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Arlene Ferris	Cabbie	Dr Harmon C Draper
Office manager George Quincy Albert	Jerome Henley	Mrs Arthur Sparks
Jarvis P Lamont	Parking lot attendant	Peter Lyons
Loring Lamont	Stereo hi-fi salesman	Other officers
Jarvis's private secretary . . . Edith Bristol	Jim Billings	Ralph Grave
Perry Mason	Tragg's driver	Lamont receptionist
Della Street	Hamilton Burger	George Banning
2nd vice president at Lamont	Sadie Richmond	Kelsington Apartments manager, Bertha Anderson
Paul Drake	Otto Keswick	Woman bank person
Madge Elwood	Pool man	Bank manager
Lamont guard (Tom Grimes)	Orval Kingman	Exclusive shoe store manager
Lt Tragg	Donald Enders Carson	Loring's tailor
Plain-clothes officer	Judge Carleton Bayton	Lamont switchboard operator

This is the 100th book by Erle Stanley Gardner.

For a change, Erle Stanley Gardner dedicates this book to a San Antonio, Texas attorney who is a member of the board of investigators and one of counsel of the Court of Last Resort, Park Street. As of 1959 Mr Street was opening a "Perry Mason Room" in his suite of law offices. This dedication was typed in Park Street's Perry Mason Room.

One.	It had started to rain in the morning, so Arlene Ferris bundled herself in her raincoat when she parked her car in the Lamont Rolling, Casting and Engineering lot. At quitting time she continued working on letters she knew needed to go out that night. When she brought the finished work to George Albert, office manager, he thank her "very much." It was now a cold drizzle and when Arlene tried to start her car, she got only the grind of the battery-driven starter. Suddenly a cheerful voice ask "What's the matter" and the man tries to help her, but finds she's not getting any spark. He offers to take her home. He is the son of Jarvis P Lamont, owner of the company - Loring Lamont. He starts out for her place and they exchange names. Then he remembers that he has some papers to deliver for his old man. He's "got to come back to town" after the delivery, but it is not far in his car with its big motor. They drive fifteen minutes on the freeway, then some distance on country roads, to the company's country place. He leaves Arlene in the car while he goes to make the delivery, but no one is there, so he suggests Arlene come inside. He makes her a martini then, when old Jarvis P on the phone says the guy will be much later and Lamont must hand deliver the papers, he suggests she make biscuits and he'll get out ham and eggs and they can have dinner there. While they are eating, the phone rings and he comes back and takes her in his arms and kisses her hard on the lips. She tries to push him away and his mask of polite affability disappears. He suggests she not "be a prude." He says that Jarvis's private secretary got his job, out of the secretarial pool, because of him. She says she thinks he had this all planned out from the start. He says he's been crazy about her ever since he got back from South America, and he lifted a part of the distributor out of her car so he could happen along at "just the psychological moment." She "may as well yield to the inevitable with good grace." She demands that he take her home. She tries to grab his car keys, has to fight him off, flings a chair at him, grabs her raincoat and runs out, crawls thru the barbed-wire fence. Then she sees Loring following her in his car, coming to a stop where she veered off the road. He gets out, starts following her tracks in the wet dirt. "Loring Lamont had made one fatal error. He had left the headlights on, the motor running, the key in the ignition lock." She dashes to the car, and drives away with Lamont running after her. She has initial difficulty with the power driving the (automatic transmission of the) car, and handling power steering. She drove to her apartment, changed wet for dry clothes, looked up Loring Lamont's address, and drove his car there, parking it next a fireplug. She took a taxi home.
Two.	Arlene debates what to do all morning long, then, about noon, she phones Perry Mason, gets Della Street, and makes an appointment for two-thirty. At one-thirty there is a ripple of excitement that causes Jarvis P Lamont to look as though his world had caved in, and the second vice president chases after Lamont. About two, Arlene goes to the office manager and asks for time off, and gets an hour and a half.
Three.	Once she finishes her story, Mason wants to know what it is she wants from him. Mainly to teach Loring a lesson, she says. She explains that Edith Bristol, private secretary to Jarvis P Lamont, got her job thru Loring. Mason calls in Paul Drake, tells him he wants to get the goods on Loring, and learns that Loring has been murdered. He orders Drake out, tells Arlene to get herself fired and then go to a friend, whom she identifies as Madge Elwood, to whom she's already told her tale.
Four.	Paul Drake reports on the Lamont Rolling, Casting and Engineering company. It has some classified work, and every car going in is carefully inspected by a guard to make sure it has the company sticker. He suggests that it won't be long before Lt Tragg figures that the girl who left with Loring about five-forty-five worked at the company and figures out who she was. Mason speaks to Madge Elwood on the phone, telling her not to let Arlene know to whom she's talking. He gets her to meet him at Arlene's apartment where she puts on a skirt of Arlene's out of which Mason cuts a bit of the hem. They then slip down the stairs just as Lt Tragg arrives with a plain-clothes officer. They smoke most of a pack of cigarettes down to stubs, then Mason sends Madge out of the building with instructions regarding whether or not there is a police car there. She does not return and when Mason leaves, the police car is gone.
Five.	Mason gets Della to put on high heels and drives her out to the Lamont country place. They find the hole in the fence and Mason has Della hold her skirt tight, lifts her, and she slides down the slope in the wet dirt. Mason hangs the bit of Arlene's hem on the fence. He's just experimenting, of course. Subtracting evidence is illegal, but adding it is not! Mason photographs the evidence. Back at his office he calls Paul Drake in after picking up photographic enlargements of Madge Elwood. He asks Drake to take these to the guard at the Lamont company and ask him if he can identify the woman. They agree that the weakest, faultiest evidence is personal identification.
Six.	Paul and Della are already in Mason's office when the attorney arrives at eight-thirty. The detective has been unable to reach the Lamont guard. Lt Tragg, however, has already discovered a distributor part in Loring's pocket, then found that Arlene Ferris had n identical part replaced. Ferris had time off, and didn't take her car, so they found she'd come to Perry Mason from the cabbie. The searched her apartment, found a skirt with a bit torn, then found the torn part on the fence around the Lamont country place. A Jerome Henley saw a woman park Loring's car next a fire plug about ten or ten-thirty. There is a police car parked at a fireplug across the street, obviously waiting for Mason. Perry has Della call Madge and set up a staged event.
Seven.	Mason goes to the parking lot and greets the attendant, moves his car out near the exit. Madge drives in, gives her car to the attendant, hops in Mason's car. They drive to Henley's place of business and ask a stereo hi-fi salesman of Mr Henley knows a Jim Billings. Henley comes out, starts to offer Mason service and price when Lt Tragg interrupts. Henley, having previously been shown photos of Madge, quickly identifies her to Tragg as the woman getting out of the car. Tragg greets her as Miss Arlene Ferris, and Mason corrects him, introducing Madge Elwood. Henley asserts she is the girl. Tragg is forced by Mason to let the lawyer stay with Madge as he and his driver go to a bungalow, where Tragg brings a man who seems to look over the car. Tragg takes the two back to the hi-fi stereo store. Mason then drives Madge back to the bungalow. Tom Grimes, the Lamont guard, is the man, and he says he cannot absolutely identify the girl.
Eight.	Drake informs Mason that the police have picked up Arlene. Mason calls Hamilton Burger to get cooperation in seeing Arlene as soon as the police come in with her. Burger wants to know why she hadn't come to the police to tell them she'd been with Loring, and Mason counters with a question of when she learned there had been a murder. Drake knows Loring was killed almost immediately after he ate, and thinks a young woman and he ate together. There is a caretaker, Sadie Richmond, and a yard man, Otto Keswick, and a pool man, each of which has a key. Della, Paul and Perry drive out to the place, stop at Sadie Richmond's. Mason offers her twenty-dollars, then another, and another, and another. Then he explains he's the lawyer for the accused, and only wants to see the place. She relents, and drives her old-model likity-split down the dirt road, hits the brakes in time to stop and unlock the gate without skidding into the swimming pool. She notes that J P Lamont is a good cook, but like all men leaves lots of dirty dishes. Lamont partied for two. In his search Mason finds a strange check book, with a check written to Orval Kingman the day of the murder, and another marked OK right after. Sadie marks bills to be paid with OK. Sadie doesn't like this, chases them out. Mason uses a 35 mm camera and close-up attachments to photograph the stubs, then gives the checkbook back to Sadie. He notes that either Lamont or someone else living in the Endicott Apartments wrote the checks.
Nine.	Mason has just heard everything from Arlene, who told Lt Tragg all she knew. Mason asks her about cars she passed on the way out, since someone ate ham and eggs with Loring shortly after she left. She remembers that Loring pressed his advances after a call in which he said "Okay" many times. Mason wonder if this was not O K. Back at his office, O K becomes Orval Kingman, then Otto Keswick when Paul Drake joins them. Mason thinks Drake should check bank tellers about the O K check.
Ten	Douglas Enders Carson tells the Court that the People of the State of California are ready for the preliminary hearing against Arlene Ferris. Judge Carleton Bayton tells him to call the first witness and autopsy surgeon Dr Harmon C Draper says he doesn't know at what time Loring died, but it was within twenty minutes of his ingesting ham and eggs. George Quincy Albert identifies the body. He states the defendant has been with the company for about two months, and was placed on the payroll at the specific instruction of Loring Lamont. Jerome Henley identifies Arlene as the woman he saw, saying he was mistaken when he identified Madge Elwood. He explains how he was tricked. He was "Mistakenly positive" in his earlier identification. He doesn't know what time he saw the defendant, but it felt ten o'clockish. Thomas Grimes testifies to seeing Arlene go out with Loring. Mason determines, bit by bit from the speed of the car to the size of the window thru which he was looking that he saw her for less than a fifth of a second. Only after he saw a photo of the defendant did his identification become certain. Otto Keswick says he keeps the Lamont place in shape. He discovered Lamont when he saw the door open and walked in. What did Lamont call him? Otto. Ever "O K?" No. He gets free rent and works by the hour, sometimes a few, other days a lot. He gives his time slips to Sadie Richmond and she marks them "O K" and puts them in the deck and eventually he gets a check. His alibi; he was watching TV with a Mrs Sparks. Officer Peter Lyons is called and it is suggested his testimony can be stipulated into evidence. Mason allows it to be stipulated that Officer Lyons gave one ticket, about nine. It is further stipulated that other officers came on at midnight and gave two more tickets before the car was towed away at three. The judge thinks this concludes the prosecution's case, but Carson says he has one more witness, Lt Tragg, whose testimony will be conclusive. Court adjourns until the afternoon. Mason tells Arlene that things are going better than expected, but he thinks she'll be bound over to Superior Court. He thinks, if she behaves, he can get a quick trial and acquittal. She asks if Jarvis P Lamont has said she's "a liar and adventuress" and Mason says "its a wonderful thing in [her] favor." He will "encourage the press to exploit it." Mason joins Madge, Paul and Della, says he thinks that Henley was so mad he's been tricked that he blurted out some admissions that can be used later. Because of the parking ticket, Mason says Henley must have seen Arlene leave the car before nine, and it wasn't ticketed again until after midnight. "Why didn't Lyons tag it again?" Mason suggests that Drake pursue this, as well as Keswick's alibi with Mrs Sparks. Orval Kingman comes up to Mason, says he doesn't like people looking into his back side, that it might not be good for their health. Mason says his health is excellent, Kingman should watch out for his. His alibi is that he was in a poker game. Mason draws a scenario where Kingman stuck a knife in Loring while trying to collect $500, but Kingman counters with why would he kill a customer. Then Mason suggests he and Loring at the ham and eggs and he left with a $500 check. Mason tells Kingman he'll check on the game, quietly. He thinks Kingman may have spoken on the phone to Loring, but the bookie says Loring never used initials, called him Orval. Mason gives Kingman a subpoena, says he must appear unless he gives him the names of the others in the game. Kingman provides five names, says Loring won, but now can't get his winnings. They shake hands, part friends, and Della confirms her belief that the bookie was honest.
Eleven.	Paul Drake catches Mason as the latter is entering the courtroom for the afternoon session. The police report is accurate regarding Loring's car. Mason immediately asks the right to cross-examine officer Peter Lyons, but he is not in the courtroom and the prosecutor objects strenuously, even tries to withdrawn the stipulated testimony, but the judge rules that Mason has the right of cross. In the meantime, Lt Tragg is called. He testifies to finding a part of the distributor in Loring's pocket, one exactly like that replaced in Miss Ferris's car the next morning. He then testifies to Arlene's confession, witnessed by Ralph Grave. He ends indicating she said she returned the car to the fireplug about eight-fifteen. They found the defendant's fingerprints on the steering wheel. Back at the Loring Company property they found planted evidence, including a piece of a skirt which matched the skirt found in Arlene's apartment, and of size to fit the defendant. There were planted high heel marks inside the fence, but not outside. Mason examines on voir dire. He points out that the attempt to substantiate the story of the defendant was rather clumsy. Further, have they checked identification marks from the cleaners in the skirt? No. The Court orders that it be done. Tragg defines three classifications of the area's ground, which determines whether or not usable shoe prints could be identified. Tragg points out that shoes worn by the decedent were free of mud, as were his clothes. A recess of ten minutes is take so the clothes can be introduced as evidence. Mason tells Arlene that if she has lied, she's in trouble, and she swears she's told the absolute truth. Tragg returns with the clothes, and nothing in Mason's cross examination shakes the police officer. Of course, the only way they know that the clean shoes were those worn by the decedent are that they were on the body when found dead. Tragg testifies about the cooking and eating utensils. Mason asks about the check book and stubs. Tragg thinks the last check was a mistake. That is the prosecution's case. Mason wants to cross-examine Lyons, but Carson admits it is the officer's day off, and he mistakenly let him go once Mason stipulated to his direct testimony. The judge wants to be assured that Mason has a reason for examining Lyons which cannot be stipulated, and Mason says he doesn't want to give away his entire plan of attack. Judge Bayton reluctantly adjourns to the next day.
Twelve.	Mason is lost in thought. First he thinks, what if his client is lying? No, "have confidence in your clients" and figure out how the prosecution has misled you. Officer Lyons must know something the prosecution doesn't want him to know. He gave only one ticket. So the car must have been driven away and back while he was on duty! Mason now figures there is something in Arlene's getting her job through Madge Elwood. At Lamont's, the receptionist tells Mason that Edith Bristol thinks the district attorney wouldn't like her speaking to him, so Mason says he'll subpoena her and show her bias. She invites him up, but then says he doesn't know why or how Madge Elwood could help Arlene Ferris get a job. She calls in George Albert, briefing him about Mason asking questions, so he can arrive prepared with answers. Albert says he knew of Ferris's coming to work when Loring handed him a note just before he left for South America. Arlene went to top pay directly. Only one other person went to work that way, blurts out Albert to Bristol's dismay, Madge Elwood. Bristol terminates the interview, and she and Albert are served subpoenas by Mason. Next, a phone call to Drake, who informs them that Keswick drove into the Lamont lodge property about or shortly after seven-thirty, possibly with Sadie Richmond, through an open gate, according to a neighbor, George Banning, upon whom Drake has already served a subpoena. Perry and Della go Madge hunting.
Thirteen.	The Kelsington Apartments manager tells Mason that Madge left that afternoon with two suitcases. Probably drove her own car. Her bank is around the corner. Mason and Street go to the bank, ask to speak to the manager, are led by the woman bank person to the manager. Mason suggests Madge may have presented a forged check. The banker checks with Bristol by phone, and tells Mason the check is good. Mason figures now that Jarvis P Lamont wants Madge out of town. Mason suggests to Della that when Loring got back to the lodge, he wanted clean, dry clothes and feminine companionship. Madge provided this. So Henley really saw Madge get out of the car, not Arlene. Madge was dolling herself up after Loring called her when Arlene called. She took Loring's own car to the lodge. Meanwhile, Loring had cooked another batch of ham and eggs. After dinner, Madge stabbed him. Now they have to find her. Further, Sadie and Otto saw Loring before Madge. None of those three is going to willingly help Arlene. They go to Elwood's garage, find it empty, drive Mason's car inside and shut the door. Then Albert, with Tragg, come upon the duo. Albert immediately accuses Mason of planting evidence in the garage. As they drive away, Perry tells Della that if Hamilton Burger appears in court, Tragg and Albert have found evidence which now will point against Ferris.
Fourteen.	To the surprise and consternation of Judge Bayton, Hamilton Burger takes over the prosecution. Mason cross-examines Officer Lyons, who admits he ticketed Loring's car at nine, and is reasonably sure it was not there at eleven. He also noted a double-parked car, which he ticketed. Lt Tragg is called and he relates how he and Albert came upon Mason and Street in Elwood's garage. Mason objects to the conversation being entered into evidence as it was not made in the presence of the defendant. Sustained. Tragg searched the garage and found mud-stained clothes and shoes, the latter purchased by Loring from an exclusive shoe store, which fact is stipulated. Further, that Loring's tailor identified the clothes is also stipulated. Mason gets Tragg to admit that these could have been planted by Madge Elwood. Bertha Anderson, Kelsington Apartments manager, starts to testify to the conversation she had with Mason and the attorney objects. Carson pleads, and the judge reminds him of his ruling. Hamilton Burger presses the issue, but Judge Bayton holds his position. Burger suggests that Ferris planted the evidence The judge suggests that the logical person to have done so is Elwood. Burger asserts that Elwood wasn't at the lodge, and Mason interrupts him on the point, "how does counsel know she wasn't?" The judge indicates that, hadn't Mason interrupted, he'd have wanted an answer. The manager then says she saw Elwood wearing the damaged skirt several times the day after the murder, then she came back in the evening in a different skirt. Mason asks about the eve of the murder. Madge went out about nine, and she didn't see her come back. She closes up at eleven. Carson now argues that the skirt had to be planted after the murder, and Mason planted Loring's muddied clothes and shoes. The judge asks if, had Tragg and Albert arrived first, Carson would accuse them of planting the evidence. Certainly not. Then, the judge asserts, no more can he claim Mason planted the evidence. Judge Bayton thinks Henley should be recalled for examination by the Court, since the witness first testified that it was Madge Elwood who got out of Loring's car. While waiting Henley's return, Lt Tragg is called for cross-examination. Mason asks about fingerprints on the dishes at the lodge. Of course, Ferris's and Loring's, and a set not identified, but not Sadie Richmond. What about the phone call made by Loring. It was station-to-station, to the Loring executive office, made at about the time Loring and Arlene arrived at the lodge. There were no other calls! The court takes a short recess. Mason argues with Drake that Madge must have called Loring. How else could the clean clothes and shoes been brought to him? (If you have an answer, you've solved the case!) Drake goes to check telephone calls, then Mason sends Della to have him find out the owner of the double-parked car. As Judge Bayton settles down question Henley, Della whispers to Perry that Paul has found that Elwood did call the lodge, then two other Los Angeles phones. The judge asks Henley to put aside all prejudices, to forget the pictures shown him, and say whom he saw at the Loring car. He was positive about Elwood, but is now confused. The judge decides that the witness has made a positive identification of Madge Elwood. Then Mason asks if Tragg knows of the alcohol content of Loring's blood. Point one-nine, very intoxicated according to Dr Draper. Stipulated. Drake gives Mason a note; Loring called the switchboard operator and told her to call back in seven minutes. Elwood's two other calls were to Albert and Bristol. Mason makes such a statement to the court, and, from another note from Drake, that the double-parked car belonged to Bristol. Mason asks for this to be stipulated, as Burger has objected. The judge, who has shut down Mason's argument to this point, now allows it as an answer to the objection! Mason points out that someone had to get the clothes, someone with a key, and someone had to escort Madge who didn't want to have to handle a drunk Loring. The double-parked car indicates that Bristol was the one getting clean clothes from the apartment. Edith Bristol jumps up, interrupts, and confesses. She thought Loring was going to marry her. But he never had platonic relationships, and that is all Madge, who was interested in Albert, wanted. She found Loring "offensively, obnoxiously drunk." A fresh dinner was cooked and while eating Loring boasted at how Edith was such a pushover. He was going to go to Arlene and force her to do his bidding or he'd accuse her of car theft. He got worse, she tried to escape thru the kitchen, but he was in a murderous rage. She grabbed a butcher knife. He lunged, stubbed his toe, fell and, as he went by she lashed out with the knife. It went in so easy. She was only sure she'd slowed him down. He chased her, but she got in her car and drove away. Mason, with consideration in his voice, asks about the $500 check. Otto and Sadie had been blackmailing Loring whose father had warned him against any immoral activities at the lodge, and had called, demanding the money and they'd be over in half an hour to collect. Mason then asks Albert what he has to say, and he announces that he and Madge have just married, so neither will testify. Judge Bayton shows compassion for Edith, whom he notes "has told her story with great sincerity." He believes a jury will consider the killing one of self-defense. The case against Arlene is dismissed.
Fifteen.	The trio plus Arlene are in Mason's office. Loring, knowing that California law allows previous indiscretions to be used against a complaining rape victim, had considerable leeway for his wolfish ways. Madge and Albert arrived to find Loring dead. She simply returned his car to the fireplug. Jarvis P did what he needed to protect the memory of his son and the police, by brainwashing Henley, have no case of any sort, not even failure to report the murder, against Madge Elwood.

Muriell Gilman	Gilman's (red-headed) switchboard operator	Warren Lawton
Nancy (Adair) Gilman	Drake's switchboard operator	Maurice Fellows
Glamis Barlow	John Yerman Hassell	Court guard
Edward Carter Gilman	Hassell's brother and sister	Spectators
Hartley Grove Elliott	Police investigators	Bailiff
Gilman cook	Deputy coroner	Mrs Lamay C Kirk
Gilman maid	Lieutenant Arthur Tragg	Glenn Beaumont McCoy
Perry Mason	Plain-clothes officer	Cartman Jasper
Gertie	D A Hamilton Burger	Policewoman
Della Street	Jail guard	Her partner
Steven A Barlow	Veteran courtroom attachés	Banker
Vera M Martel	Edward Marcus Deering	Alan Hancock, Redding operative
Paul Drake	State police officer	Maureen Monroe
Matilda "Tillie" Norman	Judge Boris Alvord	George Washington Monroe
V M Martel's L A secretary	Autopsy surgeon	Waiter
Roger C Calhoun	Jonathan Blair	Harvey C Kimberly
Calhoun's (calendar girl) secretary, Miss Colfax	Carlos Barbara

Dr Francis Edward Camps receives Erle Stanley Gardner's plaudits by way of dedication of this novel to this international personality who works with Scotland Yard and consults in the United States.

The noose around Mason's client has to get tighter with each new mystery novel. Here Tragg tells Mason the case is iron-clad, and therefore he shouldn't get mixed up in it.

The titles of the Perry Mason novels always have some meaning to the story, but it is often nebulous. Here it is almost the only clue we have until the moment when things explode in the courtroom. Isn't it unfair that the next clue comes when the novel is 96% over?

