho he always found Castella "nice enough fellow."
6.	Mason enters the Hall of Justice, is accosted by photographers and reporters, one of whom slips him a card. He is a Drake operative and he gets Mason aside and tells him where Mrs Malden is being held. The information officer tries to stop Mason as he heads to the room where Steffanie is being held. Mason shouts instructions to her, then Hamilton Burger comes into the hall, demands Mason leave. In front of the reporters, Mason reminds everyone that this is a public building. Steffanie bursts into the hall, but is pulled back by an officer holding her. Burger refuses to let Mason speak to Steffanie.
7.	Mason drives back to the Foss bungalow and learns from Drake's operative that she must be asleep. Mason investigates, finds she's packed her clothes and left. Mason phones Drake, who says trying to find her would be foolishness. Mason orders Drake to tip the police to Ray Spangler's deals with Gladys Foss.
8.	Ray Spangler is opening his cigar shop, which he declares is now his only business. The police gave him a going over on a false tip. Mason busy a couple of cartons of cigarettes.
9.	In jail, Steffanie pleads with Mason to believe her, but lies about going to the Dixiewood Apartments. Mason proves the lie to her. She hates Castella, and doesn't know who drove her husband to the airport, but thinks it was Darwin Kirby , a wartime friend. The Malden maid and cook saw him the night before the flight. Mason reasserts that he does no have the hundred thousand dollars. On the way out, he meets Edna Colebrook, wife of Harry who is in the Identification Bureau in the Sheriff's Office, the woman who seemed to recognize him at the Dixiewood Apartments.
10.	Mason tells Street and Drake he is rushing the hearing to get Castella on the stand. They discuss the contortions of the case.
11.	Judge Telford calls the court to order. Mason faces two trial lawyers, Carl Hurley and his assistant (Madison Irwin). An airport employed states how Dr Malden had filed a flight plan, and how he had gone to the site of the crash where a charred body had been found. Dudley Lomax is qualified as an expert in the science of "criminalistics." He explains how spectrographic analysis can determine contents of an item, and how substance 68249 had been put in some of Dr Malden's narcotics so they could be traced. This was found in a bottle thrown from the crashed plane. The bottle had fingerprints of Dr Malden, Castella, some unidentified prints and Mrs Malden (this last comes out only on cross examination). They were layers so that who was last could not be determined, but some of Castellas were over Steffanie's. Mason shows the court that Lomax is biased for the prosecution., that he is a member of an organization which cannot be identified, but which has other members who use the same marker in their investigation. After conferring with Irwin, Hurley calls Castella, who is caught reciting an analogy given him by the prosecuting attorney. He claims Steffanie asked him to marry her if something were to happen to her husband. Mason now objects to testimony, since there is no corpus delicti. Mason points out that, since Malden's car was not in the lot, he must have driven it away, and Kirby flew the plane and was killed. Hurley cannot disprove this, so Telford dismisses the case. Mason takes Steffanie into Telford's office and, appropriately, is chased out, but Mason now uses the hall, not the court, door, and spirits his client to a woman's room where Della puts on Steffanie's clothes. Mason sends his client to 928-B, and Della, in his car, up the valley, having surmised that somewhere around Stockton or Sacramento must be the place Dr Malden, still alive, and his love Gladys Foss, must be hiding, since her car came into town with windshield covered with mosquitoes, and that would not be the case if she'd come in from dry Las Vegas.
12.	Mason finds Mrs Millicent Kirby in the Brownstone Hotel, Denver. She explains she is being "crucified on a cross of legal blackmail" by Horace L Redfield. She and her husband operate a string of restaurants, but only on land leased from Paul Winnett who is in Illinois. All expenses and gross income go to Illinois. The net is served out two-fourths to Winnett, one-fourth to her husband who is "sitting out in some tropical island, in the shade of a palm frond, with some little cutie catering to his every whim." She is embittered. Any suit involving the company gives it all back to Winnett. She has finally caved in and agreed to a divorce, which legal document has to be served personally in Colorado. Her husband is due that evening. Mason asks to go with her lawyer. She has the switchboard operator get her attorney, Ed Duarte, on the line; he says "no" in emphatic terms.
13.	But Mason is not to be denied. When two cars leave the building in which Edward Duarte had his law offices, the attorney is waiting in a taxi in an alleyway. The driver manages to keep a cab with a governor in sight of the speeding cars. When they park a block behind the two cars, the driver notes they have been followed. Mason goes to the bungalow, finds the door open, hides in a closet. When one person leaves and a car drives away, he confronts Kirby. His story is that he was hounded by his in-laws with all his faults until he got away by joining the armed forces. Then, having seen life in the South Pacific, he decided to live there. Hamilton Burger bursts in with a man and two Colorado officers. Burger is triumphant; Kirby is alive. Burger tells Mason he's arrested Steffanie in an apartment she maintained under the name of Amboy, and a Mrs Colebrook recognized Mason coming out of the apartment with Steffanie.
14.	At sunrise Mason arrives in Los Angeles. Drake meets him with the joyous news that Colebrook has made a positive identification, and Steffanie has screamed her lungs out that Mason has a hundred thousand dollars of her money. Mason tells Drake to use his photographer operative to get into the crowd of police that will surround Kirby when Burger's plan arrives, and serve a summons on him for the defense.
15.	Della reports from Sacramento. She's found Gladys Foss. By afternoon Paul Drake can report that she lives in Sacramento. Her husband, Charles Amboy, was a mining man who was away for long periods of time. Gladys grubstaked him. She kept long hours and ate at a restaurant, and got home late, but was definitely living there for the past six months. Mason flies to Sacramento and takes Della to dinner. Then they meet the seven-thirty evening plane. The hostess recognizes his description of Gladys, a regular passenger, commuting from Los Angeles, until recently, when her husband died in a plane crash. Mason now notes to Della that, besides Steffanie, Dr Malden had even easier access to his narcotics cabinet. If Malden were "going to pretend to be dead, take what money he could and run away with Gladys Foss, he would naturally need a corpse."
