Perry Mason (43)

Horace Warren pays five hundred dollars to have Perry Mason attend a buffet dinner to observe his guests. He also wants Mason to investigate a fingerprint and suspects his wife is being blackmailed. Mrs Warren's mysterious past may hold the clues.

It was beautiful bait: two lovely thousand-dollar bills and a torn half of a ten-thousand-dollar note. Perry Mason swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker.

They had gone to a lot of trouble. They had Mason’s private number, woke him up and persuaded him to meet them at his office in the middle of the night. There he found a man and a girl; a man who knew exactly what he wanted but wouldn’t explain; a girl who wore a man’s overcoat, a mask — and wouldn’t speak. It was the girl who kept the other half of the ten-grand note. When and if they needed Perry Mason he’d get her half. Not until then would he know who his client was. Perry suspected he was being played for a sucker, but he was too interested to swim away.

The next morning, he felt the hook. It was murder, a murder obviously linked to his mysterious visitors. And the barb on the hook was that Perry couldn’t discover who his client was or what he was supposed to do. Della Street’s mocking jibes were hard to take.

A racing Gardner story full of action, suspense and one of the most original plots Gardner has ever created.

Here’s a PERRY MASON story, with a murder hinging on as ingenious a trick as has appeared in a mystery in a long time, and containing some of the most exiting courtroom scenes Erle Stanley Gardner has even written.

It’s about:

Alden E. Leeds, millionaire and black sheep of the family, about to the torn limb from limb by a pack of gold-greedy relatives; Phyllis, old man Leeds’s niece and business manager; Ned Barkler, once his partner in Klondike days; L. C. Conway, who sold dice almost anyone could roll; blonde, hard Marcia Whittaker, who seemed to have said that all she wanted was a cozy little home; and, of course, wily Perry Mason, Della Street, his secretary, and lanky Paul Drake, the detective.

Readers will find here the usual swift pace and ingenuity, the unexpected twists and surprises that have made Erle Stanley Gardner the most popular detective-store writer in America.

A beautiful young woman seeks the help of the world-famous lawyer to free her frail, wealthy uncle from the clutches of a conniving half brother. But the police believe she may be a murderer. Could they be right? Or will Perry Mason and his clever assistants, Paul Drake and Della Street be able to prove her innocence?

An exceedingly profane green parrot, with wicked glittering eyes and a genius for saying the wrong thing...

A pretty (if rather prim) young librarian with a curious interest in dangerous weapons...

An eccentric multi-millionaire, with a penchant for books, trailers and birds...

An apparently un-traceable murder, committed with a double-barreled derringer, obsolete in design but deadly in efficiency... These, and some other bizarre details, which we won’t reveal, plunge Perry Mason and Della Street up to their necks in one of the most exciting mysteries that Erie Stanley Gardner has ever written!

It all began enough when, to get out of a shower, Della — Perry Mason’s “girl Friday” — dragger the lawyer-sleuth into a department store restaurant for tea.

That was where they first saw Mrs. Sarah Breel and her niece, Virginia Trent. They where in a spot too, with the store detective on Mrs. Breel’s trail, and even Virginia admitting her aunt was a kleptomaniac. It all seemed so strange, naturally Mason got interested. And Della Street, trained by years of experience to read the how’s moods, realized he didn’t go far just on theory... that if he appeared to see more than met the eye, his perception was based on scene point in practical psychology.

From this odd beginning, the vagaries of a whimsical fate catapult Perry mason into the case of the missing diamonds, the homey woman who didn’t look like a shoplifter, the methodical drunk, the thick reddish stain on a woman’s kid shoe, and beautiful Lone Bedford. No one knew much about her, but all the men wanted to know more — including Perry Mason!

When a murdered man is found in the home of shady insurance adjuster Walter Prescott, a simple divorce case turns into a courtroom puzzler, as Perry Mason follows the clues to catch a killer.

Perry Mason has been batting around the Orient, taking a well-earned vacation. (Yes, Della Street is along.) We pick up on his way to the roar of the city, the jangle of telephones, the blast of automobile horns, to clients who lie to him and yet expect him to stand behind them. And Perry can hardly wait to get back!

He doesn’t have to wait to get home, however, for excitement to start. Just out of Honolulu, a fellow passenger comes to him with a very strange story.

Mason has already noticed the party of three: the middle-aged man with the  gray eyes, the slender, graceful woman, and the daughter who looks so much like a famous movie actress. Now beside the ship’s rail, he listens to the queer tale a woman tells in a voice of nervous hysteria. Until two months before she was known as Mrs. Moar. But overnight her husband — and so we have: .