One.	Muriell Gilman moves quietly from dining room to kitchen so as not to disturb stepmother Nancy, or Nancy's daughter Glamis Barlow. Her father, Carter, had asked her to prepare another egg and slab of homemade venison sausage. She hesitated, thin king his diet would catch up with him and he'd cancel the order, then the sausage was frozen, so took extra long. By the time she returned with the meal, her dad was gone. She goes searching, wakes Nancy, then meets Glamis at the attic, and is informed that her beau, Hartley Elliott, is in the Rose room. Nancy gets Glamis some toast and black coffee. Back in the dining room she finds Carter's brief case. Inside she finds a note that she is to call Perry Mason in case of emergency. Her father's napkin is missing. She rushes to the garage, which contains a workshop and photographic darkroom. She finds a broken chair, a red puddle, money, the napkin. The sedan was not in the garage. She phones her father's office, but he is not there. She phones Perry Mason, and the switchboard (Gertie, it must be) puts her through to Della Street, then Mason arrives.
Two.	Mason asks Della who she just promised he'd call back. Carter Gilman, and Mason says he was a juror in a recent trial. This checks, and Della notices that an Edward Carter from the same address has an eleven-thirty appointment. He calls Muriel, learns that her father uses his middle name, Carter, not his first, Edward. She explains his disappearance. Mason drives out to the Gilman's. The red pool is paint, but the bills they pick up add to ten thousand dollars. Muriel says Glamis is twenty, the same age as herself. Mason tells Muriel to tell no one he was there, and he'll phone her about one. Back in his office, Mason has Della put the ten thousand dollars in the safe
Three.	Mason fidgets, waiting for Gilman/Carter. He thinks that the man ordered the additional breakfast in order to get rid of Muriell. Carter arrives and states he's "acting on behalf of a friend." He's visiting the Gilmans, and he's quite certain Nancy Gilman is being blackmailed by a private detective, Vera M Martel. He wants Mason to find out what in Nancy's background could be cause for blackmail. Mason probes, notes to Carter that his last name is the same as that of the head of the family he's staying with. Mason keeps trying to flush out Carter into admitting he's Gilman - the photo he has from Nancy proves he is - but the man plays his game, insists Mason protect the whole family. Mason makes Carter sign over the entire contents of the garage. When Gilman leaves, Mason tells Della that this protects him from a charge of suppressing evidence. He calls in Paul Drake, who says that Martel makes her living thru blackmail, and she is clever. Mason has Della call Muriell and tell her that her father is safe.
Four.	Four hours after Gilman's aliased visit Vera Martel phones Mason, warns him off. She says Gilman's fingerprints are over those of the person he's trying to protect, and give the attorney a phone where Carter can be found. Mason calls, and a surprised Gilman is forced to admit his true identity. Mason forces him into a detailed description of his earlier visit as proof. Gilman tells Mason that a larger retainer is money scattered on the floor of his workshop, and Muriell will be at his office in ten minutes with further instructions. Mason points out that the only way he knows who Gilman is is from a photo conveniently produced by Muriell. Further, the voice identified as Vera Martel could be someone else. Della tries to find V M Martel, and the detective's Los Angeles secretary says she, too, would like to find her. Muriell arrives with instructions to take Mason to her house, get a brief case with documents and take it to Roger C Calhoun, who is to go ahead and complete negotiations on the agreements and execute them. Mason says he doesn't want to work blind, doesn't want to be her father's errand boy. Muriell pleads, and Mason gives in.
Five.	While driving to the Gilman place, Mason listens for "false notes" in Muriell's voice. She tells him of her father's business, investment under the name Gilman Associates Investment Pool, with Calhoun as business manager. This morning there were phone calls from Calhoun's secretary and she overheard her Daddy's switchboard operator mention Tillie's name, so she was able to speak to her and learn she didn't know where Daddy was. Then Daddy called Tillie and spoke to her, telling her to go directly to Mason's office, then get the brief case and so on. During this, she brags about her abilities as an actress; she has a scrapbook of rave notices. Mason stops to phone Della, asks her to phone Gilman Associates Investment Pool and speak to Gilman's secretary, listen to her voice. Mason thinks it will be the person that called as Vera Martel. Muriell admits to Mason that if she doesn't "want people to find out anything they don't find out, that's all." Mason drives into the garage and, while Muriell gets the brief case, he inspects the surroundings, finding photos of various family members. She gives him the brief case. A car is heard. It is a taxi with Glamis. Muriell goes out to try to divert her from Mason. The attorney calls Paul Drake, tells him to put a shadow on Muriell when he drops her off at the office in twenty minutes. He checks, then, with Della, who asserts that Vera and Tillie are the same person. Muriell brings Glamis to Mason, and she flashes audacious eyes at him. She needs the car, so a switch is made; Mason will take Glamis to the car. She shows a nice bit of leg as Mason escorts her to a seat in his car. As they drive into town, Glamis tries to pump Mason, eventually realizes who he is. She uses her considerable wit on him, but doesn't learn why he's been out to the Gilman house. At the parking lot, she jumps out, quickly retrieves the car, and speeds off, Drake following.
Six.	Mason enters the offices of Gilman Associates Investment Pool, meets the stunning red-headed receptionist, then is passed into Calhoun by his calendar-girl secretary. Mason delivers the contracts which Calhoun inspects, an original and three copies. Mason asks for a receipt. When Calhoun dictates a receipt to Miss Colfax, Mason objects to "who has approved the entire deal in its present form." Mason hasn't read the contracts. Calhoun argues, gives up. While the secretary is typing the receipt, Calhoun talks to Mason. He notes that Glamis is twenty, yet the marriage between Nancy and Barlow was solemnized only nineteen years ago. Scandal would hurt the business is his point. The receipts are signed and Mason takes his leave, with a wink from Miss Colfax. Mason checks with Drake's switchboard operator, who says Paul is out. He reports to Della about the beautiful women with whom he's "recently been associating." He describe's Miss Colfax's walk as "like a snake walking on its tail while holding is head rigidly motionless." Mason invites Della to dinner, tells Drake's receptionist they are going to the Green Mill for cocktails and corn fritos, then "to the Steak Mart for filet mignon with baked potato, garlic toast, French fried onions, apple pie à là mode . . ." The receptionist is on a diet. From cocktails, Mason calls Muriell, who says Dad will be back from Las Vegas tomorrow morning. Glamis is out until late, rather "early" in the morning. Mason thinks it may be good after all that Drake has followed one of the duplicate daughters. They dine and dance, then return to Drake's where they get a phone call from Paul who is in Las Vegas. He explains how Glamis gave him the slip at a casino. Mason suggests he check the Barlow place, then return home.
Seven.	Drake reports on Glamis. He followed her to Las Vegas, getting the last plane ticket, sitting across the aisle from her. He won $500 at craps by putting his chips down and leaving them until someone collected them or gave him his winnings. He has discovered that a Nancy Adair lived in New York with John Yerman Hassell in a Bohemian lifestyle, got pregnant. He took no responsibility, given the way they lived. Later, after he became rich, he decided he loved her, but she'd disappeared. She had married Barlow; Glamis believes he is her real father. Hassell left three million to his daughter. Nancy claimed it, settled for two million from the brother and sister of Hassell a year before she married Gilman. Drake gets a call informing him that Vera Martel is dead. The police found sawdust, the kind found in hobby workshops. The coroner says she was dead before her car went off Mulholland. Muriell calls Mason, hysterical. The police have vacuumed the workshop and left. Lt Tragg and a plainclothesman burst in. Tragg and Mason spar, with Mason getting the best in avoiding naming his client until a call from Gilman in the DA's office (of course, this has to be Hamilton Burger) that he's charged with murder of Martel. Tragg is coached into offering Mason a ride to the county jail, and he offers also a warning that the case is iron-clad.
Eight.	Mason confronts Gilman in the jail. Facing first-degree murder, Gilman tells his story. He saw some family member running from the workshop. Vera Martel was there. He found money all over the floor, and the spilled can of paint. He tried to catch Martel, found her car but not her. It comes out that he had found her conferring with Calhoun, and Colfax, who hates the man, told Tillie what was going on. When he had the chance, he made impressions of Martel's keys in clay. While in Las Vegas, he went to her office, but someone had beaten him to it. He has, of course, told the whole story to the police. Mason warns him to say nothing to anyone, and he's going to the three women to determine who is lying. If none is, Gilman goes to the gas chamber.
Nine.	Mason beards the lionesses in their lair. Muriell explains that the workshop can be seen from where Daddy was sitting, but not from the kitchen. Then she goes for Nancy and Glamis. Nancy is resentful of Mason's approach, Glamis, when she arrives later, is very angry. Neither knows Vera Martel. None admit to having ten thousand dollars. Lieutenant Arthur Tragg arrives with his partner banging on the front and back door respectively. They don't wait, but barge in and, as Mason tells the three to tell the truth or say nothing, and to volunteer nothing, they do their best to usher the attorney out.
Ten.	Drake has Hartley Elliott, but Mason needs to rush to the man's apartment. When he gets there he finds a reticent man who slept overnight at the Gilman's and who woke up about eight-thirty, saw Glamis, apparently scared, run from the garage, return to shut the door, then run around the house. Later, he felt like a peeping tom when he saw her in a see-thru nightie talking with Muriell at the foot of the attic stairs. Mason says he cannot advise him, but Glamis might be a defendant, having strangled Martel, Gilman having then disposed of the body. If, however, he runs, he could become the prime suspect. Mason makes Drake follow him, and let Elliott run if he wants.
Eleven.	The preliminary hearing goes slower than normal, as veteran courtroom attachés notice that deputy D A Edwardo Marcus Deering is being very careful with Perry Mason as his adversary. The state police officer who found Martel's body is first. He says Martel's car did not skid or slide off the road, but was pointed directly towards the cliff, with the transmission in drive. When Mason has no cross-examination, Judge Boris Alvord asks if Mason will make a showing, then will he resist binding over. Mason is uncertain about the former, says yes to the latter. The autopsy surgeon says she was strangled and death occurred between seven thirty and eleven thirty. The coroner identifies items from Martel's purse, particularly a key case. Jonathan Blair, a technical criminal expert from the sheriff's office, says he found a unique sawdust in Martel's clothing. Carlos Barbara testifies that he processed mahogany with a dye, and only three people have samples, Gilman being one. Mason stipulates to the piece introduced into evidence as being from Barbara. Warren Lawton says he examined sawdust found on Martel's clothing and shoes, and it matched, along with hair, that found in Gilman's car trunk. Mason finally has some cross-examination. He learns that if the defendant had been working in the workshop, he, too, would have sawdust on his clothes, which could have fallen in the trunk if he had opened it. Maurice Fellows testifies to making keys for Gilman from clay impressions. The keys match those on Martel's key ring. The court adjourns for lunch. Mason asks the guard to bring Gilman back ten minutes early.
Twelve.	Spectators are filling the room when Mason joins Gilman. Mason tells Gilman that Hartley Elliott has been taken in by the police and he saw Glamis come out of the darkroom. Gilman now admits this is true. Before he can finish, the bailiff bangs his gavel and Hamilton Burger joins Deering. Hartley Grove Elliott is led in. Burger does the examining of the hostile witness. Burger leads Elliott up to the morning of the murder, at which point the witness refuses to answer. When pushed, he refuses to testify against an innocent person. The judge sends him to jail until he talks. Burger calls Paul Drake, asks if, with Mason, they didn't question Elliott and get him to admit he saw Glamis. Mason objects that he cannot impeach his own witness, especially since his witness didn't answer the question. The judge sustains Mason's objection. Glamis is called. Judge Alvord advises she may become a codefendant, so she need not testify to or answer any question on anything which might tend to incriminate her. He is insistent she know her rights. When Burger asks her if she was on the morning in question in the workshop, and Mason objects, she demands to be heard, she did not go there, and writes her name on the diagram showing the workshop. Mrs Lamay C Kirk, who lives next to the Gilman's, is asked if she saw Glamis at the workshop. Mason object, that this is an intent to impeach his own witness, which he is not permitted to do, but must accept her testimony. Further, unless he can show Martel was in the workshop with Gilman and Glamis, this is all irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent. Burger is forced to admit that Carter Gilman and Glamis Barlow are together responsible for the death of Vera Martel, in his opinion. Now Mason objects. Judge Alvord warns Burger that a prime facie case is all that is necessary to bind the defendant over to Superior Court, but Burger is dogged in wanting to get certain testimony into the record. Glenn Beaumont McCoy, card dealer at the casino where Glamis often played, is there to testify to her being seen coming surreptitiously out of Martel's office which, the next morning, was found to have been ransacked. Mason again objects that an attempt is being made to try Glamis as codefendant. Glamis should have her own counsel to examine the witnesses. The judge says he sees a line of reasoning which might justify the prosecutions approach, but he needs time to look up some authorities, and adjourns to the morrow.
Thirteen.	Mason tells Drake to get the best lie-detector man in town. Drake says Cartman Jasper can set up in no time. Mason thinks that McCoy is lying about the time he saw Glamis coming out of Martel's office, as Drake had her in the casino until 9:11 and in a cab at 9:12, so McCoy couldn't have seen her at 9:15. He thinks Nancy must have known Martel. Burger is in such a rush that Mason thinks the judge may upset the apple cart, for he won't allow Burger to fall down on any element of the case.
Fourteen.	Nancy Gilman is fuming when Mason arrives, thinks the case is a farce, that Hartley Elliott is "a man of the highest moral character" and Glamis is "a young woman of refinement and delicacy thrown into a cell with hardened prostitutes . . ." She thinks Mason should get Glamis out on bail. Mason says he could, but then she'd be charged with murder or as codefendant, and there would be no bail. That changes Nancy's attitude. She does not know what Glamis was doing, as she was asleep. No, she's never heard of Vera Martel. She insists that, though she hasn't conformed to convention, she's never been untrue to herself, and would throw a blackmailer out of the house. Mason asks her to take a lie detector test suggesting, should she pass it, the newspapers would give her sympathetic coverage. She agrees. Drake and Mason watch Nancy taking the test thru the one-way window. She flinches when asked if she is "the mother of a daughter named Glamis?" Jasper's report is that she is not lying, she didn't know Martel nor is she being blackmailed. There is some emotional problem with Glamis.
Fifteen.	Mason cannot understand how anyone could draw out ten thousand dollars and they cannot find it. He's worried, also, that the police may discover this before he reports he has the money. He asks Drake to follow the trail of Martel's air travel card and gasoline credit cards. Muriell phones in to say she's been disloyal, she spilled the beans when the police hammered and kept hammering. A policewoman collared her before she could get away and she with an officer took her to the DA. Then Tragg bursts in with his plain-clothes officer, and gives a subpoena duces tecum to him to appear as a prosecution witness with ten thousand dollars he picked up in the Gilman workshop. Tragg leaves telling Mason he won't tell him he's sorry. Drake gets a phone call and his operative advise him that it was Martel who withdrew ten thousand dollars. The banker who gave her the money recorded the numbers on six of the one-hundred-dollar bills. Another call. Hartley Elliott was not put in a separate cell, but mixed with drunks. He broke down and will testify. Drake reports that Martel flew to Redding, then to Los Angeles. She was met in Redding. Mason asks if Drake has an operative there, and sets him to getting what Martel did. Perry and Della go out to dinner, but aren't hungry. They call Drake, who has a report. Operative Alan Hancock has reported and Drake will have him call the restaurant. A waiter brings Mason a phone with the call. Martel was met by Maureen Monroe, whose father is the rich G W, for George Washington, Monroe. His daughter is twenty, beautiful. She is to marry Harvey C Kimberly next month. He's from Phoenix, and wealthy. Mason directs Hancock to get photos and newspapers, as much as he can, and charter a plane from Redding, then come on to Los Angeles to be at the court by ten. As Mason tells Della to have Paul check on the prospective groom, he thinks he knows where the ten thousand came from.
Sixteen.	The courtroom is jammed. Burger announces that Elliott will not testify. Burger asks him when he saw Glamis in the morning, and he says he saw her leaving the workshop at eight-twenty-five. When Burger announces "cross-examine" to Mason, he continues before Mason can arise with the announcement that he expects his next witness is the defense attorney. Mason counters that he has the right to cross-examine the witness. The judge agrees. Mason begins delaying for time for Hancock to arrive with his documents. He asks Elliott about his business. He represents several different manufacturers of merchandise. So he travels. Where, then, is his residence. Mason strikes gold; Redding. Elliott has his office there. Hancock has arrived and Mason asks a moment of the Court. Della thrusts a photograph of Maureen Monroe in front of him. Mason asks a few more questions on why he chose Redding. He graduated from the town's high school. Did he know G W Monroe? Yes. Did he know his daughter, Maureen? Yes. Mason says he's going to show him a photograph and ask if it shows the person he saw running from the workshop. Burger rushes forward to see the photo, offers no objection. The photo "hit the witness in the face" and Burger steps forward to point out the photo is that of Glamis Bartow. Mason, however, points out that the caption identifies it as Maureen Monroe. The judge asks to see the photograph, the orders Elliott to answer Mason's question. Elliott is confused. How long has he known Vera Martel? About a month. When asked if he had a business relation with her, he refuses to answer. Burger asks for a continuance, Mason does not object. Mason assures the judge that he's just received the evidence. Nancy Gilman is crying. The court recesses.
Seventeen.	Mason explains everything after Drake announces that Elliott has confessed. Nancy gave birth to identical twin girls. She felt she could keep only one. When Mrs G W Monroe gave birth to a Mongoloid, Nancy arranged to have her return to Redding with a beautiful daughter. When Hartley met Glamis, he was struck by the amazing resemblance, and employed Martel to find out the truth. Vera learned that Nancy had received a settlement, not the full inheritance, went quietly to Maureen, suggesting she had money coming. Vera paid Maureen ten thousand for a half interest in what she could recover. Maureen found herself in an impossible situation, about to marry, but would the Kimberlys allow their son to marry an illegitimate child. Maureen followed Vera to the Gilman workshop, called her a crook, threw the ten thousand in her face, ran out and around the house. Hartley realized he'd been sold out. Enraged, he choked Martel to scare her, but killed her. The body was hidden in Gilman's car until it could be moved, then sent over the cliff. Tragg applied pressure and got the confession. Harvey is standing by Maureen and the family is standing by both of them. It was only when Mason realized that Nancy had an emotional disturbance over "a" daughter that he got the idea.

Della Street	. . Day Dawns	Hamilton Burger
Perry Mason	Mrs Carlotta Theilman	Jury
Gertie	Morley's banker	Surveyor
Janice Wainwright	Drake's Las Vegas correspondent	Photographer
John Sears	Waiter	Mr Marcus
Morley L Theilman	Cab driver, later, Dudley Roberts	Moulage expert
Mrs Agnes Theilman, alias	Lt (Arthur) Tragg	Doctor Lombard G Jasper
A B Vidal	Lieutenant Sophia	Court officer
Paul Drake	Casino guard	Newspaper man in D A's office
Postal operative	Various Nevada police officers	Court clerk
Postal inspector	Mason's Las Vegas lawyer	Louise Pickens
Tailing operative	Morley's lawyer	Wilbur Kenney
Cole B Troy	Various brokers	Lucille Rankin
Plain-clothes officer (later, Orland)	Pilot	Bailiff
Smitty	Judge Lloyd L Seymour	Otto L Nelson
Drake's switchboard operator	Manlove P Ruskin	Casino cashier

Marshall Houts is a lawyer, not a doctor of medicine, so not a usual candidate for Erle Stanley Gardner's dedication in his Foreword. Houts worked with Gardner in the Court of Last Resort, and is an author at the time of writing of From Evidence to Proof; From Arrest to Release; Courtroom Medicine, and The Rules of Evidence.

We are all familiar with Mason's switchboard operator, but wouldn't it be nice of Gardner identified Drake's?

Our favorite anachronistic word, "swell," makes a return after a long absence.

Mason rarely compliments Della on her physical beauty, but from Janice to Agnes to Carlotta and Janice transformed, from beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, to devastating, he finally says "Did I ever tell you you're a remarkably beautiful woman?"

Is the television series having an effect on Erle Stanley Gardner's novels? The longest courtroom scenes in the novels only occur regularly after the TV series is well under way. The TV series gives a third to half of the show to the courtroom scene, then followed by the last chapter of the correlative novel (where there is one) after the final commercial break. The preliminary hearing here is fifty-two pages long.

The great Perry Mason mysteries involve a misunderstanding of the time element which Mason figures out at the last minute. This novel is a perfect example of the format.