16.	Burger's plane arrives at the airport, the regular passengers get off, and Burger makes his triumphal return with Kirby. Drake's photographer steps forward, asks Kirby to put his hand out, slaps a subpoena into it. Burger is outraged, orders the arrest of the photographer, and Mason steps forward threatening a fifty-thousand dollar false arrest suit. Burger rushes Mason, tries to hit him but Mason steps aside as flash bulbs go off.
17.	Of course, it is the photo of Burger swinging at Mason that makes the front page. Drake reports that Kirby is in a swank apartment. He's had only one visitor, Mrs Charlotte Boomer, his aunt. He's spilled the beans, telling how he drank a bit of the narcotic-spiked whisky and fell asleep, while Dr Malden took a big slug. Mason still asks, "who drugged it and when?" He tells Drake to serve Boomer with a subpoena.
18.	The clerk calls court to order. Evidence from the first trial is stipulated into evidence in this one. Sergeant Holcomb testifies to finding Dr Malden's dentist, Dr Reedley Munger. The dentist surprises Burger by saying he can't be certain that the teeth of the dead man belong to Dr Malden. Mason tries to get Burger to call Kirby as his witness and Burger is forced to admit the witness has disappeared. Mason has moved for continuance until Kirby is present, so the judge puts the onus on the defense. Mason states his view of the case, which includes Kirby and Malden driving to Salt Lake City and asking Castella to fly his plane there. Burger is aghast, states that he has spoken to Kirby and Mason is only grandstanding. Mason admits he hasn't interviewed Kirby, that he was prevented to do so. Mason explains that he believes the story Kirby has given is fabricated and that, under oath, he won't support it. His flight is evidence of that. Mason suggests that it is just as likely that Burger has aided and abetted Kirby's flight as for the defense to have done so. Of course, Burger will not stipulate that what Mason attests is true, so Kirby has to be produced. To show good faith, Mason calls Charlotte Boomer. Burger says she cannot come. Dr Charles Ennis will testify so. What did Mason intend to prove with Mrs Boomer. "Nothing." The judge says he's going to "impose a sentence for contempt" and stops Mason from interrupting him. Mason asks for the opportunity to "state a legal reason why sentence should not be pronounced" and Judge Telford has to let him do so. Mason then states that the fact that Mrs Boomer, Kirby's aunt, could offer nothing is a defense, because Mrs Boomer visited her nephew, therefore could come to court. Mason says Mrs Boomer did not, in fact, visit Kirby! Mason is allowed to cross-examine Dr Ennis, who states he doesn't believe that Mrs Boomer left the sanitarium. Sgt Holcomb is recalled and states firmly that Mrs Boomer did visit Kirby but, when he describes the woman, Dr Ennis jumps up and says that is not his patient! Mason says it was Dr Summerfield Malden.
19.	Mason explains to Street and Drake. It was as he said. Dr Malden had simply planned to disappear, knowing he did not have long to live, and spend those few years with his friend Kirby and his love Gladys in the Hawaiian Islands, free of his snooping wife. Luck befell him when he was identified as the one who want down in the plane crash. Castella was the murderer, offering the plane to a mob boss who was on his back, getting him to take a slug of the drugged whisky.

I have to be frank; I don't like this solution. The introduction of a mob boss at the last minute is synthetic. Why not have had Gladys be as disliking of her husband in Sacramento as Malden was of his wife, both pulling a disappearing act. Then, Gladys gets her husband to fly the plane (this could have been prepared early in the novel or not, for she was commuting, and he could have been a pilot) and get killed. That could have as easily been worked in to the plot as what Gardner presented us.

Della Street	Crampton deputy district attorney	Male visitor
Perry Mason	Crampton deputy sheriff	Mrs Welchburg
Mrs Myrna Davenport	Witness at motel	Fresno undersheriff
Mrs Sara Ansel	Drake's Fresno operative	2 broad-shouldered deputy sheriffs
William C Delano, deceased	Jason L Beckemeyer	Fresno D A Talbert Vandling
John Delano, deceased	Gertie	Welchburg maid
Sara's sister, deceased	Newspaper reporters, photographers	Telegraph employee
Hortense Paxton, deceased	Reporter Pete Ingram	Judge Siler
Mason's switchboard operator	Butte County Sheriff	Fresno Sheriff
Mabel Norge	Butte County deputy D A (Oscar Glencoe)	Dr Milton Hoxie
Officer Sidney Boom	A pilot	Harold Titus
(Butte County) District Attorney [Jonathan Halder]	Some kids, later George Medford and Jimmy Eaton	Another pilot
Man on phone in Bakersfield	Their parents, including Martin Medford	Drake's San Bernardino man
Motel landlady	Male accomplice ?	Los Angeles D A [Hamilton Burger]
Dr (Herkimer Corrison) Renault	Annoyed couple	Miss Norge's attorney
Crampton Coroner

Sometimes there is very little to note about a specific Perry Mason novel. This one has one of the best "dodging of the question" sessions ever, Chapter Six. Mason is, of course, in trouble, but when the officer begins questioning him, Mason succeeds in interpreting everything in the smallest possible detail, all the while smiling affably and asserting he really wants to help his inquisitor.

Here we are introduced to Dr (Milton) Hoxie. In the television series, a Dr Hoxie is the most regular of the autopsy surgeons. The name "Hoxie" wasused first is in The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife, where the name is part of a law partnership. The next time "Hoxie" is used he is given a first name, "Frank," in The Case of the Moth-eaten Mink.

The Detective Book Club editions squeeze the type into fewer pages than the Morrow originals. Sometimes when one appears in a DBC Triple Decker, it is exactly as in the single volume, and sometimes the type is reset -- who knows why it is one way in one instance and another at another time? Here, the resetting for the DBC issue has resulted in an easily-missed proof-reading error. On page 40 "rolled" gets an extra "l," becoming "rollled."

