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Della Street	Bisnaga Motel manager	Selwig Hedrick
Perry Mason	Belle Freeman	Weston Hale
George (Keswick) Latty	Palm Court Motel manager, Miss Chester	Elmore's Massachusetts doctor
Linda Calhoun	Palm Court maid	Ronley Andover
Aunt Lorraine Elmore	Man in pyjamas	Henrey T Jasper
Montrose Dewitt	Duncan Crowder	Miss Selma
Paul Drake	Reporter	Drake's switchboard operator
Howland Brent	Dr Kettle	D A Baldwin Marshall
Pilot	Yuma officer	Yuma reporters & photographers
Millicent Ostrander	Yuma coroner	Judge Horatio Manly
Yuma operatives	Belle Freeman's detective	Courtroom spectators
Yuma restaurant cashier	Yuma coroner's office boy	Yuma county surveyor
Yuma waitress	Yuma artist	Hartwell Alvin

"The archenemy of the murderer is the autopsy" states Erle Stanley Gardner in his Foreword. The number of official autopsies performed in Mexico City is approximately equal to those performed in New York City. Thus, Erle Stanley Gardner dedicates this novel to Dr Manuel Merino Alcántara, Professor of Legal Medicine at the National University of Mexico Medical Schoo an editor of El Medico, the Mexican equivalent of the American Medical Association's Journal.

1.	Della Street tells Perry Mason that a pair of lovebirds are in the reception room, George Latty and Linda Calhoun, from Massachusetts on their first visit to California. They think that Linda's aunt, Lorraine Elmore, is going to be murdered by Montrose Dewitt. Linda is helping put George through law school. They are in love but, with the arrogance of youth, think their aunt shouldn't be. Aunt Elmore wrote a letter to an editor and it was published and Dewitt wrote her, and so on. She got a blood test, took thirty-five thousand dollars in cash, and headed to California. Mason says they need nothing more than a good detective, and he brings in Paul Drake.
2.	Howland Brent has flown in from Boston. He's Lorraine Elmore's financial advisor, with full power of attorney. He's worried about Lorraine's recent actions, including a major withdrawal from her account.
3.	Drake reports that Dewitt closed out his account to the tune of fifteen thousand dollars. He and a good-looking woman have driven out of town in a car with a Massachusetts license plate. Dewitt is apparently a manufacturer's agent who goes on selling trips. There was not single fingerprint in his apartment! He'd sold his five-year old car, and there wasn't a single latent in it, either. In thirteen months, the car was driven a little over eighteen hundred miles. Mason starts ordering Drake to do this and that, but Drake puts on the brakes, saying it is his job to find Dewitt. He is seconded by Della that Lorraine would go to a beauty parlor before taking off, and that way they can find what she is doing. Mason admits he was irritated at George Latty's taking Linda's money, to go through school, and to fly to California to hold her hand. Della corrects; "She was holding his hand." Drake gets a report; Dewitt and Elmore are on the way to Yuma to get married.
4.	Flying over the Imperial Valley, Mason, Drake and Street are careful not to give the pilot too much information. Mason has Dewitt's check for one hundred fifty dollars, for which no funds were available. At Yuma they are met by a detective who says that Dewitt has not reached the California-Arizona border yet. At the border, they wait. Eventually George Latty shows up! Mason suggests that maybe he is working with the con artist, but Latty says he's only trying to prevent a murder. He says he caught up with the couple, had to play cat-and-mouse, lost them when trying to get gas. Mason gives him twenty dollars, sends him to the Bisnaga Motel in Yuma. The trio go to dinner, and Drake instructs the cashier on who they are. A waitress gets an order of lobster cocktails, medium rare steaks and coffee. The salads get Thousand Island dressing. Drake is certain the phone call will come before the steaks, and he is right, but it is not urgent. The agent thinks he saw Latty driving back to California. After dinner, Mason calls the Bisnaga Motel, and is told by the manager that there is no George Latty registered. At the Bisnaga, Mason phones Linda, lets her know she'll only pay Drake for two days, he will, in "the better administration of justice," contribute the remainder. Belle Freeman is with Linda; she is Dewitt's previous fiance, and wants three thousand dollars back. A bit later, Linda calls. She's heard from Aunt Lorraine, who is no longer angry, and would see her the next afternoon. She's at the Palm Court in Calexico. Also, she heard from George, and wired him some money. Mason decides to follow the trail.
5.	At the Palm Court Motel the manager, skeptical, rents Mason and Street two units. Dewitt is in 14,Elmore in 16. Then knock on 16, get no answer. No answer at 14, either. They go to a phone booth, call Drake, tell him to fly down in the morning. Mason stays up to 3:30 awaiting anyone. At 6:30 Della awakens him. George Latty drives in, and they greet him. He admits to having arrived the previous evening. He got the unit next them, 12. He could overhear them, as the walls are thin. He tries to hire Mason, but the attorney tells him that he's "excess baggage . . . a barnacle, a sponge, a parasite. . . a green adolescent trying to act like a man." Mason calls Linda, tells him her boy friend has loused things up, he's not on the way home, but is at the Palm Court. A scream. A maid screaming. Mason takes the key she left in 14 and goes to 16. It is a mess. Then in 14 they find a dead man. A man in pyjamas wonders what the noise is about. Mason returns to his room, tells Linda that Dewitt is dead, her aunt missing. He heads to 16 in time to catch Lorraine Elmore.
6.	Mrs Elmore is near hysteria, says enemies have murdered Montrose. Her description of someone following them fits the events admitted by Latty, but ending up on a side road where Montrose got out of their car and was clubbed to death. The masked man made her drive ahead of him, then he turned and drove away. She got bogged down in sand. She then walked back to the motel. Mason has seen the body, and it has no club marks. He tells Della to get local lawyer Duncan Crowder to join them. He calls Linda, who insists her aunt wouldn't lie. He gets Linda's permission to represent her aunt, not her or George. He gives up the phone booth to a reporter with a rush story. Duncan Crowder, Junior, arrives, explains that his dad is in the hospital. Mason learns that the son is a quick learner, smart. Crowder gets a local doctor to help out, Dr Kettle, who agrees that Mrs Elmore needs total rest for twenty-four hours. Crowder goes over to the murder room to look for the money that she had, finds only coins under a cushion where she said she'd hidden it. Howland Brent shows up, and Mason sends Crowder to investigate. Brent was in unit 11, next Mason. Drake shows up in a cab, and Mason joins him.
7.	They go to the airport. Mason suggests he wants to look at some land for possible purchase, but he is, of course, looking for Elmore's marooned auto. They return to the airport, drive out to the car. Inside it is a green capsule, a barbiturate, one of the hypnotics, sometimes used as a truth serum. The trunk is empty. Mason phones a Yuma officer about the car.
8.	Gertie puts through Drake's call from Yuma. The man died of natural causes, or so the coroner ha said. Linda is in town, but Latty has skipped. Mason tells Drake to rent all the rooms, look for the missing thirty-five thousand dollars. Mason phones Crowder to suggest that barbiturates might have caused Elmore to imagine things. Belle Freeman comes to Mason. She just wants her money back, her entire inheritance that he took from her. Mason informs her Dewitt is dead. She says she met him through a letter she wrote a newspaper. He'd just returned from a year in Mexico, but couldn't speak Spanish. She hired a detective, who found nothing. She'd been a bachelor girl whose first man was killed. She doesn't want publicity and hopes Mason will keep her out of things. Mason suggests to Della that Dewitt must have written lots of letters, and their must have been "boy friends who wouldn't meekly surrender their women to some character who had a dashing manner, a black eye patch, and a mysterious background." So how could he completely disappear. Maybe he wore the eye patch only during swindles. So get Paul Drake to get someone to sketch Dewitt's glass eye. But the detective calls Mason, who learns that a Yuma coroner's office boy took a nip from Dewitt's whiskey bottle and ended up in the hospital. Mason gives instruction regarding the glass eye, learns that the car is still abandoned.
9.	Drake is back in LA. He tells Mason that the Yuma coroner is going to run for office so, when he got wind of the glass eye bit, he got the reporters in. But an artist has sketched the eye. Drake learns by phone that a Selwig Hedrick has identified the eye as belonging to Weston Hale. Crowder phones in. The locals found a capsule of Somniferal in the car and a bottle for same with hundred capsule capacity in Elmore's cabin. Her doctor in Massachusetts said she had extra pills because she'd worry too much if she didn't have enough. Mason suggests that Elmore be allowed to speak when she wakes up but only after Dr Kettle states that what she says cannot be trusted!
10.	Drake and Mason go to Hale's apartment. It is a double, and Ronley Andover, the sharer, is apparently suffering the flu. He doesn't recognize the name Dewitt, nor that Hale had anything but good eyes. Learning that Hale has a typewriter, and used it often, they want to investigate his room, but Andover, learning of Dewitt's death, says no.
