PERRY MASON

in The Case of the . . .

with Raymond Burr

as Perry Mason

These pages updated 22 April 2008. All episodes of the sixth season of "Perry Mason in The Case of the . . ." have been upgraded. The following episodes have been upgraded by comparison with the Columbia House Video tapes in their Collector's Editions; 154, 158, 159, 162, 166, 175 and 181. Episodes 166 and 169 are on DVD in the 50th Anniversary Perry Mason issue; DVD chapter indices for this issue are in { } brackets. All other episodes have been compared to full-length or multiple air checks in order to construct an accurate synopsis, and are marked with an asterisk (*). Where indicated "CBS Tape/DVD," (only episode 154 qualifies) the synopsis has been upgraded by an additional comparison to the DVD format, which is also indicated by the DVD chapter indices placed in parentheses within the synopsis text.

#	TITLE	SHOW DATE	CBS TAPE/DVD
154	Bogus Books	27 Sept 62	15058/9-28611

CHARACTER	ACTOR	CHARACTER	ACTOR
Perry Mason	Raymond Burr	Pearl Chute	Allison Hayes
Della Street	Barbara Hale	George (Herbert) Pickson	Woodrow Parfrey
Paul Drake	William Hopper	Joseph Kraft	Maurice Manson
Hamilton Burger	William Talman	Mr Gilfain	Tenen Holtz
Lt Tragg	Ray Collins	Rare Book Curator	Raymond Greenleaf
Lt Anderson	Wesley Lau	Judge	Kenneth MacDonald
Ellen Carter	Phyllis Love	Bank Teller	John Alvin
Pete Norland	Adam West	Man	William Tracy
Prof. Carlos Muntz	John Abbott	Coroner's Physician	Michael Fox
Gene Torg	H M Wynant	Lady Librarian	Renee Godfrey
Kenneth Carter	Joby Baker	[Sgt Brice	Lee Miller]

Produced by Art Seid Directed by Arthur Marks Script by Jonathan Latimer

(3-1 Title credits) (3-2) It is raining in Los Angeles. Inside Kraft's Bookstore a rival bookstore owner, Mr Gilfain, buys a few cheap books from (Ellen) Carter. Gambler brother of Ellen, Kenneth, begs his sister for money tho she says that Mr (Joseph) Kraft would get a policeman if he knew he were there. He confides that he's in deep trouble and she says he should have thought of that before gambling. Professor (Carlos) Muntz interrupts them. She's already borrowed too much from (Joseph) Kraft. He promises to never gamble again. She writes him a check. A guitarist, Pete Norland, has found his song and plays it. This wakes Mr Kraft, the store owner, who is listening to Mozart. He orders the shop closed. He then throws her out of the shop when he finds an $8,000, not $8.00 as she thinks, book with the title Tristram Shandy missing. // (3-3) Norland greets Ellen as she exits into rain. / Kraft calls Pearl (Chute) expecting that she picked up Tristram Shandy . . . Pearl lies. She kisses her boyfriend (Gene Torg) and takes Tristram Shandy from him. She explains the racket. Using special old glue and inks, she changes the rare books so they cannot be uniquely identified, then returns them to Kraft who sends her $500. She doesn't know where he gets them, but at book auctions he averages $6,000 a month. / Perry Mason and Della Street hear from Ellen and Pete, who arranged for her to see the attorney. Pete wonders why an $8,000 book should be marked $8.00. Ellen says that when her mother died Kraft hired her and Kenneth with the idea some day the store might be theirs. Then Kenneth stole $200 and was fired. Mason notes that he is missingVolume 6 of Maning and Granger's Reports. / Store clerk Herbert Pickson advises a lady that Tropic of Cancer is not a medical book, then greets Torg, who then calls on Kraft with the Tristram Shandy. Kraft instead pulls a gun. Torg trumps with the queen of hearts, Pearl Chute. At the office door Perry Mason is introduced by Pickson. Mason is representing Ellen. Kraft says that he has a hair-trigger temper and apologizes for threatening Ellen with arrest. Mason tries to buy the found book, but it is already sold to Torg. Kraft promises to phone Ellen but instead phones Pearl, who she is not in. In the store Mason meets Prof Muntz, who specializes in 17th and 18th century English literature. He recommends the Cosgrove Library for help in identifying a rare Tristram Shandy. / Paul Drake is getting a lesson in rare book identification from the Cosgrove rare book curator who uses the King James Bible as his example. Then he takes a copy of Tristram Shandy with an inscription by L Sterne to actor David Garrick, but finds the author's name on the title page, which means this copy has been substituted for the real first edition and even the inscription is a forgery. / In the book store Kenneth opens an old book, takes out hundred dollar bills, then puts the book back and leaves, passing Mason and Drake on the way out. A man buys a book on barbecue from Ellen, who then greets the duo. They then find Kraft in his room, which is filled with gas, dead. // (3-4) Lieutenants Anderson and Tragg investigate. Ellen explains what she remembers. Pickson says that Kraft turned the radio on just after seven. Andy (Lieutenant Anderson) goes over the known facts, thinks the death to be accidental or suicide, the pilot light either off or turned off. Mason wonders if it might be murder. Lieutenant Tragg says homicide has to check anyway, Mason shouldn't make it a murder. "It's the granddaddy of all the locked-room puzzles he's ever heard of" asserts Tragg. The room was locked from the inside, and even the windows have steel mesh over them, and dead flies are on the sill. Mason still wonders what happened to the copy of Tristram Shandy. / Torg tells Chute that Kraft is dead. He asks how she got Tristam Shandy, by phone? Drake comes to Chute's and finds Torg with her. Torg recognizes Drake but still lets him in. Drake asks if the Tristram Shandy on the desk isn't the one in the store, whereupon he is thrown out. Torg apologizes to Chute, but asks her how she got the book. She says that she got it from Kraft on the 50-50 deal they now share in. They accuse each other of shoving Kraft a bit too hard. / Mason, at the Cosgrove, substitutes his copy of volume two of Tristram Shandy for the library copy. The curator and a lady librarian as well as Drake look on at how easy this switch was. Six rare books have been stolen. Three other libraries have a total of four loses. / Della restates the case. Chute replaced first editions with second editions, altered the firsts so that they couldn't be identified. Drake reports that Torg and Chute have denied everything to the police. Norland comes hesitantly because he doesn't want to hurt Ellen but he's seen about two thousand dollars in new hundreds fall out of her purse. Pickson also saw it. Mason thinks Ellen is being framed, not for robbery, but murder. / Ellen doesn't know where the bills came from. Mason says that he'll show what the police will think. With Norland, Muntz, Pickson and Carter in the room, Mason turns on the reading light, the radio and the gas heater, as Kraft would have done. On a shout to Drake who is outside, the gas goes out, then comes back on without lighting. Paul joins them. He turned the gas off at the meter, which kills the pilot. Ellen Carter says anyone using the wash room knows where the meter is. Just then Lieutenant Tragg comes in with Sergeant Brice and a warrant for Ellen's arrest on a charge of first-degree murder. // (3-5) In jail Mason explains to Ellen how bad it looks. Since she will inherit the store she has a motive for the murder. / The coroner's physician, Dr Hoxie, tells District Attorney Hamilton Burger that Kraft died about 7:15, give or take a half hour, with gas the cause. Pickson testifies that Ellen Carter returned to the store just before seven. Kraft turned the radio on just after seven. Then he left, was met outside by Mr Gilfain, which provides him an alibi. Norland admits seeing hundred dollar bills fall out of Ellen's purse. Andy identifies two envelopes, one from Ellen's purse, the other from her apartment, each containing twenty one hundred dollar bills. A bank teller testifies that Kraft took out $2000 on each of two days. Kenneth says that he put the bills, which he found in a book in the store, in Ellen's purse. He had earlier found a similar stash. He knows nothing about what was found in Ellen's apartment and asks Burger, "What can you blackmail out of old man Kraft's second-hand books?" Muntz tells Hamilton Burger that Kraft didn't get millions, but thousands, for his search reveals twenty-one first editions missing. Kraft had to have help. Torg denies being part of the racket, points Mason to Pearl for the Tristram Shandy. Pearl admits that she got scared after Drake visited, so burned the Tristram Shandy. She says that Kraft told her he knew Ellen had been lying for her brother. On cross she says that she was told Ellen would one day get every cent of his over $100,000. / The Cosgrove curator explains how anyone using the library must be known to them or have proper credentials. A page in the sign-in register, of the day before Kraft was killed, is missing. Norland is on a remaining page. / At the store Mason with Drake uses Ellen's key to gain entry. They find music playing. Someone rushes out, tussles with Drake, gets away. Mason performs a test, says the flies were right all along. // (3-6) Back in court with the witnesses excluded, Mason stages the murder using the courtroom as Kraft's private room. With a box of flies brought in by Drake, Mason proves the murder had to be before 6:40, when twilight ended, the last minute flies would have flown to the window sill, the only place flies were found. How, then, did the light come on at seven? Mason explains that the killer turned on the radio and light while Kraft was out, removed the fuse, then put it back at seven. The witnesses are now brought in. Muntz has a black-eye. He admits to running the substitution racket, but not committing murder. Burger wants to know who recommended this "expert witness" and asks Tragg who asks Andy who says "Perry Mason." Muntz says that his payment was placed in a specified volume in the 17th and 18th century English literature section. The $2000 for Tristram Shandy wasn't there and Kraft agreed to leave another $2000, but it wasn't there either. He has a perfect alibi. Kenneth knows nothing about the $2000 in the apartment, and he has a perfect alibi. Pearl has a perfect alibi. Torg also. Pickson was alone in the store between six and seven. When he was with Carter he put the fuse in and the radio came on after warming up, asserts Mason. So confronted, Pickson confesses. Kraft called him a thief when he found the $2000 and wouldn't give it back. He didn't know that it was Kraft's money and thought it was finders-keepers. He'd plotted the murder for a long time as an enjoyable mental exercise, which it wasn't! // (3-7) Ellen presents Mason the volume 6 of Maning and Granger's Reports that was missing from his legal books. Drake says Pickson put the $2000 in Ellen's apartment to implicate her. Mason was on to Muntz because he didn't seem to know about the Cosgrove's collection of Sterne's books. His signature was in the register many times. So was Norland's for he was trying to solve the mystery. Pete admits that he's been trying to get up the nerve to ask Ellen to marry him. (3-8 end credits) (50:29)