There is a Foreword to this novel which the DBC edition does not reprint. In it Erle Stanley Gardner speaks of Dr Frederick D Newbarr whom he calls a medical detective. Dr Newbarr was also a clinical professor and Chief Autopsy Surgeon of the Coroner's Department of Los Angeles County (sort of a "Quincy," in television terms - the show ran from 1976 into 1983). The pocket book edition of this mystery keeps Gardner's dedication.

One.	Della Street tells Perry Mason that there are two women who want to see him at once, before they have to leave. Mrs Davenport is mousy, Mrs Ansel is very catty. Their problem is domestic, so Mason tells his secretary to send them away. She returns with the news that it is a murder case. So Mason sees them. Sara Ansel tells Mason that she's "sort of an aunt by marriage." Her sister's husband was Myrna's uncle. To explain; William C Delano died six month's ago. John Delano, Sara's brother, was her sister's husband. Myrna is niece to John and William. Myrna's husband, Ed Davenport, has written a letter accusing his wife of killing him. It accuses her also of poisoning Hortense Paxton, the niece would have inherited most of William's's money. Sara wants Mason to protect Myrna by getting the letter before Ed dies, so the letter can't be mailed to the authorities. Sara gives Myrna's key to her house to Mason. Finally Myrna speaks up, asserting that her husband no longer loves her and is stealing her money.
Two.	Mason's switchboard operator (no longer Gertie?) rings Della to advise of a long-distance call from Crampton. Mrs Ansel tells him that Ed Davenport died a quarter hour earlier. He tells Della to "Get two reservations."
Three.	Mason and Street take a DC-3 up to Chico. A taxicab takes them into town where they get a rented car and drive to Ed Davenport's office-house. They find a lock box and in it an envelope addressed to "the authorities" which Mason steams open only to find six sheets of blank paper. Using mucilage, he reseals the envelope with the blank papers inside. Mabel Norge interrupts them, calls the police. Officer Sidney Boom of the sheriff's office joins them and Mason points out that he is the attorney for the wife of dead Ed. Mabel tells the officer of an incriminating letter and gets it out of the lockbox. She wants to open it with the officer, but Mason points out her employment terminated on Davenport's death. Mason suggests that the officer call the district attorney, which he does. Boom leaves with Mabel tailing along. The phone rings; it is a station-to-station call from a man in Bakersfield, with the message "Pacific Palisades Motor Court, San Bernardino, unit thirteen." Then Myrna calls. Ed is gone. Mason tells her to take Sara and go to the San Francisco airport and wait.
Four.	At the San Francisco airport they find Myrna and Sara, asleep, and watched by a man reading a newspaper. Della gets four tickets for Los Angeles. On the plane, Sara tells Mason that Ed stopped in Crampton, very sick. The motel landlady gave him the name of doctors, and Dr Renault came, diagnosed serious illness. They were called and joined Ed and the doctor. Ed finally rested, the doctor left, only to be recalled when Ed started to choke. Renault sent Sara to get medicine and Myrna, who was in the shower, arrived too late. Ed was dead. The doctor sealed up the place, believing there had been foul play from something Ed told him. When the coroner, deputy district attorney and sheriff's deputy came, Ed was gone. A witness saw Ed climb out of a back window and drive off. She is certain Ed had been rolled earlier that evening. She thinks that Ed must have wakened after the doctor gave him a last-ditch-effort shot of adrenaline. She notes that the doctor asked about candy; Ed eats candy to get over his alcoholic binges. Mason instructs her to take a taxi home, so he can see if they are being tailed. Mason tells Della what he has learned.
Five.	Back in Los Angeles, Mason watches the two women go off in a taxicab, followed by an unmarked police car. Della is also followed. Mason resists looking to see if he is followed. Drake reports that a Frank L Stanton registered in unit thirteen, paying ahead by telegraph. Drake's Fresno operative has reported that the room was being watched by Jason L Beckemeyer of Bakersfield. Mason grabs a nap and is awakened by Drake on the phone. Myrna has been arrested, for the murder of Hortense Paxton, by arsenic poisoning. The Butte County sheriff has opened the envelope, found blank sheets, and is looking for Mason. Della is already at the office. When Mason arrives, Sara is awaiting him to accuse Myrna of being a Lucrezia Borgia. She explains how she saw Myrna burying small packages in the garden. Myrna lied until she forced the issue. She was burying plant poisons, so if difficult questions were raised she'd not have them around to be found. Myrna packs Ed's bags when he travels, and includes candy. She's not going to the police, but if they come to her . . . When she leaves, Mason ruefully notes to Della that, when a third person is present, a communication is not confidential, and Myrna, not Sara, is his client. Mason phones Butte County District Attorney Jonathan Halder, banters with him, agrees to fly up to his office, setting an exact time of arrival so photographers can be there when he arrives.
Six.	At the Oroville airport, they are greeted by newspaper reporters and photographers. One reporter (Pete Ingram) surreptitiously gives Mason a note. Butte County District Attorney Jonathan Halder greets Mason with the county sheriff and a deputy DA (Oscar Glencoe). Mason, faking a need to look in his billfold, reads Ingram's note, which indicates that Mabel Norge has disappeared with all the money in Davenport's account. They go to the sheriff's office where an informal interview becomes a formal one when Mason notices the sheriff reading from notes. Mason quibbles about the identification of the house they were in as belonging to Ed Davenport when it belonged instead to Myrna Davenport. If it was community property, she gained title when Ed died. Otherwise she might have gained title through inheritance and a will. Mason has to protect his client, and some district attorney in the southern part of the state might interpret his informal admission as a formal statement. The D A and sheriff get nowhere against Mason's shadowboxing. [Here's another chapter that cannot be summarized; you have to read it to get its effect.] Eventually they bring Sidney Boom into the room and he starts to explain what he knows of Mason's entry to the house. When Mason tries to correct errors, the sheriff shuts him up. Then when Boom is done, Mason asks questions of Boom to prove his errors, and again the sheriff objects. Mason argues that Boom cannot even know who signed the note on the envelope. They suggest they'll charge Mason with accessory after the fact of Ed Davenport's murder. Mason suggests that the missing Mable Norge ran off with the missing Ed Davenport. Then, didn't they know she was at the Davenport place a half hour before he was, couldn't have been driving by casually since it was a dead end, substituted an envelope for the real one, and took Davenport's money out of his bank account. Halder is flabbergasted, since no one was to know of the withdrawal. Mason and Street exit, and are met by Ingram. They reward him with an interview on the way to the airport in his car. Their pilot is given instructions to overfly Sacramento and go to Fresno.