11.	The two go to Hale's employer, Henrey T Jasper, who thinks Hale is in Santa Barbara. He's a good worker, especially with detail. Miss Selma suggests, when Mason asks about a glass eye, that maybe he does have one, since he doesn't shift his eyes in conversation, but turns his whole head from person to person. Back at Drake's office, his switchboard operator has him call Della. She tips off her boss that the Yuma District Attorney, Baldwin Marshall, is awaiting him, with George Latty. Mason tells Della to follow his lead. Marshall strides out to Mason purposefully. Back and forth, they go one up until Marshall admits that, if necessary, he'll book Mrs Elmore for murder and he can throw the book at Mason if he needs to. Mason contacts Crowder, asks who could be the leak, tells him to rent units seven and nine and see how much could be heard between them. When Crowder reports, it is to say the motel has been condemned, and many of the units are to be torn down or they must be repaired, for the double units have walls that are like paper. Mason now instructs him to have Elmore refuse to say anything.
12.	Morning at the office. Della tells Perry that Crowder awaits his call, and Linda wants to know where her boy friend is. Crowder reports that the case is being tried in the papers. Marshall is hinting that Elmore is a dope fiend. Ninety of her capsules are unaccounted for. The newspapers haven't mentioned any large sum of money. Mason tells Crowder to ring up the Boston doctor and explain how to handle the case. Paul joins them with his report. Howland Brent has lived it up on Las Vegas, plunging, winning a lot, quitting cold as soon as he started losing. The D A did figure eights after he left with Latty, but Drake was using an electronic device. He took Latty to Tijuana, where the county is paying his room and board and then some. Crowder phones in; it is murder, with an ice pick, from Elmore's cabin, found in her car!
13.	Mason, Street and Drake are met at the Imperial County airport by Linda Calhoun and Duncan Crowder. Mason hides his knowledge of Latty's location. Linda and Duncan are now on a first-name basis. Linda phones Marshall, asks if he knows where Latty is, and Marshall sidesteps the question adroitly, yet giving Mason a way to make him look foolish. Mason then banters with reporters, attacking rumors. Drake has heard from his operatives, and they report that Latty is living it up in Tijuana.
14.	Judge Horatio D Manly calls the packed courtroom to order and warns spectators to maintain proper decorum. Mason immediately moves to find where Latty is by stating the D A is concealing the witness. The D A says he only didn't know where Latty was "at the moment," which gets the judge annoyed over technicalities. The D A didn't want the witness tampered with, given his romantic attachment to the defendant's niece. Mason catches him on this admission that the witness is too weak to stand interrogation without changing his testimony. Marshall is forced to assure the Court Latty will be called. The Yuma county surveyor introduces various diagrams and maps. The sheriff tells of finding the car with the capsule which he produces and states contains Somniferal. He found the container in the defendant's handbag, and talked with the defendant's Boston physician who dispensed the prescription for the unusually large number of capsules.. Crowder handles the cross-examination. He leads the sheriff, step-by-step, from knowing it was Somniferal from the prescription to not having tested the capsule and only knowing its color. All this is hearsay, and the judge upholds the objection to its introduction. Crowder is only too willing to have the doctor and the druggist flown out to California to testify! Hartwell Alvin of the Calexico police is called. Chief Alvin testifies to finding the body, presents photographs, finding the car, again presents photographs, finding the capsule and the ice pick and the prescription bottle. Crowder asks if they looked for fingerprints. Of course. One set has not been identified. Crowder gets an admission that the condition of the Elmore room could be due to someone putting something into it, rather than rummaging to find and take something out. Ronley Andover identifies the body. Mason asks him how he knew Hale had fifteen thousand dollars. He took the money to the curbside and handed it to Hale as he was driven by in a car driven by the defendant. (That is all Mason needs to ask; on this the solution hinges! ) The coroner, autopsy surgeon and motel manager testify. Finally, George Keswick Latty. His testimony is long, but follows his west coast adventure chronologically. He took various actions based on a meeting with Mason, including following and losing Elmore's car, then catching up with her in Calexico. He took the apartment next Dewitt. There was a small hole in the adjoining door through which he could view Dewitt's room. In his closet he could hear conversation. He heard Lorraine get indignant with Montrose over his dislike of Linda. There was reconciliation, then they drove away. He tried to follow them, made a wrong turn, returned. Later he heard voices, a sleepy Dewitt, a heavy thud. He started to dress, heard a door slam in the adjoining unit, and a car that he couldn't identify driving away. Done with his examination, Marshall states "I can assure you there will be no objections." Of course, he makes them, but, having been given an assurance, Judge Manly considers it a stipulation and overrules all such objections. When did he last see Linda. On the street in Mexicali. Then he phoned her. When he knew she'd be out. So he let his fiance worry for a day or two because the district attorney tole him not to speak to her. He was taken to Tijuana by the D A, who mentioned Mason many times and asked him to amplify his testimony, and gave him money to do so. Yet he had told Mason he was broke, and Linda, and took money from the D A, a hundred and fifty dollars, twice, and bet on the horses, won on Easter Bonnet, and bought a camera for two hundred fifty. Did he tell Customs he had bought a camera. No. Does he know he'll have to pay tax on the money he won? It is 12:15, and the judge wants to adjourn for lunch. Mason asks Lorraine if she went back to the motel room and she asks how could she with her car stuck. She remembers talking about the money before she left, and that she was going to hide it in the overstuffed chair.
15.	Over lunch Drake says Marshall is ready to file a defamation of character suit if Mason intimates there was bribery of a witness. Drake thinks the motive is jealousy, disillusionment, frustrated rage, remembers Belle Freeman called Lorraine. Mason wonders about Brent plunging, winning, and quitting, Latty making a beeline for the race track. No, he bet with a bookie. Brent was apparently worried at the business he'd lose when Lorraine got married and had her husband act for her. Drake gets news; Easter Bonnet lost.
16.	Mason asks Latty how much he has spent and Latty cannot be sure. He has a ticket to go back to Boston as soon as his testimony is over, paid for by Marshall. Mason suggests the DA was trying to first keep the witness in isolation, then out of the court's jurisdiction. So, the witness has gotten money from somewhere. Perhaps the horses, Easter Bonnet? Yes, a rather large amount. "That house lost." Now Mason points out how he "had been dependent upon friends for money . . . had been placed in the embarrassing and humiliating position of having to ask your fiancée for money . . ." So he took the fifty thousand dollars from Lorraine's room. When Mason says he'll go so far as a court order to open his baggage to see how much money Latty has, the witness admits Mason is right, but he is not a murderer. The D A wants a continuance, but Mason will agree only if Mrs Elmore is released on her own recognizance. Marshall objects, so thee is no continuance, only a fifteen minute-recess. As Linda tells Duncan how foolish she was, photographers grab good pictures. Then they huddle. Mason says Hale intended to have Dewitt disappear. There was an accomplice who used a blackened rolled-up newspaper to beat Dewitt. The accomplice then decided he could have the fifty thousand for himself. Now Mason asks to recall Andover and confronts him with where he was the night of the murder. He says he never left Los Angeles. Then "how did it happen that your fingerprint was one of the unidentified fingerprints found in the Palm Court Motel in Calexico?" He is trapped, tries to escape, is followed by a gun-totting sheriff. Judge Manly releases the defendant on her own recognizance, and Marshall surrenders with "the case is dismissed."
17.	Andover was the accomplice. Mason figured it out when the man didn't comment on the eye patch on Hale's face when the money was handed over as he was driven by. Had he been telling the truth, the first thing he would have mentioned was that eye patch. His flu was caused by onions or some such. Lorraine explains Brent's plunging. It was an attempt to recover money he'd taken from her which he knew he'd have to pay back as soon as she got married to cover his tracks. It now becomes apparent that Duncan's desire to show off before a young woman had to do with Linda, whose face turns red. The phone rings, giving Crowder time to regain his composure. The press wants photos. Mason nods, "Anything you want is okey, Duncan, anything."

