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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.	A man has come to Perry Mason's table to consult him about a goldfish. Another man approaches and queries, "Harrington Faulkner?" The first man answers in the affirmative, and is given a summons from the process server for defamation of the character of Elmer Carson to the tune of one hundred thousand dollars. As Faulkner puts the summons away and returns to his table and his companion. A waiter hovers over Mason and Della Street as Paul Drake joins them. They discuss the companion. Faulkner returns; his case concerns a Veiltail Moor Telescope goldfish, "a crooked partner, a secret formula for controlling gill disease, and a golddigger."
2.	Faulkner describes the prize goldfish he's been raising, says the golddigger, Sally Madison, is only interested in cash. Mason reads the summons. Faulkner is in real estate, incorporated with Genevieve Faulkner, his former wife, and Carson. Carson introduced a disease into this goldfish aquarium, tho he cannot prove it. Carson claims the fish belong to the corporation. Mason goes to the golddigger. She wants five thousand today. Yesterday it was four. She's only concerned with her boy friend, Tom Gridley, who has T B and needs complete rest. He is overworked by David Rawlins at a pet store, where he found a remedy for distemper. He also has a cure for the gill disease infecting Faulkner's goldfish. All she wants is a payment towards one-half of the royalties. Stinking rich Faulkner is trying to get the cure for free because it was developed in Rawlins' pet shop, and Faulkner can easily buy an interest in the store from Rawlins and then sue for the cure. When Faulkner states that "Sally Madison's proposition amounts to blackmail" Mason admits that "There's a lot of blackmail in the world."
3.	In a pea-soup fog, Faulkner leads Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake to his home and office. As they approach, Mason gets from Faulkner the fact that, though the aquarium is the company's, the fish were fully bought by Faulkner, are not a fixture of the building, thus are his alone. Sally Madison and her boy friend, Tom Gridley. When they enter the office, the goldfish are gone, and Faulkner accuses Carson, calls the police. The room was locked, doors and windows. Police arrive. Jane Faulkner arrives and takes everyone but the police and her husband into the house for drinks. The police leave; "there's no law against kidnaping fish!" Faulkner is outraged, his wife calm. A call to Faulkner about signing papers and transferring title. Faulkner has bought David Rawlins' business outright, threatens Madison and Gridley for obtaining money under false pretenses, as the business, not Tom, owns the formula. Mason informs Faulkner that his "case doesn't interest me in the least."
4.	Mason is relaxing at home. His private phone rings; Paul Drake informs him that the golddigger is desperate to reach him. Mason calls her and she tells him of James L Staunton, who had Tom fix his goldfish. He twice claimed his wife was sick when Rawlins delivered the cure to keep him from seeing the fish. Then she had to make the delivery and put the panels in the tank, and discovered Faulkner's goldfish in the tank when Staunton's very healthy wife let her in. She has told no one but Mason. Faulkner paid only two thousand dollars for Rawlins' business, has offered to keep Tom on at his old salary without time off to cure himself.
5.	Mason and Madison go to Staunton's. Staunton bluffs, but Mason beats him at his game, gets him to admit he was brought the goldfish by Faulkner. Mason points out that since he lied about his wife being sick, when she wasn't he is involved in the fraud. Faulkner brought the fish in an ordinary galvanized iron pail before dinner time. Mason and Madison leave, but watch from outside, expecting Staunton to phone Faulkner, but he doesn't.
6.	Mason and Madison go back to Faulkner's. No one is there. A car skids around a corner and slides to a stop when the driver sees Mason's car. It is Mrs Faulkner. They go in, and Jane finds her husband dead, in the bathroom. Mason has Sally quiet her while he investigates. A dozen motionless goldfish are on the floor. The bathtub was half full of water in which a lone goldfish was swimming. Another on the floor shows signs of life but when Mason puts it in the tub it floats to the top. Mason has Sally call Paul Drake, then the police. Mason investigates in detail. The man had been shot in the left side over the heart. There are three magazines on the floor, the most recently dated on top. It had a three-inch ink smear. On a shelf over the washstand were two sixteen-ounce bottles of peroxide of hydrogen, one almost empty, and shaving tools not yet cleaned. A graniteware cooking pan of about two-quart capacity was in the tub, lying on its side.
7.	Sergeant Dorset with policemen arrives. He questions about who arrived and when. Now two goldfish are swimming in the bathtub. Mrs Faulkner is nauseated, wants someone to stay with her. Dorset chases Mason and Madison out and tells the outdoor officer (Jim) to keep watch. Drake arrives and Mason has him investigate Mrs Faulkner's car; he thinks she was just waiting around the corner for something to happen. Drake finds Mason is right. Mason tells Sally what to do when questioned, and to go to Della after. Shortly into the questioning of Sally, Dorset comes out to ask Mason questions, especially about the theft of the goldfish. Mason explains how he doesn't understand why a ladle with a four-foot extension was found next a tank that is four feet deep and set three feet six inches from the floor in a room with a ceiling nine and a half feet above the floor. The ladle would bump the ceiling before the fish was out of the water. Staunton now has the fish. A taxi delivers Adele Fairbanks. When Drake is given leave and jumps in his own car, Jim shouts to the Sarge that he's not in his car. Dorset understands, but finds nothing important in Jane Faulkner's car when he investigates.
8.	Paul Drake signals Mason to pull over, then explains how cigarette butts on the street around the corner revealed where Mrs Faulkner had parked, a place where she could see who arrived at the house thru a vacant lot. Mason tells Drake to save the evidence, looks up Elmer Carson's address, and pays a visit. He finds the living room "scrupulously clean, save for a try containing cigarette stubs, a champagne cork and two empty champagne glasses." Carson brings up an earlier attempt on Faulkner's life, which he and stenographer (Alberta) Stanley knew about only when the police showed up. He demanded a body search to prove he didn't have it. Later, it was found under carbon paper on Stanley's desk. Faulkner owned a thirty-eight, the bullet was a forty-five. Carson had demanded Faulkner either sell to him or buy him out. Wilfred Dixon, Genevieve Faulkner's business advisor, knows the details. He and Genevieve couldn't pool their stock due to the court order in the divorce. Lieutenant Tragg arrives with two plainclothes officers, kicks Mason out.
9.	Mason is rudely awakened by an urgent call from Della at the Kellinger Hotel. The hotel's night clerk barely notices him. Della is upset. It took Sally quite a while to get there by taxi which she paid with a bill in hand and she guarded her purse jealously. She jumped into bed, nude, with the purse which, much later fell to the floor, wakening Della. When she went to put Sally's things back in the purse she found a roll of bills, fifties, and touched the barrel of a gun. Before she can wipe off the fingerprints, as Mason suggests, the night clerk arrives to evict them. He thinks Mason is Della's boyfriend. The clerk calls the police, but Mason doesn't believe him. Bluff and counter-bluff. Mason, Sally and the night clerk go to the lobby. A radio officer arrives, recognizes Mason, sees that the register has the correct names. When Della arrives and shows identification, the officer lets them go. Sally high-tails it away.
10.	Mason and Street go to an all-night restaurant. Della reports that Sally says she saw a statement signed by Faulkner showing he took the fish to Staunton to get them cured. Mason suggests that the ladle was used not to get fish, but the bullet which Carson had taken from the stenographer's desk and flipped into the tank, later putting a different one under the carbon paper. When Faulkner was dictating his hand was shaking, but when he was served a hundred thousand dollar notice of suit he was not a bit nervous. Lt Tragg arrives, asks leading questions of Della, but Mason cuts him off and prompts her. Tragg informs Mason that he's picked up Sally Madison and, if either of them knows anything about the contents of her purse, they'll be charged as accessories.
11.	Perry, Della and Paul, who informs them that the young deputy coroner botched thinks up, failing to determine time of death as soon as he got to the scene of the crime. There was a checkbook, the last check to Tom Gri. A phone call to a group to whom he was to speak was made at eight-ten and was cut off when someone surprised Faulkner. Mason thinks Jane must have been in the house and knew her husband was dead, so waited around the corner for Mason to arrive, knowing he was on the way because Staunton called her. Mason wonders what is keeping Staunton quiet. Drake says the police have him sewed up. They also have latent fingerprints from the gun in Madison's purse, which include Della, and it is the murder weapon.
12.	Paul and Perry; Drake says the goldfish tank was drained and the sand dumped on the floor overnight. Also, Tom Gridley had mixed a batch of his paste and put it in the safe. Faulkner came in, took it out and to a chemist for analysis. Perhaps Madison fished out the bullet, even after the fish were removed, sold it to the highest bidder. Mason goes to Wilfred Dixon's. A long discussion ensues. He admits to several face to face conversations the day of the murder. The last phone discussion, between eight and eight-fifteen, settled that a decision would be made before midnight; there was a vast difference between what Genevieve Faulkner would sell for and what she would pay to buy Faulkner out. Mason wants to see Genevieve, Dixon doesn't want him to. Miss Smith comes into the room unexpectedly; Mason realizes that is fake, and says "Won't you sit down, Mrs Faulkner?" Before she can leave, Mason comments, "I wasn't aware that Mr Faulkner had had such an attractive first wife." "Neither was Mr. Faulkner," Dixon responds, dryly.
13.	Mason calls Della and asks her to ask Paul to dig up the transcript of the Faulkner divorce. She reports that Judge Downey has issued a write of habeas corpus, and Sally has been booked for first-degree murder. Mason goes to the jail. Sally gives a story that Perry realizes is not true, but it is what she told the police. Of what Mason believes is that the bath was getting hot water run into it, and she asked for and got two thousand dollars from Faulkner. She had a small meal at a restaurant where she was left by the police photographer. The night man at the restaurant had a limp, apparently from one leg being shorter than the other. When Mason points out how Della noticed that the taxi driver looked specifically at the bill he gave her, it must have been a two-dollar bill, not a one, she admits she went to Gridley's with the gun. Mason counters that an angry Gridley then went to Faulkner's and settled for a thousand dollar check. She says Tom didn't go to Faulkner's. He calls Paul Drake and learns that it was late, not early, that the treatment for the fish was taken to Staunton's. Mason confronts Sally. She settled with Faulkner and got the key to his office. She went out, says Mason, with the soup ladle to retrieve the bullet. Tom stood watch, she says, and they had to hurry out, drove around the block and then drove up as if for the first time. When Mason says "When Tom dies, remember that you're responsible," and starts to walk out, she relents and admits Mason is right in all his conjectures. Genevieve Faulkner told him the bullet was in the tank. When they got to the office, the fish were gone, but they got the bullet. She took it to Genevieve Faulkner about nine-thirty. Now she admits she called on Faulkner shortly after eight.
14.	Mason returns to Genevieve Faulkner's. She puts him off until Wilfred Dixon arrives. Mason confronts her with the two thousand dollars she paid for the bullet, but Dixon calls the bluff when Mason phones Lt Tragg.
15.	Mason gives Drake new instructions. Drake's had Dixon shadowed. He suggests that Sally is lying if she says she got the two thousand dollars from Genevieve Faulkner, for Faulkner withdrew twenty-five thousand late in the afternoon after hours from the bank, kept it in a satchel, the handle of which has Sally's fingerprints on it. Drake suggests the D A will go for a manslaughter or second-degree murder plea but Mason says that will still cook his, and Della's, goose.
16.	A few scattered spectators watch as Judge Summerville enters and the bailiff calls the court to order. Ray Medford, the prosecutor, calls Jane Faulkner to testify. She explains the finding of her dead husband. Mason asks her about being with friends. She names Adele Fairbanks and says they saw a movie. Banker John Nelson relates how he gave Faulkner the twenty five thousand dollars and how he and an assistant teller had copied all the serial numbers. Sgt Dorset testifies to having Detective Louis C Corning lift the fingerprints and Mason makes Dorset look foolish since no other method was considered. Further, he didn't look into the other side of the house, because the only person who could have made a complaint that would have led him there was dead! He asks about the two goldfish in the tub; no attempt was made to identify them. The checkbook is introduced with G-r-i on the stub. Mason asks if any of the goldfish on the floor were alive, offers that he scooped one up and put it in the bathtub. He asks about a statement Staunton gave to him and Dorset says it has nothing to do with this case. Mason then explains how the police are introducing only what fits their case and that Dorset collected only evidence that fit their case. Mason explains how two special goldfish and a cure for a disease are central to the case. Then he asks Dorset "You investigated every angle of [the murder]?" Then he points out that he investigated the Staunton angle thinking then it was important yet now says it isn't important. Judge Summerville asks that Dorset have the document available. The police photographer is called. Mason asks him about the three magazines that are visible in a photograph, and asks they be produced.
17.	Drake, Street and Mason discuss possibilities. Mason is certain someone had to be in the room two or three hours after the murder "on account of the one live goldfish." Staunton must have phoned Mrs Faulkner. Drake reports that, from a female operative he's placed as a maid with Mrs Staunton, Staunton's house phone was out of order and only the one in the study, which Mason watched from outside, was working. Further, Staunton had been financed in a mining activity by Faulkner, which gave him a hold over Staunton. When court reconvenes, the magazines are produced. In one magazine is blank check, with a small triangular appendage. It is blank and matches the stub with G-r-i on it. The court decides to appoint its own expert to test the blank check for fingerprints. During the adjournment Drake informs Mason that someone whose voice was unrecognized called Gridley around eight-thirty asking what it would take to settle and Gridley said a thousand dollars by noon tomorrow. Back after adjournment, Lt Tragg is called. He testifies to "picking up Sally Madison on the street and finding the gun and two thousand dollars in bills in her purse." Latent fingerprints were found on the gun of Sally Madison and Della Street. Mason recapitulates Tragg's earlier testimony, including his account of Faulkner's activities from five on. Faulkner took the gun out of his hip pocket when he went to shave. "Then," Mason said suavely, "how does it happen that you didn't find any of Mr. Faulkner's fingerprints on the gun?" Tragg responds, "The murderer must have wiped all fingerprints off the gun." This is all Mason needs to point out, then, that the fingerprints on the gun cannot be those of the murderer. Now to the checkbook. "If Faulkner then tried to eject her and she snatched up the gun and shot him, she could hardly have shot him while he was writing a check stub in the bathroom, could she?" How long cold a fish have lived in hot bath water is another problem presented to Tragg. Louis C Corning , fingerprint expert, explains how he gathered prints at the murder site and at Staunton's and from the satchel.
18.	Mason goes to Wilfred Dixon with more chips and better cards. He admits he was fooled into believing Genevieve and he only wanted to sell Faulkner her share, not buy his and that she bought the bullet in the fish tank to get a hold over Carson. So it would look good to the IRS, they would give Faulkner a check for twenty-five thousand more than they were paying him because they'd get twenty-five thousand cash from him. They join Genevieve and Mason continues; the deal was fraudulent because its purpose was to cheat the IRS. They paid Sally two thousand dollars from that cash, which means they saw Faulkner after she left his place. After he kicked her out, he went to the bath. The telephone rang and he was called away, to pay over the twenty-five thousand. The water in the tub was now cold. He treated a fish for tail rot with hydrogen peroxide and water in a graniteware pot, then put the fish in the tub. He then remembered he'd written Gridley a check, but hadn't entered it on the stub, so he picked up the checkbook to write this in, picked up a magazine to use as a backer so he could write, at random picked up to other older ones. He was writing the stub when he was killed. It was he who called Gridley and offered the thousand dollar payoff. He also notes that Dixon took an awfully long time at the restaurant for breakfast. He must have been waiting for the mailman who picks up the morning mail so he could get back the check he'd mailed Gridley. Mason phones Tragg, but Dixon charges him, and Mason knocks him hard to the floor. Genevieve now offers to "talk a little business."
19.	Tragg is slow to catch on, but listens to Mason's tale attentively and wants "No hard feelings" with Della. Mason explains Carson threw the bullet to protect someone. He made the mistake of believing Jane was watching around the corner because of Drake's finding of cigarette butts on the road and the empty ash tray in her car. Wrong. It was earlier in the evening that Jane had been there, as watch for Carson who was trying to retrieve the bullet. It was she who had fired the bullet at her husband, misjudging how to fire at a speeding car. She had been spending the evening with Carson who lived only four blocks away and was hurrying to get home before her husband got back from the banquet. They had to get the bullet earlier, while there was sunlight, because lights in the room after dark would give them away. Tragg offers that Dixon told Faulkner to come with the money at exactly eight-thirty. There, they raised the point of Gridley, and Dixon called with the buyout offer. How did they know all this? Alberta Stanley, the company secretary, was in Dixon's employ. The police have found the mailman who was bribed to give back the letter to Gridley. The man who killed Gridley interrupted Faulkner treating a fish, to get him to sign a document. After the document was signed, Faulkner remembered the check to Gridley and decided to make a stub showing the amount, tore a check out and was writing Gridley when the murder "saw the gun lying on the bed and couldn't resist the temptation to use it." There was an ink smear on the top magazine, and Staunton had a written release from Faulkner; does it have a blot on it. Tragg, rushing out, answers, "Yes, on one edge." The fingerprint of Madison on the satchel was planted by Staunton, who'd picked it off the glass tank. While Corning was later fingerprinting the tank, Staunton slipped his lifted fingerprint into the correct envelope. Faulkner probably had a hold over Staunton regarding their mining interest.
20.	Mason and Street are dancing an old-time waltz when a waiter brings a message from Lt Tragg. Mason was right "all the way along the line." Sally will be released at midnight. Mason says he'll be at the ceremonies.

