PERRY MASON

in

The Case of the . . .

with Raymond Burr

as Perry Mason

and

Barbara Hale as Della Street

William Hopper as Paul Drake

William Talman as Hamilton Burger

Ray Collins as Lt Arthur Tragg

 

FIRST SEASON; 1957 episodes

This and following pages copyright © MMX by William Allin Storrer.

All 15 episodes in the 1957 part of the first season of "Perry Mason in The Case of the . . ." have been upgraded as of 18 September 2008 by comparison with the Columbia House video Tapes in their Collector's Edition as well as by an additional comparison to the DVD format, which is indicated by the DVD chapter indices placed in parentheses within the synopsis text. Further, all episodes have been upgraded from and been marked with their CBS-Paramount "Raymond Burr is Perry Mason Season 1 Volume 1" chapter markings in italics and squared [parentheses]. The coding and other information for the CBS-Paramount release takes precedence over previous tape and DVD releases.

Additional updates (covers) 26May2010

TO GO TO A SHOW, CLICK ON ITS TITLE.

1

Restless Redhead

21 Sep 57

9

Vagabond Vixen

16 Nov 57

2

Sleepwalker's Niece

28 Sep 57

10

Runaway Corpse

23 Nov 57

3

Nervous Accomplice

5 Oct 57

11

Crooked Candle

30 Nov 57

4

Drowning Duck

12 Oct 57

12

Negligent Nymph

7 Dec 57

5

Sulky Girl

19 Oct 57

13

Moth-Eaten Mink

14 Dec 57

6

Silent Partner

26 Oct 57

14

Baited Hook

21 Dec 57

7

Angry Mourner

2 Nov 57

15

Fan-Dancer's Horse

28 Dec 57

8

Crimson Kiss

9 Nov 57

#

TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

1

Restless Redhead

21 Sep 57

ESG '54-45

12423/1-28669

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Evelyn Bagby

Whitney Blake

Mervyn Aldrich

Ralph Clanton

Helene Cheney

Gloria Henry

Mr Lewis Boles

Vaughn Taylor

Mrs (Vinnie) Boles

Jane Buchanan

Sgt Holcomb

Dick Rich

Judge Kippen

Grandon Rhodes

Mr Redfield

Norman Leavitt

Mary Thompson

Helen Mayon

Court Clerk

Jack Gargan

Policeman

Clark Howat

Drake's Operator

Lorraine Martin

(Joe, the parking attendant

unidentified)

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

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

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

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

2

Sleepwalker's Niece

28 Sep 57

ESG '36-8

15055/7-28609

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Lucile Mays

Helen Mowery

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Ralph Duncan

Thomas B Henry

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Phillip Kendall

Harry Hickox

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Judge

Kenneth MacDonald

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Jackson

Tony Michaels

Peter Cole

John McNamara

Policeman

Clark Howat

Doris Cole

Hillary Brooke

Sheriff

Fred Graham

Frank Maddox

John Archer

Detective

Joey Ray

Edna Hammar

Nancy Hadley

Court Clerk

Jack Harris

Steve Harris

Darryl Hickman

(Maid Margaret

uncredited)

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by William D. Russell Teleplay by Laurence Marks & Gene Wang

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

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

3

Nervous Accomplice

5 Oct 57

ESG '55-48

13494/5-28601

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Jerome Keddie

James Gavin

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Alexander Redfield

Norman Leavitt

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Ruth Marvel

Claudia Bryar

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Judge Hoyt

Morris Ankrum

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Sam Elkins

Tyler McVey

Sybil Granger

Maggie Hayes

Hurley (/Frank Faulkner)

Robert Bice

George Lutts

Richard Hale

Fenton Thompson

George Eldredge

Roxy Howard

Greta Thyssen

Harriet

Gail Bonney

Bruce Granger

William Roerick

Mr Rector

Sam Flint

Herbert Dean

Robert Cornthwaite

Court Clerk

Jack Harris

Vinnie Dean

Jean Howell

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by William D Russell, Teleplay by Sterling Silliphant

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

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

4

Drowning Duck

12 Oct 57

ESG '42-20

20448/14-31565

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Marv Adams

Gary Vinson

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Donald Briggs

Harry Landers

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Mrs Adams

Olive Blakeney

Lois Reed

Carol Kelly

Chief Glass

Rusty Lane

Judge Meecham

Noland Leary

Cabbie

Tom London

Clyde Waters

Victor Sutherland

Cortland

Phillip Tonge

Helen Waters

Carolyn Craig

Dr Creel

Joseph Forte

George Norris

Don Beddoe

Secretary

Helen Hatch

Martha Norris

Paula Winslow

Pedro

Clifford Botelho

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by William D Russell Teleplay by Al C Ward

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

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

5

Sulky Girl

19 Oct 57

ESG '33-2

15055/7-28609

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Fran Celane

Olive Sturges

(Donald) Graves

William Schallert

Clara (Mayfield)

Lillian Bronson

(Arthur) Crinston

Robert Griffin

Gertie

Connie Cezon

Rod Gleason

Brian Hutton

(Edward) Norton

Raymond Greenleaf

Judge (Brian C) Purley

Howard Wendell

Sgt (Geoge) Wilbur

Paul Bryar

Judge Markham

Frank Wilcox

Officer (Frank) Delaney

Bob Kline

Police Surgeon

Larry Thor

Court Clerk

Jack Gargan

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Reporter

Dick Winslow

(Hamilton Burger's assistant

uncredited)

(Gardener

uncredited)

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Harold Swanton

[1-4/1-7 Title credits](3-1) [2-7](3.2) A gardener is mowing the lawn of a mansion (Laurelwood). He hears through an open window a man (Uncle Edward Norton) saying that he won't change his mind and Fran (Celane) pointing out that she's a grown woman, 23. She runs out of the room. Lawyer (Arthur) Crinston is met at the front door by (Donald) Graves. Fran complains to Clara (Mayfield) that she wants her dowry. Clara tells her she has “everything to live for.” / Graves tells Crinston to return at 11 p m. Fran coming down the stairs confronts the lawyer; “Maybe you have to take it, Mr Crinston, but I’m not an attorney.” She rushes out, drives off in a white Chrysler Imperial convertible, nearly hitting the gardener, as Fran, Crinston and Graves watch. // [3-7](3-3) Downtown Los Angeles. In the Brant building, Fran rushes past Gertie, who protests, “you can’t go in there,” to Perry Mason who mouths a cigarette as he talks to Paul Drake. Fran offers a lit match. Della stumbles in from the law library with six large, heavy books. “If it isn’t in there, Della, we’d better drop it.“ She drops them. Fran tells them, as Della Street takes notes, that she's being cheated out of a fortune. But he’s a trial lawyer. “There’ll be a trial, a big one” she asserts, with “name calling.” She wants Mason to break a million dollar spendthrift trust, because she wants to get married, NOW. Uncle Edward, absolute trustee, won’t let her marry until she is 25, an age he things “she’ll be emotionally stable enough to enter into marriage.” Mason asks if she can wait a day. She is impetuous, apologizes, but says she was upset that morning. After she leaves, Paul and Perry agree Fran is scared, maybe “of losing someone she loves.” Paul Drake phones in with information, but Mason puts him off and puts him on the case. / Clara is reminded by Norton that she was “hired as a housekeeper, not Miss Celane’s personal maid” Clara says Fran needs love, Norton counters with discipline. Norton tells Clara that he will not have her undermining his authority with Fran. Her insubordination must end immediately. She understands “perfectly.” / At lunch, Drake reports. He shows Mason a Walter Winchell news article on Fran and a bellhop in Miami. "she's a very expensive delinquent." She’s been running around with an artist. / Mason visits Fran's boyfriend, Rod Gleason,who claims he met her only six months earlier. Mason uses a painting of Florida by Rod, “Biscayne Bay,” to confront him with being a bellhop in there, and running away with Fran five years earlier — and getting married secretly. Fran joins them and admits they did get married. She’ll be 25 in 18 months. They cannot wait. Mason quips, "I hope it's a boy." / (3-4) Mason informs Norton that his arbitrary use of his authority is wrong. “Section 7-10 of California code . . .” Crinston interrupts them. As Mason leaves, Fran enters the house and learns of Mason's lack of success. He leaves, and she declares “I hate him” to Clara. // [4-7](3-5) Drake reports at 11 p m that “Norton’s dough is mainly in real estate” and the Celane account is held by the First National Bank. Norton is “fanatically honest.” Mason asks for more information. / Gleason arrives outside Laurelwood. Inside Norton with Graves awaits Judge Purley and Crinston. They arrive six minutes late, listening to a fight on the radio, while Gleason hides in the bushes. / At 11:12 at police headquarters, officer Delaney answers a call that he says is from Norton. Sergeant (George) Wilbur is then informed that Norton wants protection from his niece. Delaney is told to go out in the squad car. / At 11:15 Judge Purley is listening to the fight when Crinston returns. Norton calls out for some papers and says he'll send Graves with him to get them. Graves joins them and, as they drive off, Graves sees a man through the window and they return. / Gleason enters the house. / Judge Purley backs up. / A police car with siren going approaches. / Mason rambles on as he dictates his challenge to Norton, but finds that Della has fallen asleep at midnight. Della tells her chief that he “shouldn’t be fooling around with wills and sulky heiresses.” He is best at murder. Just then Fran enters with “a murder is what you’ve got.” // The police finish their inspection. The police surgeon tells Lieutenant Tragg that he’ll have his full autopsy report in the morning. Graves tells Lt Tragg of the man in the window. Judge Purley sets the time factor. / Separately, Mason warns Fran that the police will know rod was there. Fran tells Mason that she was moving in with Rod, who “wanted to have it out with Uncle Edward,” to live as man and wife. Clara is with them. / (3-6) 4:15. Mason asks Gleason what happened after he left Fran's room. He says that he heard Edward talking so went out of the back door, then returned to find Norton dead. He never touched him. Yet Graves saw something in his hand. / (3-7) District Attorney Hamilton Burger has Graves reenact his identification of the figure in the window. Tragg gives signals to the inside re-enactors. Graves identifies three figures correctly. Burger tells Tragg that the test is perfect. Drake has observed it from a distance. / Drake reports the test to Mason. Neither has a solution. “See you at the preliminary hearing” offers Perry. “Wouldn’t you rather go fishing?” comments Paul. / Drake is called into Lt Tragg’s office, where the lieutenant is shooting rubber bands at an image of Mason. Tragg confronts Drake with witnessing the test (Drake’s Thunderbird has license LTZ-143), and gives him a subpoena. Tragg suggests to Drake he can “recommend a good lawyer.” / In the court hallway a reporter (Andy) phones his office that Rod Gleason is bound over for murder. Coming out of the courtroom, Drake and Mason confer. “You don’t win any marbles at preliminary hearings” states Mason [who in most of his cases wins in exactly that, a preliminary hearing without jury]. Norton was honest, reports Drake. “I know, fanatically.” // [5-7](3-8) In court Hamilton Burger gives his peroration. Mason declines to make an opening statement, surprising Burger. Judge Brian C Purley is sworn in by the court clerk, then testifies to times and to Norton's calling to Graves. He also indicates on a chart where he drove the car, then admits to Mason that he did not know Norton by sight or voice. Sergeant (George) Wilbur testifies to the call from Norton, but admits he did not answer the phone, officer (Frank) Delaney did. Mason asks that the entire testimony be stricken since no proper foundation has been laid. Burger gives an assistant instructions to bring the other officer. Mason doodles with a five digit number, 67,585. After Burger’s short examination, Arthur Crinston tells Mason that he was at Norton's to discuss tax matters, and as he had power of attorney he could sell securities, but Norton was distraught. Rod asks Della what Mason is up to. Mason asks Della for the financial papers Drake has got him. Graves asserts that he could view the study from the car. Officer Frank Delaney tells Burger of the phone call and Mason raises the issue of whether or not it was actually Norton. Clara says that after Crinston and Graves left about 11:15, she saw Gleason enter. Yet, Mason observes, she “went to the pantry to make [her]self a cup of tea,” knowing Gleason hated Norton. Mason asks if the figure 67,585 means something to her. He asks, how long has she known Fran Celane. Ten years. How did she feel when, just before he was killed, Norton told her she'd be discharged if she didn't stay away from Celane. “The Lord would show me the way.” Mason recalls Crinston, asks Della for some note cards, whispers to Drake to get Judge Purley into the hall where he can hear the cross-examination. While writing on the cards, Mason asks Crinston regarding 67,585, that this is the value in dollars of securities he used to cover his own losses in the stock market. Further, when Norton called the police to "report a crime" it was Crinston in front of him. After killing Norton, Crinston picked up the phone and said "my niece has threatened my life." Burger blusters, but the judge shuts him up. Donald Graves refuses to read out loud cards given him by Mason. He resents this, but the judge orders him to do so. As Mason moves away, Graves has to read louder; "Crinston, I want Graves to go with you" is the last card as Mason opens the door to the hall. Judge Purley is recalled, identifies the voice of Graves who then, shouting, accuses Crinston of the murder. Crinston’s admission shows when he hangs his head. Burger similarly hangs his head. “The defense rests.” // [6-7](3-9) Clara, with Perry, Della, Rod and Fran, says that she cannot understand why Graves joined with Crinston unless he was offered a share of the stock market profits. Exactly right, says Mason. Della then offers that Mason might give Clara her job. Clara thinks not, for neither can she handle Fran, and may have to raise "another sulky girl" to which Mason replies that he's "holding out for a sulky boy." [7-7 end credits](3-10) [52:49](52.42)