Perry Mason	Pilot	Connely Maynard
Della Street	Pilot's wife	Hamilton Burger
Adelle Sterling Hastings	Simley Beason	Judge Quincy L Fallon
Gertie	Chamber of Commerce woman	Morton Ellis
Huntley L Banner	Lt Tragg	Surveyor
Garvin S Hastings	Six women in dark glasses	Autopsy Surgeon
Elvina Mitchell	Hamilton Burger	Waiter
Paul Drake	Minerva Shelton (Hastings)	Helen Drexel
Hamburger place person	. . . Sidney Bell	Policewoman
Parking lot attendant	Maude Crump	Courtroom spectators
Melinda Finch	Rosalie Blackburn	Arthur Cole Caldwell
Harley C Drexel

Erle Stanley Gardner dedicated The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink to Russell S Fisher, M D, Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland. Here he again dedicates a novel to Dr Fisher who has brought about high efficiency to the urban area of Baltimore where two of three deaths are autopsied, versus 6%of such deaths in Pittsburgh, a similar-sized city.

This mystery would never have been good for television. It is even too complicated for the reader to be with Mason as he solves the murder, for a bit of information he needs is not given to us until the murder is exposed. The reader should, however, know one major part of the puzzle when Gertie is in the courtroom.

1.	Perry Mason returns to his office to find a puzzled Della Street. While he was out, Adelle Hastings came into the office, frantic to obtain the services of Mason. Gertie got her name, nothing more. Della goes for the mail, returns with a purse in which they find a Smith& Wesson .38-caliber revolver, four loaded shells, two empty cartridge cases, recently fired. They also find $3,117.43. Attorney Huntley L Banner is on the phone, thinking Mason is Adelle's attorney in divorce action against husband Garvin S Hastings. Mason goes to Banner, is met by secretary Elvina Mitchell. Banner says he will advise his client to make a very fair settlement, and there is no community property worth discussing. Mason returns to his office, expecting a call from Hastings before his five o'clock closing.
2.	The call doesn't come. So Mason calls in Paul Drake, has him inspect the parking lot for Nevada license plates. Della calls the hamburger place and orders dinner for pick-up. Drake returns having spoken to the parking lot attendant and having found two Nevada plates.
3.	From the airport Mason gets Drake's report. The cars are registered to Melinda Finch of Las Vegas and Harley C Drexel of Carson City. A pilot with wife who doesn't like him spending time in Nevada flies them to Las Vegas. They find that one of the keys from Adelle's purse gets them into the apartment where they are accosted by Adelle coming out of the shower. She denies coming to Mason's office, says she was in Los Angeles where she stayed overnight at her husbands after receiving a satisfactory offer of settlement. She only recently discovered her purse was missing. When she goes for her gun, that is missing. Mason thinks it is an act. She can't believe that two shots were fired from her gun, given her by her husband. She calls her husband's office manager, Simley Beason, who says her husband went out of town. Mason fails to convince her to return to Los Angeles and check on her husband.
4.	The pilot is surprised, and pleased, when Mason and Street return. On the trip back he mentions a woman from the Chamber of Commerce checking passengers. Mason gets Drakes report on Finch and Drexel.
5.	Morning. Adelle phones in, in town, worried. He invites her up, via his private entry, then calls Drake to get a half dozen women Adelle's size and give them big, dark glasses, and await his signal to send them over. She has new dark glasses, a type she buys that cost ten dollars, including tax. She's talked with Simley, and her husband isn't around. Paul is having trouble getting girls. Mason calls Lt Tragg, tells him he has Adelle Sterling Hastings in his office. Her purse was stolen the previous day and her gun with it. Paul now has six women, and dark glasses. A call from Beason informs them that Hastings is dead, two bullet holes in his head. Then Banner calls, and Mason tells him to raise his offer. Banner says he'll check with his client. When he calls back, he says he has talked with Hastings, who has doubled his offer. Mason tells him his client has been dead for more than twenty-four hours. Tragg bursts in. Tragg wants Gertie to identify Adelle. Mason has her put on her dark glasses while Della, unnoticed by Tragg, dials Drake. They go into the hall, where six women with dark glasses are at the office door. The first enters as Adelle mingles with the crowd. Gertie tells the first she left her purse . . . Tragg is outraged at how he's been outfoxed. He takes Adelle out of the line and they go back into Mason's office. The gun is not in Mason's drawer. Adelle explains her staying overnight, and Banner's interference in her marriage. She will explain no more. She explains to Mason that anyone in the office could have gotten the key to the house and made a copy. His previous marriage to Minerva Shelton, a selfish, cold-blooded, scheming, grasping, cunning, two-faced--, broke up nastily. Garvin was going to change his will, but she doesn't know if he has. Garvin was fifteen years older than she, and she was his confidential secretary. Her sympathy for him was misinterpreted. She promises not to leave town.
6.	Mason gets Drake to check the register of night visitors. He finds that a Sidney Bell signed in to come to the detective's office. Maude Crump was cleaning Mason's office when a man arrived at the time Bell signed in. He went directly for what he wanted. Mason phones Simley Beason to come to his office. When Beason doesn't ask where it is, Mason is certain he is Bell.
7.	Beason tells Mason what he knows about Minerva and Adelle, but is somewhat reticent. Mason has Mrs Crump come in, and she immediately identifies Beason as "Mr Mason," since she's never seen Mason before. This has Beason cornered. Beason is in love with Adelle, but cannot compete with five million dollars. He has the gun, wrapped in paper and sealed, in the bottom of his golf bag. He asks Rosalie Blackburn to get the package and bring it to Mason. Huntley Banner calls to say he is representing Minerva, and remind Mason that a murder(ess) cannot inherit. Beason warns Mason that the business manager, Connely Maynard, is a thrusting, pushing, aggressive type, and Elvina Mitchell, Banner's secretary is his close friend. Mason tells Della to get papers ready for signing by Adelle that will put her in charge of the estate.
8.	Beason advises Mason that "Mrs" Rosalie Blackburn is divorced. Her husband failed to come home one night, and about a year ago she went to Carson City to get legally divorced. She comes in with the package, which is ripped open. Mason notes that amino acid allow good prints to be developed even off paper, and takes the gun out with a pencil, tells Della to call Lt Tragg to get the "misplaced" gun.
9.	Hamilton Burger storms into Mason's office, threatens Mason with being an accessory to murder, believes the gun has been switched. Checking the number, Tragg says this is the first gun Hastings bought, not the second he gave his wife. Burger's threats force Mason to state how the gun was removed from his office by Beason. Burger renews his threat of putting Mason in San Quentin.
10.	At the Hastings office, Burger hears the story from Maynard, Beason and Blackburn but no one volunteers information. Burger warns them this is murder. Huntley Banner arrives with Minerva Shelton Hastings who claims to have never divorced Garvin and accordingly she is now the boss, and orders Beason to leave. When Mason counters that she has not been appointed executrix, she orders Maynard to fire Beason. Mason says she is estopped from falsifying her own utterances since she led Garvin to believe he was divorced. Burger is dumbfounded.
11.	Mason suggests to Street that one of Garvin's guns might have been given to Minerva. Banner phones, says he's sending his secretary, Elvina Mitchell, over with a photostat of the will he's filed in probate. Mason feels Banner is overdoing things to get a settlement, because he's hiding something. Banner arrives, saying Elvina was afraid of a cross examination, so chickened out. He admits Minerva might have committed fraud against Garvin, but not Adelle. She's claiming the estate under terms of a will that has never been changed, witnessed by himself and Elvina. He thinks she intended to get a divorce but, while living in Carson City, got angry over Adelle's actions and changed plans. There was no property settlement. He thinks Garvin knew something damaging in Minerva's background, thus got her to settle. Tragg bursts in with the news he wants to arrest Adelle, for they found a woman's fingerprint on the gun, a clear one left by someone holding candy.
12.	Judge Quincy L Fallon calls the court to order. Morton Ellis is the trial attorney. Fallon cautions both attorneys not to bring the issue of probate of the estate into the proceedings. A surveyor and an autopsy surgeon testify. Then Lt Tragg relates his conversations with Mason which regard the gun, that eventually he got the gun and found Adelle's fingerprint on it. Mason asks the right of voir dire, and gets Tragg to admit the fingerprint could have been placed on the gun at almost any time, such as the previous Christmas. Simley Beason is evasive, refusing to answer many questions because they might incriminate him. Mason and Ellis argue over identification of the gun, Mason pointing out, and Beason agreeing, that he couldn't know if the gun he took from Mason's office was the one brought to him by Rosalie Blackburn. Ellis asks if he saw the gun in a woman's handbag. He answers "Mrs Hastings." It could have been the same gun says Ellis, or a different one, suggests Mason. Ellis pursues, but it is Mason who asks if the gun was her property, she carried it and knew how to use it, and he, Beason, knew this from conversations with Mrs Hastings. Yes. Then Mason asks if he means Adelle Sterling Hastings. No, Minerva Shelton Hastings. Ellis now thinks he has been tricked. Of course, he has, and the judge knows it, but the examination was correct. When the court adjourns for lunch, Mason asks Beason what he was afraid of, what question did the deputy district attorney not ask about which he was worried. Beason refuses an answer.
13.	Drake, Mason and Street are at their favorite French restaurant. Drake reports that Drexel is a hard-working contractor with a daughter in college back east. He rents a bungalow at the back of his own house. Minerva stayed there during the summer when Helen, the daughter, would have been home. Mason gets his theory of the crime just as the waiter delivers their lunch.
14.	A police woman brings Adelle into court, and Mason asks her where she was the day of the crime. She refuses, but he catches her with a direct, was it with Beason.? Spectators and the attorneys, including Hamilton Burger who has joined the prosecution, rise for the judge. Burger recalls Beason, forces him to admit he was having early morning breakfasts with the defendant. She had found a property in Ventura she wanted to buy, but didn't have the money. Then, the morning of the murder, she had come up with the money. Banner admits he did prepare a will, actually several for Garvin kept changing the contents as he realized his marriage to Adelle wasn't working. Mason asks him why his secretary, Elvina Mitchell, the other witness is not in court. Mason demands that, as part of his voir dire, she be brought to court, or he cannot allow the will to be entered as evidence. Banner says she is involved in important business and cannot leave the office. Judge Fallon says he's completed his testimony and can cover the office while Mitchell is in court. Court adjourns. Drake asks Mason why Adelle might have flown to Las Vegas, since she didn't head there until after she'd gone to Ventura. He says the Chamber of Commerce survey was legitimate. Arthur Cole Caldwell, a charter pilot, will testify that he took a woman in dark glasses to Las Vegas at 5:30, returned an hour later. Mason realizes he couldn't have been far behind. Helen Drexel is a friend of Connely Maynard, and he arranged with Elvina Mitchell to keep the cottage filled. This means Minerva also was involved with Helen, Elvina, and Huntley Banner. The friendship is between Helen Drexel and Elvina Mitchell, who have coffee when Helen is in town.
15.	Hamilton Burger requests that the defendant put on dark glasses, so a witness saw the defendant in dark glasses. Mason agrees only if all witnesses in the courtroom also wear dark glasses. Elvina Mitchell has been delayed, so he puts on Arthur Cole Caldwell, subject to his being removed the instant Mitchell is in the room. He testifies to taking a woman wearing dark glasses to Las Vegas. Elvina arrives and is put on the stand immediately. She testifies to being a witness to the will. Mason asks her to put on a pair of dark glasses. She resists, but the judge and Burger get her to do so. She says she objects to being ordered to wear them, so Mason tells her to give them to his receptionist. She goes directly to Gertie and gives her the glasses (Mason had earlier instructed Drake to have her sit next the jury box), then hurries to the back of the courtroom. Caldwell returns to the stand and says the defendant "has a very striking resemblance to the person who chartered" his plane. But Mason gets him to admit that he cannot be certain it is the same person. Mason asks to ask Miss Mitchell another question. Judge Fallon sends the bailiff after her. Mason whispers to the witness if she wore the glasses coming and going. Yes. Did Banner's secretary look like the passenger? Yes, and her voice was familiar. The bailiff returns empty-handed.
16.	Hamilton Burger tries to explain everything as razzle-dazzle. Mason explains. If his client is innocent, Garvin Hastings had to be killed after she left in the morning, probably between six and eight. The handbag was left in his office during noon hour. The person who chartered the plane took off at five-thirty. Most law offices close at four-thirty. So we have three time periods for someone who couldn't be absent from an office. There are two guns. The murder was committed with the older gun which was in Adelle's purse. Someone had to get to her apartment and dispose of her gun, the newer gun, before the police got there. The person put two bullets into Hastings, then put the purse in my office when the receptionist would swear it was Adelle Hastings. The person who left the bag had to be a woman, but the murder could have been a man. When Banner testified to the will, he began to wonder why Elvina didn't show up, in court or to bring him the will. When Elvina took the dark glasses directly to Gertie, he knew it was her. He doesn't know who the murder is, but thinks Mitchell will give them the answer. Burger is unconvinced, so the judge orders Tragg to get Minerva Hastings and Elvina Mitchell for interrogation.
17.	Mason, Tragg, Burger and Adelle Hastings meet in Judge Fallon's chambers. Tragg gives the story. Elvina is hopelessly head-over-heels in love with Connely Maynard and thinks he's gotten short shrift as Beason's star grows. Minerva sympathized with Elvina, and told her that when Garvin died, she'd head the business and Maynard would become chief executive. But Maynard had embezzled from the company, and Beason was getting close to the proof. (It is the bit about embezzlement that the reader needs to know to solve the crime, but it is only given here.) Elvina followed Adelle to Ventura, found an opportunity to take the bag and get duplicate keys to the apartment. Maynard killed Hastings to his embezzlement would not be discovered, then had Elvina take care of the rest which, of course, had to be done out of office hours. Banner, surprise, is clean. Elvina has admitted that a holographic will was written favoring Adelle, but she destroyed it. The will can still be valid. Judge Fallon says he's going into court and he expects Burger to dismiss the case against Adelle, who kisses Mason.

