PERRY MASON

in

The Case of the . . .

with Raymond Burr

as Perry Mason

All 15 episodes in the 1957 part of the first season of "Perry Mason in The Case of the . . ." have been upgraded by comparison with the Columbia House video Tapes in their Collector's Edition as well as by an additional comparison to the DVD format, which is indicated by the DVD chapter indices placed in parentheses within the synopsis text. Further, all episodes of less than 1400 words have been upgraded from the CBS-Paramount release. All episodes have been marked with their CBS-Paramount "Raymond Burr is Perry Mason Season 1 Volume 1" chapter markings in italics and squared [parentheses]. The coding and other information for the CBS-Paramount release takes precedence over previous tape and DVD releases.
Last update; 02/27/08

#	TITLE	SHOW DATE	BOOK DATE-ORDER	CBS TAPE/DVD
1	Restless Redhead	21 Sep 57	ESG '54-45	12423/1-28669

CHARACTER ACTOR Perry Mason Raymond Burr Della Street Barbara Hale Paul Drake William Hopper Hamilton Burger William Talman Lt Tragg Ray Collins Evelyn Bagby Whitney Blake Mervyn Aldrich Ralph Clanton Helene Cheney Gloria Henry Mr Lewis Boles Vaughn Taylor Mrs (Vinnie) Boles Jane Buchanan Sgt Holcomb Dick Rich Judge Kippen Grandon Rhodes Mr Redfield Norman Leavitt Mary Thompson Helen Mayon Court Clerk Jack Gargan Policeman Clark Howat Drake's Operator Lorraine Martin (Joe, the parking attendant unidentified)

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by William D Russell Teleplay by Russell S Hughes

In this synopsis, chapter markers for the original 2-episode-per-DVD issue are in bold faced type.

[1-4/1-7 Title credits](1-1)(1-1) Villa Espana private parking. A redhead drives up in a post war Mercury convertible. As she heads to her apartment, a man in a white KKK type head cover peers out of another car, a 57 Ford. / The redhead enters apartment 22C. She takes off her coat, is wearing “Sherrington” waitress' garb. She looks into a cigarette box, finds a gun. [2-7](1-2) She phones Perry Mason, gives Paul Drake's operator her name; Evelyn Bagby. Mason answers the phone and Evelyn tells him she found a gun. Mason has her check the gun. She says she was acquitted in Riverside of stealing jewels from an actress. Mason tells her to check into a hotel in Hollywood. // [3-7](1-3) She drives away, followed by the Ford, which overtakes her. She fires two shots at the hooded driver, who was waving her off the road in Sunset Canyon. The Ford swerves, out of control. / Mason gets a call from Evelyn, tells her to come to his office. / Mason’s office. Della Street arrives; 1:15 a m. She recognizes the name of Mason’s client, about the jewels found outside her place. Evelyn arrives in the outer office, nearly faints. Della brings her water. She says she fired, but not directly at the hooded driver, and heard one bullet hit the car. Della takes her to the library. [Here were see the entire office layout. Mason’s private office - with a door directly to the hallway that is used by Paul Drake - a door to the library, and a door to Della’s office, beyond which is the reception room where we will eventually meet Gertie Lade.] Mason interrupts Paul Drake at a card game to trace Bagby's gun, in one hour. / [4-7](1-4) Mason pulls up to accident scene in his new Ford Fairlane California license HGA 056, is told by a policeman that Sergeant Holcomb of homicide is on the case. Holcomb avoids Mason's queries, wonders what Mason is doing on this road at 2 a m. Mason uses the ploy of needing a match to light his cigarette to cross over to the policeman who is holding the hood; it has Villa Espana stitched on it. / (1-5) Mason’s office. Drake phones in that he hasn’t traced the gun. Bagby doesn’t know if a pillow slip was missing. Mason hides her in the library (1-6) as Lt Tragg arrives. Harry Merrill is the dead man; had a .38 slug in his head. Lt Tragg and Mason play cat and mouse, over coffee, with Mason learning that no gun was found, and Tragg sure that Bagby is there. (1-7) After Tragg leaves, Bagby admits knowing Lester Gladden aka Harry Merrill, a drama coach who claimed he could get her into the movies, then took her money, all she had, $1500, to do it. She demanded her money back, was told where and when to get it, namely the Eucalyptus Grove Motel in Riverside, but he didn't show. Instead, she was charged with jewel theft. // (1-8)(1-2) Bagby’s gun, one of two, was bought in Riverside by Mervyn Aldrich, reports Drake. Mason intercoms Gertie to have his car sent around (but Gertie does not appear in this first of all Perry Mason episodes). / Mason goes to Evelyn in her apartment. Mason challenges her; she did it but depended on her big blue eyes to win him over. She says to forget her big blue eyes. Lt Tragg arrives, arrests Miss Bagby. / Mason pulls up in front of his office building, the Brent, and tells Joe to park his car. Drake shows Mason a photostat of marriage between Lester Gladden and Hester Charles aka Helene Cheney, now engaged to Mervyn Aldrich. Mason catches Joe before his car is driven away. There is no record of a divorce. // Mason catches Miss Cheney outside Magnum Studio building. She sends Doris, her maid, to get an evening dress. She thinks Bagby stole her jewels. She denies knowing her former husband, Merrill/Gladden. He begs off watching studio production, says he’d take her to Riverside if she were free. / (1-9) Mason asks for Mr Boles at Eucalyptus Grove Motel, and Mrs Vinnie Boles gives him short shrift. Mason catches Mr Boles over name of Harry Merrill. Mason checks register; Aldrich cabin Broadcast episode #4, Cheney Broadcast episode #8, Bagby #10. Mason points out either of the Boles could have, with master key, stolen the jewels, leaves. Mrs Boles calls Mr “a fool.” / (1-10) In his car, Mason marks the barrel of Evelyn gun with a file. / (1-11)(1-3) Mervyn Aldrich gives Mason ten minutes. Perry shows Aldrich Evelyn’s gun. Merrill blackmailed Aldrich over lack of divorce. So Aldrich, after buying two identical guns, met Merrill on the night of the theft to pay him off with $10,000 so he'd stipulate that he was properly served and, thus, the divorce was final. Aldrich says he never set eyes on Evelyn Bagby. Mason gives Aldrich the Bagby gun and asks Aldrich to produce his. Aldrich leaves with the gun. / Cheney phones Aldrich, but he puts her off, then gives Mason gun, saying it is his gun, not Miss Cheney's, and gun in his glove compartment is gone. / In his car, Mason notes the lack of filing on gun. He drives to the accident scene, fires two shots, one into a post, the other into a tree. Then he drives to his office, where Tragg is waiting to search for the murder weapon. He states that the gun Mason hands him is Helen's. Also, the dead man was dead before he was put in the car, because the bag over his head had no bullet hole in it. // [5-7] Court. Judge Kippen opens the preliminary hearing. Lt Tragg testifies regarding the weapon, and source, for Hamilton Burger. Judge Kippen suggests that the weapon should be identified by Aldrich. Mason demands proof that the weapon was in the defendant's possession. Tragg "took" the weapon, rejoins Mason. The murder bullet mushroomed, admits Burger, so cannot be identified. Neither fatal bullet nor second, which went thru the hood of the car, can be identified. Burger argues that the gun was in the defendant’s possession. Mason asks the judge to look at one scene-of-the-crime photo; it shows tree with a mark. / (1-12)(1-4) Mr Redfield, ballistics expert, states that two bullets found at the scene of the crime came from the gun now in court. Mason argues that two identical guns exist and the one in court has been in the hands of the police since Tragg took it. Aldrich testifies to the loss of his gun. Now Mason shows two guns. Which did Aldrich keep, which give to his fiancée. Mason shows the judge the file mark on the gun brought by Aldrich. Fiancée's gun was stolen from the overnight bag, as well as the jewelry, at the Eucalyptus Grove Motel. Aldrich admits to giving Merrill $10,000 at the motel, but the money was not found on him. Aldrich admits he switched guns. Bagby could not have had the murder weapon, for it was in possession of Aldrich on the night of the murder. Mason calls Lewis Boles, who claims he did not know Harry Merrill. He is sworn in by the court clerk. There was no registry card in his name, yet Aldrich testified he was at the motel. Where is the $10,000, which is a motive for the murder. Mary Thompson, manager of the Villa Espana apartments, is called and sworn in by the court clerk. She identifies Lewis Boles as renting an apartment, two weeks ago, but he never slept there, and she saw him only three times, tho he hung around Bagby's apartment. Burger inquires; he registered as Lawrence Benson. Mason recalls Lewis Boles, who denies renting or taking a pillow case or seeing the murder weapon. He didn't destroy Merrill's card, didn’t "sign one." Caught, he says he was to be paid $500 to make trouble for Evelyn Bagby, but didn't get a nickel, tho Merrill got so much money from Aldrich. Confesses, so he'd get money, and get "her,” his wife of twenty five years, off his back, all by himself. Judge Kippen dismisses the case against Evelyn Bagby. // [6-7](1-13)(1-5) Perry, Della and Evelyn are setting a table in the office for lunch. Boles rented at Villa Espana in order to watch her, plant the gun, get rid of the body. Mason shows the two a large check, half for Evelyn, from Aldrich, for not implicating Helene Cheney who, like the defendant, has red hair. [7-7 end credits](1-14)(1-6) [52:55](52:45) (52:47)

