- Attractive brunette Eva Martell interviews with Melvin Slater for a special assignment--to pose as Helen Reynolds. Eva takes the job chaperoned by her Aunt Agnes Nulty. Eva and Agnes find Slater dead and are charged with murder.
- Eva Martel is hired by Melvin Slater to impersonate Helen Reynolds. He assures her there is nothing illegal going on and her aunt, Agnes Nulty, is free to stay with her. All Eva has to do is live in Helen's apartment, wear her clothes and just generally pretend to be her. After a few a days Slater's wife Barbara comes to the apartment looking for Slater to collect child support money from him. This along with the fact they are being watched causes Eva and her aunt to become concerned and decide to seek legal advice. Perry Mason tells them that while their activities might be innocent, anything illegal Slater might be up to could result in them being accomplices. He also tells the aunt she should get rid of the gun she admitted to carrying. Perry forces Slater to have Helen Reynolds come to his office to sign a document to indemnify the women from any charges. They then return to the apartment only to find Slater shot in the forehead. It's Eva and Agnes who are charged and Perry defends them.—garykmcd
- Eva Martel (Margaret Field) is being interviewed for a job by Melvin Slater (Joe De Santis). When he asks about her measurements and age, Eve starts wondering if this is a legitimate job, so Melvin has Eva's aunt and chaperone Agnes Nulty (Sheila Bromley) join them. The job pays $100 per day to Eva, plus $25 per day to Agnes. They're to move into the apartment of Helen Reynolds (Paula Raymond) and have none of their own friends as visitors. Eva also has to wear Helen's clothes, which are stylish and will fit her. Eva is uncertain about all this, but Agnes convinces her to take the job.
After they've moved in, Melvin drops by to say he'll once again be taking them both to dinner that night. Once he leaves, Eva looks out the window and comments to Agnes about seeing men hanging around outside the building. A woman comes to the door and announces herself as Barbara Slater (Adrienne Marden), Melvin's wife. She's hoping to find Melvin, since she's not allowed to see him when she goes to his office, and she needs money for their children. It appears he's a lousy provider, despite having recently won $1800 at poker. After she leaves, even Agnes is starting to worry if they're in over their heads, so they go to Perry. He tells them that they could be vulnerable to various criminal charges, but the don't want to give up the money unless absolutely necessary. Perry says he has a plan, which requires that they tell Melvin they're quitting and refer him to Perry. They also mention the men following them, and Agnes admits she carries an unregistered gun, which Perry tells her to get rid of.
At Helen's apartment, the pair have packed and are preparing to leave over the protests of Melvin, whom they refer to Perry as instructed. He calls Perry, claiming that everything is legal and being done with Helen's permission. Perry replies that Melvin's word isn't good enough to protect his clients, and insists that Helen come to his office, prove her identity, and sign a statement that relieves his clients of responsibility for consequences of the charade. Helen arrives, shows that her thumbprint matches that on her driver's license, and says that she authorized all of Melvin's actions. When she reads the indemnification document that Perry has prepared, she thinks it's a blank check for Eva and Agnes to rob her blind. Perry says it's either that or explain what's going on, so she signs. Perry gets a call from Eva at Wilson's Grille, and he tells her that they can move back into Helen's apartment. Eva says they will, after a trip to the beauty parlor and some shopping. When they finally get back, they find Melvin in a chair, dead.
Paul reports that Melvin was shot in the forehead with a '32 caliber gun. P.I.s from the Interstate Detective Agency have been tailing Eva and Agnes and reporting back to Grant Reynolds (John Stephenson), Helen's husband. Perry and Paul visit Grant and tell him that the detectives that were supposed to be tailing his wife having been watching the wrong woman. Grant admits he was trying to keep his wife under surveillance even though he no longer lovers her, because when he's through with something he may give it away, but won't stand to have it taken from him. More practically, he says he doesn't want to get stuck in a divorce settlement, and he thinks that Melvin's access to Helen's apartment could help his cause.
Back at Perry's office, Eva and Agnes arrive and insist they been together continuously all day. Agnes also calls her story of having a gun "just a little fib". Lt. Tragg enters to arrest Agnes. He found a gun she tried to get rid of, which turned out to be the murder weapon. He also found Melvin's wallet with $1800 among things she brought from Helen's apartment. After Tragg takes Agnes away, Eva says that Agnes sometimes has trouble with the truth, but she'd never hurt anyone. Eva is worried about her, but Perry says he's worried about Eva, because she had sworn that she and Agnes were always together that day.
At the trial, the judge (Morris Ankrum) announces that Agnes and Eva have been jointly charge with first degree murder. Helen testifies that at the time the prosecution has fixed for the murder (12:45 - 1:15 PM), she was at Perry's office. Grant testifies that he was with the manager of Interstate Detectives. Thomas Folsom (Herman Rudin), one of Interstate's men, testifies that while Eva was on the phone to Perry, Agnes went to the alley in back of Wilson's Grille, opened the lid of a garbage can, and apparently dropped something inside. On cross-examination, he admits that his report at the time was even more weakly worded - he just said she opened the can and looked inside. Tragg testifies that he got a tip from Interstate about the garbage can, so he dug through it and found the gun halfway or so down through the refuse. Prints on the gun were smudged, but there were clear ones of Agnes on the lid. Armed with a warrant, he went to the duplex where Eva and Agnes lived before going to Helen's apartment and found Melvin's wallet with the $1800.
During a recess, Perry visits Helen. It's obvious to him that Helen wouldn't go to all this trouble unless she were involved with another man and doesn't want Grant to know who. She tells him that Melvin overheard Grant ask about good detective agencies at a poker game, put two and two together, and contacted her. She won't reveal the identity of the man she's seeing. Paul reports that Barbara Slater worked in the kitchen of Wilson's Grille until four months ago.
When the trial resumes, Perry questions Tragg's statement that trash had piled up on top of the gun over time. Instead, he suggests that the gun was pushed down into the trash that was already there. He calls Barbara, who testifies that taking out the trash was tied to shift changes, and none would be taken out between 12:30 PM and 8 PM. If Agnes had bent over, probably rolling up her sleeve, and pushed something into the trash, Folsom couldn't possibly have observed that she merely looked in the can and possibly dropped something. The prosecution's time of the murder was based on their reconstruction of the timeline, and the coroner's report put it as late as 2 PM, well after Agnes was in the alley. Perry recalls Grant, and notes that his previous testimony puts him in the Interstate offices when the call came in from Folsom. He suggests that Grant went there hoping to find something useful, fished out the gun, went to Helen's apartment, found Melvin there, and shot him, assuming he was Helen's lover. "What makes you think he wasn't?" asks Grant. Perry recognizes Grant as the kind of man who knows something is going on every time his wife even nods to another man.
Later, Della hypothesizes that after shooting Melvin, Grant returned the gun to the garbage can, and pushed it down under the assumption that more refuse would have been added during the intervening time. Perry agrees. Agnes explains that she took the $1800 because she intended to send it to its rightful recipient, Barbara, but never got the chance. Paul admits that he never did find out who was Helen's lover.
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