1.	Della Street enters Perry Mason's private office, leans back, "her shapely hips pressing the palms of her flattened hands against the door leading to the reception room." Mason knows she is up to some mischief. He makes a quip about Gertie and her diets, but Della has a client waiting. Janice Wainwright has a suitcase which she is guarding jealously, and has a problem of ethics. Mason has an appointment with John Sears who never wants to wait a minute, but Mason is curious. Janice tells the attorney that the suitcase belongs to Morley Theilman, her boss, to whom she is loyal, even to the point of disguising her natural beauty so that his wife (Agnes) won't get jealous. She thinks the suitcase has money for blackmail. She produces a letter from A B Vidal which demands money. She wants to open the suitcase, and wants Mason to tell her it is legal to do so. He takes a dollar for consultation, opens the suitcase, finds packets of twenty-dollar bills. He and Della transcribe as many bill numbers as they can in ten minutes. Then Mason sends Janice to Union Station to make the deposit of the suitcase, but he keeps the key, and sends Della with her to make certain the money in the suitcase is locked in the proper locker.
2.	Della returns, the job accomplished. Mason wonders why typewrite the address, but do the note in cutouts from newspapers. Why not type the whole thing. He calls for Paul Drake, asks him to cover General Delivery. Drake suggests he can put one operative on the job and get help from the postal inspector whom he'll ask to join him for lunch. But Mason wants Vidal followed, so two operative are called for.
3.	Janice Wainwright phones to say that Mr Theilman has disappeared. Mrs Agnes Theilman got worried when her husband did not return from Bakersfield. He'd gone there to see Cole B Troy. A plain-clothes officer showed up at the office asking questions. She heard from Theilman the previous afternoon, not since. Mason tells her not to lie to the police, but don't volunteer, and say you cannot discuss his business dealings without his consent. Paul, Perry and Della head to Union station to look in the locker. Smitty, Drake's locksmith friend, explains how the run the lockers and how they replace a lock on one not returned in twenty-four hours. He opens the locker, and it is empty. The mailed key was a ruse, a red herring, for Vidal had duplicate keys to all the lockers in which the suitcase might be placed.
4.	Drake comes to Mason's office to report that the police are looking for Vidal. Officer Orland is in Drake's office. Mason goes with Drake and tells Orland all they know, short of naming the client. When Orland leaves, Mason sends Drake out to get everything he can on Theilman, and tells the detective's switchboard operator to call Della and tell her he'll not be back before noon.
5.	Mason goes to the home of Theilman to question Mrs Agnes Theilman. After advising her that he's not representing her husband, he asks all sorts of questions. He relates what he knows about A B Vidal, and how he tried and failed to locate the person. She tells Mason all she told the police, about her husband coming home during the day to freshen up and head off to Bakersfield. She found the blackmail letter in the suit he'd worn in the morning and moved it into the suit he was going to wear after showering. Mason compliments her on looking so young and on the furnishings of her house. Theilman is a speculator in real estate. Agnes is aware that Janice makes herself look frumpy so she won't try to get her fired. Agnes knows her way around, knows that if a man is unhappy she should get out while she still has attractions for other men. She's sure Morley is in trouble. When Mason comments, "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more," she responds, "But you did." "Did what?" "Told me more, more, perhaps than you realized." Back at h is office the attorney instructs his secretary to look up the case of Theilman versus Theilman.
6.	Della reports that Agnes is "class to her fingertips" and she was named as corespondent under the name of Day Dawns by the first Mrs Theilman, Carlotta, who got a half million in settlement. Della thinks Janice is downplaying her beauty so as to inherit Theilman when he gets tired of Agnes's sleek sex. Morley is probably thirty-eight, Janice twenty-eight. They try to reach Janice by phone, get no answers. Drake reports. Cole B Troy is an associate of Morley's in Bakersfield. They met about four-thirty, finished about nine. Troy, looking out the window of his office, saw a shapely shadow following Theilman as he went to his car. An amateur. Theilman never looked back. He's disappeared. So has his secretary! For three weeks Morley has been diverting funds from securities into cash. The latest only five thousand, all twenties. Mason runs a test. He and Della put together several bills and Della weighs them. Twenty to the ounce. Mason calculates; three hundred and twenty bills to the pound and twenty pounds would by a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars. Drake says Theilman "sees green pastures on the other side of the fence." Drake shows a photo of Day Dawns in a bikini and Della comments "That is a green pasture." Day took a trip to Hong Kong the same time Morley took a business trip there. She got her passport under her own name, rather than the stage name; Agnes Bernice Vidal. Mason sends Drake to find Janice.
7.	Mason asks Della about her description of Janice and Della says she expects that, when she is found, she'll have "emerged from the cocoon of repression as a full-fledged butterfly." They discuss the situation. Mason notes that Theilman made certain everyone, his wife, his secretary, knew he was being blackmailed. Maybe he wanted to disappear, then why use his wife's real name? Maybe Theilman and Janice spent the night together under an assumed name. On the other hand, what if Mrs Agnes Theilman knows about Morley's activities and she was the shapely shadow. Since there is little they can do about any of this, Mason suggest Della accompany him to dinner and some dancing, and it will be social, not business, since they have only one dollar as retainer.
8.	Dinner over, they get a report from Drake. He's found Janice, in Las Vegas, waiting for someone to join her. Della dials the airport while Mason asks the waiter to get a taxi.
9.	Mason gives the Las Vegas taxicab driver a large tip as he and Della are deposited at Union Depot. Inside he misses Janice, but Della recognizes the devastatingly beautiful woman instantly. Janice is surprised, but says she's waiting for the Domeliner, The City of Los Angeles, to arrive. She's expecting Mrs Theilman. The first Mrs Theilman! Who has lost thirty-five pounds! Mason needs to speak to Janice, so Carlotta says she go to the Double Take Casino. Janice says Morley had to disappear, but he'll reappear tomorrow. Mr Theilman has been trying to get Carlotta's proxy or stock. Some unknown interests are trying to gain control of Theilman's company, and they are working thru dummies. Carlotta would deal only in person. He phone her right after she saw Mason, told her to get dolled up (so he could show his wife it was a business deal), get some money and meet Carlotta in Las Vegas. He phoned from service station two miles from Palmdale subdivision, which he purchased for a song. Now she sees that Carlotta is out after her former husband. Morley was surprised that his wife was worried, because he'd arranged to have her told he'd be away for a few days. Janice gives Mason two hundred fifty dollars for expenses. Lt Tragg interrups Mason's questioning, introduces Lieutenant Sophia of the Las Vegas police force. They are there to interrogate Janice Wainwright about the murder of Morley L Theilman.
10.	Janice is dumbstruck. "Why, he couldn't be. He was alive and well when I -" Mason cuts her off, tells her to say nothing. Lt Sophia reminds Mason that he has no legal status in Nevada. He and Della hurry to the Double Take and search for Carlotta. A casino guard recognizes her from Della's description and gesture, says the police have taken her. Mason contacts a local attorney, "beautiful and she's dynamite." He plays the slots, wins a bit, then learns that Janice has signed a waiver of extradition. They hail a cab to the airport, the same cabbie who drove them earlier. Mason changes ideas, heads to the police station, where they pick up Carlotta before the policeman who brought her out can stop them. They go to a motel where says a lawyer approached her for Morley. She said she'd go to Las Vegas to meet his client. She's also been contacted by various brokers. A knock on the door, and a policeman offers to escort Mason and Street to the airport.
11.	Drake reports that the body was found, face down, shot right thru the heart with a thirty-eight. There had been a thundershower and tracks of Janice's Ford leaving after were showing. Theilman phoned his wife after eleven using a credit card. He thinks that Morley dressed up for Janice's sake, they quarreled, she murdered him. The thundershower and her car tracks trap her. Tragg bursts in and serves Mason a subpoena duces tecum to bring the tape recording and disc with numbers from the twenty dollar bills. Mason surmises that Janice has talked. Drake asks if Mason's client paid in twenties. The attorney notes he's to produce records made in the office, not money given by his client. Mason gives Della two hundred fifty dollars to put in the safe. He doesn't know where they came from, as he's been spending money including the cash tip he gave the pilot.
12.	Judge Lloyd L Seymour nods to the deputy D A, Manlove P Ruskin, who addresses the jury, arguing that the defendant lured her employer into an abandoned really subdivision and left with twenty-five or thirty pounds of twenty-dollar bills, worth as much as two hundred thousand dollars. He will prove by circumstantial evidence that the only car tracks leaving the murder scene after a thunderstorm are those of the defendant's car. Mason's opening statement asks the jury to "bear in mind the fact that all of this evidence which has been indicated by the prosecutor is circumstantial evidence" and that he expects "to show that these circumstances are all fully capable of being explained by a reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt." Ruskin objects to Mason's arguing the case. Mason rejoins; "Very well, Your Honor, We expect to prove that the defendant is innocent." Ruskin calls a surveyor who shows road maps and sketches of the building, then a photographer with photos showing the place of the crime, and Mr Marcus, meteorologist, who states a thunderstorm went over the site between four-thirty and five-thirty in the morning. He saw car tracks in the dirt leading to a paved road. A moulage expert brings casts of the tire tracks, noting one tire was damaged, and plastic molds of the defendant's tires, which fit onto the casts. Mason's cross somewhat reduces the value of the testimony as he shows that the tires of the car had to be deflated when he took their mold a bit to be like tires under the weight of the car in the dirt. Morley's banker testifies to the decedent's having withdrawn one hundred eighty-seven thousand dollars over three weeks, then five thousand in his last withdrawal. Cole B Troy testifies that Theilman left about nine after phoning his wife he'd be home at eleven or eleven-thirty. He then testifies to seeing a shapely shadow follow the decedent from about twenty feet's distance until they were out of sight. Mason confuses Troy, asking him what he was watching, the man or the shadow. "And you took your eyes off that seductive walk, off that graceful glide, off those swaying hips in order to watch Theilman, who was some twenty feet ahead of her?" Then, "you answered a question while you were under oath without thinking? And so gave a wrong answer." He calls Mrs Morley L Theilman, puts on synthetic sympathy in examining the bereaved widow. She explains finding the blackmail note. Mason asks where she first met her husband. He bores in on her activities in Las Vegas as a shill in tight, low-cut gown in a casino, leading wealthy men to gamble more of their money. Ruskin objects to the bereaved widow being browbeaten. Mason objects "to having her held up as a mealy-mouthed, persecuted, bereaved widow simply so the prosecutor can play on the sympathies of the jury." Mason asks about the letter and envelope. How did she know it was blackmail? The return address; A B Vidal? What was her name then. Day Dawns. She tries to avoid giving her real name, but Mason gets her to reveal that it is Agnes Vidal. She thought "that some blackmailer was using the name Vidal in order to impress (her) husband that he knew . . . well, all about me." What "was it in her past that would make it seem to her that the use of her maiden name would have connotations of blackmail in the mind of her husband" Mason wants to know. Agnes is visibly angry. After arguments by Ruskin and Mason, she is forced to answer. "Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Lt Tragg testifies to being called in, rather late as events went. Doctor Lombard G Jasper testifies to the time of death. He fixes it based on postmortem lividity and rigor mortis. Mason queries him on both points. Finally, the body had been dead for five hours or more, based on postmortem lividity, when he examined it. Based on rigor mortis, death could have occurred as late as ten-thirty in the morning. Isn't this a rather uncertain barometer of death? Isn't body temperature a much more reliable determinant? Didn't the doctor write an article in the Journal of Forensic Medicine, Pathology and Crime Detection on the determination of the time of death in which he named rigor mortis as a very unreliable method, and body temperature a good one? Didn't he take body temperature? No. Why not? He thought someone else had, and others thought he had. Someone blundered, and the doctor wanted to make his testimony sound impressive, so he mentioned postmortem lividity. Didn't he leave this factor out of his article, because professionals in his field would hold him up to ridicule? Mason continues, getting the doctor to admit that non-medical factors were important to his determination of time of death, such as the time of the thunderstorm. By now, the doctor's testimony as to time of death is essentially discredited. The first Mrs Theilman testifies to going to Las Vegas and meeting the defendant. Mason asks her about the weight loss. "I knew my husband -- I knew him very well indeed. If he had met me in Las Vegas, I would have given that little strumpet a does of her own medicine." The judge calls an adjournment to the next morning. Mason asks the officer for time with his client. He virtually accuses Janice of committing the crime, accuses her of lying, but she insists she's telling the truth. She followed her employer's orders exactly, taking two hundred fifty dollars of five hundred from the safe for her needs, the remainder to pay Mason. He warns her she faces the death penalty.
13.	Mason broods. There is so much evidence of blackmail, but who? And Janice is saying it is an elaborate cover-up surrounding a business deal. Della notes that Agnes plays the bereaved widow when all she wanted was the money. Paul joins them, says the D A has a bombshell, but he doesn't know what it is. He has a newspaper man in the D A's office who knows something is up, but not what. He's sure Berger will time his case so as to rest when it leaves Mason hanging.
14.	Hamilton Burger joins Ruskin at the prosecutor's desk. Lieutenant Sophia is called and he relates the full story as Janice has told it to Mason, from her visit to the lawyer's office and the reading of twenty-dollar bill numbers, that about nine on the morning of the murder she talked with Theilman, she got money from the safe, went to the beauty parlor, then on to Las Vegas. Ruskin indicates he doesn't want to embarrass counsel and asks to stipulate the taking of the numbers of the bills from which he's produced a list. So stipulated. Dudley Roberts, the taxi driver that drove Mason twice in Las Vegas, says he got a twenty- dollar bill from Mason, and Ruskin reads the number. Mason tries to get Roberts to admit he could have gotten the bill from someone else, but Roberts insists this is the only twenty he had all night, even tho he bought a good steak dinner which could have been paid with a twenty. Could he have gotten the twenty from Mrs Theilman? He doesn't think so, then it's impossible he did. Isn't he swearing to this because Mason has made him angry? Louise Pickens, a policewoman, says she purchased a Los Angeles Times and a Los Angeles Examiner on the day of the blackmail note and was able to reconstruct the note from those two papers. Burger and Ruskin confer, then ask for an adjournment until the afternoon. Judge Seymour shakes his head. Wilbur Kenney, the newsdealer at the corner near Janice's office testifies that Janice bought copies of the two newspapers and later came back and bought additional copies. She said she was cutting things out of the paper. Lucille Rankin says that, at the five-ten-fifteen-twenty-five cent and dollar store where she works Janice bought a pair of scissors. "She had two newspapers folded under her left arm." Triumphally Burger says that this concludes the prosecution's case. The judge orders only a twenty-minute recess. Janice explains to Perry that Morley sent her to get the papers because of some real estate development he needed to know about. He didn't put the papers in the waste basket. It was their practice to pile them in a closet to use to pack things, or check back issues for real estate ads. Mason says he has to put her on the stand, think on it. He and Drake confer. Why would Janice make two blackmail notes? Suppose that Theilman planned on disappearing, and wanted others to know. Then Mason realizes what he's overlooked. "If the message was cut from those papers, then it was either prepared by Theilman or by Janice Wainwright. In either event the message couldn't have come through the mail, an f if that is the case the letter from A B Vidal -- that is, the addressed envelope -- has to be a dummy." The bailiff reconvenes the court. Mason asks to recall Mrs Carlotta Theilman. Hamilton Burger informs the judge of Mason's delaying tactics, in this case so Mason can decide if he wants to put the defendant on the stand. Further, "the Court has work to do and the taxpayers are entitled to some consideration." Judge Seymour says cross-examination should not be piecemeal and the prosecution as rested its case. Mason pleads the importance of the twenty-dollar bill. That is all he will ask about, and he explains why it is important. Burger says Carlotta had no access to the suitcase and hadn't seen the decedent, and the defense could call her as their witness. Mason points out that "The district attorney well realizes that there are certain aspects of this case which give the defendant certain technical advantages of which he would like to deprive the defendant." If Carlotta paid the cabdriver with a twenty, then there is no longer conclusive proof that the defendant had in her possession any of the suitcase twenties and the circumstantial case fails and the jury could acquit. The judge agrees, and Carlotta says she paid with a twenty because she got three fives and change back. Burger asks where she got the twenty, failing to realize this opens more avenues of questioning to Mason, who promptly asks if she's had any dealings of any sort with A B Vidal. Yes. She was phoned by him and arranged to meet in Las Vegas. She was sent expense money, five twenty-dollar bills. Burger is angered because she never told him this, and she says he never asked. Burger confers with Ruskin and abruptly says, "That's all." Burger is stumped when Mason says he is done with questioning. Mason says he's ready for the defense. Burger says he'll put on the rest of his evidence by way of rebuttal. Mason smiles at the judge; "We have no evidence on the part of the defense, Your Honor. The defense rests. Let's proceed with the argument." Burger is flabbergasted. He wants an adjournment until the afternoon. Now Mason hits him with his statement about stalling and saving taxpayer's money. But the judge agrees to adjourn until two. Mason tells Janice she won't have to take the stand. Della suggest that Burger is "going to have a stroke if you keep on deviling him."
15.	Hamilton Burger asks the Court to reopen the prosecution's case. The judge declines the request and, since the defense has rested, there can be no rebuttal. Burger requests a recess. Mason says, "The defense wants to proceed." Burger waives his opening argument. Mason then states that "part of the doctrine of reasonable doubt" says that if circumstantial evidence can be explained in a way favorable to the defendant, then acquittal is required. Mr Theilman sent his secretary to get the newspapers, for the letter was not sent through the mail. He needed his former wife's stock and felt she wouldn't sell to him, so he used a dummy, but wanted the stock put in his wife's name, so he used her real maiden name, A B Vidal. The deal was cash, so his opponent wouldn't know what he was doing. By assuring that the blackmail note would be found and the cash was for that. Afraid his secretary might not get the note, he put a second in his suit where his wife would find it. Carlotta had dieted and was determined to win her husband back, so demanded direct contact. The twenty-dollar bill the cabdriver got was from Carlotta. She got it from the man who gave the name of A B Vidal. The defendant say she got instructions which sent her to Las Vegas at nine, when the police believe Theilman was already dead. After talking with the decedent, the defendant went to the beauty parlor for some five hours. The murderer could take her car during this time, drive to Palmdale, kill Theilman. Look at the photographs of the crime scene. There is a hose coiled up and attached to the faucet in front of the house. All the murderer had to do was to sprinkle the yard until the soil was muddy. Then he drove Janice's car back to town, leaving only her tire marks in the soil. That is a reasonable hypothesis of the circumstantial evidence. To the jury, "We shall expect a verdict of acquittal at your hands." Burger says this is poppycock, says the waters was shut off. Mason charges this as prejudicial misconduct and the judge agrees. When Burger further argues "Well, it was shut off!" the judge calls it a mistrial. Mason offers that, if the water was shut off, he will again submit the case. Burger at first belligerently refuses the stipulation, then has to accept it. He needs time, however to get the records. During the recess, Drake asks Mason why he did this, and the answer is that a mistrial would mean Janice being locked up and tried again. He thinks he can get her acquitted. If the faucet was turned off, then Burger will have to convince the jury that wealthy Morley Theilman would spend a night in a place with no water in the faucets.
16.	Burger has not been able to get records proving the faucet was turned off, so accepts a mistrial. Mason says the motion was withdrawn so witnesses could be produced to show the condition of water in the pipes. He wants to examine those witnesses. Otto L Nelson testifies that water was turned on the day before the murder. Ruskin says that is the prosecution's case. "Proceed with the argument" says the judge, and Ruskin waives. So does Mason, which prevents any argument by the prosecution! Judge Seymour instructs the jury for fifteen minutes.
17.	Perry, Paul, Della and Janice have the paper with the heading "SHORTEST DELIBERATION IN COURTROOM HISTORY. MASON'S CLIENT ACQUITTED IN MINUTES." Mason admits he doesn't know what happened, and no one will until Troy Cole is apprehended. What probably happened is that Troy was, unbeknown to Morley, the one trying to take over the company. When Troy discovered how Morley was going to outfox him, he knew he had only one way to win, kill Morley. He suggested that Morley go ahead to Palmdale, and he'd join him. He promised to telephone Theilman's wife and tell her that her husband would be away for two or three days. He never made the call, and the shapely shadow was made up. He had water service hooked up. He killed Morley, got Janice's car and drive back, watered the ground, returned the car, but was in such haste he forgot to remove the hose. What of the twenty-dollar bill? The taxi driver got it from Janice! She used money from the safe, which could have been some of the numbered bills put there by Morley, gambled at the Double Take buying chips with one of those twenties. The cashier then gave it to Carlotta for the jackpot she won.

Susan (Sue) Fisher	Arthenium registration desk man	We Rent M agent (Frank Golden)
Amelia Corning	Arthenium assistant manager	Myrton Abert
Carleton Campbell	Arthenium cashier	Abert's helper
Elizabeth Dow	Arthenium doorman	Mason's parking attendant
Daddy, Endicott Campbell	Another cabdriver	Gertie
Country club switchboard operator	Colton C Bailey	Tragg's fingerprint experts
Golf shop man	Candelabra parking attendant	Arthenium freight elevator operator
Assistant janitor	Drake's operatives	Coroner
Cab driver	Union Depot porter	Judge Burton Elmer
Service station operator	Arthenium bellboy	Court bailiff
Miner	Corning secretary	Court spectators
Arthenium Hotel clerk	Kenneth Lowry	Hamilton Burger
Another cab driver	Sophia Elliott	Harrison Flanders
A third taxi driver	Alfredo Gomez	Carlotta Ames Jackson
Perry Mason	Lt Tragg	Mexican cleaning woman
Paul Drake's switchboard operator	Police operator	Operator 67
Paul Drake	Service station attendant	French restaurant waiter
Della Street	Radio prowl car officers	Cindy Hastings
Candelabra Café headwaiter	Photographer	Norma Owens
Candelabra Café waiter	Fingerprint technician
Arthenium house detective	Yet another cab driver

Richard O Myers, M D, Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and Autopsy Surgeon in the office of the Coroner of Los Angeles County, is the subject of Erle Stanley Gardner's lengthy (four pages!) Foreword. "The average medical doctor is no more competent to perform an autopsy in a puzzling case than an ice skater is qualified to execute a ski jump" asserts Gardner. The physician and surgeon "has his hands to full caring for the living he has little time to study the dead." "The forensic pathologist has to know crime." "My friend, Dr Myers, can open his files almost at random and pick out cases where he has been able to keep the guilty from escaping on the one hand, or to keep the innocent from being convicted on the other." "The great tragedy, as far as society is concerned, it that this group [of forensic pathologists] is so small."

One of the longest opening chapters, thirty-two pages, is another in which neither Perry Mason nor Della Street appear.

Then, after that, Gardner gives us the shortest chapter in any Perry Mason mystery, Five, two pages

Here is the only instance I've located in an original Morrow edition of a Perry Mason novel of a misprint. On page 191 Endicott Campbell is correctly spelled two thirds the way down the page, but in the preceding line it is "Endicot."

Paul Drake states of Mason's client, "The evidence points so unerringly and so damningly that there isn't a ghost of a chance she's innocent." Of course, he's wrong.