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

6

Silent Partner cf. Candy Queen

26 Oct 57

ESG '40-17

12426/2-28670

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Dr Rubin

Henry Hunter

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Ginger Key

Dawn Richard

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Veteran Reporter (Smitty)

Jimmy McCallion

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Girl Reporter

Janet Stewart

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Welsh

Dan Sheridan

Lola Florey

Peggy Maley

Mr Henry

Ed Stevlingson

Harry Marlow

Dan Seymour

Miss Carling

Jann Darlyn

Mildred Kimber

Anne Barton

Mr Curtis

Charles Franc

Bob Kimber

Mark Roberts

Fire Chief

Joe Quinn

Tulloch

Cyril Delevanti

Policeman

Don Anderson

Sam Lynk

Michael Emmet

Interne

Richard Geary

Mack Fried

Joe Abdullah

(Conroy

uncredited)

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Donald S Sanford

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

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

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

7

Angry Mourner

2 Nov 57

ESG '51-38

15059/10-28612

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Belle Adrian

Sylvia Field

Sheriff (Bert) Elmore

James Westerfield

Marion Keats

Joan Weldon

D A (Darwin) Hale

Paul Fix

Betsy Burris

Dorothy Adams

Sam Burris

Malcolm Atterbury

Carla Adrean

Barbara Eden

Harvey Delano

Peter Nelson

Nora Fleming

Eve McVeagh

George Lansing

Addison Richards

Mark Cushing

Eric Sinclair

Court Clerk

Harry Tyler

Motor Cop

William Boyett

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Judge

Jamie Forster*

(Hazel

uncredited)

*This is a face you cannot forget. He will appear as Judge Norwood over in Sierrra City in The Case of the Buried Clock in Season Two.

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Donald S Sanford

[3-4/1-7 Title credits](1-1) [2-7](1-2) At night in a (Bear Valley) cottage a man in a wheelchair (Mark Cushing) and a woman (Carla Adrean) are watching a movie of water skiing. When the movie ends (with Mark falling off a ski jump, which apparently caused his injury) Mark Cushing forces his attentions on her. She slaps him. // [3-7](1-3) In another house, Betsy (Burris) is wakened (by Sam Burris). He has heard a shot. There is a scream. Betsy gets binoculars. She sees a busted window in a neighboring cottage. They see Belle Adrean. Betsey sees that Sam is stalling about calling the sheriff. “I wasn’t stalling, I was just commenting, which is entirely different” he explains. / At Cushing's, Sheriff (Elmore) is given a piece of glass by a policeman and he suggests that it is from a small mirror. Sam arrives, tells what he heard and saw, but doesn’t mention Belle. Is he holding out because he didn’t like Cushing? asks the sheriff? Sam responds, “I didn’t like the man, if he’d dropped dead that would suit me fine, but his kind of thing . . .” The sheriff warns Sam not to mess up the tracks left after the rain. / The next morning Belle Adrean approaches another cottage on the lake where she is met by Perry Mason. She tells the lawyer about daughter Carla and Mark Cushing having dinner and his being murdered, later, about 2:30, after Carla left, which was about 11:30. She wants Mason to find the woman who screamed so the newspapers will leave Carla alone. Mason volunteers Paul Drake and places a call to Crestview 9-7441. Sheriff Burt Elmore joins them and asks Belle why she rushed over to a lawyer. She’s concerned about publicity surrounding Carla. When she says her daughter got home about 11:30, the sheriff tells Belle that her daughter couldn't have gotten in until after 1. It had been raining and her flat tire and tire tracks as well as shoe tracks to the house are tracked in rain mud. Belle equivocates, but Mason stops her. Also, in sand near the Cushing house, there are two sets of woman's shoe tracks. Belle denies going to the Cushing house. “You need a lawyer after all” is Mason’s comment after the sheriff leaves. // [4-7](1-4) Della Street drives up to the lake in Mason’s Cadillac convertible. She joins Mason in the cottage, discovers that Paul Drake beat her there. She is to help him get license plate numbers of every car in Bear Valley. It is Water Carnival weekend; that could be a thousand, protests Della. No disagreement from Mason. Frustrated, Della goes to get a hearty breakfast. / In her cottage Belle introduces Mason to Carla, then Harvey Delano who is a weekend visitor of Carla’s from Los Angeles. Belle informs Mason that the sheriff searched the house. She provides a list which indicates that the sheriff took a compact with a broken mirror, Carla’s. The sheriff arrives and Mason quickly asks help in defining locations of the houses, road, footprints and such, and draws a map with help from Sheriff Elmore. Tracks from the Burris house are Sam's, others are women's (Burris to and from Cushing, from Adrean house to car, car to Cushing and back, Adrean to Cushing and back). The sheriff shows Belle a pistol, then Carla, and Delano identifies it as his. Carla kept it in her car, which Belle knew. There is blood on Belle’s shoes, glass in the soles. The sheriff arrests her for murder. // (1-5) Back in the Los Angeles office. At Mason's instructions, Drake has also checked license numbers of cars at Cushing's funeral, so compare with those in Bear Valley the day of the murder. Drake's agent (Anderson) phones in two identifications. That of Marion Keats fits. “Some vacatin” comments Della, as Paul and Perry head out. / Mason visits Keats and is dismissed summarily and angrily, but not until he's given her a subpoena. / Drake reports that at 10:20, according to the night clerk, Marion Keats received a phone call from Bear Valley, heard one word, "yes," then left ten minutes later. At 3:20 she checked in to Bear Valley Inn after a three hour drive. She had two hours to do what? wonders Drake. / The courtroom in Bear Valley. Prosecutor Hale introduces himself to lawyer Mason. The court clerk asks everyone to stand and face the flag, then opens the session. After being sworn in Nora Fleming, Cushing's cook and housekeeper (about whom Della comments, “You’ll never convince me she was hired just to dust the furniture), tells D A Hale and the court that she served dinner about 10:15. She identifies Carla's blouse, torn since she saw it. Hazel (not credited tho she has several lines) tells Betsy that she doesn’t believe Belle did it. Betsy suggests that she “may be in for a big surprise,” but won’t say why. Hazel quickly runs down the sheriff. // (1-6) Hale welcomes Betsy into his office with the sheriff. By threatening her with withholding evidence, he forces her to tell what she knows. / Drake arrives in time for breakfast. ”You’ll have to admit,” says Street, “this is the world’s greatest detective when it comes to finding food!” The detective reports to Mason and Street that the phone call to Keats was made from an outside pay booth, so who made it is unknown. One unidentified print was left on Carla’s car. / A motor cop pulls Marion Keats over. She protests, but he says it has to do with a stolen car. He tries to match her license thumb print with one from the sheriff’s office. / [5-7](1-7) Back in court Mason cross-examines the sheriff, asks about the fingerprint (which Paul had said was found on Carla Adrian’s car). Hale objects but the judge asserts that the court would like to see it, too. Regarding the glass in Belle's shoes, it was common glass, and not glass from the broken lavender vase. Della tells Perry that the thumbprint is not Keats. Try Nora Fleming the attorney suggests. Betsy Burris, a very sound sleeper, relates what she saw, about 2:30. Through binoculars she saw broken window. She heard a scream. Reluctantly, she confesses that she saw Belle Adrean. / (1-8) Mason bawls out Belle for lying. She then tells him she went to Cushing's because Carla had not returned. The car was not in the garage. She rang the bell at the Cushings, then entered by the back door when no one answered, and saw Cushing. She took the broken compact, washed three glasses and wiped off a few other places. / Sam Burris testifies that he saw Belle Adrean. At the Cushing place he saw broken glass, Cushing in chair, blood, and that he'd been watching a movie with someone, a glass with lipstick. D A Hale jumps on Sam for withholding information, expects Mason to grill him, but Mason declines cross-examination at this time. For the most part the judge is most accommodating to Mason, but suggests Belle be bound over. Mason asks if he may put on his case and the judge, almost hemming and hawing, says, of course. Mason puts on his case by calling Marion Keats. George Lansing, Keats' lawyer appears arguing that she should not have to appear, that she knows nothing about the case, and Mason's action in calling her is vindictiveness because she wouldn't give him an interview, and it constitutes contempt of court. Mason asks if he is “to be deprived of the opportunity to examine the witess in behalf of the defendant” and the judge says Keats must testify. Keats whispers to the lawyer that he promised she wouldn't have to do so; he says he's laying a foundation for formal charges. Della whispers to Perry that it was Fleming's thumbprint on the car. Both D A and Lansing object to Mason's first question (Is she acquainted with Nora Fleming), so judge must ask Mason what is his objective. With D A Hale and even more strongly George Lansing objecting, Mason states he will show that Keats was in love with Cushing and was insanely jealous, that she asked Fleming to phone her as soon as Cushing was alone, that she immediately drove to the cottage where she met Fleming and the two found Carla's abandoned car. They went to the cottage together. Keats breaks down, shouts "he was dead when I got there." Even Lansing is surprised at this turn of events. Marion now asks to tell the story her own way. Mark said he was going to marry her. She thought he was playing around, so arranged with Nora Fleming to call her. They found in Carla's car the compact engraved "From Mark to Carla, with love." She didn’t kill him, she loved him. She took one look, screamed, dropped the compact. The judge is annoyed when Mason has no more questions.. Attorney Lansing admits he is unfamiliar with criminal law. The judge orders Keats taken into custody. Mason asks to recall Sam Burris. In the ten or fifteen minutes between shot and scream, did he hear a car? No. How did he see a glass with lipstick after Belle Adrean had washed it and put it away? Mason challenges; he saw it, because it is true, because he was there before Belle Adrean, when he shot Mark Cushing. // [6-7](1-9) At Adrean's Mason explains to Belle, Carla, Paul, and Harvey how he figured it out. It was all due to when each person could have been there. Sam's wife was the sound sleeper. He took the pistol out of Carla’s car while she was with Mark. After he did the deed he came back, woke his wife and told her he'd just heard the shot. The scream was Marion's, for Sam it was pure velvet. Belle asks how he knew she wasn’t a murderer. He answers that she’s not the type. “Who is the type?” asks Paul. “That’s easy, Paul” asserts Della, “anyone who is not represented by Perry Mason.” [7-7 end credits](1-10) [52:54](52:44)