Seven.	Mason sends the pilot and Della on to Los Angeles, but stops in Fresno. A collect call to Drake brings the information that Myrna must be in Fresno. Ed's body was found in a shallow grave prepared a few days before the murder, near the motel. Some kids had used it as a fort, then reported it to their parents when it got filled. The police think there was a male accomplice. Apparently Stanton was Davenport, and stayed in a motel where a couple, annoyed by his talking with a male visitor, got Mrs Welchburg of the motel to call them. Meanwhile, Sara Ansel has gone to the police and blabbed everything, then, when they worked her over, she decided she'd condemned Myrna without a hearing, so is now contrite. Mason goes to the hotel, gets Mrs Welchburg to confide. The man had two heavy suitcases, and one a new bag wrapped in newspaper. If he made any long-distance calls, they were from a pay phone. Mason phones the Fresno sheriff, speaks to the undersheriff, says he wants to speak to his client, no, he did not go to Mr Davenport's house in Paradise, he went to Mrs Davenport's house, and Davenport stayed at the motel from which he is phoning. Two "broad-shouldered deputy sheriffs" find Mason in the motel lobby.
Eight.	Fresno Talbert Vandling greets Mason. He admits that the witness to Davenport's climbing out the window has disappeared, and his police bungled in not getting a legitimate address. Davenport died from instant-acting potassium cyanide. The candy was spiked with arsenic, but some also had potassium cyanide. That's all he "can say at the present time." He doesn't want to try a case where he is not certain of his evidence. He offers to accept a plea which will prevent the death penalty. Mason notes that if his client is convicted here, or in Los Angeles, first, the other county will easily get the death penalty in the following trial.
Nine.	Myrna tells Perry she's told everything to the nice district attorney. Mason orders her to let him do all the talking, points out she'll get the death penalty one place or the other if convicted in either. Also, Sara has told the police of her burying poison, which brings "a distinct flicker of panic" in Myrna's eyes. Ed was sure Hortense would get Uncle William's money, and Ed did not like Aunt Sara. She packed one bag for Ed on the latest trip -- they were now living in Los Angeles and Paradise was but his office. His pajamas had red fleur-de-lis figures on them. She says the candy box was still in its cellophane wrapper, so there can be no fingerprint on the candy wrappers.
Ten.	Back in his Los Angeles office,Mason gets a note from Jason L Beckemeyer who offers his services with a bill for $255 and a note about his watching cabin thirteen. He interviewed the maid, and was certain no one stayed in the cabin, but the telegraph employee proved a remittance sent by Frank L Stanton was duly delivered. Mason now asks Drake to check on Sara Ansel.
Eleven.	Talbert Vandling calls young George Medford, who tells of playing in a grave as if it were a fort, then telling his dad when they found it filled. Judge Siler allows a stipulation that, where no cross is done now, it may be done later if pertinent. Martin Medford testifies to digging in the grave until he discovered a leg, then he got the police. The Fresno sheriff describes the shape and size of the grave. Dr Milton Hoxie, physician, surgeon and toxicologist, testifies to finding no arsenic in the dead man who, he was certain, died almost immediately from cyanide of potassium poisoning. He died about an hour after eating a meal of bacon and eggs. There was no appreciable amount of chocolate, and a mild amount of alcohol in the "Delighted and Devilish" range. Mason refers the doctor to Homicide Investigation by Dr LeMoyne Snyder to try to more closely set the time of death. Fingerprint expert Harold Titus matched prints of the dead man with the license of Davenport. He admits that, initially, Mrs Davenport and Mrs Ansel were not under surveillance, but later they were followed. When he asked Mrs Davenport about the chocolates, she stated that she placed an unopened box in her husband's suitcase. He found two chocolates with Mrs Davenport's fingerprints on them, and they had poison in them. Sara Ansel is called, and she is belligerent when questioned about her in-laws and the changing of William Delano's will so that she inherited a hundred thousand dollars and a fifth interest in his big house. When she moved in, Ed started moving out, using the Paradise house as a mining office. Sara knew he was stealing from Myrna and using the money to expand his mining interests. Sara is forced to admit that Myrna is a good gardener and buried arsenic and cyanide of potassium in the garden. On the day of the murder she got a call from Dr Herkimer Corrison Renault concerning Ed Davenport's failing health, and she and Myrna went to Mason, gave him instructions before going on to Crampton. Mason objects to testimony from Sara concerning what occurred in his office, as confidential, and Judge Siler says he'll have to take it under consideration during the recess. Dr Renault is called to the stand and he says that Davenport told him he'd eaten a chocolate and believed his wife was poisoning him. He treated him for food poisoning, then had to return in the afternoon. When he gave him a heart stimulant, he became weaker and suddenly died. He locked the room and went for the authorities. When he returned, the corpse was gone. He was gone for an hour, but was certain the man was dead. He thinks the man died from extreme shock caused by the purging of the arsenic in the morning. He is certain he didn't die from cyanide of potassium. He doesn't know how the man could have eaten eggs and bacon. Mason now forces Renault to admit that Davenport might have died from ordinary food poisoning. Vandling admits he doesn't want to dismiss the case, but the confusion is troublesome. He recalls Dr Hoxie, who admits the stomach could have been pumped of its contents, and something could have been pumped in, but asserts death was by cyanide poisoning and it was not taken in candy, but possibly in whisky, and the defendant did not have the means to administer it. Now a continuance to the next day is granted, and Mason discusses the situation with Vandling. The D A reveals that Dr Renault, who has been in Crampton only three years, is not thought of very highly. Vandling now thinks that Los Angeles should try the defendant before he continues. Myrna insists to Mason that her fingerprints could not be on the candy. Sara says there were two partially-eaten boxes which must have been combined and in Ed's suitcase when he got to Crampton.