Aren't you glad this one is over? Sally never thanks Mason. The complications are the most confusing of any Gardner mystery to date, and he doesn't give you a fair chance to solve it before he does.

Jane Keller	The District Attorney	[Mrs Fanny Starr]
Scott Shelby's agent	Perry Mason	[Mrs Edith Turlock]
Scott Shelby	Ellen Bedson Cushing	A deputy sheriff
Man in teller line	Sergeant Dorset	George Attica, shyster at Attica, Hoxie & Meade
Parker Benton	Police doctor	Jury
Teller	Marion Shelby	D A Hamilton Burger
Banker	Carlotta Benton	Judge Maxwell
Brother-in-law, later Lawton Keller	Yacht's steward	Bailiff
[Gregory Keller]	Various crew	Draftsman Adams
Martha Stanhope	Two rural deputies officers	Dr. Horace Stirling
Marjorie Stanhope/Margie	Paul Drake	Robert P Noxie
Frank Bomar	Three operatives	Matron at the jail
Gertie	Lieutenant Tragg	Notary public
Della Street	Art Lacey	Two newspapermen
Jackson	Ellen's mother	[Delicatessen store man]

This is another of those mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner where Perry Mason doesn't appear until well into the story. Paul Drake doesn't appear until one-third of the story is told. Mason and friends remain smokers and they clearly aren't against a shot of brandy in the coffee to warm up. We've seen this in most of the early novels, and this is not the Mason of TV.

Usually Mason gets so involved with his clients that he has to save them in order to save himself or Della Street. Here he bungles entirely, makes a fool of himself with Lt Tragg, because he is blinded by a very good, but apparently flawed, theory of the apparent murder that he considers to be insurance fraud. We readers should be wary, as usual, of misleading clues. Once Mason is cornered by his blunder and has to face up to it, the guilty party or his/her accomplice should be apparent to us, if the solution is unutterably complicated and solvable only if we know things about firearms no normal person would know.

Mason uses the name "Hoxie" a number of times, eventually settling on him as an autopsy surgeon. This is the first use of the name, the next is The Case of the Moth-eaten Mink.