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

8

Crimson Kiss

9 Nov 57

ESG '48 (1st Novelette)

20448/14-31565

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Vera Payson

Joi Lansing

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Don Ralston

Douglas Evans

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Louise Marlow

Frances Bavier

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Lab Man (Harlan)

John Harman

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Judge Randolph

Frank Wilcox

Anita Bonsal

Jean WIlles

Dr (Bill) Howley

Howard Culver

Fay Allison

Sue England

(Court Clerk

Jack Gargan)

Dane Grover

Douglas Dick

(Waitress Any

uncredited)

Shirley Tanner

Gloria McGhee

Gertie [credited]

Connie Cezon [does not appear)

Carver Clement

John Holland

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay byJoel Murcott, Walter Doniger

[4-4/1-8 Title credits](2-1) [2-8](2-2) Cars stream by on a busy street. A man (whom we later recognize as Carver Clement) enters the Mandrake Arms apartments with his own key, asks a pretty girl in a chair if she’s “waiting for someone,” but she gets up and walks away. He takes the elevator to the seventh floor. Dane Grover and Fay Allison part with a deep kiss at her apartment door, 604. She joins Anita (Bonsal) in 604. Fay's aunt Louise Marlow is coming on a plane; she's been sent a key. Anita, who seems upset over Fay’s catching Dane, tho she says Fay’s “dream boy’s just another man.” She’ll be out late, leaves, goes into the stairway instead of the elevator. / [3-8](2-3) Anita arrives at apartment 702 of married boyfriend (Carver Clement), “who is practically divorced.” She demands they go out. 9:15. She’s frosty. He agrees to drive up the coast. / She waits in a car. 9:58. / Anita returns to Fay's apartment, suggests that Fay make some hot chocolate, then takes pills from the bathroom cabinet. / 1:30, Aunt Louise Marlow arrives; Fay and Anita are unconscious in their beds. / “Clay’s Bar and Grille” says waitress Amy, who brings Aunt Louise’s call to Perry Mason. Marlow is frantic and Mason has her call Della (Hollywood 2-1799). / Della Street and Mason hurry to the apartment, meet Louise Marlow. Fay and Anita were drugged with barbiturates. Doctor (Howley) says that brunette (Fay) might not have survived. Mason asks Marlow if Anita is happy; of course, he’s “a rich young man.” Did she find a note or anything? Della finds cups of chocolate. / Perry and Della search for any clue, such as a note. Mason finds two keys, 604 and 702. / An insomniac woman in 704 (Shirley Tanner) sees them go into 702. They find Anita's boyfriend at 2:30 in 704, dead, with lipstick lips, a crimson kiss, on his forehead, but not on a glass. Mason finds the phone has been wiped clean, calls Lieutenant Tragg. // [4-8](2-4) A couple (Vera Payson and Don Ralston) argue in the hall as Della and Perry leave. The couple knock on 702. Shirley Tanner comes out of 704, complains again about noise, comments on “the people that just went in there.” Vera is pleased, “Good, if he’s got company, he doesn’t need us.” On the ground floor, Mason hides 702 key in a plant, calls Louise, tells her how to get both girls out via back door and in to a sanitarium. Della finds that the name on 702 is Phillip Walsh but, notes the attorney, the dead man's cuff links have CC on them. Della remembers that couple in hallway referred to him as "Carv." Police arrive, encounter Mason, who tells them there is a body in 702 just as a couple emerge from the elevator and note to the police that it is "Carv's apartment," and Carver Clement and the other couple (Della and Perry) were in his apartment. / Tragg wonders if Mason knew dead man with lipstick lips on his forehead. "Not alive." Mason tells Tragg he rang 604. But, counters the police lieutenant, he ended up in 702. Neither Mason nor dead man had a key, but both were in the apartment! The murder glass was wiped clean, says lab man Harlan. Over the phone Tragg learns that the dry cleaning marks on woman's clothing in 702 belong to Fay Allison. / Tragg, Mason and Street go to 604, tell Marlow that her niece's clothes are in 702. The girls are in the Crestview Sanitarium. Tragg leaves. Mason calls Drake. / (2-5) Crestview. Anita tells Mason and Tragg she doesn't know what happened. Tragg tries to establish guilt, but Mason indirectly warns Anita of his tactics. Lab man Harlan is sent away after Tragg learns on the phone that Clement was poisoned by cyanide. Anita denies knowing Clement, says Fay made the chocolate. / Fay says she put nothing in the chocolate, and doesn't know Carver Clement. / In a police car,Tragg says both girls work at a guided missile plant, so their fingerprints are on file, which is why his man didn’t take Anita’s. Those on the glass in the apartment are Fay’s. // [5-8](2-6) Mason greets Della with “Morning, darling,” as he enters the middle office. Drake gives Mason (smuggled) crime lab photos, then reports that even the brand of tooth paste in 702 is known. Mason pokes holes in Drake’s argument. Why were Fay's prints on one glass but wiped clean on the murder glass? Ralston handled Clement’s taxes. His girl Vera was a party girl. Clement had no key to his own apartment. Could someone have been in Clement’s apartment and answered the buzz, then left? Could a man have planted the crimson kiss? Perhaps Grover after finding out about the affair. Drake leaves via the private door as Dane Grover arrives, says he's in love with Fay. Will he be loyal, given his family's distaste of publicity? Dane admits he took Fay to the family estate Sunday where the gardener was working with gopher holes, spreading a preparation of cyanide. / D A Hamilton Burger phones Mason to meet him. / Clay’s Grille. The waitress asks if anyone wants desert. Tragg informs Mason that Fay had an interest in cyanide. Mason offers Tragg a cigarette, but the D A notes this is but a ruse to gain time to think up an answer. Mason suggests someone washes a glass, another swirls it with Scotch, places it elsewhere. The waitress brings a phone call from Drake who is told to check all Mandrake Arms apartments to see if they have identical “dishes and glassware.” Mason tells Hamilton Burger that he’d rather risk Fay’s life than ruin it, so he won’t accept a lower plea. // [6-8](2-7) KISS SLAYING TRIAL TOMORROW screams the Los Angeles Chronicle. Mason looks at a photo of the kiss. Drake joins him. He couldn’t link a single tenant with Clement. Burger’s “got a hundred sharp knives.” Mason wants only “one broken blade.” Paul is sure Fay is looking at the gas chamber just as sure as he is “Burger wants to be governor.” / The court clerk announces that “this court is now in session, Judge Randolph presiding.” Ralston testifies that he saw Mason coming from 702; he got a response when he rang 702, but they stayed in the lobby for a few minutes. The elevator was on the ground floor when they arrived. Then it went up, came back down empty when they called it. Ralston and Payson were already in the building when Mason and Street were at the apartment. Mason suggests someone might have used the elevator to go between floors. Burger makes the point that “anyone else” in the building could have used the elevator, which gives Mason the clue he needs. Vera compliments Don on his testimony and is shushed by Judge Randolph. Shirley Tanner, the woman in 704, saw Mason enter 702. “He was taking the key out of the lock.” She subleased from Jerome Hill a week before Clement’s death. Burger objects. He never mentioned a neighbor, had a job out of town, volunteers Tanner, who is then chided by the judge. Tragg testifies Mason admitted to Mandrake Apartments by Louise Marlow. Mason thus did not have a key to 702 at that time, for if he did he’d not have had to ring, as all keys open the front door. Della admits Mason got 702 key in 604 apartment, from Fay’s purse as Mason nonchalantly doodles. / Mr Harlan, police lab technician, identifies laundry cleaning marks on Fay Allison's clothes. Glass with no lipstick but Fay's fingerprints begs the question, how could she leave kiss on the dead man’s forehead but not on the glass. Harlan admits lip lines would match as well as fingerprints. Burger argues irrelevance of this. Mason presses paper on Allison's lips, asks Harlan to compare it with photo of forehead kiss. They don't match. / At lunch, Drake tells Mason and Street that Jerome Hill is legitimate. He gives Mason a note book (TV audience does not see what Mason knows.) / Anita swears she never saw Fay wearing a robe with her laundry mark. Fay whispers to Mason it is hers, why does Anita lie? She says she and Fay share same job and salary of $75 a week. “Barely enough to make ends meet.” She did not know Clement. Mason flashes credit charges (which are from his file!) and asks her if these are not his. Mason rips into her, accusing her of the murder. After running to window and saying she'll jump, she says she found Clement dead. Burger argues for a mistrial, but Mason says the case can be solved now. He notes that Fay and Anita were drugged when Payson and Ralston rang 702 buzzer and got an answer just before Mason put his key in the door. Mason questions Miss Tanner “informally” regarding Hill, takes impression of her lips, then asks for them to be matched. Tanner admits guilt. She loved him. He was using same pseudonym at Mandrake Arms, Philip Walsh. Then she sublet, discovered Anita. She fixed his drink when he went to get his jacket. She took his key, and she answered Ralston's ring from the lobby. Court orders Tanner and Bonsal taken into custody. // [7-8](2-8) Mason tells Dane and Fay he knew it was Tanner because she paid Hill a $500 bonus (the TV audience did not know this until now; an unfair solution!) to get 704 when other apartments were available at regular rates. Fay kisses Perry, leaving a crimson kiss on his cheek. [8-8 end credits](2-9) [52:51](52:42)