(Carleton) Gage of the Gage Youth Foundation in Palo Verdes is visited by Joane (Proctor). She is asked how she feels about Ernest Demming. He asks her to go to Perry Mason and have a new will made cutting off Ernest Demming and giving all to Claudia Demming, her sister, not his nephew George Gage. He has proof of nephew and Ernest Demming planning to split everything, no matter who inherits. Nurse (Evelyn King) overhears this and phones Demming. He responds that he'll come up. Nurse discovers that Gage is dead. // Joane Proctor tells Nick (Nicholas Blake) that Carleton is in a comma, and Demming and George Gage will not carry on with the Foundation. / Dr (Guy) Omstead informs Perry Mason and Claudia Demming that Carleton is weak, not likely to regain consciousness. Mason joins Nicholas and Joane and tells them that Ernest can do what he wants when he inherits, but hasn't he always been a supporter? Joane says that he lost interest after his first heart attack. Mason points out that no matter what happens to George or Ernest, Claudia can inherit only if Ernest dies after Carleton dies. George has overheard. He flaunts not just high living on the Riviera, but Paris, Rome, London . . . Nicholas is passionate about the Foundation, and is going to have it out with Ernest. He rushes into the library where he finds Ernest dead. There are several pills on the desk. Timmy runs in to say that a bus is waiting for Blake. Timmy is sent out by Blake who then tells Joane to go to bed without saying anything. / Joane asks a desk clerk at a Beverly Hills hotel to see Ernest Demming. The clerk phones and is told to send her on. She goes by herself, bumps in to (Olive) Omstead who invites her to lunch. She knocks at the room door, observed by a chambermaid. Inside she finds Nick who confides that the body is in the lake at the estate. He expected Carleton Gage to die right away and then he could convince people that Ernest Gage died later. He wrapped the body in canvas and waited until four in the morning, then drove to the lake, tied sash weights onto the canvas and threw the body into the lake. Then he drove Ernest's car back to the hotel. A waiter comes to retrieve the breakfast tray. Nicholas signs Ernest's name to the check, has Joane admit the man and give him the check. He has a foolproof plan to save Claudia, Timmy and the Foundation, or so he thinks. Claudia is on the phone, and Joane tells her Ernest went out with some people. / Detective Boykins is advised by George Gage that a samurai warrior is missing. Claudia says that a pair were once worth $8,000. George offers to work things out with Claudia should the will get rewritten and she rejects the idea, thus upsetting him because she knows of his arrangement with Ernest. / George is at the hotel awaiting Ernest's return. He smells something fishy and leaves. Joane tells Nicholas that she can't take much more. Joane answers Claudia's call and learns that Carleton Gage has died. / Joane drives along the ocean road towards the estate. She stops next a vegetable stand, gets out and asks for water to give her passenger medicine. The car starts off on its own, goes over a cliff into the Pacific as she calls "Ernest." // Paul Drake comments "inheriting at 5:20, dying at 7:15. Ernest Demming had probably the shortest career of any millionaire in history." Mason, instead, is curious about the missing samurai warrior armor; "a curious thing to steal, a pointless kind of theft" and occurring at such a time. Joane Proctor comes in and says that the police have been questioning her. Nicholas took her convertible to go to the Foundation. She drove the ocean road with Ernest when he had a heart problem. She continues her lie, saying that she thinks she set the brake. Drake assures her it is an accident. Mason assures her that she has nothing to worry about if she's telling the truth. After she leaves, he suggests to Paul that they go fishing behind a vegetable stand that is run, according to the newspaper article on the death, by Ito Kumagi. They are seeking samurai armor. / Joane meets Nick. He was in the car and jumped into bushes at the last minute. Nick says that it's over and the Foundation is safe. They walk out. George Demming was nearby behind a newspaper. / Kumagi tells Drake that it was not samurai armor, but a big man like Drake, in the car. He saw the lady pull the hand brake. Drake goes down to the shore where Lieutenants Tragg and Anderson are looking, with a diver, for the body. A diver brings a pill container to Anderson. The other things they've found don't indicate murder, but the diver found the car in gear, the brake not on. / Lt Anderson is asking Dr Omstead about the pill prescription when Olive walks in. The pills do not look to the doctor like those that he prescribed. And it was a woman who picked them up at the drug store. / George Gage takes Joane away from children. When he saw her with Nick, Ernest was not with them. He posits how they murdered Ernest. His terms are that Joane must tell Claudia that he expects a life annuity, $100,000, or her sister goes to prison. Mason and Drake interrupt George, ask Joanne if she did put the brake on and take the car out of gear. As she says yes Lt Tragg and Sgt Brice, many paces behind, walk up with a warrant for her arrest on first-degree murder. // In court D A Hamilton Burger asks Claudia if her late husband didn't threaten to leave her. No. Nurse King testifies to overhearing Claudia tell her sister that all that kept her from leaving her husband was (Carleton) Gage being alive. As soon as he died, George was going to turn to another woman. Mason warns her that canceled checks indicate that she was that other woman. She didn't get her final check because the defendant killed Ernest first. Kumagi says that he saw Proctor pull the hand brake on. An auto engineer demonstrates how, by brushing against the gear shift, the parking brake would automatically go off. A druggist testifies that the pills in the case are not the ones that he put in, and it was the defendant who picked up the prescription. The police chemist says that not the prescribed Demeral, but Benzedrine, was what was found in the pill case. Dr Omstead says he didn't prescribe Benzedrine, which could produce a bad reaction. The chambermaid testifies to finding Demeral pills stuffed down in the couch, and the only person she saw in Demming's bungalow besides him was the defendant. / Mason asks Nicholas why, with Carleton Gage dead, Ernest would not have left his $40 a day bungalow and returned home. He doesn't know why. Drake notes that no one saw Ernest that day, but someone used the phone with his name and forged his signature on room service checks. Nicholas admits to signing the checks and that he and Joane found Ernest dead the night before. They thought it was a heart attack. / At the lake Hamilton Burger accuses Mason of being in on the affair. Burger wants to know how a dead body got from the Pacific to a lake in Palos Verdes. A body is found and is brought to the shore, but it is the samurai warrior armor. // Back in court Burger asserts that the state can prove Ernest was murdered in the evening of Carleton Gage's death, not before. Olive Omstead testifies to hearing the desk clerk call Ernest and get approval to send Joane to his bungalow. George Demming testifies to seeing Ernest go into his bungalow the night before the murder, then later drive off with Joane. She reacts with "That's not true." Mason asks him why he so testifies when this precludes his inheritance. Burger interrupts. The body has been found in the Pacific Ocean where the car went over the cliff. Mason rejects an adjournment. He accuses George of trying to blackmail Joyce into splitting the estate and, when she refused, he killed Ernest. George says he didn't want to inherit, with four wives promised 150 percent of the estate. Mason suggests therefore that he worked out the under-the-table agreement. But he didn't kill Ernest and suggests that the little snoop, the nurse, knew about the samurai. The nurse accuses Dr Omstead of taking the samurai. Omstead now admits to removing the samurai. He saw Nicholas take the body to the car trunk, didn't know what Nicholas intended to do with it, and he wanted the body to disappear so that no autopsy would be made. Mason produces a glove which was found in Ernest's bungalow. Olive stands up, says " its no use, Guy," for she switched the tablets. Ernest said he was going back to Claudia for the money and didn't want to see her again. // Kids in the background are playing with Joane and Nicholas. Mason explains to Drake and Street how Omstead, knowing about his wife's actions, tried to protect her. Joane and Nicholas will probably only get probation.