1.	Jane Keller in line at the bank. A man in a blue pin striped, single-breasted suit, pushes five hundred dollar bills into her hand. A man behind her tells him he can't double up. The man with the money is an agent for Scott Shelby, wants a receipt signed. She states that Shelby has abandoned the property because he hasn't paid the monthly rate. The agent notes that the lease provided a six month period in which a default could be caught up. She admits she doesn't own the property, papers were signed to Parker Benton two weeks ago. The agent gets a business card from the man behind Keller. Jane is now at the teller's window when the banker comes over to help her. When he admits to knowing both Jane and the man behind her, the agent cheerfully leaves. Jane deposits $396.50.
2.	From the bank, Jane calls brother-in-law Lawton Keller who, after her husband Gregory's death, took her under his wing. She explains what happened and he tells her to see him right away. She says she has to see Martha first. He tells her to draw every cent out of the bank.
3.	Jane goes to see Martha Stanhope, her older sister, who is manager in an apartment house. She explains how Shelby is trying to keep his lease active, which could affect the sale of the island. Martha advises her not to listen to Lawton; Gregory never had any use for him. Two years ago she had forty thousand dollars in insurance money and the island, now only the island, and they are about ready to close the escrow. Margorie Stanhope arrives. She is "not particularly good-looking." She and one-legged veteran Frank Bomar are to get married and open a grocery shop on Aunt Jane's loan. She is very upset at hearing she may not get the two thousand she needs. Martha tells Jane they are not going to Lawton.
4.	They go to Perry Mason. The receptionist, Gertie, tells them he's gone for the day. Della Street suggests they see Jackson. He asks for the specific wording of the default provision. They call Lawton who reads it over the phone. After reading it, Jackson wants the remainder of the contract, asks them to get it and slip it thru the mail slot.
5.	Mason, surprisingly, returns from the District Attorney's office. Della tells him "Jackson's in the law library" and Mason counters "Looking for a case that's on all fours." They joke about his approach to law. Then Mason goes to Jackson, here's his view on the case, then pulls down a case book and quotes several cases where "requiring a forfeiture to be strictly interpreted against the party for whose benefit it is created, doesn't apply to oil leases," which fact had escaped Jackson's approach. When Mason is told that a Scott Shelby holds the lease, he looks that up in the phone book, calls him, plays rough. Jackson is "strickened" by this.
6.	At Shelby's Mason and Street are introduced to his witness, Ellen Cushing, a real estate agent. Shelby is willing to sell his rights for ten thousand dollars, thinking the property is worth fifteen and is being sold for thirty. Mason threatens damages for slander of title. Selby will come done a thousand . . . or two. Mason and Street leave him trying to effect an offer, probably as low as five thousand. They meet Sgt Dorset on the way out. He lets slip he's going to see Shelby about an attempted arsenic poisoning. The doctor has saved the stomach contents, so it can't be hushed up.
7.	Mason arrives early, eight-forty, at the office, surprising Della. Gertie informs them that Parker Benton has just left the office, and Della catches him before he reaches the elevator. Benton reports that Shelby contacted him with threats to put oil derricks in his front yard. He'll pay Shelby, but not ten thousand dollars, for he doesn't "want to get the reputation of being an easy mark." He says he got a call suggesting Shelby with his wife accompany him on his yacht to the island. They agree the caller was probably Mrs Shelby. He wants Mason along, and it will be overnight.
8.	Marion Shelby is among those introduced to Mason. Scott Shelby is upset about Sgt Dorset's asking why Mason had visited him. He explains that he and his wife got poisoned, and the only thing they ate in common was dessert. Carlotta Benton comes to round up guests for cocktails. When Benton announces that the fog will prevent an evening return, Mrs Stanhope objects. Benton says he can put them off at a little town with an interurban connection. Shelby demands the full ten thousand in cash. Benton offers two thousand plus two he believes Mrs Keller will offer. Or he will accept title with a certificate of title subject to the provisions of the outstanding oil lease. Lawton Keller suggests Benton put up the whole four thousand and Mrs Stanhope tells him to shut up. Now Mason asks if Shelby owns the oil lease or is it assigned. Shelby admits to a partnership, with Ellen Cushing, then refuses the four thousand. That ends discussion, and the steward shows each to his room.
9.	Mason is reading when Della phones wondering what happened. She is restless. Mason eventually goes on board, sees a night watchman, stumbles over a piece of rope, hears a scream, a shot, splashes, then a figure collides with him. She has a gun. Then, ''m a n o v e r r r - b o a r d ! " A series of thumping noises along the yacht. Marion Shelby escapes from him. Lights go on, crew come topside to help. A motorboat is lowered and begins the search. Benton discovers that Scott Shelby is missing. His wife's story is that her husband called her from the bow of the yacht to bring the gun to him, but the bow phone is not connected to the staterooms. His is the only room in which there are both systems, the ships, and the staterooms. Shelby went on deck without socks or underwear, tie or scarf, but with coat and hat. Mrs thinks she heard the impact of a blow over the phone, but "She was only half awake at the time."
10.	Lawton joins Della and Perry, who have been discussing what Benton might do, and learns that things are now even more complicated. He mentions that Marjorie Stanhope was wandering around shortly before things happened. Two rural deputy officers come aboard and question the passengers. Mrs Shelby assures everyone that her husband is a very good swimmer, but, wounded . . . The officers ask her if there is any insurance. "Quite a lot."
11.	Marion Shelby, eyes swollen and red, comes to Mason in hopes he'll protect her. She admits her husband had many enemies, and she'd become a bit disillusioned with him. She did not telephone Benton with the suggestion for the cruise and had not earlier discussed the yachting trip. Sgt Dorset arrives with a warrant for the arrest of Marion Shelby for the poisoning of her husband. Mason asks Dorset to dust the phone receivers for fingerprints and to give Mrs Shelby a paraffin test. He refuses.
12.	Mason with Della Street goes to Paul Drake's apartment. He tells Paul the story of his client. Drake chides, "You've let the gal's sex appeal ruin your judgment . . . You're tired of winning murder cases." Mason explains how absurd it is to accuse Marion Shelby; since she is intelligent, she'd not be so dumb as to carry arsenic in her purse and then try to murder her husband on the yacht when she fails with the poison and leave the gun on her dresser. Mason thinks this was all staged by Shelby to get free of his wife; he fired a shot "to pass the buck to his wife." He tells Drake to cover airports and train departures. He'll show up somewhere as Scott Cushing, husband of Ellen Cushing.
13.	Perry, Paul and Della to Ellen Cushing's apartment building, find the garage, investigate her car. The back seat is damp. They find a wet blanket and wet men's shoes in a corner. Three Drake operatives arrive and are placed to watch Cushing's activities.
14.	Back at Mason's office, Drake gets a report from his operatives. A man fitting Shelby's description has been seen thru the window of Cushing's apartment. Mason calls Lt Tragg and inveigles him into seeing the corpse of Shelby "walking around very much alive and well." Tragg utters one word, "Insurance?" and says he'll come siren sounding. Mason goes to Drake's office and Drake instructs his switchboard girl to keep the "reports all piled up and keep everybody on the job." They meet Tragg and go screaming and careening thru the streets to Cushing's, Mason explaining the case to Tragg. Mason introduces Drake and Tragg who are "associated" with him "in a matter on which I'm working." They question her about the oil deal and learn she bought Shelby out because she knew Benton wanted the property and she could make a bit on the side on the real estate angle. She had Selby handle the deal because he knew the business. He was to get twenty-five percent of the settlement and she expected four thousand, three for her. Mason thinks it odd that her figure matches the actual offer, of which she could have known nothing. She goes to her bedroom to get the assignment papers that will prove to Mason that she owns the lease rights. She squeezes thru an eighteen inch opening. Mason is certain Shelby is in that room, so meets her when she returns. She holds him at the door; he pushes and meets resistance, but cannot get in. The papers seem to be legitimate. In the hallway, Mason is indignant that Tragg didn't back him. Tragg says he's getting cold feet, but he'll look at the car when Cushing comes out. Tragg offers to ride with Cushing and feels the damp seat which prompts him to search the garage. He finds the wet blanket and wet shoes. He now shows Cushing he is a police man.
15.	Confronted by Tragg with the wet blanket and that a man has been seen in her bedroom, Ellen Cushing introduces them to Art Lacey, her intended, who's been cooking in the kitchen, and her mother. She, mother, and a Mrs Starr had dinner together the previous eve and then went to a Mrs Turlock, who lives next door, until midnight. Art drove her to the station at eight and the train was fifteen minutes late which made him hurry away to make an eight-thirty appointment. The wet shoes fit Lacey, who admits he thought Shelby a W O W, "A Worn Out Wolf." Lacey took Ellen on a picnic to propose properly and got his shoes wet. They had wrapped ice in the blanket and set it on the seat. Tragg offers to take them to the courthouse so they can get married.
16.	Della finds Mason slumped over in the swivel chair in his office. He's botched things badly. A deputy sheriff arrives to serve Mason, then Drake, with a defamation of character suit in the sum of two hundred fifty thousand dollars. After reading the complaint, Mason decides he and Della are going on a picnic. They go to the site where Ellen and Art had their picnic and found a variety of remnants, including creamed tuna and macaroni and cheese. Della finds what appears to be a lead sinker used for fishing.
17.	Back at the office, Paul Drake threatens to throw away his skeleton keys. He tells Drake to get fingerprints off the phone headset he brought from the ship, and Paul finds clear latents. A phone call notifies him that Shelby's body has been found, a thirty-eight bullet in his neck.
18.	Court recesses after the jury is selected. Drake reports that Shelby's fingerprints were on the phone in Mason's room. Hamilton Burger lays out his case. Mr Adams, a draftsman shows plans of the yacht and explains the two, separate, telephone systems. Mason asks if the two systems could be jury-rigged together and is told that it is possible but not likely. Parker Benton testifies to having seen the dead body of Scott Shelby. He handed the murder weapon, given him by Mrs Shelby, to the shipboard officers. Then he explains his handling of the business deal including the oil lease. Mason brings Cushing into the evidence as half owner of the oil lease. Autopsy surgeon Dr Horace Stirling now testifies about the bullet. The bullet killed Shelby by penetrating the spinal cord. There were no powder burns. Mason gets him to admit Shelby had received a blow on the head, which could have been caused by a round object, even a rope, and which could have caused unconsciousness but not death. Mason goes after Stirling, now clearly a biased witness. The person who fired the gun had to be more than four feet from his victim. Thus, whatever caused the blow, would have had to be more than four feet long!
19.	The ballistics expert, Robert P Noxie is next. He states the murder bullet, which is in unusually good condition, was fired from the gun taken from Marion Shelby, explaining with comparison photos of the murder bullet and bullets later fired from the same gun. Mason raises the issue of the bullet penetrating bony tissue, but there are no scratches from the bone. Mason asks about photographs of the entry wound. Noxie didn't bring them. His theory is that Shelby was shot in the water, which is why the bullet didn't penetrate deeply. Burger tries to stop this line of cross-examination, but Mason uses it to point out witness bias, the witness having been coached by Burger not to mention this theory. Mason recalls Stirling who now minimizes the keyhole shape of the entry wound saying he's seen dozens, but Mason forces him to admit to only one or two in four years. His bias is thus demonstrated. Then the keyhole wound could have been caused by a glancing bullet, which would not have been deliberately aimed at the murdered.
20.	Drake still thinks Marion Shelby is "guilty as hell." Mason thinks Marion's husband was lying. Drake notes "The murderer must have used the gun that was in the hand of the defendant!" which she gave to Parker Benton, interpolates Della, to which Drake adds "That was long after the murder." "How do you know?" asks Della, and Mason now has an idea that will lead to solution of the crime. Court is called back. Ellen Bedson Cushing, now Ellen Cushing Lacey, is called to testify. She bought the oil lease but didn't let Shelby know what it was worth. She knew Shelby's interest in her had nothing to do with money and led him on. When Mason came into the situation, Shelby discovered the worth of the oil lease and became greedy. She gave Shelby a quarter interest in whatever he could get. Now, having been embarrassed by the showing of concealed bias on the part of his witnesses, Burger asks about her suit against Mason, to which question Mason neither objects nor consents. When Cushing says she is suing Mason the door is open for Mason to query the facts surrounding his actions, including finding the wet blanket and shoes. Cushing is angry and wants to put the facts in evidence. She produces photos claiming to show her on the picnic taken between noon and four or five o'clock. They show Art Lacey on a raft and the blanket with ice on it. After the picnic, she stayed with Art until she picked up her mother. The court adjourns for the weekend. Mason asks Marion about what she saw. Her husband was struggling in the water, "Lying on his back," "He was . . . kicking and struggling . . . as though he'd been hit on the head." Mason asks about the gun. Marion saw him reload it fully. Yet there was one empty shell when she picked it up.
21.	Marion calls to tell Mason she's retained a different lawyer to handle the case. Lawton Keller arrives to tell him how Marion is now going to plead, as the aggrieved wife. Mason cuts him off and tells the obvious story, about a struggle between the two, how Shelby fell overboard and Marion fired, the bullet glancing off the side of the yacht to hit her husband. Mason throws Keller out of the office.
22.	Mason suggest to Paul that he bring two reporter friends to the deposition of Ellen Lacey. George Attica arrives, says he's going to give the real story to the Sunday newspapers. Mason tells him "I don't see any way that I can deny any story you put out without betraying the confidence of a client." This pleases Attica, who knocks off all but one of the zeros in the figure for which he'll settle the defamation of character suit. Mason refuses, orders him to bring in his client who, of course, is not available, as Attica had expected Mason to take his generous offer. Before everyone is ready, Mason shows Della the photo in the newspaper which accompanies the article about Ellen Cushing's defamation of character lawsuit. Mason notes the photo's composition, the nice clouds, and says "Every cloud, Della, has a silver lining." A notary public, Drake and his two friends, Della and Attica are there with Mason. Using the newspaper article as a starting point, Mason goes over the proposal in the morning and the picnic in the afternoon. He first catches her about a fifty-pound chunk of ice which is only twenty-five pound size in the photo. Art had carried that ice on a very hot, cloudless day which melted the ice, seems to be the story. Mason then produces the newspaper photo, which shows clouds in the sky. Mason now states she made the photos on Friday, dashing out about three-thirty after getting married. He confirmed this by going to the delicatessen where they bought their lunch, and creamed tuna was available only on Friday! Mason presses on, showing how she actually forced Art to marry her as his only way of escaping a murder charge. Mason explains how a bullet could show markings of one gun when shot from another, an idea prompted here by Della's finding of the lead sinker, which could fit the bore of a sixteen gauge shotgun. "I will insert a .38 caliber shell in the inside of this lead ring or tube and you will see that it fits perfectly . . . with this device . . . you could fire a shell through a revolver into a tub of water, recover the bullet, crimp it back in a fresh shell whose own bullet had been removed, place that shell in this adapter, put the adapter in a sixteen gauge shotgun, pull the trigger, and discharge a bullet which has no markings of rifling or barrel scratches other than those which were imparted to it by the .38 caliber pistol from which it had been originally fired. The bullet would have a tendency to wobble or keyhole and it wouldn't have the power or penetration that a bullet would have which had been fired from a revolver barrel because the gasses of combustion would slip on past the bullet in the barrel of the shotgun." Mason concludes the deposition, telling Attica that the two men who then bolted for the door are newspaper reporters. Attica slumps in his chair.
23.	Mason and Street are relaxing on Benton's yacht, when he brings the Sunday newspapers. Benton states that Shelby did not know his yacht, but Lacey did! Lacey was a professional cook and worked aboard this yacht when the regular cook took his two weeks' vacation. The newspapers relate the cross-examination of Cushing and the solution to the crime. Everything was set up for Shelby to disappear, Lacey helping him, but too many people were aboard and the staterooms were all filled. When Mason went out, that left his room empty, and Shelby called his wife from there, then rushed to the bow, where he went overboard when Marion approached. Lacey was waiting downstream for him, but was greedy, and knew that money Shelby had salted away was in a money belt. He made the perfect murder, except for one mistake, returning Ellen's car in the morning, which he had from the time he dropped her off at the train station, and not immediately disposing of the wet blanket and shoes. Mason suggest he buy the site of the picnic; Della responds, "Even if you are just daydreaming, it's a swell idea."