Twelve.	Mason, Street and Drake are in a suite in the California Hotel in Fresno. The attorney states that "there's only one person in the world who could have murdered Edward Davenport" and merely smiles when Myrna is suggested. How could she have known that Ed would get sick in Crampton? Mason says they need to look for a six-wheeled vehicle, an auto and trailer, and Mabel Norge. Mason and Street go to the grave site, fan out, and Della finds jeep tracks which they trace to the place a trailer had been situated for some time. Mason gives Della another clue; "Who was the one person who could possibly have known that Edward Davenport was going to leave Fresno at around seven o'clock in the morning, that he was going to be taken violently ill as soon as he started driving, and that by the time he reached Crampton he would be so completely ill that he wouldn't be able to go on, that he'd have to go to bed and call a doctor?"
Thirteen.	The pilot tells Mason he can't fly them back at night as he takes them into San Bernardino. Drake has found Mabel Norge, registered as Mabel Davenport. Mason tells Della that the phone call they got in Paradise was for Mabel, but the person who phoned didn't know her. It was the location of where Mabel was to go. At the hotel, Drake's man tells them Mabel is in the restaurant. Mason threatens Norge with newspaper publicity if she doesn't help him. Mason suggests the Fresno DA will think she was Ed Davenport's mistress and they were running away together. Mabel insists she's working on instructions of Davenport. Mason phones Vandling and tells him where to find Mabel.
Fourteen.	Vandling is hesitant, after talking with the Los Angeles D A (not named, but certainly Hamilton Burger), to work with Mason, but listens to him, agrees to cooperate. He calls Mabel Norge. She testifies to her activities in regards to a letter with incriminating statements. Judge Siler objects, but Mason doesn't, to this hearsay evidence. Then Vandling asks if she were acting on Davenport's instructions, and her attorney objects. Vandling gets specific about her activities in withdrawing funds from the bank. Mason then gets her to admit she took the money to San Bernardino where she'd been instructed to give the money to someone no questions asked. The attorney objects. Mason recalls Dr Renault, asks if he treated him, then if he saw him the day before! The doctor says that has no bearing on his treatment. Mason says Renault saw Davenport in the Welchburg Motel under the name of Stanton and discussed how they could make it look as if he had died. Renault refuses to answer so Vandling offers that this would indicate a conspiracy. Renault says it would incriminate him. Mason explains. Renault and Davenport had rehearsed their plan whereby the doctor would report the death but give Davenport time to escape and drive to a house trailer. Davenport had murdered Hortense Paxton (to get the Delano money), was sick of the interference of Sara Ansel, had stashed away several thousand dollars he'd embezzled from his wife and needed to disappear before he was caught. Further, didn't he, realizing Davenport had suitcases loaded with cash, then give him potassium of cyanide in whisky. Renault now identifies the other party to the conspiracy, who was to drive the house trailer over to Nevada (with Davenport hiding in it), Jason L Beckemeyer. Vandling dismisses the case against Myrna Davenport.
Fifteen.	Vandling celebrates with Street, Drake and Mason. In addition to what is known, Vandling adds that Renault used a hypodermic needle to inject the poison into the candy and sealed the holes with a hot needle. Then he gave Davenport a physic and emetic to simulate the poisoning. Credulous Mabel brought the last deposits to Davenport's account to San Bernardino to complete a mining deal. Bickerers was the one to whom she was to give the money; he'd been the dummy used for siphoning money out of accounts. Bickerers introduced Davenport to Dr Renault, completing the conspiratorial triangle. At the trailer, Bickerers fed Davenport a breakfast, as suggested by Dr Renault who'd been paid $5000, then the spiked whisky. He buried Davenport and made off with the entire loot. Mason now states that only Davenport knew he was going to be sick in Crampton and, that being so, Dr Renault had to be in on it. Davenport put his own neck in the noose. "Contributory negligence" notes Vandling. "Exactly . . . here's to crime" offers Mason.

Perry Mason	Gertie	Ruby Inwood
Judge Dillard	Mervyn Aldrich	Sergeant Holcomb
Appointed defense attorney, Frank Neely	Paul Drake	Apartment car attendant, Joe
Witness Harry Bole	3D Motel maid	Newspaper reporters and photographers
Corona Jury	Unidentified intruder	Judge Kippen
Evelyn Bagby, defendant	3D Motel manager	Geoffry Strawn, new trial deputy
Courtroom spectators	Mike, headwaiter	Alexander Redfield
Riverside District Attorney	Man at sheriff's office	Mary Eunice
A brunette (future Mrs Neely, Estelle Nugent)	Deputy sheriff (Bill) Ferron	D A Hamilton Burger
Frank's father	Ferron's apartment	Spectators, especially lawyers
Irene Keith	Oscar B Loomis	Court policewoman
Helene Chaney	Janitor	Bailiff
Della Street	[Harry Marlow]	Court Clerk
Staunton Vester Gladden alias Steve Merrill	Drake's night operator	Harmon B Passing
Joe Padena	Jim, at headquarters	[Presiding judge]
Mrs Padena	Chaney's butler, William	Celeste, Keith's maid.

Is there a more famous case for the television series viewers? Certainly not, as this was the very first broadcast episode, and is about what every young, beautiful high school homecoming queen or cheer leader dreams; Hollywood.

The events related in the third chapter are here stated a bit out of order to simplify the narrative.

Two more DBC typos (proof-reading errors). In Chapter 5, "told" becomes "toold." In Chapter 7 "Evelyn" gets spelled "Evelzn."

We have mentioned before that the best Mason mysteries are based on a time-shift. This,of course, is a prime example. Mason proves the crime was actually committed before the police have determined it was, thus depriving certain witnesses of their airtight alibi.