In a sparring rink two guys sparring, coached by Jimmy (West). A girl (Jo Sands) comes in, distracts one boxer (Davey Carroll), who gets knocked down. George Hale of the Evening Star newspaper comes over, baits the boxer, asks about Tod Richards. West says Richards will get Davey over his dead body. Richards talks with Davey on his way to the showers. / Richards receives a drink from Max the waiter. He and his girl Jo are awaiting Keith Lombard with Davey. When Richards makes an offer, Davey says that Jimmy took him out of a garage in San Diego. Loyalty is good, but Jo suggests that he must be loyal to himself. Lombard's arrival brings his special drink and the bell captain with mail. He warns Davey that Richards is a smooth operator. He becomes upset by some mail, namely five cards, the kings of diamonds and spades and the 4,3 and deuce of clubs. He leaves. / Perry Mason advises West that Richards has his hands in everything, but he can draw up a contract that no one can break. / Mason comes to the rink with a contract for Davey, but the boxer has already signed with Richards. Jimmy is incensed, but Richards comes over with a contract offering Jimmy 50% and all expenses if he will train Davey. / Davey is working out at the new lakeside country training site when he sees a blonde setting a table. He follows her. Richards tells West that he's got the equipment he wants, all in West's name, and needs his signature. They go inside and Jimmy opens a drawer to get a pen and discovers a pistol. Jimmy signs without reading Richards' papers. / Outside Jimmy, sparring with Joe, is distracted by the sight of Richards wife (Lori). He approaches her. She teases him as Tod watches. He phones Jo, who misses him, to have her send out invitations. / Hale confronts West over his "dead body" statement. Everyone is called to ringside by Richards who introduces Lori to Lombard, who is surprised (having seen him with Jo), then curious about the trainer. / That night there is general carousing. West catches Davey, drunk, with Lori. / Tod is calling his girl when Jimmy interrupts him over the party and Lori with Davey. "You can't do this to me" shouts Jimmy, as George Hale and Keith Lombard observe. / A drunk Davey goes to Jimmy's room and the trainer says that he's leaving him. Jimmy stumbles out, then trips over a dead Richards. // Perry Mason reads to Paul Drake and Della Street from the newspaper. The body of Richards was found at 5 am. Jimmy says that he was knocked down by Richards who has turned Davey into a bum. There were no fights scheduled. Richards taunted him that the whole thing was a joke. / Sergeant Landro at the lakeside place informs Mason that he's looking for West, and Davey and Lori are in jail. / Mason has paid the bail for Davey. Outside the jail Davey tells Mason and Drake that he didn't see West, who must have been asleep. He's distracted as Lori exits the jail, but she ignores him. Drake informs Mason of Hale's big story. / Hale reads his article to Mason. Richards purchased the Wilshire-Lombard Hotel for pennies. He got his information by watching Richards and Lombard, the latter leaving while Richards was still alive. His opinion of Davey could not be lower. / Paul tries to reach Lombard through a switchboard operator. / Della reports that Richards spent only two nights with his wife the past week but his secretary, Jo Sands, draws $200 a week yet drives an expensive car and recently redecorated for $10,000. / Mason catches Sands just as her mechanic returns her car, which has a white glove hanging out. She is civil, stating that she's only Richards' secretary, but gets testy when he asks why he'd want a fighter. / Lori tells Mason that her lawyers think Tod got the hotel for a million less than it is worth. Drake joins them, refuses a drink, but Mason says he's bashful. While she gets the drink, Drake shows Mason an envelope from New York addressed to Lombard, which had in it the five cards. Lori gives Drake a drink. Mason is curious about Lombard's past, rags to riches, but before that in New York. Sgt Landro approaches. A boy has found the gun, Jimmy's. Mason sends Drake to New York. // Before the court Mason discredits Landro's gun testimony. Hale overheard West threaten Richards, then explains that Richards had seen through West's having Davey look good against weak opponents. West shouts that it isn't so and Mason quiets him. Hale reveals that he only confirmed the sale later with Lombard, who was unhappy with the price. Lombard denies any bitterness with Richards. Mason gets him to admit that, just before he left the party, he heard only the voice of Richards but not West's, in the cottage. Mason asks about his hotel in New York. It burned down. Lombard refuses to answer a question on his personal financial affairs, but he did get a quarter of a million insurance money. Jo Sands says that Jimmy was getting on Richards' nerves. Richards got bored with his hobbies, with everything. She doesn't recognize the envelope to Lombard. Lori asserts that the defendant said "I'll kill you" and they fought, at which point she went back to the party. She didn't go to a roadhouse with Davey until the boxer told her that he'd seen her husband drive away. Mason reveals Lori Wilson was a switchboard operator at Lombard's New York hotel. She says sure but she didn't know Lombard was coming to the party. Carroll admits Jimmy and Tod had quarreled before. Burger produces a slip of paper. It is the same size as the "receipt" for equipment Jimmy signed. It was found in Richards' wallet. " I'm not going to warn you again. You know what'll happen if you back down?" Signed, Jimmy West. Burger forces Jimmy to admit that he lied in what he told Lori. Davey blurts out that the cottage was a mess, he only cleaned up a bit, and he stumbled over the body. Which is why he got everybody to the roadhouse and he wiped the gun before throwing it in the lake. He did it to help Jimmy escape. / In jail Jimmy admits it is his signature, but he only signed receipts. Now he remembers Lombard, because an earlier fighter he trained got killed in the New York hotel fire. Mason gives Della instructions. // Sgt Landro testifies that West was peripheral to a boxing scandal in New York. He was trainer for Doc Morgan, a hoodlum who owned a string of boxers. Morgan had a record including armed robbery and arson. Lori says that she was in the office going over unpaid bills the night of the fire. Mason gets her to admit that she told her husband all these things about Keith Lombard. Yes. Now Lombard says there were playing cards in the envelopes he received. They signified the hotel slander. Then he got threatening notes which he thought were from West. Did the notes threaten to link him with both arson and murder which followed a poker game? Didn't he know that he'd hired an arsonist who used the fire to cover his own activities? Didn't Richards reveal Jimmy could do that to him? Then, having followed Richards to his cottage and hearing him only, wasn't he on the telephone? When Burger objects, Mason says the last phone call from the cottage was one of 37 made in the past two months to a Miss Kay McKenzie in San Diego. McKenzie testifies that she knew Tod three months. They wanted to marry. About a quarter to twelve they talked for some time. He was breathless, but he hung up abruptly. Mason reads from the police report which indicates the type of gun which, the attorney notes, backfires, leaving powder on the murderer. In this instance, on a glove, which Mason puts on the judge's stand. The murderer, who had worked with Richards every step of the way on his blackmail scheme and expected to marry him, found him talking to another woman. Jo Sands stands up, asks where the attorney got the glove. "Tod lied to me," and she heard him say he loved another. // In a boxing match Davey gets knocked down, again having been distracted by a blonde. / In the dressing room Mason explains that the murder had to be something that happened after the hotel sale. Someone had to be cut out or hurt. Jo had a fight with Richards and when he walked out, she saw the gun. West asks if the police have found powder burns on the glove. "Search me" he replies. He had to "buy it in a store. If Richards could run a bluff, why couldn't I?" Davey comes to. Jimmy promises to make a real fighter out of him.

An elevator rises in an ironwork atrium to Devro and Banks office. Inside the office Lita (Krail) is taking dictation from (Steven) Banks as he practices putting on the rug. She advises him that Clem Sandover, who in twenty years has never taken an expense account trip, is taking the estimates to Phoenix. Banks reminds her that she's the number one spark plug now. / Sandover doesn't answer (Frank) Sellers on the intercom for he is dictating inventory. Enos (Watterton) teases Sellers for thinking that Sandy is not fully prepared for the trip. Sellers suggests Sandy enjoy himself, but Sandy suggests he'll stay at the Y. Alone again, Sandy starts a recorder playback, pours money out of a bag and puts it in his briefcase. // Watterton is telling the girls about Sandy's thriftiness when Lita Krail enters and asks the girls if they don't have any work to do. Watterton says he doesn't take orders from straw bosses. Sandy goes into Krail's office, asks her if everything's ready. She misreads him. He expects her to fly to Phoenix for a weekend. He has more office tidbits for her. He informs her that he's come into money and wants her advice. He's even bought a new sports coat. A secretary (Sally) comes in to tell him that his wife (Beth) has come with a sweater and is in his office putting it in his case. Sandy catches her before she opens the case. She met Sellers on the way in and he said that he was surprised she didn't want to go to Phoenix. He berates her for having worked there for all these years and still being so gullible. He tells her to leave him alone and go home. Krail hears the end of this and tells Sandy that she's made reservations for Phoenix. / Clem is on the train to Phoenix. He is dictating his embezzlement of $201,000. His other briefcase has snapped open above him, and bills float down. He counts $45,000. He pulls the emergency stop. / He phones Sally who says a $45,000 loan came in with his initials on it. / Clem takes a taxi home where he tells Beth that he missed the train and will take the plane the next day, just as Perry Mason joins them. Sandy thinks he's a divorce lawyer. He worries hearing Enos called. He rushes out calling for a taxi./ He goes to Watterton and finds him dancing with Krail, so he phones Sellers who berates him for not depositing the $45,000 and also for ruining his evening since he has to go back to the office to get it and have it deposited. / Sandy climbs the stairs one step ahead of Sellers and the armored car people. Just before he enters the office at 10:30, the elevator starts down. He puts the money in the safe as the elevator returns with Sellers and the armored car men. Sellers gets the money, then calls Krail to thank her for telling him about the money. Alone after the others leave, Sandy cries. // It is 12:45 and there is a shadow and dance music, and a girl's hand hangs loose over the edge of a couch. / Paul Drake asks a driver who has been fixing his truck since dawn about the house that he's parked near. Who went in or out? He then goes to Krail's. The music blasts on. At 6:54 Drake enters and finds her dead. / Beth has told Mason that she doesn't trust Krail. He has seen letters to Beth that were typed and unsigned saying "Stop trying to bleed me," which suggest blackmail. Until a year ago her life was tied up with the company but now Krail has the job. (Sandy has not left, but is overhearing this.) She left the job when the other partner died because Sandy, to whom she's been married only two years, was unhappy that she had a better job than he. She goes into hysterics and tells Perry to leave. Drake is waiting and reports that he's tracing a necktie. Mason tells him to have a man watch the house. Inside, Sandy worries, then tries to hide his money. / Mason reminds Banks that Jess Devro, his partner, was heard having an angry fight before he had his heart attack. Does Krail have any income besides her salary? / The job, according to Beth, was a source of all sorts of gossip. Banks says Beth was a snoop, but Sellers enters and says it was Sandy. Who was being blackmailed, wonders Mason, and by whom? Drake's phone call lets Mason know that the necktie Krail was holding belongs to Enos Watterton. / Enos admits they had a few drinks, then he took Lita home, but he never got in side. She got a couple of phone calls that evening, and was going to "fix Sandy's wagon." His tie is the one he lent to Sandy. / Mason goes to Beth demanding to see Sandy, who comes down the stairs. He says Krail lied to him. He even bought a new sports coat for their meeting in Phoenix. He admits that he picked up an ash tray and hit her, and hit her . . . as Lieutenants Tragg and Anderson walk in. Sandy confesses to putting Enos's tie in her hand. Andy says that Lt Tragg's warrant is for Beth. Krail was already dead when Sandy hit her, from a bullet to the heart. Sandy collapses. // In jail Beth admits to going out to Krail's and not just to talk about blackmail. Sandy was going to be in trouble over money and Krail didn't know what Sellers would do. Only she could get him out of it if he'd quit his job and both of them would move out of town. Lita threatened her and took out a gun, which she wrestled away and threw on the table. Then she walked out. She heard Sandy come home after oneand thought that maybe he'd killed Krail. / In court Sally tells D A Hamilton Burger that everyone knew Beth and Lita hated each other. She phoned Lita at 11:15 to tell her about Sandy's strange phone call. She heard an argument between Beth and Lita over the phone. Mason gives Della a note. Della bumps into Sally as she returns to her seat, while Cyrus Potkin is called to testify (we hear none of the testimony and must surmise this is the man who was fixing his truck). In the hall, Drake asks Della what that was about and she says Perry wanted to know if Sally's coat was real mink. It is. Sandy catches Della and offers to do whatever he can, for he's got a little saved. Cyrus Potkin is being given the heavy treatment by Mason over when he arrived at Krail's. Burger examines Banks, who says that on the day of the murder Krail had given him a list of various kickbacks and other discrepancies in the finances. Mason asks if any money is missing. An audit shows the books to be in perfect order. Sandy is smiling at this. Mason asks if Krail's insinuations weren't to cover something bigger, such as the office blackmailer? Sellers admits that Krail said Sandy had hit on her with the idea he could get some money. The $45,000 was in the safe. Sellers' wife was an invalid for fifteen years, so any woman he "was seen with was a good friend." Tragg interrupts Burger, goes to the stand, testifies to finding $201,000 in Sandy's room. /At a bar Perry and Paul with Sally Adams are awaiting someone. Banks comes in and goes to Sally to demand why the phone call. Della, in a blonde wig to look like Sally, looks up as Mason comes over. He admits to being blackmailed, but he doesn't know by whom and was about to call in a detective agency. Krail may have overheard this. He's only paid $6000. // Enos is testifying as, in the hall, Drake corners Sandy, takes him inside where Enos is saying that Beth had all the brains in the family. Sellers then testifies that Beth Sandover never used her position for private gain. He knows her too well. Sellers calls Sandy "conniving and selfish, little and mean" and stupid, and has "less imagination than any bookkeeper in the world." Sandy objects! On the stand, he tells Mason how he kept the company going, and it is his money. He embezzled $201,000 and no one even guessed. Mason ask if Jess Devro didn't know. We are here to talk about murder, Mason reminds. Not Jess, Lita's. Clem Sandover now says that Lita was a blackmailer, getting information out of even him. Mason now posits what happened. Sandy went to Krail, fought over the gun and killed her. His alibi of being at the bar is easy, as it was only ten minutes away. He couldn't drive away because the truck driver was there. And the truck driver was still there later when he struck Krail with the ash tray, then drove away witnessed. Sandy steps out of the witness box and raves with the story he was dictating on the train, about how he, Clem P Sandover, committed the perfect embezzlement. // The usual trio are at a table with Beth and Frank Sellers. Mason tells how he had primed Sellers to say the nasty things about Sandy. Drake says that Sandy admitted Devro almost caught him, which caused his stroke. Sandy's writing a book about the perfect embezzlement.