Perry Mason	Orville L Reedley	Deputy sheriff
Della Street	Hotel clerk	Courtroom spectators
Cora Felton	Curious spectators	Court clerk
Mr Hines's representative	Harry Gulling	Judge Homer C Lindale
Eva Martell	[Hamilton Burger]	Samuel Dixon
Adelle Winters	Daphne Gridley	Thomas Folsom
Gertie	Mae Bagley	Alfred Korbel
Adelle's cab driver	Frank Holt	Two newspaper photographers
Robert Dover Hines	Carlotta Tipton	Lorenzo Hotel desk clerk
Two shadows	[Helen's gambling friend, Carl Orcutt]	[Jail prisoner]
Paul Drake	[A taxi driver]	[Police stoolie]
Three Drake shadows	Arthur Clovis	Grand Jury foreman
Helen Reedley

Here's one in which none of the main TV characters on the police side appear; no Hamilton Burger, no Lieutenant Tragg, not even Sergeants Drumm or Dorset of the early novels.

Mason, with Della Street and Paul Drake, even with Lt Tragg, has often taken a drink. Scotch and brandy have been chosen. Here he accepts a manhattan over a martini.

There are more possible murderers in this novel than any before, as Mason finds one after another women who had motive and means to murder the victim. And a man or two.

As usual, the D A is out to get Mason, even on the most trivial of technicalities, which could lead to his disbarment.

Most important is the fact that this case hinges on determination of when the crime was committed. Even Mason is almost fooled, but gets it right, as he must, in the conclusion. Thus, this is one of the most exciting and, while complicated, most captivating of Gardner's early novels.