Della Street	Adelle Chester	Officers and firemen
Horace Warren	Rosalie Harvey	Lieutenant Tragg
Perry Mason	Collister Damon Gideon	Taxicab driver
Paul Drake	Drake's receptionist	Judge Romney Saxton
Lorna Warren	Rough shadow, 5 smooth shadows	Hamilton Burger
Judson Olney	Drakes two shadows	Tarleton Ladd
Warren's secretary	Helicopter pilot	Sergeant Holcomb
Lorna's banker	Used car dealer	Drummond Dixon
Gertie	Farley Fulton	Alphaeus Randolph
Warren's party goers	Steven Hooks	Alexander Redfield
Drake's caterers	Drew Kearny	Power company man
George P Barrington	Lou Pitman	Plain-clothes men

Dr Richard Ford is mentioned in several of Erle Stanley Gardner's Forewords. Here he is mentioned because he trained Dr Shigeo Ogata, to whom this Perry Mason novel is dedicated. Gardner here gives an example of what in formation a detailed autopsy can provide. A woman who was initially thought to have committed suicide had nothing on her to identify who she was. Dr Ogata determined her life style and personality so completely and accurately and in such detail that persons who had employed her could identify her from his published description.

Keep in mind that, in California, an accomplice to murder is as guilty as the murder himself.

1.	Della Street announces that Horace Warren is impatiently waiting in the outer office. He is willing to pay five hundred dollars to have Perry Mason attend a buffet dinner. That interests Mason. Warren wants Mason to judge character. He wants a detective agency -- Mason recommends Paul Drake -- to check a finger print. He and his wife, Lorna Warren, are giving a party and Mason will come as guest of the manager of his enterprises, Judson Olney. Mason points out the difficulties of identifying a single fingerprint, then suggests that Paul Drake come with a caterer. All glasses, china, silverware, crystal will be provided and, instead of being taken to be washed, will be fingerprinted. It will be expensive, but Warren says cost, as long as it is only the going rate, is no problem. Mason wants to know how to contact him; he has a personal secretary but is always busy. Mason is to protect his wife at any cost from a blackmailer. Lorna may have something shady in her background, but he doesn't want to know. According to her banker, she's withdrawn forty-seven dollars recently, and it is locked in a suitcase in her bedroom. It is arranged that Olney will invite his old friend, Della Street, and Mason will escort her. Della goes to the hairdresser for the works, on the expense account.
2.	No sooner does Della return, radiant, than Judson Olney is in the office. He is concerned. He has also made up a story of knowing Della as a high school sweetheart. Mason doesn't like the story, so he comes up with having met her on a Caribbean cruise a few years earlier. He thinks Lorna a real sweetheart, wonders why Mason is to be at the buffet, but Mason reassures him that his involvement has nothing to do that could be against Lorna's best interests.
3.	Mason and Street are met by Olney who introduces them to Lorna and Horace. The host, faking realization of who his guest is, goes to his P A system and announces to the guests that the famous Perry Mason has arrived with a friend of Judson Olney, Della Street. Drake's caterers have provided excellent food and champagne. Mason is drawn to a private meeting with Warren, who takes him into his wife's room. The suitcase is found to be filled with newspaper, not bills. As they leave, Lorna comes into the room, and Horace has difficulty explaining that he is just giving Mason a tour. As they rejoin the party, Mason notices George P Barrington admiring Della.
4.	At ten o'clock, Mason rescues Della and take their leave. Adelle Chester, Barrington's date, flashes malevolent hatred towards Della, who stole the interest of her date. Rosalie Harvey, Olney's devoted secretary, who has idolized her boss for years and gone unnoticed, was taking undue notice in Della's being there with Perry Mason. The attorney mentions the missing money. Drake joins them at the office, reports the fingerprint is that of Lorna Warren.
5.	Lorna Warren was Margaret Lorna Neely, and was the partner of Collister Damon Gideon in mail fraud of, you guessed it, forty-seven thousand dollars. She was acquitted, he not, and the FBI are still trying to get the money. He claims his safe, with the money, was burglarized, and evidence indicates he is right. He was let out of prison a few days earlier. Drake is under pressure to tell where Lorna is, but Mason points out she was acquitted, and Gideon has paid his debt. Horace Warren is paying him to protect his wife from herself. So where is the money, and where is Gideon, whom the police must have under surveillance?
6.	Collister Damon Gideon comes to Mason, suggests that Mason might wish to provide him sufficient funds so he could ditch his shadows, both his rough shadows and the smooth ones who take over when he ditches the obvious one. If Mason doesn't, he'll keep coming back to the office, and soon the police will get interested and interrogate the attorney and eventually they will find Lorna Neely and she will be exposed as his corespondent. Mason tells him there are three ways to handle blackmail; 1, pay off. 2, go to the police. 3. Kill the blackmailer.
7.	George Barrington tries to pump Della but she gets Mason to see him as she goes home early. Barrington has gotten a phone call from a woman disguising her voice, and he is worried. He took securities from Lorna, as a personal favor, converted them into twenty-eight thousand cash, when she expected seventeen thousand. Mason says in this he did no wrong, but if he's worried that Horace may sue for divorce because of his being friends with Lorna, then ask Horace.. Mason goes to Drake after the receptionist admits he's in. He instructs Drake to get the police mug shots of Gideon and have a wanted type poster made from it. He's going to use that to frame Gideon for a crime that would send him back to prison.
8.	Paul brings in the police-style sketch, and Della recognizes Gideon. Gideon phones in, says he noticed the extra shadows, and then Mason says he's sending him five hundred dollars. Drake thinks Mason is a fool, soon to be parted from his money, but Mason says you cannot catch a fish without bait.
9.	Next day. Thursday. Nothing, until Paul comes in to say Gideon has faked out his men and the government's. He bought a used car, drove to the airport, asked an attendant to watch it for him as he left it running, went into the airport. While he was there, the smooth shadows placed an electronic bug on the car. But Gideon didn't come back, instead joined a pilot, got in to a helicopter, and took off. The pilot dropped him near bus lines. He called the used car dealer and told him to repossess the car and keep the money. Back at the airport everyone was left cold.
10.	Drake reports that the Pacific Northern Supermarket was robbed of seven thousand dollars the previous night, and the night watchman, Steven Hooks, was injured. Drew Kearny was an eyewitness and, when Farley Fulton, his operative, showed the drawing, Kearny laughed. But when showed the drawing, Hooks said it looked like the robber. Kearny comes to the office, looks at the drawing, sees some semblance, but the mouth is wrong. No, it is not the robber.
11.	Drake phones in to report his men lost Mrs Warren when she made a left turn from the right lane. Then Gideon phones in demanding ten thousand dollars. He gives specific instructions as to time and storeroom Mason is to bring the money, ignoring Mason's statements that he doesn't deal with blackmailer. Mason repeats the three ways to deal with a blackmailer, tells him about the robbery and that he's been identified. Mason tells Della to phone Horace as a reporter wanting an interview. Della returns with the information that he's out until four. A call to Olney, saying she's returning his call. She says the secretary, in acid tones, said he's out until three thirty. Mason figures Mrs Warren is going to see Gideon at two-thirty, Horace at two-forty-five, Olney at three, and himself at three-twenty, getting money from each. He has Della phone a fire alarm at the place Gideon has arranged their meeting, and to have Drake send two operatives.
12.	Mason is greeted outside the storeroom by Lou Pitman, Drake's operative, while firemen and officers surrounded the place. A man was trapped inside the building, says Pitman. Mason bears down on Lieutenant Tragg , warns Warren to say not one word. Warren acknowledges the warning.
13.	Mason tells Della that apparently Warren killed Gideon, and sends her to see Mrs Warren. Horace phones in; he's been charged with murder.
14.	Horace admits to removing the forty-seven thousand dollars from the suitcase, hoping this would get his wife to confide in him, but she went looking instead for another batch of money. He knew of the blackmailing attempt, and of Lorna's being "the innocent tool of a smooth crook." When he got to the storeroom he found a gun on a table, picked it up for possible protection, then walked around the table and found Gideon, dead. He had seen Lorna driving away some five or six blocks from the crime scene, and found one of her suède gloves, which he flushed down the toilet. It is his gun that was on the table!
15.	Mason tips the taxicab driver an extra twenty for getting him to Warren's house faster than the law allows. Della is already there. Mason tells Lorna that her husband has been arrested for the murder of Gideon, and she cannot be forced to testify against her husband. She is tearful over being "completely hypnotized" by a man she thought "was one of the most wonderful men in the world, one of the most wonderful thinkers, a shred businessman, a gentleman, an idealist. a --" Mason is curt, as the doorbell rings. She gave Gideon five thousand, all she could get. Tragg bursts in. Tragg uses the old line, "It would be a lot better for both Mr and Mrs Warren if they'd make a frank statement . . ." Mason advises "No comment."
16.	Drake is scared, knows that District Attorney Hamilton Burger is coming after Mason for confusing the witnesses. Mason says the police do what he did dozens of times a day. Tarleton Ladd, investigator for the D A, comes for Mason.
17.	Burger announces he is holding a formal hearing preparatory to preferring charges before the disciplinary division of the Bar Association. He introduces Sergeant Holcomb and the artist who drew Mason's version of Gideon, Drummond Dixon. Mason says he'll walk out if he cannot cross-examine the witnesses, and won't allow the D A to conduct a star-chamber session. Farley Fulton testifies that he showed the Gideon drawing to witnesses under instructions to try to get them to identify the picture as the man they saw. Mason gets him to state that he didn't bribe or intimidate the witnesses, nor make false statements to them. Drew Kearny relates how Fulton showed him the drawing, how he later went to Drake, was taken to Mason, and how he became confused. Burger terminates the hearing without letting Mason cross-examine this witness.
18.	Mason tells Lorna that Horace knew all along of her indiscretion, but is still in love with her. She says she didn't believe Gideon was a crook, so tried to get forty-seven thousand to stake him when he got out of prison. When she confronted him at the warehouse, she realized he was a brazen, glib-tongued confidence man. She is surprised to learn Gideon was blackmailing her husband. She thinks her husband purchased the gun several years earlier.
19.	Judge Romney Saxton calls the preliminary hearing to order. Hamilton Burger announces that Alphaeus Randolph will assist him. He then gives an opening statement in which he accuses Mason of witness tampering. Mason counters that he's not guilty until proven so. Drew Kearny is called to prove motivation, and he relates his incident with the gunman at the time of the robbery and the subsequent events regarding the drawing of Gideon. Mason balks at stipulation of the sketch as being one of Collister Gideon. Burger tries then to get Kearny to say he saw a photograph of Gideon which looked like the sketch, but again Mason objects. Lt Tragg testifies to finding the body in a section of the storeroom which had been set up as surreptitious living quarters. They found the gun and the murderer, who was hiding in a dark unlit room behind boxes. Ballistics expert Alexander Redfield is replaces Tragg to testify that the murder bullet was, "considering all the factors," fired from the gun already in evidence. Mason notes that this is not the usual way he answers the question. When pressed, Redfield admits he was coached by the district attorney, and, yes, he could not without the fact the gun was found on Warren, say that the bullet was fired from that gun, but only a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver. Tragg is recalled to the witness stand. Mason asks if they searched further, say, for someone who might have been hiding in one of the large boxes. No, they stopped when they found the murderer. Mason demands the electricity be turned on and that a further search be made of the place with the lights on. Judge Saxton gives them until two-thirty to search the storehouse and have Mason return for a hearing on his tampering with witness testimony. Drake is, as always, worried he'll lose his license or worse. Mason asks where Gideon got the money he was using, and tells Drake to check main banks to see if any had a forty-seven thousand dollar deposit, by mail, a decade ago.
20.	The power company man throws the switch and lights in the storeroom of the building come on. Mason sees a whole in a beam over the doorway, and Tragg, with the help of tools brought by a plain-clothes man, extracts a bullet. They go into the room where Warren was found hiding, and find a box with an oily footprint in it. Then they find a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver. Burger throughout keeps making accusations that Mason or someone planted all this evidence.
21.	Tragg reports to Judge Saxton his findings, and admits to comments by Burger. Mason says this constitutes the district attorney's influencing the testimony of present witnesses. Dr Redfield testifies that the new-found gun fired the fatal bullet, and Warren's gun fired a single shot into the doorway beam. Thus, Warren did not murder Gideon.
22.	Tragg thanks Mason for his help, and the attorney explains after Drake reports that forty-seven thousand had been deposited by mail in the name of Collister Damon . Gideon had an accomplice, who got out of prison shortly after Gideon went in. The accomplice kept making small deposits to keep the account alive. Both robbed the supermarket, and it was Kearny running from the crime, not to a telephone. He couldn't identify the sketch as Gideon because that would bring his accomplice into the picture. So Hooks correctly identified Gideon, and Burger went along with Kearny's denial of identification. Kearny and Gideon argued; the storeroom hideout was Kearny's place. Gideon fired with Warren's weapon, Kearny with the murder weapon, killing Gideon. Mason wasn't influencing the witnesses at all, and Kearny as witness was throwing red herrings all over the place.