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

9

Vagabond Vixen

16 Nov 57

ESG '48-32

22189 /20-35228

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Lorraine Ferrell

Catherine McLeod

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Mrs Dale

Barbara Pepper

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Edgar Ferrell

Paul Cavanagh

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Sgt Bent

Robert Carson

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Judge Keetley

Pierre Watkin

Veronica Dale

Carol Leigh

Print Man

Perry Ivins

John Addison

Robert Ellenstein

Neff

Russell Trent

Myrtle Northrup

Peggy Converse

Court Clerk

Jack Gargan

Peter Handsell

James Anderson

Deputy Sheriff

Lee Miller

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Al C Ward

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

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

10

Runaway Corpse

23 Nov 57

ESG '54-44

13495/6-28608

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Myrna Davenport

June Dayton

Dr (Frank) Renault

James Maloney

Louise Ansel

Sarah Selby

Jason Beckmeyer

Adam Williams

Rita Norge

Rebecca Welles

Ed Davenport

John Stephenson

Dr Hoxie

Michael Fox

Mr. Medford

William Challee

Officer Boom

Keith Alan

Dr Mitchell

Robin Morse

Motel Manager

Martha Wentworth

Kenny

Jack Kenney

Judge

Ed Jerome

Court Clerk

Jack Harris

Gertie

Connie Cezon

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Malvin Wald & Jack Jacobs

[2-4/1-8 Title credits](1-1) [2-8](1-2) A chemist’s lab. Dr Mitchell, wondering why Davenport is late, is testing a sandwich as Jason Beckmeyer waits. Ed Davenport arrives, is told that arsenic was detected. Ed says “arsenic worked for her (his wife, Myrna) before, so why change?” Beckmeyer doesn’t quite understand. // [3-8](1-3) Ed arrives home, Louise (Ansel) meets him, he shouts for Myrna, pours himself a drink. “Ed, you know what the doctor said,” she cautions. He accuses her of poisoning sandwiches a week earlier. He tells Louise (Myrna’s cousin) that her Uncle Charlie died eight months earlier of arsenic, and Myrna is trying to poison him. He has left a letter in his office for the police that guarantees if he dies, Myrna goes “straight to the gas chamber.” Ed leaves on his trip. Myrna breaks down, cries. / Vista Motel, rates $3.50 up; Ed enters Cabin 6. Later, 11:26, he picks up the phone, which is next a box of chocolates, and asks for a local doctor, who comes running. / Dr Renault phones: Louise answers and gets word that Ed is in an oxygen tent in the Vista Motel, Cabin 6. Myrna arrives and Louise lies about the call, suggests that Ed was serious, and she should see a lawyer. “Do it, just to please me.” / Mason's office; Louise is running the interview. Ed is running through Myrna’s inheritance left by Uncle Charlie. Louise gives Mason the key to Ed’s office. She wants Mason to get Ed’s letter. Mason says he can’t while Ed is alive. Myrna then confesses the truth of the telephone call. Mason sends them to the motel. / Dr Renault says Mr Davenport is “too weak to be moved to the hospital.“ Ed wakes and, in the presence of the doctor, he accuses his wife of putting poison in the candy. The doctor mentions the chocolates. Myrna admits she packed the candy, “ate a piece of it myself.” Ed has an attack and the doctor gives him a shot, but he dies. Dr Renault says he’ll call the police, locks the cabin. / Della and Perry enter Davenport's office, find his letter to the police. A woman (Rita Norge) arrives outside, sees them through a window, leaves. Mason notes a $17,300 withdrawal from Davenport’s checking account today. “He certainly didn’t do it” says Della. The entry was in a female hand, notes Mason. Della picks up the ringing phone and hears “Unit 13, Desert Motel, Bakerstown.” Mason tells her to have Paul Drake check on it. They steam the letter open, find the papers blank. / Back at the motel. Lieutenant Tragg joins the doctor, Myrna and Louise. The group enters #6, Davenport is gone. // [4-8](1-4) Della and Perry find blank pages in envelopes. Rita Norge returns to Davenport’s office with a police officer. She gets the resealed letter. Over the phone Mrs Davenport tells Mason that Ed has disappeared. In his Cadillac convertible, Mason tells Street that there are those who will think him overzealous. “The district attorney included,” notes Della, and Mason concurs. / Paul Drake listens to Desert Motel manager of how a call from John Stokes got her to hold Room 13 until midnight. She sees Beckmeyer watching them, tells Drake he came to her an hour earlier. Beckmeyer avoids Drake. / Mason asks the two women who John Stokes was. Mason thinks Davenport may have taken that name. Tragg arrives, asks Myrna to come downtown. He notes that Myrna’s uncle died under “unusual circumstances,” and the coroner has indicated Uncle Charlie died of arsenic poisoning. Tragg’s partner brings in a bottle, 62% arsenic. Myrna used it to spray plants. Tragg notes that the candy in the motel was loaded with arsenic. Now Louise, in a vicious outburst, accuses Myrna of poisoning, tells Tragg of the lab report. “Burger’s gonna love this case. With a witness like this, how can he lose?” // [5-8](1-5) Hamilton Burger’s office. The D A tells Mrs Davenport he wants to believe her. Mason pokes holes in Burger’s argument, so he lets Myrna go. But not Mason, whom he asks about his opening the death letter. Tragg phones in the finding of the body. Now Burger says “they’ve caught up with the Runaway Corpse.” / Davenport's body has been found in grave at a remote site by Mr Medford's boys. Mr Medford tells how it happened. A sergeant reports that the coroner has determined death was by arsenic. Burger accuses Mason of destroying vital evidence. This he does after the attorney refuses his offer of no “death penalty” if his client will plead guilty. Mason knows he’ll then go after her for her uncle’s death. // Drake has discovered Beckmeyer is licensed private detective and tells Della. Gertie’s phone call brings Della into the receptionist’s room, where Gertie is working at her desk and Jason Beckmeyer is waiting to see Mason. Detective Beckmeyer says Davenport hired him to watch unit 13, and Mr Stokes was at unit 13 (as identified by earlier phone call) but description he gives fits Paul Drake. She shares this with Paul. A call from Drake’s operative Gregory lets them know that Norge is in Davenport’s office. / Perry and Paul catch Miss Norge at the Davenport office. Drake finds papers that Norge has thrown out which indicate Davenport had cashed out stocks. Norge withdrew over $17,000 out of Mr Davenport's account the previous day. The widow “will get everything that’s coming to her” charges Norge. / Mason learns from Tragg that Davenport was going to phone Miss Norge with the place to deliver something, but Tragg is smug and teases Mason. Norge has turned in the $17,300 to Tragg. // [6-8](1-6) Outside the courtroom, Ansel asks Beckmeyer to see her that eve. Dr Hoxie tells D A Burger that death was caused by heart attack an hour after eating. Candy had arsenic. Mason elicits that Davenport died of a heart attack, but arsenic would have worked in twelve hours. Blood alcohol point one five, could also have been carrier of arsenic, but Dr Hoxie believes it was bacon and eggs as there was no trace of chocolate. Dr Renault claims death was at 5:15 p m; he'd pumped the stomach, and cannot explain the finding of bacon and eggs. Burger requests adjournment to investigate the peculiar situation and the judge agrees. Mason asks Drake to check out Renault. Mason gives Paul his legal brief case, says he’s taking Della for “a walk in the country.” So Della dumps a load of law books on Paul. / Della and Perry look at the grave, which seems prepared "in advance." Della suggests Rita Norge as a suspect, but Mason discounts this. Where did Davenport get bacon and eggs, queries Mason. They look for a house trailer. / Ansel tells Beckmeyer she believes Norge is the murderer. Myrna inherited $280,000 and there is only $40,000 left. Norge must have the rest, she asserts, then asks how can they get the police to see this. Beckmeyer offers to see that arsenic is found in Norge’s apartment, then says he’ll go to the D A about Ansel’s suggestion instead. / Near the grave Della finds tire tracks, and Mason identifies crankcase oil droppings. / Court. The court clerk calls the court to order. Dr Renault is told he is “still under oath.” He testifies that he never saw Davenport before the day of death, then admits it was possible. The doctor claims patient-doctor privilege to avoid answering Mason’s questions. He has a Doctor of Health Medicine from an unaccredited school that no longer exists. He refuses to answer Mason's query about conspiracy to make it look as if Davenport died. The court clerk swears in Jason Beckmeyer, who testifies that Dr Renault, a quack, was hired by Ed Davenport a week before the death. Yes, he acted as dummy for bank accounts for Davenport. Drake’s operative delivers a paper which Mason uses to get Beckmeyer to admit he owns a house trailer, then finally admit that Beckmeyer may have been in it on the day of the murder. Mason challenges him. Did Davenport not get bacon and eggs in his trailer, and arsenic in a drink? He shows Beckmeyer receipt for a shovel purchased by him on the day of murder. Beckmeyer confesses, thought he and Davenport could together create a perfect crime. // [7-8](1-7) Drake is guiding Della in her attempts to hang a painting. Beckmeyer had 210 grand in his trailer, notes Mason. Ed Davenport poisoned Uncle Charlie to make his wife an heiress, so he could steal her blind and disappear. How did Mason decide it was Beckmeyer; "Unit 13, Desert Motel, Bakerstown" phone call Della intercepted "was obviously for Rita Norge" about the $17,000. Call didn't come from Davenport, so it must have come from Beckmeyer. Blank pages in letter was Davenport's idea. Della, frustrated at getting the painting to hand right, asks Mason what is wrong. He responds that it is Beckmeyer’s influence. It’s a “case of a slightly crooked frame.” [8-8 end credits](1-8) [51:53](51:48)

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

11

Crooked Candle

30 Nov 57

ESG '44-24

12426/2-28670

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Martha Bradford

Nancy Gates

Larry Sands

Whit Bissell

Rita (Wassell)[Bradford]

Doris Singleton

Jack Harper

Robert Clarke

Capt Noble

Francis McDonald

(George) Nikolides

Henry Cordon

Joe Bradford

Bruce Cowling

Judge Newark

Frank Wilcox

Receptionist

Helene Santley

Clerk

Hal Taggart

(D A Burger's stenographer

uncredited)