1.	Traffic was light, so Mason had arrived at the courthouse in Riverside a half hour early. A trial is in progress in the courtroom and the attorney seems to have no idea of what to ask the witness, Mr (Harry) Bole, next. The witness testifies to seeing the defendant, Evelyn Bagby, stoop over a suitcase, open it, take something out, replace the suitcase in the trunk of the car. He says she had on the same clothes she's wearing in court, plus a plaid coat with fur collar, such as the full-skirted coat introduced in evidence. Since she had her back to him, how did he notice her. He particularly noticed the defendant's very good-looking legs. Judge Dillard calls the noon recess and the courtroom spectators shuffle out followed by the district attorney. A brunette tells Frank, the defendant's counsel, that he was wonderful. Mason joins Judge Dillard in his chambers. The judge identifies the attorney as Frank Neely, whose father is a businessman in town. Neely is a young attorney, so has been appointed this case to gain experience. The judge feels something is wrong for the witness is too patronizing. The judge signs papers Mason has brought, declines lunch since he has an engagement. Passing through the courtroom, Neely asks to shake the hand of the famous lawyer. Mason asks him about the case and Neely blurts out "how do you cross-examine a man who has made a positive identification when you feel that the identification is the result of a mistake, or perhaps the man is deliberately lying?" Mason gives him an analogy in response, then asks about the case. Evelyn Bagby is a waitress on the way to Los Angeles to find work. Her old model car broke down and she had to wait at a motel for a part to arrive. Rich Irene Keith, whose jewelry was stolen, was on the way to Las Vegas to be a bridesmaid for the actress Helene Chaney. She'd gone into a cocktail bar and when she came out she found the trunk lid ajar, and $40,000 worth of jewelry gone. Harry Boles, the witness, heard of this on the radio, and reported what he saw. The police checked the motel, and found Bagby who fit the description of the witness, and found one piece of jewelry, a bracelet, in her luggage. It is a routine run-of-the-mill case, so he was appointed, and he believes in his client. Mason offers to take him to lunch, and his girlfriend, not talk shop, and help him after lunch is over.
2.	Mason tells Neely to play the part of Boles. Mason explains that he has to hold the interest of the jury. He has "to keep throwing questions at the witness. Rapid-fire questions." "Don't keep going over the same things he's testified to in the same order." Mason then demonstrates with a string of questions. This leads to the fact the whomever the witness saw was wearing a topcoat which, the attorney suggests, would make it impossible for him to see her legs. Then the witness saw her at the car, when did he next see her? Neely says the impression was that it was in a line-up. Mason shows him that he probably got a glimpse of her before she was put in a line-up. As Mason leaves, he encourages Neely and reminds him he's sure Boles did not see any legs..
3.	Mason is looking at the morning newspapers, shows Della Street an article about "a young man by the name of Neely who seems to have made a brilliant cross-examination." Mason grins like a Cheshire cat. Della asks about the guests he had for lunch and the attorney suggests it was personal, with Frank Neely and Estelle Nugent. A bit later Della returns to the "Good Samaritan" with news that a starry-eyed young redhead is in his outer office. Evelyn Bagby comes in to thank the man who helped her attorney. She's looking for work. Mason asks if she'd thought of compensation. No. He asks Della to get Frank Neely on the phone, then hears Evelyn's story of her efforts as a redhead without freckles to get to Hollywood, how one Staunton Vester Gladden developed her talent, took her money and disappeared. Now she thinks he might be Steve Merrill, second husband of Helene Chaney. Mason speaks to Neely, arranges to be his associate, then gets her a job with Joe Padena whose restaurant, Crowncrest Tavern, is on the crest of the mountains above Hollywood, facing two valleys, a place run by his wife to which Hollywood's finest come. Mason stakes her to some cash. Della reports there was a tear in Evelyn's eye as she departed the office. Gertie has Irene Keith on the line. An appointment is made. The newspapers report that the marriage between Helene Chaney and Mervyn Aldrich is being held up by Merrill.
4.	Mason is two-thirds the way through the urgent mail when Irene Keith arrives. She is a stunner, and seems open and friendly. Della turns on a tape recorder. Irene explains how her souped-up car got her and Chaney to Corona early, so they went for a drink. Mervyn Aldrich, the groom, a stickler for time, arrived on time only to find them involved with the police over the stolen jewelry. Aldrich joins them, is curt, sure Bagby got off easily. Mason notes that because of the complaint signed by Keith, Evelyn was imprisoned, tried, and acquitted, leaving "the situation in rather an unsatisfactory state." Aldrich, a rich boat builder, says Mason can't hold Irene for a thin dime" in damages. He and she are shown the door by Mason. Della asks "if she wanted to settle, why do you suppose she asked Mervyn Aldrich to meet her here?" Mason notes that Aldrich is always punctual, so Irene must have set his arrival to follow her softening up of him, which failed. Della suggests that Irene is "very, very much interested in Mervyn." Mason has her go for Paul Drake.
5.	All Paul Drake knows of Irene Keith comes from her publicity department. Mason tells him to get more, and check on Gladden as well.
6.	Drake reports that the maid at the 3D motel saw an intruder coming out of Bagby's apartment at 11:30 the morning before the theft. The manager had assigned her another room, first needing to size her up for renting at that time of day. She checked out by one o'clock. Next, Della finds out from Joe Padena that Evelyn got a c call from S M who was "willing to settle." Mason sends Della to the Crowncrest Tavern to await Evelyn's return and make certain she won't settle. Mason then advises Neely that things may be heading for a good settlement. Irene Keith now enters, tries to get Mason to settle for a thousand dollars against all possible claims, and is stunned when he declines. While she's there, Mason hears from Della.; S M was definitely Steve Merrill and he is Staunton Gladden for Evelyn's gotten back numbers of movie magazines and looked at photos. Irene gives Mason until 10:30 pm to accept her offer.