Two poisonings and two shootings at the Shore mansion on the thirteenth of October are no mere coincidence. Nor is the presence, in the neighborhood, of that celebrated man-about-murder, Perry Mason. Warned by the local police to stay off the Shore case, Mason refuses to do so Result? His secretary, Della Street, is indicted on a charge of hiding a witness. And Mason is held as her accessory! Watch the Mighty Mason extricate himself from this legal noose while solving the Shore mystery with his usual finesse.

Perry Mason finds that “art is long but life is fleeting” — especially in the fine art of murder... The painting was a modern masterpiece. But was it authentic? Three experts staked their reputations on the fact that it was. But Collin M. Durant called it a rank imitation. The witness to his remark gave Perry Mason a signed affidavit, and millionaire Otto Olney, owner of the painting, sued for slander. Then the witness — a beautiful blonde art student and model — disappeared, leaving Perry Mason headed for the courtroom and a spectacular trial. A trial not, as originally planned, for slander, but one for murder in the first degree...

If Della Street had not been so intrigued, Perry Mason may well have missed one of the most baffling cases of his spectacular career... Take one wife, strikingly beautiful... one ex-wife, whittled down to make a comeback... a gorgeous secretary trying to play the role of Ugly Duckling... and you have three lovely and shapely ladies who figure prominently in the life — and death — of Morley L. Theilman. It started with blackmail: the suitcase bulging with $20 bills, the crude, threatening notes, the clever directions for payment — and ended with murder. But why kill the goose who laid the golden egg? Perry Mason pulls some of the fastest legal footwork of his career — in front of judge and jury — before he finds the answer and cracks the case of the prosecution.

Perry Mason knew it was murder. But when the police got there it looked like suicide — except for the tall man in the tan-colored topcoat... and a most interesting fingerprint on the gun. Mason was after a hit-and-run driver and he set a trap. Into the trap walked a girl with innocent blue eyes and wheat-colored hair. Then, within twenty-four hours, Mason realized that someone was after him, and that he was holding a great big bag. At first Della Street and Paul Drake ribbed him about the girl, but it wasn’t funny when the police started building up a case not against the murderer, but against Perry Mason himself. The D.A. was licking his chops. But Mason had other ideas. With a few breaks he could rip the D.A.’s case wide open — he hoped!

Perry Mason and Della Street are writing love letters this time — to a girl they’ve never seen. In fact they don’t even know her name. But they’ve seen a letter she wrote to a Lonely Hearts Magazine. According to her, she’s both attractive and an heiress, an heiress who’s tired of people who love her for her money... According to Perry Mason, she’s lying. And there’s something phony about the Lonely Hearts business — including Mr. Robert Caddo who runs it. But there’s nothing phony about the beautiful corpse that almost puts Perry behind bars for life.

The receptionist told Perry Mason there were two men waiting in the outer office; one of them looked like a prosperous banker, the other a tramp. One wanted to see him about some corporation law, and the other had a damage claim. So Mason said, “I’ll see the tramp. Tell the banker I can’t be bothered with corporation law.”

But it turned out it was the tramp who wanted to sec him about corporation law. And that, in turn, merged into the story of one of the famous Lost Mines of the desert region of Southern California; of a sinewy little desert prospector and his partner, who had struck it rich, “housed-up” and, losing his health, had forsaken the big red-tiled mansion in the fashionable district of San Roberto to spread his sleeping bag out in the cactus garden at the far corner of the grounds. And finally there was the mysterious drowsy mosquito — was it a harbinger of death?

These characters, together with the lure of a fabulously rich gold deposit, discovered more than half a century ago, then lost, and lying untouched year after year, waiting only for chance and the ingenuity of Perry Mason to bring it back into the limelight, make for a fast moving, baffling Perry Mason yarn.

In this novelette Perry Mason clears his client, despite damning evidence in the victim’s lovenest, through the lipstick kiss impression on the dead man’s forehead.

Mason (with Della Street and Paul Drake, of course) takes on a super-baffling case involving — among other strange things— A shattering car wreck in which apparently no one was injured... A glamorous widow who should have had a husband but didn’t... An alarm clock that ticked away cheerfully under ground... A bank clerk who boasted brazenly about a $90,000 embezzlement... A girl who was always on hand when Perry Mason wanted her miles away, but was always missing when he needed her most... A client on trial for murder who wouldn’t even talk to Mason... A blood-stained bullet about which there was something very phoney... A photographer who could make a camera do everything but climb a tree... A gold mine without any gold... AND, last but not least — Perry Mason, all but hoist with his own petard.