1.	Sue Fisher signs the register as she enters the office building Saturday morning and goes to the Corning, Mining, Smelting & Investment Company office where she intends to get everything ready for a visit Monday from Amelia Corning. Later, immersed in her work, she hears a childish voice. Seven-year-old Carleton Campbell is in the hall, and arrives with governess Elizabeth Dow in tow. Dow wants Sue to watch over Carleton while she runs some business errands. Daddy (Endicott Campbell) is playing golf, and Carleton has his treasure box. Susan slowly works it so she can peer in, by untying the square know and explaining a Granny knot to her young charge. She sees a pile of hundred dollar bills. She suggests they put it in the safe and, while doing so, opens the box more fully, sees several lots of five thousand dollars each. She reties the box with the square knot and locks the box in the safe. She tries to reach Endicott Campbell at the country club and the switchboard operator sends her to the golf shop were a man tells her he cancelled. Almost as soon as she hangs up the phone rings. It is Amelia Corning at the airport, wondering why she hasn't been met. Miss Dow returns in just enough time for Sue to usher her out and beat her to the elevator where the attendant, the assistant janitor, hurries her down to the lobby. On the way to the airport, she wonders about the Mojave Monarch mine which is supposed to be working, but which seemed abandoned when she visited it. Even a service station operator and a miner said it hadn't been operated for more than two years. She has hardly enough to pay the cabbie, and he gives back her change with a smile. Miss Corning is very friendly, but demanding. She asks Susan to call a porter, and Susan says she hasn't a cent. Where is the emergency fund, asks Amelia, who goes on to say Sue works for her. She hands Susan fifty dollars in tens, but Sue notices they are hundreds and says so. Amelia finds tens and exchanges. Apparently Amelia's cable never arrived. Sue is going to be questioned all afternoon. They get a cab. On the way to her apartment, Susan is asked if she has any reason to believe Endicott Campbell to be dishonest. She's flustered, says that the Mojave Monarch bothers her. So it does Amelia, too. The Arthenium Hotel clerk is able to provide the scheduled room two days early. Then they go to the office. The books are in the safe, but detailed information is in Mojave. Miss Corning spies the shoe box in the safe, and Susan claims it to be hers. They attack figures in the books, then Amelia says "I think Endicott Campbell is a crook." (She came before Monday knowing Endicott would be playing golf and she could get the information she needed without him interfering.) She asks Susan to get a suitcase, gives her two one hundred dollar bills, sends her out. She cannot find a store, so gets a cab driver to take her to one, returns with the suitcases, which Amelia stuffs with checks and ledgers. A cab is enlisted to take Sue to her apartment and Amelia to the hotel. Amelia tells Sue that she is appreciated because she is honest. She knew she offered five hundred dollar bills, not tens. When Sue wonders at Amelia's energy after a long flight from South America, Amelia says she stopped over in Miami. She instructs Sue to get Endicott and have him at her room at eight-forty-five on the dot.
2.	Endicott finally phones Susan at six-twenty, and doesn't like his weekend to be interrupted. She first brings up daddy's treasure and is told she's crazy and certainly emotionally disturbed. When she says Amelia Corning ha arrive and he says "She can't be here!" she says he's again called her a liar and hangs up. She calls the Drake Detective Agency and spews out her need to see Perry Mason to the switchboard operator who puts her thru to Paul Drake who takes her message. Then she receives Endicott's call and tells him that Amelia was going over the records all day and wants to see him precisely at 8:45. Drake informs her Mason will see her at the Candelabra Café at eight.
3.	Della Street sees Susan enter the café, comments that "on a secretarial salary" "the clothes she's wearing indicate she's alone in the world. She isn't supporting any mother, father or younger brothers. She knows how to wear her clothes, too." The headwaiter brings her over. She is forced to relate the day's events in ten minutes and Mason then comments that "there isn't enough time to head things off." He means "to get witnesses who can verify the contents of the shoe box." No one knows how much was in the box, or even that it is intact in the safe. Since she has information about company irregularities, a guilty party might try to involve her in theft from the box. Mason calls for the check from the waiter, signs it. The trio walk to the Arthenium to await Endicott Campbell, who shows up at eight thirty-five. He is offended that Susan has a lawyer. Mason confronts him with the matter of the shoe box. Campbell accuses Susan of hiding behind a seven-year-old boy. "Bosh! He didn't have any such thing." Mason warns him of accusations made in the presence of witnesses. Campbell then asks her to produce the box. He's been to the office and opened the safe and there was n box. Now Mason asks him who his witnesses were to his opening the safe. Mason, Street and Fisher head to Corning's room, while Campbell looks for the house detective. There is no answer to their knock. The house detective joins them and they find the room empty. The house detective (Colton C Bailey) is worried about publicity, and Mason says there needn't be any. The registration clerk wasn't on duty when Miss Corning arrived and Susan signed, which is highly irregular. The assistant manager takes them to the cashier. She left in a taxi and the doorman remembers the cab driver. He is in line, so Mason ask where he took the woman in a wheel chair. He took her to Union Depot. Campbell challenges Mason with the fact that the woman has made off with corporation records which should not have been taken from the office. Mason asks how much stock Corning owns. About ninety per cent. And to whom is he responsible? The stockholders. Again, how much stock . . . Bailey and Mason agree to cooperate. Mason, Street and Fisher walk to the Candelabra parking lot, get the lawyer's car from the parking attendant and head to his office. There he calls Paul Drake and instructs him to find Amelia Corning. Susan protests that she's a working girl and "simply can't afford all these detectives and all of this high-priced action." Mason reminds her that Miss Corning is rich and he's doing things that may help her. After a bit of time, Paul reports that things are goofy. Amelia made a fuss when she arrived at Union Depot. She had four suitcases, two were heavy. She had the suitcases placed in lockers, gave the porter a good tip, when towards the ladies' room, and disappeared. "A woman of fifty-five, with dark blue glasses, a woman who is almost blind and confined to a wheel chair couldn't go to a public place like the Union Depot and simply disappear into thin air." So, the woman Sue Fisher thought was Amelia couldn't have been fifty-fife, nearly blind, and so forth. Mason suggests that Amelia's arriving was staged so Sue would find her and not ask questions but assume she was Amelia. She might be an imposter who now has sufficient documents for blackmail, and possibly a shoe box of money. Mason sends Sue home to get some rest, then calls Drake and has him put men out at the airport.
4.	At eleven thirty Sunday Mason gets a call from Paul saying his man has picked up Amelia at the airport. Mason meets her as she arrives at the Arthenium with a Drake operative. The clerk helps guide her hand to the signature line. A bellboy takes the suitcases and they go to her room. Bailey joins them and they all go to her $135 a day suite. She asks to be moved to a cheaper one. Bailey gets her to show her passport. The operative leaves. Della introduces herself. Corning says she depends upon voices and judges people by them, since she cannot see well. Mason explains about the imposter and the box of money. Amelia, with Della, goes into the bedroom to freshen up. Then Susan arrives and Amelia questions her about how she got hired, if Campbell made passes, and if he's a crook. Susan explains she went out to Mojave and found it abandoned. Campbell's rasping voice is heard and he is angry. He and Mason spar. Campbell says that he was victimized by Ken Lowry who runs the mine, but he has made substantial profits in real estate for the company. He accuses Susan of embezzling over a hundred sixty thousand dollars. Mason says he can prove what Susan says; where is Campbell's son? Amelia chases everyone out but Campbell.
5.	Mason sends Susan home, and tells her to stay there.
6.	Perry and Della drive to Mojave, fill up at the service station and ask the attendant if he knows Ken Lowry. Sure, he's the man across the street getting into a somewhat battered pickup. Mason and Street join Lowry and work him over. Mason gets tight lips, but Della works him over until he starts to talk. He explains the way the Monarch worked. He got calls from Miss Corning after the vein faulted, and initially agreed to close the mine. Then he was to take orders from the Los Angeles office. He was instructed to continue twelve men on each of three shifts, submit a payroll. He was sent a check, told to cash it, take out his pay and send the rest, unregistered, in hundred dollar bills, to a post office box. He heard Amelia on the phone, and a company secretary, and might recognize voices. He is glad to get all this off his chest.
7.	Mason calls Drake and tells him to put a tail on Campbell. Then he calls Amelia, and arranges for an appointment at seven-thirty sharp. He wonders if maybe Campbell's accomplice didn't double-cross the man, or if Campbell doesn't think Susan made off with the shoe box of money. And what if Campbell realizes that Mason must have driven out to Mojave. What might he do to Lowry, who can't lie convincingly? Driving back to Los Angeles proves slower than expected. He arrives at seven twenty-seven. The doorman is given are of the car and Mason and Street go straight to Corning's room. The door is wide open. They enter, call for Amelia, then search the suite. No one is there. Then Sophia Elliott, Corning's widowed sister, and Alfredo Gomez, business manager, arrive, confront Mason, take over the suite and chase Mason and Street out.
8.	They go to Fisher's. She's not there. She left a note with Drake that something confidential would take her out. They get a quick dinner and return just as Susan comes up. She says that Corning called her and told her to dress as a man, rent a car, drive to a service station on Mulholland Drive, then past to a parking place, walk back, get a gallon can of gasoline, take it back to the car. She wanted to drive to Mojave unknown before banks open Monday. But she waited and waited, and Amelia never showed up. So she returned the car, had a drink at a bar, and returned home. Amelia's call came to her about five forty-five, which is just after she talked with Mason. She also said they were going to walk in on a meeting of the people who were looting the company. She though he was in Mojave, and wished her detectives had reported earlier. Mason has Sue transcribe her shorthand notes of Amelia's instructions. With these, Perry and Della drive to the place on Mulholland. Using a flashlight, they explore, find Lowry dead, account books soaked in gasoline. They go to the service station and phone homicide for Lt Tragg and the operator shouts for the lieutenant. Mason informs Tragg of the murder, leaves Della to give directions, rushes past a startled station attendant and returns to the scene of the murder. A radio prowl car arrives with two officers, and one goes to the body. Then Tragg arrives with a photographer and a fingerprint technician. Mason and Tragg look at the body, and the prowl car officer says the man hasn't been dead very long. Mason is escorted back to the service station, where the attendant says a woman bought a can of gasoline and he has wondered what happened. Mason gives a description which the attendant cannot confirm as he didn't get a very good look. Mason confuses the issue and has Della take notes. He then instructs her how to get Sue out of circulation.
9.	Tragg is not happy, but lets Mason go. The taxicab driver takes him to the 'We Rent M Car Company' near Fisher's place. There the rental agent explains he was just closing, he's only a branch, a new idea to beat the companies that have agencies only at the airport and downtown. Mason uses an air travel card to establish credit, rents the only car that is there, since that is all the branch has, tho they can order from the main office in ten minutes if they need more. Mason then has Drake get a man to get fingerprints off the car. Myrton Abert comes with a helper. By daybreak he can say there are no bloodstains, and twenty-three fingerprints.
10.	Up at seven forty-five, Mason drives the car to a school, lets air out of a tire, then offers passing schoolboys if they'll fix the tire for twenty bucks while he goes to a snack bar for coffee. Of course. He then returns to his office, tells Gertie he may have to cancel his appointments, only to have Della show up shortly. She and Sue were taken by the police and questioned. The Tragg barges in and asks to inspect and take the rental car. He warns Mason that if they discover fingerprints have been wiped from the car, the attorney will be in trouble. They go to the car, and one of the fingerprint experts is exasperated. He's "never found a car with more fingerprints on it than this." Tragg's response is, "One has no respect for an adversary who is unworthy." On the way back to the office Drake joins them. He's located Campbell, but it is no help. Amelia wheeled her chair out of the freight elevator the previous night and no one has seen her since. The elevator operator has been questioned by the police. Mason puts Drake on to finding more information, particularly checking fingerprints. They can get Lowry's from the coroner as a matter of course. Drake checks his office and they've gotten Lowry's fingerprints. They begin checking what they have, and Lowry's were in the car.
11.	Judge Burton Elmer enters the courtroom, the bailiff calls the court in session, and spectators notice that Hamilton Burger is seated with his deputy, Harrison Flanders. The deputy lays the foundation of the case with evidence of the crime. Then he calls Endicott Campbell, who testifies that two hundred and seven thousand, five hundred and thirty-six dollars and eighty-five cents were sent to Lowry. He further states that the defendant was an assistant, more than a secretary, actually co-operating in operating the company. He relates a conversation with the defendant in which she claimed his son had shown her a shoe box belonging to the witness filled with one-hundred-dollar bills. He ascertained that his son did not give Susan a box of money. He relates seeing Lowry twice on the weekend because Miss Corning was coming to town. She had previously instructed to let Lowry run his end of the business. An accounting would be made at the appropriate time by a subsidiary company. When Campbell is asked what Lowry did with the money, Mason objects that such information is not binding on the defendant. Sustained. Now he is asked about the shoe box, and his seven-year-old son, Carleton, and the claim of the box filled with money. Mason asks several questions. Was anyone with him when he searched the safe? "Then it is only your word against hers." "It is my word against hers, and so far, at least, I am not accused of killing anyone to cover my defalcations" Campbell replies sarcastically. [One must interrupt here. Gardner doesn't play fair. After the case is solve, Mason says he was given the hint he needed regarding the shoe box by his ability to determine if a witness is lying. Campbell was sincere in his testimony. Shame ESG!] Elizabeth Dow states that she knows of her own knowledge that the shoe box had "a pair of black patent-leather shoes belonging to Endicott Campbell." she looked in the box while Carleton went back in the house to get his coat. Could the shoe box have been substituted? Not before they got to the office. Frank Golden, the We Rent M Car Company agent, says he rented car 19 to the defendant at six thirty. She returned it at eight fifteen. Then a few minutes before eleven he rented the car to Perry Mason. It was returned the next day by the police. Myrton Abert then testifies to fingerprinting the car, turning over evidence that Ken Lowry had been in the car. Lt Tragg reports finding the body, checking tire tracks and determining that they matched car 19. Sophia Elliott testifies she is the sister of Miss Corning and she met Mason at the Arthenium Hotel in her sister's room. Chambermaid Carlotta Ames Jackson testifies to seeing a woman in a wheel chair and the driver of a car who was wearing a raincoat, sweater, slacks and a man's hat, exactly as Susan was clothed, and she identifies the defendant. Mason cross-examines her about how she identified the defendant. Did she get a glimpse of the defendant before she was put in a lineup? Did she see a picture of the defendant before this? How many conversations did she have with the police before she was certain of her identification? Ten. Was she more positive the tenth time than the ninth, and the ninth more than the eighth, when she wasn't so sure? Court adjourns until afternoon.
12.	At lunch in a French restaurant, Drake is, as usual, convinced of the client's guilt. Mason knows Lowry had to get a phone call and, even if he left Mojave right after Mason. There isn't enough time for Susan to have committed the murder. Drake checks with his office and discovers that a call did go to Lowry and a Mexican cleaning woman took the operator's number he was to call back; 67. The woman had to wait twenty minutes for Lowry, and she gave her name as Miss Smith, from a booth near Susan's apartment. Mason reminds Drake that Susan says she never met Lowry, couldn't know what he looks like. He wants to know more about the ringer who took the part of Amelia Corning, for the Saturday arrival certainly could move the wheel chair around. Mason gets an idea, and asks Drake to check limousine services. They give their order to the waiter, ate in moody silence. Then the call comes thru; the A to Z Limousine service picked up a woman in a wheel chair at Union Depot and take her to Mojave.
13.	Back in court, Mason asks about Campbell's women friends. He doesn't have any since his wife left him. The only person to call at the house was a friend of the governess, Cindy Hastings, a nurse built like Dow. Susan repeats her denial of ever knowing Lowry. [Okay, if Campbell and Fisher are both telling the truth, what is the solution?] Norma Owens, manager at Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company, identifies the stiletto with which Lowry was murdered as being a letter opener of Susan. Lt Tragg is recalled, identifies the rental slip for the car, found in Fisher's apartment. Burger starts to argue the case, but Mason objects. The judge says "that the defense must be given every opportunity to explain the facts." Endicott again asserts his son didn't have a box of money, and he did tell Elizabeth Dow to take him where he wouldn't be found. Burger states this concludes his case. Mason wants to recall Dow. Denied. Mason asks for, an adjournment until four. The judge says that the conditions for binding the defendant over t Superior Court have been met and Burger says he feels that two murders have been committed. Mason, however, says he can clarify events if given the time. Burger reminds everyone of counsel's reputation for trickery. Judge Elmer corrects with "For ingenuity." Mason grabs Tragg and gets him with Drake and Street, head, in Tragg's patrol car, siren screaming, head to the apartment of Cindy Hastings. Mason breaks in, points out Amelia Corning to Tragg and suggests he catch the woman running down the hallway from the apartment. Corning has been drugged. They feed her coffee. Tragg returns; he didn't catch her, but police cars have cordoned the area off and they'll have her. Mason explains it was nurse Cindy Hastings, who also posed as Susan. The real Corning was the first one, the later arrival was the one picked up at the freight elevator in the alley by Elizabeth Dow dressed as Susan in man's clothing. These two women kidnapped the real Corning in Mojave. The arrival of the real Corning's sister threw their plans off, so they made Susan the scapegoat. It was Dow who called Lowry as if she were the real Amelia Corning and she gave the instructions to send the cash back to her post office box which had the name of Corning Affiliated Enterprises. Campbell told the boy they could change boxes, but somehow he got hers. What happened to the box, asks Tragg. Amelia, almost awake, says she's got it.
14.	Mason gets back to court just in time. He calls Frank Golden, proprietor of the We Rent M Car Company. Burger objects, the judge overrules. Golden is asked if the rental car went out after the defendant brought it back and before Mason took it out. Yes, it was driven about thirty miles. Mason calls Tragg, since Amelia is still too drugged to testify, but Burger rises to dismiss the case. Granted. Susan crawls all over Mason, crying and laughing, "Oh, you wonderful, wonderful man!" But she can't pay. Della says that Miss Corning will. Tragg asks how he knew. He says he thought Campbell was the villain, but his testimony was sincere, so Dow had to be lying. One of the two spinsters had to be an imposter, they gust got the wrong one. {To simplify;} the two women created a diabolical plot. They got Sue to dress as a man, then Elizabeth similarly dressed, spirited away the imposter before the real sister arrived. They used the car right after Sue returned it. Tragg asks the one question that baffles him; how did he get all those fingerprints on the car. "Trade secret."

Della Street	Gertie	Ezra Honcutt
Perry Mason	Service station attendant	Collington Halsey
Gwynn Elston	Lt Tragg	Stan Doyle
Nell Arlington (Mrs Frankline Gillett)	Police "net"	Process server
Felting Grimes	Plainclothes man	Judge Harlan Laporte
George Belding Baxter	Officer at Baxter's	Farley Nelson
Frankline Gillett	Gorman Gillett	Hamilton Burger
Their son, Frankie	Baxter's caretaker Corley L Ketchum	Surveyor
Paul Drake	Baxter's servants	Photographer
Dr John Downey	Baxter's cook	Autopsy surgeon
Drake's switchboard operator	Baxter's housekeeper (Minnie Crowder)	Peterson L Marshall
Gus, Brown Derby headwaiter	Mr Manny Bolton	Alexander Redfield
Detective near Baxter estate	Ewald P Carver, M D	Moulage expert
Drake's strongarm man	Hy Lovell	Carl Freeman Jasper

This novel was published in an abridged version serialized in The Saturday Evening Post.

This book is dedicated by Erle Stanley Gardner to Mitsuo Yokoyama, M D, Ph D, for his contributions to the field of hematology. As of the writing of this Foreword, the usual few blood "types" that we all know (A, B, O, AB, and positive and negative variations) had been expanded to about forty blood group systems, seventy blood group factors, and more than 100,000,000,000 theoretically possible genotypes.

In The Case of the Spurious Spinster, a type was discovered. Here, on page 110, another. Bolton becomes "Boton."

Here is another brilliant time-shift situation where everyone gets the murder time wrong for good, but wrong, reasons

1.	Della Street has "a mischievous twinkle in her eyes." She asks Mason some questions which Mason turns on their heads. "Can you tell me why it is that it is noon in New York when it is only nine o'clock in Los Angeles?" "The people in New York get up three hours earlier." Gwynn Elston, saleswoman for Practical Physical Facts for Parents, is waiting in the outer office.
2.	She brings him a crumpled tissue which she believes contains strychnine. She explains that she lives with her friend Nell Arlington who is married to Felting Grimes who, of course, has made passes at her. Then she went to make a call - her company provides leads - on Mrs Frankline Gillett. Her seven-year-old looked exactly like Felt. She took interest in the boy, Frankie, and he showed her a photo of his father, and it was Frankline. She saw a photo of Frankline in China in the Air Force, and she's brought a sketch of the Chinese characters in the photo so they can find out what air base he was assigned to. She feels that there is something sinister about Felting Grimes. She thinks Felt may have seen a list Nell wrote from phoned prospects. She was served a gin and tonic that she thinks had strychnine in it, so she threw it out and placed water in the glass, later wiped the sink with a tissue. She has to return in the eve to show the product, and is certain Frankline won't be there. She feels she must tell Nell about the strychnine. Mason gives her his card, suggests that if she sees Frankline to ask if he knows Mason and Mason thinks he knows him. Mason takes a five dollar check as retainer, puts the tissue in an envelope on which Gwynn writes her name. After she leaves Mason has Della get Paul Drake to contact John Downey, the toxicologist, to look at the tissue.
3.	Doctor Downey reports there was strychnine on the tissue. Mason calls in Paul Drake and asks him to wait around while he and Della go to the Brown Derby. He expects an emergency call from Gwynn Elston between eight-thirty and nine-thirty. Della and Perry work until near eight, then walk down the hall to Drake's office where Mason tells the switchboard operator where to reach him. At the Brown Derby Mason instructs Gus, the headwaiter, to have a phone ready for a call. It is nine-forty when the call comes thru. Drake reports that Gwynn was "blithe as a lark." Then Gwynn phones in and tells of meeting Drake's detective near the Baxter estate. Mason tells her she was right about strychnine. She says someone ought to kill Grimes. It would be good riddance. She continues that the detective was out there to protect her. She gave him a ride to a service station in Vista del Mesa. They set an appointment for ten-thirty in the morning. Mason tells Drake to send his strongarm man home.
4.	Gwynn is late. Della phones Nell, who thinks Gwynn will phone in. Gertie informs them that Gwynn has come in. She reports that Grimes is dead, in bushes at the Baxter estate. She went back there to see about the detective who gave her his gun the previous night. She explains that he gave her his gun so she'd take him in to town, then he disappeared after saying he'd arranged with he station attendant for a drive back to his car. She went back today to the estate which was open, found no one there, then discovered Grimes in bushes. She drove away, throwing the gun, which she'd shown Nell the night before, into bushes near the gate. Mason says she's a rotten liar, but he has to believe her, even if that means she goes to the gas chamber. He tells her to go out on her rounds of calls. He sends Della to Drake to find the name of the officer and what service station man serviced his car. Then he phones Lt Tragg and informs him of the murder.
5.	Mason informs Drake of the murder at millionaire sportsman George Belding Baxter's place and orders him out there to get all possible information including locating the car with the flat tire. Lt Tragg barges in without warning with a plainclothes man. He wants to know who Mason's client is, but he counters that he doesn't even know there is a murder except by hearsay. They spar and Tragg loses. However, in the slogging along category, he wins. Tragg figured when Mason called that the client was probably in the office, so he has a police net all over the area looking for him or her. Mason notes that, if his client had murdered the man, he'd not have notified the police, but would have advised his client to make now statement and that the statement made to him was a professional confidence. Tragg counters that there must be some piece of evidence at the crime scene that he wants the police to find. He leaves with an "I always like to drop in when I'm in the neighborhood."
6.	Gertie gives several short rings on the phone to warn Mason of impending danger. Tragg marches in with plainclothes man and Gwynn between them. He's found a check stub in her purse with Perry Mason as the recipient of five dollars. Mason points out they had no warrant. Mason warns Gwynn to say nothing unless he's present, and forces Tragg to place her under arrest. Then he has Della get his car.
7.	They go to the Grimes residence. Nell is surprised to see "Perry Mason!" The attorney questions her about Gwynn's background. She's worried that Gwynn may be having a surreptitious affair with her husband. He says the police will be coming soon, suggests they get in her car and drive so they can talk undisturbed. She admits that she and her husband file separate returns and she doesn't see his. As they drive, she turns on the radio to a news program and hears of the discovery of a dead Frankline Gillett, then an auto near the Baxter estate swimming pool registered to Felting Grimes, whose thumbprint matches Gillett's. Nell screams; "So that's it! . . . She killed my husband, and you were trying to trap me into taking her part." Mason tries to explain but she starts kicking at his face with her high heels. Della picks up the stranded attorney, suggests that Nell "had defended herself that way quite a few times before."
8.	So they go to the Baxter estate where Drake is being kept outside the gate. Mason tries to see Tragg, but an officer says they have to have a pass. Mason takes out a hammered silver cigarette case, offers a cigarette to the officer, then Della, and finally Drake. Only Drake takes one. Mason takes out a lighter, lights Drakes cigarette, then one for himself, closes the case and throws it over the wrought-iron fence, which provokes the officer. Mason then throws the lighter into the bushes. Then he and Drake start to leave, but the officer detains them and eventually Tragg shows up with his plainclothes man. The officer explains what Mason has been doing, and Tragg orders a search of the bushes, where they find the gun. He doesn't give the case, lighter or gun to Mason.
9.	Drake reports that there is no birth certificate for Felting Grimes (so Gillett is the first marriage). He thinks he's found the father, Gorman Gillett, a recluse in a mountain cabin at Pine Haven near the Walker Pass. He died a few days ago. He's been unable to find any trace of the car Gwynn says she saw. The time the car might have been there is nine-thirty, for the caretaker of the estate, Corley L Ketchum, shut the gates at ten. Baxter's has a couple of servants who work eight to five, a cook who works noon until eight, and a housekeeper who lives on the premises, but had the night off. Baxter was in San Francisco, came back, said the body was a complete stranger, and he'll go to Honolulu tomorrow. The police figure Gwynn accused Frankline of bigamy and she drove him into the estate at gun point, and killed him. Mason thinks the death of two Gilletts within a few days is rather strange and, since Gorman has no relatives, maybe he should pay for the burial.
10.	Mason and Street go to Pine Haven and directly to the Bolton Funeral Home. Mr Bolton welcomes them and is even more welcoming when Mason offers to cover funeral expenses. Mason uses the ruse of sending Bolton back to Della for a check, while he makes fingerprints of the corpse with the light lipstick Della has brought with her. When Mason asks about Gillett's estate, Bolton offers to take him to the man's shack. On the way Mason learns that Old Doc Carver - Ewald P Carver - pronounced the man dead of coronary occlusion by looking at him twenty-four hours after he'd seen him on the street. At the cabin the find lots of magazines bought for a penny apiece, and one Saturday Evening Post from two and a half years earlier. Mason shows a photo of Frankline Gillett, and Bolton thinks it is the man who occasionally visited Gorman. He thinks the Pine Haven service station attendant, Hy Lovell, and friend Ezra Honcutt, might know. They visit Honcutt in his long Johns and Levis. He thinks the photo is the visitor. Lovell identifies the photo as the man who bought gas and called on Gorman Gillett a couple of times. Mason gives Bolton the go ahead on spreading this news around town. As they drive back to Los Angeles, Della asks about the Saturday Evening Post. Mason says there was an article "about a businessman who made a fortune buying up old adobe houses . . . giving them modern conveniences, and selling them at a whale of a profit." Together they say "George Belding Baxter."
11.	Drake reports that Tragg has "gone boiling" to Pine Haven, trying to find out what Mason was up to. The gun was purchased by George Belding Baxter who gave it to his housekeeper, Minnie Crowder, who then lost it. Mason tells Drake to put a man on Baxter, his housekeeper and the caretaker so they can serve a subpoena whenever they want, and keep Baxter from leaving for Honolulu. A phone call to Drake brings the information that the fingerprints Mason brought him were those of Gorman Gillett who served seven years for armed robbery some twenty years earlier. He was in prison with a Collington Halsey. They escaped, Gillett was caught, Halsey disappeared. Mason has an idea and Della guesses that it is George Belding Baxter. Halsey's disappearing means he "got some kind of completely fresh start and . . . got in a position where no one would ever dare suspect him." Gillett served his time, settled down in a little town away from crime, then one day saw Baxter, multimillionaire, in the Saturday Evening Post. Suppose he recognized the man as Collington Halsey. Then the son discovered the situation and started leading a double life and living on the fat of the land. Then death takes both within forty-eight hours. Mason takes care of the magazine problem first. He calls Bolton and suggests that if he has some old magazines he should take them to the cabin so people won't think all "Uncle" Gillett ever did was read crime magazines. Then he has Della get polished silver cases and fine desk lighters for the front office and his office. When Baxter rushes into Mason's office after being served the subpoena, they can get his fingerprints with him not knowing.
12.	Baxter, in the outer office, is hopping mad, but Gertie and Della have rehearsed so that as soon as he uses either lighter or case, they can call him in to the inner office. Baxter storms into the office and Mason ignores him. Baxter says he has a battery of attorneys who will do what they have to. Paul Drake brings in his fingerprint man, Stan Doyle, who finds excellent prints on the desk lighter. Then a process server comes in, gives Mason papers for a hundred thousand dollar civil suit claiming Mason deliberately abused the process of the court to cause him inconvenience. Drake phones in. The fingerprints are not Collington Halsey.
13.	Baxter is clean as a hound's tooth according to the FBI. Ballistics reports the gun was the murder weapon. Further, Gwynn has sobbed out her whole story. Mason asserts they must find the man who gave Gwynn the gun. Drake says Frankline did. Mrs Gillett found the gun in her husband's suitcase and he said he'd found it on the street. He took it with him on his last trip. That day was the day he returned home as Felting Grimes. The police are making no effort to find Gwynn's stranded motorist. That is, says Mason, because they've found him. Drake reminds Mason of the time element, that Gillett couldn't have gotten on to the Baxter grounds after ten, and Gwynn left the Gillett house at nine-fifteen. Drake has checked on Baxter being in Bakersfield as he said. He registered at six-thirty. Mason points out this gives him time to get to Baxters for the murder.
14.	Judge Harlan Laporte notes that next to Farley Nelson, the trial deputy, is Hamilton Burger. The district attorney rises to ask that Baxter be excused, but Mason says he is an important and necessary witness, and he won't give away his defense by saying why. The judge says Baxter must choose his remedy, sue Mason, or be excused, not both. Nelson calls a surveyor who produces a map of the Baxter estate and house. Lt Tragg testifies to receiving a call from Mason and his eventually catching Gwynn Elston, then of his search in which he found the gun. Mason then has him testify to what the officer at the gate told him about Mason's antics in throwing things over the fence and into the bushes. A photographer introduces photographs of the body and an autopsy surgeon fixes the time of death between nine and midnight. Mrs Gillett identifies the body. For Mason, she states her husband of eight years was a salesman who had a couple of jobs until about two and a half years ago he went into business for himself. She's been unable to discover any information on the nature of his business or any books of account, nothing that would indicate the source of his income, which was always in cash deposits. She testifies to her husband finding a gun from which she recorded the number. He took it with him on his last trip. Nell Arlington says she went through a marriage ceremony with Mr Felting Grimes in Las Vegas eighteen months earlier. The body is that of her husband. She recounts the story told her by Gwynn abut the officer who insisted on a ride and who gave her the gun. She says a list of prospects for Gwynn, with Mrs Frankline Gillett on it, was where her husband could have seen it. Nelson tries to get her to relate the conversation she had with Mason, but he objects that it is n to binding on the client. Peterson L Marshall testifies to selling the gun to Baxter. Minnie Crowder admits she lost the gun which had been give her by Baxter near the road. She cannot say the murder weapon is definitely that gun, as it has no distinctive marks. Alexander Redfield testifies that the gun is the murder weapon. Mason points out the gun is not yet evidence since it hasn't been connected with the defendant, and points out that Baxter could connect it up, but Burger doesn't want to call him because then the man would have no basis for his hundred thousand dollar law suit. The gun is admitted only for identification. Corley L Ketchum testifies to locking the gates just before ten and saw no car there, nor heard one enter the grounds prior to that, tho it could have been done without him hearing it. A moulage expert introduces casts of tire and foot tracks near the body. Court takes its midday recess. Drake reports that a mystery witness is being heavily guarded. Mason is certain it is the man who gave Gwynn the weapon.
15.	Carl Freeman Jasper is Burger's star witness, a private investigator employed by Felting Grimes. He was watching the Baxter place to get license plate numbers from any car that stopped there, and a description of any woman who entered the house. His first report was by phone in his well-concealed car was of Gwynn Elston going into the house. Twenty minutes later, Felting Grimes, whom he now knows as Frankline Gillett, showed up and joined him, and he followed him to the estate, parking where the road widens at the gate entrance. His client advised him to stop her when she left, stay with her, learn what number she called. He protested the difficulty of the assignment. Grimes gave him a gun and said to shoot out a rear tire if necessary. Grimes would follow them. He reluctantly took the gun. On voir dire Mason gets Jasper to admit he cannot state the gun is the one he saw. He suggested that Grimes drive inside the estate and turn his car around so he could follow more easily. He did so. He then recounts his stopping Gwynn exactly as she's told the story. At the service station he circled so that he was outside the phone booth and could hear Gwynn when she dialed a number he knows as the Drake Detective Agency, then a second number of the Brown Derby and ask for Perry Mason. During the conversation she was heard saying that someone ought to kill Grimes and it would be good riddance. He rejoined his client who had driven up, was told "the fat was in the fire." They went back to his car and he was dismissed for the night, leaving Gillett standing in the rain at ten before ten. He also notes that he'd checked the gun and it was fully loaded. Mason cross-examines. The witness can only state that the gun with the tag on it is similar to the one he had. He admits he was prepared to make love to the defendant, to lie to her. Yes, he lies to get information which in turn gets him money. Burger immediately launches into an argument of the case, "one of the most perfect cases of circumstantial evidence we have ever had in our office." Mason responds that Burger went one witness too far, for the last witness "conclusively establishes the innocence of the defendant." While questioning the witness "about the gun, he never once dared to ask him the simple question, quote, Did you kill the man you knew as Felting Grimes or did you have anything to do with his death, unquote," even though by his own testimony the witness had the gun and was the last person to see the dead man alive. Burger calls this poppycock and recalls Jasper and asks the question. No. Mason then asks to cross-examine and over objections to when Grimes first employed him, he finally gets the answer he needs; two and one half or three years ago. The circumstances were the bringing to him for identification fingerprints by Grimes. From that moment he had an idea that Grimes was blackmailing someone. The prints were of Collington Halsey. So didn't he blackmail Grimes as Grimes was blackmailing Halsey. Jasper resents the charge, says he was only paid for various professional services. Mason asks how much and sets it between twenty and thirty thousand dollars. While Burger argues against reopening the case, Mason suggests he wants to see the typewritten list of names which included that of Mrs Frankline Gillett. He asks Della,with Paul, to see if the last name, Mrs Gillett, is from the same typewriter as the other names, shake her head if it isn't when he looks to her. Mason states to the Court that Jasper could be guilty of murder. He looks at Della, who shakes her head. Burger emotes a long statement about Mason's tactics, particularly abusing the process of the court in subpoenaing Baxter. Mason calls Baxter. Burger demands that the questions must be directly pertinent. Mason then gets permission to ask leading questions. How long has he owned the Baxter estate. Seventeen years, and he was in Bakersfield so knows nothing about the murder. How long has he known that Corley L Ketchum was actually Collington Halsey, wanted by police. Baxter wilts. He has known it for several years, for Ketchum is his brother. Frankline Gillett discovered this about two and a half years earlier and demanded blackmail. Baxter now admits his real name is George Belding Halsey. Gorman Gillett discovered his identity probably through a Saturday Evening Post article. He and his brother appeared in a photo, and shortly thereafter Gorman demanded blackmail which they had been paying since. Gorman probably never knew how his son got the information or how much he was demanding. When the newspapers announced Gorman's death, Frankline demanded even more. Collington phoned him in Bakersfield, and he drove down to the estate, meeting Frankline with Collington at eleven. Frankline said he needed money to pay off a nosy female and he needed an alibi. He refused Frankline's request on the issue of an alibi. Frankline went around to his car. They heard a shot just before midnight. Baxter is sorry for this, but Gillett needed an alibi for a murder, which would have him state they were together in Bakersfield. Fingerprints don't lie. Mason wants now to recall one of the prosecution' witnesses for further cross-examination. Burger does not objects to Nell Arlington's being called. Mason suggests that the last name, Mrs Frankline Gillett, was added by Nell after the list was received in the mail. She admits it, for she had found a driving license in the name of Gillett whose description exactly fit her husband, and she was curious. But her bigamous spouse found out that Gwynn was making a call to the house, and put strychnine in her gin and tonic. Gwynn lied when she came home, so she put barbiturates in Gwynn's milk toast and then took the gun and went after her husband. She caught him red-handed, realized he planned to murder her. He tried to strangle her, she pulled the trigger, he fell to the lawn. She drove home, put the gun back under Gwynn's pillow. Mason bows to Burger; "I think that concludes the defendant's case."
16.	The trio discuss the situation which, according to Mason, boils down to Gillett's being" one of a type; a man who doesn't think very far ahead but plots to escape from one predicament as fast as it develops without carefully planning the whole situation."