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Robert Talman

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

[3-4/1-7 Title credits](6-1)(3-1) [2-7] A street in Beverly Hills. The receptionist of the Clayton beauty shop takes a phone appointment, then looks in her appointment book and calls for Mrs Bradford. Two Mrs Bradfords stand up, two Mrs Joseph Bradfords, one blonde, one brunette. “741 Marquette Drive,” says the blonde. The brunette has lived there over a year. / [3-7] Joe (Bradford) gives Harper the keys to his boat, which he wants ready by 4. His wife calls. Joe will not “go into it” on the phone, but will meet her at Crane's Coffee Shop at 5 o'clock, which confuses Jack. “She’s your wife,” Jack notes to Joe. / Nite; the brunette Mrs Bradford rushes into Bradford office, from the coffee shop, where she’s waited for hours. She tells Larry (Sands) of the other woman who has a key to the house and of Joe’s promise to meet her. He suggests that she get a good night’s sleep, then go to a lawyer. “I can dream, can’t I” he asks as he offers a sympathetic hand. She asks Larry to take her home. / A grandfather clock ticks in the hallway. Upstairs, the brunette Bradford, in bed, is sleepless. She lights a cigarette. Outside, a woman approaches, with her own key. The brunette puts on a robe, gets a gun, goes down the stairs, calling out, “Is that you, Joe?“ She sees a mud splotches on the floor. She returns to her bedroom, dresses, leaves the house with the gun, as the blonde Mrs Bradford hides behind curtain. / The brunette is at Perry Mason's office with the attorney and Della Street. Mason phones to find where Bradford is and is sent to Skinner Hills by Harper. / Mason arrives in Skinner Hills in his Ford Fairlane convertible. A man, Nikolides, rushes out with a rifle, says he’d shoot Joe if he showed up. Larry Sands, who is a surveyor, joins Martha and Mason. Harper would never come here, he asserts. The land has sheep, and oil, and was Nikolides’ property until bought for a song by Joe. / Mason confronts Harper at the office with the wild goose chase. Those were Bradford’s instructions; he has a big deal in San Diego and didn’t want to be disturbed. Mason raises the possibility that Martha, the brunette, is not married to Joe. He’s told Joe has gone to San Diego on his boat, the Mary Belle. / Mason and Della Street go to a boat dock at La Cuesta. Captain Noble joins them and agrees to take them out to the Mary Belle. / (6-2) Aboard, they find Joe Bradford, face down on the floor, dead, and a crooked candle in a hurricane lamp. // (6-3)(3-2) Mason informs Martha that Joe was murdered, and he knows that she was on the boat. She admits she thought the blonde Mrs Bradford was in her house, just as Lieutenant Tragg arrives. He and Mason argue the technicality of calling it murder. He takes Mrs Bradford to headquarters for questioning. / (6-4) Paul Drake is waiting in Mason’s inner office. He reports that Rita Wassell is the first wife, MARRIED IN 1945, DIVORCED IN 48, BLONDE. Bradford’s secretary say the boss and wife weren’t getting along. Rita is outside, and Paul sits on Mason’s desk, hoping to meet her. Mason shoos him out the back door. Rita Bradford comes in from the outer office. She is angry over the headline in the Los Angeles Chronicle; MRS BRADFORD SUSPECT IN MURDER OF HUSBAND. IT identifIES Mason as "her" attorney. She is still the Mrs Bradford. She last saw her husband the previous night aboard the Mary Belle. / (6-5) In D A Hamilton Burger's office, Rita is giving a statement to a stenographer and the D A. The body was slulmped against the cabin door, not on the floor as Mason insists. Mason helps her out to the elevator, noting that Burger is “naturally skeptical.“ Rita, who is using her maiden name, feels helpless. Back in the D A’s office, Burger shows Mason Martha Bradford's blood-stained shoe. He’s holding her for murder. // [4-7](6-6)(3-3) Nikolides is having lunch in Skinner Hills. Mason calls him a good actor. Nikolides admits to being on the boat. Harper and Bradford had a fight. Bradford stole his oil rights, says Nikolides, “what one lawyer gives, other lawyer can take away. Old Greek proverb.“ He offers to say that Harper killed Bradford, which gives Mason's client an alibi. Mason says he needs someone who hated everyone, namely Nikolides. “I make a big joke” Nikolides calls out as Mason walks away. / Harper is on the boat when Larry arrives. They agree that they should help Martha. Harper admits to having a relationship with Martha and that it is mutual. He “covered it ulp very well” says Larry. They discuss alibis. Harper was miles away. Larry has none. / Perry and Della are in the inner office. He can’t think effectively. He leaves to get some sleep. Sands arrives in the outer office as the attorney is leaving, and admits to killing Joe Bradford. / Sands testifies to D A Burger and a stenographer of killing at 11, maybe 12. He talks about a candle in a brass base. Burger traps him regarding the crooked candle. The murder was at 5 p m, and the weapon was not Sands' rock. / In court Lt Tragg tells of the body position when he arrived, identifies a fire axe and the crooked candle. Judge Newark asks about fingerprints. The lamp has the defendant’s fingerprints. Mason points out that his client was aboard the boat many times, so her fingerprints could have been placed any time. Burger takes the candle to the clerk, but Mason intercepts it. The candle leans, but the top is not at an equal angle though the burn is even, so the candle had to be put in the lamp at that angle and by the defendant. Rita Bradford testifies to meeting the other Mrs Bradford at the beauty shop. She had gone to tell her husband she was “leaving him for good,” then left for New York on a train. Then she had amnesia two years ago. She discovered herself on a street, and she remembered her husband's office phone number, and where she lived. She testifies to being in the house when the defendant came down the stairs with a gun calling her husband's name, about 10 p m. She remembered the boat went out to it, where she found Joe dead, his body against the cabin door. Judge Newark adjourns court so that Burger can find the “mysteriously disappeared” George Nikolides. // [5-7](6-7)(3-4) Perry and Della go back to the Mary Belle; they set candle on the table, straight up, and a dummy against the door. Time passes. The boat tips. The candle is half burned. Later the boat tips more and Mason slides to one side as the dummy falls over face down, and the candle is burned out. They put up new candle, at the crooked angle. It is 3:30 in the morning. / (6-8) Harper identifies items he put on the Mary Belle, including the hurricane lamp for the candle because the boat’s electricity was out. So the defendant’s fingerprints could not have gotten on to the lamp before the night of the murder. Judge Newark determines that Harper is a hostile witness, so Burger is able to draw out his relationship with the defendant. Her husband was jealous by nature, says Harper. Didn’t Martha Bradford kill Mr Bradford so she could marry Harper, Burger asks. Mason asks if Martha ever indicated she’d marry him upon her husband’s death. “Of course not.” Then he asks about the candle. Harper’s fingerprints as well as the defendants should have been on the holder. Capt Noble testifies about tides, and he says Mary Belle could not have settled evenly because it has a keel. Using a model, low tide created an 18° tilt, same as the candle, at 1:17 in the morning - which, then, was when Martha Bradford was there - eight hours after the murder. / Mr Sands says Mr Harper and he discussed how to help Martha, but he blew it by giving wrong information to Burger. Didn’t he blow it intentionally to place blame on Martha? How did he know of the hurricane lamp without being there? Mason brow beats him into a confession of doing it for love of Martha, yet she loved Harper. // [6-7] Della is on the phone with Martha Bradford, who won't come in to the office, probably because she doesn't want a lecture from Perry on lying to her lawyer. Drake comes in the back door dressed to the nines, asks Perry for a $50, then $75, loan, so that he can take out Rita Wassell, to brighten up her future since she cannot remember her past. [7-7 end credits](3-5) [52:48](52:40)(52:44)