[2-4/1-8 Title credits](2-1) [2-8](2-2) Night at a ranch. Inside, a pajama-clothed person bare-footed walks to a desk, picks up a curved-tip letter opener or perhaps a carving knife. He goes into an adjacent room, where a woman in bed awakes, panics and screams. It is Doris (Cole) screaming, Peter (Cole) with the letter opener. Edna (Hammar) arrives and turns on the light, then wakens Peter. Doris shouts, “You won’t be satisfied until I’m dead.” // [3-8](2-3) In Santa Barbara, Doris is carrying a bowl of roses when the doorbell rings. It is Frank Maddox, her husband's partner, coming to her house. She gets her final decree of divorce in 24 hours. Maddox lights two cigarettes, gives her one. “You’re such a louse,“ she teases. He thinks she can get $100,000 by sitting tight. They kiss passionately. / Peter is with Lucille Mays, whom he intends to marry, having made her wait 15 years, notes Edna (Hammar). Frank arrives with attorney Ralph Duncan, introduces Cole's associates Edna Hammar, Peter’s niece and secretary, and Phillip Kendall, Peter’s stepbrother. Frank compliments Lucille, asks her to leave; she does, but Edna stays. Maddox announces that he wants to sell out. For $500,000, says Duncan, which is almost what the company is worth. There will be no divorce unless this is acceptable, says Duncan. Cole calls it blackmail, and Edna stalks out. Steve (Harris), her boyfriend, enters, and she asks him whom he’d consult if he got into trouble. / Peter Cole and Edna meet with Perry Mason, who suggests that he and stepbrother meet with Maddox and Duncan and stall them until he gets there. They leave. “Della!” “I know,” she responds to her boss, “a new file, Cole vs Cole.” Jackson is sent to Santa Barbara to get the divorce info. / Mason calls half a million extortion to Maddox and Duncan. Maddox thinks it reasonable, considering what Cole is getting and has wanted for so long. “I’ll kill you,“ responds Cole. Mason gets a phone call from Jackson about the time of the interlocutory becoming final. Mason gets Jackson to ask questions so he can give him direction without letting others in the room know. He suggests to Maddox and Duncan that they stay the night at the ranch with Cole. Mason’s answer will be given at 9 am (the decree can be finalized by Jackson by 11). Cole is unhappy at having to offer such hospitality, but Mason counters that this keeps an eye on Maddox. Mason will have Jackson get the decree (since Mrs Cole has not moved to stop it) while Peter and Lucille fly to Nevada to marry without California's three-day wait. Steve volunteers to take the papers to Jackson and to keep notes on the comings and goings at Doris's, as instructed by Mason. / Lucille suggests to Edna that she wait with her for her phone call, but she goes into the hall, where she meets Maddox. He’s switched rooms with her uncle Phillp. / At 11:10 a phone rings at Doris's. It is from Maddox, at a phone booth out on the highway. He says he'll call her regarding the divorce at 9:30 in the morning. / At the ranch, a drawer is opened and a carving knife is removed. // [4-8](2-4) Mason is surprised when he is greeted at Cole's by Lieutenant Tragg. Phillip Kendall is dead in bed, and the murder weapon is the carving knife. / Duncan tries to help Maddox leave to make his phone call, but a policeman won’t let him go. / Edna Hammar is examined by Lt Tragg. She explains where the knife was kept and says that Maddox and Kendall had switched rooms. Edna admits that Peter is a sleepwalker. Where is Uncle Peter? demands Tragg, suggesting his absence is flight, and Mason is biased, for he will have to defend Cole for murder. / Paul Drake commiserates with Della Street who is at Gertie’s desk in the outer office. She wonders how he can eat so much food . . . when he’s on an expense account. Then he tries to cheer Mason in the inner office. “Nothing seems to be working right for me today,” says Mason, as his lighter refuses to light. He reports that eight years earlier Maddox, involved in a scandal, got five to ten from the jury, but never served a day. His lawyer, Duncan, got him off. Jackson phones Mason that the decree is finalized. Steve, who is with Jackson, reports that at 3 am Duncan telephoned Doris. That’s the time of the murder, Drake notes. / A car races down a curving road. / Steve reports on the specifics of the phone call. Mason worries about Cole, orders Drake to locate Cole with Lucille May in Nevada. He asks Della to charter a plane and wonders, “Do you ever ask a sleepwalker to tell you the truth?” / Mason flies out of Los Angeles to McCarran Field, a Las Vegas airport. Cole, with Lucille, is told by Drake’s detective that he is to wait for Mason. They have not yet married. Lucille suggests that she go on to the hotel, and leaves. Mason joins Cole who says they arrived 45 minutes earlier, staying longer in L A because Lucille wanted to do some shopping. Mason briefs Cole, asks him the question to which his answer may be the most important of his life, did he kill Philip? Cole admits that he sleep walks, so doesn't know if he killed Kendall. Lt Tragg and a local Sheriff arrest Cole, and Tragg, a bit gleefully, advises Mason that Maddox saw Cole walking across the patio wide awake. // [5-8](2-5) Della in the outer office greets Perry, rubs his shoulders, informs him that Doris wants to see him. / In her L A apartment, Doris offers to help Mason, then threatens, but Mason calls her bluff; all he wants is 15 minutes with her in open court. He reveals he know of the 3 am phone call and her relationship with Maddox and Duncan. She thinks she’s been wiretapped. Mason continues that she wanted to ruin Peter. She accepts $25,000 to settle. There were two calls, Maddox at 11, Duncan at 3. She tells him the specifics of the calls, then, “I’d hate to tell you what I think of you, Mr Mason. Whenever I’m in trouble, You’re going to be my lawyer.” // (2-6) Steve goes to Tragg who is effusively friendly, even asking him about an upcoming fight. Tragg corners him, saying his fiancée’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon which she was seen taking the knife out of the sideboard about 11:30. Steve says it was gone from the drawer by ten when he left for Santa Barbara. So the knife was gone before Peter Cole went to bed, making the murder premeditated. // (2-7) After Hamilton Burger gives to the court his opening statement of premeditated murder, Maddox testifies that he saw Peter Cole, awake, walking across patio with the knife at 3:05. Mason gets him to admit that he did nothing about it. He just went back to bed! He also called Mrs Cole, leaving the house in which he was guest to make the call. / [6-8] Attorney Duncan is accused by Mason of unethical conduct, blackmailing Cole, and Burger specifically refuses to object. Duncan denies blackmail, asserts that he never spoke to Mrs Cole. Mason whispers to Drake, who leaves quickly. // (2-8) Mason asks Duncan regarding the 3 am phone call to Mrs Cole, which he denies, even after being reminded of penalty for perjury. Court clerk calls out “the witness may step down” and then swears in Steven Harris. Burger obtains consent of the court to treat Harris as an adverse witness. He then explains to Harris what this means regarding his relationship with Edna Hammar. Harris testifies that he saw the sideboard with knife missing on the eve of the murder. The D A sees this as evidence of premeditation. Mason’s objection is sustained by the judge. He saw the knife missing before he left for Mrs Cole's Santa Barbara house around ten. Mason asks Steve if the knife could have been put under Cole’s pillow by someone else. Sure. He then opens the door regarding the Santa Barbara visit and what Harris heard there. Burger claims what Harris heard regarding Duncan is hearsay. Drake hands Mason a large envelope from which the attorney introduces a photo of "Mrs Cole's house" which Harris swears he stood near “the shurbbery under Mrs Cole’s bedroom” to hear the phone call. This traps Harris. Maybe instead he made the call himself to have an alibi. It was he who murdered Kendall so that his fiancée Edna would inherit the Cole fortune when Peter was convicted of murder. The photo is not of the Cole house! // [7-8](2-9) LAX. “Flight two eleven, the Islander, for Honolulu. . . .“ blares out of a speaker. Mason with Della tells Cole and wife that, when Duncan had to answer "yes" or "no" to making call, and answered "no," he had to consider the other possibility, Harris. They see the couple off on their honeymoon. [8-8 end credits](2-10) [52:30](52:21)