1.	Driving down Adams Street, Perry Mason has noticed brunettes on every street corner for several blocks, all about the same size and clad in dark suits. He U-turns, goes back until he finds the first and he and Della Street go up to the girl. She asks if he is Mr Hines, then is delighted it is Perry Mason. She is Cora Felton. She shows him the ad to which she, and then her roommate, Eva Martell, replied. The brunette chosen is to be paid fifty dollars a day and her chaperone twenty dollars a day and expenses. Mr Hines's representative comes up to Cora, gives her ten dollars, and goes on to other losers. When the three go to pick up Eva, she is gone. While driving Cora to her apartment, she tells Perry and Della about Adelle Winters who would be the chaperone. At the apartment, there is a note from Eva; she has won and with Aunt Adele and her .32-caliber revolver they've gone off.
2.	Gertie informs Mason that a woman came in to see him at ten o'clock and, when told she had to have an appointment, said she wanted an appointment for five minutes after ten! It is Adelle Winters. She is afraid the Hines's scheme involves murder, probably of Helen Reedley. She and Eva are in an apartment leased to Helen Reedley, but Hines, whose description fits the "representative" who gave Cora ten dollars, is behind it. While in the apartment at the Siglet Manor, they are to answer the phone but tell the caller that Helen is not available, she'll call back later, then notify Hines. They were to make a clean break with the past, not be in touch with any friends. She fooled Hines when, while at her apartment to get clothes, he gave a cab driver instructions to take her directly to Reedley's place. She talked the cabby into letting her make a phone call to Cora, who told her to contact Mason. Adelle thinks Hines is Helen's husband and he's murdered her. As she has no money to pay for a lawyer, Mason tries to cut her off, but Cora calls and asks him to investigate, she'll pay. He sends Adelle back to the apartment with instructions; he'll call her and say he's coming in fifteen minutes to see Helen Reedley and if he doesn't see her, he'll call the police. She is to relay this to Hines, and get rid of her gun.
3.	Mason arrives at the apartment and is greeted by "Mr Hines's representative" who is forced to admit he is Robert Dover Hines. When he opens the bedroom door, Eva is introduced as Miss Reedley. Mason demands assurances that the deception being practiced by Eva playing Helen is fraud. Hines agrees to have Helen at Mason's office in an hour.
4.	An hour has passed and Helen Reedley has not shown up. Della gets Hines on the phone, and Hines says he told Reedley to get to Mason's office. Mason then calls Martell and tells her to leave the apartment with Adelle and nothing else but their own clothes. Some little time later Eva calls from the Lorenzo Hotel. They are out, and are being followed by two men. Hines made all sorts of promises to them, but begged then not to go home until after five o'clock, after which they could go back to the Reedley apartment, but if they went to their own apartment "the whole thing was off." Mason has Della go to Paul Drake and send four or five men to shadow the shadows. Mason notes that those who called for Reedley never called back to find out why they didn't hear from her, so she Reedley must be hiding from something but does make the return calls. Now Helen Reedley shows up, provides identification (but no social security number), asks to be friends. Mason dictates to Della a "To whom it may concern" letter in which Helen Reedley admits to everything Hines has done. She sees that the document protects Mason and his client; he says only "provided I know the reason for what is going on." When she won't tell, he adds a disclaimer holding blameless the person impersonating her. She is outraged, but signs and Della notarizes it. Mason calls Eva and says everything is okay, yes, they can continue shopping, then go back to the Reedley apartment. Eva notes that some additional men have come in to watch them.
5.	Eva calls Mason, who is working late. Hines has a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. She is instructed to call the police. Mason calls Drake, asks him to have his operatives find out who employed the other shadows, to shadow clients who come into or out of the agency employing them.
6.	Paul Drake reports that the men shadowing the fake Helen Reedley were with the Interstate Investigators, and were working for Orville L. Reedley, who married Helen Honcutt. The two go to Reedley's; a hotel clerk calls ahead. Reedley and Mason spar, interrupted by a phone call, the only response Reedley gives is "Information." All Reedley will admit is that he was shadowed for some time, then two or three days ago he hired detectives. Mason shows him the ad after telling him the detectives were not shadowing his wife. Someone tipped off his wife before Interstate came on the case.
7.	Mason corrects Drake concerning Reedley's apartment, "The word for it isn't 'swell'&emdash;it is 'harmonious.'" It has a woman's touch. When the telephone call came, he went to the venetian blinds and opened them, "so that someone else could see in." Drake must find who. Back at his office, Eva Martell and Adelle Winters are awaiting him. Adelle tells a tale and says she never had a gun. Eva says she was with Adelle every single minute and told the police so. They think this winds things up, and leave. Drake reports that the police know, from the Interstate boys, that at about two-twenty Adele Winters put a gun in a garbage can at the hotel. The gun had an obsolete type of bullets, one had been fired, and the one in Hines's head matched the type. Mason asks him to catch the two women before they get down the elevator, but he is too late.
8.	Paul and Perry drive out to Cora Felton's, find police watching the place and, on a chance, go to the trolley stop. Paul leaves, afraid of being an accessory. Eva and Cora get off. Mason gets Eva to admit she was not with Adelle all the time. While in the lobby making phone calls, Adelle returned to the room to get her gun a minute or two after two, and was gone about five or six minutes. Yes, Adelle is a born liar. They drive to Adelle's but "A knot of curious spectators milling around" told them they were too late. She has admitted the gun is hers.
9.	Harry Gulling, assistant to Hamilton Burger, meets with Mason, who wants to offer Eva Martell's testimony against Adelle Winters. Gulling refuses, says he's going to convict both Winters and Martell, and Martell had better be in his office by noon.
10.	Mason goes to Winters at the jail. Adelle is upset that she's dragged Eva into the situation. She had taken Mason's warning to get rid of the gun seriously, took it out of her purse and set it on the sideboard. Then, in the lobby, she realized it was still there, so she went back to get it. She found Hines's wallet on the floor and picked it up. They took a cab to the Lorenzo Hotel. In the ladies' room, she smelled gun powder, discovered one shell had been fired, so threw the gun into the garbage. She says this is the truth, but she can improve on it. She is sure Hines had to be in the bedroom when she went back, with the murderer.
11.	Mason phones Drake and instructs him to find the location of the phone the girls called to report. Drake reports that a Daphne Gridley may be the girlfriend who can see thru Hines's window. Mason drives to an apartment house where Mae Bagley has hidden Eva. She insists Adelle wouldn't do any of the things of which she is accused, but she could have picked up Hines's wallet. Mason instructs her to turn herself in by noon. Mason calls Drake; the phone Eva sent on the messages to is in the Siglet Manor apartment of Carlotta Tipton, a floor above Hines's room.
12.	Drake pulls up to the Siglet Manor just as Mason and Street arrive. Frank Holt, a Drake operative is introduced, and all four go up to Tipton's apartment, 412. Mason bluffs being a policeman. Carlotta is packing. She thought Bob and she would get married but, now he's dead, she is heading off to another friend in Denver. She thinks Hines was keeping Helen Reedley in 326. Yesterday she followed him from her room to 326. When she got no answer to her knock, she knew what it meant. She saw Helen Reedley with an older woman in the elevator. Mason informs her that Helen meant nothing to Hines, and it was not Helen but a double, shows her the ad. Carlotta breaks down into hysterical sobbing. Mason accuses her of killing Hines in a jealous rage. Hines did open the door, she rushed in, he backed away into the bedroom, she saw the gun on the sideboard, picked it up and shot him. She accuses Mason of trying to frame her, refuses to name her Denver friend. She finally realizes he is not the police, and clams up. Mason explains how Adelle tried to reach him, but got a busy signal, so tried to reach Hines, and no one answered. This proves Carlotta was out of the room while Adelle was in the lobby. This alternative theory can keep the D A from convicting "Adelle Winters beyond all reasonable doubt." Frank Holt chimes in with the fact that he swiped the memo pad at the phone. Mason is certain one of the numbers is Helen Reedley's hideout.
13.	Paul Drake has found Helen Reedley under the name of Genevieve Jordan. Mason and Drake confront her. She describes her husband as "restless, seething internally, insanely jealous in a possessive way, arrogant, proud, dynamic, forceful, and successful." She was never in love, just fascinated, and eventually fell in love with someone else. Her mistake was to ask for a divorce, which made him possessive, rather than say "she was going to stay with him for the rest of his life," which would have made him ask for a divorce. She had little money when she left him, but won at gambling, then stopped, then having gained gambling friends. A gambler friend tipped her off that her husband was hiring detectives. Hines was a small-time gambler who "would do anything for money." He never knew why she wanted a double. She figured her husband would see that she, the double, was so totally respectable. Then she could say she wanted to return to him, and he'd "start a suit for divorce within twenty-four hours." Mason suggest Hines was not so dumb, may have intended to double-cross her. Mason has a similar effect upon her as her husband did; this is why she is being frank. She had a .38 with her in Mason's office, but she's thrown it away. Mason offers her a tip, the way her husband uses Venetian blinds and how harmoniously his apartment is decorated.
14.	Mason calls Gulling, who says he "didn't see fit to comply with my ultimatum." Eva didn't surrender herself, she was apprehended. Her taxi driver says she was headed in a direction opposite the jail. Mason now says he'll defend not only Eva, but Adelle. Gulling counters that he's picked up Mae Bagley, who claims she's never seen Eva before, even tho she was picked up in front of her rooming house, and she'll face perjury charges. Mason alleviate's Della Street's worries by saying Eva was probably telling the taxi driver "what streets to take, evidently intending to pay him a block or so from headquarters and walk the rest of the way. A matter of silly pride." Further, Mae's statement is not perjury unless made under oath, and "Perjury must be established by the testimony of two witnesses." Further, Mason has previously defended Mae when she was charged with perjury, so "She may know something about the law of perjury. . . ."
15.	Mason is reading the Monday morning's paper. It reports how Mae "ventured a wager with the Grand Jury that she herself could summon a taxicab to call for her at the home of the assistant district attorney . . . create in the driver's mind the impression that she had stayed there all night . . ." The paper notes there is a grudge fight of long standing between Gulling and the D A's office he represents and Mason. The attorney dictates a fake letter from Mae to himself, in which she admits to "wrong in telling the Grand Jury [she] had never seen Eva Martell. . ." but continues in a code which cannot be decoded, as Mason instructs Della to make it nonsense. Drake reports that there were twenty-one hundred-dollar bills in Hines's wallet, five of which came from Orville L Reedley. Mason conjectures that the gambler friend of Helen Reedley probably was curious and hired Hines with Orville Reedley's gambling loses. It turns out that Helen's boyfriend is Arthur Clovis, whose number was on Carlotta Tipton's memo pad. He's a bank clerk where Orville Reedley keeps his account, and may have given Reedley the bills of which the numbers were recorded. Carl Orcutt may be Helen's gambling friend, as he went around with Hines. Clovis, who is out sick, lives in an apartment house with no lobby attendant. Mason now thinks that "A cashier's cash has to balance at the end of the day; but he can . . . report giving hundred-dollar bills to anyone." "But when the assistant bank cashier who has reported giving hundred-dollar bills to a husband turns out to be the boy friend of the husband's estranged wife, and those bills show up in the wallet of a man who was murdered in the wife's apartment . . ." Della returns with the money he wanted, in hundred dollar bills.
16.	Perry and Paul visit Arthur Clovis, who expects the arrival to be Helen. He is hostile. He handles R - Z, but on the morning of the murder, Hines came to him with enigmatic remarks. Hines did not cash a check. Helen has told him to not talk to her husband. He never had a key to her apartment. From twelve-thirty to one-thirty he was with Helen at a cafeteria, then he went home sick. That day and today are the only days he's taken off work. He refuses to answer if he followed Helen after lunch.
17.	The deputy sheriff brings Eva and Adelle into the courtroom. Mason draws Paul Drake aside and gives him his wallet with the hundred dollar bills, some letters (obviously including fake from Mae), and other identifying items and tells him to see that Gulling finds it in the men's room and that this is witnessed. The court clerk bangs his gavel and Judge Homer C Lindale enters. Samuel Dixon, radio-car officer, testifies to finding both defendants in the apartment. When he is asked if the defendants made any statements, Mason forces Gulling to state the statements are admissions, they were employed by Hines. Mason demands the corpus delicti be proven, so Helen Reedley is called, and she states she saw the body of Hines at the morgue. Mason then asks about her giving him a key to the apartment. Gulling objects to Mason putting on his case at this time and objects while the judge becomes frustrated, asks his own questions, particularly the reason why Helen's double was in the apartment. The murder was committed between one-fifty-five and two-fifteen Gulling offers, and Mason wants to follow Helen's movements up to that limit. Helen went to a restaurant to see Hines, but he didn't show. She called him at Carlotta Tipton's number and got no answer. She did give Hines five hundred dollars in hundreds and fifties. "There was not a single dollar of the money I gave Mr Hines that I had received from my husband," she asserts. Thomas Folsom of Interstate Investigators tells of seeing the defendants leave the Siglet Manor at two-eleven. At the Lorenzo Hotel, Adelle went out to the back and opened a garbage can and apparently dropped something into it. Mason pushes him into admitting that in his initial report he had said she only looked into the garbage can. Defensively he states that he is certain she dropped something into the can, even though he could not see either hand, but Mason makes his point. Sam Dixon testifies to finding the gun in the garbage can and delivering it and the can top to ballistics and fingerprint expert Alfred Korbel.
18.	Alfred Korbel testifies to finding no fingerprints on the gun, but Adelle Winters's on the underside of the garbage can handle. Mason shows him to be biased, because he didn't check any of the other fingerprints. It is obvious that garbage had been added after the gun was put in the can because the gun was inside the garbage. Mason points out that the Lorenzo Hotel dining room closes at one-forty-five and the last lot of garbage was deposited shortly before two. If no garbage was put in after two, then Winters did not put the gun in the can. Mason has checked and no garbage was deposited from two until seven-fifty. Judge Lindale adjourns for the day, admonishing the prosecution to look into this. Gulling then gives Mason a subpoena as two newspaper photographers snap the event.
19.	Mason tells Drake that he is worried that Mae is trying to protect him and if he tries to get himself off he'll hurt her. He says he planted his wallet to see how long Gulling would consider a "reasonable time." He thinks Winters is lying about the gun, that she never had it. He wonders why they went specifically to the Lorenzo, calls the desk clerk, who says that Winters worked in the Lorenzo Café for three months a little over a year ago. Perry says the last garbage was dumped at two-ten. This would give Winters an alibi, since she didn't get there until two-fifteen. Mason adds Clovis to the list of those who could have gone into the apartment, asks Drake to use a ruse to see if he has a key. Cora Felton, on the phone, says Aunt Adelle now says the wallet was there when she went back to the apartment. Mae Bagley shows up and is told by Mason to take Gulling's offer of total immunity and tell the truth. Della follows her and contradicts Mason. Cora arrives with the story that Adele kept the wallet because she's always had to fight for her living, and she told the police she found it before the murder. She was told by another prisoner that the police had put a stoolie in with her and she shared the truth and is now panic-stricken. As Mason heads to the Grand Jury, Drake confirms that Clovis had a key to a room at the Siglet Manor.
20.	Outside the Grand Jury room Mason again instructs Mae to take Gulling's offer and tell the truth. Mason stuns Gulling by saying, "Why, certainly," he did conceal Eva Martell at "a rooming house conducted by Mae Bagley." Not from the police, but newspaper reporters, he explains. Mason challenges Gulling to ask some questions of Arthur Clovis if he's interested in finding out about the murder to which he's being accused of being an accessory. The Grand Jury foreman takes an interest. A note comes from Della that the key Clovis had was to his apartment, now occupied by Carlotta Tipton. Mason continues, says Carlotta followed Hines to the Reedley apartment. Gulling says she was asleep, Mason says he has witnesses to a different statement. Gulling says he'll call Tipton and the foreman demands Mason stay; he's a lawyer and a good one, and he doesn't think Mason would lie. Tipton says she was asleep. Gulling says Mason cannot examine witnesses, so the foreman says, "angrily, 'Well, I can ask questions, and Mr Mason can talk to me." Carlotta now says she went to sleep at about five minutes before two and never saw Hines again. Mason gets his inspiration; the assumption has been that Hines was murdered between five of two and two-ten, "because at eleven minutes past two Adelle Winters left the apartment, carrying with her the gun with which Hines was killed." No, someone took "the gun out of the garbage can, used it, and put it back." Only two persons knew Adelle Winters had been seen there, Tom Folsom, Orville Reedley who got his report. The autopsy surgeon had placed the murder only between one and three. Reedley got the gun, took it to the apartment and shot Hines, then took the gun back to the garbage can, pushing it deep into the garbage. Fingerprints on the underside of the garbage-can cover will prove this.
21.	Back at the office, Mason explains to Drake and Street how Reedley committed the murder. He also planted the wallet after finding only four hundred and fifty dollars in it, which was hardly tempting, so he took that out and put in thirty-one hundred dollars. Gulling tried to prove Mason was caught in delaying presentation of the wallet as lost property, but it was not, it was abandoned property since Reedley left it there! Mason took fifteen hundred as fee, let Adelle keep the other sixteen hundred as a souvenir.