7.	Mason is impatiently awaiting Della's return. When she returns, Mason mentions the check from Keith. Before anything is decided, Evelyn Bagby is on the phone with a story of finding a gun in her apartment at the restaurant. It is a very new, aluminum model, which hasn't been fired. They agree to meet at the Joshua Tree Café. Headwaiter Mike serves the Bacardi double they like. Mason looks at the Colt Cobra, which has been fired twice. Mason sends Della with the gun number to phone Drake. Mason then tells Evelyn about the check, which she is desperate to accept. He says they'll wait until the last minute. Evelyn now explains how she was almost run off the road while coming to meet Mason, and how she fired two shots wildly, which got rid of a hooded man in the pursuing car. Mason calls the sheriff's office. While awaiting the sheriff's men, Evelyn says she think's she thrown a scare into Merrill/Gladden. Ferron, from the sheriff's office, joins them, questions Evelyn all the while saying he hopes she got the person who has been terrorizing the area. She explains fully her encounter with the hooded man, including hearing a "plinking" wound on the second shot. They agree to go to the site of the incident.
8.	At the curve where Edith lost her pursuer the guard rail is broken. Ferron and his partner go down to the car, and are followed later by Mason. They've found a dead man, shot through the head, in a car registered to Oscar B Loomis. It starts raining and the three hardly get back to the road before it pours. The officers head to town, Mason, Street and Bagby to the Crowncrest Tavern. In Evelyn's room, they discover drapes. Evelyn notes that someone with binoculars could, from a hundred yards away, look into her room. Then Mason and Bagby discover that a pillow case is missing. Now Evelyn worries that the dead man might be someone she knows. Mason suggests she become hysterical and Della will take her to a sanitarium.
9.	The janitor in Mason's building is given $5 by Mason to think he is Harry Marlow and on the way to the Drake Detective Agency. Drake's night operator greets Mason, then absents herself when Mason leaves so he can return unnoticed. Drake reports that Evelyn's gun is one of two bought by Mervyn Aldrich. Drake has his operator arrange for Mason to visit Chaney, and have Aldrich arrive while he is there. Drake hears from Jim at headquarters. Drake's operator reports that Chaney will receive delivery of the movie script this evening. Mason notes to Drake that a mask conceals only a face, while a pillow slip may disguise even a woman. Della arrives. Bagby is sedated in a friend's apartment.
10.	Helene Chaney greets Mason and Street, surprised it is not someone else. Her butler, William, escorts them into the living room, then Helene joins them. Mason asks to see the gun Mervyn Aldrich bought for her. She goes to check on her gun, but actually makes a phone call. Shortly after she returns Aldrich arrives. He tries to dodge Mason's questions. Mason suggests that, since the gun isn't Chaney's, it must be Aldrich's. Aldrich looks at it, apologizes, says it must be the gun stolen from his glove compartment. "Without asking permission and before anyone could divine his intention or interfere, he whirled, whipped the door open, jerked it shut behind him, and stepped into the rain." Aldrich returns, gives the gun back to Mason, reports the theft and finding of the gun to the police. Mason and Street leave. .Mason inspects the gun, finds two exploded cartridges and four loaded, but the gun smells only of oil. Aldrich switched guns.
11.	Mason is cheerful, Della worried. She phones Drake, reports the dead man was Steve Merrill alias Staunton Vester Gladden. It was deliberate murder, for no lights were on in the car and the light switch was off. Ruby Inwood, Evelyn's roommate, took a message for Evelyn, indicating a meeting with Merrill who had $7500 for her. Merrill also had one of the new Colt revolvers. Sergeant Holcomb is looking both for Mason and Bagby. Mason tells her to tell Paul to go home and get some sleep. Of course Paul has "fortified himself with a lot of coffee" expecting an all-nighter for Mason. Mason sends Della home.
12	Mason tells Joe, the car attendant at his apartment, to leave his car waiting. He goes to his apartment and gets two .38 caliber shells and returns to the car. He drives to the scene of the crime, firs a shot into a redwood post, then a second shot into a live oak. At Padena's, only newspaper cars and police cars have braved the rain. On photographer sees Mason, and his camera flash sends Holcomb "barging out of the place like an angry bull." Mason feigns surprise that they are talking about murder. Holcomb demands the gun, and Mason counters that he won't respond "to an order from [Holcomb] to produce a gun with which a murder was committed." Holcomb pushes Mason off balance, opens the glove compartment of Mason's car, and triumphantly takes out the gun. While the reporters and photographer crowd around Holcomb, Mason quietly drives away.
13.	Evelyn has woken up from her drugged sleep and been fed breakfast by Della. A parrot makes various appropriate and inappropriate comments in the background. Mason joins them, tells Evelyn that the dead man is Steve Merrill alias Staunton Vester Gladden. Evelyn is sure that, having filed a warrant against Merrill/Gladden, others must have found out. Oscar Loomis lived in the same apartment as Merrill, and had a car like the one Merrill had rented. Boles also lived in the same apartment and, when Loomis discovered his car gone, suggested Merrill must have taken it by mistake. Boles, Loomis and Inwood were together from twenty to five until eight. Aldrich has no alibi. Mason advises Evelyn to tell everything to the police and the reporters, get the publicity. She coyly says "I am innocent" and widens her eyes slightly. "That's a good trick" Mason says, widening her eyes and want a person to believe her. She is angry, then laughs, saying it was something Gladden made her practice.