When Morley Eden burst into Perry Mason’s office claiming that a beautiful brunette has placed a five-strand barbed-wire fence through the middle of his property — house, pool, grounds and all — Mason is intrigued. But when he jumps into this bizarre situation with both feet, he finds himself in no time at all up to his neck in some very hot water indeed.

Perry Mason, world-famous lawyer and sleuth, keeps a lady in mink under wraps in...

Perry Mason and Della Street were in the middle of a rare steak when the mink coat appeared in the hands of a puzzled restaurant proprietor.

The coat belonged, he said, to a waitress who had just taken it on the him... and he didn’t mean food. Now what to do with the coat?

Perry Mason examined the mink he decided there was more than a moth-eaten patch to meet the eye — particularly when the cops arrived...

In this novelette Perry Mason solves the case of the death of a blackmailer and the disappearance of an amnesiac wife.

A forged check... a runs way wife... a curiously lazy lover... these tantalizing and elusive clues lead PERRY MASON and DELLA STREET to one of their most baffling cases ever—

It all began when the first check for $2500 arrived. It was made out to Perry Mason and signed “Lola Faxon Allred” and it had been attached to a letter which wasn’t there.

Then the noon mail came in with another check — same amount, same signature and the same aura of mystery.

The new Perry Mason murder mystery has

...terrible pace...

...stirring court-room drams...

...a duck that can’t swims...

John L. Witherspoon was accustomed to having — and paying — his way. There was a definite reason why he didn’t approve his daughter Lois’ love affair, and he hired Perry Mason to break it up. If Mason would investigate an 18-year-old murder, Witherspoon was sure the results would change his daughter’s mind.

Perry took the job because several things about the old case intrigued him. And because he had a hunch that the answer to it might save Lois’ happiness.

Mason, Delia Street and Paul Drake went to El Templo, Witherspoon’s great California ranch; they went into action at once, and soon they smoked out a string of crooked plots, brought several shadowy figures into too strong a light, and ran plump into with Mason caught in the middle.

“I count eight,” said Perry Mason, meaning brunettes.

They were almost identical brunettes, at that, all standing at consecutive corners on the south side of the street, and they added up to such a beautiful dark mystery that even Perry Mason, famous connoisseur of fine murders that he is, was so fascinated he almost began a new career — behind bars.

Mathematically Eva Martell was perfect: her height was five feet four and one-half inches, her weight one hundred and eleven, her waist twenty-four, her bust thirty-two.

Because of these dimensions, curiously enough, she attracted dead bodies...

She has also attracted one of Gardner’s top voltage plots, the kind that keeps Perry Mason and Della Street sizzling around in bizarre clues, counter clues and extra-legal activities. The kind that keeps Gardner readers up till dawn convinced that at last they are going to out-mastermind him.

Gardner knows how to make his characters come to life. He also knows how to kill them off under completely baffling circumstances. He doesn’t believe in tricking his readers; it might be dangerous. So he gives you all the evidence with machine- gun rapidity — and lets you trick yourself. Even the most successful lawyers and criminologists come to a bad end the minute they tangle with a Gardner plot. Which is what makes him so successful.

With this thought in mind we leave you, on the brink of one more Perry Mason mystery that anyone can figure out — wrong.

A shot

A splash...

A shout...

and Perry Mason finds himself treading the deepest water of his career. This time, he nearly goes wider...

Things were tense aboard Parker Benton’s yacht. About the only thing the group had in common was the bad weather and a highly controversial business proposition. When that subject came up, tempers came out — and in no time at all the spine-chilling cry “Man O-ver-boar-r-d” cut through the fog...

It started as the case of the disappearing driver. Stephane Olger was hitchhiking to Los Angeles when the accident happened. When it was over she was found unconscious behind the wheel — alone. There was a manslaughter charge against her...

A bright, shiny tin can in a dark, cobwebby corner of the cellar preserve shelf — unlabelled and empty!

Mrs. Gentrie, the meticulous hose-wife, was annoyed but not too upset. Her sister-in-law Rebecca was exited and suspicious. Delman Steele, their new young boarder, was quietly interested...