Perry Mason	Newspaper photographers	Judge Crowley Madison
Della Street	Robber's Roost waiter	Dr Phillip C Foley
Gertie	Drake's switchboard girl	Matilda Pender
Lattimer Rankin	Four cars driven by Drake's men	Alexander Redfield
Collin M Durant	Mrs Homer Hardin (Phoebe) Stigler	Waiter
Maxine Lindsay	Lieutenant Arthur Tragg	Yacht club watchmen
Otto Olney	Western Union clerk	Frankline Fulton
Phellipe Feteet	Service station attendant	Agnes H Newton
George Lathan Howell	Homer Hardin Stigler	Court clerk
Corliss Kenner	Sergeant Cole Arlington	Policewoman
Olney's wife	Goring Gilbert	Hamilton Burger
Paul Drake	Heavy-set woman	Olney's intermediary
Roy Hollister	Bikinied beauty
Newspaper reporters	Thomas Albert Dexter

This novel was published in an abridged version in the Toronto Star Weekly under the title The Case of the False Feteet.

In the Foreword Erle Stanley Gardner dedicates the book to a group of men who, with him, investigated the case of an American Indian convicted by Army court-martial of murder. Chief was the Honorable James M Carter of the United States District Court in San Diego. Additionally,several doctors read the documents of the court record. The original consulting pathologist had only the information provided by the autopsy surgeon on which to base his analysis, and apparently had gone beyond what that autopsy surgeon was willing to state. The doctors were Lester Adelson of Cleveland, Ohio, Francis Camps of London, Daniel J Condon of Phoenix, Arizona, Russell S Fisher of Baltimore, Maryland, Richard Ford of Boston, Massachusetts, S R Gerber of Cleveland, Milton Helpern of New York, New York, Joseph A Jachimczyk of Houston, Texas, Alvin V Majoska of Honolulu, Hawaii, and LeMoyne Snyder of San Francisco, California. "Even a wealthy man could hardly afford to consult such an array of medical talent. Yet these men furnished their services gratuitously to review the case of a penniless Indian boy."

Here we learn where Della Street lives, the Crittmore Apartments on West Selig Avenue.

It is common to include pages before the first page of a novel's text in the page numbering. This can make a book look longer than it is. The mint copy including jacket that was used for this synopsis has the novel text beginning on page 1 and ending on page 276, making it one of the longest of Perry Mason mysteries. It became a very nice TV episode.

There is a lot of contemporary culture in this novel. Drake records a telephone conversation and is able to disable the beep that the law requires. Credit cards are being widely used, but Mason's ultimate client doesn't have one. Drake mentions the dye-transfer process for color photo printing (he doesn't go into the process, but it is demanding, exacting, and produces virtually fade-free photographic prints of very rich saturation). Further, Gardner introduces the latest method of determining the time of death, the rate at which blood in the body is cooling. A third of a century later, most people still don't know of this Lushbaugh method.

In his ever raising the stakes higher against Mason's winning when Burger is in the courtroom here Gardner has the judge trying to stop Mason from committing legal suicide.

1.	Perry Mason grins at Della Street as he enters his office late. She suggests he buy a new carpet for the reception room, since a client has been "pacing the office at the rate of five miles an hour" ever since Gertie let him in. It is Lattimer Rankin, art dealer, who gave them a picture which Della has just hung in the office. When admitted to Mason's private office, Rankin immediately says he wants to sue Collin M Durant for half a million dollars because he is an unethical competitor, among other things. Durant has made innuendos about Rankin's incompetence and Maxine Lindsay, an art student, heard him say he sold Otto Olney a rank imitation. Mason says a suit is not the best approach for all people who read the newspapers will remember is that an art expert said he sold worthless art for $3500. Mason suggests they see Otto Olney, get him to sue Durant for disparaging a painting he paid $3500 for but which is worth twice that. They would get an art appraiser to evaluate it. Is Olney a regular customer? No, he's a rather peculiar individual, and commissioned Rankin to find this particular Phellipe Feteet. The artist had a knack for painting bright sunlight and there may not be more than two dozen pictures from this part of the artist's career. Rankin says he'd like to buy it back for ten thousand because he could sell it for fifteen. Mason says he can get the newspapers on his side, for all Durant can do is reiterate that the painting is spurious. He says he will get George Lathan Howell, noted art expert, to appraise the picture. Mason tells him to wait until he's secured Maxine's testimony, but get in touch with Olney and suggest that he file suit, using his own lawyers. Mason takes a large retainer and, after Rankin leaves, Della removes the picture Rankin gave them.
2.	The reluctant model, Maxine Lindsay, has arrived. She's blonde, stacked. She says Durant said the Feteet was forged when on Olney's yacht at an artist's party. They met because he saw her as an artist's model, but she's become busty and photographers, not artists, like that. So she became an artist, painting portraits over 22 x 28" light prints. Olney met her while she was modeling, they talked, invited her to a party. Later, at another party, Durant was talking about art dealers and he said that one of the paintings on Olney's yacht, the Feteet, was a fake. Olney doesn't have his artists to his house, because his wife doesn't approve. Mason informs her she's to be a witness. Does she have any romantic attachment to Rankin or Olney. Not the former, but she's not sure about Olney. Then with Howell, yes. Mason calls Rankin, suggests he dump Howell. He responds with Corliss Kenner, who is "terribly attractive . . . a smart dresser, well-groomed, swell figure --' Mason asks Maxine if she could withstand cross-examination by Kenner. No problem. Then Mason asks for, and explains, an affidavit. She's instructed how to reach Mason through the Drake Detective Agency. Then Mason calls Paul Drake and asks him to get a general background on Maxine.
3.	Four o'clock and Roy Hollister of Warton, Warton, Cosgrove and Hollister calls Mason about Rankin's advising Olney to sue Durant. Hollister doesn't want to be anyone's cat's paw. Mason explains why his client won't sue, and why Hollister's should. Mason says he'll send a copy of Maxine's affidavit.
4.	Ten-thirty next day, Tuesday the 13th, Hollister invites Mason, and Street, to a cocktail party aboard Olney's ocean-going yacht. He is filing suit at one, and the party to announce it to reporters is at two. They catch a quick lunch on the way to the Penguin Yacht Club. Aboard the yacht they meet a tired-looking late-forties Olney. Mason is startled by the brilliance of the Feteet. Corliss Kenner joins the group, then Hollister, newspaper reporters and photographers, and finally Rankin. The newspaper people want information and photos before cocktails. Kenner doesn't want to be the only expert, so she's asked Howell to come, and he arrives. Both experts agree the painting is an authentic Feteet, Kenner admitting she's tried to duplicate Feteet's technique, unsuccessfully. Howell examines the painting with a magnifying glass and is still convinced. Howell remarks that Durant is an unscrupulous publicity hound, but his face freezes when he hears that Maxine has signed an affidavit. A photographer catches Mason and Street looking into each other's eyes.
5.	A waiter at the Robber's Roost comes over to Mason with a newspaper clipping indicating that the attorney and his "deep-dish" secretary can be seen at the restaurant evenings. Another restaurant they are going to have to avoid for a while! Then Collin Durant comes over, brings a chair to the table, and proceeds to be obnoxious to Mason, who keeps telling him it is not his suit nor his client. Durant insists Mason was at the event and his photo with Della is in the newspaper and so forth. Finally Mason's anger scares him away. Mason then tells Della the story of the jeweler who takes a check for an engagement ring after the banks close Friday. Then the buyer pawns it for a fifth of its value. The pawn broker calls the police, who pick the buyer up. The jeweler now thinks the check must be bad and asks to have the man held until the banks open. Of course, the check is good, and the buyer now threatens a major law suit which could ruin the jeweler who then pays off the guy at ten times the cost of the ring. Mason thinks Durant,who was so bad an actor, is trying something of the sort. They decide to get Paul Drake working overnight.
6.	Paul Drake is heading out from his office as Mason and Street arrive. "Another murder?" he asks. "Hell, no. I wish it were another murder. Those things are simple," replies the attorney. This is the night Paul was going to have a night out at the theatre. He gives his ticket to his switchboard girl. Drake says Maxine has been calling, but Mason says they have things to do first, and complains about the lack of space in which to pace, and think. Drake suggests Mason tell him his troubles, then go to his office to pace and think how he's going to get enough money to pay his bill, including a scalper's price for a theatre ticket. Drake has seen the newspapers. It is the phony painting scheme. Mason has an affidavit proving the statement, but it is no good if the Maxine skips out, and he thinks she will. Mason explains Durant's act, then tells Drake to arrange operatives to tail Maxine after he meets with her. Now they call Maxine, and Drake records the conversation without the legal beep. She is at the bus terminal. Mason gets her to meet him outside Della Street's apartment. There Maxine simply says she has to go away, but she'll be available to testify. She gives Della a key to her apartment to pick up and care for her canary. She tells Mason to put a specific want ad for his witnesses in the paper and she'll return. Several cars busy themselves, one blocking the road, and they fall in line as Maxine drives away; Drake's men. Mason escorts Della home.
7.	At Drake's office Mason learns that Maxine is headed north. He's learned little about the reluctant model other than she modeled in New York, came west to crash the portals, got a bit heavy, switched to photo portrait painting. Durant is a phony with an army medical discharge. After an art appreciation course, he began working himself into art circles. He rides around in fancy cars but often loses them because he can't keep up payments. He's two months behind in his rent. He's married twice, but the second family threw him out without a penny. Drake gives Mason a description of Durant's car. Drake's men report that Maxine wired from Merced for money from Phoebe Stigler at Eugene, Oregon, to be delivered in Redding. Hollister phones in,unhappy. Mason suggests he take a deposition from Durant, which gets rid of the bureaucratic pest, then head to Maxine's to get the canary. Arriving at Maxine's apartment, they see Durant's car out front. At the apartment, they find nothing much, certainly not a canary, until Mason looks in the bathroom. Face down, bullet holes in his back, is Durant, very dead. His inside pocket is filled with hundred dollar bills. The lights are on, and rigor mortis has set in. Mason instructs Della to call Lieutenant Tragg and report the murder while he heads north, by scheduled airline or chartered plane as needed.
8.	In Redding, Mason goes directly to Western Union, where the clerk reveals that the money for Maxine hasn't been picked up. He phones Drake, learns she will arrive soon. She comes in to the service station across the street, leaves her car with the attendant. She gasps when she sees Mason behind her. She gets her money and she and Mason settle down in a restaurant. When Mason says Durant has been murdered, she spills her coffee and the waitress helps clean up and move them to another booth. Mason digs, and eventually she begins revealing her story. She says "Durant had the most horrible pair of ears in the world. He heard everything and forgot nothing." He'd piece the gossip together and use it. Durant wanted her to go to Rankin, and wanted Rankin to see a lawyer. Durant was pleased she was making out an affidavit. Then he wanted her to leave the country, said he'd bring her money about seven, then never did. She went to the bus station to wait, as he'd instructed if he didn't get back to her apartment. She phoned Mason from there, then met Mason just before she started driving to her sister Phoebe Stigler's place. When Mason mentions the murder weapon, she learns that it might be her gun. He says her story won't stand up, can she get her brother-in-law to back her up? She can't drag him in. Then she wilts, says her sister married Homer, who went overseas in the army and gallivanted around. She took up with someone, got pregnant. Then Homer wrote that he'd been a fool, wanted to make up. Phoebe's playboy dropped her. So Phoebe had the baby, but gave Maxine's name. When Homer came home, they adopted "Maxine's baby." Durant found out, held it over her. "There were times when I could have killed him. He--" Mason stops her has Lieutenant Arthur Tragg sows up with Sergeant Cole Arlington of the Shasta County Sheriff's office. Of course Tragg wants to hear the remainder of the conversation and t ask questions. Mason warns her to say nothing, says he wants to phone Rankin and get permission to represent her, tho she was just about to go to a local lawyer and have him call the L A police. Mason gets permission from Rankin, and tells Tragg to make his call which will allow them all to fly back to L A.
9.	Ten at night and Mason gets together with Rankin. The attorney warns the man that if he represents Maxine, and finds Rankin is the murderer, he'll not spare him, but fight for Maxine. Rankin agrees. Who was it Durant tried to get a thousand dollars from? Corliss Kenner, who "Told him to go to hell."
10.	Eleven and Mason returns to his office to find Della awaiting him. She gets Drake, who is frantic to see Mason. He's found that Goring Gilbert, a gifted copyist and beatnik artist, was making pictures for Durant, who was in the business of making and selling phony pictures. He discovered this from an artist's supply store, with which Durant was in arrears. Two weeks ago Durant paid off the account, in hundred dollar bills. The trio go to Gilbert's loft digs. A heavy-set woman directs them to the party. There a bikinied beauty calls Gilbert to the door. They go to his studio. Mason says he wants to know about a "clever copy," not a forgery. Gilbert brings out his Feteet, and both Perry and Della are speechless at its beauty, and accuracy in rendering sun and shade exactly as Feteet did. Gilbert doesn't like Mason, but takes to Della, who gets to ask one question. Was he paid in hundred-dollar bills? Yes. Mason offers to buy it, because he's afraid it might disappear. Gilbert really doesn't like Mason, all this stuff about money. He says he was going to give it to Della, to remember him, but not now. He suggests the attorney and his secretary are in a rut (and only a bit earlier Mason was telling Della how they had to get out of the office and away from the routine!). The trio leave. Mason says that Durant never got the opportunity to substitute his fake for the original, which he would have done before the painting was brought in to court. Now Mason wants Drake to find out where Durant got hundred dollar bills. It was not from an account under another name, for the banks were closed.
11.	Paul Drake is just a few steps behind Perry Mason in arriving at the lawyer's office, and Della has a cup of coffee ready for his open hand. Mason wants to know how Durant got ten thousand dollars in hundreds when the banks were closed. Drake says a woman identified Maxine in a show-up box. A wire comes thru from George Lathan Howell giving two thousand dollars as a campaign contribution to Maxine's defense.
12.	Maxine tells Mason she's followed his instructions, and that the newspapers were more difficult than the police. He warns her that lying is they way the police catch criminals. She insists she had a canary. She doesn't remember anyone at the bus station, she was upset. She admits Howell asked her to marry him. When she learns of his two thousand dollar contribution, she says he must have sold his car. He doesn't have a key to her apartment, but Durant did. He warns her that if the police can prove she left her apartment later than seven-fifteen, she's in trouble. Sit tight, is his advice.
13.	Paul Drake complains about the overstuffed leather chair in which Mason sits the clients he wants to relax. He thinks Maxine is lying about the child, it was really hers, and the father was Collin Durant
14.	Deputy D A Thomas Albert Dexter announces the prosecutions is ready, and Mason is ready, so Judge Crowley Madison asks for the first witness to be called. Lt Tragg produces photographs and a diagram of the murder scene. Then Dexter asks if Miss Street made a statement and tries to get it in, but the judge notes that this is hearsay and ask why it is necessary. "It tends to contradict the defendant's subsequent declarations." Having found why the prosecutor wants the information, Mason now objects, to the judge's chagrin. So Della Street is put on the stand, but the conversation the prosecutor wants is now a confidential communication. When did Mason tell you he was going to represent her? A day later. Mason asks if Maxine didn't consult him as an attorney? Yes. Did she pay a retainer at that time. No. But she hasn't paid one even now! Dexter gives up, recalls Tragg. He states that eventually Miss Lindsay made a statement to the effect that she wasn't fleeing, she was going to her sister in Oregon. The last time she spoke to Mason was nine-thirty before she left town. She denied having a child by Collin Durant. Dr Phillip C Foley testifies that death took place between seven-forty and eight-twenty. He used the Lushbaugh method of determining time, a method which measures the rate at which body temperature is decreasing. Matilda Pender, ticket seller at the bus depot, says she noticed the nervous defendant at between eight and eight-twenty near the telephone booth. Mason shows that she could have been there earlier . Alexander Redfield testifies that the three bullets recovered from the body were fired from the gun that is in evidence.
15.	The trio are having lunch in a private room at the restaurant where they habitually ate during trials. The guns is hers, but they cannot prove anything beyond that, is Drake's conclusion. Mason wants Drake to check who has been on Olney's yacht and the whole operation at the club. Why did Durant send Maxine out of town when he had ten thousand dollars? Things don't fit. Mason tells Drake he wants subpoenas for Olney, Howell, anyone in the painting business, Mrs Olney. He wants to know how much time Olney spends on the yacht. Now the waiter delivers their lunch. Goring Gilbert has already been served a subpoena dues tecum. Mason wants the fake painting in evidence and knows the prosecutor will resist, trying to force Maxine on the stand. In a preliminary trial, one doesn't put the defendant on the stand, because it gives the prosecutor an opportunity to rip her apart, and a conflict in the evidence won't prevent the defendant from being bound over. Mason adds the watchmen at the yacht club to his subpoena list; he wants to know when the painting was made.
16.	Matilda Pender is recalled. She testifies that a locker near where Maxine was standing was removed for overstaying its twenty-four hour limit, and the gun was found in it on the fifteenth. She gave it to officer Frankline Fulton. The locker was dusted for fingerprints, none of which have been identified. Agnes H Newton, who lives in an apartment across from Maxine's but nearer the elevator, testifies to seeing her back out of her apartment with the canary and go down the stairs opposite the elevator just before eight o'clock. Mason catches her in bits of misstatement, finally getting her to admit she was apprehensive because her man friend had come late, and she didn't see the defendant's face, only the lengthy, baggy tweed coat and other clothes the defendant wore. Mason demands she produce her driver's license. It shows she has bad eyesight. Mason tests it. She is perfect, because she is wearing contacts that she just purchased. Finally, all she saw with her eyes while not wearing glasses or her contacts was a baggy tweed coat and a caged canary. The defense rests, and the judge is about to bind Maxine over to Superior Court when Mason interposes that he wants to put on a defense. He puts on Gilbert Goring, who admits he did several paintings for Durant and was paid in hundred dollar bills. Mason leads up to wanting the painting at least marked for identification and kept in the custody of the court clerk so that it cannot be taken away. The judge is bowled over when he sees the painting. How long before Mason can link the painting to the case? It will take until the next day, because he intends to put the defendant on the stand, so he wants a recess until later in the afternoon to organize his witnesses. Judge Madison admonishes Mason, takes him into chambers, tells him directly to not put his client on the stand. He states the chain of events which seems to tie the client rather obviously to the crime, and that there isn't "any possible combination of facts which would keep a committing magistrate from binding the defendant over . . ." Mason says he still wants to take a calculated risk.
17.	A policewoman brings Maxine to Mason. He explains that he wants to put her on the stand, and this will give the prosecution an opportunity to ask all sorts of nasty questions, but he needs to get the false Feteet introduced into evidence. Mason rejoins Della, who asks if he noted that Gilbert said he did not do the Feteet for Durant.
18.	Hamilton Burger has entered the courtroom, in for the kill, or so he thinks. Mason calls Maxine Lindsay, and tells her, "Just go up thee and hold up your right hand, Maxine. And tell the truth." Burger chimes in, "No need of the grandstand." The judges asks for no personalities. Maxine says she knew Durant for three or four years. She knows Olney. She was aboard the ship when Durant said that Olney's Feteet was a fake. When Mason shows her the fake, she says it is absolutely similar. She had a conversation with Durant at six on the 13th. He said he'd get her money but, if he didn't, she must get to her sister. Durant only told her to get out of town after she told him she'd signed the affidavit. And Durant had some hold over her. Yes. Mason now wants the painting introduced into evidence. Burger objects, and Mason concedes the painting never hung in Olney's yacht. The judge interposes that we haven't established if the painting is a copy, forgery, or original. Mason says that is what he wants to establish. It is necessary to recall Goring Gilbert. He asks if he was hired to make a copy of a painting that was on Otto Olney's yacht. Yes. Did he? Yes. And it is the one marked for identification? Yes. And he was paid? Yes. How much? Two thousand dollars? How? Twenty one-hundred dollar bills. Burger wants to cross-examine. The judge says this is only voir dire. Burger falls into Mason's trap, asking about Gilbert's making several copies for Durant. Gilbert says "Not exact copies. I copied the style, not the picture." But the one identified is exact? Yes. "And Durant paid you to make this copy?" No. Then, who did? Gilbert refuses to answer, and Mason points out this was not brought out on direct, and carefully notes that Burger has to enter the painting in evidence, or not get his answer, unless the answer would involve the witness in a crime. Burger doesn't want the painting admitted as evidence, but the judge says the only way he'll get his answer is to allow that! Court adjourns so that the judge can look authorities regarding the situation.
19.	Mason is pleased with himself, and Drake doesn't understand. Mason explains there will be no reckoning tomorrow, for there will be no tomorrow. He got his answer when he learned that Durant didn't order the painting, and Gilbert never delivered it. The one who paid for the painting holds the key. The factors are "The painting was forged. It cost two thousand dollars. It was never delivered. The money was paid in hundred-dollar bills. Collin Durant had ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills and got murdered." Finding the gun in the locker is the bombshell he can unleash. The lockers were serviced ever twenty-four hours, and the gun was found the fifteenth, so wasn't put in until the fourteenth, so the gun was planted after Maxine was seen there. The plot thickens. Olney is in the outer office and is mad as the devil, since he has to go to Honolulu the next day. Mason phones Lt Tragg, tells him to get up to the office right away. Olney is admitted, and Mason soothes him saying that if he'll sign a note stating he has no knowledge related to the affair then he can be released to go to Honolulu. He signals Della to take her time. When she returns, Mason says he'll have to swear to the statement, and Olney balks. Mason counters, says he'll make out an affidavit that Olney can sign saying he didn't give Durant any one-hundred-dollar bills. Well, he could have loaned Durant some money! Then he'll have to go to court. Tragg enters, and Mason tells him of the loan. Tragg jumps in, asks how much of the money Durant had came from Olney. Durant wants to go to his attorney. Mason swings the final punch; how did he not miss his Feteet while it was gone while Gilbert was copying it? Perhaps it was he who wanted the copy, knowing his wife was planning to file for divorce, and he didn't want her to get the original. When Mason states he's served Olney's wife a subpoena, the husband collapses. Olney gave the money to Durant at seven-forty-five, to get rid of Maxine. He paid two thousand for the painting through an intermediary. He paid off Durant so his wife wouldn't learn of the substitution of the fake. He paid eleven thousand, in Maxine's apartment. Durant needed a thousand to pay back a loan, and ten for himself and Maxine. He had a witness. After he left, she remembered she'd left her purse and went back. Olney is adamant about naming the woman. Mason passes Olney a piece of paper on which he's written the name of the woman but, before Olney can cay anything, Mason analyzes the situation. Durant was doing business with Gilbert. He paid off his paint store bill with hundreds. This was just after Gilbert received his fee from Olney's representative. Durant must have borrowed the thousand from Gilbert. He had ten left when found. Gilbert detested money, or he'd have taken the whole eleven thousand, but took only the one he was owed! He was the murderer. Olney's friend phoned Gilbert, thinking he was in on the bite Durant was putting on Olney, but it was news to Gilbert. He was told to see the proof in front of Maxine's apartment. Olney was such a chiseler he'd even swindled Maxine out of her get-away money. Tragg leaves with Olney in tow. Mason's paper has the name of Corliss Kenner on it; he burns it. Gilbert hated Durant, but wouldn't have been caught had he so little care about money he took only the thousand owed him. Durant was the father of Phoebe's child, and didn't care who knew, but Maxine did. He suggests Della return Howell's check, for Olney will probably cover all costs.