Patients	Airport porter	Reporters	Saint's rest guests
Nurses	Police officer Jack(man) Andrews	Photographers	Harry Auburn
Loretta Trent	Man with press camera	Spectators	Saint's rest manager
The Trent housekeeper	Policewoman	Court clerk	Radio dispatcher
The Trent maid	Della Street	George Menard . . .	Motorist: Carson Herman
Anna Fritch	Perry Mason	Julian Bannock	D A's investigator
Boring Briggs	Virginia's aunt	Gertie	Policewoman
Diane Briggs	(Delano) Bannock	a k a George Eagan	Hamilton Burger
The cook	Virginia's husband Colton	Paul Drake	Lieutenant Tragg
The nurse	Man next Virginia on plane	Hospital nurse	Judge Grayson
George Eagan	Judge Cortland Albert	Dr Alton's nurse	Hallinan Fisk . . .
Dr Ferris Alton	Jerry Caswell	Maxine Kelvin	a k a Carleton Jasper
Virginia Baxter	Headquarters reporters	Gordon Kelvin	Bookmaker
Airline passengers	Bailiff	Headwaiter Pierre	Two torpedoes
Airline stewardesses	Two deputies	Laboratory technician	Assistant janitor
			A motorist

1.	'Murder is not perpetrated in a vacuum. It is a product of greed, avarice, hate, revenge, or perhaps fear. As a splashing stone sends ripples to the farthest edges of the pond, murder affects the lives of many people." In Phillips Memorial Hospital patients were being taken care of by nurses. Lauretta Trent asks her nurse if she is going home.
2.	The Trent housekeeper tells the maid that the doctor has asked Lauretta's nurse, Anna Fritch, to stay at home with her. "It was at this moment that a pair of hands hovered briefly over the washbowl in a tiled bathroom." "A trickle of white powder descended from a phial into the bowl." "One of the hands turned on a water faucet and the white powder drained down the wastepipe." "There would be no more need for this powder. It had served its purpose." An air of tense expectancy hovered over the house and its inhabitants; Boring Briggs, Lauretta's brother-in-law and Dianne, his wife, the housekeeper and the maid and the cook and the nurse, and chauffeur George Eagan. At the hospital Dr Ferris Alton warns Lauretta that she'll need nurse Anna Fritch's care and she must watch her diet or she could die.
3.	Lauretta Trent had for gotten Virginia Baxter, who follows passengers filing past airline stewardesses. Baxter looks for her luggage, asks a porter's help, and eventually he brings her her two bags. A policeman steps forward, asks her to describe the contents of her suitcase, then asks to look in. On top of her coat were several transparent plastic containers. A man with a press camera steps forward and makes two pictures. The police officer, Jack Andrews, takes her to his car and phones in to headquarters. A policewoman takes charge of her, but Virginia recoils over fingerprints, demands an attorney. Della Street answers, quickly gets Mason who, after hearing her story, heads to the jail.
4.	Virginia says she was visiting her aunt. Since Mr Bannock, her employer of fifteen years, left her a piece of real property I Hollywood which produces income, she has worked only bits and pieces. She is separated from her husband. She remembers a man next her on the plane, but on one else who could have planted the narcotics. Mason says it could have happened even when the luggage was on the ground before being brought into the airport, or in other places.
5.	Mason warns Virginia that it is usual for the judge to bind the defendant over. The newspaper photo and story, she says, were disastrous, for now her friends are avoiding her. Judge Cortland Albert calls the court to order and Jerry Caswell proceeds for the prosecution. The airport porter testifies to helping Virginia get her bags. Mason asks specifically about the conversation; didn't Andrews ask if she could identify articles in the suitcase. Yes. He asks about the newspaper photograph and uses the porter's response to claim that the officer was acting on a tip, and he wants to know who provided the tip. Jack, actually Jackman, Andrews, refuses to give the name, testifies to finding packages in the suitcase. Mason stops him from identifying what was in the packages, then traps him on the issue of permission to view the contents of the suitcase. He never asked to search, only to identify, which Virginia did. Then Mason springs his trap; weigh the suitcases, without, and with the packages. The defendant paid excess baggage charges for forty-six pounds. To get a scale, a short recess is called. Mason phones the headquarters press room, tells a reporter that the judge is going to weigh the evidence, on a pair of scales.
6.	A bailiff and two deputies bring in a platform scale, one used to weight prisoners when they are booked. Reporters and photographers surge into the courtroom. Spectators from county offices have joined the newspaper people. The court clerk puts the two bags on the scale. The bailiff announces forty-six and one-quarter pounds. Judge Albert has the packages put on top of the bags. The bailiff announces one pound and three-quarters. Obviously the packages were added after Virginia checked the bags. Judge Albert dismisses the case, then is very cooperative at having his photo taken by the newspapers with the bags, scales, and Virginia. Caswell tries to defend his actions, but the judge slaps him down. Mason takes Virginia to the witness room to question her. Who would want to frame her? She hasn't given her husband a divorce, because he was a sneak, liar and cheat, carrying on with another woman while she was working her head off to get them ahead. It has been a year. Mason advises her to drop the past, give him his divorce. If he is the person trying to frame her, this should stop it, or the woman who is his girl, of whom Virginia knows only her name.
7.	The newspapers give her good play, but one reporter has located her husband, Colton Baxter, and found he was an employee of the airline in which she flew from San Francisco to Los Angeles. She phones Mason who again advises her to divorce her husband and shows her why he may actually not want her to do so. When she hangs up, George Menard comes to her door. He wants to know where Delano Bannock's papers are. The best she can remember is with his brother and sole heir, Julian Bannock, somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley, Bakersfield. When he leaves by elevator, she rushes down the stairs, and catches a glimpse of his auto and license plate.
8.	Virginia finds Julian's ranch and Julian. He says a man calling himself Smith was there, wanted to see the files, and he let him He was older than Baxter. Virginia finds the files scattered all over. She goes to town, phones Mason. He tells her to get all the wills -- a filing system of items by thousands, wills being five to six thousand, was used -- and bring them to his office. She gets boxes, returns to find that Colton has been there, left when he heard his wife was returning.
9.	Gertie welcomes Virginia to Mason's office. Menard's license plate has been identified from a ticket he got parking at a hydrant; he is George Eagan, chauffeur to Lauretta Trent. Virginia is certain Bannock did a will for her, and it gives little to the relatives. Paul Drake helps bring the files up from Virginia's car. A search reveals no will for Lauretta Trent. Mason calls the hospital, and a nurse tells him how to reach Dr Ferris Alton. Dr Alton's nurse, hearing that it is Perry Mason calling, interrupts the doctor and gets him to the phone. He is initially indignant, but when Mason relates the symptoms of arsenic poisoning, and the doctor realizes that Trent's favorite spicy Mexican foods with garlic easily covers the obvious arsenic symptoms, he gets worried. At Mason's advice, he sets off to get hair or fingernail clippings from Lauretta to test for arsenic. Mason sends Virginia off with a note to string along any caller, particularly Eagan until she can reach him.
10.	Virginia sees Eagan parked in front of her apartment so drives by and phones Mason, who tells her to go to her apartment and see what he wants. Eagan, still acting as Menard, arrives shortly after, admits he is interested in two wills made out by Lauretta Trent. He offers five hundred dollars if she will make out two fake wills, the first leaving Dianne Briggs and Maxine Kelvin a hundred thousand each, their husbands Boring Briggs and George Kelvin ten thousand each, and the remainder to George Eagan. Then a second will executed shortly before Bannock's death leaving each one thousand dollars and the remainder to George Eagan. She protests, but he must have them immediately. She types on her old typewriter, using fresh carbons for each page, and Eagan takes the originals and carbon copies, saying this will flush out someone who is trying to make trouble with Mrs Trent's relatives. She phones Mason, who says she should bring him the carbons.
11.	Mason has Virginia put the carbons in an envelope backed by cardboard, seal the envelope and take it to the post office to mail it to herself, registered.
12.	Dr Alton has gotten Trent's nurse to get fingernail clippings and freshly pulled hair from Trent. He brings them to Mason, says he's told the nurse that Lauretta is to eat only bland food, eggs boiled by the nurse and served in the shell so no spices could be added. He was afraid to put more nurses on duty for he'd have to explain why. Mason says he can have lab results by nine or nine-thirty, and suggests he and Della go to dinner. Mason speculates about the mess there would be if Dr Alton were one of the beneficiaries in Lauretta Trent's will.
13.	Mason finishes a robust dinner before Pierre, the restaurant headwaiter, brings him a phone. A laboratory technician reports definite evidence of arsenic in hair and nails. Mason phones Dr Alton, who now admits he is a beneficiary in Lauretta's will, and this will cause all sorts of consternation among the relatives who will ask for a second opinion. He admits to being a beneficiary. Will Mason join him in presenting the news? Mason says yes, sends Della to report to Paul.