[3-4/1-7 Title credits](2-1) [2-7](2-2) A secretary (Harriet) brings Bruce Granger some papers. He asks her about some details regarding the property, then passes the papers on to Roxy Howard. When the secretary is gone, he tells Roxy it is the last time she comes to his office. Holding the papers, she notes that she wanted everything to be “down in black and white.” They kiss as a photograph on Granger’s desk reveals his wife, Sybil. / Sybil is showing Perry Mason a "model" house with her binoculars, when Roxy Howard, lying next to swimming pool, is identified as Bruce's mistress. Her spying is “very cruel to herself” says Mason. “Hate has a taste of its own” she replies; she won’t give up fifteen years. The Sylvan Glade Development Company may have found oil on development property. Roxy will get half the profits. Sybil wants Mason to block the deal by buying into the company. She thinks this can lead to her getting her husband back from Roxy. She’ll put up the money. He must do it in his name. // [3-7](2-3) Sylvan Glade stockholders meeting re drilling operation. George Lutts presides. Granger and Howard are there to close the oil deal. Sam Elkins wants to know who the attorney represents, but Mason notes the stock is in his name. To stop the oil drilling, Mason quotes from the company's bylaws that require consent of all stockholders to do anything not connected with construction of homes. The attorney leaves. The board members argue and challenge Lutts. Granger starts out, having lost the oil deal, but Roxy assures him the board will figure out something, unless he wants to do business with his wife. / George Lutts, father of Vinnie Dean, tries to buy back Mason’s stock, fails. Vinnie urges him to calm down. He then complains of steak at $1.34 a pound. He harangues son-in-law, Herbert, at the dinner table over their mooching off him. Vinnie admits he’s seen Sybil on the hill above the model house all week long. Lutts remembers that Roxy lives there and Granger has been visiting her. He phones Sam Elkins to see if Mason deposited a check from Mrs Bruce (Sybil) Granger. / Lutts finds Mrs Granger looking at the model house with her binoculars. He threatens to tell her husband of her spying unless he gets his shares back from Mason. He is shot, she runs, drives away in her Plymouth Fury convertible, and goes off the road. She leaves her car and runs to the nearest main road, hails a taxi. She has trouble with the door handle, so the taxi driver helps her. // [4-7](2-4) Perry Mason’s office. Della Street reads back Sybil's statement to Mason. Sybil gives him her taxi receipt, trip 971, $2.95, which he tears up, and admits to owning a gun. Her husband collects them. / Mason drives in his Ford Fairlane hardtop to Sybil’s car; no gun. She grabs her sweater from the seat, and the binoculars fall to the ground. / Mason's office. Paul Drake reports via phone. Sybil assures Mason her friend, Ruth Marvel, is trustworthy; she has her instructions. / Drake is using a radio phone to have his car, driven by Frank (Hurley in credits) tail taxi 761. He and Hurley exchange the location of the cab. Mason is there and on the phone with Sybil, coaching her on the approach of taxi 761. / Friend of Sybil, Ruth (Marvel), flags down taxi 761 on Mason’s instructions passed to her by Sybil, and she and Sybil take a ride. / Sybil is told by Mason to hold on to newest taxi receipt. Lieutenant Tragg shows up. He asks how Mason knew Lutts was dead, admits they found a gun registered to Bruce Granger. Sibyl steps forward, says he gave the gun to her. Lt Tragg takes Sybil to the D A. // Court. Hamilton Burger pontificates against “endless and purposeless cross examination.” Tragg testifies; taxi receipt, gun shot information. The gun was fired from between eighteen inches and two feet, based on powder burns. Jerome Keddie, taxi driver, testifies; identifies “nervous and upset” Sybil Granger as the woman he took to the Brent Building (in which Mason has his offices), identifies receipt as his. Mason shows that the receipt, #984, does not match trip he identified, #971. Keddie cannot identify as the defendant either woman he picked up on trip #984 as one of the pair. Burger is cornered. Judge Hoyt refuses to bind Sybil over for trial. Burger stalks out of the courtroom. “He left a vapor trail,“ says Della to which Mason adds that he didn’t fool Burger one bit. Mason accuses Sybil of lying about the closeness of gun shot. Tragg stalls Mason, who teases the lieutenant, suggesting that the opposition wasn’t up to par, while another warrant is being issued against Sybil Granger. Bruce Granger shows up, Sybil rushes into his welcoming arms. As the matron leads Sybil away, Bruce offers help to Mason, who responds, “Aren’t you a little late?” // Construction shack below the crime scene; Mason and Drake drive up, make note of how easily Della can be seen at the hilltop. / The Dean house. Della, Paul and Perry asking for key to the shack. Vinnie challenges Mason, saying her husband stayed with the company to please her. How could Mason understand, “ he didn’t have a father who was sick . . . over money. / Tragg, at homicide, is trying out Mrs Granger's binoculars when Burger enters, teases him about being a peeping Tom. Tragg informs him that both Lutts' and Mrs Granger's fingerprints are on the binoculars proving she knew him. // [5-7](2-5) Mr Redfield, ballistics expert, identifies gun and two bullets were fired. Mason queries re two bullets. Couldn’t the second shot have been a blank, and first fired at long distance (as Mrs Granger has asserted)? Over Burger’s objection, Mason tests the theory; he fires a blank into the cloth and proves there is no paper wadding in the cloth as expert Redfield had just said there would be. Judge Hoyt notes “it is not incubent upon Mr Mason to reveal how (as Burger called it) ‘this trick was managed.‘“ Burger calls a hostile witness, Ruth Marvel, Sybil's best friend. She testifies to Mason's ruse including stopping the cab at exactly $2.95, and identifies cab driver Keddie. Mason soothes the witness, gets Ruth to admit that Sybil only wanted to test the credibility of a witness. / Shack at the murder site. Drake and Mason find tire tracks made by Roxy Howard’s car, and the shed empty, but notice a hole in the wall and sand on the floor. / They go further into the site to see what was dumped from the shed, and find the removed items missing. Mason asks Drake to get his operative to describe every piece he remembers being removed from the shack and to obtain a duplicate and to not forget the sandbags. / Burger concludes his case and Mason calls Bruce Granger. Granger admits he knows and visits Miss Roxy Howard at her isolated house, and he helped her use his gun for personal protection. His gun collection is kept locked and he has the only key. Drake enters with (duplicate) items, covered, on a trolley. The judge rails at Mason for the interruption. Mason gets Judge Hoyt to order Granger to provide a list of gun numbers. Court recesses. Drake tells Mason he feels like a jackass, but is assured it is in a good cause. The trap for a nervous accomplice has been laid. / Drake whispers his report to Mason. Gun list shows one gun is not his, admits Granger, and could have been the one Miss Howard returned to him. Mason calls Roxy Howard, who testifies she doesn't know if the gun was switched. Now Mason reveals the "shooting stand." Burger is outraged at Mason’s grandstanding. Roxy denies knowledge of any such device. Mason shows her how it should be used. Now under pressure, she admits she knew of it. The hole in the shed aligned with the top of the hill. She didn't know Mr Lutts would be there, only Sylvia. Why did she take the shooting stand apart? She was seen, “where do you think this came from?“ Mason points out that during the recess someone checked to see if the items were still in his garage, but had no opportunity to tell her (of the duplicates). Under pressure, for being accomplice, she admits that Herbert Dean did the shooting. Vinnie gets up and leaves her husband, who follows but is rejected, then taken by the bailiff. “I would’a made a million,” says a dejected Roxy. // [6-7](2-6) Della reads a letter from Bruce announcing his and Sybil’s second honeymoon. Mason tells Drake that Lutts was the target, not Sybil as Roxy had been led to believe. Tragg arrives followed by a policeman bringing Mason's shooting stand. Tragg offers to remove the stand “for a fee.” “That’s bribery, Tragg.” Un hunh, but the DA’s a friend of mine (he winks).” Mason tells him how he fired a clean blank; it was done with chalk rather than paper! Tragg is suitably chastised, leaves with the stand as Perry, Paul and Della laugh. [7-7 end credits](2-7) [52:50](52:45)

[4-4/1-8 Title credits](1-1) [2-8](1-2) A Center City bus enters Logan City where Donald Briggs greets (Lois) Reed. She is taken in a cab to the Sands Motel, not knowing what she is to do now that she is there in 6D. He goes on in the cab to the hotel to see Mrs Adams. Her son is “a chemical engineering student at the state university, engaged to Helen Waters.” “Everyone knows that,” she says. What they don know, but Briggs does, is her son's father is an executed murderer. He threatens her by noting that Lois Reed is in town, and demands $5000. Son Marv arrives. // [3-8](1-3) Marv Adams follows Briggs out of the hotel, asks what he did to his mother, starts a fight. The two are separated by the cabbie and Chief Glass, who warns Marv of further belligerence. / Water’s (sign has improper apostrophe) Dairy Farm. Briggs tells Clyde Waters, who pays for his services, that Marv was Ben Devereux's son. Waters writes Briggs a check for his services, then notes that the information he’s gathered is not likely to be revealed. To insure that, Briggs suggests he add $5000 to his check and send it to the Sands Motel. “Do you really think I would do a thing like that?“ Briggs says he could ask Lois Reed. The boy’s mother is also in town, at Brigg’s insistence, isn’t she? Marv suggests that all the participants get together. / Clyde Waters consults Perry Mason. He hired Briggs and now knows Devereux was convicted a murderer (of David Latwell). Mason accepts the case, asks Paul Drake how much trouble he’d have finding out about an 18-year-old murder (even the current ones are difficult) and suggests he consult with Briggs to find more about Marv, who didn’t know much about his father. / Mason gets Devereux trial transcript from Logan City Judge Meecham, who was the prosecutor against Devereux. A “Miss X” was never identified, which Mason considers a flaw in the trial. The judge asserts she had no involvement, and resents Mason retrying the community’s cases. Mason wants justice even if the judge doesn’t. / Mason is getting his car fueled, asks if days are always this hot as he fans himself. The attendant says “this is a cool one.“ Chief Glass forcibly escorts Mason, in his Cadillac convertible, to Martha Norris' farm. He is welcomed by George Norris. Martha Norris informs Mason it was Devereux who killed her first husband (David Latwell). She sees no reason to revisit the situation. While her “motives are admirable,” Mason suggests his reading of the transcript will keep him investigating. / Martha and George Norris escort Mason to Waters' children's barbecue party. / At the Waters (without the apostrophe) Dairy farm party, Marv makes smoke from two liquids, then demonstrates to some children a liquid than can make fish walk, pigs fly and make a duck drown. Helen Waters introduces Marv to Mason. From Logan City Paul reports by phone to Perry that Briggs, who doesn’t have much of a reputation, is in Logan City at the Sands Motel. They arrange to go to him together. / They go to the Sands Motel to meet Briggs, but are told by Lois Reed that he left a half hour ago. She goes in 6D. They enter his room, 4D, find newspaper clippings then, in the adjacent room, Briggs, dead. // [4-8](1-4) Doctor (Creel) says that cyanide dropped in hydrochloric acid killed Briggs, "something Marv Adams" would know about, notes Chief Glass, who continues that “the woman in 6D” saw Adams truck outside Brigg’s room. He drives off to pick him up. / Mason knowing Marv was heading back to college, finds him at the bus depot and takes him in his car to go to college./ Marv tells Masonhe only saw Briggs once. After the Waters party, he took his pickup truck to his mother. He asks if the police can seriously believe he killed Briggs. Chief Glass pulls them over, chides Mason, takes Marv with him. // Logan City Sentinel headline proclaims MASON WILL DEFEND MARVIN ADAMS. / In jail, Mason interviews Marv Adams, who doesn't want to cooperate or prove his father innocent. Is he afraid that, by proving his innocence, he’ll prove his mother guilty? Lois Reed calls Mason to suggest he talk to Judge Meecham. / Mason challenges Meecham, who says everyone in town is prejudiced against the Devereauxs /Adamses. He reveals that George Norris was the attorney who kept Miss X's name out of the trial. / Norris admits to Mason that he was a poor lawyer, and his defense killed Devereaux, then identifies Miss X as Lois Reed, a friend of the dead man Briggs and daughter of the town’s namesake, Logan. / Lois tells Mason that Briggs offered her $1,000 to come to Logan City for a few days. Didn’t she know David Latwell and his partner Ben Devereaux? “It was a small town” she comments. Mason suggests to Lois that whoever killed Latwell probably killed Briggs. She says Briggs wrote three names on a pad, circling the one of whom was the murdering goose who laid his golden egg. Who else but Marv would have driven his old truck to the motel, she asks Mason. His mother. Also, she has motive. Three would have had a good motive, including her, is Mason’s rejoinder. // Logan City Courthouse. The cabbie testifies to the hotel altercation. Helen Waters testifies to seeing her fiancé do magic tricks involving chemistry. Prosecutor Cortland suggests Adams’ knowledge of chemistry would indicate he’d know of mixing cyanide with acid. Mason objects. The prosecutor continues and Mason shouts his objection; Judge Meecham sustains the objection only after Mason is calmed down. Clyde Waters is examined on the drowning duck trick. A second time Mason objects to prosecutor Cortland’s line of questioning, then again has to apologize to the country judge for his outburst, after which the judge again sustains Mason’s objection. Drake brings a report on Mrs Adams. // [5-8] Mason asks Marv Adams about his mother’s heart condition which was revealed in the report just brought Mason. She is living on borrowed time. Where is she? He tells Mason. / Della Street and Drake, in Mason’s car, seek Mrs Adams, find a box and dead Mrs Adams. / [6-8](1-5) Mason joins Paul and Della at the hotel. They open the box, which gives up lots of papers, photo of Lois Reed, and an incomplete "Dear John" letter apparently from Ben Devereux. / Mason again visits Lois Reed who offers him a beer and a dance. She’s somewhat drunk, depressed; “A room’s a room no matter where you put it.“ Mason shows her the “Dear John” letter. Wasn’t she going to marry Ben Devereaux? “Do you know what Ben Devereaux looked like? He was a short, dumpy little man, square and bald as a post.” David Latwell was her friend, a married man and murdered partner of Devereux with whom he shared a desk, and she his mistress. / Due to death of Mrs Adams, defense is allowed an adjournment, but Mason wants no delay in the trial. Chief Glass suggests Briggs had a guest. Marv Adams’ truck was there. Mason asks to whom the truck was registered. Mrs Adams, not the son. Mason asks Della to find out what is keeping Drake. Lois Reed identifies Marv Adams' truck as at the motel. Mason gets her to tell Briggs' reason for her return, blackmail of several people. // (1-6) Dr Creel admits that the chemistry that killed Briggs is common on farms and one wouldn’t have to be a trained chemist to know hot to use it. Drake delivers a newspaper clip which he’s gotten from the newspaper morgue. After seeing it, Mason calls Martha Norris, whose first husband was David Latwell. Cortland objects to material unrelated to current case, but Judge Meecham accepts Mason’s intent to connect it. It now comes out that an accident would have prevented her getting out of bed on the night of the murder. She states that she and Latwell were very much in love up to the moment of his murder. Mason confronts her with Latwell's plan to divorce her, the “Dear John” letter. Mason introduces the letter, held by Mrs Devereaus mistakenly thinking it was from from Devereux, but was really from Latwell to (now) Mrs Norris, his wife then. It wasn’t introduced at the trial because the one person who could testify to that, Miss X, wasn’t introduced. Prosecutor and attorney argue, again. She murdered Latwell, Mason asserts. Mrs Norris has claimed that she was "incapacitated" at time of murder and for a week thereafter, “Everyone in town knew I was,” she asserts. Mason brings forth a newspaper clip which shows Latwell and Reed at a cattle auction the night of the murder, and Mrs Norris in the background. The same clip was in Briggs' collection of newspaper clips. He approached Martha Norris with blackmail. So now Mrs Norris had to kill Briggs, too. “She had no right to him,” she blurts out, “David’s better of dead.” Judge Meecham dismisses the case and orders the D A to initiate further investigation into the case. // [7-8](1-7) Helen cannot understand why Mrs Norris would keep Latwell's photo. Marv is sour over dad's death for false reasons, and now his mother’s death, and the whole town hates him. Mason cautions him, notes there is one who doesn’t, Helen. The two find each other, kiss. [8-8 end credits](1-8) [52:31](52:21)