Della Street	A feminine voice	Uniformed officer
Aunt Mae Kirby	Gertie	Chief Preston
Perry Mason	Montrose Foster	Policewoman
Dianne Alder	Sid Nye	Carter Leland
Room-service waiter	Winlock's wife	Judge Warren Talent
Harrison T Boring	Marvin Harvey Palmer	Two police officers
Dianne's drowned father, George Alder	George Alder.	Two stretcher bearers
Dianne's dead mother	Eunice Alder	Dr Powers
Paul Drake	Moose (Steven) Dillard	Herbert Knox
George D Winlock	Motel manager Carmen Brady	Two waiters

The usual Erle Stanley Gardner Foreword is to an individual to whom the Perry Mason novel is dedicated. In this instance the dedication is to a group, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. This organization was but "an idea in the brain . . . of the late Dr R B H Gradwohl, who was the subject of a dedication in The Case of the Grinning Gorilla.

After several novels in which Mason himself comes closer and closer not just to losing for his client but for being in trouble himself, this mystery is a relaxing relief, where Mason could get in trouble for suborning perjury, but we never really get worried about the possibility.

The prime question is often one of the time element. Here there is a refreshing twist on that formula.

Here there are several very short chapters, but the shortest chapter in all of the Perry Mason novels is the ultimate one here, less than a page of text

1.	Della Street is spending a two-week vacation with an aunt (Mae Kirby) in Bolero Beach. Perry Mason is on his way home from San Diego, it is Saturday, so he decides to stop by. Della has a mystery. She'll show Mason the mystery, but not introduce the body. She notes that he has explained that corpus delecti means not the body of the victim, but of the crime. She goes to the beach, and he joins her. Then a curvaceous blonde, well-stacked, arrives at the private beach, unescorted. They follow to the snack bar where she drinks a glass of milk, half cream, eats a steak, French fries, salad, apple pie a-la-mode and two candy bars. Della has been watching the blonde trying to gain weight for the past two weeks. Already a tight bathing suit is reaching the bursting point.
2.	Aunt Mae has invited Dianne Alder, the blonde, to a dinner of chicken and dumplings. The dinner ends with hot mince pie. The conversation shifts to Dianne's gaining weight, which she says she's doing under contract to wear clothes designed for full-fleshed women. Dianne is bashful about the whole idea, even blushes at compliments about her curvaceous figure. Mason asks Della to get her aside and find out about the contract woman-to-woman.
3.	Della calls Mason in his hotel room; he has Dianne's contract. Mason orders breakfast. The room-service waiter brings them ham, eggs, coffee, and they discuss the contract. On the surface, Mason states, it seems completely reasonable, even benevolent. The party of the first part will pay Dianne a hundred dollars a week each Saturday morning to gain weight. Anything that Dianne earns during the contract, which will be two, four or six years, will be split fifty-fifty. Mason surmises that, say, Dianne meets a millionaire, marries her, leaves her the fortune, the party of the first part would get half. What if the party of the first part, Harrison T Boring, is acquainted with someone who is very wealthy, perhaps eccentric, and impressionable of voluptuous blondes. Boring arranges for him to meet Dianne. Boring gets half of her household expense money when she marries the man. Maybe it takes a while, which is why the contract is renewable in two year increments. Boring couldn't murder the man to gain the inheritance, because a murderer cannot gain from his action. He'd have to have someone else do it. Della says Dianne was exercising at the beach after work until Boring approached her, convinced her his business was legitimate. Boring insisted she not show the contract to anyone, that any advanced publicity would ruin things. Dianne phones in, says she has to have the contract back immediately, she'll come up to pick it up. When she arrives, Mason makes her come in. Does she have any dependants? No, mother died over six months before. Father died when she was ten. She rushes away. Mason thinks she could be in trouble if the weekly salary stopped coming in. Call Paul Drake! Della wonders if her boss would be so solicitous if Dianne were flat-chested. Mason chalks it up to mere curiosity. On the phone, Mason gives Drake instructions.
4.	Drake brings his report. Dianne worked for Corning, Chester and Corning. Everyone like her. She quit, and they didn't know why. Dianne's father drowned when she was ten. His body was never found and it took some doing for him to be declared legally dead and Dianne's mother to inherit, then use up the inheritance, after which she got sick. Very little is known about Boring. He rents a desk in an office where a secretary takes messages and mail for several people. The phone is under the name of the Hollywood Talent Scout Modeling Agency. The only millionaire in the background may be George D Winlock, and he hasn't followed up that lead yet. He does know that Winlock came to Riverside about fourteen years earlier, dabbled in real estate and built up to land speculation in the desert. Dianne arrives, frantic, with a letter terminating the arrangement with Boring. Mason takes a dollar, as retainer, and the contract from Dianne. He says he'll collect the rest of his fee from Boring. He calls Boring, and a feminine voice takes his message asking for a return call. Mason explains the options she has, suggests she consider the contract now terminated. He tells her to go home to Bolero Beach and start losing weight.
5.	Harrison T Boring wants to see Mason. The attorney slips a note to Gertie to make certain Paul Drake has a tail on Boring when he leaves. Mason and Boring get right to the point. "In Hollywood things are done on front, on flash, on a basis of public relations" according to Boring. Namely, he has no money, and therefore cannot pay Dianne Alder, but he hopes to get another backer for his project. Mason says he is going to make in pay for what he's done to Dianne. After Boring leaves Mason realizes the red herring, the weight, which was window dressing. Boring has found a more profitable way of making money than splitting an inheritance. Montrose Foster, Boring's former employer, arrives, with an offer to share with Mason if Mason will tell him who is client is. Mason declines the offer. Boring has found a lead that his former boss missed, and Mason wonders what it is. They are having Boring shadowed, and so is Foster.
6.	Drake has reported that Boring has gone to Riverside, and is being shadowed by another agency. Mason says that Dianne Alder is the pot of gold, the blonde bonanza for Boring, who is one step ahead of Foster, realizing blackmail pays more than an inheritance split. Winlock is now the key, for father Alder never drowned. Until Dianne's mother died, all property of her husband is community property, therefore, inherited by Dianne.
7.	Drake's right-hand man, Sid Nye, greets Mason when he arrives in Riverside. He explains that Moose Dillard, whom Mason represented when the man was in a jam over losing his license, is the local shadow. He checked in in a room at the Restawhile Motel where he could watch Boring's room. Apparently Boring caught on to Dillard, took a look at his car, which was registered in Paul Drake's name. Further, Dillard is a big guy, not fast thinking, and he's hungry. Nye reports that Winlock arrived about fourteen years before, started as a real estate salesman, got enough money to take an option on some property, parlayed this into big money and a high social position, which his wife covets. His son, Marvin Harvey Palmer, is a sports car addict who is a devil with the women. Drake phones in. Foster has found Dianne. She got upset, headed off in a rush. Mason says it is time to get in touch with Winlock. He phones, gets an immediate appointment, and Nye drives him to Winlock's.
8.	Mason comes to the point quickly. He knows about Winlock over the past fourteen years, but not before. Winlock says he does not have amnesia but remembers his past life. Mason then mentions the contract by Boring with Dianne and Winlock takes heed, admits he is George Alder. He admits that he and wife Eunice had little in common, and he used the boat's capsizing to free himself. He was picked up by a boat headed for Catalina, left there. He's built a new life with a circle of socially prominent friends. He had to make a clean break, especially with Dianne, but he helped her get her job as secretary. Winlock suggests he'll throw himself on Dianne's mercy, hoping she accept financial restitution and leave her and his wife with their social position intact. When Mason returns to Nye he is told that a kid in a sports car and woman who is a knock-out left shortly.
9.	Dianne has reported to Della the Boring was going to sell her into white slavery. Mason is sure he can get a settlement out of Winlock, and scare Boring out of the country. They order dinner. Dianne arrives, tells Mason what she learned from Foster. Sid Nye calls in; Moose Dillard has sent out a "Hey Rube" call.
10.	Sid and Mason drive to the Restawhile, join Dillard. An ambulance has taken Boring. Dillard reports. First was Foster around eight, for fifteen minutes. Around 8:20 a kid driving a sports car (Marvin Palmer). He was there for fifteen minutes, and was followed almost immediately by a fortyish woman (Mrs Winlock). Then a man, for five minutes (George Winlock). Ten minutes later a knockout of a blonde (Dianne Alder) whose license he has was in for ten to fifteen. He has all this in his notebook. Dillard is sure the police will eventually look for him. They all leave.
11.	Mason's meal is cold. Dianne wasn't hungry. She is wide-eyed when she hears Boring is at the hospital. She insists that she did see Boring, but for no more than five minutes. (Mason's rule number one, believe your client. Now, if she is telling the truth, who is lying, and why?) Mason accuses her of lying. She says she has to . She found Boring on the floor. The place reeked with whiskey. She only took time enough to find the contract in his briefcase and leave, go to a phone booth and telephone the woman at the motel. A uniformed officer arrives, wants to take Dianne to headquarters. Mason says she's too emotional upset and declines the officers request.
12.	Sid gives a "Shave, and-a-hair-cut, five cents" knock, end is admitted to Mason's hotel room. He explains how Moose Dillard has headed out of town after losing his notebook. He suggests that if Mason needs Dillard, he can call about moose hunting. Later Winlock joins Mason, wanting to make a settlement. He offers Mason a hundred thousand dollars to keep his relationship to Dianne from becoming known. Mason tells Winlock that he had only one wife, his first, until she died, and any property gained during that time belongs to Dianne. He wants Mason to keep everything out of the press. Winlock phones police Chief Preston, tells him to forget the anonymous tip about Dianne Alder. Mason only promises he'll do what is best for Dianne.
13.	Mrs Winlock now makes an offer, to perjure herself and her son to clear Dianne. She admits that there is a concealed microphone in her husband's study, so they overheard his conversation with her husband. She will say that her son found Boring injured, her husband saw her leave and didn't want to implicate her . . . Mason admits the first he'd know what she actually saw would be when she is on the witness stand.
14.	Sid Nye tells Mason that Moose has been picked up and he even found his missing notebook. A policewoman takes Dianne into custody even as Mason shouts instructions to his client.
15.	Carter Leland, D A of Riverside County, gives his preliminary statement to Judge Warren Talent. Montrose Foster says Dianne said, of Boring, that she could kill him. Mason shows his bias by getting him to admit he tried to rouse her anger, then, that he is willing to lie if it is to his advantage. Steven Dillard details his following Boring, seeing Dianne enter the motel room, taking down the car license which is registered to the defendant, then seeing the manager look into the room and leave quickly. Two police officers, then two stretcher bearers came. Mason pins Moose down on the time, then the validity of his notes. The defendant was in the room from nine to nine-twelve. His notes are complete to Mason's arrival, but don't include anything after Dianne left, such as the motel manager, the police and stretcher bearers. Mason gets him to admit further that there were moments when he wasn't watching, such as when he made his "Hey Rube" phone call. Carmen Brady, the hotel manager, says she took a phone call at nine-twelve which sent her to the motel unit where Boring was. Her clock was fast, but the police records show she phoned them at nine-thirteen. Dr Powers testifies that Boring died from a blow of a blunt instrument to the back of the head. Herbert Knox testifies to arriving at the Restawhile at nine-eighteen, saw the body, later identified the dead man. The odor of whiskey was strong, and he had only incidental money on him. That is the prosecution's case.
16.	Mason, Street and Drake order lunch to be delivered to their suite in the Mission Inn. Over the phone Mrs Win lock renews her offer. Then Winlock arrives, confides in Mason that he saw Boring after them, and he was fine! He tole Boring he was going to have him arrested as a blackmailer and made him give the ten thousand he'd given him back. Mason reminds him that he was the last person known to see Boring alive. He thinks it unfortunate that all his wife wants is for none of this to become public. Over the phone Mrs Winlock renews her offer. Two waiters bring lunch, but Mason is too bothered to eat. He thinks the whole thing may be a put up. It is not his job to find the murder, but to prove Dianne innocent. Drake reports on the time it would take the manager to leave the office, go to Boring's unit and return. It changes nothing. Later he reports that it took two minutes to leave the motel and get to a pay phone. Perhaps the family is protecting the stepson who struck the fatal blow? Mason worries that Winlock can corner him with suborning perjury.
17.	Back in court Mason wants only to clarify a few points, but prosecutor Leland is sure this is but one of Mason's tricks. Mason asks Dillard about his notes; they are scrawls, all but the last ones, the words "blond enters cabin . . . leaves unit 9:12 P.M." and thereafter are neatly written, so must have been written later. Mason now solves the case, getting Moose to admit his complicity. These last notes were written later. It was he, Moose, who injured Boring, when that man discovered Moose spying on him and came to his cabin. Hot-tempered Moose then bashed him one, found he'd badly injured the man, took him back to his cabin and poured whiskey over him. Moose adds that Boring was calling him names and made a pass at him, so he retaliated. He never quite knew when Dianne came or left, but he had to have something in his book, so he approximated it. The judge wonders how Mason figured this out. He says the final clue was the "P.M." "No detective on a night stake-out would write P.M. after the hour." The judge is sympathetic, suggests that Dillard probably struck in self-defense.
18.	Dianne is sympathetic to the plight of Winlock's wife, and she doesn't want to sweep out from under her the social position she's gained. She tells Mason to make whatever settlement he can with her father, for she's going back to Bolero Beach as Dianne Alder.

Della Street	Bannister Dowling	Her boy friend	Surveyor
Perry Mason	Moray Hobart	Lorraine's friend	Autopsy surgeon
Audrey Bicknell	Nancy Banks	Uniformed officer	Stanley Moulton
Bookies	Bail clerk	Jail matron	Bailiff
Paul Drake	Jailer	Tax appraiser officer	Jarvis Nettle GIlmore
Race track announcer	Foley Motel manager	Inez Fremont	Court reporter
Race track cashier	Lt Tragg	Judge Navarro Miles	Gleeful newspaper reporter
Rodney Banks	Lorraine Lawton	Jurors	Courtroom attachés,
Marvin Fremont	Larsen E Halstead	Hamilton Burger	Newspaper reporters
Sid Burdett	Lockhard Apartments manager	Robert Calvert Norris	Photographers

"For some years now I have had firsthand information concerning many of Joe Fallon's cases, the manner in which he works, his thoroughness, his courtesy, his uncanny ability as an interrogator and his unswerving ingegrity to his uniform and to his ideals. "It is for these admirable qualities that, on his retirement, I dedicate this book to an outstanding officer, JOSEPH B FALLON, Deputy Superintendent of the Boston Police Department. -- Erle Stanley Gardner"

An interesting point of law; apparently just passed was the law allowing granting of complete immunity for committing a crime in exchange for testimony that would incriminate the witness.