A black and white (police car) parks. Lieutenant Anderson goes in to a locker room to see Otto (Norden). He asks Andy why he's missed two Thursday wiener schnitzel dinners with him and his mother. James (Anderson) enters the locker room, is congratulated by Lt Anderson on his first night in a prowl car. / James and Otto are on the prowl when they notice an open gate at Wilson Plastics and hear explosion. / Lieutenant Tragg reports to Lieutenant Anderson that Norden has been shot dead at Wilson Plastics where the safe was cracked. James Anderson was seen running away. // (Dwight) Wilson tells Lt Anderson that officer Anderson was running away but stopped when he was seen. Then the two entered the office where the safe was open and Ralph Pearce, the watchman, drugged. Jimmie cannot give a straight answer to Andy's questions. He was knocked out. When he came to he headed to the squad car, at which time the gunshots were heard as Dwight Wilson drove up. A police doctor looks at Jimmie's head. / Tragg is getting the report on the blowing of the safe with nitro from Detective Steve Toland. Andy, with Sergeant Brice in the background, joins him, is introduced to Carrie Wilson, company president, his nephew Dwight, and treasurer Jerel Leland, who says the records are gone but can be reconstructed from microfilm. $60,000 in cash is gone. The police doctor says that Jimmie's head is ha rd and he suffered only a scratch. / Arthur Morrell is talking with Lt Anderson when Toland enters to report that Pearce has been released from the hospital. Morrell speaks of the professional job in blowing the safe. Toland tells Andy that the job was amateur. Further, a chemical analysis plant was burgled of detergent recently, of Naughty Lady perfume and nitro-glycerine. It was on the beat of James Anderson. / Erna Norden shows Carrie Wilson and Andy the citation given Otto. Andy discovers a gift to Mrs Norden of Naughty Lady perfume. Otto said Jimmie gave it to him. / Jimmie tells Andy that he's been suspended, then walks out in anger. / Fleta York announces Andy to Mrs Wilson. Carrie tells Arthur Morrell that she's not buying Hillman Plastics. Arthur says it is always three against two, him and Duncan, so the company attorney, Perry Mason, better be at the meeting this night. He leaves after threatening to resign. Andy and Howard Duncan enter with Ralph Pearce's time clock. It has been grazed by a bullet, which gives the lie to his claim to have been elsewhere. / A building superintendent admits Andy, Duncan and Toland to Pearce's room, noting that he spoke earlier to another cop, James Anderson. / They've found $30,000 of the stolen money. / Jimmie finds Pearce's post locked. / Mason finishes presenting the figures that argue against purchase of another company. Morrell argues that they must diversify or die. Carrie calls for a vote and nephew Dwight switches to yes. Andy bursts in and a gunshot is heard. / Jimmie is running away, followed by Toland who shoots at him, but he gets away. The others find Pearce strangled to death. // The Police Board Chairman announces the procedure. While awaiting the verdict, Jimmie tells Andy that he doesn't believe in the fraternity of cops. Andy reminds him that he could have walked away, but he really wants to be a policeman. Jimmie is "guilty as charged" and is dismissed from the force. As the two Andersons walk out of the hearing room, Tragg arrests James for murder. / Mason, with Della Street and Paul Drake in attendance, tells Andy that the robbery and murder must be tied together. Andy points out that Norden is the likely uniformed suspect, for Jimmie knew nothing about Wilson Plastics, the watchman, or the payroll. He explains how he sees it, but this doesn't jibe with the later murder of Pearce. Andy doesn't want to hurt Mrs Norden, who is like a mother to him, but he also has to help his cousin Jimmie. Will Mason defend him? / In jail Jimmie says that he stumble over the dead watchman, heard Toland coming and ran. Mason notes that the body had been fully searched. Jimmie didn't do it. He was trying to find out how Pearce's lunch, which he picked up on the way to work, or his coffee could have been drugged. If Jimmie didn't steal the nitro and such, it had to be Otto. / When Mason speaks to Erna Norden, she defends the honesty of her Otto, calls Jimmie a crook. Mason says it is not about Otto, but perfume and a robbery. / Mason confronts the company staff with the fact that one of them is the murderer. By the time James Anderson arrived, Pearce was already dead. Pearce's clock was punched at ten when everyone was in the meeting. Tragg and Andy enter. The other $30,000 has been found in Jimmie's apartment. // District Attorney Hamilton Burger presents the court his opening statement. Then Leland tells him that the $60,000 recovered was the stolen money. Pearce was bonded. He was a former policeman who had been asked to leave the force. The stolen bill numbers were on the microfilm copy. Tragg testifies that Pearce was one of Jimmie's instructors at the academy. Jimmie was transferred from a beat to a patrol car whose area included the plant where Pearce worked. The recovered money that Tragg found was in Jimmie's apartment. The autopsy surgeon testifies that Pearce was strangled, between 10 and 10:30, in a refrigerated room so that his body was cold when found. Mason catches him on 10 being the earliest time of death, for the doctor knew when Pearce last punched in on his clock. It could have been earlier by other methods of determining death. Andy testifies to finding $30,000 at Pearce's. He has been given an identification by a truck driver of the man who ran away; Jimmie. The prosecution rests. Mason has no defense. // At Wilson Plastics Morrell demands Jerel sign the contract for purchase of Hillman Plastics. Mason enters with Drake. Jerel admits that the company may have a shortage of $25,000. Mason informs them that the Securities and Exchange Commission has held up the sale of Hillman Plastics. Drake says that just before the vote, someone bought Hillman cheap then, after a ten point rise, sold, making $100,000. It is not known who. Mason says that the money was not the reason for blowing the safe, but destruction of certain records. / Mrs Norden says she got a package the day of the robbery and it was gone after Otto's death. Pearce was to get the entire $60,000, but he asked for more when he found the microfilm with its copy of the records that were to have been destroyed in the safe explosion, and so had to be killed. Mason wants Erna to make-believe that she has the film. Della dials a phone number and Erna tells the answerer that the film is in the cold room. / Nephew Dwight is caught hunting for the microfilm, which Mason had found earlier. Dwight embezzled $25,000. He was the second person Erna called. Someone else gave himself an alibi by tampering with the time clock, making it look as if Pearce were alive long after he was murdered. Leland comes in, gun in hand, and says not even Perry Mason could prove it. But he had done it, as Anderson and Toland enter, guns in hands. // Mrs Norden receives Mason who has come to tell her that Pearce hated Otto, thinking that Norden caused him to be kicked off the force. He tried to frame Otto, stole his package and tried to frame Jimmie. Andy arrives for Thursday's wiener schnitzel, but she hasn't even shopped. Jimmie enters loaded with groceries, asks to be accepted. She requires that he musts call her Mama Norden.