CHARACTER ACTOR Perry Mason Raymond Burr Della Street Barbara Hale Paul Drake William Hopper Hamilton Burger William Talman Lt Tragg Ray Collins Fran Celane Olive Sturges (Donald) Graves William Schallert Clara (Mayfield) Lillian Bronson (Arthur) Crinston Robert Griffin Gertie Connie Cezon Rod Gleason Brian Hutton (Edward) Norton Raymond Greenleaf Judge (Brian C) Purley Howard Wendell
Sgt (Geoge) Wilbur Paul Bryar Judge Markham Frank Wilcox Officer (Frank) Delaney Bob Kline Police Surgeon Larry Thor Court Clerk Jack Gargan	CHARACTER ACTOR Reporter Dick Winslow (Hamilton Burger's assistant uncredited) (Gardener uncredited)

[1-4/1-7 Title credits](3-1) [2-7](3.2) A gardener is mowing the lawn of a mansion (Laurelwood). He hears through an open window a man (Uncle Edward Norton) saying that he won't change his mind and Fran (Celane) pointing out that she's a grown woman, 23. She runs out of the room. Lawyer (Arthur) Crinston is met at the front door by (Donald) Graves. Fran complains to Clara (Mayfield) that she wants her dowry. Clara tells her she “has everything to live for.” / Graves tells Crinston to return at 11 p m. Fran rushes out, drives off in a white Chrysler Imperial convertible, nearly hitting the gardener, as Fran, Crinston and Graves watch. // [3-7](3-3) Downtown Los Angeles. In the Brant building, Fran rushes past Gertie, who protests, “you can’t go in there,” to Perry Mason who mouths a cigarette as he talks to Paul Drake. Fran offers a lit match. Della enters from the law library with six large, heavy books. “If it isn’t in there, Della, we’d better drop it.“ She drops them. Fran tells them, as Della Street takes notes, that she's being cheated out of a fortune. But he’s a trial lawyer. “There’ll be a trial, a big one” she asserts. She wants Mason to break a million dollar spendthrift trust, because she wants to get married, NOW. Uncle Edward, absolute trustee, won’t let her marry until she is 25, an age he things “she’ll be emotionally stable enough.” She is impetuous, apologizes, but says she was upset that morning. After she leaves, Paul and Perry agree Fran is scared, maybe “of losing someone she loves.” Mason puts Paul Drake on the case. // Clara is reminded by Norton that she was “hired as a housekeeper, not Miss Celane’s personal maid” Clara says Fran needs love, Norton counters with discipline. Norton tells Clara that he will not have her undermining his authority with Fran. Her insubordination must end immediately. She understands “perfectly.” / At lunch, Drake reports. He shows Mason a Walter Winchell news article on Fran and a bellhop in Florida. "she's a very expensive delinquent." She’s been running around with an artist. / Mason visits Fran's boyfriend, Rod Gleason,who claims he met her only six months earlier. Mason uses a painting of Florida to confronts him with being a bellhop in Florida, and running away with Fran five years earlier — and getting married secretly. Fran joins them and admits it. They have to get married now. Mason quips, "I hope it's a boy." / (3-4) Mason informs Norton that his arbitrary use of his authority is wrong. Crinston interrupts them. As Mason leaves, Fran enters the house and learns of Mason's lack of success. He leaves, and she declares “I hate him” to Clara. // [4-7](3-5) Drake reports at 11 p m that “Norton’s dough is in real estate” and the Celane account is held by the First National Bank. Mason asks for more information. / Norton with Graves await Judge Purley and Crinston. The arrive six minutes late, listening to a fight on the radio, while Gleason hides in the bushes. / At 11:12 at police headquarters, officer Delaney answers a call that he says is from Norton. Sergeant (George) Wilbur is then informed that Norton wants protection from his niece. Delaney is told to go out in the squad car. / At 11:15 Judge Purley is listening to the fight when Crinston returns. Norton calls out for some papers and says he'll send Graves with him to get them. Graves joins them and, as they drive off, Graves sees a man through the window and they return. / Gleason enters the house. / Judge Purley backs up. / A police car with siren going approaches. / Mason rambles on as he dictates his challenge to Norton, but finds that Della has fallen asleep at midnight. Della is telling her chief that he is best at murder. Just then Fran enters with “a murder is what you’ve got.” // The police finish their inspection. The police surgeon tells Lieutenant Tragg that he’ll have his full autopsy report in the morning. Graves tells Lt Tragg of the man in the window. Judge Purley sets the time factor. / Separately, Fran tells Mason that she was moving in with Rod, who “wanted to have it out with Uncle Edward,” to live as man and wife. Clara is with them. / (3-6) 4:15. Mason asks Gleason what happened after he left Fran's room. He says that he heard Edward talking so went out of the house, then returned to find Norton dead. He never touched him. / (3-7) Hamilton Burger has Graves reenact his identification of the figure in the window. Tragg gives signals to the inside re-enactors. Graves identifies three figures correctly. D A Hamilton Burger tells Tragg that the test is perfect. Drake has observed it from a distance. / Drake reports the test to Mason. Neither has a solution. / Drake is called into Lt Tragg’s office, where the lieutenant is shooting rubber bands at an image of Mason. Tragg confronts Drake with witnessing the test, and gives him a subpoena. / In the court hallway a reporter (Andy) phones his office that Rod Gleason is bound over for murder. Coming out of the courtroom, Drake and Mason confer. Norton was honest, reports Drake. // [5-7](3-8) In court D A Hamilton Burger gives his opening statement. Mason declines to make an opening statement. Judge Brian C Purley is sworn in by the court clerk, then testifies to times and to Norton's calling to Graves. He also indicates where he drove the car, then admits to Mason that he did not know Norton by sight or voice. Sergeant (George) Wilbur testifies to the call from Norton, but admits he did not answer the phone, officer (Frank) Delaney did. Mason asks that the testimony be stricken. Burger gives an assistant instructions to bring the other officer. Mason doodles with five digit numbers. After Burger’s short examination, Arthur Crinston tells Mason that he was at Norton's to discuss tax matters, and he had power of attorney so could sell securities, but Norton was distraught. Rod asks Della what Mason is up to. Mason asks Drake to get him financial papers. Graves asserts that he could view the study from the car. Officer Delaney tells Burger of the phone call and Mason raises the issue of whether or not it was actually Norton. Clara says that after Crinston and Graves left about 11:15, she saw Gleason enter. Yet, Mason observes, she did nothing, knowing Gleason hated Norton. Mason asks if the figure 67,585 means something to her. He asks, how long has she known ran Celane. Ten years. How did she feel when, just before he was killed, Norton told her she'd be discharged if she didn't stay away from Celane. “The Lord would show [her] the way.” Mason recalls Crinston, asks Della for some note cards, whispers to Drake to get Judge Purley into the hall where he can hear the cross-examination. While writing on the cards, Mason asks Crinston regarding 67,585, that this is the value in dollars of stocks he used to cover his own losses in the stock market. Further, when Norton called the police to "report a crime" it was Crinston in front of him. After killing Norton, Crinston picked up the phone and said "my niece has threatened my life." Burger blusters, but the judge shuts him up. Donald Graves refuses to read out loud cards given him by Mason, but the judge orders him to do so. As Mason moves away, Graves has to read louder; "Crinston, I want Graves to go with you" is the last card as Mason opens the door to the hall. Judge Purley is recalled, identifies the voice of Graves, who then, shouting, accuses Crinston of the murder. Crinston’s admission shows when he hangs his head. Burger similarly hangs his head. // [6-7](3-9) Clara, with Perry, Della, Rod and Fran, says that she cannot understand why Graves joined with Crinston unless he was offered a share of the stock market profits. Exactly right, says Mason. Della then offers that Mason might give Clara her job. Clara thinks not, for neither can she handle Fran, and may have to raise "another sulky girl" to which Mason replies that he's "holding out for a sulky boy." [7-7 end credits](3-10) [52:49](52.42)

In this synopsis, chapter markers for the original 2-episode-per-DVD issue are in bold faced type.