1.	Della Street has a brand-new one for Perry Mason, a client who will give him twenty minutes. By the time they let Audrey Bicknell in, they have only seventeen minutes. Her problem is that she bet five one-hundred dollar tickets on Dough Boy, and she'll pay Mason twenty dollars to collect for her if he wins. She normally bets through bookies, and only two dollar bets. Mason gives her Drake's number so she can reach him Saturday if she has won. As the race is already over, Mason is certain that the horse won, but Audrey was afraid to be seen collecting. They catch up on some mail while awaiting the 5:30 rebroadcast of the race. He asks Drake to join them. The detective laughs heartily when he hears they bet on Dough Boy, and gives them a lecture on how to choose a horse.
2.	Of course, the race track announcer has Gee Whiz out front at the start, and Paul Drake grinning. But at the race's end, Dough Boy is first. Fifty-seven bucks for two. Drake picked Gee Whiz scientifically, Mason by choosing a nice name, a horse that will make an honest effort to win! It's infallible asserts Della, who figures that Audrey has made a $14,250 profit.
3.	On the way to the track Mason has picked Pound Sterling to win. He wants to put $2, Della $10. If the horse wins, would he want her to not have bet ten, is Della's logic. "Arguing with a woman is a waste of time." The race track cashier counts out the money in nothing bigger than hundreds. A man and a policeman walk up, the man telling the officer to arrest Mason, that he got his tickets from Rodney Banks. He's Marvin Fremont, the officer Sid Burdett. The officer certainly isn't going to arrest Perry Mason and, when Fremont calls Mason a crooked lawyer, he's in trouble for Della has been taking notes. Burdett says they saw Banks bring a fifty-dollar ticket to the window, but he had no others. Mason suggests Banks might have won enough to pay back the embezzlement, but Fremont says it was won with his money. Mason tells Fremont to consult a lawyer and ask him what are Mason's chances of collecting damages. Now Fremont calls Mason a shyster. The race starts, and Pound Sterling is not in the money. Mason suggests they try a thoroughly disreputable horse, and chooses Counterfeit Cash. He goes to the window and bets two ten-dollar tickets. Odds are 20:1 and start dropping as the race approaches. Della asks, "Suppose the money was embezzled?" "There's no way on earth those tickets can be identified." The race starts and their horse is way back, but coming up. It is a photo finish. Bannister Dowling, attorney for Fremont, and Moray Hobart, detective approach. They want their money, and they want it now. Dowling says that Banks's sister was his accomplice. Banks is in jail on a $5000 cash bail. The embezzlement was for less than that, so they have no intention of allowing Banks to make restitution. They want to hold him for embezzlement and take his winnings. Fremont continues to mouth up while Dowling tries to shut him up. Counterfeit Cash is declared the photo finish winner. Mason asks Fremont if he intends to claim these winnings, too. His system is virtually infallible. Fremont now wants to be Mason's friend. They collect $160 per ticket. They drive away in such a manner as to elude any tail. Mason doesn't know any Rodney Banks, and no one has suggested that Audrey has embezzled anything, so it is time for dinner.
4.	On the phone Mason learns from Drake that Audrey has been phoning him frantically. He phones her and learns her real name is Nancy Banks. She wants Mason to get her brother out of jail. Mason says he must first see her, get agreements. Mason and Street go to Banks, give her the money, then arrange for a fee and bail. Audrey suggests Mason have no further contact.
5.	Mason pays the bail clerk, yet still has to wait twenty minutes for Rodney Banks to be delivered by the jailer. They ask about his $50 ticket; it has been impounded. Banks hotheadedly asserts that Fremont only claims to be short little over a thousand. Mason tells him he won't be his attorney, but warns him that if Fremont allowed Banks to pay off the shortage, then the boss might be liable for false arrest and falsely accusing him of embezzlement. Mason says he should talk with his sister, now. Back with Della, Mason notes that if Rodney gave Nancy the $500, Fremont would have to prove the embezzlement, prove the identify of the money, and prove the sister was an knowing accomplice. Finally, then can now enjoy cocktails and an early dinner.
6.	As he enters his apartment, the phone is ringing. Only Della and Paul have the number. It is Paul. Nancy is desperate to get in touch with Mason. The Foley Motel manager answers his call, says Miss Banks is out. Mason has her take a note to the room. Mason relaxes, and Drake is again on the phone. Nancy has phoned in again and is "excited as all hell." Mason says she's not at the motel and Drake says she said she was calling from there. Mason goes to the motel and Nancy's unit, finds the door open, finds the manager's note on the floor. He settles down, gets bored, starts to leave, then notes the closed door to the bathroom. He checks, finds the body of Marvin Fremont. He wipes his fingerprints off the door knob, and heads out just as Nancy heads in. She says she went to her apartment, wanted to hide her money. She got held up by a stocky, fortyish man who took all her money. She hasn't notified the police. Mason keeps at her, but she simply can't notify the police, so Mason starts to leave. She has nothing more to be afraid of, since the money is gone. She shakes his hand, hers is ice-cold. She wants Mason to wait while she packs. No. He leaves. Soon she calls after ; there's a body in the bathroom. Mason pounces on her; she knew it all along, was trying to get him to find it. The hold-up was an alibi and he's caught her pulling a phony stunt. The lock the room and go to an outside phone to call homicide. Lt Tragg gets the news.
7.	Tragg comes out of the motel unit and starts questioning Nancy. Mason tells her, "The very worst thing you can do right now is to let Lieutenant Tragg act under any misapprehension. He's a square shooter . . ." She admits to knowing the dead man, that her brother works for him and tells the lieutenant about the embezzlement situation as well as winning at the races. She was held up by a man when she went to her apartment house, the Lockhard, to have Lorraine Lawton keep some of the money. Lawton runs a trout farm. She thinks the man, who was masked, was about forty. Tragg pulls out a handkerchief with holes in it, puts it over his face, pulls his hat down to hold it in place. Nancy gives a little scream. Tragg looks "exactly like the man." Well, Tragg didn't hold her up, and he got the handkerchief out of Fremont's pocket. Nancy admits she wanted Mason to find the body, so she'd have an alibi. She was afraid she'd be suspected because she had worked for Fremont, quit when passes became pawing. Tragg goes back in, returns with a torn piece of cardboard. Nancy's face "was drawn and white, the eyes wide with panic." Mason calls off further questioning. Tragg explains that the body must have been packed in dry ice, and this piece of the container got left behind, so the murder was premeditated. Tragg says Mason won't know until the prosecutor presents the evidence.
8.	Mason confronts Nancy. The dry ice could make it look as if Fremont were murdered much earlier, which gives Rodney an alibi. Since her hands were ice-cold . . . She denies, then admits she found the body packed in dry ice, which she removed. She's worried because a week earlier a group were discussing how police determine the time of murder by body temperature, and she told them how a perfect crime could be committed by packing a body in dry ice. Rodney, Lorraine, the Lockhard Apartments manager, her boy friend, a friend of Lorraine's and (Larsen E) Halstead all heard this. Mason warns Nancy that police will begin looking in culverts for the dry ice and containers. There are new amino acid tests so even the wet cardboard may give up fingerprints. He'll follow her car back to her apartment to make certain no one is following her.
9.	Mason follows Nancy's taillights, but loses her, so drives directly to the Lockhard Apartments. When Nancy doesn't answer, he tries Lorraine Lawton, and she is pleased to see the attorney. She doesn't know that Rodney is out of jail. She points out that she manages the Osgood Trout Farm and Nancy works there and knows everything about dry ice. All the girls wear bathing suits, and are eye-catching posers for men who drive by. They pack fish that are caught in the dry ice. She produces a map which shows the Foley Motel as the nearest accommodation. Rodney arrives, saying he had business to attend t before he could come to see Lorraine, whom he calls "Peaches" just before kissing her routinely. Mason tells Rodney to get his own lawyer, and Fremont is dead. Lorraine now sees that Nancy must have taken the turn to the trout farm, which is why Mason lost her. Rodney is sure his sis can take care of herself, and tells Lorry to come "trip the light fantastic. . ."
10.	Drake tells Mason to join him, he has Halstead in his office. The manager of Fremont's business says he cannot work for the man any more, that Fremont, who is a fence, engineered the whole event with Rodney so he could get Nancy under his control. He buys up antiques, substitutes real diamonds for garnets making the item very valuable. He has a secret vault in the floor. He wrote down some numbers from hundred-dollar bills hidden there, and one that was in the regular cash vault turned up in the secret vault. Mason tells Drake to get Tragg and when Halstead hears "homicide" his is puzzled. He didn't know Fremont had been murdered. Tragg says he'll send a police car to pick up the witness, then informs Mason that Nancy is in custody charged with first-degree murder. He lets Mason know that Nancy slipped off to the trout farm and police were waiting for her as she went to the litter box with dry-ice cartons in it. A uniformed officer arrives to take Halstead to headquarters.
11.	At the county jail, Nancy is in tears, for lying to her attorney. She was trying to keep from being framed, she tells Mason. She left the motel room with the door locked, but it was unlocked when she got back. She discovered the dry ice around the body, panicked, took it to the car and then to the litter box at the trout farm. She forgot about fingerprints and when Tragg showed her the cardboard she went cold inside. When she tricked Mason she was going to get the boxes, put them in a sack and sink them in the deepest pool. After she pulled the packages out of the litter box she was caught red handed. She said nothing to her interrogators. The reason she bet on Dough Boy was because his odds were highest and she needed to win a lot, anything less might not have covered her brother's embezzlement, which he said was about $4000, so her $500 certainly wouldn't help him! Mason tells her to sit tight, to speak to no one, particularly the newspaper people. Mason signals the jail matron, goes to phone Drake to get someone in the State Inheritance Tax Appraiser's Office to let him be present when the secret hiding place is opened.
12.	Drake reports that the tax appraiser said "no." Fremont, however, was separated, not divorced. Mason, Street and Drake go to the cafeteria where Inez Fremont works, gets the story of her ruthless, clever husband, then suggests she might still get something out of the estate, and gets her permission for Drake to represent her when the hiding place is opened.
13.	The hiding place was empty, and the police weren't surprised, Tragg even had a foxy smile.
14.	Judge Navarro Miles calls the court to order, the jury is sworn, and Hamilton Burger says he is trying the case but Robert Calvert Norris will give the preliminary statement. Norris proceeds to state how Rodney Banks's embezzlement set the stage for murder. Mason was paid to cash tickets at the race track and deliver the proceeds to Nancy at the Foley Motel. The deceased came to the motel drunk, probably abusive, and the defendant shot him, then went to the Osgood Trout Farm, obtained dry ice which she used to cool the dead body. She took the containers back to the trout farm litter box, where she was caught. A surveyor shows where the motel and farm are located. A autopsy surgeon testifies to death by .38 caliber bullet. Mason gets him to admit he knows the bullet was the fatal one only because it was found in the shower. The judge stands with Mason, finally says the balance of the evidence beyond the finding of a bullet is stricken. Further, tho Burger did not himself ask the question, his office did, and he is responsible. Tragg is called and he produces the murder weapon. Nancy says she never saw it. Tragg says the weapon was registered to Fremont. He found the body cold, and found a part of a dry ice carton. Stanley Moulton, the police officer who caught Nancy at the trout farm litter box produces one of the cartons. It is presented, and the tear exactly mates with the piece Tragg had showed Nancy and then produced in court. At the very bottom of the barrel they found the revolver, from which one cartridge had been fired.
15.	Drake say, "This is the sort of case district attorneys dream about." Mason proceeds to point out problems. Further, he always seeks the truth, which is fine if your client is not guilty. Many attorneys simply wait until the prosecution has presented its case, then coach their client in a plausible story the refutes a few points in that case. Then it dawns on Mason why Burger is personally handling the case; "He's there to grant immunity" to Rodney Banks, who he will call as his own witness. It is a relatively new law. When Mason learns that Jarvis Gilmore, an attorney who fits the type who coaches his client into perjury, is Rodney's attorney, he suggests that Paul, disguising his voice, call and hint that Rodney will be given immunity.
16.	The judge enters the courtroom, the bailiff tells everyone to sit down, and Hamilton Burger calls Larsen E Halstead. The witness says he had figured Fremont was cheating and he was going to confront him over tax returns. He found over eighteen thousand dollars in the hideout on Friday before noon. He took the numbers of four bills, and they are put into the record. Mason inspects Halstead's notes. "The numbers of the hundred-dollar bills . . . were written so clearly that there could be no question of any mistake." Moulton testifies to taking one of the numbered bills from Rodney Banks. Norris tries to get into evidence what an officer said to Nancy and the judge allows it until he hears that Nancy did not respond except to say that "her attorney, Perry Mason, was going to make all statements for her." The judge is outraged, and instructs the jurors that all evidence made by this witness to the defendant is to be removed from their minds. Burger calls Lorraine Lawton, but her overhearing Moulton with the defendant is also ruled inadmissible. Rodney Banks is called. Jarvis Nettle Gilmore comes with him as his attorney. Burger takes over. Rodney refuses to identify the hundred-dollar bill identified by Moulton because it might incriminate him. Eventually Gilmore butts in to protect his client. Judge Miles accepts Gilmore's statement and tells Banks he doesn't have to answer. Burger then takes advantage of a new law which allows him to grant full and complete immunity for any crime disclosed by answering a question. Banks is ordered to answer the question, which the judge paraphrases. Mason demands the question be reread. The judge admonishes Mason for questioning the Court's course of conduct. Mason is humble. The court reporter reads the question. "Now then, where did you get the hundred-dollar bill?" Banks, ordered to answer, says "I got that hundred-dollar bill from the body of Marvin Fremont after I murdered him." Mason ask for the court reporter to repeat the answer but Burger wants it stricken from the record because the witness is perjuring himself to protect his sister. When the question and answer are read, and Burger calls it perjury, Judge Miles says the district attorney is repeating his misconduct for stating to the jurors facts that are not in evidence. Does Mason want a mistrial? No, he wants a full acquittal. Judge Miles suggests a fifteen-minute recess. Burger tells Gilmore he'll have him before a grand jury for conspiracy to commit perjury. Gilmore responds that to get him Burger will have to prove Banks did not kill Fremont. What a show, the DA trying to prove innocent a man who insists he's guilty! A gleeful newspaper reporter gets a photo of counsel. Courtroom attachés, newspaper reporters and photographers begin filling the courtroom before Judge Miles returns, and tells Banks he is dismissed. But Mason wants to cross-examine. He asks if Banks embezzled money to make good his loses on the horses, and Gilmore tells him to not answer and the D A won't provide any more immunity. Did Banks clean out the secret hiding place? Again Gilmore interrupts. Mason recalls Lorraine Lawton, asks her if she went to the Osgood Trout Farm the evening of the murder to get some packages of dry ice. She admits that she had seen Rodney in the afternoon, and she found the body apparently just killed, in dry ice. She thought Rodney killed him, and Nancy had gotten the dry ice. Now Mason recalls Halstead. Mason asks him again about the eighteen thousand, then the four hundred-dollar bills. He asks for Halstead's notebook, then for the wallet in which he kept it. He pulls out three hundred-dollar bills, reads the numbers. They match the other three numbers in Halstead's notebook. So he didn't put the money back in the secret place, but in his wallet. So too the bill introduced as evidence. "Then how could that bill have been in the possession of Rodney Banks at the time of his examination by Officer Moulton unless you had surreptitiously inserted in his wallet in the meantime?" Halstead's mistake was taking the money from the hiding place and reporting to Fremont that it was Banks who did so. Fremont found out, tried to force at gunpoint the return of the money. Halstead gave him a push, he fell backwards, the gun went off, and the witness claims it was an accident.
17.	Mason, Street, Drake and Banks are in Mason's office. Mason explains that Rodney never found the secreted money, but did get some from the safe. Fremont sprung the trap, wanting to get back at Nancy for slapping him. Halstead followed Fremont to the Foley Motel, offered a deal in which he'd keep the money, the charge against Rodney would be dismissed, and he'd keep quiet about Fremont's being a high-class fence. An argument, Fremont drew a gun, Halstead rushed him, the deceased slipped and as he fell the gun went off. He went to the trout farm and got dry ice, then planted the hundred-dollar bill in Rodney's wallet. The numbers were too neatly written in the notebook to have been written crouched on the floor. A long shot paid off.

Della Street	Red room woman	Herbert Knox	Two detectives
Perry Mason	Man with camera	Henrietta Hull	Prosecutor (Colton Parma)
Dorrie Ambler	Woman with girl	Butler	Judge Everson Flint
Paul Drake	Billings and (Delbert) Compton	Five clients	Jury
Gertie	Dorrie's boy friend	Another uniformed officer	Emily Dickson
Jerry Nelson	Harper Minden	And his driver	A messenger
Cab driver	First judge	Elevator operator	Barlowe Dalton
Backup agent	Men watching Dorrie's apt. & car	Desk officer	Holdup policeman
Airport bystanders	Dying man (Marvin Billings)	Las Vegas businessman	Rosy Chester
Police at airport.	Police, including dispatcher	William Camas	Flossie Hendon
Woman who found the gun	A uniformed officer	Woman on eighth floor	Parking attendant.
Minerva Minden	Stretcher bearers	Hamilton Burger
Young woman receptionist	Lt Tragg	Dunleavey Jasper

An abridged version of this novel was published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1962.

"Because Major W R Rule has such a clear concept of the importance of legal medicine in the administration of justice and has done so much to improve the administration of justice in and through the military, I dedicate this book to my friend, W R RULE, Major, USAF, MSC, Legal Counsel, AFIP. --Erle Stanley Gardner"

Erle Stanley Gardner certainly loved modern electronic devices. These mystery novels are filled with all kinds of recording devices. Here he presents us with a loudspeaker device that allows everyone in a room to hear a telephone conversation without feedback.

This case could possibly be better titled The Case of the Duplicitous Double. Neither "doll" in this case is described as "mischievous" by Erle Stanley Gardner's alter-ego, Perry Mason. Another possibility would be The Case of the Double-crossed Double. Or maybe The Case of the Double Indemnity.

If you read carefully how Gardner has Mason describe who he is working for, you may get a hint ahead of the conclusion of where the solution to the mystery lies.

In preparing these synopses, I have no hesitation in saying that this, as a novel, and a television episode, is an all-time favorite.

1.	Della Street has, in Perry Mason's outer office, a Miss Dorrie Ambler who wants to show him her operation. This is something right down Paul Drake's Alley, asserts Mason. Gertie has worked up a story about the girl, the boy friend who has betrayed her, for she knows that Dorrie has a gun in her purse. So Dorrie is admitted, 34-24-34, and she wants Mason to see her appendectomy scar. Fingerprints won't do. Mason scribbles a note for Della to take to Paul, who soon shows up eager to help. Her California driving license has her thumbprint, and Drake matches it to her thumb. While Dorrie prepares to, and then does, show her scar, Della peeks in the purse and sees the gun. Dorrie admits she doesn't know what it is all about, but says that everything she is wearing is something that was given to her. When she leaves, Drake says he has Jerry Nelson on the job. Della returns with the news that the gun is loaded only with blanks.
2.	Drake brings Jerry Nelson to Mason's office. He reports that he hopped a cab and he and the backup agent followed Dorrie to the airport. She stood around for a long time, so he was caught off guard when she ran up to a newsstand, shouted "This isn't a stick-up," fired her gun three times and ran into the ladies room. A bit later she came out, the bystanders recognized her and police seized her. She was indignant. A woman brought out the gun from the ladies room. Then the officers said the bullets were blanks. The woman smiled, said she just wanted a bit of excitement. Nelson says the officers have his name. As he leaves, Jerry says "That woman, when she came out, was the most perfectly poised woman you have ever seen in your life. She acted just completely natural."
3.	Della and Perry await a phone call from their client but as five o'clock approaches, none comes. They turn on a radio for the news and hear that a Minerva Minden, the madcap heiress of Montrose, who has smashed dishes in a restaurant to get the attention of a waiter, has driven while intoxicated and such, caused a near panic at the airport. Then Dorrie Ambler shows up with a tale of being employed to wear certain clothes and do nothing more than walk several times at specified places and to take no notice of any photographer. She answered an ad, was met by an efficient young woman receptionist. Some women were sent into a "red" room, she into the "black' room. She talked with one girl from the red room and learned that they were the rejects. She finally met a man who threw lots of questions at her. She was a major candidate, was called in and given some clothes to try. She was hired. She spent a couple of hours on several days walking ten or so times across a street intersection. She called the unlisted number, disguised her voice, and discovered that it was Billings and Compton Detective Agency. She went to the agency, saw her double, got her license plate and discovered the woman was Minerva Minden. One day a woman came out of a store with her little girl and the girl pointed at her and identified her. Dorrie is sure she's being groomed as a double for some sinister purpose. She wanted to force Minerva into the open, so pulled the stunt at the airport, but Minerva fooled everyone. Dorrie doesn't want to be anyone's Patsy. Mason has her call her contact. She is told to do nothing the next day. She tells Mason she can raise five hundred dollars from a boy friend. Mason sends her home. He has Della call the traffic department, to see if they have a record of a hit-and-run on the sixth. Della reports that a Horace Emmett was struck by a light-colored Cadillac near where the girl identified Dorrie. A woman stopped, got out of the car, changed her mind and drove away, apparently intoxicated. Mason thins he'll get a nice cash settlement both for Dorrie and Horace.
4.	Drake reports that Nelson is at the Minden hearing. Harper Minden left a whale of a fortune and no heir until Minerva was found, slinging hash. She got five or six million after taxes. Jerry phones in that Minerva is not a dead ringer, but so close she and Dorrie could be sisters. The judge has imposed a five-hundred-dollar fine on each of two charges and decided against a jail sentence. Mason's take on the situation is that Minerva wanted a ringer to take the rap on the hit-and-run or someone who could at least confuse witnesses in their identification. Dorrie phones in and they put her on a loudspeaker. She says there is a man in the hall ducking in and out of a broom closet, and another outside watching her car. Mason says she shouldn't worry, they are police, they will stick around until they are sure she's dressed, then come barging into her apartment; tell them nothing. Her car is on the street, because the apartment garage is musty with mildew. She is an illegitimate child. Paul, Perry and Della rush out to see Dorrie, "a fifty-million-dollar jackpot."
5.	Drake and Mason go to the Parkhurst Apartments to see Dorrie. They go up to 907, ring the bell, hear a dragging sound, a thud, a stifled scream. They force their way into the apartment. Inside they find a complete mess and a dying man whom they first think is dead. Drake phones the police They push against the kitchen door. It resists. Again and again, finally getting thru only to find a back door that is open. Drake calls back for the dispatcher to have converging cars look for a man or two and their female hostage. The man on the floor is only dying. Drake calls for an ambulance. Then they discuss the situation while awaiting the police. An officer arrives, takes them into the corridor. Stretcher bearers take the man out. Then Lieutenant Tragg arrives, surprised that Mason is on the police side of things. He has questions, of course. Mason asserts his client has been abducted. Tragg gets a note; the man in the apartment died. Tragg takes them to the garage where a hit-and-run on the sixth of September , stolen in San Francisco on the fifth, light-colored Cadillac WHW 694 with dented fender is parked for some days. Mason wants Tragg to inform him if they find his client, but the Lieutenant says she'll be busy being made to talk.
6.	Mason tells Drake to arrange for him to talk with Minerva. At a pay phone Drake learns that Minerva was whisked to her home after she made a few victory phone calls. Her attorney is Herbert Knox. Mason calls, gets a feminine voice (Henrietta Hull) who brushes him off. So they drive out to Montrose and the Minden home. A butler admits them where they meet Henrietta Hull. She says there is no way Mason can see Minden. She tells Mason that if Minden wanted an attorney for a murder or serious felony Mason was at the top of the list. Mason tells Hull that the way Miss Minden handled the airport disturbance was very shrewd. Henrietta dismisses Mason, saying she'll give Miss Minden his message. As to detectives, Drake would be the top, she notes.
7.	Della says shes been holding off her boss's clients. Mason says it is prevarication. Henrietta has phoned to say that Miss Minden has had Dorrie Ambler followed ever since Dorrie tried to blackmail her. Della also reports that Jerry Nelson says Minden and Ambler are different in coloring. Drake reports they were followed to Minden's by a device the police slip on the tail pipe which produces a dripping that fluoresces. Mason decides to handle some of his clients, but takes a cue from Paul and orders hamburgers. Five clients are handled, softening when they see Mason having to eat hamburgers. Tragg phones; he's sending a car to pick up Mason and Street. The officer escorts them to a car with driver and they tear through traffic. An elevator operator takes them directly to the third floor where a desk officer sends them to Tragg's office. When Mason enters the office, he comes to an abrupt stop. "Good heaves, Miss Ambler, you certainly had me worried. Can you tell me what happened to--" Della tugs at his coat. Minerva Minden introduces herself, recites a story of Dorrie's trying to shake her down as if she were a relative. Dorrie ran the ad, gave instructions over the phone. She even had to give photos of herself to the detective agency that then hired her. She's backed by a Las Vegas businessman. The wounded man in her apartment was Marvin Billings, the detective who was helping put the swindle across. Mason asks about an appendicitis scar. She has no problem proving she has none, at which time Tragg enters. Of course, the place was bugged. Mason states he's representing only Dorrie Ambler. Minerva says she never knew Billings. Tragg admits to Mason that he had to find out about the resemblance of Dorrie to Minerva.
8.	Mason advises Drake that the detective has lost a lucrative job since the police and FBI have moved in. He thinks that they'll find that Minerva's mother's sister and "Minerva's father may have slept in more than one bed." The time element is a problem. Maybe they didn't move Dorrie out of the apartment, just to another room.
9.	The newspapers have Minerva, cheesecake and all, on the front page. Tragg calls Mason, and says the publicity came from his report, augmented by Miss Minden. Now it dawns on Mason that maybe Dorrie wanted the publicity so her resemblance to Minerva would be built up. So she arranged to be abducted. It is pretty hard to get a recalcitrant woman out of an apartment. Drake has found that the day before the abduction a William Camas took a three-day option on an apartment a floor lower, giving a Seattle address (which turns out to be phony). Mason stews. He calls Tragg, who informs him she went from 907 to 805, later left willingly as an eyewitness, a woman who lives on the eighth floor, states. Her dog, who growls if people move to pet him, licked Dorrie's hand. Mason admits his client could have staged the whole event. Neither apartment had any fingerprints, except those of Billings in 907. Further, Billings was stripped, no keys, no coins, no cigarettes, nothing. Tragg reminds Mason that Hamilton Burger is on the case. Mason tells Della that dogs don't make mistakes. Mason accepts the fact that he's used him as a pawn, so he no longer owes her anything.
10.	Della informs Mason that it has been tend days since Dorrie disappeared. Henrietta Hull is in the outer office, because Minerva Minden was been picked up, at three in the morning. Mrs Hull asks Mason to accept a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer to represent Minerva. Mason tries to remind her that he represents Dorrie Ambler, but she points out that that was only to keep her from being a Patsy, and she is a fraud and cheat, and a blackmailer, so he owes her nothing. Drake bursts in with "It can't wait." Mrs Hull tells him he was next on her list, with a twenty-five-hundred-dollar retainer. Mason forces all out, and Drake states that Dorrie Ambler has been found, murdered, and the "police have what they consider an airtight case against Minerva Minden." Drake doesn't want Mason to take the case, because "Her accomplice has confessed." A man named (Dunleavey) Jasper accompanied her to the apartment where Dorrie was abducted. He says she told him she had inherited a fortune and the Ambler stood in her way of the whole estate. Jasper has a long criminal record. Billings tried to blackmail Minden, who will be prosecuted for his murder. Mason says he'll represent Minerva in the murder of Billings, but not Ambler. Hull agrees quickly.
11.	Jail. Mason tells Minden he is beginning to have a glimmering of what he thinks happened, but she suggests he doesn't have enough of the facts to reach a conclusion. She tries to interject information not related to the murder and he stops her cold, saying that all he needs to know is that she is innocent. She understands from the way she was questioned that Dunleavey Jasper told quite a story, but she's never had any contact with him. Two detectives brought a man she thinks was Jasper into the room while she was being interrogated by the prosecutor. Mason tries to explain the facts of courtroom etiquette, but Minerva says she's not going to act demure, because she isn't.
12	Judge Everson Flint offers the peremptory to the People, Burger's deputy passes, and Mason, with a sweeping outward left-hand gesture says he is completely satisfied with the jury, Colton Parma, the deputy, mocks Mason's gesture and Mason responds and the Judge Flint admonishes them against personalities. Parma gives his opening statement and includes extensive background on the defendant including the relationship with Dorrie Ambler. When Parma introduces issues around Jasper, Mason objects to his "bringing in evidence of other crimes with the purpose of prejudicing the jury." Judge Flint instructs the jury that other crimes can be used only to show motivation. Parma tries to bring in the murder of Ambler, but Mason says "that occurred after the shooting of Marvin Billings" so can have no bearing on the murder of Billings. Parma finishes with an outstretched finger, saying only one thing needs to be proved, the defendant is guilty of killing Billings. Mason mocks him, saying the "prosecutor was inaccurate as a matter of law." It requires "proving the defendant guilty beyond all reasonable doubt" and "Otherwise the defendant is entitled to a verdict of acquittal." Emily Dickson, Parkhurst Apartments manager, is asked if she knew "Dorrie Ambler in her lifetime." Mason objects, asks that the prosecutor be cited for misconduct for stating a fact not in evidence, namely that Ambler is dead. The judge sustains the objection. Parma asks his questions more carefully. Dickson testifies to renting Ambler an apartment, then recently renting one to Jasper. Mason asks her to describe Dorrie Ambler. "She was almost the exact image of the defendant. . ." When did she first see the defendant? In a shadow box. Didn't she first identify her has Dorrie Ambler. Yes. Lt Tragg testifies to Billings dying on the way to the hospital. Delbert Compton says he was employed by Henrietta Hull and instructed to put an ad in the newspaper the end result of which was the hiring of Dorrie Ambler. Didn't he then instruct Ambler to walk at a certain location and report any happening? Didn't she say a woman had made an identification and then he gave her the next day off? Mason asks how he was instructed and paid. By phone and by messenger. So he never saw Hull? For all he knows, then, he was hired by Dorrie Ambler. Mason makes his point to the annoyance of the prosecutor. Finally Burger calls Dunleavey Jasper. How did he get acquainted with Dorrie Ambler? She stole his, and Barlowe Dalton's, getaway car, at the Montrose Country Club where they were stealing coats and such from the women's locker room. The woman was at the dance, was intoxicated, fought with her escort, went out and stole the car. They had robbed a bank in Santa Maria of eighteen thousand dollars, ten of which had been left wrapped in the glove compartment. They checked their underworld connections, learned the car was involved in a hit-and-run and was stashed in the garage of Dorrie Ambler, so they began shadowing her. They repeat Dorrie's going to Mason, then the airport, Minden getting arrested. When she was released, they contacted her and she offered twenty-five thousand dollars to have Ambler kidnapped. Minden admitted that Dorrie and she had the same father. She finally went up to fifty-thousand. He rented 805 at the Parkhurst under the name of William Camas. The kidnapping would come right after Minden got out of court, because no one would be following her then. The went to the back door of the apartment and when Dorrie opened, they grabbed her, took her to 805 and put morphine into her. Then Minden arrived, told them Mason was involved so they had little time. They tore the apartment apart looking for the ten grand and he didn't find it. Then Billings arrived after the defendant had found a revolver. Billings, talking to Minden as Ambler, said he wanted in on his scheme. Minden responded, "You may not have been born yesterday but you're not going to live until tomorrow." He heard a shot, went from the bedroom where he'd overheard all this, and found the dying man. Minden said Ambler would be blamed. Then Mason and Drake showed up. He blockaded the kitchen door, waited until the two were in the other room, then scooted down to 805 and joined Dalton and Ambler. Minden was confident now. They waited until things calmed down, then Minden put on Ambler's clothes, went out. She encountered the manager and her dog in the elevator, and the dog was friendly. She got their car and Dalton and Ambler went with her. He stayed to remove fingerprints. Barlowe Dalton is now dead, killed by a policeman in a holdup. Mason asks Jasper how he knows Dalton is dead. He saw him killed while they were robbing the Acme Supermarket. How long was he in jail before he told the police what he knew about Dorrie? A couple of days. How many times has he been convicted of felonies. Three; armed robbery, grand larceny and burglary. He knew he could go up for life? He knew that kidnapping was punishable by death? Forcing the issue further, Mason gets an admission that, in effect, if he, Dunleavey Jasper, helped the police clear up a murder and brought a murderer to justice, and he would confess to a lot of other unsolved crimes, the police would let him off by giving him immunity. Then he springs his trap. Had Jasper committed all the other crimes? No, only some. "If your testimony wasn't strong enough to result in a conviction for this defendant the deal was off. Isn't that right?" demands Mason. An angry Hamilton Burger recalls Lt Tragg. He says he found a heavily decomposed body of a woman whom he tentatively identified as Dorrie Ambler. When Mason cross-examines him Tragg admits that twelve points of identity are needed for proof and he has only six. That other items of Ambler's were found with the body influenced his identification. He cannot state without reasonable doubt the body is that of Ambler. Rosy Chester, resident of the county jail, says she and Minden got talking and Minerva said "Dorrie Ambler would never show up to claim any share of any estate." Mason gets her to admit that the D A said he'd show his gratitude if he'd help him. Minden renews her desire to tell Mason something she thinks is important. Mason tells her, "Don't discuss this case with anybody. . . . not a word."
13.	Mason tells Della that he has to "do exactly the right thing and say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time . . ." He has Della contact Paul and have him find out everything about the Santa Maria bank holdup, even if he has to charter a plane. He also wants a report on unsolved stickups between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the fifth, sixth and seventh. Mason says that none of Jasper's testimony about the body and such can hurt his client because the murder of Dorrie Ambler is irrelevant unless it can be proven Minerva told them to murder her. Mason thinks he can get the judge to direct the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. "He'd never dare to do that on a technicality" says Della. "Want to bet? 14.Burger introduces the firearms register showing Minden's purchase of the gun found at the Ambler murder site. Drake reports to Mason that the bank robberies involved two men and a woman. The woman was the driver of a stolen light-colored Cadillac. Mason asks the Court's indulgence; he wants to test Lieutenant Tragg on similarities of fingerprints. He takes a thumbprint of the defendant, puts it in a projector, says he smudged it, takes another, focuses that one. Mason asks Tragg to point out similarities between his print and that of the dead girl. Tragg traces on the paper of the projection, finds six points of identity. Mason notes that this is exactly the number for Dorrie and the dead woman, so Tragg has identified the defendant as the dead woman. When Tragg leaves the witness stand he confers with Burger, who then demands Mason be searched for the first slide. Mason is forced to produced his "smeared" slide. It is placed in the projector and focused on Tragg's previous markings. Burger orders Tragg to compare the photographic print of Dorrie Ambler and the new slide and mark similarities with a red crayon. After a few minutes he has found eighteen points of similarity. This "means that the projected print is not the print of the defendant at all but is the print of Dorrie Ambler." The judge says Mason is charged with a grave offense, can he answer it while the jury is present? Mason says he has not explanation, but he offers a solution. He suggests Tragg take the print of the defendant and make a comparison with the dead woman. Tragg does so, discovers that the print is not just similar, but coincides. Mason says this proves his first fingerprint was that of the defendant and that the prosecutor has committed judicial misconduct. Tragg cannot understand it. Mason does. It proves that the defendant and Dorrie Ambler are one and the same, namely, there never was a Dorrie Ambler. The testimony of "Dunleavey Jasper, that he saw the two women together and noticed their similarity is absolute perjury." No one but Jasper ever claimed to have seen the two together, even when they saw the similarity of them apart. Jasper is apprehended as he tries to leave the courtroom. Uproar.
15.	Mason wins his bet with Della when he moves "the Court to instruct the jury to return a verdict of not guilty and discharge the defendant from custody." Jasper has made a confession, but Burger still insists the Court has been imposed upon by Mason's not disclosing at an earlier date his defense. Burger states that Jasper, Dalton and a woman named Flossie Hendon committed several crimes together. Flossie, who was to have stayed in the getaway car at the Montrose Country Club, "succumbed to the feminine urge to look in at the gowns of the dancers who were in the country club. She left the wheel of the car for only a few moments." Minden had forfeited her driving license for drunk driving and had established a dual identity as Dorrie Ambler in the Parkhurst Apartments. When the parking lot attendant saw she was drunk, he asked for her license, and she showed the only one she had, that of Dorrie Ambler. The crime trio had now figured that either Ambler or Minden had their ten grand. While searching Ambler's apartment, they were confronted by Billings. Flossie, a young delinquent out for kicks, got worried about the murder of Billings, so Dalton took her for a ride, or so says the survivor, Jasper. The decomposed body is apparently that of Flossie. Jasper conceived the idea of getting immunity by confessing kidnapping Ambler and involving Minden. Burger says he will proceed against Jasper for both murders and "with what dignity he could muster, turned and stalked from the courtroom." Judge Flint instructs the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.
16.	Mason explains to Paul and Della that he realized there weren't two women when Minny Minden showed the three that she had no scar. She showed the exact location where such a scar would be. She wouldn't have known this unless she were a doctor, a nurse, or had read up on it. When she first showed the scar it was tinted transparent tape and collodion. "Remember her modesty? She backed into a corner away from the windows, bared herself for a moment, then overcome by modesty covered herself again. She didn't give any of us a really good look." He didn't bring this out earlier because he "had to manipulate things just right so that the ending came in such a dramatic manner that Jasper would cave in all the way." Burger will not prosecute Minden on the hit-and-run because "she is going to make a voluntary appearance before the judge who had placed her on probation for her previous violations of the vehicle code. She is going to confess . . ." She tried to confess to the hit-and-run several times, but he cut her off. She took all these elaborate precautions, including the blank cartridges at the airport, because she had found the ten grand and she had to have Dorrie vanish to get the crooks off her own neck. Della sees the irony if Jasper hadn't confessed, for then Minden might have been convicted of her own murder. A phone call from Henrietta Hull. What is Mason's fee. One hundred fifty thousand dollars, payable to the Children's Hospital.