Then things began to happen. A man and his housekeeper were found missing from the house next door. Willful old Elston Karr, who used to run guns up the Yangtze and was now confined to a Wheel-chair in the flat above the missing man’s apartment, retained Mason to protect him from — well, Mason wasn’t quite sure himself. But his mind began to work fast.

Then Mason heard about the empty tin can. It interested him — a .

All our old friends are here, Della Street, Paul Drake, Lieutenant Tragg, in a mystery so fast and exiting that it has been called “even better than Gardner.”

Peter Brunold had an unusual problem: his glass eye had been stolen—the bloodshot one he wore for hangovers. And the thief had substituted a counterfeit eye! Fearing a frame-up, Brunold came to Mason immediately. Sure enough, there was a murder… the victim was found clutching the stolen glass eye, and on the murder weapon were fingerprints… Perry Mason’s!

Charles Ashton is a cranky old caretaker with one friend in the world: his Persian cat, Clinker. Samuel Laxter, heir to his former employer, wants him to get rid of his pet. By the codicils of his late employer’s will, Charles can’t be fired, but Clinker has no such job security; Ashton retains Perry Mason to arbitrate on his behalf. Then the murders begin…

Like many other young women, Marjorie Clune has fallen victim to a con artist who promotes bogus beauty pageants in small California towns. “The Girl with the Lucky Legs” is promised a Hollywood contract, but in fact, there is no contract, and the promoter absconds with the promotional money put up by local merchants. Cheated of her triumph, Marjorie has fled her hometown in shame to try to prove herself in Hollywood. Perry Mason is hired to bring her back. But when the unscrupulous pageant promoter is found dead, Marjorie becomes the prime suspect in his murder…

The nervous Arthur Cartright came to Perry Mason about a neighbor’s noisy dog that kept him too distracted to sleep at night. Mason thought the case almost too trivial to take, but before long he was deeply involved in a case involving a poisoned police dog, a missing wife, a talented housekeeper, and murder…

“Could you be convicted of murder if there was no corpse?” she wanted to know, and said she was only curious. This was the first of many lies that Perry Mason was to encounter in the case of The People vs. Rhonda Montaine…

The last of the Perry Mason mysteries features the headlong pace, wealth of red herrings, and sizzling courtroom scene characterizing the best of Gardner.

There was something phony about the girl her cheap coat didn’t go with her smartly tailored suit, her hair-do didn’t go with her beautifully kept hands — and her face didn’t go with her story.

It didn’t take Mason long to figure out that this so-called Sylvia Farr was no poor little girl from the country in search of her missing sister, but was indeed sister Mae herself — a girl in trouble of some sort, deep trouble.

So Perry went to bat and soon found himself in a hot ball game — one called murder.

It takes talent to kill two birds with one stone... but it takes genius (Erle Stanley Gardner variety) to make three bull’s-eyes with one arrow.

This Perry Mason mystery is a tantalizing triple-decker.

One threesome comprises three glamorous ladies — all long-legged models with ambitions that range from keeping the home fires burning to putting the home fires out.

Another trio is a far-from-pleasant collection of small metal objects called guns.

Finally, the favorite triumvirate of mystery readers around the world: Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake. This is one of Mason’s most absorbing cases — meaning sensational action all the way, with a fabulous courtroom climax.

“What prominent lawyer received the mitten in front of his office building last night? Who was the mysterious blonde spitfire who swung one from the hip and left him groggy...?”

That gossip columnist knew that Perry Mason was the lawyer. But Mason himself didn’t know who the girl was... and he wanted to.

She had climbed down the fire escape from the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company — right into Mason’s office on the floor below. After a story which neither believed, she ran away. And the next day Ed Garvin came to see the lawyer.

Garvin said didn’t know the girl. He was just crazy about his new bride... but he want Mason to find out whether or not he had two wives. He, himself, didn’t quite know.

Perry Mason takes the case that soon involves murder and reaches a climax in one of the most brilliant courtroom scenes of Mason’s career.

When a man’s past threatens his family’s future there’s only one way to turn — to Perry Mason

Harlow Bissinger Bancroft, head of a vast corporate empire and a happily married man, had a battery of lawyers — not one of any use to him in his present situation.

That’s why he sat facing Perry Mason, his air of authority vanished, a deeply disturbed man.

“There are three ways of dealing with a blackmailer,” Mason told him, “but only one should concern you — tell him to go jump in the lake.”

The blackmailer was found the lake, all right, but he’d not had a chance to jump in it for he was as dead as the proverbial mackerel.