[2-4/1-8 Title credits](1-1) [2-8](2-1) Harry Marlow drives up to the Home of Orchids Unlimited in a big Pontiac. Mildred (Kimber) tells Tulloch that she has waited seven years for the new orchid to bloom. Tulloch names it the "Mildred Kimber.” Harry Marlow, who “learned the beauties of nature in San Quentin,” suggests that he should be her partner because of his connections. She slaps him. Tulloch rushes in with pointed shears but is cautioned off by Mildred. Marlow leaves, but only after threatening him with his boys. Mildred has an attack, needs her pills. // [3-8] Harry Marlow and friends enter the Club Eldorado and are admitted to Mr Lynk's private room, for cards. Kimber has full house [aces over nines] and gun in his coat, which is discovered by Lynk's girl, Lola Florey, with stock certificates. Lynk raises. Lynk gets a call from Miss Carling. He tells her that he'll be at her place by 12:30. Kimber raises another thousand. Lynk raises to the limit of Kimber's stock, $5,000, shows four deuces to win. Kimber owes $37,000. Cash. He gives certificates of 100 shares of Orchids Unlimited worth $40,000. Marlow insults him, Kimber throws punches, is ushered out. Lynk wants $50,000 for the stock, $10,000 more than already given him by Marlow, because he doesn’t like him. / Mildred Kimber, in a fur coat, finds her husband in the bedroom, drunk, wonders where he's been the last day or so. He claims to have been out drumming up business for her orchids. She asks for the stock, but Lynk has it. Bob promises her to take care of everything. / In his private office Perry Mason is dictating to Della Street. Mildred Kimber phones him, sets an appointment for the next morning at 10:30. Della suggests that he should have seen her because of her bad heart. / [4-8] At the Eldorado Club Mildred asks to see Mr Lynk. Lola, a woman scorned who loves Chocolates by Andrei follows Mildred into the parking lot, There she tells Mildred that Sam Lynk used marked cards to fleece Bob, and she'll give her a deck. She'll go to Mason with Mildred. Lola goes to the hat check, to leave the club, and is handed by the cigarette girl (Ginger Key) an anonymous gift of Chocolates by Andrei. She leaves, watched by Mr Tulloch in his pre-War Ford Woody. / (1-2)(2-2) In the private office Perry and Della are eating chocolates. Lola Florey phones that her candy is poisoned. She faints, then the phone is hung up. Mason telephones . . . / near midnight, Lieutenant Tragg, who is just leaving his office with a bag of groceries topped by Wonder bread. He locates hostess Florey (who is not in the phone book) and gives Mason the address . . . / (1-3) Ambulance . . . / Tragg’s partner (Conroy) breaks down the door, finds Florey on floor, barely alive according to an intern. Mason finds the candy box, with six empty cups. Tragg is certain Mason is hiding a client. He warns the attorney that D A Hamilton Burger will be dogging him when he finds that he’s involved. / Mildred Kimber is crying on (1-4) a bed, hears the buzzer, stands up and a pistol falls to the floor. She picks the pistol up, opens the door and admits Perry and Della. She says her husband is asleep , asks them to be quiet. The problem she called about has been solved. She’s been sick. She feigns lack of knowledge of Lola when Mason mentions her being poisoned. Mason says that he called at midnight and did not get an answer. She says she was at the nursery. As Perry and Della leave, Mildred adds “Nothing short of an explosion will wake Bob.” // [5-8](1-5) (2-3) Della notes that Perry also phoned the nursery at midnight, so Mildred’s alibi is a lie. Mason makes the connection between card games, hostess, Lynk and Bob Kimber. Mason puts Della in a taxi with orders to call Paul Drake. / He drives to Sam Lynk's place. There is no answer. A Siamese cat on window sill seems distressed. Mason enters, finds the phone off the hook, a dead man and Mildred Kimber's prescription box. He hangs up the phone, then dials with a pencil, Paul Drake's office, where he gets the detective’s receptionist. The Siamese cat is insistent. Drake says Lola will be alright. A private patrolman passes by outside as Mason hides, then tells Paul that Lynk is murdered. Mason then the leaves phone off the hook, exits. / He then rushes into Kimber's apartment building, to her room, pulls a gun out of her coat, notes that it has been fired recently, and confronts her with the possibility of a murder charge. Where is her husband? She doesn't know. She tells him of Marlow’s visit to the nursery . . . / A police siren, and a Buick police car (with continental tire) . / . . . and Lynk’s offer. Mildred found Lynk dead. She blacked out, woke to find a cat in her face. She took a pill, dropped the box. She took the (husband's) gun, searched for stock certificates but couldn't find them. / The police car arrives at the apartment. / Mason warns Mildred about the paraffin test. She rushes to the gun which "must have her husband’s fingerprints" on it, rubs it which “accidentally fires it. Tragg’s partner breaks in. Mildred blacks out. Mason has Tragg phone Dr Rubin. / [6-8](1-6) At a hospital, Dr Rubin suggests that another shock could kill Mildred, tells Tulloch to watch over her. / (1-7) (2-4) As they exit the elevator, Mason and Rubin are confronted by two reporters, then are faced by District Attorney Hamilton Burger and Lt Tragg. Mason warns Burger not to disturb his client on threat of a manslaughter charge. Burger says he'll charge Mason with malfeasance over the "second" gun shot. Mason explains the paraffin test’s validity to Smitty and a girl reporter. / (1-8) Kimber heads into the nursery. / Drake says Florey anxious to get out of hospital, identifies the nearly deadly poison, Verinol. Harry Marlow, the “petunia king”, according to Paul Drake, (1-9) enters, pulls out a cigar, and calmly tells Mason that the attorney has 100 share of Orchids Unlimited which he wants back. He says he can identify Bob Kimber as the murderer because he was on the phone when Lynk was murdered. Mason tells him to take his business elsewhere, then “get out.” / (1-10) Tulloch is confronted about the stock, which Kimber may have. Tulloch doesn’t like Bob Kimber, so won’t help. Mason tells Della that six cups were missing from chocolate. Della suggests they were taken by the “person who put the phone back on the hook.” Tulloch overhears. He rushes out. / Marlow comes out of Lola's hospital room as Mason and Della arrive. Lola is shaking. She’s not afraid, just “petrified.” Mason suggests that she go to the authorities with him. She's not interested. It is clear that Marlow threatened her. Lola leaves. Mason tells Della that they need to see the D A. / Lola arrives home, watched outside by a detective. Inside, Tulloch hides. She starts to undress. / Mason and Street are with Tragg, who hears from his detective that the apartment is now dark. / A fire is set at Lola's. She runs out into the arms of a policeman shouting that someone is trying to kill her as Mason, Della and Tragg arrive. / Fire trucks speeding. / The fire is out. Lola’s place is decimated as Tragg, Mason, Street and Lola enter. Lola says she doesn't know how long she was "out" from taking sleeping pill. She saw Marlow who tried to kill her, but Mason says "it won't work." Marlow has been in jail on extortion charges. She tries Kimber, but not Kimber, either, as he was picked up in the afternoon. She now admits that she killed Lynk and that she got Kimber's gun at the card game, set her own fire. Tragg takes Lola out. Perry wraps Della in his coat. // [7-8] Perry and Della both like Lola, but she poisoned herself. She killed Lynk at his house after calling Mason from a phone booth, then took the candy, which is why the empty cups were not at her house. Sam Lynk was talking to Tulloch when she walked in on him. He wanted to get the stock, says Tragg as he delivers chocolates, of course, by Andrei, but lets Perry choose first.. [8-8 end credits](2-5) [52:25](52:10)(52:20)

CHARACTER ACTOR Perry Mason Raymond Burr Della Street Barbara Hale Paul Drake William Hopper Belle Adrian Sylvia Field Sheriff (Bert) Elmore James Westerfield Marion Keats Joan Weldon D A (Darwin) Hale Paul Fix Betsy Burris Dorothy Adams Sam Burris Malcolm Atterbury Carla Adrean Barbara Eden Harvey Delano Peter Nelson Nora Fleming Eve McVeagh George Lansing Addison Richards
Mark Cushing Eric Sinclair Court Clerk Harry Tyler Motor Cop William Boyett	CHARACTER ACTOR Judge Jamie Forster (Hazel uncredited)