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

12

Negligent Nymph cf. Impetuous Imp

7 Dec 57

ESG '50-35

22190/21-35229

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Gertie

Connie Cezon

Karen Alder

Joan Banks

George Alder

David Lewis

Arthur Dorian

James Griffith

Sally Fenner

Peggy Castle

Nina Santos

Nadja Posey

Judge

James Nusser

Dr Murray

Forrest Lewis

Guard Hess

John Cliff

Martinez

Robert Tafur

Patrolman

Troy Melton

Waitress

Irene Calvillo

Dancer

Elvira Corona

Police Photographer

Michael Kopcha

(Forbes

uncredited)*

(Court Clerk

uncredited)*

(Miss Miller

Uncredited*

* Non-speaking roles are generally not credited

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Richard Grey

[4-4/1-8 Title credits](2-1) [2-8](2-2) A sailboat, the Sea Witch, is in a storm, over which is heard a scream./ A beach (Paradise Cove). A deep-dimpled square whiskey bottle washes up. A bearded beachcomber (Arthur Dorian), takes it, finds a message, reads it. / Guard (Hess) with his Doberman pincher dog checks the entry to George Alder's place. Inside, Alder over his intercom asks Sally (Fenner) to bring in Mr Dorian, who reads the note, which says his Aunt Agatha expects to be murdered by her nephew, George Alder. // [3-8](2-3) Dorian continues reading from the note, asks for only $50, which Alder takes from a cash-filled box. Karen Alder enters, drunk. Alder has Sally (Fenner) take her back to her end of the house. Karen derides him. He slaps her and orders Sally to “get her out.” Karen says someday she’ll be sober. Dorian gets his $50. Sally quits her job after reading the note, noting that George paid blackmail. Alder points out that $10,000 is missing after the aunt’s death. Sally dials the police, but George cuts her off. / (2-4) Dusk. A power boat in the harbor brings Perry Mason and Paul Drake dockside. / Sally arrives at Alder entry, waits for guard to pass by, then hurries in to the house. The guard with his dog hears door of the house, but finds a cat in a bush. Inside, Sally handles a fireplace poker. Someone lies dead behind a couch. Sally searches the desk, there finds a note in bottom of cash-empty box, accidentally knocks over a lamp. Guard and dog enter house, then chase Sally to the beach. Paul and Perry have heard the shot at the Alder estate. Sally takes off shoes, goes into the water as the dog follows. Paul and Perry take a boat out to save the woman from the dog. Paul jumps in, helps her to their boat. The dog returns to the guard. Sally Fenner admits she broke in to the house and Alder's desk, gives the note to Mason. Mason suggests that she go to the police, returns the note. Paul gives her a once over and Perry suggests he change his (wet) clothes. / Paul and Perry dock, head home, stop at a gas station. Patrolman comes over, says he's setting up a road block because of trouble at the Alder estate, and describes Sally (5'6, 24 . . .) as his murder suspect. // [4-8](2-5) Lieutenant Tragg orders poker be checked for fingerprints. Guard Hess says he couldn’t recognize the boat in the dark. Tragg orders Forbes to check on sports fishing cruisers. / Della Street is reading the newspaper as Mason orders Drake over the phone to find Fenner. Tragg joins them, says Sally Fenner apparently stole $10,000 while working for George Alder, and had to kill him when he caught her in his office. She was picked up in a sports cruiser. He hopes that the boat owner who picked her up will come forth. Gertie, in the outer offices, is with Sally, and uses the phone to tell Della that Sally is there. Della tells Mason “the shipment just arrived” and he says “put it in the law library.” Della goes out to do so. Mason follows Tragg to the door. “It’s going to be awfully dull without your around, Mason.” The attorney hands Tragg his hat so he’ll have no reason to return (Yes, Tragg is that crafty; you know he suspects something is up). Then Mason brings Sally in. She is surprised when she hears Alder has been murdered. Mason calls Drake to leave his car where Della can take Fenner into 48 hour hiding. Sally says Alder did kill Aunt Agatha, it is in the note, but Mason asks if she ever knew anyone who could type a perfect note in a raging storm. / At Alder's, Mason questions Karen. Since, for the first time in twenty years, she feels free, why didn't she get a divorce? She says that a wife of an Alder can commit, discreetly, the seven deadly sins, “but she must never, ever, get a divorce.” She's convinced her husband killed Aunt Agatha, for money, which is now hers. George, Sally, the captain and Nina Santos were aboard the Sea Witch in the storm. Karen was 30 miles away ashore. She offers Mason money to help Sally, whom she knows did not do it. / At Las Chalupas restaurant, a dancer is performing as Drake and Mason enter. Owner Martinez queries them, then they meet Nina Santos. With romantic flourishes, she describes stormy eve, is sure death was accident but, when Mason shows her the note, she says she believes it. She didn't go to the police because who would believe her. She goes to the cash register, and Paul takes a deep bite of the chili, discovers that it is HOT. Mason tells Drake to check out Nina, for only two people in a small place like this handle the money, the owner, or his wife. Nina declares that the note is a “voice from the grave.” / Della and Sally play cards. A knock on the door is not Perry, but Tragg, who takes the two ladies to police headquarters. / Mason challenges D A Hamilton Burger regarding his holding of Miss Street. Mason states that Miss Street was acting under his specific instructions, and he was protecting his client. Mason and Street leave, Burger dismisses stenographer (Miss Miller, not in cast list, since it is a non-speaking role). Tragg enters with Dorian, who has the original note, which was typed on Sally Fenner's apartment typewriter. // [5-8](2-6) Court. Tragg identifies for D A Burger the poker as the murder weapon. The Court Clerk takes it. He testifies that there was forcible entry, and the defendant's shoes fit the prints outside the library where Alder was murdered. Also, the fingerprints on the French doors and the weapon are Fenner's. Mason corners Tragg; was he surprised to find the defendant's fingerprints everywhere when she was the dead man's secretary? Did she have to break in when she had a key? Waitress Santos testifies that Agatha Alder carried $10,000 on the night of her death, but the money was not in the room after her death. Sally Fenner was the first to enter the room after her death. Mason impeaches Santos, showing she is married (to Isidoro Martinez). Two weeks after Agatha's death she paid $10,000 as a down payment on Las Chalupas Restaurant. She responds that kind Agatha gave her the money when she married Martinez. Dr Murray testifies that Agatha Alder drowned. Porthole of Alder's room 4" smaller than hips of Agatha. Karen Alder admits that Sally quarreled with her employer; everyone knew he murdered Agatha. B y quoting a statement made at his office. Burger tries to force Karen to say she saw Sally run from the library, but she says that the person she saw was a tall, lean, dark man in jeans and tropical shirt. Burger calls this perjury, asks the judge for time to prove it. // [6-8](2-7) At Alder’s, Tragg gives the police photographer a list of photographs he wants. / Lt Tragg brings projector and screen to the hall outside the courtroom. / Dorian describes whiskey bottle and his finding of the note (of which he delivered to Adler only a copy). Tragg sets up the projector. By slides, Burger demonstrates that Karen Alder could not have seen the beach (and murderer) from her bedroom because the view is obstructed. Mason follows up. Karen describes payment to Dorian, the note in the bottle, the bottle on the desk. Mason tests her eyesight, finds it remarkable. She identifies the whiskey bottle, by a chip in the neck. Mason notes that Dorian said he never brought original note or bottle to the home. She saw it when she drank from it, when she typed the note and put it in the bottle, and when she threw it into the ocean at Paradise Cove. She admits this when Mason thrusts the bottle into her hands. She didn’t want to hurt Sally, who was the only one who wasn’t ashamed of her. When she "killed him, (she) had that wonderful feeling of being free." // [7-8](2-8) Paul, Perry and Della at Nina's Las Chalupas Restaurant. Mason and Della order Mexican. Paul orders ham and eggs. Mason compliments Nina. Della feels sorry for alcoholic Karen, but Perry says she murdered while sober, which state is more dangerous than drunk. When Agatha's death was ruled out as murder, that narrowed the suspects. Why not Dorian? Paul says blackmailers don't kill the golden goose. While Drake watches the dancer, a waitress asks "sauce, senor," and Paul (absent mindedly) says "please." He comments on the dancer, "That's a real hot number," then bites into his ham and eggs, HOT. [8-8 end credits](2-9) [51:49](51:44)

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

13

Moth-Eaten Mink cf. Sausalito Sunrise

14 Dec 57

ESG '52-39

22191 /22-35230

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Sgt Jaffrey

Douglas Kennedy

Morey Allen

Robert Osterloh

Dixie Dayton

Kay Faylen

Frank Hoxie

Than Wyenn

Mae Nolan

Roxanne Arlen

Judge Lennox

Grandon Rhodes

George Fayette

Marc Krah

Gertie

Connie Cezon

Parking Attendant

Brian Hutton

Bailiff

Jack Gargan

Drake's Operator

Lyn Guild

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Ted Post Teleplay by Lawrence Marks & Ben Starr

[1-4/1-7 Title credits](1-1) [2-7](1-2) At night, owner Morey Allen greets Della Street and Perry Mason as they enter Morey’s Steak’s dining room in downtown Los Angeles. He then turns them over to waitress Dixie, yet he takes their order of steaks, Lyonais potatoes, salads and coffee. He gives the order to Dixie, who is distressed at the entrance of a male customer. As Morey seats the stranger, she runs out the back and is chased by a Cadillac, whose driver fires at her as she escapes. She is blinded by headlights, freezes, is hit by another car, a Chevrolet. A crowd gathers around her, including Morey’s parking attendant. // [3-7](1-3) Morey apologies to Mason for the lack of service, then learns from his parking attendant that Dixie has been run over. He gets a mink coat from her locker, takes it to Mason, tells him of the accident and two gun shots. Morey is sure she’s down on her luck. He worries about reporters learning of the mink coat and what it could do to his reputation. Mason keeps the coat when the police arrive. He then discovers a Portland, Oregon pawn ticket in the moth-eaten mink coat, 6384J, $18, and wonders why Morey is concerned over someone he’s known only ten days. “Romance?“ suggests Della. No, she’d be eating at Morey’s, not serving. Then Mason notices that one client is taking no notice of the police (it is the man who scared Dixie). Morey asks Mason to represent him. He seems frantic, and Mason wants to know why, but Morey won’t explain. Mason asks Morey about "the man," but Morey didn’t recognize him. Mason explains how Morey may be “in for more than bad publicity.“ Mason phones Lieutenant Tragg, suggests Dixie be protected while in the hospital. Sounds fishy, but he’ll help and, of course, Mason gets the bill. Then Mason calls Paul Drake, gets his operator who passes him on to her boss. Perry has Paul check on the pawn ticket. // (1-4) Morning. Mason arrives at his office, greets Jerry (who never appears again), Gertie, Della Street (giving us a rare view of the entire Mason legal offices). Morey has identified the man as George Fayette. Drake gives his code knock, shortened (“shave and a haircut,” but no “five cents”) on the door to the hallway, then says his usual “hello, beautiful” to Della who opens the door. He reports that cops got to the pawn shop first and found two items, a diamond engagement ring on a ticket they had and a gun, a Smith & Wesson police special, on Mason’s ticket. This is inconsistent, says Mason, for two such different places for the tickets, one concealed, the other easy to find. Morey’s place was also run over by cops, who know Mason has the mink coat, for waitress Mae Nolan told them. Mason has Della claim Mae from Paul’s office. He tells Paul to get the background of George Fayette. Mae is brought in, but clams up (acting like Marilyn Monroe) until Perry and Paul play dumb. Morey and Dixie are friends of long standing, she claims. Dixie cried when Morey brought her the moth-eaten mink. He’d kept it for her, but not in moth balls as he should have. Mae leaves, stating she’s not a blabbermouth, then insisting Perry sit at one of her tables. Paul leaves to research Fayette. Mason has Della tell Jackson a memo will have to wait (Jackson will soon be written out of scripts). / Hospital. Lt Tragg got there first. He’s annoyed that he did Mason a favor and now the attorney won’t answer his questions. Morey Allen is his client. Tragg’ll come around to get the mink coat. Mason tries t excuse himself to see Dixie. “That would be about the neatest trick of the week” notes Tragg, for Dixie disappeared, bandages and all, during the night! // [4-7](1-5) Mason gets a report from Della by way of the telephone; Morey has disappeared. “Probably with company” adds the attorney. / Drake reports that Fayette was held for bookmaking that never came to trial. Mason tells Drake that “Morey is in this thing up to his ears.” Drake brings up the mob killing of a cop, Claremont, who was seen with a bookie before the killing. The bookie disappeared after the killing and is still wanted. Now Drake adds that the pawned gun was used in the cop killing, so Dixie must know who killed the cop, as she had the gun. The private detective tries to get the attorney to give the retainer back to the restaurateur. Della calls with Tragg looking over her shoulder. Mason tells her to give the receipt to the cold storage for the coat to Tragg. // Late at night Drake’s operator calls Mason, puts him through to Morey who says Dixie is with him, Room 721, Keymont Hotel. Mason then phones Drake, who was asleep. / Mason arrives by taxi, encounters the hotel night clerk, who notices the floor to which mason goes. At hotel room 721, Mason finds the door open, as is the window. He finds lipstick with a roughened surface on the floor, which leads to a help note under a tabletop. Paul arrives. Note is a "looking glass" note, a fake and a trap. They decode the note, 262V3L15, in the phone directory as Vol 3 p 262 line 15; Harry Granton, 1024 Calinda Avenue, George Fayette’s address. Drake learns on the hallway pay phone from the hotel night clerk that room 815 is let to George Fayette. / He's found, shot once. Drake wants to report to the police, as he does not have Mason’s professional immunity. Tragg appears with Sergeant Jaffrey. Tragg thinks this is tied in with the cop killing. They knew of the dead man. Room 813 called in hearing a gun shot and a patrol car arrived. He and Jaffrey waited with the clerk to see what Mason and Drake would do. Jaffrey is belligerent when Mason is not forthcoming. // [5-7](1-6) They put the screws on Mason, then Drake, as they try to solve a cop killing. Mason accuses Jaffrey of intimidating a witness. Tragg hints at taking Drake’s license, so Mason admits that Morey called him, and that he found the message. Jaffrey says Morey Allen killed George Fayette, then called Mason. Tragg threatens disbarment if Morey and Dixie are not produced. // (1-7) Drake tells Della that the cops have picked up Morey and Dixie./ Morey is interviewed by Mason at the L A City jail. Dixie was engaged to Tom Sedgwick, Morey’s half brother, who is thought to be the cop killer, but the killed cop was using Sedgwick to get to the top man in a crime situation. Morey doesn't know that Dixie had the gun. Dixie saw Fayette at the restaurant, was afraid someone would torture her to tell were Tom was, since Fayette threatened to kill him if he came to town. She left the hospital since a woman phoned that she knew who killed the cop and she was to come to room 815. Two hard characters found him in 721, took his gun, which was used to kill Fayette. He says he did not leave the lipstick message. // Mason’s office. The trio. No one will believe Morey, so Mason cannot put him or Dixie on the stand. How did the hotel night clerk, Frank Hoxie, know they were in 721, queries Mason. / Court. The bailiff announces people versus Morey Allen and Dixie Dayton. D A Hamilton Burger, for the prosecution, says he is proceeding against both Morey Allen and DIxie Dayton on a charge of first degree murder. / The hotel night clerk, Frank Hoxie, testifies to sending the defendant, who registered as husband and wife, to 721. The defendant asked if anyone checked into 815. Yes, Fayette. Hozie asked for rent in advance since they had no luggage. He’s been at the hotel for three years, except for one month at the time of the cop killing when he was sent to Mexico by his manager, learns Mason on cross-examination. Burger objects to Mason’s line of inquiry, but the judge sides with Mason, who asks further of Hoxie’s past. Again Burger protests, to little avail. He was convicted ten years ago and served five years. He got a break from a law officer who helped him get the job, and who regularly checks up on him. By way of a photo Mason shows him, Hoxie identifies Fayette, a regular hotel tenant, as friendly with the murdered cop who visited him the night he was ordered to Mexico. Court adjourns at Mason’s request to he can investigate the new findings. Mason asks Drake to get information on Keymont ownership. Then he asks to see Lt Tragg, privately. / Drake leaves Mason in his otherwise empty office. Sgt Jaffrey comes in, wonders if Mason who has discovered who the cop killer is. Mason and Jaffrey go at each other, Mason challenging, Jaffrey explaining, until the attorney confronts the cop as the killer of both Claremont and Fayette. Sgt Jaffrey owns the hotel, under the name of Wilson, proven by hand writing, his signature on a receipt for corporate documents. Jaffrey pulls a gun, says Mason will be killed resisting arrest. Tragg overhears this and wounds Jaffrey in a crossfire. Tragg is disgusted with Jaffrey’s betrayal of hard-working police. // [6-7](1-8) At Morey's, Mason reveals how he knew it was Jaffrey. When he mentioned the lipstick message, Jaffrey showed no interest, since he put it there. Even more basic; Jaffrey was Claremont’s superior, the only man to whom he’d give up hi s gun. When Morey asks about desert, Mason suggests that he will have "anything but a moth-eaten mink." [7-7 end credits](1-9) [52:50](52:47)