Della Street	Man fishing	Drew Kirby
Perry Mason	The Elliott butler	Judge Cole S Hobart
Harlow Bissinger Bancroft	Eve Amory, most beautiful of the beauties	Robley Hastings
Gertie	Carleton Rasmus Blair. . .	Turner Garfield
Rosena Andrews	a.k.a. Irwin Victor Fordyce	Spectators
Jetson Blair	Eve's bodyguard	Surveyor
Mrs Harlow (Phyllis) Bancroft	Stilson L "Con-King" Kelsey	L A County Sheriff
Rosena's bank manager	Willmer Gilly	Sheriff Jewett of Orange County
Paul Drake	Helicopter pilot	Dr Morley Badger
Melton Varas Elliott	Deputy sheriff	Newspaper reporters
Frank Steiner Dalton	Yachtclub attendant	A trained diver, Fremont L Dibble
A bevy of (3) bikinied beauties	Dunston and Lorraine Chambers

James Davis was an American Indian and was elected to the office of District Attorney of Siskiyou County. It was his fate to believe that two men were being falsely charged and to refuse to prosecute. He lost his office, but stood by his principles and was, after his death, proven right in an investigation of which Erle Stanley Gardner was a participant. This novel is dedicated to his memory.

How Erle Stanley Gardner divides his novels into chapters can be a bit mystifying. There are very long chapters which could, so it would seem be easily divided into several parts, each a chapter. Here, with 237 pages of text, there are twenty-six chapters. Most Gardner Perry Mason novels run about twenty chapters

As has been noted often, the best Mason mysteries involve a shifting of the time of the crime from that projected by the police to what Mason finds to be the true story. This is one of the very best in using that element.

1.	Della Street's nervousnous causes Perry Mason to interrupt his dictation. The imminent arrival of Harlow Bissinger Bancroft, a businessman whose every minute is metered, is beaten by eleven minutes, as Gertie announces his arrival. Bancroft enters with an air of assurance, but melts down when he comes to his problem. He's worked as a day laborer, fought and struggled to get ahead, faced failure, and now is successful, but his world is tumbling down, due tohis fingertips, which, once taken, will reveal his criminal record. Fortunately, he was in prison under a different name, but fingerprints don't change. He's found a blackmail note in his stepdaughter's room, and is certain he is the one who will be uncovered (right here we should have our doubts; the note was sent not to him, but to a stepdaughter who is not likely to know his past). The girl, Rosena Andrews, is to be married to Jetson Blair, socially prominent but less wealthy than Bancroft. She is vulnerable because of the coming wedding. He has a place on Lake Merticito which has a public beach at the southern end. Mason calls Rosena's bank manager and determines that she has taken out funds sufficient to cover the blackmailer's request. Mason suggests a ruse. The blackmailer wants his payoff in a can weighted with silver dollars. That means it will float upright, and someone will pick it up in the lake. He'll have a detective shadow Rosena and switch cans, then have the money can turned over to the police who will publicize it, and the blackmailers will run for cover. Mason notes that there are only four ways of dealing with a blackmailer; pay him off, go to the police, put the blackmailer on the defensive, or kill him. The last may work, but is not recommended. Bancroft puts the affair in Mason's hands.
2.	After Paul Drake reads the blackmail note, Mason explains that he must get a bevy of bikinied beauties in a very fast boat on Lake Merticito to play around until the can is dumped, then make a substitution. He and Della will be at the mansion of Melton Varas Elliott, across the lake from Bancroft. He has the blackmail note taken to Frank Stenter Dalton, handwriting expert, for photographing and determination of what kind of typewriter it was made on. Then she is to get three thousand dollars.
3.	Mason and Street watch a quiet lake. Drake drives a speedboat with three lightly-clad girls. Rosena sets out alone. One of the girls gets on water skiis, does a flip shortly after Rosena drops her can. A man fishing pulls up anchor, and Rosena heads home. The Elliott butler offers another round of drinks. Drake reports that Eve Amory is the most beautiful of the girls and she wants publicity. Mason says let her go to the police, but first get dressed and speak to the lifeguard. He asks about the substituted can; it simply disappeared. Drake should get the names of everyone who rented a boat from the marina.
4.	Bancroft is angry. The morning paper has the headline, BATHING BEAUTY FINDS FORTUNE. Mason explains the advantage of this. Bancroft cannot understand how the original demand of $1500 became $3000. Mason says that he did it, by typing over the note with a same-model typewriter, so each of two partners in blackmail will think the other tried to cheat him. All the publicity for Eve, however, may put her in some danger.
5.	Drake reports that the newspapers fell for the story and Eve is basking in publicity. The fishing boat was rented by two men, but there was only one in it, yet two returned it. Mason figures that the red can was pulled down by a skin diver. They must find the fishermen.
6.	Rosena Andrews comes to Mason, irate that he is interfering. She doesn't want his protection. Mason phones Bancroft, suggests he speak to his step daughter. He says she's armed, with his gun.
7.	Now Eve is upset. Della warns Mason that she is a bit mechanical, synthetic, no individuality or spontaneity. But gorgeous. Eve has been contacted by a man who wants her three thousand dollars. She has to state that the whole thing was a setup. Mason suggests she tell the blackmailer that he put the extra money in the can and he should come to him. Drake says the description she gave of the blackmailer fits the fisherman.
8.	Mrs Harlow Bancroft, with an air of regal poise, says he daughter informed her that Mason was her husband's attorney. She wants Mason to know that Rosena's beau, Jetson Blair, had a brother, Carleton Rasmus Blair, who was supposedly killed in an airplane crash. Irwin Victor Fordyce was recently released from prison, and his fingerprints show he was Carleton. The blackmailer has made this known, and she's paid him a thousand dollars, for her daughter's happiness. The Blairs, not poor, are also not affluent. Also, the blackmailers have contacted Rosena, for she overheard the phone conversation, but she called their bluff, saying they were newspaper reporters. Bancroft returns Mason's attempts to get him. He now knows that he is not the target. Drake is told to put Rosena under bodyguard protection.
9.	Drake reports that his man guarding Eve say a man trying to get her to sign a paper. The man went to the Ajax-Delsey apartment house. The man turned out to be Stilson L Kelsey, known as Con-King Kelsey.
10.	Bancroft keeps his scheduled morning appointment, to say that his wife went to his yacht Jinesa and killed the blackmailer. Carleton Blair was living at the Ajax-Delsey as Irwin Victor Fordyce. He had a close friend, Willmer Gilly. Fordyce confided to Gilly his relationship to the Blairs. Phyllis confronted Fordyce at the apartments, and was told he'd take care of the situation. She took Fordyce to the Jinesa to hide from the cops. She went ashore, got three thousand, returned to the yacht. Gilly was there, not Fordyce. In an argument, she pulled out Bancroft's gun. The yacht, tethered to its anchor, jolted, the gun went off and she killed Gilly. She jumped into the water, swam a bit, found she could touch bottom, waded ashore. At home, he gave her a strong sedative.
11.	Fog engulfs the harbor and the helicopter pilot does his best, but the yacht cannot be located. As they drive back to town, Mason tells Bancroft the police might decide he is protecting his wife and actually took things into his own hands.
12.	Two o" clock. Con-King Kelsey has gone to Eve, reports Drake. Mason goes to Eve, confronts Kelsey, calls his bluff, tears up the statement he wants Eve to sign. Fog is lifting, so the helicopter goes up again. They find the yacht in water ten or twelve feet deep. They land at as sheriff's substation, and a deputy goes with them to the boat. The deputy finds a dead man aboard.
13.	Mason and Bancroft are released by the sheriff's office. Bancroft says "They can't prove a case against my wife, and I don't think they can prove a case against me." Bancroft repeats the story of his wife's self-defense against Gilly. He admits going to the harbor after giving her a narcotic, but couldn't find the boat. Now, Mason notes, it is too late for her to plead self-defense.
14.	Jetson Blair is awaiting Mason. He thinks his brother, Carleton Blair, is still alive. He doesn't believe that paying a blackmailer ever works, and he is willing to wait the storm over. Mason informs him that Carleton is dead.
15.	The newspapers blaze; BODY FOUND ON SOCIALITE'S YACHT--MAY TIE IN WITH BLACKMAIL ATTEMPT. Bancroft enters, says his wife has kept her mouth shut. Mason notes that no gun was found on the boat, and Phyllis' purse hasn't been found.
16.	Drake reports that a Monarch Ten portable typewriter, which made the blackmail note, was found in Gilly's apartment. The (Blue Sky) Yacht Club attendant has said Mrs Bancroft was seen with Gilly. Death has been fixed as at nine in the evening. (Reader, this is critical, for when the time element is the means by which Mason solves the mystery, we must figure out the discrepancy. This is one of Gardner's best!) Gilly had a meal of canned beans and death is related to ingestion of that meal. Mason tells Della to get three thousand dollars from the bank, and get the numbers of the bills. Dunston and Lorraine Chambers, skin divers, join Mason.
17.	The divers go overboard, find a woman's purse. They bring the purse up and Mason takes out money in it, substitutes his own roll.
18.	Mason tells Bancroft that the yacht club attendant, Drew Kirby, will identify his wife with Gilly.
19.	Court is in session, Judge Cole S Hobart presiding, Robley Hastings, district attorney, and Turner Garfield, deputy district attorney, prosecuting. After spectators are warned about behavior, a surveyor is the first witness, producing a map of the harbor and areal photographs. Mason notes he did not produce a coast geodetic chart of the harbor, and introduces his own. The sheriff of Los Angeles County identifies the decedent. He states that Gilly had a criminal record. Drew Kirby identifies a photo of Willmer Gilly. Mason destroys his creditability by putting two photos to the witness who says they are the same, when they are not. Mason shows he did not have his glasses on, which he needs, and that it was foggy, so the identification is not reliable. Sheriff Jewett, of Orange County, says he searched the decedent's apartment and found, among a variety of thins, a half-empty can of pork and beans. He produces photographs. He identifies the murder weapon and a bullet fired from same, which is the same as bullets found on a firing range at the Bancroft property. Also a Monarch Ten portable typewriter on which the blackmail note was written. When Mason questions the location of the yacht, the sheriff is unable to be specific, and the grounds where the yacht might have been anchored have not been searched. The sheriff says the murder occurred about two hours after the dinner of pork and beans. Mason asks about tides and how the might have affected the yacht. Stilson L Kelsey refuses to state his occupation. He admits Gilly came to him with a story which he used to get money from the Bancrofts. He explains the scam worked on Rosena, and how he was foiled, then the three-thousand bit. Mason's cross-examination leads to the witness admitting that he will be given immunity from prosecution if his testimony succeeds in getting the defendant convicted. He stayed in the apartment house, awaiting Gilly's return, knocking on the door occasionally. He was working a separate deal with Eve, since he figured Gilly had double-crossed him. Dr Morley Badger, autopsy surgeon, testifies to the time of death, "an hour and a half to two hours after ingesting a meal of canned pork and beans." Mason asks for an adjournment to prepare his defense, and says he'll call an immediate press conference at which Mrs Bancroft will tell her story. Hastings protests to assembled reporters, but Mason says that "the officers made a slipshod investigation" when they failed to investigate the bottom of the bay where the boat was found. Sheriff Jewett takes exception.
20.	Prosecutor Hastings has joined the accredited press representatives, but Mason leads the questioning of Mrs Bancroft. She says she was being blackmailed by Gilly, but was aboard the yacht earlier with Fordyce. When Hastings tries to get his own answers, another reporter shout him down. Mrs Bancroft explains how the gun went off accidentally. She lost her purse, and the gun, when she went overboard maybe thirty or forty feet from the wharf. She got home around ten. The reporters want to get their story out, but Hastings wants more information. "You prepare your case and I'll prepare mine. The press conference is over," is Mason's response.
21.	Mason points out to Sheriff Jewett that he doesn't know what went overboard from the yacht. Della asks why Mason didn't show up the sheriff by proving two typewriters had been used on the blackmail note. He asks if they know there were only two blackmailers.
22.	Drake is at the wharf, in fog, but no divers have shown.
23.	Later, Drake reports that divers are there, they have found a purse, and something else that makes them jubilant.
24.	Mason allows Hastings to reopen his case. Sheriff Jewett says that, after hearing Mrs Bancroft's story, he went to the wharf and had a trained diver search the area. He found a purse and a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson, which fired the fatal bullet. The police also found a helicopter pilot who had photos of the exact location of the yacht. Mason points out that this merely corroborates Mrs Bancroft's story. Mason asks all this testimony to be stricken, so the diver, Fremont L Dibble is brought in. He states that he found the purse and the gun. Mason asks him about money in the purse; eighty-eight dollars in small bills, and some change. The gun was twenty or thirty feet away. The only thing he found at the other site shown in the helicopter photo was an old bait can. He drops the old under questioning. It contained canned beans, and was empty. Now Mason ask to re-cross Kelsey, and directly asks him if, after the press conference, he didn't hurriedly go to the beach with a diving outfit, dive, find the purse, remove three thousand dollars, take it, and plant the gun. Hastings interrupts with "This witness is not on trial," to which Mason counters, "He will be. . ." He explains his having his own diver explore the bay bottom and finding only the purse, in which he planted three thousand dollars. The person who planted the gun has to be the murderer. He was Gilly's partner. He came aboard, had a meal of canned beans, used the fun that had not gone overboard, to kill the man. He then planted beans back in the apartment. Since the bills are numbered, all that is needed is to find some of them on the murderer or in his apartment. Kelsey bolts from the stand, the sheriff follows, two shots are fired and Kelsey is brought in, handcuffed. By planting the beans in Gilly's apartment, it made it seem as if the decedent had eaten earlier than was the real case. Mason gives the Court a list of numbers on his bills.
25.	Numbers have been compared with bills in Kelsey's wallet and he is under arrest, the case against Mrs Bancroft is dismissed. Now Kelsey pleads self-defense, admits everything else. Judge Hobart congratulates the defendant's counsel on trapping the real murderer. Harlow Bancroft steps forward to suggest Irwin Fordyce disappeared because he knew the police were looking for him. He admits to youthful mistakes, and say he will pay Perry Mason any fee to defend Fordyce.
26.	Harlow, Phyllis, Rosena are with Mason, Street, and Drake. Mason thanks Bancroft for his admission in court, shakes the hand of "a real man." Rosena impulsively kisses Mason, then Phyllis follows, and Della offers to make it unanimous.