[3-4/1-7 Title credits](1-1) [2-7](1-2) At night in a (Bear Valley) cottage a man in a wheelchair (Mark Cushing) and a woman (Carla Adrean) are watching a movie of water skiing. When the movie ends (with Mark falling off a ski jump, which apparently caused his injury) Mark Cushing forces his attentions on her. She slaps him. // [3-7](1-3) In another house, Betsy (Burris) is wakened (by Sam Burris). He has heard a shot. There is a scream. Betsy gets binoculars. She sees a busted window in a neighboring cottage. They see Belle Adrean. Sam stalls about calling the sheriff. / At Cushing's, Sheriff (Elmore) is given a piece of glass by a policeman and he suggests that it is from a small mirror. Sam arrives, tells what he heard and saw, but doesn't mention Belle. Is he holding out because he didn't like Cushing? asks the sheriff? Sam responds, "I didn't like the man, if he'd dropped dead that'd suit me fine, but his kind of thing . . ." The sheriff warns Sam not to mess up the tracks left after the rain. / The next morning Belle Adrean approaches another cottage where she is met by Perry Mason. She tells the lawyer about Carla and Mark Cushing having dinner and his being murdered, later, about 2:30, after Carla left, which was about 11:30. She wants Mason to find the woman who screamed so the newspapers will leave Carla alone. Mason volunteers Paul Drake and places a call to Crestview 9-7411. Sheriff Burt Elmore joins them and asks Belle why she rushed over to a lawyer. She's concerned about publicity surrounding Carla. When she says her daughter got home at 11, the sheriff tells Belle that her daughter couldn't have gotten in until after 1. It had been raining and her flat tire and tire tracks as well as shoe tracks to the house are tracked in rain mud. Also, in sand near the Cushing house, there are two sets of woman's shoe tracks. Belle denies going to the Cushing house. "You need a lawyer after all" is Mason's comment after the sheriff leaves. // [4-7](1-4) Della Street drives up to the lake in Mason's Cadillac convertible. She joins Mason in the cottage, discovers that Paul Drake beat her there. She is to help him get license plate numbers of those cars in Bear Valley. That could be a thousand, notes Della. No disagreement from Mason. Frustrated, Della goes to get a hearty breakfast. / In her cottage Belle introduces Mason to Carla, then Harvey Delano who is a weekend visitor of Carla's from Los Angeles. Belle informs Mason that the sheriff searched the house. She provides a list which indicates that the sheriff took a compact with a broken mirror, Carla's. The sheriff arrives and Mason quickly asks help in defining locations of the houses, road, footprints and such, and draws a map with help from Sheriff Elmore. Tracks from the Burris house are Sam's, others are women's (Burris to and from Cushing, from Adrean house to car, car to Cushing and back, Adrean to Cushing and back). The sheriff shows Belle a pistol, then Carla, and Delano identifies it as his. Carla kept it in her car, which Belle knew. There is blood on Belle's shoes, glass in the soles. The sheriff arrests her. // (1-5) Back in the Los Angeles office. At Mason's instructions, Drake has also checked license numbers of cars at Cushing's funeral, so compare with those in Bear Valley the day of the murder. Drake's agent (Anderson) phones in two identifications. That of Marion Keats fits. / Mason visits Keats and is dismissed summarily, but not until he's given her a subpoena. / Drake reports that at 10:20, according to the night clerk, Marion Keats received a phone call from Bear Valley, heard one word, "yes," then left ten minutes later. At 3:20 she checked in to Bear Valley Inn after a three hour drive. She had two hours to do what? wonders Drake. / The courtroom in Bear Valley. Prosecutor Hale introduces himself to lawyer Mason. The court clerk asks everyone to stand and face the flag, then opens the session. After being sworn in Nora Fleming, Cushing's cook and housekeeper (about whom Della comments, "You'll never convince me she was hired just to dust the furniture), tells D A Hale and the court that she served dinner about 10:15. She identifies Carla's blouse, torn since she saw it. Hazel (not credited tho she has several lines) tells Betsy that she doesn't believe Belle did it. Betsy suggests that she may be surprised, but won't say why. Hazel quickly runs down the sheriff. // (1-6) Hale welcomes Betsy into his office with the sheriff. By threatening her with withholding evidence, he forces her to tell what she knows. / Drake reports to Mason and Street that the phone call to Keats was made from an outside pay booth, so who made it is unknown. One unidentified print was left on Carla's car. / A motor cop pulls Marion Keats over, tries to match her license thumb print with one from the sheriff's office. / [5-7](1-7) Back in court Mason cross-examines the sheriff, asks about the fingerprint (which Paul had said was found on car). Hale objects but the judge asserts that the court would like to see it, too. Regarding the glass in Belle's shoes, it was common glass, and not glass from the broken lavender vase. Della tells Perry that the thumbprint is not Keats. Try Nora Fleming the attorney suggests. Betsy Burris, a very sound sleeper, relates what she saw, about 2:30. Through binoculars she saw broken window. She heard a scream. Reluctantly, she confesses that she saw Belle Adrean. / (1-8) Mason bawls out Belle for lying. She then tells him she went to Cushing's because Carla had not returned. The car was not in the garage. She rang the bell at the Cushings, then entered by the back door when no one answered. She took the broken compact, washed three glasses and wiped off a few other places. / Sam Burris testifies that he saw Belle Adrean. At the Cushing place he saw broken glass, Cushing in chair, blood, and that he'd been watching a movie with someone, glass with lipstick. D A Hale jumps on Sam for withholding information, expects Mason to grill him, but Mason declines cross-examination at this time. For the most part the judge is most accommodating to Mason, but suggest Belle be bound over. Mason asks if he may put on his case and the judge, almost hemming and hawing, says, of course. Mason puts on his case by calling Marion Keats. George Lansing, Keats' lawyer appears arguing that she should not have to appear, that she knows nothing about the case, and Mason's action in calling her is vindictiveness because she wouldn't give him an interview, and it constitutes contempt of court. Mason asks if he is to be allowed to pursue his case and the judge says Keats must testify. Keats whispers to the lawyer that he promised she wouldn't have to do so; he says he's laying grounds for formal charges. Della whispers to Perry that it was Fleming's thumbprint on the car. Both D A and Lansing object to Mason's first question (Is she acquainted with Nora Fleming), so judge must ask Mason what is his objective. With D A Hale and even more strongly George Lansing objecting, Mason states he will show that Keats was in love with Cushing, that she asked Fleming to phone her as soon as Cushing was alone, that she immediately drove to the cottage where she met Fleming and the two found Carla's abandoned car. They went to the cottage together. Keats breaks down, shouts "he was dead when I got there." Marion now asks to tell the story her own way. Mark said he was going to marry her. She thought he was playing around, so arranged with Nora Fleming to call her. They found in Carla's car the compact engraved "From Mark to Carla, with love." She didn't kill him, she loved him. She took one look, screamed, dropped the compact. Attorney Lansing admits he is unfamiliar with criminal law. The judge orders Keats taken into custody. Mason asks to recall Sam Burris. In the ten or fifteen minutes between shot and scream, did he hear a car. No. How did he see a glass with lipstick after Belle Adrean had washed it and put it away? Mason challenges; he saw it, because it is true, because he was there before Belle Adrean, when he shot Mark Cushing. // [6-7](1-9) At Adrean's Mason explains to Belle, Carla, Paul, and Harvey how he figured it out. It was all due to when each person could have been there. Sam's wife was the sound sleeper. He took the pistol out of Carla's car while she was with Mark. After he did the deed he came back, woke his wife and told her he'd just heard the shot. The scream was Marion's, for Sam it was pure velvet. Belle asks how he knew she wasn't a murderer. He answers that she's not the type. "What is the type?" asks Paul. "That's easy, Paul" asserts Della, "anyone who is not represented by Perry Mason." [7-7 end credits](1-10) [52:54] (52:44)