{Once again Viacom/Columbia House fail to put a chapter marker at the beginning of the court scene and do not put others at original commercial break points}

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

14

Baited Hook

21 Dec 57

ESG '40-16

12423/1-29669

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

Gertie

Connie Cezon

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Receptionist

Peg Whitman

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Officer (Bill Duggan)

Lyle Latell

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Janitor

Frank Marlowe

Abigail E Leeds

Geraldine Wall

Operative (Jack)

Maurice McEndree

Robert Dawson

Willard Sage

Policeman at fireplug

unidentified)

Carol Stanley

Judith Braun

(Parking attendant Jerry

unidentified)

Richard Ellis

Alfred Hopson

Greybar building super

unidentified)

Enid Shaw

Mary Castle

Tragg's backup

unidentified)

Albert Tydings

George Neise

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by Christian Nyby Teleplay by Richard Grey

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

[2-4/1-8 Title credits](6-1)(2-1) [2-8] Greybar Building. A man gets out of a Pontiac and goes to Tydings & Dawson office, barges in on Albert Tydings. (Richard) Ellis is shooed out, and Robert Dawson confronts Tydings. Carol Stanley's trust account is $80,000 short. “Fraudulent conversion” is what Tydings calls his theft. Over the office intercom Dawson asks Miss (Enid) Shaw to get the police. Then Tydings shows the file of photostats to Dawson, which gets him to change his mind. “Emotional impulses should be controlled” says Tydings. “Don’t push me to far, Tydings.” // [3-8] Tydings gives the file to Ellis to lock up. Dawson confronts Ellis with $20,000 shortage in trust account, demands return by noon tomorrow. Dawson admits to the other $60,000. He tells Miss Shaw that Ellis will turn in his keys. Miss Stanley phones in for Dawson, then asks Tydings to meet her. He suggests 8 p mat his office. Then he tells Enid that he “can never resist the plea of a woman.” Her reaction is one of disgust. / Miss Stanley arrives, finds Tydings dead, phones Dawson. / A policeman notes Stanley’s Oldsmobile convertible parked at a fire hydrant. / (6-2) Quarter to midnight, Mason is wakened by his phone. An offer of a $2000 retainer is made by a man in a pay phone booth. / Dawson, the man, without identifying self, arrives at Mason’s apartment. After looking around, he brings in a woman (Miss Stanley) who is veiled. He gives $2000, plus a $10,000 bill, torn in half, if needed. At all costs, he wants the lady protected. They leave. Mason muddles around with legal papers, then a magazine, decides it must be murder. / (6-3) At his office, he asks Della Street to get Paul Drake to check out the serial number of the bill. Gertie enters to announce Abigail Leeds, widow, who bursts by Gertie. {Here is one of ESG’s great creations, marvelously portrayed by Geraldine Wall.} She sits, lights herself a cigarette. Her story is that she was left with a Polish couple's child, "Carol," when they failed to reach America back in 1939. Carol was living with the Stanley family for which she paid. When the Stanley’s died in an automobile accident, they left a trust fund running in six figures, handled by a crook, Albert Tydings. Mason cannot represent her, as she is not family, so she says she'll bring Carol in. After she leaves, Mason says he’s already feeling sorry for Tydings! Paul reports on phone via Della that the $10,000 bill is from Tydings. / [4-8](6-4)(2-2) Mason picks up Drake at Clay's Grille. Drake reports on Tydings; he’s “austere.” The parking attendant (Jerry) brings Mason his Cadillac convertible and the attorney and Paul drive away. / Tydings place. There is blood on the walk. They ring the doorbell, then knock. The house door is open. In the living room, more blood. They open a closet door and Tydings falls out, of course, dead. Paul phones the police. // Lieutenant Tragg tries to get an answer from Perry as to why he’s there, fails. Is Mason with the police in this, or is he “holding out for reasons of his own?” / Mason's office. Miss Leeds and Carol Stanley have come to get Mason to take action against Tydings, but are told Tydings has been murdered. Leeds seems surprised, Stanley shows no reaction. (6-5) Mason joins Lt Tragg in an adjacent room. Instead of going out, he slips into the room Mason just came out of, only to discover Abigail Leeds. Before she and Carol leave, Tragg receives a tongue lashing from her about Tydings whom she’d have gladly horse whipped; “whoever murdered him did a civic service.” She and Carol leave. Tydings died about 8, states Tragg, who cautions against suppression of evidence; “I’d hate to lose my favorite sparing partner.” / (6-6) Ellis denies Mason access to the trust files. Mason warns him that he and Dawson are in deep for $80,000. On the way out, Mason gets a call from Drake regarding Dawson's wrecked car; Mason hangs up but continues talking in order to search the desk without the receptionist noticing. He finds a photo of Enid and Tydings together. / Paul and Mason arrive at Westside Lake. Drake uses Mason's twin-lens camera to look like a newspaper man, takes a picture of an officer Bill Duggan, “two g’s.” They note the gas pedal wired to the floor. Fake suicide? They are leaving just as Tragg arrives. “You, again.” “Coincidence” claims Mason. / Paul watches for Ellis, who soon leaves the Greybar building. Paul arranges a warning signal by phone and Perry and Della head in to Tydings & Dawson office. // [5-8](6-7)(2-3) Della gets the janitor to admit her to the Tydings & Dawson office. Mason soon follows; she types. Drake watches at a phone booth on which he’s put an "out of order" sign. Mason tells Della he has a court order giving him access to the books, then says that figures in the books show Tydings robbing Carol blind. Mason finds empty shell on floor, conjectures on what it means. Why drag the body clear across town? A killed him, B found him . . . The desk calendar has nicely drawn woman’s figure; Enid Shaw thinks Mason. / Tragg drives up with backup officer. Drake tries to call, gets an operator who eventually tells him to try the call again. He finally gets thru. / Tragg enters the office with his backup as Della and Mason go out to hide on the fire escape. Tragg finds the bullet case intentionally left by Mason. / (6-8) Perry and Della at the office enjoying a late evening snack. Drake enters, grabs some food, then gives Mason a photo of Dawson whom he says is wanted for murder. He gets a phone call from operative Jack; Dawson is in a motel. / Baldwin Motel. Jack points out the motel room as Stanley and Dawson leave. Mason stops them, then Tragg arrives, just following Mason’s trail to the suspects. / [6-8](6-9)(2-4) Mason's office. Now Carol is charged with murder, Dawson the accessory. Her car was seen parked at a fire plug at Tydings & Dawson office, before Dawson arrived, by a policeman. Carol had an appointment with Tydings. Dawson moved the body thinking it would give Carol an alibi. Miss Leeds is shown in; What “half-witted moron is responsible for Carol’s arrest” she wants to know, for whomever will learn of Abigail Leeds. Aby is taken aback when she hears Carol has been charged with murder. This knocks the wind out of her. Carol was with her at the time of the murder, she asserts. Mason points out that Carol’s car was seen by a policeman at the Greybar. He suggests Lt Tragg will let her see Carol. / Mason and Della visit Leeds-Stanley residence in search of a motive for the murder. There is no breaking and entry when the client has given you the key. Della finds baby photos. Mason finds checks from Leeds to Ellis over a five year period. / Mason puts two Ellis checks into an envelope for Enid to give Ellis who is in conference. Hepll wait exactly “sixty seconds, one, two, three . . . “ He is quickly admitted, and confronts Ellis regarding the file Tydings was using for blackmail. Mason produces a court order. Ellis collected the file, blackmailed Mrs Leeds, then sold the file to Tydings. He needed the money. Says Mason, “by the time you get out of jail, you’ll be drawing an old-age pension.” / Mason calls his secretary "Del" (Erle Stanley Gardner never did, and this is the only time Burr does). Paul is waiting with news that Dawson is clean. No passport issued to Abigail Lester/Leeds, so she never left the country. Birth certificate, female, dated June 23, 1936, tells Mason "the rest." Mason goes to Abigail, who is in the law library. She cannot believe the situation. The D A is asking first degree murder, the gas chamber. “It’ll never come to that” says Aby. Mason says he’s only been partially successful in finding the murderer. He quietly tells Aby she has a lovely daughter. Aby responds that she’s proud. How much does Mason know? He shows her a birth certificate; "Carol Alice Leeds,” mother Abigail Edith Leeds. She explains to Mason her life with Carol, then admits killing Tydings, says she'd do it again to protect her child. She asks Mason to call Tragg, who was kind to her at the jail. Tragg is waiting in the outer office. Mason applies to Abby to be her lawyer. She responds that having a guilty client is not good for his reputation, but gives him the job. She asks Tragg for his arm on her way downtown, and he gallantly takes off his hat and leads her away. // [7-8](6-10) Della gives Mason medicine for his cold. Della says Dawson and Stanley brought the other half of the $10,000 bill. Carol knew all along Aby was her mother. Della starts a fire and Mason comments on this talent. She would like to put the heat on Tragg. She gives Mason a cup of hot liquid, and he says she sometimes makes it too hot for him! [8-8 end credits](6-11)(2-5) [51:49](51:45)(51:46)
How many times does one get a tear in the eye for a murderer? Here is the greatness of Erle Stanley Gardner, director Christian Nyby, and actress Geraldine Wall.