14.	Mason advises Neely to act like a veteran as they enter the courtroom of Judge Kippen. Geoffry Strawn, "a relatively new trial deputy," calls Harry Boles as his first witness. Boles identifies the dead man. Mason gets Boles to admit only that he learned Merrill was Gladden on the day of the man's death. William Ferron recounts the story Bagby had told him. Sergeant Holcomb explains he found the car with headlights off and switch off. The defendant told him they were on. He tells how he got the gun out of Mason's glove compartment. Mason catches him on the question of the gun being "in the same condition" in court as when he got it, for he has since emptied it of the cartridges and cases that were in it, and put them back. Holcomb goes on that he found the gun to be registered to Mervyn Aldrich. Mason suggests Aldrich testify. Strawn refuses. Mason says he wants it definitely determined as the murder weapon. The fatal bullet "mushroomed rather badly" says Strawn, so cannot be definitely identified. Holcomb produces the pillow slip, which has no bullet hole or power burns, so was put on after the man was shot. Holcomb says one bullet killed the man, the other was found in a redwood post. Then he quit looking. Ballistics expert Alexander Redfield identifies the bullet hole in the redwood post and locates it on a photo. Mason nudges Neely, suggests he make an objection once in a while. Redfield says the fatal bullet was fired from a gun of the type under question, but he is not certain it was this gun. Strawn moves to have the gun entered as an exhibit and Neely objects. The gun was in the possession of Mason, not the defendant. Mason notes that the mask was put on after the man was dead. Judge Kippen asks "You contend there were two people on that road wearing pillow slip masks?" Why not?" Mason asks to go to the crime scene. Strawn objects, they have photos. The photos are entered as evidence. Mason notices "a very peculiar spot" on an oak tree. Since one bullet from the gun was in the redwood post, if this is the second, then the dead man was . . . (shot by someone else, is the implication not stated).
15.	The crime scene. Holcomb suggests he "can't keep anyone from coming out here and firing bullets all over the place." Kippen suggests proper investigative technique would have precluded problems. Mason notes the bullet hole in the tree. Mary Eunice, who lives in the house nearby, joins them. She's discovered that a bullet broke the glass in an attic window the night of the crime. They find a bullet in an attic rafter, and the angle of approach indicates that it came from the road.
16.	Bullets are identified. The fatal bullet is #1, redwood post #2, oak tree #3 and Eunice house bullet #4. #3 in the oak tree was also fired from the gun. Burger suggests there was a deliberate attempt to tamper with evidence. #4, however, is more important; it was fired from the same type gun, but not the gun being introduced in evidence. Mason asks Redfield about breechblock identification. He asks that all four bullets be subjected to the test. At least two guns now figure in this matter. Marvyn Aldrich is called, says he identified the gun Mason gave him as the one taken from his glove compartment. He can identify it as his by a knick in the handle that he put on it so he could tell it from the one he gave Helene Chaney. Mason whispers to Neely "In a preliminary never object to any questions calling for new evidence. Only object to the form of questions so you keep the prosecutors off balance. . ." Aldrich's testimony is not objected to when he says the defendant was, at the trial in Riverside, within six feet of his car after the trial. Neely cross examines. With Mason's prompting, he needles and confuses Aldrich about having to take the gun with him to the car when he knew his gun by the knick. This is effective. A couple of lawyers who were spectators congratulate Neely as court takes a short recess. Estelle Nugent is proud of him. When a court policewoman takes Bagby to the defendant's room, Mason tells Neely and Nugent that Aldrich switched guns, which is why he wanted a breechblock test.
17.	Redfield gives only a preliminary report to Judge Kippen. Bullets #1 and #4 were fired from the same gun, and it is not the one first introduced. Bullets #2 and #3 came from that gun. The empty bullet cases in that gun were fired from another gun. Judge Kippen asks Mason for an explanation and, to do so, he calls Helene Chaney to the stand. Aldrich responds with "Helene Chaney will not take the witness stand." The judge warns him of contempt charges as Chaney leaves the room. The bailiff is ordered to bring her back. General pandemonium. The judge orders the doors closed and locked so returning spectators cannot return and interrupt the proceedings. Miss Chaney states she doesn't want to testify, she is afraid, she doesn't want publicity. She has heard Aldrich's testimony about his giving her a Colt revolver. She produces it from her purse. She does not have a permit. Mason again objects to introduction of the weapons. Judge Kippen places the weapons in evidence, tells Redfield to test the weapons and all no leaks of what he finds, admonishes Burger that the Court, not just the prosecutor, is interested in this. Mason asks if he may examine the witness before adjournment, and is told no. "'Then,' Mason said, 'I would suggest that the Court ask the witness why she deemed it necessary to carry a weapon, what the danger was that was threatening her.'" "Why?" Because she was afraid of Stephen Merrill, the dead man. Burger calls this typical Mason tactics. The judge shuts him up by asking the question. She says it is for personal protection, she'd been threatened by Stephen Merrill, who wanted money. Mason prompts the judge to ask how much money. Again, "Why?" Suppose it was seven thousand five hundred dollars. The question is asked. "He didn't ask. He demanded. He wanted seven thousand five hundred dollars." The judge adjourns the court, admonishing the Clerk to safeguard the exhibits. Neely is worried, but Mason points out that he did not tamper with evidence, since the gun he used didn't kill Stephen Merrill. "When you're skating on thin ice the only way you can keep from breaking through is to start going like hell." He says he's scrambling facts and presents the analogy of cooking eggs over a camp fire, and breaking the yolks, then scrambling the eggs and pretending scrambled eggs is what you wanted in the first place. "That's a damn good way to try a lawsuit when you're up against a frame-up."
18.	Judge Kippen announces "This Court deplores the sensationalism which has surrounded this case." He then recalls Redfield, who restates what is already known about the bullets. The empty cartridges in the first gun were fired from the other gun. They were moved after the gun was fired. The judge calls Chaney back to the stand. Harmon B Passing, her attorney, says shes not there, she wasn't subpoenaed. The judge argues the point, loses. Burger tries to blame Mason for the gun substitution, but Judge Kippen points out the only person who could have done this had to be "someone who had access to both weapons." Burger suggests he's going to find who did this and have him disbarred. The judge catches him on the implication. Burger backs off. Mason now calls Irene Keith and asks her if she had in her possession a weapon looking like those in evidence. She can't say. Didn't Helene Chaney give her such a weapon. Yes. What did she do with it. She can't say, it might incriminate her. She has consulted an attorney. The judge asks questions about her involvement in the murder of Stephen Merrill and she answers in the negative. The judge then says she must answer the questions. She repeats her position. Mason helps out,