[4-4/1-8 Title credits](2-1) [2-8](2-2) A man (whom we later recognize as Carver Clement) enters the Mandrake Arms apartments with his own key, speaks to a pretty girl in a chair, but is unanswered, takes the elevator to the seventh floor. Dane Grover and Fay Allison part with a deep kiss at her apartment door, 604. She joins Anita (Bonsal) in 604. Fay's aunt Louise Marlow is coming on a plane; she's been sent a key. Anita, who seems upset over Fay's catching Dane, says she'll be out late, leaves, goes into stairway. / [3-8](2-3) Anita arrives at apartment 702 of married boyfriend (Carver Clement), "who is practically divorced." She demands they go out. 9:15. / She waits in a car. 9:58. / Anita returns to Fay's apartment, suggests that Fay make chocolate, then takes pills from the bathroom cabinet. / 1:30, Aunt Louise Marlow arrives; Fay and Anita are unconscious in their beds. / "Clay's Bar and Grille" says waitress Amy, who brings Aunt Louise's call to Perry Mason. Marlow is frantic and Mason has her call Della. / Della Street and Mason hurry to the apartment, meet Louise Marlow. Doctor (Howley) says that brunette (Fay) might not have survived. (Both Fay and Anita were drugged with barbiturates). Mason asks Marlow if she found a note or anything. Della finds cups of chocolate. / Perry and Della search for any clue, such as a note. Mason finds two keys, 604 and 702. / Insomniac woman in 704 sees them go into 702. They find Anita's boyfriend at 2:30 in 704, dead, with lipstick lips, a crimson kiss, on his forehead, but not on a glass. Mason finds the phone has been wiped clean, calls Lieutenant Tragg. // [4-8](2-4) A couple (Vera Payson and Don Ralston) argue in the hall as Della and Perry leave. The couple knock on 702. Shirley Tanner comes out of 704, complains again about noise, comments on "the people who just went in there." Vera says they should leave. On the ground floor, Mason hides 702 key in a plant, calls Louise, tells her how to get both girls out via back door and in to a sanitarium. Della finds that the name on 702 is Phillip Walsh, but dead man's cuff links have CC on them. Della remembers that couple in hallway referred to him as "Carv." Police arrive, encounter Mason, who tells them there is a body in 702 just as a couple emerge from the elevator and note to the police that it is "Carv's apartment," and Carver Clement and the other couple (Della and Perry) were in his apartment. / Tragg wonders if Mason knew dead man with lipstick lips on his forehead. "Not alive." Mason tells Tragg he rang 604 (but he ended up in 702). Neither Mason nor dead man had a key. Murder glass was wiped clean. Dry cleaning marks on woman's clothing in 702 belong to Fay Allison. / Tragg, Mason and Street go to 604, tell Marlow that her niece's clothes are in 702. The girls are in the Crestview Sanitarium. Tragg leaves. Mason calls Drake. / (2-5) Crestview. Anita tells Mason and Tragg she doesn't know what happened. Tragg tries to establish guilt, but Mason indirectly warns Anita of his tactics. Lab man Harlan is sent away after Tragg learns on the phone that Clement was poisoned by cyanide. Anita denies knowing Clement, says Fay made the chocolate. / Fay says she put nothing in the chocolate, and doesn't know Carver Clement. / In a police car,Tragg says both girls work at a guided missile plant, so their fingerprints are on file, which is why his man didn't take Anita's. Those on the glass in the apartment are Fay's. // [5-8](2-6) Mason greets Della with "Morning, darling," as he enters the outer office. Drake gives Mason (smuggled) crime lab photos, then reports that even the brand of tooth paste in 702 is known. Why were Fay's prints on one glass but wiped clean on the murder glass? Ralston handled Clement's taxes. His girl Vera was a party girl. Clement had no key to his own apartment. Could someone have rung another apartment to get into the building? Could a man have planted the crimson kiss? Perhaps Grover after finding out about the affair. Drake leaves via the private door as Dane Grover arrives, says he's in love with Fay. Will he be loyal, given his family's distaste of publicity? Dane admits he took Fay to the family estate where the gardener was working with gopher holes, spreading a preparation of cyanide. / D A Hamilton Burger phones Mason to meet him. / Clay's Grille. The waitress asks if anyone wants desert. Tragg informs Mason that Fay had an interest in cyanide. Drake phones and is told to check all Mandrake Arms apartments to see if they have identical "dishes and glassware." Mason tells Hamilton Burger that he'd rather risk Fay's life than ruin it, so he won't accept a lower plea. // [6-8](2-7) KISS SLAYING TRIAL TOMORROW screams the Los Angeles Chronicle. Mason looks at a photo of the kiss. Drake joins him. He couldn't link a single tenant with Clement and is sure Fay is looking at the gas chamber just as sure as he is "burger wants to be governor." / The court clerk announces that court is in session. . Ralston testifies that he saw Mason coming from 702; he got a response when he rang 702, but they stayed in the lobby for a few minutes. The elevator was on the ground floor when they arrived. Then it went up, came back down empty when they called it. Ralston and Payson were already in the building when Mason and Street were at the apartment. Mason suggests someone might have used the elevator to go between floors. Burger makes the point that "anyone else" in the building could have used the elevator, which gives Mason the clue he needs. Vera compliments Don on his testimony and is shushed by Judge Randolph. Shirley Tanner, the woman in 704, saw Mason enter 702. She subleased from Jerome Hill a week before Clement's death. Burger objects. He never mentioned a neighbor, had a job out of town, volunteers Tanner, who is then chided by the judge. Tragg testifies Mason admitted to Mandrake Apartments by Louise Marlow. Mason thus did not have a key to 702 at that time, for if he did he'd not have had to ring, as all keys open the front door. Della admits Mason got 702 key in 604 apartment, from Fay's purse as Mason nonchalantly doodles. / Mr Harlan, police lab technician, identifies laundry cleaning marks on Fay Allison's clothes. Glass with no lipstick but Fay's fingerprints begs the question, how could she leave kiss on the dead man's forehead. Harlan admits lip lines would match as well as fingerprints. Mason presses paper on Allison's lips, asks Harlan to compare it with photo of forehead kiss. They don't match. / At lunch, Drake tells Mason and Street that Jerome Hill is legitimate. He gives Mason a note book (TV audience does not see what Mason knows.) / Anita swears she never saw Fay wearing a robe with her laundry mark. Fay whispers to Mason it is hers, why does Anita lie? She says she and Fay share same job and salary of $75 a week. Hardly enough to make ends meet. She did not know Clement. Mason flashes credit charges (which are from his file!) and asks her if these are not his. Mason rips into her, accusing her of the murder. After running to window and saying she'll jump, she says she found Clement dead. Mason notes Fay and Anita were drugged when Payson and Ralston rang 702 buzzer and got an answer just before Mason put his key in the door. Mason questions Miss Tanner regarding Hill, takes impression of her lips, then asks for them to be matched. Tanner admits guilt. She loved him. He was using same pseudonym at Mandrake Arms, Philip Walsh. Then she sublet, discovered Anita. She fixed his drink when he went to get his jacket. She took his key, and she answered Ralston's ring from the lobby. Court orders Tanner and Bonsal taken into custody. // [7-8](2-8) Mason tells Dane and Fay he knew it was Tanner because she paid Hill a $500 bonus (audience did not know this; unfair solution!) to get 704 when other apartments were available. Fay kisses Perry, leaving a crimson kiss on his cheek. [8-8 end credits](2-9) [52:51](52:42)

[1-4/1-7 Title credits](3-1) [2-7](3-2) Rough surf on the California coast. Pete(r Handsell) drives Veronica (Dale) in his Mercury to a drop off point (on the Pacific Coast Highway). “You are sure you will know the car?” he asks. “What if he doesn’t stop?“ “You won’t be in the car thirty seconds before he starts to get friendly.“ Handsell drives off. Veronica flags down a Lincoln convertible driven by Edgar Ferrell of Fidelity Studios, her chosen target. He suggests he could find her a job, takes her to his coastal mansion. She gushes over the side of the building. When he hears a car, he suggests it might be his wife, sends her into the back room. Veronica hears a shot. She runs from the house. // [3-7](3-3) Veronica runs down the road to a phone booth, calls Peter Handsell, but he's not there. She hitches a ride (with John Addison, we soon learn) in a white Lincoln Continental. // Perry Mason enters Fidelity Studios in his Ford Fairlane hardtop, is greeted by Myrtle Northrup, then speaks to John Addison who says he wants help to get Veronica Dale out of jail. He picked her up the previous evening. He believes her innocent of vagrancy, but doesn't want his name connected with the incident due to the possibility of a scandal magazine finding out. / Mason picks up Dale. She left Albuquerque because she was "tired of seeing the world from the back of a second rate lunch counter." Then she retracts; the lunch place is her mother's, and her mother knows she's here, but didn't like her hitch-hiking. Mason puts cash in her purse, suggests she return to Albuquerque. / Next day, Mason's office. Della Street gives $100 to Mason from Mrs Dale. She is in town for a day to check up on her daughter. Veronica is now working for Fidelity Studios. / Lorraine Ferrell is introduced to Mason by Addison, then she leaves. Mason comments on her attractiveness. “She and her husband don’t have much in common,” offers Addison. Then the attorney questions Addison's propriety at hiring Veronica Dale, whom Mason thinks wanted to be arrested. Peter Handsell, who digs up dirt for scandal magazines, has contacted Addison, wants $10,000 bribe to keep the story out of print. Mason sees it as Dale-Handsell blackmail. Mason instructs Addison to send Handsell to him at 10 p m, then trace his own signature on a $2000 check. / That night in Mason’s office, Handsell explains that Addison owns 40% of Fidelity pictures, Ferrell 40%, and old timers, who could switch backing to Ferrell if they learned Addison were cultivating a teenager, 20%. Mason offers the $2000 check, the first of five. Handsell accepts and is ordered out. Mason tells Drake to spread the rumor among banks that a check forger is active. Addison phones for Mason to meet him in the Malibu place on the Pacific Coast Highway. / Mason arrives at Ferrell’s Studio house. He suggests to Addison that if he is told (rather than seeing) what happened in the Malibu house, it would be confidential. Addison says Edgar Ferrell has been shot. He’s been dead since Tuesday, when Addison picked up Dale. He stopped, then, to tell Edgar that Lorraine knew he used the place as a rendezvous for his affairs and at that time found Ferrell dead. He stopped at the service station to call the police, then realized that Dale could identify him. Mason suggests he find a new companion, then call the police, and meet him at his office “tomorrow night.” // [4-7](3-4) Addison brings Myrtle to the house to do an inventory. She finds the body, suggests she should call the police so he won’t be involved, but he says he has “nothing to hide.” / Drake confirms that he notified banks, but Mason is puzzled. Della informs him of call by Sergeant Bent re forgery. Mason’s original intent was to trap a blackmailer, Handsell, but it is not working. / At the police office, Mason is shown by Sgt Bent a forged check passed by Handsell. Mason advises Handsell that if he establishes his innocence regarding forgery, he is open to a charge of extortion. Lieutenant Tragg enters, states that Ferrell has been murdered. Bent is ordered by Tragg to call Addison regarding the check. Addison confirms the legitimacy of the check, but Tragg catches on to the tracing of his own signature as “an insurance policy,” by Mason. / Mason and Della Street go to Lorraine Ferrell at the studio. She has few regrets, says Addison was helping her trap her petty, mean, lothario husband. Tragg enters with Addison, says he’ll let the judge decide if Handsell’s story, under immunity, is true. Veronica Dale is brought in to identify the man who picked her up on the coast highway. // (3-5) Court. Neff testifies to finding Addison, Northrup and body. Deputy Sheriff matched casts of tire tracks with Addison's car. Print Man identifies sets of prints; victim, Addison, Northrup and three or four unidentified, a set of women’s prints. He can’t say if the prints were there before or after the murder. Which is true then also of Addison’s prints. Lt Tragg admits that the murder weapon has not been found. Della enters the courtroom, tells Perry that Paul has found Mrs Dale. Handsell tells about Addison's story and Mason's check from Addison to keep story out of print. Handsell admits to trying to blackmail Addison, but now has immunity, and he was convicted earlier of blackmail. Who was his female accomplice? One whose fingerprints might be the unidentified woman’s? D A Hamilton Burger objects, and we get no answer. / Mason, Street and Drake at a hotel. Real Mrs Dale is not one who gave Della $100. The gregarious Mrs Dale tells Mason about Veronica's comings and goings, such as running away from school, hitch-hiking around, and that she's not heard from her in 10 months. Drake's operative has found Veronica's notebook, which has “pages and pages of numbers.” // [5-7](3-6) Veronica Dale, 18, is sworn in by the court clerk. She says that she was dropped off by a rancher near Paradise Cove, walked to a gas station, was then picked up by Addison who “was very nice.” She denies knowing Peter Handsell. Mason has Miss Dale's mother brought in as he asks her how long it took her to come directly from Albuquerque. “About four days.” “So, until four days before the murder, you were with your mother?” She tries to duck the question, then admits not seeing her mother for 9 or 10 months. She doesn't remember any of her employers along her hitch hiking way. Mason produces her notebook when she denies ability to remember where she was. It has license numbers of those with whom she rode. It is a hobby of hers. The last number before Addison's is the Fidelity Studio car Ferrell was driving, shouts Addison. So she was with Ferrell. She took loans from car drivers, never paid any back. She was in Ferrell's house. The car that drove up was not Addison’s. Judge orders Burger to investigate a charge of perjury. Handsell is recalled at Mason’s insistence. He cannot refuse to answer because of the grant of immunity. Yes, he used Veronica, “seven months.” Mason asks about the Mrs Dale impersonator. Why would he need one? is his response. / The trio, Paul, Perry and Della, confer. Mason thinks Burger still has enough to send Addison to the gas chamber. / At the Studio house, with Myrtle Northrup (who had the key to get in), Mason gives up, walks out. Then he suggests that a plea of second degree murder by Addison might get him only twenty years. Miss Northrup, desperate to save Addison, says she overheard Mrs Ferrell call Addison and suggest he come out to the house to spy on her husband. So she came out to get evidence to use as a threat against Ferrell, who rushed her (with a poker). The gun (which she got out of his office desk) went off accidentally. She just wanted to scare Ferrell, to hold him off while she called his wife. Mason thinks she’s Addison’s best friend (with such a story). “Let’s go, Paul,” forces her hand; she then leads them to an urn, and Paul pulls out the murder weapon. “I knew I’d never see my own name in the lights, and I was going to make sure that Addison’s would always be there,” is Northrup’s valedictory explanation. // [6-7](3-7) Paul tells Mason the reporters are waiting, so Mason suggest that it is Paul who should meet with them. The detective is still baffled, so Mason explains. Everyone with a selfish motive was ruled out, so he had to look for someone with an unselfish one. Myrtle was only trying to protect Addison. She posed as Dale's mother “so’s there’d be no connection between the girl and Addison.” Della suggests that “with a good attorney, she might get off with self-defense.” “That’s what I thought, too” says Mason with a smile. Drake wants to know what to tell the press as Mason and Street get off at the second floor to avoid the press. Mason suggests they not pick up a lady on the highway, “If she’s no lady, it could be murder.” [7-7 end credits](3-8) [52:58](52:52)