14.	Mason drives out to Trent's and is met by Dr Alton. They are met by Boring Briggs, who wants to know why the doctor has a lawyer with him. The family is belligerent. Lauretta is out driving with the chauffeur. So the doctor springs the mistaken diagnosis is really a poisoning on the family who, coming to a semblance of their senses, agree they should find Lauretta. Mrs Briggs protests. A phone call for Mason. Virginia Baxter, at the Saint's Rest motel where she expected to meet Lauretta.
15.	Lauretta could now die from a heart attack, the arsenic having weakened her. Mason finds a pay phone and calls Virginia who says she knows she was to stay put and call Mason, but Lauretta was insistent she tell no one, and she needed the five hundred dollars Lauretta offered. At the motel, Virginia is still alone. Mason thinks the caller may have been posing as Lauretta, and Virginia does not know the voice. They find that her car is moved. Not only that, but damaged. Mason has Virginia drive out and back in, meets her head on. Thus he creates an alibi for the damage, as motel guests come out and observe the crash.
16.	Traffic officer Harry Auburn takes the report as Mason accepts full responsibility. The motel manager insists Mason has been drinking. Auburn communicates with the radio dispatcher, then asks Virginia about an accident involving a car exactly like hers. Over the radio the chief investigator from the D A's office tells Auburn to bring Baxter in for questioning. Mason warns her to keep quiet, for she's tried to tell the officer about the forged will and such.
17.	Jail. A policewoman brings Virginia to Mason. The usual routine; the police promised she'd be let go if her story could be corroborated, then, after she poured her heart out, they said she'd have to wait until they could investigate all aspects of her story. Mason offers a what if?; what if the D A (Hamilton Burger) or Lieutenant Tragg don't believe her story? He notes that the body may never be recovered, as the car went over a high cliff into water where there are treacherous currents and a terrific undertow. The chauffeur effectively identified her car. The broken glass of her headlight matched a piece picked up at the scene of the accident. Burger and Tragg enter, and the D A says he doesn't believe Lauretta's story. Her thinks she may be tied in with the relatives in a plot to discredit Eagan. A man is brought in, the real George Eagan. Virginia doesn't recognize him, or he, her. Eagan admits to the license number given by Virginia, but his car is a Cadillac, not the Olds that she saw. Virginia says that Eagan has the general physical characteristics of the man she knows as Menard. Mason asks her if she were on a jury, would she believe her story? But she cannot change her story, because, she insists, it is the truth.
18.	Jerry Caswell is gleeful at his opportunity to confront Mason again. He calls George Eagan, who testifies to being run off the road by a car, jumping safely himself, but not knowing what happened to Mrs Trent. Mason accepts that the corpus delicti is satisfied, and Mrs Trent is dead, but by accident, not by unlawful means. Lt Tragg, however, testifies to the confession made by Virginia Baxter, including Mason's hitting her car, a forged will for George Eagan. Despite Caswell's charges of wrongdoing by Mason, the defense attorney, even after being prompted by Judge Grayson, does not object. The man she claims was Eagan is not the real Eagan. Carson Herman testifies to seeing the accident and attempting to follow the car that caused it, but becoming afraid for his own safety, so giving up the chase. He did notice that one headlight was not working. There was only one person in that car. Gordon Kelvin is next. He is called upon to present the real will of Lauretta Trent. It starts out with the usual "being of sound and disposing mind" but comes quickly to her having no children, only two married sisters who are living with her. She nominates Kelvin as her executor. She leaves fifty thousand to each of her sisters, one hundred thousand to Dr Alton to whom she pays special tribute, fifty thousand to Eagan and the same to nurse Anna Fritch. The remainder is to be divided among the two sisters and their husbands. Mason asks to see the will and Virginia says she is certain she typed it, because she remembers typing the wonderful tribute to the doctor. Mason discredits Kelvin, and Briggs, by showing that they both are indigent, living off Trent. Harry Auburn testifies to taking Baxter into custody and then finding headlight glass at the crime scene that exactly matched her car's headlight. Eagan is brought back. Mason gets him to admit he cooked for Lauretta, then charges that he can prove that after one occasion she had arsenic poisoning symptoms. He is forced to acknowledge knowing he would benefit from Mrs Trent's death. He asks him what Lauretta was wearing. "Don't you know of your own knowledge that there was the sum of fifty thousand dollars in cash in (her) handbag?" How does he know she wasn't? No handbag was found. He couldn't recognize who was driving the car that pushed him off the road. Caswell wants to finish, but Mason says he might put on a defense. Mason admits to Virginia he has no idea if Lauretta had any money, but now the police will go hunting for the purse in the ocean. Mason suggests to Drake that whoever drove Virginia's car must have been registered at Saint's Rest, so find him. Drake wonders, with a perfectly good will in hand, why would the relatives want a spurious one or two?
19.	Mason is now thinking there is someone in the background working a master plan, and has Della type questions and answers, none of which really satisfy. They go to dinner.
20.	Mason's mind wanders, but he takes Della's hands in his, notices the strength of her hands. "Years of typing have strengthened the fingers" she notes. This gives Mason inspiration. They didn't want the false wills, but did want her away so they could get to her typewriter. Notice, the residuary clause was on the first page, not the last page as is usual. The last page of the will that was read is authentic, but the earlier pages were retyped with changed conditions. Now Mason sees that whoever wanted to forge the will must have known a police informer and bribed him to pass on the information about dope in Virginia's suitcase.
21.	Drake says the man gave a false name, but his car was an Oldsmobile. Before Drake can complete a description, Mason completes it. Mason tells him to use the description to identify a police informer.
22.	Drake identifies the informer as Hallinan Fisk, currently a runner for a bookmaker, which the police ignore since he gives them tips on dope. But he's been exposed, so is hiding, but Drake knows where. It is on skid row. The go up to No 5, knock. Fisk won't open the door. Mason phones Tragg to join them. As he returns to No 5, two torpedoes come up the stairs, leave when they see Mason. Tragg joins them. Fisk lets Tragg in after Mason starts reciting his background loudly in the corridor. Mason recognizes a family resemblance to George Eagan. Fisk is his half-brother. Now it comes out. He switched license plates from Eagan's Cadillac to his Oldsmobile. Mason points out that when he puts him on the witness stand and the newspapers publish his picture and history of activities as stool pigeon and double-crosser, the underworld will take care of him. Fisk begs for Tragg's help in getting out of town. It was Anna Fritch who came to him. She'd teamed up with Kelvin. They used arsenic to hurry Lauretta over the divide, knowing that her heart would give out. When Kelvin found the will, knew he had to forge one favorable to him. Their idea was to get the Baxter woman discredited on dope charges so, even if she remembered the original will, her testimony would be meaningless. They also wanted her in the cooler so they could get into her apartment and to the old original typewriter. He planted the dope in the suitcase. Later he was forced to take Virginia's car and force Eagan off the road. He asks Tragg to take him into custody; he can't beat the big boy's torpedoes. He won't rat on the big boy, now anyway, but safely in a cell.
23.	The trio return to the office to await Virginia's arrival. The assistant janitor says there is a "rather aristocratic-looking" woman in her sixties awaiting them. Drake goes his way, Mason and Street to their office where shortly a knock is heard. It is, of course, Lauretta Trent. She says that when the nurse asked for fingernail and hair samples, she knew it was to check on poisoning, so she got out of the house right away. When George yelled "jump," she jumped. She was picked up by a motorist, phoned in the accident, then laid low, but couldn't wait any longer watching Virginia. She was shocked when she heard the will; the first page, perhaps two, were false. She was going to leave the two sisters only enough so the men would have to go to work! She suggests a fee of twenty-five thousand for Mason, and a check for fifty thousand to Virginia to compensate her for all she's been through.

"A heavy rain in Scotland had swollen the streams" begins the Foreword to this novel by Erle Stanley Gardner. Parts of bodies began showing up as the streams subsided. John Glaister, D Sc, M D, F R S E and author of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology pieced the decomposed parts and identified two bodies leading to discovery of the murderer. This novel is dedicated to Dr Glaister.

No matter how you read this one, it is not routine in any way, from the short first two chapters, to the late appearance of Mason, the later appearance of Paul Drake, and the delay in anyone getting murdered. Further, the list of characters is enormous even before we get to the murder.

Della still has steak, but Mason has an extra-thick cut of prime ribs, a large bottle of Guinness Stout, tossed salad and stuffed baked potato.