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TITLE

SHOW DATE

BOOK DATE-ORDER

CBS TAPE/DVD

15

Fan-Dancer's Horse

28 Dec 57

ESG '47-29

22189/21-35229

CHARACTER

ACTOR

CHARACTER

ACTOR

Perry Mason

Raymond Burr

John Callender

Hugh Sanders

Della Street

Barbara Hale

Judge Donahue

Sydney Smith

Paul Drake

William Hopper

Jasper Fenton

John Brinkley

Hamilton Burger

William Talman

Gertie

Connie Cezon

Lt Tragg

Ray Collins

Sgt Holcomb

Rusty Westcoatt

Lois Fenton

Susan Cummings

Meeker

James Nolan

Arthur Sheldon

Scott Elliott

Dr (Jackson) Lambert

Herbert C Lytton

Cherie Chi-Chi

Judy Tyler

(Court Reporter

uncredited)

Faulkner

Robert Bice

(Helen

uncredited)

Landlady

Minerva Urecal

(Harry

uncredited)

Produced by Ben Brady Directed by William D Russell Teleplay by Sterling Silliphant

[3-4/1-7 Title credits](1-1) [2-7](1-2) At night at the Callender Ranch, a man rides up on a horse, climbs into the ranch house through a window, goes to the safe behind mounted longhorn horns. Ssomeone in an adjacent room hears him. He escapes on horseback. The horse is shot at by a watchman. / (1-3) Perry Mason and Della Street out driving in a Ford Fairlane convertible. A white Lincoln passes them, forces an old post-war Mercury off the road and into a roll-over. Mason helps a Mexican woman out of the car, and into a car of a passerby who speaks Spanish. Mason then finds an ostrich-feather fan, initialed L F, and high heeled slippers, in the trunk of the car. ”Somebody’s wardrobe” notes Della. “Somebody’s complete wardrobe” is Perry’s correction. // [3-7](1-4) A man in a ten-gallon hat, John Callender, shows "fan-dancer's" ad to Gertie, asks to see Mason. Callender explains he paid for the ad to run another week, got a receipt with Mason's address on it, which is how he knew who was behind the box number in the ad. He has a perfumed letter from Lois Fenton, stage-named Cherie Chi-Chi, authorizing Callender to reclaim a palomino quarter-horse. When Mason rejects this, saying it does not fit the description of what he found, Callender threatens and tells Mason where he can reach him (room 511, Richmell Hotel), leaves, quickly returns to try mentioning the bullet wound. Mason says his identification doesn’t fit. Gertie rushes in with a note from Arthur Sheldon, who is staying in room 510 across from Callender. He, too, she explains somewhat frenetically, wants the horse for the real Lois Fenton. Mason asks Della to look into finding Felton. / (1-5) Della and Perry at a dancer's club. A Fan Dancer dances. Mason gives a note to the waiter,Harry, with a tip. The fan dancer joins them, learns that it is not the horse, but her fan and slippers he's found. She thanks Mason with a kiss. He is silent. “You haven’t said a word since she kissed you” notes Della. “Didn’t I say goodnight?” / Mason visits Sheldon, who hides Lois Fenton, the fan dancer, in his bedroom. Mason sees lipstick-stained napkin in the waste basket. Sheldon asks Mason to represent Lois, whose husband, John Callender, is threatening her with blackmail, namely forged checks by her brother Jasper Fenton. Someone rode a horse into the ranch and tried to steal the checks. Wounded horse would give him another lever against Lois. Mason tries to enter the bedroom, is cut off by Sheldon, who is told to check out of the hotel now and produce the real Lois Fenton at his office the next morning. / Mason wakes Drake with a phone call, tells him to put a shadow on Callender and Sheldon, and find a horse, a seven-year-old Palomino quarter horse. / Drake notes Sheldon did not check out immediately, but an hour later. Mason and Drake go to 511. Drake says people were visiting Callender all night long into the early morning. // [4-7](1-6) Mason enters Callender's room, finds him dead, with a Japanese sword in his back. / Mason considers the situation, then crosses from 511 to room 510 where Drake is with two operatives. They are boxed in as room service tries to get a response from 511. Perry has Paul inform the police of the murder (Police headquarters is Madison 5-1190). One operative, Faulkner, reports that he was there by 2:20. Sheldon ran out of 511 and into 510. A “dish” carrying a violin case went into 511, came out ten minutes later at 2:32, with a violin case. Then a "character" in an overcoat (it is mid-summer), buttoned up all the way, comes to the room, enters, exits ten seconds later. Sounds in hall. With periscope, Paul notes police have arrived. He joins Lieutenant Tragg and Sergeant Holcomb, is dressed down by former who then crosses hall looking for Mason, who has left. // (1-7) Mason goes to Sheldon who says he sent Lois downstairs to wait, but she was gone, so he went back and waited for her. He is surprised that Callender has been murdered. “It’s not a policy of mine, Mr Sheldon, to encourage a criminal to disappear.” Mason leaves as Sheldon packs. / Mason speaks to a landlady who says Sheldon rented at three the previous afternoon. A party put the required $3.00 under the counter and took a key without registering. In room #5, Mason finds blood on the floor and the sink and fan feathers while the landlady finds long dark-brown hairs./ On his way out, Mason sees a man watching him. / At a lunch counter, knowing he is trailed by Tragg's men, Mason gets news from Street after ordering his “usual” from waitress Helen. Paul has found the horse and is bringing him in. Both Faulkner and house dick, Meeker, identified woman at 511 at 2:23 as Lois Fenton. Tragg thinks Mason is hiding her. He tells Della to send Lois to a record shop if she checks in. Mason tells Della that he is going to lead Tragg to one of two Lois Fentons. / Mason finds a Lois Fenton, exercising. She puts on a coy, kittenish personality. She was at 511 just before two; maid saw her leave, she says. She did not go back at 2:23, and Harry will swear to that. She (Cherie Chi-Chi) is also a Lois Fenton, for she took over Fenton's act when Fenton married Callender. She copied Lois, her walk, her style, her clothes. She admits that Callender offered her a lot of money to write the letter Mason got. / Mason meets the real Lois Fenton in the record shop, puts on record of Strauss waltzes. Fenton admits that she was in Sheldon's room when Mason was there. When he left, she went across to see her husband, and threatened him if he made trouble for her brother. He laughed at her, she ran down stairs. She did not return at 2:23. Regarding the horse, Starlight, he was stolen while she was working.Lois signed a contract giving Cherie rights to use the stage name. Mason suggests that she stay at a motel near the horse. // [5-7](1-8) Mason and Fenton give the horse to the stable man. Mason asks about Fenton's seeing Sheldon at a rooming house he went to, though he'd actually registered there before Mason ordered him out of the Richmell Hotel. It had been reserved for Jasper Fenton; Arthur found one of her fans in the room, soaked in blood. She threw that fan away. Arthur didn’t explain the blood. He tells her what happens to little girls who lie. He tells her he’s taking her to the police. She escapes in his car when he has to sign the receipt for boarding of the horse. / Los Angeles Chronicle headline reads MURDER SUSPECT APPREHENDED attempting escape in lawyer's car. Drake reports that Jasper stole her horse and made the burglary attempt at the ranch and the police have the saddle with the bullet in it. Callender brought the murder weapon from the ranch, according to a bell boy. Witnesses identified Fenton, not Cherie Chi-Chi. / Court. The jury trial. The judge (Donahue) asks Mason if he wants to make an opening statement, since the D A has completed his. No. Hamilton Burger calls Dr Jackson Lambert who testifies to finding an ostrich feather in deceased's wound. Meeker, the Richmell Hotel house detective, identifies Fenton as in lobby of his hotel at 2:20; he identified her in a shadow box. Faulkner testifies that Tragg, Holcomb, Meeker and another policeman were with him when he identified Fenton in the shadow box. He saw the defendant in shadow box twice, with a twenty minute break. First time she was sulky. Mason asks Fenton about this, and she says, yes, twice, but she wasn't sulky. She thought she saw Cherie there. / Night, Mason's office.* Faulkner apologizes. Cherie Chi-Chi is willingly in police custody. // (1-9) Mason identifies Cherie Chi-Chi as Irene Kilby, wants D A to produce her, for he'll prove she is the one witnesses saw in hotel at 2:20. Burger puts on Jasper Fenton while he has Kilby brought to court. He did not know his sister was involved. Kilby is brought in. The judge has Kilby and Fenton stand side by side, notes their faces are dissimilar, but figures virtually identical. Their clothes are identical. Mason forces Burger to put Kilby on the stand. / When his first question is challenged, he tells the judge that witnesses Faulkner and Meeker identified positively Kilby as the one they saw at the hotel. Mason tells the judge that Kilby was arrested as Fenton and identified in the shadow box. Then real Fenton was brought in, put in shadow box. She was put in second time, but no one was observing. Sgt Holcomb did this as a deliberate ruse. (Mason explains how he knew, namely sulky clue, to Lois.) Burger gets a short recess to determine truth of shadow box viewings. Mason looks at the murder weapon, the Japanese sword. / He then asks if Kilby would change her testimony if he could prove Callender was dead when she entered. Judge Donahue asks the Court Reporter to read the testimony and he does. She claimed she left Callender's room about 2 because she knew Fenton left then. Mason then states Sheldon left room 511 at 2:21 in full knowledge that Callender was dead. It is up to the D A to solve the murder, Mason only needs to acquit his client! Judge orders Kilby into custody, and acquittal for Lois Fenton. // [6-7](1-10) All along Lois “was telling the absolute truth.” Jasper, who had 2 o'clock appointment with Callender, is the murderer. He stabbed Callender, who was planning to send him to jail for forging checks. To reclaim the fan (which put the feather in the wound), which Callender was showing to prove he didn't have the horse, he had to go back at 2:44. Cherie spent ten minutes in the room looking for the contract she had with Fenton. It was in the handle of the Japanese sword. Lois comes on, dances with fans. Harry delivers a fan to Perry. [7-7 end credits](1-11) [52:53](52:47)

*Here we begin The Case of the Errant Hallway. For the most part, the outer (left as we view the windowall) wall is at 90° to the balcony. Here it seems to be at 120°. When Drake and Faulkner enter from the office’s private entry, the hall wall blocks any turn to the right on exit, These changing configurations have bothered many watchers who are trying to do a plan of Mason’s office within the Brent building. See also The Case of the Lucky Legs in Season Three.

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