CHARACTER ACTOR Perry Mason Raymond Burr Della Street Barbara Hale Paul Drake William Hopper Hamilton Burger William Talman Lt Tragg Ray Collins Myrna Davenport June Dayton Dr (Frank) Renault James Maloney Louise Ansel Sarah Selby Jason Beckmeyer Adam Williams Rita Norge Rebecca Welles Ed Davenport John Stephenson Dr Hoxie Michael Fox Mr. Medford William Challee Officer Boom Keith Alan
Dr Mitchell Robin Morse Motel Manager Martha Wentworth Kenny Jack Kenney	Judge Ed Jerome Court Clerk Jack Harris Gertie Connie Cezon

[2-4/1-8 Title credits](1-1) [2-8](1-2) A chemist’s lab. Dr Mitchell, wondering why Davenport is late, is testing a sandwich as Jason Beckmeyer waits. Ed Davenport arrives, is told that arsenic was detected. Ed says “arsenic worked for her (his wife, Myrna) before, so why change?” Beckmeyer doesn’t quite understand. // [3-8](1-3) Ed arrives home, Louise (Ansel) meets him, he shouts for Myrna, pours himself a drink. “Ed, you know what the doctor said,” she cautions. He accuses her of poisoning sandwiches a week earlier. He tells Louise (Myrna’s cousin) that her Uncle Charlie died eight months earlier of arsenic, and Myrna is trying to poison him. He has left a letter in his office for the police that guarantees if he dies, Myrna goes “straight to the gas chamber.” Ed leaves on his trip. Myrna breaks down, cries. / Vista Motel, rates $3.50 up; Ed enters Cabin 6. Later, 11:26, he picks up the phone, which is next a box of chocolates, and asks for a local doctor, who comes running. / Dr Renault phones: Louise answers and gets word that Ed is in an oxygen tent in the Vista Motel, Cabin 6. Myrna arrives and Louise lies about the call, suggests that Ed was serious, and she should see a lawyer. “Do it, just to please me.” / Mason's office; Louise is running the interview. Ed is running through Myrna’s inheritance left by Uncle Charlie. Louise gives Mason the key to Ed’s office. She wants Mason to get Ed’s letter. Mason says he can’t while Ed is alive. Myrna then confesses the truth of the telephone call. Mason sends them to the motel. / Dr Renault says Mr Davenport is “too weak to be moved to the hospital.“ Ed wakes and, in the presence of the doctor, he accuses his wife of putting poison in the candy. The doctor mentions the chocolates. Myrna admits she packed the candy, “ate a piece of it myself.” Ed has an attack and the doctor gives him a shot, but he dies. Dr Renault says he’ll call the police, locks the cabin. / Della and Perry enter Davenport's office, find his letter to the police. A woman (Rita Norge) arrives outside, sees them through a window, leaves. Mason notes a $17,300 withdrawal from Davenport’s checking account today. “He certainly didn’t do it” says Della. The entry was in a female hand, notes Mason. Della picks up the ringing phone and hears “Unit 13, Desert Motel, Bakerstown.” Mason tells her to have Paul Drake check on it. They steam the letter open, find the papers blank. / Back at the motel. Lieutenant Tragg joins the doctor, Myrna and Louise. The group enters #6, Davenport is gone. // [4-8](1-4) Della and Perry find blank pages in envelopes. Rita Norge returns to Davenport’s office with a police officer. She gets the resealed letter. Over the phone Mrs Davenport tells Mason that Ed has disappeared. In his Cadillac convertible, Mason tells Street that there are those who will think him overzealous. “The district attorney included,” notes Della, and Mason concurs. / Paul Drake listens to Desert Motel manager of how a call from John Stokes got her to hold Room 13 until midnight. She sees Beckmeyer watching them, tells Drake he came to her an hour earlier. Beckmeyer avoids Drake. / Mason asks the two women who John Stokes was. Mason thinks Davenport may have taken that name. Tragg arrives, asks Myrna to come downtown. He notes that Myrna’s uncle died under “unusual circumstances,” and the coroner has indicated Uncle Charlie died of arsenic poisoning. Tragg’s partner brings in a bottle, 62% arsenic. Myrna used it to spray plants. Tragg notes that the candy in the motel was loaded with arsenic. Now Louise, in a vicious outburst, accuses Myrna of poisoning, tells Tragg of the lab report. “Burger’s gonna love this case. With a witness like this, how can he lose?” // [5-8](1-5) Hamilton Burger’s office. The D A tells Mrs Davenport he wants to believe her. Mason pokes holes in Burger’s argument, so he lets Myrna go. But not Mason, whom he asks about his opening the death letter. Tragg phones in the finding of the body. Now Burger says “they’ve caught up with the Runaway Corpse.” / Davenport's body has been found in grave at a remote site by Mr Medford's boys. Mr Medford tells how it happened. A sergeant reports that the coroner has determined death was by arsenic. Burger accuses Mason of destroying vital evidence. This he does after the attorney refuses his offer of no “death penalty” if his client will plead guilty. Mason knows he’ll then go after her for her uncle’s death. // Drake has discovered Beckmeyer is licensed private detective and tells Della. Gertie’s phone call brings Della into the receptionist’s room, where Gertie is working at her desk and Jason Beckmeyer is waiting to see Mason. Detective Beckmeyer says Davenport hired him to watch unit 13, and Mr Stokes was at unit 13 (as identified by earlier phone call) but description he gives fits Paul Drake. She shares this with Paul. A call from Drake’s operative Gregory lets them know that Norge is in Davenport’s office. / Perry and Paul catch Miss Norge at the Davenport office. Drake finds papers that Norge has thrown out which indicate Davenport had cashed out stocks. Norge withdrew over $17,000 out of Mr Davenport's account the previous day. The widow “will get everything that’s coming to her” charges Norge. / Mason learns from Tragg that Davenport was going to phone Miss Norge with the place to deliver something, but Tragg is smug and teases Mason. Norge has turned in the $17,300 to Tragg. // [6-8](1-6) Outside the courtroom, Ansel asks Beckmeyer to see her that eve. Dr Hoxie tells D A Burger that death was caused by heart attack an hour after eating. Candy had arsenic. Mason elicits that Davenport died of a heart attack, but arsenic would have worked in twelve hours. Blood alcohol point one five, could also have been carrier of arsenic, but Dr Hoxie believes it was bacon and eggs as there was no trace of chocolate. Dr Renault claims death was at 5:15 p m; he'd pumped the stomach, and cannot explain the finding of bacon and eggs. Burger requests adjournment to investigate the peculiar situation and the judge agrees. Mason asks Drake to check out Renault. Mason gives Paul his legal brief case, says he’s taking Della for “a walk in the country.” So Della dumps a load of law books on Paul. / Della and Perry look at the grave, which seems prepared "in advance." Della suggests Rita Norge as a suspect, but Mason discounts this. Where did Davenport get bacon and eggs, queries Mason. They look for a house trailer. / Ansel tells Beckmeyer she believes Norge is the murderer. Myrna inherited $280,000 and there is only $40,000 left. Norge must have the rest, she asserts, then asks how can they get the police to see this. Beckmeyer offers to see that arsenic is found in Norge’s apartment, then says he’ll go to the D A about Ansel’s suggestion instead. / Near the grave Della finds tire tracks, and Mason identifies crankcase oil droppings. / Court. The court clerk calls the court to order. Dr Renault is told he is “still under oath.” He testifies that he never saw Davenport before the day of death, then admits it was possible. The doctor claims patient-doctor privilege to avoid answering Mason’s questions. He has a Doctor of Health Medicine from an unaccredited school that no longer exists. He refuses to answer Mason's query about conspiracy to make it look as if Davenport died. The court clerk swears in Jason Beckmeyer, who testifies that Dr Renault, a quack, was hired by Ed Davenport a week before the death. Yes, he acted as dummy for bank accounts for Davenport. Drake’s operative delivers a paper which Mason uses to get Beckmeyer to admit he owns a house trailer, then finally admit that Beckmeyer may have been in it on the day of the murder. Mason challenges him. Did Davenport not get bacon and eggs in his trailer, and arsenic in a drink? He shows Beckmeyer receipt for a shovel purchased by him on the day of murder. Beckmeyer confesses, thought he and Davenport could together create a perfect crime. // [7-8](1-7) Drake is guiding Della in her attempts to hang a painting. Beckmeyer had 210 grand in his trailer, notes Mason. Ed Davenport poisoned Uncle Charlie to make his wife an heiress, so he could steal her blind and disappear. How did Mason decide it was Beckmeyer; "Unit 13, Desert Motel, Bakerstown" phone call Della intercepted "was obviously for Rita Norge" about the $17,000. Call didn't come from Davenport, so it must have come from Beckmeyer. Blank pages in letter was Da