Despite a lot of obfuscation up front, I enjoy this as much as any Perry Mason novel, for I know half the solution almost as soon as the "murder" is discovered. You know when a murder is suspected when Lieutenant Tragg arrives on the scene. Look at the characters list above, and see how late that is.

Perry Mason	Drake's receptionist	Coroner
Della Street	Drake's man (Tom Fulton)	George Washington Holbrook
Gertie	Jefe of Policia	Holbrook's wife, Doris
(Frank) Kerry Dutton	Pinky Brier	Holbrook's sister, Edith
Templeton Ellis	Lieutenant Tragg	Carleton Kenny
Desere Ellis	Roger Palmer	Ralph Woodley
Rosanna Hedley	Jim, service station manager	George Tillman
Fred Hedley	Hamilton Burger	Bailiff
Jarvis Reader	Judge Eduardo Alvarado	Barclay C C golfers
Steve, Mason's broker	Jurors	Barclay C C manager
Paul Drake	Stevenson Bailey	A Drake operative with metal detector
Waiter	Autopsy surgeon	Newspaper reporter & photographer
Headwaiter	Several witnesses	Another Drake operative at phone
Woman on balcony	Ballistics expert	A Drake operative at city dump
Radio-dispatched cops	Firearms dealer	Armed police

"A man is smoking in bed. The house burns and the body is charred beyond recognition. Did the man have a heart attack, drop a cigarett and so cause the fire; or was he intoxicated when he met his death through suffocation or from the flames?" This is but one of the questions Erle Stanley Gardner raises to point out the kinds of questions a medicolegal expert can answer. Leopold Breitenecker, M D, professor and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Vienna, was sent by U Thant (UNO) into the Congo in 1962 to clarify circumstances of the death of three members of the International Red Cross. This is but one example of the high esteem Breitenecker , to whom this book is dedicated, is held in his profession.

Erle Stanley Gardner is patently unfair with his readers in this novel. Mason puts into effect a plan to catch the murderer without giving us the background information that would allow us to solve the mystery. Even once we know who the murder is, we do not know why or how until Mason tells us. Gardner is going too far to find something new for Perry Mason, and here it is having Mason have to put on defense witnesses, rather than solve the mystery by cross-examining prosecution witnesses. Thereby, Hamilton Burger gets a chance to cross-examine defense witnesses.

Here is a rare instance of Mason defending a man, not a beautiful woman.

1.	Perry Mason is grinning as he enters his office and finds Della Street sorting the mail. Gertie is busy creating a romantic story around Kerry Dutton, who is waiting in the office. Dutton is quick to say he is a criminal; he's trustee of a spendthrift trust left by Templeton Ellis to his daughter Desere four years earlier. He left a hundred thousand dollars, and he's already given a hundred and ten to Desere. By buying and selling, under his own name, he's increased the capitol. In particular, he sold a dog, Steer Ridge Oil & Refining Company stock, and invested the proceeds. The trust terminates in three months and he will have to provide a reckoning then. He's in love with Desere, who only feels sorry for him. He wants to protect her from a beatnik nogood who is moving in on her. "Someone should shoot the guy."
2.	Della tells Perry he cannot play Dan Cupid. Rosanna Hedley and son Fred are in the office, with Desere Ellis. Fred says he's "not a visionary: I'm not a goof. I play around with a bunch of poets and artists but I'm essentially an executive type." He thinks the world should help artists, poets, writers and thinkers develop their genius. "They're starving to death. You can't develop anything on an empty stomach except an appetite." Desere admits Kerry gave her to much money, most of which she's frittered away, so there is perhaps $15,000 left in the trust. She has decided to take a business course to make a living. After the trio leaves, Mason tells Della "I am not my client's conscience -- only his lawyer."
3.	The morning newspaper announces that Steer Ridge Oil & Refining Company has brought in a gusher and its stock should stop its steady decline, according to president Jarvis Reader. Della gets no answer as she tries to call Dutton. Mason then speaks to his stock broker, Steve, and tells him to by fifty shares of Steer Ridge. Della notes that the stock is skyrocketing and Desere thinks she has a block of it, but she doesn't. Hedley is on the phone, ecstatic at the stock news. Now he can create future Rembrandts, only not stuffy like Rembrandt.
4.	Mason tells Della that, as a stockholder in Steer Ridge, he's entitled to protect his interests. He gets Paul to come by, hires him to find Dutton. Then Jarvis Reader shows up, says he will accept a full page newspaper ad as an apology.
5.	As they are about to close the office at seven-thirty, Drake calls in. He says Dutton is playing hard-to-get an a process server is trying to get him. Mason tells Della that Dutton says he's embezzled money from the beneficiary of the trust, but he's made restitution, but he acts as if he hasn't. He suggests dinner to Della.
6.	The waiter asks Mason if he's accepting calls, and Mason says he told he was. Drake reports that a broad-shouldered man is watching the entry to Dutton's apartment building. Mason and Street discuss the situation. "salud y pesetas y amor sin suegras" is Mason's final comment (suegras is mother-in-law, the rest you should figure out for yourself). They finish dinner, then hear from Drake that all hell has broken out. At the apartment, Drake says the fellow with a beard (Hedley) left, Dutton went in, then Hedley came back. A woman on a balcony was soon screaming. Radio-dispatched cops came up, went in, came out with Hedley who they had tricked into admitting had started the fight.
7.	Drake's receptionist tells Mason that Dutton is in Ensenada, Mexico. Drake reports that his man lost Dutton, but succeeded in planting a wire recorder on the phone booth where Dutton was calling a contact. He listened to the recorder, then went to the Barclay Country Club. He couldn't get in, but waited twelve minutes until Dutton came out. Near a culvert, he stopped, got out. Then he drove to the Siesta del Tarde Auto Court in Ensenada and registered as Frank Kerry.
8.	Mason and Street go to Ensenada where they are met by Drake's man. The attorney and his secretary go directly to Dutton's room. He is surprised, and Mason warns him that, in California, flight is considered as evidence of guilt. A knock on the door, and Jefe of Policia enters and, politely, arrests Dutton, to be deported as an undesirable alien. Mason has no credentials in Mexico, the chief of police points out. Mason tells Dutton to zip his lip.
9.	Mason and Street are contacted on the phone by Drake, who says a body was found at tee seven at the Barclay Country Club. Everything which might identify him had been removed, including cutting labels out of coat pockets. Drake has a general description of the man, and it might be the on watching Dutton's apartment. Mason ask him to have "Pinky" Brier waiting for them at the airport..
10.	Pinky brings them to the Tri-City Airport where they are met by Drake. He is worried that he knows the murdered man, and must report his information. Mason agrees, asks Drake to have Pinky take them to L A airport and have Lieutenant Tragg meet them. Tragg takes them to the morgue, listening to the story of Drake's man on the way. Drake identifies the man. Tragg passes information on, hears back that the man is Rodger Palmer, an employee of Templeton Ellis until the latter died. Tragg asks to see Drake's man, Tom Fulton, as soon as he returns.
11.	Mason tells Drake he must see Fulton before Tragg does. Jim, the service station manager where Drake's men fill up when trailing suspects, says Fulton has not shown, but soon he does. Mason learns directly from the operative of his tailing efforts and the wire recorder's message. Mason suggests he tell the truth, but volunteer nothing. They learn of Dutton's stopping at a culvert on the way from the country club, drive to the culvert, but find nothing.
12.	Jail. Dutton says he's told the police nothing. He knows, however, that Rodger Palmer was engaged in a sneak attack on the management of Steer Ridge. When Palmer came to him for proxies, he went out and bought twenty thousand shares at ten to fifteen cents a share (he'd sold earlier at a dollar a share). He gets very upset when told of the wire recording (Wire tapping is illegal!). He admits he went to the seventh tee, in the dark and, after waiting several minutes, he tripped on something which was the body. He is further upset when Mason mentions the culvert and the gun. He picked the gun up, determined it was his with a pocket flashlight. Mason plays prosecutor to show Dutton what he is up against if he faces Hamilton Burger but Dutton says he's not guilty, no matter how implausible his story.
13.	Mason confronts Desere with the fact he's Kerry's attorney, no one else's. She acts surprised when her gun given her by Dutton, is not in the drawer in her bedroom. She knows it was there two or three days before. She relates the story of Fred's returning and the fight between him and Kerry. How Fred called Kerry a moneygrubber. When Fred told his story to the police, he lied, and that was when she began to see him for what he was. Hedley wants an endowment for a new school. He paints, colored drawings that are close to cartoons, but he has to develop.
14.	Drake reports that Palmer believed in Steer Ridge but hated Reader. There was a lot of similarity in their appearance, but Palmer believed in developing the company along proven structures, while Jarvis was a plunger. As to Hedley, he had an alibi for the time of the murder.
15.	Judge Eduardo Alvarado says he hopes they can get a jury this second day of the trial, and is pleased when both Stevenson Bailey, prosecutor , and Mason say the jury can be sworn. Hamilton Burger is sitting with Bailey, who gives the opening statement, recounting Dutton's situation as trustee and Palmer's blackmail of him; five thousand dollars were found on Dutton when he was picked up. The autopsy surgeon sets time of death, and Mason stretches it to forward to eight-thirty. Several witnesses give evidence without Mason cross-examining. Desere testifies that over four years Dutton never made a formal accounting. She got the impression that there was little left, and also that the Steer Ridge stock had not been sold. Mason asks carefully, "did the defendant ever tell you in so many words that the trust fund would be exhausted at the time the trust terminated?" "I can't remember his ever having said that." Bailey and Mason go through cross, redirect, recross and another redirect trying to resolve what Dutton did or did not say. Rosanna Hedley is called to show what Dutton said, but Mason picks on her description of Dutton's smile as "oily." "Greasy?" "Oily!" Which is her feeling toward the defendant. She says Dutton deceived Desere. She thinks there is two hundred and fifty thousand available. So she didn't lie, says Mason. A ballistics expert, a firearms dealer and the coroner then testify. Finally Lt Tragg testifies to finding and identifying the murder weapon and picking Dutton up at the border. He'd been registered as Frank Kerry, his full name being Frank Kerry Dutton. Thomas Densmore Fulton then testifies to his following Dutton, recording his phone conversation -- which is then played -- following him to the country club and on to Mexico.
16	Back in jail, Mason warns Dutton that he had to go on the stand and convince the jury he's telling the truth. If they catch him in a single lie, it is all over.
17.	Paul Drake has found a witness. George W(ashington) Holbrook still smokes and goes outside because he wife, Doris, cannot stand the smell of tobacco. He heard a single gunshot right about nine in the evening. He didn't think anything about it, because he had to go to the airport to pick up his sister, Edith, and then she, and his wife, as if already planned, decided to go on a trip without stopping. So they did, and only when he got back did he think to report this. He knows the time because of the news shows he watches, and he was just a bit late in tuning in the television on the nine o'clock news. Mason dances a jig and takes Paul and Della out to a champagne dinner.
18.	Bailey rests the prosecution's case. Mason calls Desere, asks if the defendant gave her a gun? Yes. Was it the one in evidence? Yes. Did he show her how to use it? Yes. Did she know it was a double-action revolver, namely one with which you could pull the trigger it cock the gun, then pull it farther and fire it? Yes. She last saw it two or three days before the murder. Hamilton Burger now gets a very rare treat, the opportunity to cross-examine a Perry Mason witness. Burger rips her apart on the identification of the gun, then shows through her testimony that the defendant was in her bedroom on an excuse which allowed him to get the gun. Mason can but point out that it was Hedley who started the fight and ran into the bedroom. Mason calls Dutton, leads him along skillfully through the arrangements regarding the trust. He dolled out money sufficient to let her "exhibit herself favorably on the matrimonial market." He dispersed ninety-six thousand dollars from a hundred thousand dollar trust, but now has about two hundred and fifth thousand dollars in the trust. He felt Hedley was a fortune hunter. He never discussed the condition of the trust with Desere. He got a tip from Palmer that, for five thousand and proxy rights, information could be provided that would make it impossible for Hedley to marry Desere. He followed this to the country club where he found the dead body a bit after ten, took the gun and disposed of it, went to Ensenada. Burger masks "his true feelings behind a façade of extreme courtesy" to get Dutton off the guard Mason had put him in. Bit by bit Burger traces the time element, eventually showing that Dutton had ten or more minutes in which he did nothing but stand beside a dead body. Dutton had to use a flashlight to identify the gun, but didn't use it to look at the body. Then, though Desere had express specific interest in the Steer Ridge stock, he sold it for ten thousand dollars, then later bought the same quantity that is now worth two hundred thousand. And he's never made an accounting to Miss Ellis? Why didn't all this come out before? Because he wasn't asked! Burger walks "back to the counsel table with the triumphant air of a man who has at last gratified a lifelong ambition."
19.	Mason calls Holbrook, who tells his story of the gunshot occurring earlier than the autopsy surgeon claims for death. Burger asks him who his favorite television newscasters are. He names Carleton Kenny. When asked who he listens to at nine, he answers Ralph Woodley. But Woodley is a ten o'clock newscaster. Holbrook corrects himself; George Tillman. The damage is done, as Burger suggests he could produce two witnesses who would say they heard a gunshot about ten. Would that change Holbrook's testimony? No Holbrook is not certain what time he heard the gun shot. As the bailiff comes for Dutton, Mason manages a "reassuring smile" and leaves the courtroom, "his manner confident, his chin up, his stomach cold."
20.	Mason tells Drake to get the best metal detector money can buy, and orders Della to get a golfing outfit which "has to be a city editor's dream."
21.	The Barclay Country Club. Mason, Drake and an operative move out with the metal detector, and Della, "attired in a form-fitting skirt which the wind whipped about her knees," which brought the golfers running. The club manager is concerned about the disruption, but sees that the men are happy, so disappears. Mason lets slip bits in half sentences, just enough to get interest. The metal detector does its work, and a bullet casing is found, not from a revolver, but from an automatic. They await the arrival of a newspaper reporter and photographer, give them their story, and let Della pose for them. Then Mason makes a point that there were two shots, and this casing is from an automatic.
22.	Drake takes the stand, testifies to finding the casing. Of course, Burger points out that it could have been planted while they were searching, or could have been there since the previous Christmas. This is after Burger gets Drake to admit that perhaps seventy-five percent of his business, at fifty dollars a day and expenses, means he tries to find what Mason wants him to find. The judge allows the jurors to go home after cautioning them, as before, that they are not to discuss the case with anyone or read the newspapers. "You think the jurors are going to refrain from reading the newspapers?" is Drake's question to Mason, who answers, "Come on, Paul, let's both quit being näive."
23.	Della takes a good picture, and Hamilton Burger is peeved at the newspaper reports. Now Mason brings up reports that Palmer was once a suspect in hotel stocking murders, but he has been cleared. They look at the report on Palmer, and something Mason sees gives him an idea. Mason tells Della to put an ad in the paper under "Too Late To Classify" or something, and to get it in no matter the cost. "The thing that was too hot for the grass on the golf course is now even more valuable than ever. Call this number at nine o'clock sharp and follow instructions." The number is to be a telephone booth to which they'll send an operative. Drake say a place such as Mason wants for a secret meeting would have to be a golf course, which Mason says no to, suggesting a city dump.
24.	Tragg is inveigled, distrustingly, into joining Mason, Street, Drake and an operative at a city dump. No phone call comes, but plan number two works. The suspect follows the operative from the telephone booth when he leaves and drives to the dump. A car comes, its occupant gets out, walks thirty-five steps, drops to the ground. Then a car without headlights on comes. Five minutes pass before they see a figure silhouetted against the sky. Mason turns a powerful flashlight on the person who shields eyes, then fires a gun at Mason. They consider safety first, and the figure gets in the car, drives away as Tragg radios cars to shut off the area. They follow and, when the fugitive is stopped by a police car and police with drawn guns, Mrs Hedley, venomous hatred in her eyes, is caught with the automatic in her car.
25.	Mason explains all to Della, Drake and Dutton. Palmer was killed at nine, and the murderess needed a Patsy, got Dutton to be that. Palmer was considered as a suspect because he'd been at two hotels where stocking strangulation murders had taken place. They never thought of him as a witness, but he was. He'd seen Hedley in both instances. Mrs Hedley has a fierce protective instinct and was willing to kill to protect her boy. It was this Palmer was going to sell to Dutton. When Hedley ran into the bedroom he was looking for a nylon stocking, Dutton would have found him an expert garroter, one with lots of practice. Mason tells him to get out of his office, go to Desere, tell her he loves her and wants to marry her. Dutton says this "is probably the best advice "I've ever had."