Perry Mason	Harry Cogswell	Richmell bell captain	Lt Tragg
Della Street	Richmell elevator operator	Plain clothes man	F L Nolan's wife
Maria Gonzales	Jasper Fenton	Richmell doorman	El Centro sheriff
Mr Newell	Callender's watchman	Another taxi driver	Turkish bath doorman
Maria's nephew	Paul Drake	A Drake shadow	Turkish bath attendant
Jose Campo Colina	Drake's El Centro operative	Rooming house landlady	Richmell switchboard operator
El Centro policeman	Frank Loring Nolan	Sergeant Dorset	Courtroon spectators
[Ramon Calles]	A taxi driver	Richmell night maid	Judge Donahue
Lois Fenton	Richmell house dick	Sidney Jackson Barlow	Jury
Cherie Chi-Chi, aka Irene Kilby	Frank Faulkner	Cigar stand girl	Hamilton Burger
Gertie	Harvey Julian	Another Drake shadow	Dr Jackson Lambert
John Callender	Bellboy	Elite-Acme stable owner	Freeman Gurley
Arthur Sheldon	Sam Meeker	Men unloading horse	[Gurley's wife]
Shamrock customers	Richmell front desk clerk	Stable boy	Sergeant Holcomb
Two hula dancers	"A droop" (later= Jasper)	"Starlight"	Bailiff
	Various police investigators	Elsie	A deputy sheriff

It is perhaps the right opportunity to discuss why my list of characters is so much longer than those which appear in the Pocket Book (Ballantine) reprints. The reprints list what some editor thinks are the prime characters. My listings include everyone who utters a line or is specifically mentioned in Erle Stanley Gardner's text. Any of these might be needed in a translation of the novel into an hour's television presentation. Those who are clearly "off-stage" are usually listed in brackets like so [xyz]. Occasionally, particularly in the earliest novels, I may err on the side of not listing the jury or courtroom spectators! If they are mentioned, I do so from here on.

The current mystery is a case in hand. In the first chapter alone, two speaking characters do not merit listing in the reprint Cast of Characters.

Erle Stanley Gardner shows his sympathy for and love of Mexicans in this novel.

1.	A big sedan rockets past the car Perry Mason was driving. Della thinks the car is going to hit another, and it sideswipes an old car which rolls over into the hot sand. Mexican Maria Gonzales does not speak English but a passer-by helps, identifies her, says her arm may be broken, and she lives with her nephew. They try to get her driver's license, but she replies "But I am not driving the car." (Nor is the car registered.) Another Mexican drives up, Jose Campo Colina, and he offers to drive Maria to the hospital. Mason gives his address to the two men. Mason searches the car, finds a fan-dancer's wardrobe in the trunk.
2.	An El Centro policeman says no accident has been reported. Mason tells Della to place an ad regarding lost property.
3.	Mason comes in to the office and Della informs him that they have an answer to his ad, a perfumed letter from Lois Fenton, alias Cherie Chi-Chi. She has lost a horse and is sending someone to him with a reward. Gertie announces John Callender, Fenton's agent, offers proof of identity and asks for the horse, shows Mason Fenton's letter describing the horse. Mason says "The property which I found does not exactly answer that description." Callender is angered, then remembers "The bullet wound . . . on the horse." Still not good enough. Arthur Sheldon arrives,is pleased Mason has not given the horse to Callender. He will have Lois at Mason's by ten-thirty the next day.
4.	Mason and Street go to Palomino to see Cherie Chi-Chi dance at "The Shamrock." A customer asks Della to dance; she declines. Cherie Chi-Chi does her fan dance, revealing "high, pointed breasts, a slender waist, smooth hips." Hula dancers follow. Miss Cherie joins Mason and Street. She identifies her horse, then when she learns Mason didn't find the horse, she identifies her wardrobe, which Mason goes to bring in, accompanied by Harry (Cogswell), the bouncer/waiter.
5.	Now Perry and Della go to the Richmell Hotel to see Arthur Sheldon. [Elevator operator is not mentioned here, but later, yet they ride the elevator.] They see Harry Cogswell going to Callender's room. Cherie is a ringer. The real Lois was trapped into marriage by John Callender who hired her brother, Jasper Felton, then set him up so that he forged two checks. She gave him a fair chance to make the marriage work, and the marriage wiped out her indebtedness for not prosecuting her brother. A week ago, someone rode into Callender's ranch on a horse, slipped into the office, opened the safe, was discovered, but got away. The watchman fired a bullet and hit the horse. Lois says the horse was stolen or strayed. He is watching Callender's room, has been in there a couple of times with a passkey he maid from a wax impression of the maid's key. Mason tells Sheldon to get out of the room immediately. Then he calls Paul Drake to put a shadow on Callender, then find the horse.
6.	Sheldon arrives at Mason's office. He insists he left as Mason required. He has nine hundred and eight-nine dollars. Mason takes half as a retainer to protect Lois, dates the receipt a day early, sends Della to Paul to get a shadow on Sheldon.
7.	Lois does not show up for her appointment. Drake has found the horse at a ranch owned by Frank Loring Nolan; the horse wandered in and Drake's operative in El Centro has the horse. Drake has maps of the area of the ranch. They find F L Nolan, and Jose Campo Colima, a mile and a half north of Nolan. As they enter the Richmell, Drake reports that 511 (Callender's room) was doing a land office business until three in the morning, and 510 (Sheldon) didn't check out until an hour after Mason called. His operative was in the mop closet, having squared himself with the house dick, until he could move into 510. The elevator operator takes the two up to the fifth floor. It is ten-thirty-five and there is a DO NOT DISTURB sign on 511. They knock, then Mason enters, finds Callender dead, a Japanese sword, the "handle and some even inches of the blade [standing] straight up, protruding from the body." Mason does a quick but thorough search of the suite including the closet, then joins Paul and his operatives in 510. Frank Faulkner has been on duty with Harvey Julian his replacement. A bellboy comes to 511 with coffee, opens the door, then runs down the corridor. Paul reports the murder to homicide. Faulkner gives a detailed report. He arrived at 2:16. Since 510 was not yet vacant, he hid in the mop closet on the same side of the hall as 510. 510 checked out at 3:02, he moved in about 3:10. The house dick, Sam Meeker, caught up with him about 2:35, covered in-between. The clerk gave him the room only when he took sheets with him. He saw 510 come out of 511 right after he got settled in the mop closet. At 2:23 an auburn-haired classy dish got out of the elevator with a violin case, went to 511, came out at 2:32. At 2:44 a droop came out of the elevator, went in to 511, came out within ten seconds. At 3:02 Sheldon left and he followed him to the lobby where he registered in 510. When he returned, there was a DO NOT DISTURB sign on 511. Mason notices "two oily cleansing tissues with some red on them in the waste basket, takes them." He then uses the ruse of going to the men's room to get by the stationed plain clothes man and exit the hotel, where a doorman asks "Taxi?"
8.	Mason takes a taxi to East Lagmore, walks to 791 where Sheldon is now registered. Mason confronts Sheldon with the woman who was in his room. It was Lois Felton, who was there when Mason arrived, but left right after Mason. Sheldon was going to join her but she was not in the lobby. He surmised she'd met her brother, who had an appointment with Callender, and were somewhere talking. He went back to his room, waited and waited, then crossed over to 511. He told Callender, who didn't know who he was, that he wanted to see Jason Fenton, whom he knew had an appointment. He left in a few minutes. When informed that Callender is dead, he begins packing.
9.	Mason leaves the rooming house, pauses until he sees Drake's shadow follow Sheldon. Mason goes back in, summons the landlady. She didn't rent any room after three-thirty in the morning, but a room was paid for anonymously after that. They go to the room. An auburn-haired woman has been there. A few white streamers from an ostrich plume were in a wastebasket, held to the sides by a red clot. Mason takes the feathers.
10.	Drake reports that Sgt Dorset headed the murder investigation. They are sure Sheldon hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on Callender's door. The woman who came in at two-twenty-three had an appointment and identified herself as Lois Fenton to the house dick. A maid saw her leaving earlier, when Callender said "It's good-by, then." The police also found a bloodstained imprint of an ostrich feather fan on the wall. Mason and Della create a schedule; 1:20 a.m. Harry, the waiter, into the room ---- a.m. Harry leaves ---- a.m. Woman into room 2:00 a.m. Woman leaves ---- a.m. Sheldon into room 2:21 a.m. Sheldon leaves 2:23 a.m. Girl giving name of Lois Fenton enters room 2:33 a.m. Leaves 2:44 a.m. Young man enters room 2:44-10 sec. a.m. Young man leaves 3:20 a.m. Sheldon checks out Gertie brings in Cherie Chi-Chi. She says she came into town, with Harry, right after Mason left her. She saw Callender shortly before two in the morning. Callender said Mason had pulled the wool over her eyes and he did have the horse. He was in good health when she left and a maid saw her leave. She admits getting Lois to agree for her to use Lois's name and reputation to get into fan dancing herself. When Lois wanted to go back to dancing, Cherie resisted, but Lois took a dating in Brawley. Callender came to her about the horse and gave her two hundred fifty dollars to write the letter to Mason. When Mason asks her about returning to Callender's room at two-twenty she denies being there. Earlier she had walked down instead of using the elevator. Drake calls to get instructions of what to do with the horse and, since Cherie is in the office, he plays a game to get the horse stabled near town and Cherie shadowed. Della returns to tell how she talked with the girl as the cigar stand, then talked to Cherie on the way out, to tip off Drake's shadow.
11.	Gertie is having fits, as the real Lois Fenton arrives, looking almost identical in dress and figure to Cherie. She admits she was in the room when Mason called on Arthur. After Mason left, she confronted Callender, telling him nothing he could do to her or Jasper would make her change her mind about leaving him. When she left, he said "I guess it's good-by then" and a maid saw them. She didn't return to the Richmell at two-twenty. Yes, she has a violin case. She thinks the horse was stolen. She gave Irene Kilby permission to use her name but to switch to Cherie Chi-Chi as quickly as possible, then drop Fenton. When she decided to go back to work, she contacted Barlow and got Cherie's bookings. She was going to go early to one, put on a show, then when Cherie showed up and did her show, everyone would know who was the fake. But Cherie beat her to Palomino. Mason suggests they go to the horse and she stay there, to be out of circulation.
12.	Mason, Drake and Fenton go to ELITE-ACME CONSOLIDATED STABLES AND RIDING ACADEMY and reclaim Starlight from the stable owner. The horse is unloaded by two men and a stable boy, and he minces over to Lois. She will stay at a nearby auto court.
13.	Mason goes to Sidney Jackson Barlow's office, is greeted by a blonde named Elsie. Mason suggests Barlow is guilty of fraud in connection with Cherie Chi-Chi. Elsie brings the file on Lois Fenton and a comparison of older plus recent photos proves Cherie is not Lois. Mason demands Cherie meet him at Barlow's in an hour. In a drug store he calls Della to let her know he's being shadowed, but will slip him. He expects Lt Tragg will then visual Barlow.
14.	Mason goes to Frank Loring Nolan's ranch. Nolan says the sheriff has told him there are things he shouldn't talk about. Mason gets the things he can. The horse just wandered in. He checked the horses responses; like a western horse, when the reins are on the grounds, he'll just stand still. When he fired a gun, the horse ran off scared. Mason speaks to Nolan's suspicious wife, gives her fifty dollars to do all the talking about the horse in the future. Mason drives to Campo's place, sees Maria Gonzales, arm in sling, disappear into the house. Campo tells a tale of Harry Cogswell and Cherie Chi-Chi bringing him the horse and fans. The horse disappeared before he could take it to the sheriff, and the fans disappeared after the accident.
15.	Mason confronts Lois Fenton at the auto court. She has concealed being in Arthur Sheldon's hotel. He had registered before Mason told him to go there, as room for Jasper Fenton, who then didn't turn up. Arthur found bloodied fans in the room and she washed them, then took them into the country and buried them. Mason tells her she must surrender to the police. She goes into the bathroom to make up her face, climbs out the window and drives away in Mason's car.
16.	Mason swears that he's dropping Lois as a client, then goes to a Turkish bath, jokes with the doorman, is brought a phone call from Della by the bath attendant. She reads the newspaper headline; "Murder Suspect Apprehended Escaping in Lawyer's Automobile&emdash;Attorney May Be Charged as Accomplice&emdash;Suspect Identified by Witnesses as Last Person to See Callender Alive . . ."
17.	Paul Drake, as he often does, tells Perry Mason he should have Lois "cop a plea" to get himself off. Witnesses identify Lois as the woman who went into the room around twenty minutes past two, when the house dick can swear he spoke to Callender on the phone. It was Jasper Fenton, "hopped up on a couple of marijuana cigarettes," who tried to break into Callender's safe, riding a horse who he turned loose and hitchhiked back to Brawley. Jasper was at Callender's at two-forty-five. The sword was Callender's. The Richmell switchboard operator says no call went to Sheldon after 1:30.
18.	The courtroom is filled with spectators, Judge Donahue notes that the jury has been sworn and the District Attorney (Hamilton Burger) calls Doctor Jackson Lambert, the autopsy surgeon, who fixes death as between 1:30 and 3:00 o'clock in the morning. He found two ostrich plumes near the wound. Freeman Gurley testifies to seeing the defendant bury something on his property. On cross, Mason shows that Gurley did not so easily see the fan being buried because his wife had his binoculars most of the time and he had to look through two dirty panes of glass. Doctor Lambert is recalled now to identify the feathers, by color, context and composition. Mason destroys this line item by item: color, white; context, compared only with the one fan; context, fan cut with any knife. Sam Meeker testifies to stopping the defendant in the Richmell Hotel lobby and going to the house phone; he called Callender and as soon as he heard "hello" he gave the phone to the defendant. She spoke to him and he didn't hear her reply. She left about 2:33. At 2:35 he went to the fifth floor, changed places with Faulkner just after three. Then Faulkner testifies much the same, only Jason Sheldon came and went at 2:44. On cross, it comes out that Faulkner saw the defendant twice in the shadow box. Faulkner reports that Sgt Dorset was not satisfied and there was an argument and the defendant was brought in again. Court adjourns for the evening. Mason speaks to Lois about the fan, which she says is hers, but which he gave to Cherie Chi-Chi. She admits she was in the box twice, but was not sulky.
19.	Drake explains to Mason how his operative lost Cherie Chi-Chi and Mason thinks it was intentional on the part of the police. The police fell for the trick at Barlow's, picked up Irene as Lois. Faulkner joins them, says the police have Cherie Chi-Chi. A half hour after court adjourned, Sgt Holcomb paraded Cherie for them, to be sure they wouldn't later mistake her for Lois.
20.	The bailiff calls the court to order. Mason asks the court to have Irene Kilby produced by the prosecution because she was the one identified as Lois Fenton. Jasper Fenton admits he was at Callender's at 2:44, that Callender was hounding his sister, that he was the one who rode the horse and opened the safe. A deputy sheriff gives Burger the eye and Irene Kilby enters walking stiffly. Mason asks her to walk with a swing in her hips but Burger objects. Meeker refuses to identify her as the one he saw. Mason challenges Burger to put her on the stand as his material witness. Burger wants to know why Irene Kilby impersonated Lois Fenton; she fooled Barlow. Mason, using this opening for cross-examination, asks her about her being picked up as Lois Fenton at Barlow's. He explains to Judge Donahue that it was she who was identified absolutely by Meeker and Faulkner as the person they'd seen at the Richmell Hotel at 2:23. The police showed the two witnesses Kilby, then substituted Fenton on the second viewing. The judge demands that the police indicate who was put in the shadow box and when. The court wants to adjourn for the day, but Mason demands only a short recess.
21.	Irene Kilby says she gave the fans Mason gave her to Harry Cogswell, who gave then to John Callender who went to the Richmell Hotel about 1:20. Mason gets her to admit she was the one who entered Callender's apartment at 2:23, when Callender was already dead. Mason now points out that Arthur Sheldon was the one who answered the telephone call when Meeker called. Mason asks for a dismissal or adjournment, gets the latter.
22.	Mason explains to Drake how he solved the case. Sheldon left the room in a panic and put his DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, so as to delay the discovery of the murder he knew had been committed. The delay was foiled by Callender's having ordered coffee in advance. Callender opened the fan with the murderer in front of him, the murderer saw the Japanese sword, picked it up, and thrust it through the fan. Kilby was in the room so long because she was looking for the agreement with Fenton, which would force her to give up her impersonation. It was in the handle of the Japanese knife! Mason left the forged checks in the handle, for Burger to discover. Mason thinks the circumstances will help Jasper; he took the bloodied fan to Sheldon's room. He will get manslaughter only, because he was being blackmailed.