(2-1 Title credits) (2-2) Manager Rudy (Mahlsted) of the Royal Pacific Court is almost pushed over by a running bearded man. Then he is accosted by Miss (Vera) Jordan over kids' bicycles being in the way. Mr (Phil) Schuyler asked him to get trick or treats for the kids. / Rudy and Vera enter Schuyler's place and find that he is drinking. Rudy is called away. Vera shows a cigarette girl costume that she took from a movie set. She suggests the two go together to Mexico. Outside, Rudy is met by Phil's brother-in-law, Frank MacManus, and he informs him that Phil is going to Mexico next week. Frank confronts Phil with a check he's forged for $3,000. Frank says that he'll prefer criminal charges if he doesn't get the money by that night. // (2-3) Maid Grace answers Schuyler's phone call and says Mr White is not available. Jerry Janda tries to quiet Grace, while Mona Winthrope White listens to "Pearls and Jade" song. Mona reminds Grace that she's Mrs White, not Miss Winthrope. Agent Jerry Janda wants her to give up her two-year honeymoon and go into the show. She says that if she stars in Alex Chase's show, Charles Noymann will finance a Broadway run and the picture. He says this will be her triumphant return to the screen. She agrees. Husband Damion White returns unexpectedly. Mona rushes off to see Alex before signing Noymann's contract. Grace informs Damion that Schuyler called. He sees some coincidence in this. He asks about the song. Grace says it is a tape recording. He phones Schuyler, balks at getting him $3000. / Mona, watched by Alex and Freda Chase, is gamboling barefoot on the beach. Freda is concerned about "the song," but goes to freshen her drink as Mona comes to Alex. Inside, Freda offers them each a drink and Mona throws hers in Alex's face for stealing her husband's song. Damion was playing the melody two years ago when she met him. Alex offers to pay for it. She phones Perry Mason, uses him as a legal shoehorn. While she acts as if he's answering her questions about comparing the songs, suing and such. He only mentions that it is not April 1, but Halloween. / Charles Noymann tells Jerry Janda that Chase's last three musicals died before Broadway. But tonight he'll sign at Mona's party. / Phil admits to Vera that that he's a louse. He calls for a cab, meets trick-or-treaters at the door and has Vera give them candy. He gives her a thick envelope for his brother-in-law, then tells her he's going to Mexico alone. Outside a bearded man (It is dark but it is not Alex) has been watching him. / At Mona's party, Phil arrives and asks to use the phone because his car broke down. At the phone he thumbs the phone book. Grace tells Mona she recognized Schuyler's voice. Mona listens on the phone and hears only a time check (not a call for help with his car). Schuyler confers with Damion, then leaves angrily. Mona goes looking for the two. White, seen by Mona, drives off to follow Schuyler (who is in a taxi). / Vera comes for Phil, sees water on the floor thru the door windows. Rudy finds Phil dead. Vera panics. // (2-4) Perry Mason meets the Whites at their beach place to discuss Phil's blackmail of Damion, but Phil was murdered during the night. / Janda badgers Grace to see Mona because Noymann is hesitating on the contract. Lieutenant Anderson barges in to see Damion. / At Chase's Alex confronts on the beach the bearded man who is playing a tape of "Pearls and Jade." Mona rushes up to tell Alex that the police have taken Damion. The bearded man runs to his car which the police are ticketing. / Lt Anderson asks Damion about the heater, the murder weapon, with Mason watching. The heater, plugged in, was tossed into the tub, electrocuting Schuyler. Vera comes in with Sergeant Brice, identifies White as the man who left just before Schuyler was found. Andy asks about a blue foreign sports car. Mason tries to catch Damion as Paul Drake drives up to inform Perry that he's spoken to a cabbie who drove Schuyler to Malibu and back to the Royal Pacific. Also, the police have found a witness, a bearded man named Leonard Buckman, in front of Chase's place. / Mason confronts Freda and Alex, who denies knowing Phil. Damion claims to have given Phil $3000, but it wasn't found. Alex admits that he gave Damion the money. Freda says she saw Buckman and heard him playing "Pearls and Jade" and he gave Damion the money in the middle of a plagiarism suit. / Mona denies the suit. Mason tells her and Damion that it was Schuyler who wrote "Pearls and Jade." Mona admits that she followed Damion to Phil's, then back. Phil now admits that he got the song from Schuyler as a college professor wanting to impress his talented girl. Instead of credit, Phil wanted money to cover a problem with his brother-in-law. At the party, Phil demanded $50,000. He repeated the demand at his bungalow. Lt Anderson and Sgt Brice come to arrest Damion. Mason protests lack of evidence, but Andy says Damion's fingerprints were on the heater and he has a witness who will prove no one else could have committed the murder. // (2-5) In court D A Hamilton Burger gives his peroration, then Frank MacManus tells him that Phil said he could get the money and called Damion White. Chase says that he gave Damion the money as a loan, and something was mentioned about the plagiarized song. But there was no problem about credit of the song or his own finances since Charles Noymann had, at the party, promised to do the show and the movie. Mr Kirkwood says that the show had played along the coast, but by the end the cast outnumbered the audience. Then Chase added a song and dance number, "Pearls and Jade," and the show was transformed. Reopened in Santa Barbara, it was a smash. Noymann says Schuyler suggested there could be a problem about who wrote the melody for the song but, for a small insurance payment, he could save a lot of money and avoid legal entanglements. When asked for proof, hung up. He saw Schuyler and White arguing at Mona's party. Mason asks how he knew that it was Schuyler on the phone. Because the person said he was. Mason gets him to admit that he could save half a million if he could have bypassed Janda. He did not, repeat "not," see Schuyler, but he did see Vera return home, as well as Janda. Now the agent testifies that, after seeing Noymann, Buckman told him Schuyler, not Chase, wrote "Pearls and Jade." Then around seven Schuyler phoned and confirmed what Buckman said. He went to Schuyler, offered $5000 for a quit claim on the song, and was laughed at. He said Damion would give $50,000. / Della Street sums up Burger's argument for Mason and Drake. The detective points out that Noymann, Janda and Chase all could be involved. Chase was a composer and a bankrupt angel. Della quotes "Satan and the Angel" which prompts Mason to have Drake check out the Angel, then two Satans. // (2-6) Buckman says that, after he saw the rehearsal of the new Santa Barbara trial of the show, he went to Phil and told him his melody had acquired a set of lyrics and had become the title song in a new piece by Alex Chase. Phil admitted that it was not Chase who had stolen the music, but a college professor friend. Mason accuses Buckman of blackmail and he, not Schuyler, who called Noymann. At that time he didn't have proof of his charge, but a day later he had a two-year-old tape gotten from Schuyler. He wouldn't cut him in, says Buckman, so he cut himself in by swiping the tape. Vera testifies that she gave MacManus the envelope, then went to her own place to dress for the masquerade party. She say Damion leave, and no one else. Rudy testifies. Vera, Frank went in, then out. Then Schuyler, and only one other, Damian White. Mason runs a demonstration that proves Rudy does not even know his own wallpaper. Several Trick-or-Treaters are brought in. Burger suggests there should also be dancing girls and snake charmers, and is admonished by the judge. Rudy identifies the first three, including Satan 1, fails on the fourth, Satan 2, an old man named Hudson, the same height as Jerry Janda without his elevator shoes. Chase's last flop was financed by Janda, wasn't it, asks Mason. Janda pleads his case to Mona and asserts that he had this chance to get to the top again. Schuyler was the only one who could prove the song was not Chase's. Janda asserts that he had to do it. And the costume wasn't Satan, it was a fool. // (2-7) The usual legal trio, with Mason playing with Halloween masks and noting that "Halloween's come a long way" from "the religious vigil of All-Hallows eve to murder." Paul accidentally recites Keats and both Della and Perry catch him up.. The old man was a trick. Mason claims instead that it was a treat. (2-8) (50:33)

On the pier Dickie (Durham) suggests a "pint" to his friend. Inside Joe's Place Dickie gets into fight. The bartender (Coleman) calls the police. Dickie slugs the arresting officer while his friend just watches. / A judge sentences Dickie (Richard W) Durham to five days or $50, which he doesn't have, as his friend looks on. // The friend is looking for R W Durham's place on Stanhope Road. / The friend is Harry Fothergill and he tells Russell Durham that he's come on a freighter from Australia, after 20 years, with Dickie who's in jail and can't sail with his boat unless he gets out. Russell gives Harry the bail money. / Dickie, with Harry, walks in on his niece Paula, and then Crystal, surprising her. Paula remembers all the Christmas presents that he sent her. The two men invite themselves to stay. Dickie and Crystal rehash their past relationship. She tells him she won't let him ruin their life. He kisses her on the lips. / Dickie mooches off Russell after dinner; $18,000 for a pub for Harry in Australia. / Russell tells Crystal that he hit Dickie with a coffee cup. Dickie has gone off with Paula. Gil Simpson is to join them. As Harry listens on the other side of the door, Russell says that Crystal must get rid of Dickie before he kills him. / Gil joins the couple only to get cross-examined by an obnoxious Uncle Dickie. Harry arrives just in time to stop a fight and, after much argument, warns Dickie that he's not going to let him continue to mess up people's lives. / Dickie, with Harry and Paula, goes to Perry Mason to write a will. Dickie mouths off about what he will bequeath, to Harry $250,000, to Paula $50,000, then doesn't have the $100 fee, so leaves it to Harry to pay. / Harry charges in on Russell wanting to know where Dickie is, since he left the place after a talk with Crystal. Russell gives Harry a check to keep Dickie away any way he has to. The check is for $18,000 but cannot be cashed in America. / Harry finds Dickie, who is down in the dumps, back at Joe's Place. He refuses the check and also refuses to endorse it over to Harry. / The police find Dickie dead. // In jail Harry tells Mason that he followed Dickie who then signed the check on the pier after leaving the pub. So he didn't need to murder Dickie. / A handwriting expert tells Lieutenant Anderson and Mason that the signature on the check matches the valid one Mason has on the will. Andy thinks the will provides motive, but Mason suggests it was a joke, or done to impress Paula. / Oil man Frank Warden is telling Russell to stop getting so upset. Russell is worried that Dickie went to see "that lawyer" about more than a will. Frank tells him to say that he paid to keep his wife, and to take the money from Rimrock Oil Company. Maid Helen admits Mason and Andy to Russell and Warden. Russell shows Andy the case of whiskey and clothes that Dickie bought for him though Dickie was penniless. / Paul Drake brings Fothergill to Mason, into whose custody he's been released. Della brings in a note mailed by Dickie an hour before he was murdered. It reverses his will, giving $250,000 to Paula, only $50,000 to Harry. "Richard W" is Dickie, and there is Russell W, both R W. / Mason asks Frank Warden about an eight year old West Texas oil lease for Russell. The land, says Mason, belongs to Richard, not Russell who has received the annual royalties for eight years. Warden's lease read R W Durham. He didn't know there were two R Ws. Russell says Dickie owed him more than money, but it is Fothergill who benefited from the will, and the police traced the murder weapon which was purchased by Harry in Australia. // In court the officer who got slugged at Joe's Place testifies that the bartender didn't try to stop the fight. He identifies the murder weapon, a knife, for D A Hamilton Burger. Russell says that he and his younger brother were raised in Bakersfield, and Dickie knocked around in Texas oil fields, then left the country for good. He admits that part of his home and the Texas property worth about $200,000 belonged to his brother for whom he was an involuntary trustee. Mason wonders why, then, he would leave with only $18,000. Paula says that she and Harry thought Uncle Dickie's will a joke. Simpson says that he made it clear to Mrs Durham that Dickie's influence on Paula was unhealthy. Warden says that represented Rimrock Oil. When he learned of two R W Durhams, he wrote Fothergill about Dickie's properties hoping to get a new, valid lease signed. Burger gets agreement that the defendant then knew Dickie was worth at least $200,000. Harry whispers to Mason that Dickie tore up that letter before he saw it. He stayed with Dickie to help him. / Crystal tells Mason that she was once in love with Dickie, but when he returned he was so obviously dishonest, and Paula remembered fondly the Christmas presents he sent, which Harry actually picked. She admits that a month before Dickie left they were married in Tijuana, but it wasn't properly recorded. Paula is his daughter. Russell knows. When she told Dickie, he left. She doesn't want Paula to know. // George Coleman testifies to Dickie's knocking Harry down, then Harry telling him not to call the police, "he'd handle him good." Earlier, Dickie had asked for paper on which he wrote a letter to Perry Mason. Burger calls Della Street who reads the letter. Mason recalls Warden and goes after him for a search he made thru a missing person's bureau eight years earlier for Richard. This proves that he did know there were two R W Durhams. Russell now admits that he heard back then from Dickie in Spain and he refused to sign a lease agreement, so he fraudulently leased the property by forging Dickie's signature. He owed money to Warden. Warden asserts that it was to be a short-term arrangement. Then a couple of months ago Dickie contacted him and demanded double value, a half million. He points to Simpson, the man behind the Rimrock Oil Company, who said he'd take care of it. "I already did" is Simpson's confession. // In Mason's office Paula says she never could get Gil on the pier to say where his holdings were. Drake explains that, when Gil met Dickie to settle things, Dickie made the mistake of drawing a knife, getting into a fight and losing. Mason informs Harry that the original will is good, but Harry wants no trouble, only enough for his pub. So he gives it to Paula, who won't . . . they agree to settle this later.