Della Street	Dr Alma's nurse	Dr Selkirk
Perry Mason	Middle-aged receptionist	Taxicab driver
Daphne Shelby	Doctor Tillman Baxter	Gas station attendant
Horace Shelby	Court attaché	Drake operative in telephone car
Bordon Finchley	Ballinger's secretary	Bill Hadley
Ralph Exeter . . .	Sanitarium cook	Police matron
Aunt Elinor Finchley	Inskip, Daphne's shadow	Harvey Miles
Bank teller Jones	Purple Lion waitress	Stanley Freer
Bank cashier	Purple Lion headwaiter	Marvin Mosher
Paul Drake	Purple Lion waiter	Judge Linden Kyle
Judge Ballinger	Cops at Northern Lights Motel	Drugstore clerk
Gertie	Lieutenant Arthur Tragg	Francisco Munoz
Darwin Melrose	Northern Lights proprietor	Mexican taxi driver
Stanley Paxton	Northern Lights occupants	Two psychiatric specialists
Housekeeper	Doctor	Hamilton Burger
Marie Raymond	Deputy coroner	Courtroom spectators
Court clerk	Chinese restaurant waitress	Newspaper reporters
. . .a k a Bosley Cameron	Chinese cook	Las Vegas gamblers
Gambler	Hotel elevator operator
Dr Grantland Alma	Desk clerk

Erle Stanley Gardner is effusive in praise of Tanemoto Furuhata, M D, M J A, Professor Emeritus Tokyo University in his dedication of this book. In a four-page Foreword, Gardner praises this bilingual scientist, over seventy years old, for his contributions to serology and his complete dedication to impartial proof.

All too often, the title of a Perry Mason mystery is itself a bit of a mystery. Here, however, Daphne Shelby is beautiful and, when she visits Mason, she has no money, so sees herself as a beggar.

1.	Della Street pleads with Perry Mason to see the woman in the outer office, twenty-two year old Daphne Shelby, niece of seventy-five year old Horace Shelby. She shows Mason a letter from Horace in which he tells her that, when her boat arrives, she should go straight to Perry Mason and have him go with her to cash the enclosed check (for $125,000 dollars), have Mason prepare a will leaving everything to her and bring it to the house for his signature. She's been three months in Hong Kong, during which half-brother Bordon Finchley, and a friend, Ralph Exeter, joined Bordon's wife Aunt Elinor Finchley to live in the house with Horace. She was acting as Horace's manager, knows there should be $140,000 in the bank. She goes to bank teller Jones, who returns with the bank cashier, who says the entire amount in the account was withdrawn after a Court order appointed a conservator. Mason gives Daphne twenty dollars and tells her to take a cab to her uncles, then report to him.
2.	Daphne returns to say the three interlopers have "put Uncle Horace away." She relates how she got the letter from her uncle when the boat was passing Diamond Head, rather than before she disembarked, or she'd have flown back. Paul Drake answers Mason's summons in time to hear about her return to the Shelby home. It was quiet, Uncle Horace was not there, and her room was locked. Aunt Elinor appeared and told her to vacate by the next day. She left in tears. Mason tells Della to get information on the court order, and Paul to find Horace. Aunt Elinor is a nurse, so drugs might be involved. Della has learned that Judge Ballinger issued the order. Mason tells Della to go through his secretary to get an appointment. Mason tells Della to get a couple of hundred dollars for Daphne, who says she doesn't want to be a beggar. Mason says she's "been the victim of a very clever conspiracy," but he's "an officer of the court, a high priest at the temple of justice . . . As a matter of principle" he's going to try to rectify the wrong done her.
3.	Mason meets with Judge Ballinger, suggests he has something to put forth, and the judge says "The order is subject to review with additional facts," and sets a time for Mason to bring his facts and get the other parties in the courtroom. Mason nods to Gertie on his return, gives Della instructions. Darwin Melrose of Denton, Middlesex and