Showing results by author "Erle-Stanley Gardner" in All Categories

A dead man in the kitchen, gas fumes permeate the house, a duck seems to be drowning in the fishbowl, but it didn't die. Maybe that fact has something to do with murder? John L. Witherspoon, a wealthy patrician, is loath to let his daughter marry Marvin Adams, the son of a convicted murderer, something Marvin's mother managed to keep a secret - until now. To set the love-struck lass straight, Witherspoon engages Perry Mason to weigh the 20-year-old evidence that sent Marvin's father to the gallows, and prove that the young man is kin to the murdering kind.

Poker-faced Nellie Conway, the nurses bed-ridden Elizabeth Bain, brings trouble when she calls on Perry Mason with a glass phial containing four pills which she suspects are poison. Her employer, Nathan Bain, she says, had promised her money to give them to his wife. But when Mason has one of the pills analyzed it is found to consist of acetylsalicylic - in other words good old-fashioned aspirin. Is Perry Mason's client a hoaxer, a psychopath, or something trickier?

Julia Branner insists her marriage was sabotaged by her millionaire father-in-law, who forced her to give up her baby girl for adoption. Now, years later, a young woman appears, claiming to be Julia's long-lost daughter. But Julia insists the heir-apparent is a fake - and vows to keep the family fortune from falling into the wrong hands.

In 1945, Erle Stanley Gardner, noted attorney and author of the popular Perry Mason mysteries, was contacted by an overwhelmed California public defender who believed his doomed client was innocent. William Marvin Lindley had been convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl along the banks of the Yuba River, and was awaiting execution at San Quentin. After reviewing the case, Gardner agreed to help - it seemed the fate of the "Red-Headed Killer" hinged on the testimony of a colorblind witness.

Joan Kirby doesn't believe her husband's story about picking up a stranded woman in the middle of the night and dropping her off at a hotel. She asks Perry Mason to cross-examine him. Mason uncovers a much murkier trail involving murder, illegal adoption, stolen narcotics and blackmail.

Wealthy Amelia Corning, owner of the Corning mine interests, might be an old lady in a wheelchair but she doesn't miss a trick. Secretary Susan Fisher has to call in Perry Mason when she finds her boss's seven-year-old son holding a shoebox stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Miss Corning's life is at risk.

The client was young, blonde, and beautiful, and she wanted to disappear. The trouble was she wouldn't say why, and she wouldn't give her name. So Perry Mason agreed to a code of identification based on her measurements: 36-24-36. But according to Della Street, the figures were padded, and as it turned out, so was everything the client said. Certainly the bag full of cash she carries isn't shopping money.

He announced himself as Mr. Cash. His calling card was ten crisp hundred-dollar bills! "My wife has disappeared," he told Perry Mason. "She's in trouble of some sort. I want to find her." Mr. Cash's wife was indeed in trouble of a most serious sort. First, her jewelry disappeared. Then she disappeared. Perry Mason had to find her before the police could arrest her - for murder.

When Mae Farr becomes the presumed stalking victim of wealthy playboy Penn Wentworth, she asks Perry Mason for help. Wentworth says he merely wants her for forging his name on a fat check. Farr claims he just wants her. Enter Harold Anders, a love-struck suitor from Mae's small hometown who's determined to ride to her rescue. But fatal gunplay leaves Wentworth dead, Mae a wanted woman, and Perry Mason in trouble....

A talented but overprotective young man has his hands full as trustee of the inheritance of a beautiful blonde but very naive young woman. But his love and her money don't mix. Why would he embezzle a quarter of a million dollars from his client "for her own good?" Perry Mason may be able to prove, in fact, that his client is no embezzler...but what happens when murder rears its head?

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.

Mason gives Della Street two weeks' vacation! That is, it was supposed to be a vacation, but Della turned it into a busman's holiday. Target of interest was a well-stacked blonde - one who incredibly stashed away five enormous meals a day.

Engaged to a dynamic young go-getter on his way up the corporate ladder, secretary Mildred Crest was riding high. Until her prince charming embezzled company funds and skipped town, leaving Mildred with nothing but a ring on her finger and egg on her face. Now all she wants is to start life over again and when a fateful drive leads to the death of a lone hitchhiker, Mildred gets that chance.

Aspiring actress Stephane Olger just wants to be in pictures. But she may end up in mug shots instead when she gets herself caught up in a crime. Shortly after quitting her job and moving to Hollywood, she is picked up by a well-dressed man while hitchhiking. The man loses control of the car and they end up in a horrible accident. Both Stephane and the driver escape unscathed but the strange man flees the scene leaving Stephane to face a charge of manslaughter.

The blonde wandering nude at the Remuda Gold Club tells Perry Mason a strange story. She says that while she peacefully sun-bathed near the course, someone made off with her Cadillac, her trailer, and all of her belongings - including her precious diary. The woman blames the police who suspect her of having stashed away nearly half a million dollars allegedly stolen by her father, who is now in prison. She swears that both she and her father are innocent. So who is bankrolling her leisurely lifestyle?

Years ago Alden Leeds found a rich vein of gold in the Klondike. Now his greedy relatives fear he's planning to throw his fortune away on a gold-digging spouse, Emily Milicant. So to prevent the two from joining in holy matrimony, they commit their affluent kin to a sanitarium on a trumped-up charge. Then Leeds escapes, only to end up in the company of Emily's blackmailing brother, John, a manufacturer of fixed dice, rolling bones that always come up seven.

While enjoying a leisurely ocean cruise in the company of secretary Della Street, Perry Mason is approached by passenger who is worried about the wellbeing of her husband. Not long afterward, her husband is seen jumping off the ship, an apparent suicide - but when the body is recovered, it turns out that he was shot. Accused of murder, the wife puts her fate in the hands of Perry, who in the course of piecing things together unearths the fact that the husband had once accepted a huge bribe while serving on a jury.

After con man Greg Moxley married Rhoda Lorton, he took her money and flew - only to have his plane crash. Years later, Rhoda weds millionaire scion Carl Montaine. But now Moxley has turned up alive and well...with plans to pocket the Montaine fortune - or else make Rhoda's bigamy public. Desperate to protect the good name of Montaine, Rhoda seeks out Perry Mason. But before Mason can reel in Moxley, somebody murders the scheming blackmailer.

In his will, Peter Laxter guaranteed his faithful caretaker a job and a place to live...for life. But Laxter's grandson Sam says the deal doesn't include the caretaker's cat - and he wants the feline off the premises by hook, crook...or poison. When Perry Mason takes the case, he quickly finds there's much more at stake than an old man's cat - a million dollars or more to be exact....

Who killed Philip Rease? Peter Kent was known to be a sleepwalker and a bloodstained knife was found under his pillow. There were people who would like to see Peter Kent out of the way, but would they frame him for murder? And would that explain the reason for Rease's death? It was another case full of traps for Perry Mason.