In a Senate Sub-committee hearing room in Washington, D.C., Senator Cord tells (Stefan) Jahnchek to stay as others head out to lunch. The senator says that he'd hoped that, after serving most of his twenty year sentence, the witness would be more cooperative. Jahnchek is threatened with a Federal grand jury on charges of perjury. The marshal is ordered to return him to prison. In an adjacent room, having figured out that he's the patsy, Jahnchek tell this to his lawyer, who says that he's just doing what higher ups want. Jahnchek can't wait another two years to get the money that he's stashed away and with which he can live out of the country. By knocking down the marshal he escapes, then sends a Western Union message to John Gregory over the phone. A Washington Tribune headline reads " 'BIG STEVE' JAHNCHEK FREE IN BREAK." // Nick (Paolo) and John (Gregory) get off A boat. Nick is over his head, but John, even deeper, says that the merger with Bickel Cannery will pay for his boats. John's daughter, Helen Gregory, arrives and says they're going to hear Van (Bennett) speak at a woman's rally. She hands him Jahnchek's telegram and he begs off the rally. Franz Moray of the Swiss Federated Bank manages his daughter's trust fund, $100,000 of which is to be paid when she was ten, another when she's 21. He brings up the girl's boyfriend running for congress and the problem of what would happen if the fact that his daughter is receiving the benefit of money intended for another man's daughter. He wants the second $100,000. / Perry Mason tells David Bickel that his client, John Gregory, has $300,000 in stock tied up in the company as escrow and needs an extension of but a few days on the merger. Bickel says Gregory can forfeit the escrow, for he'll allow no extension. / John asks Nick for $100,000 from his special account. / John asks Mrs (Margaret) Stone to leave town, rushes her out of her house. / Helen and Van Bennett are kissing as John arrives. They've received at campaign headquarters a call from Moray threatening Van's election chances. John assures them it is a joke. The couple leaves. Stefan now surprises John. He wants to be taken to Mexico and given enough cash to take him and his daughter to Switzerland. John protests. After twenty years? Stefan says that he can't get the $100,000 without her. John counters that the money was for the girl, not him. Gregory tells Big Steve that his daughter is dead. It was a hospital mix-up. The phone rings. It is Moray. First John tells Stefan he'll get his $100,000 at the boat this night, 9:30. He then tells Moray to meet him at 10. / Down by the dock, John finds Stefan on the ship. They fight, John wins. Bickel comes aboard and finds a dead "sailor." // The body is carried out. In the cabin, Mason questions John. Lieutenant Anderson joins them, informs Mason that it is homicide, but they have to know why he was killed. Mason asks Bickel how he showed up at this time. He states that Gregory was being blackmailed for a guy named Moray told him. Paul Drake enters as the others leave and tells Mason that the dead man is Franz Moray. / Van Bennett says he only knew of Moray when he got his crazy phone call, which Gregory shrugged off. Helen knows less, except that her mother and baby sister were killed in an auto accident twenty years ago. She, dad and the nurse, Mrs Margaret Stone, came out okay. / Perry and Della join Drake in Boston. He's found a bank man, Corby, who says that Moray retired a month ago. / Drake speaks to the admitting nurse. / Mason, looking at a news file, is brought a clipping by the archivist. / Della reads the clip. Drake enters and shows Mason and Street the birth record of Susan Gregory. The car accident showed both mother and her daughter Susan DOA, with survivors being the father, nurse, and baby Helen who was one month older than Susan. / Karl Corby says tha Helen was adopted when Susan was born, the real father being Jahnchek. / In jail John asserts that the wrong name went on the accident admittance record, the real Susan lived. He accepted the $100,000, but put it in a trust. He didn't see Moray on his boat. He changed his name from Gregor Jahnchek to John Gregory to get free of the bad name created by Stefan, his brother. / Nick knew Gregor who is now his best friend. Mason thinks Stefan is on the boat so goes aboard. Jahnchek swims away but is met by Drake. / Big Steve tells Nick that his brother is crooked and he'll send him to the gas chamber. // In court the autopsy surgeon explains the cause of death, saying that a heavy wrench could have done it. Lt Anderson tells D A Hamilton Burger that a wrench that he's shown is the murder weapon and it has Gregory's fingerprint. But, elicits Mason, two wrenches were missing from the rack, only one was found. Burger warns Nick Paolo that he harbored a fugitive, thus gets him to admit he received a phone call, after which he removed the shore watch from his boat. Bennett says that he saw a man leaving Gregory by the back door. He overheard the name of Moray. Bickel claims that Moray said he could make trouble for Gregory. "I hit him" is what Gregory told him about a "drunken sailor." / Drake can't find Mrs Stone. Mason suggests that he look into the lease arrangement between Gregory and Bickel. Drake calls his office and learns that Burger has Stone as a surprise witness. // Mrs Stone says that they met Gregory at the dock. He had just returned from three months at sea. This was the first time he saw his daughter. She had to identify the living daughter after the accident,and mixed them up for Susan, not Helen, survived, under Helen's name. Five years ago she came to California from Boston and Gregory paid her $5,000 to not see him or his daughter again. / In judge's chambers Mason asserts that there was no mix-up. John says he loves the girl too much to let her be mixed up with a gangster. He has two accounts and the money in Helen's is his savings. The second account, kept by Paolo, is Stefan's. He was to leave it on the boat. Moray wanted the money. Stefan wanted the money. Burger cannot see the point of all this. John continues, noting that Stefan was never married to Helen's mother. / Jahnchek gave Burger his sworn testimony in written form, but now says that it is not true. He didn't ask for $100,000, just enough money to get out of the country. Mason gets him to admit that he was there at 9:45. He fought with his brother, but was just stunned. He saw a launch, took it to get away, and doesn't know how it got there. Nick Paolo admits he hid Stefan, but did not give him the launch. Moray did phone him, so he knew about him. Hadn't he already killed Moray when John tangled with Stefan? When Jahnchek took the launch, he had to slip off in the shadows. It was he, Mason has discovered, who, thru a dummy corporation, leased ten tuna boats to Gregory. He'd used the $100,000 special account money so couldn't give it to John when asked for. When the Bickel Cannery merger went through, John could pay prettily for the tuna fleet, and then he could put the money back. He only intended to knock Moray out, send him south on a tuna boat. He "hit him too hard." // Congratulations in the courtroom. John asks Stefan why he lied on the stand, and is told, "I still gotta be nice" because John still holds his $200,000.