ENDNOTE; Come on! If you cannot figure this one out, you'll never beat Perry Mason to the solution. At least you should discover early on where the problems lie and what must be the solution behind them. First is the phone call to Callender by the Richmell house detective, Sam Meeker. He says he called Callender, but did Callender answer? He handed the phone to Lois or Irene after only a "hello." So, of course, it wasn't Callender, for he was already dead. Second; always assume Mason's client is telling the truth until she (okey, at times it is he) admits otherwise (and then don't trust her second story too far). Here we have Irene and Lois telling the same story. Each came out of the room and was observed by the maid, neither was there at 2:23. Well, if Lois is telling the truth, then Irene was not observed by the maid, Lois was, and Lois was not there at 2:23, Irene was. Given this, Irene picked up the phone and talked with the person who answered. By now, we can narrow the murder down to Jasper Fenton, Arthur Sheldon and Harry Cogswell. Whomever it is must have motive, means, opportunity. Work on that. Now, consider the shadow box. The first "Lois" hung her head. Lois says she didn't. We know Irene was arrested first. 2+2 = Irene was in the box first because they thought they had, in her, the real Lois, then they discovered the real and brought her in the second time for Meeker and Faulkner to identify. They really saw Irene at 2:23. You should at least get this far before Mason springs the identity of the murderer on you, the reader.

Della Street	C E Pawling	Keith's shadows
Perry Mason	A secretary	P E Overstreet
Lola Faxon Allred.	Maurine Milford	Motorcycle officer
Bertrand C Allred	Parking lot attendant	Night janitor
Cashier, Farmers, Merchants & Mechanics Bank	Garage workman	Prince, the dog
Gertie	Night garage man	Bernice Archer
Robert Gregg Fleetwood	Night desk man	Leighton, gas station attendant
Patricia Faxon	[Allred's servants]	Long distance operator
John Bagley	[Three hitchiker drivers]	Sheriff
George Jerome	[Taxi driver]	Bert Humphreys
Dixon Keith	Lt Tragg	D T Danvers
Mervin Canby	Frank Inman	Judge Colton
Paul Drake	A plain-clothes officer	Autopsy surgeon
	Drake's night operator	Police laboratory expert