Orientalist (Edward Franklin) expounds on a figurine, a Weary Watchdog, which (Zaneta) Holmes calls evil yet buys. (Trixie) Tong tells a man that he shouldn't see her there. Then Franklin asks her to wrap the (weary) Kamakura watchdog. In an adjacent room, soon overheard by Franklin, Mrs (Janet) Brent is on the phone to Della Street. / In a car, Janet Brent asks Della to give her $25,000, no questions asked. Janet sees another car pull up. $25,000 or a gun is all she can use now. Janet goes to other car. // At Hon Cee Cee's restaurant Mason asks for two Hong Kong dinners for himself and Della. Dean Chang, Trixie's visitor, says "specials," but is corrected by father C C. Della asks Perry for $25,000. Mason carefully writes out a check. Franklin has asked Alton Brent to initial some items. Miss Tong is the messenger. Janet Brent and Della, waiting for Franklin, are offered a chance to see his stamp collection, but they go off together. Della gives Janet the money and wonders why Janet would explain things to her, rather than her husband, and whether she is going to tell Alton how fabulous is his store manager, Ed Franklin. / Janet gives blackmailer/orientalist Ed the money for photos of a "drunken spree," but he doesn't give her the negatives, and does ask for a 50% part of the business which he already runs. She leaves. On the phone, Ed notifies that his services are now $6000 instead of $3000 a month. / Mrs Holmes is describing an antique Chinese headdress worn by Trixie. Alton Brent thanks her and her husband for making possible the delivery of the items for the preview. He tells them to "eat and drink, the proceeds go to charity" In an adjacent room, Franklin and a uniformed man are packing crates. As the man leaves, Franklin compliments Trixie, kisses her, all of which is seen by Dean Chang, who chides her. He says she's dirty. Back at the party, Alton Brent is gushing over Della Street with Janet. Franklin interrupts to ask if Janet has spoken to him. Commodore Gallen Holmes informs Franklin that his appraiser has said a piece for which his wife paid $10,000 wasn't worth $50. A Weary Watchdog, interjects Zaneta. Separately, Franklin finds Janet, taunts her. She holds a gun, says they'll go to get the photos. He picks up her luggage, swings one into the gun, wrestles with her and is hit on the head and knocked out. / A policeman stops Mrs Brent's car, on an APB, for murder. It is Della Street driving. // Lieutenant Anderson informs Della and Perry that the district attorney says that should Mrs Brent be found, tried and convicted, Della will also be tried. / Della takes Perry to C C's, where Janet is waiting to meet the attorney. Mason warns Della that, as a officer of the court, he has to turn Janet in as soon as he's talked with her. Dean tells Mason that his father is in jail. / Andy explains that C C was speeding, ran a couple of red lights and, when stopped, was found in possession of something reported earlier as stolen, namely, an exact mate to the Weary Watchdog with which Janet Brent killed Franklin. / Della and Janet are awaiting Mason's return. His footsteps send Janet into an adjacent room. Mason enters with C C and Dean Chang. C C explains that the Weary Watchdog belongs to Taiwan. Drake interrupts with his report. C C has been arrested twice for driving too slow and Dean has multiple citations. Mason tells them it is Dean who ran the lights. C C says that he will plead guilty and wants Mason to represent him. Mason refuses. The two Chinese leave. Mason asks Della, "Where is she?" "The law library." Mason proceeds to bawl Janet out for putting Della in an untenable position. She responds by giving Mason an envelope with $25,000 in it. She stole it from Franklin's desk, along with the blackmail evidence which she burned. As to the statue, she had a copy made when she saw the original. She hit Edward only once, but he was hit thrice. Andy and Sergeant Brice enter to arrest Janet and warn Della to not leave town. // In court Commodore Holmes tells D A Hamilton Burger about the party conversation. He tells Mason of Franklin's guaranteeing him that the appraiser was wrong. Mrs Holmes says that she saw Mrs Brent coming down the stairs, publicly, with two suitcases. Her curiosity took her upstairs where she found Franklin. Janet appeared agitated and was with Della Street. Burger forces Street to reveal that Janet repossessed $25,000 from Franklin's desk along with incriminating evidence. For Mason, Janet testifies that Ed Franklin deliberately drugged her to be able to stage the compromising photographs and he also forged the hotel registration for blackmail purposes. The night of the charity party, after Franklin spoke to her and her husband, she knew it was the end of the road. She went upstairs and used her gun to get Franklin to go with her, but he swung a bag. She hit him once, only. / Drake brings Della and Perry coffee and sandwiches. Paul reports on Trixie telling Dean he had no right to get angry with her for Franklin's making a pass at her at the Brent house charity party. Andy joins them to say that Burger is issuing a warrant for Della's arrest. // Mr (James) Wong is worried since Mason won't represent C C. Some time ago when he was going to Washington, Dean asked for help in getting Mrs Chang's husband to the U S, but there he found the father was dead. Dean is only C C's stepson and the two never see eye to eye, though C C would do anything for Dean, says Wong. / Mrs Tong tells Mason that her husband has never been able to join her and his daughter. She believes her husband is still alive. She tells Mason of blood money, extortion, money sent each week to keep her mainland relatives alive. The collector of the extortion was Edward Franklin. / Mason tells Drake he's headed to C C's courtroom as an amicus curiae. Mason reminds the judge and Assistant District Attorney Alvin that grand theft is not possible for a $50 item. / Alton Brent is called and he says there is the Kamakura watchdog and his wife's cheap copy. The two are easily distinguishable. Who is Madame Tsu Tsen, asks Mason of Zaneta Holmes. She doesn't know. Mason then asks if this is not her mother, a prisoner in China, and she's afraid to acknowledge it? Yes. The stolen watchdog was the copy. Alton Brent is recalled, and asked to tell which dynasty each of two pieces is from. He can't. He admits that Franklin ran the business and that it was a front for other business, with an accomplice who was the one who exchanged the original watchdog with the copy. The accomplice was C C Chang who was, at that time, running through two lights. Mason then goes to Dean, asks if it was the accomplice who knew two years earlier that Trixie's father was dead. Dean admits that it was he who ran the red lights. As Burger tells Mason his jury is awaiting him, C C finally confesses, noting that Franklin became too greedy. The judge or and was afraid of losing his license. C C took the car and got himself arrested. There never was any love between the two. Burger arrives with the verdict that was never read and Mason has Drake use his cigarette lighter to destroy it. Andy wants to know what clued Perry. C C said that he took the watchdog to protect China's historic art pieces, but the Kamakura Weary Watchdog grave figure is Japanese, not Chinese.

(Bobby Slater from "A Man with Half a Face" by Hugh Pentecost)

At Placer Hill High School two girls are talking about Bobby Slater. Mrs (Jane) Wardman reminds them to get to class. In class, (Pat) Mangan answers to Mrs Wardman with "Jane." They have not finished David Copperfield. Bobby teases her. She is called to the principal's office by Elsie (uncredited, tho a speaking role with nine words). Doris (Wilson) doesn't know what Mr (Everett) Rixby wants. The BOE (Board Of Education) asks for her resignation. Mr Everett Rixby, acting principal, shows her a copy of a lurid letter. Mrs (Cornelia) Slater, the board rep, threatens her with airing of this dirty linen if she doesn't resign. // Perry Mason is with Judge Edward Daley discussing local fishing when Jane walks up. The judge confers with her. He was executor of her husband's will. He says she's still an outsider locally. He explains how the town is locked in ways of the past and reveals that, privately, some of the boys said she made passes at them. / Mason, carrying groceries, is offered a ride to his cottage by Jane even as she is taunted by the boys on motorcycles. / She drops Mason off. He thanks her, hopes that he can return the favor. As she drives away the boys on their motorcycles ride by in pursuit. She meets her boy scout son Terry and the motorcycles roar by. / Inside the Summit Inn, Doris Wilson is at the bar with Gus Wiler, who brings Jane a double old fashioned. She says that she doesn't drink. He says that he hears otherwise and she's not at the high school anymore. Rixby joins them and suggests that Gus leave. He apologizes for not standing up to the dragon, and he does want to stand up for principle. She explains to Terry the problem and he identifies "that dirty Pat Mangan." She, like others, mentions what happened to Kenneth Sterling, whom she was stupid enough to try to help. Terry calls it an accident when his motorcycle skidded into a ravine. / As she drives home, Mangan follows on his cycle. Then three more join him and pass her. Another group of four come after her. Her car goes off the road. // Dr (Stephen Grant) tells Perry Mason that Jane's condition is not serious. Mason expresses his indignation that he and the judge could be involved in such a situation. The doctor offers that the town protects its youngsters and, besides the letter, there was testimony of Pat Mangan. Jane points out that he is not a boy, but old enough to be in the army. As Jane's family doctor, he ventured no opinion about her self-control after losing her husband. / Perry Mason and Paul Drake overhear three girls, one of whom says she likes Mrs Wardman and one of the others says "so do the boys." Mason offers Drake's services. Drake asks about Kenneth Sterling, a disturbed boy to which she was close and helpful. She got a midnight call and helped him. Mason says that they can call for an open hearing or find the writer of the letter. Drake says it was done on an Imperial Super Quiet typewriter. There is also the note that she sent the board, about what Pat Mangan had said at a dance which made her think that Gus Wiler might be selling the boys liquor. Terry encourages mom to fight and she agrees. // Gus Wiler finds Drake and Mason checking tire tracks. Drake challenges him with the rumor that he's been selling liquor to the boys. / After Mangan parks his cycle, Drake inspects the tire, then goes to the door and presents himself as from the Imperial Typewriter Company, but Mangan has seen him inspecting the tire. He fights with Drake and lands face down when the detective easily sidesteps his swing. His mother comes out and declares that the typewriter was traded in two months ago when he bought his new cycle. / As Mason works at a typewriter, Mr Rixby tells Mrs Slater there's not much he can do since Mrs Wardman is going to fight. She tells Rixby they'll have to take things into their own hands. Mason asks for notes of the board meeting, but Doris Wilson won't provide them. Neither has Mason gotten no help from the judge. Mason plots to force the judge's hand. He has Drake get Mangan to start a fight. Mangan loses. / Sheriff Watson tells Drake and Mason that no call has come from Judge Daley, nor has he gotten far with motorcycle tracks. He also doesn't believe Wiler would sell to the boys though, in Cactus City where Sterling was killed, there are a dozen places that sell. Further, Sterling did have alcohol in his blood. The judge arrives and privately says he'll do what he thinks best both for Jane and the town. The judge answers the phone and hears "going over to Jane Wardman's house." / Mrs Slater and other women enter Wardman's house when Terry opens the door. But Jane is outside and stops them. Mrs Slater demands that Jane resign and Doris Wilson tells her to get out of town. Mrs Slater says she and the other women will take their children out of the school if she doesn't resign, just as Mason and Daley walk up. Mason threatens them with breaking and entry, intimidation and slander and the judge, having witnessed the behavior of the women that he's tried to protect, gives in. // Judge Daley calls the meeting to order as Drake reports that Sterling died not of liquor, but of a heart attack. When a photostat of the original letter is introduced, and Doris Wilson doesn't know when the original was missing, Mason objects. Daley says Mason's objections won't do any good, he'll conduct things the way the Board thinks best. Daley reads the letter; " . . . what a certain young widow has been doing nights with the boys in her senior English class . . . " Cornelia repeats what she told the Board in private. She saw Mrs Wardman slip out of the dance with Mangan and fifteen minutes later return alone, lipstick smeared, dress disarranged, smelling of liquor. Doris Wilson says that she saw Mangan and Wardman necking. Mason challenges this shocking statement, but she says she did tell someone before the Board meeting, Mr Rixby. He says that he thought she must have mistaken some other girl for Mrs Wardman, and still thinks so. Mangan enters, says Jane gave him the eye, they went out and had a couple of drinks, necked, and he cut out. Mangan rushes out, followed by Drake, who dogs him until the boy gets on his cycle, charges past Drake and skids into bushes at the side of the road. / Drake has told Jane that Pat has admitted Wiler was behind the whole thing and he went along because he had it in for her, too. Sterling (here, inexplicably called Pat) also probably got his drinks from Wiler. / It is night at the Summit Inn when Mason and Drake find Wiler dead. The judge is already there. // In his office Sheriff Watson is inspecting typing. None of the samples Drake has gotten from the stationery store that sold the brand match the original letter, which has been found in the wallet of the dead man. Jane says the only other person she talked about the Sterling accident with was Doris Wilson. / At a second meeting Judge Daley lets Mason take over. Sheriff Watson has no objection. He calls Pat Mangan, but Mr Mangan says he's out of town for a while. Bobby Slater admits that he lied. Pat had told him Mrs Wardman hauled him out of the dance because he was making trouble, and then found the liquor in his car. The next day Pat was bragging about mussing her up and spilling liquor on her. Neither did Mrs Wardman make passes at him, tho he told the Board that she did, because Pat threatened to beat him up if he didn't. Mason challenges the doctor with his own statement about those cut off from a loved one. Wasn't he in love with Jane? Didn't she deny him? Further, wasn't he partner with Wiler? Dr Grant tries to deflect the charge by pointing out that the judge was Wiler's landlord. Mason points out that the judge might have struck the fatal blow and planted the anonymous letter to get Wardman out of town for fear that her investigation into the liquor situation would reveal that the phone call Jane got from Sterling came not from Cactus City, but the Summit Inn. Jane wrote a note about this to the Board. Daley never got it. Doris admits that she destroyed it, because she cared for Wiler. Mason then asks why she changed typewriters the day before yesterday. He has a note he typed yesterday and another she typed three days earlier. The earlier is the same as the anonymous letter. Mason now implicates Rixby who withdrew $11,600 from his bank account, the exact amount used by Wiler to put in new fixtures at the Summit Inn. Didn't Ken Sterling's death occur at the Summit Inn? Then he and Wiler, knowing an investigation would expose them, arranged to have it seem to occur over near Summit City? Rixby unravels and tries to explain. Last night Gus told him he'd not stand by him any more, because he didn't strike the boy or move the body after it was found dead. So he had to kill him to protect his reputation. // Cornelia comes to apologize with a group for everyone. Drake responds sarcastically, but Jane says Placer Hill is Terry's and her home.

A horse, Tiger Lil, rounds the track. One-twelve-three is her time. Jennifer (Wakely) and (Brad) Shelby are at the rail. Roberta (Harper) joins them. Jennifer asks Roberta to tell her dad, who has had a heart attack, the good news. The trainer (Joe Mead) thinks Tiger Lil will be ready. / Track [montage], Tiger Lil wins, three times. Jennifer tells Joe Mead that her horse is going home for a rest. / Jennifer arrives at the Wakely ranch after dark to learn that there's been a fire and her father is dead. // Roberta comforts Jennifer, tells her that her uncle (Emmett) Pierson wants her to come to his office. Jennifer is crying because Brad Shelby hasn't called even once to say he's sorry. Roberta tells her that wealthy Madelon Haines was married to Brad in Las Vegas the day before her father died. Roberta suggests that Jennie move in with her. / Uncle Emmett Pierson tells Jennifer that her father was a good horseman, a poor business man, and there's little left after debts are paid, but the two of them are all each other has for they are family. / Jennifer tells H B Durrell that she intends to race Tiger Lil. Durrell gives Jennifer a surprise; her father nominated Tiger Lil for the Presentation Stakes and paid all the fees. / Jennifer returns to her stable to meet Joe, who says Tiger Lil has been sold, by order of Pierson, to Brad Shelby./ At Brad's, Jennifer tells Madelon that she came to get her filly back. Brad says he bought Tiger Lil to help her, but she counters that she'll get Tiger Lil back and he won't stop her. // Of course, Jennifer goes to Perry Mason who, with Della Street taking notes, reminds her that she's a minor. The sale may hurt, but could be legal. Tiger Lil means more than money to Jennifer, and Uncle Emmett didn't even tell her. / Pierson tells Mason that horse breeding is a rich man's game. Mason suggests that he could have sold the other Wakely horses instead of Tiger Lil. Jennifer took the sale harder than he expected, says Pierson, who admits that he knew about the Presentation Stakes. Yet he's not a gambler, only a business man. / Roberta Harper tells Mason and Della Street that Jennifer has gone out to her ranch after getting a phone call. She didn't recognize the voice. / At the ranch, Joe drives up after Perry and Della arrive. The horse trailer is gone. / At Shelby's Shamrock Farms, Jennifer goes to Tiger Lil. She picks up a pitchfork, is confronted by Shelby and screams. Tiger Lil runs away, passing Mason who is on the way in. Jennifer tries to reach Madelon, then returns to Shelby who is dead. Mason, Street, Mead join Jennifer as she proclaims "I didn't mean to do it." // In jail Jennifer claims she threw the pitchfork (spreader) at Brad as she ran away. Also, Madelon phoned her, told her that no one would be at the Shamrock for a while, come and get Tiger Lil. / Madelon admits she called Jennifer and was to meet her husband at the Red Coach Inn for dinner, but he didn't show up. She knew that Brad was shipping horses to Mexico in the morning and didn't want Tiger Lil to be included. She and her trainer, George Tabor, think $10,000 was enough for Tiger Lil, but Brad bought the horse himself. Doesn't it strike Mason as strange that Pierson was ready to sell the horse for five times what it was worth? / Pierson thinks Shelby wanted to do something big to prove himself, and he had to do it before Shamrock trainer (George) Tabor got back from the east. / Sergeant Landro tells Mason that Jennifer was the last person to handle the murder weapon. Then Harper tells Mason that she and Shelby were married seven years earlier, for a month. Of all the people, why then did Brad have to be the one to buy Jennifer's filly? Paul Drake on the phone reports where various people were; Madelon was at the Red Coach 8:30 to 9, Victor and two stable hands were playing poker, and George Tabor returned by plane at 10, then went into town at noon. / At the ranch, Tabor accuses Mead of keeping his mouth shut about Tiger Lil so she could be sold. Mason and Drake arrive in the detective's Thunderbird as Tabor drives away. Mead asserts that he had nothing to do with the sale. He is surprised at the sale price of $50,000. / Mason and Drake meet with Madelon Shelby, then Tabor arrives. He doesn't think Brad's purchase was so shrewd, and offers to show them what Brad bought. / Victor runs the horse, which limps. George says Brad paid $50,000 for a horse that will never run again. // In court Hamilton Burger has Sergeant Landro show how the pitchfork was used. It was thrust into the body at close range, not thrown. Mason gets him to admit that someone could have held the handle on the wood and no fingerprints would have been found. The stable hand tells Burger how Miss Wakely told off Brad in the afternoon. Harper has to say that Jennifer "didn't know how much (she) hated" Brad until now. Mason asks Mrs Shelby about the Mexican shipment, and maybe Brad knew he had to get rid of lame Tiger Lil before Tabor returned. The D A objects and Mason withdraws. Then Mason forces Madelon to admit that she met Tabor before going to dinner with her husband. Tabor called her to say that Brad had fired him. She rehired him. She says that, in running her ranch, she had to retake control from Brad, and she needs George Tabor. Madelon's trainer then says that even an expert couldn't have told Tiger Lil was lame by looking at her, but he found out when she favored one leg. When he ran her Joe Mead learned of the problem. Mason asks when he first saw Tiger Lil. In the morning is his answer, but before he could examine her, Shelby sent him on errands, then fired him, told him to get his things the next morning. This was after the horses were shipped to Mexico and before he could have examined Tiger Lil. Burger gets him to admit that Shelby never specifically kept him from seeing Tiger Lil. Mead then says that no one but he knew Tiger Lil was lame after the fire, and so he had no time to tell anyone. Burger forces him to tell what Jennifer said; "Brad Shelby's not going to have Tiger Lil. I'll get him back if . . . if I have to kill him." / Mason conjectures to Della that Shelby planned to have Tiger Lil have an unfortunate accident in Mexico. Drake reports that Pierson was involved in something shady. Mason sends him to Mexico. // Back in court Joe tells Mason that Pierson knew he'd not be at the ranch three days before the sale. Burger is astounded when Pierson says Shelby told him that Tiger Lil was lame. The sale was a cover-up for a gift to Jennifer. Pierson admits to Mason that three years' income taxes and the mortgage have been paid up by proceeds from the sale of the horse. Then why did he liquidate his stocks and bonds for $40,000 on the day that the horse was sold for $50,000? Roberta Harper, Jennifer's father's secretary for his last two years, says Pierson tried unsuccessfully to take out life insurance on himself payable to Jennifer. Mason confronts her lie when she said she couldn't identify the voice on the phone the eve of the murder, and says he's also discovered that she never did, in Mexico, divorce Brad Shelby. She demanded $40,000 from Shelby. Brad was going to Mexico to finally obtain a quick divorce. She got the money that night at the stable. Brad was drunk, heard Jennifer taking Tiger Lil so ran after her. She was scared for Jennifer. She was a threat to Brad as long as she lived. The money is hers! // Pierson tells Mason that he spotted Roberta's false entries in the books. $10,000 was missing. He didn't want Jennie to think her father dishonest. Jennifer and Joe have arrived with Tiger Lil, now a prospective mother, and they now have Shamrock Farms ' best, the father, to start a new bloodline. Uncle Pierson agrees to be Jennifer's partner.

A car drives up to Bolton Hall. A man opens the gate and walks in. He is Mr (B