1.	Della Street opened an envelope with a check on the Farmers, Merchants & Mechanics Bank for two thousand five hundred dollars, payable to Perry Mason and signed –Lola Faxon Allred." When Mason arrives, he studies the check, notes that a letter was once attached. Bertrand C Allred is in mining, and is slick, notes the attorney. Mason phones; when Allred answers, Mason say to tell his wife that he is just "checking." Gertie then brings a special delivery, with a check similarly signed and for the same amount, but on the First National Bank at Las Olitas. Mason sends Della Street to deposit the checks.
2.	Della reports that the cashier at the Farmers, Merchants & Mechanics Bank was given a jolt by her request to examine the checks. He checked only the signatures. Gertie sends Bertrand Allred in; he wants to know what Mason knows, is certain Mason knows how to reach his wife, who has deserted him for Robert Gregg Fleetwood, tho Fleetwood seemed enamored of Patricia Faxon, Lola's daughter by a prior marriage, who is also loved by John Bagley. Allred and partner George Jerome traded the White Horse Mine to Dixon Keith. When it turned out that the mine they got was valuable, Keith wanted it back, but he had visited the White Horse, so has no claim of fraud. Allred wants Mason to get Fleetwood back to testify to this.
3.	Mervin Canby, Farmers, Merchants & Mechanics Bank president, calls to state the second check is a forgery over a carbon of the first. A wire from Lola Faxon Allred confirming her check asks Mason to protect her daughter Patricia. This is enough for Canby whom, Mason notes, will accept a telegram with typewritten signature.
4.	Paul Drake is instructed by Perry Mason to find Lola Allred. If he finds Patricia, fake a newspaper reporter.
5.	Mason goes to Las Olitas and its First National Bank where C E Pawling, the president, is told of the forgery. A secretary provides the latest on Allred's account, including a letter directing $5000 be paid Maurine Milford on demand. Pawling gets a description of Milford for Mason. Mason compares the signatures on the note with that on the forged check, finds the forged one was carboned from the note. At the parking lot, an attendant recognizes Milford's description and Mason forwards her car description to Drake, who has found where Fleetwood and Allred stayed.
6.	Drake has found the Chrysler lady. George Jerome tells Mason he wants to see Fleetwood first because he wants him on his side if he buys out Allred, and will pay a thousand dollars if Mason brings this about. Drake reports that the Chrysler lady is Maurine Milford and lives in a Las Olitas apartment.
7.	A garage workman at the Warwick Hotel Apartments shows Mason a banged-up Lincoln, which belongs to a friend of Maurine Milford, but is registered to Patricia Faxon. Mason confronts Maurine/Patricia. She is incredulous when she discovers she's been discovered, by Perry Mason. She explains that both Allreds took Fleetwood, whom she hit driving out of their driveway, to get rest to overcome his amnesia and to get him away to avoid Jerome and Keith. Mason suggests that it was not her car that hit Fleetwood, but it was set up to appear so.
8	Patricia Faxon phones Mason; Allred has given her the slip. Mason sends her to her apartment. He then gets Drake to focus his search closer in, and Drake finds the Snug-Rest Auto Court. Mason picks up Drake and speeds off to Springfield
9.	Drake and Mason find the Snug-Rest cabin. It is empty except for cigarette butts, glasses with still unmelted ice, no ice, no luggage.
10.	Back at the Warwick the night garage man lets Mason await Patricia's return. When she arrives, Mason wants to know why she took so long, but Mrs Allred arrives, having fooled the night desk man about her residency. She states she went to a motel with Bob Fleetwood, expecting her husband to arrive soon. Fleetwood, drunk, skipped. Allred's servants, who sleep over the garage, didn't answer the phone. She hitchhiked back with three drivers and a taxi. Patricia admits she went searching for her mother, found the cabin empty. Lieutenant Tragg and Frank Inman arrive and inform everyone that a car was found at the bottom of a canyon, locked in low gear, with Bob Fleetwood in it, dead. Lola admits to being in a cabin with Fleetwood, who skipped. Tragg then says there is blood in the trunk of her auto. A plain-clothes officer speaks to Tragg; it is not Fleetwood, but Bertrand Allred who is dead. As Mason is ushered out, he warns Mrs Allred of her rights. Mason gets the night clerk to point him to the phone, and then gets Drake's night operator to pass on info regarding the death. Mason plays a trick to meet Tragg, Inman, Faxon and Mrs Allred getting on the elevator so that he can coach her.
11.	Drake reports that the car went off the road within five miles of the Snug-Rest. Allred had a key to the cabin, but no gun. The car clock and Allred's watch stopped at eleven-ten. Dixon Keith explains to Mason how a car can be started in high gear. He bargains to get Mason to plant a line of thinking in Fleetwood's head if he finds him. By phone through Della, Drake lets Mason know he's being shadowed. Mason preps Gertie to play Fleetwood's wife, then explains how he will give the slip to the shadows.
12.	At Gertie's, Mason, Street and the receptionist await Drake's phone call. The call comes, and they are off deep into a side road in the mountains There they meet P E Overstreet, who produces Fleetwood. Gertie plays the wife and Fleetwood is trapped into going with the three. Mason traps him into showing he has no amnesia, and advises him how to behave when he regains his memory. When a motorcycle officer pulls them over, Mason has him escort them to police headquarters.
13.	Mason wakes Paul, has him get a man to headquarters to pick up info. Then he offers Tragg help, if he can see Mrs Allred. He confronts Lola, who sticks to her story and is told to "Sing like a skylark" to Tragg the next morning. He warns her that her husband found the unconscious Fleetwood, probably thought he was dead.
14.	The night janitor tells Mason that Drake came in fifteen or twenty minutes before, and Drake's switchboard girl motions Mason into the office. Fleetwood still claims to have just regained his memory, called his girl, Bernice Archer. Just a routine call, which bothers Mason. As they approach Archer's apartment house, they see George Jerome, "a big brute" as described by Drake, driving away. They introduce themselves to Bernice, who very quickly gets their number. She's known Bob for six months, and he's had amnesia before. She went out the night before to pick up a girl friend with whom she spent the night. She suggests Mason get rid of Mrs Allred as a client. She calls headquarters, gets Tragg, and chases Mason and Drake out. Mason tells Drake to trace every movement of Archer. Drake states Overbrook mortgaged his property a year ago due to an unfortunate investment, so "he won't spend a nickel for anything except his dog"
15.	Drake reports that Fleetwood made a phone call to Archer at a gas station while Mrs Allred was in the rest room. The long distance call didn't go through before Lola returned. The gas station attendant, Leighton, hung up on the operator when connection was made after four minutes. At headquarters, Mason helps Tragg crack Fleetwood's alibi. Fleetwood gives a full story after admitting he didn't have amnesia. He was in a spot with Allred who had been gypping Jerome. Allred discovered he knew, and believes he was "smacked" on his head with a blackjack. Allred framed Patricia Faxon. When he returned to consciousness he decided to play amnesiac, which would get him off the hook with Jerome and give Allred a chance to deal with Jerome. Allred sent him off with his wife, eventually to the Snug-Rest. Allred met the two at the motel, told his wife climb into the trunk. When she resisted, he hit her and bloodied her nose. At gunpoint, he was forced into the car and told to drive in low gear. He used low gear to render Allred unconscious, even hitting him over the head with his gun. Then he remembered Overbrook, and that there was correspondence in the office between Overbrook and Allred, who had apparently trimmed the farmer. He "drove up to within a quarter of a mile of Overbrook's place and swung off the road." Mrs Allred had used a jack handle to unlatch the trunk lid and just as soon as the car stopped, jumped out and ran. He wanted to leave Allred so he could recover consciousness and drive himself home. He got out of the car, threw the gun as far as he could, and headed to the sound of the barking dog, stayed overnight with Overbrook. Tragg gets a phone call from a sheriff and takes over the questioning. Tracks have been discovered. Fleetwood was in the headlights when he threw the gun. He'd called to the fleeing Lola that her husband was unconscious. Tracks show that the fleeing woman returned. Tragg is certain Mrs Allred returned, clubbed her husband to death, drove the car away and off the road. Mason is denied a chance to further examine Fleetwood.
16.	Mrs Allred says she told Tragg nothing, and her story is the truth.
17.	Drake brings his operative, Bert Humphreys, to Mason. Bert explains the tracks around the car [this is the first time in a Perry Mason mystery that a full page is devoted to a drawing, with the back not printed]. It shows Fleetwood's tracks to Overbrook's house, Overbrook's tracks following Fleetwood's trail, woman's tracks to and from car, and dog tracks. It seems to support Fleetwood's story. Mason notes that the tracks identify a woman, not specifically Mrs Allred.
18.	Assistant district attorney D T "D Tail" Danvers greets Mason and Judge Colton calls the court to order. The autopsy surgeon testifies admits he cannot be certain the death was not caused by Allred's hitting his head rather than being hit. A police laboratory expert testifies to the blood found in the trunk. It is type O, which is found in nearly half the population as well as the defendant. Fleetwood testifies, repeating the story told to Mason and Tragg. He had wanted to go back and check the car, but Overbrook's dog was stationed outside his door so he could not get out. He phoned a message to Jerome, with whom he was "working hand-in-glove," while at the motel. Overbrook testifies that he thought Fleetwood was hot. He went to sleep, letting Prince, his dog, guard Fleetwood. Then Mason and a lady came and got Fleetwood. Only the next morning did he back-track Fleetwood's tracks. He walked up to his farm road, got a tractor and took wood to lay down a path next the tracks. He called the sheriff. On the night Fleetwood was at his house, he was not around Fleetwood all the time. His dog is loyal and accompanies him wherever he goes except when he's "got some job for him to do . . . Aside from that [his] dog's with [him] all the time." Danvers rests the prosecution's case. Mason asks to call Jerome. Over many objections, Mason learns only that Jerome saw Allred about half-past six the night of the murder when he took him to a car rental, and he did receive a message from Fleetwood telling him "not to make any settlement with Allred until [he] talked with Fleetwood." As court adjourns for the noon hour, Mrs Allred confers with her attorney. She now admits it is much as Fleetwood says, she "had Pat to think of." She found her husband dead when she got to the car. She realized the significance of footprints only when she was back at the car. She drove the car off the road to make it look like her husband had lost control.
19.	Mason, Street and Drake are having lunch. Drake suggests Fleetwood hit Allred so hard with the gun that he knew the man was dead, or he would not have thrown the gun, the murder weapon, away. Mason still thinks Allred was alive when Fleetwood went to Overbrook. Mason looks at the diagram Humphreys had given him, begins to chuckle.
20.	Mason tells Judge Colton he can "exonerate this defendant and definitely refute Fleetwood's testimony." Mason asks Overbrook about the woman's tracks. How does he know the tracks from the car were made before the tracks back to the car? Since there is nothing to show when these tracks were made, the same is true of his tracks. Then, how come the dog accompanied Overbrook from the car to the road, but not from his house to the car? The answer is that the dog was not with Overbrook, because he was guarding Fleetwood. Overbrook confesses (the first Perry Mason case won by a courtroom confession). Yes, he found Allred, whom he hated, already dead, and drove the car off the road. He used the boards the next morning to lay down the additional tracks, completing the connection.
21.	Mason explains that Bernice Archer, who had talked with Fleetwood, went back to the site, walked to where the car had been parked, used a pole to jump the space between the car door and the trunk, walked back to the road, thus making it look like Mrs Allred had been in the trunk, and so forth. He presumes that Overbrook found Allred regaining consciousness, started to drive him to the hospital, discovered who it was, argued, hit him over the head when Allred made a grab at him. He then put him in the trunk, which accounts for the blood there, but realized this wouldn't work, so took him out, put him in the driver's seat, and pushed the car off the road. Further, Allred wanted to murder Fleetwood, and made two tries. Mrs Allred believed Patricia had hit Fleetwood, and was protecting her. She changed her story when it seemed the best way out. They call it "The Case of the Lazy Lover" because, instead of taking control of things, Fleetwood let Mrs Allred doing all the running around.