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rachelkaser · 2 years

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Masonry Monday: The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

A restauranteur friend of Perry’s asks for help when one of his waitresses is attacked and a gangster at the scene is murdered. A tattered mink coat holds a vital clue, tying the current case to the murder of a police officer.

Who’s Who

Perry Mason’s client: Morey Allen, a steakhouse owner, who unwittingly gets involved in a complex murder to help his brother

The victim: George Fayette, a.k.a. Herbert Sidney Granton, a gangster putting pressure on Morey over a year-old crime

Suspects: Dixie Dayton, a waitress in Morey’s restaurant who is run over while fleeing gunshots, only to disappear from the hospital the next day Tom Sedgewick, Morey’s half-brother, who is wanted in connection with the murder of a rookie cop and who recently returned to California Frank Hoxie, the night clerk at the Fairmont Hotel, where the murder took place, who knows where everyone was on the murder night Mae Nolan, another waitress in Morey’s restaurant, who tells the cops all about Dixie’s suspicious possession of a mink coat Sgt. Jaffrey, a police officer in Vice Squad, the superior of the murdered cop, who will do anything to catch the culprit

Enter Perry Mason, Attorney at Law

It’s a booming night at Morey’s Steakhouse restaurant, and proprietor Morey Allen greets Perry and Della when they arrive. He seats them in a booth, already knowing their order by heart. He hands the ticket to the waitress, Dixie Dayton. Just as he does, a hard-looking man walks into the restaurant and locks eyes with Dixie. She stumbles out of the restaurant’s back door and into an alleyway, where a car chases her, the driver firing two gunshots at her. She flees into the road, where she’s hit by another car. Several people rush to her side, including the parking attendant from Morey’s restaurant.

Back in the restaurant, Morey apologizes to Perry and Della about the wait, saying Dixie never gave the ticket to the chef and has vanished. Meanwhile, the hard-looking man is seated at a table, alone. The parking attendant pulls Morey aside and tells him what happened. As Perry and Della get their food, Morey goes into a side room and opens a locker, pulling out a mink coat. He returns to Perry and Della and asks to speak to them -- Della immediately zeroes in on the mink.

Morey explains what happened to Dixie, who is being taken to the hospital, and says the coat is hers. It’s a bit worse for wear, having been chewed by moths, but it’s still a bit ritzy for a waitress. He says that Dixie showed up for a job 10 days ago, and he took pity on her. Now the police are on their way, and Morey is concerned that the police will let this particular item slip to the newspapers, who will infer that his waitresses “mingle” with his rich clientele. Two cops walk in, and Perry tells Morey to leave the coat in their booth.

As Morey goes to talk to the police, Perry takes a closer look at the coat, and notes the label is loose. Behind it is a pawn ticket from Portland for $18. Perry ponders another mystery: Why is Morey Allen so out of sorts over a waitress he’s known for 10 days? Della notes that the other patrons are very curious about the policemen, but Perry sees the mean-looking mug, who is calmly sipping soup and not curious at all.

When Morey returns, he’s even more upset and asks Perry to represent him -- for what, he won’t say. Perry asks Morey about the mean-looking mug, and says the circumstances look very bizarre. He goes to the payphone, and calls first Lt. Tragg. He tells Tragg about the shooting and says he has a bad feeling about Dixie’s safety. He asks Tragg to put Dixie in a private room as a favor. Next, he calls Paul, telling him about the pawn ticket and asking him to send a man to Portland to look into it.

The Setup

The next morning, Perry enters the office and prepares to work on a memorandum. Della says that Morey Allen sent $1000 as a retainer, and also found out the name of the mug: George Fayette. Perry says Morey must have already known the name -- clients don’t willingly send in $1000 retainers unless they need the goodwill. He tells Della to call Morey and ask him to come in immediately. The memorandum will have to wait.

Paul arrives with the news on the pawn ticket -- and a surprise. The police found a second ticket in Dixie’s purse. The second ticket was for an engagement ring. The ticket from the coat was for a gun, more specifically a Smith & Wesson .38, and likely a cop’s gun. The pawnbroker told the police about both items, which they confiscated. Perry is wondering why Dixie would have hid one ticket so carefully, but not the other. Paul also says that the police are astir over the gun, and they were swarming the restaurant. One of the waitresses, a woman named Mae Nolan, told the cops about Perry and Della taking the mink coat.

Figuring Perry would want to question her himself, Paul brought her back to the office. Perry asks Della to send Mae in. He then puts Paul to the task of finding out about George Fayette. Mae Nolan struts into the office and butters Perry up. With just a little bit of prodding, Mae spills that Dixie was not an experienced waitress, and she got the job because she knew Morey -- in fact he was the one who gave Dixie the coat, having stored it for her (forgetting the mothballs). Perry thanks Mae for her help, and she leaves. Paul goes to check out Fayette, and Perry heads to the hospital to see Dixie.

At the hospital, Perry reaches Dixie’s room, only to be waylaid by Tragg. Tragg genially questions why Perry is spending so much time and effort on Dixie when she isn’t his client. Perry says he’s representing Dixie’s employer, Morey Allen, but won’t tell Tragg anything else. Tragg is a bit put out, given he did Perry a favor, and demands he turn over the mink coat as evidence. As Perry tries to enter Dixie’s room, Tragg finally tells him that she’s not there. She disappeared the night before.

The Investigation

Paul gives Perry the rundown on Fayette: He was arrested for bookmaking, but the case never went to trial. Paul also tells Perry that Morey may be in a lot more trouble. He reminds Perry that, a year before, a young detective named Robert Claremont was murdered with his own gun. The last person seen with Claremont was a bookie named Tom Sedgewick, who vanished. The police now have the gun: It’s the same one Dixie pawned. Paul begs Perry not to get involved in a cop killing, but Perry won’t give up on Morey yet. Della calls: Tragg is in the office. Perry tells her to give Tragg the mink coat.

Late at night, Perry is woken from sleep by a phone call. His answering service says Morey is on the line. Perry takes the call, and Morey frantically whispers that he needs help immediately. He can’t call the police. Perry asks if Dixie is with him, and she is. They’re at the Keymont Hotel, room 721. Perry agrees to meet them there as soon as possible. He then calls Paul, who was also asleep, and asks him to meet with him at the Keymont, as it may be a trap.

Perry arrives at the Keymont and breezes past the hotel clerk, who glares suspiciously after him. He takes the elevator to the 7th floor and enters room 721. The door is open and the room is empty. He starts checking around the room, and comes upon a tube of lipstick on the floor: The end is smushed and ragged. He begins looking under surfaces, finally coming across a message, written in lipstick, on the bottom of a small table. It reads, “262 V3 L15 MASON HELP.”

Paul enters, and Perry fills him in on the situation, showing him the note as well. Paul at first presumes that the message was left by someone writing in a hurry, but Perry points out a flaw by asking Paul to recreate it: Writing on the underside of a table while sitting at it would produce a mirror of the message, not a legible sentence. Which means the message was faked. But Perry still wants to know what they were trying to convey. Paul deduces that “V3″ means volume 3, and there are three volumes of the phone book next to the table.

They find the line in question, and it’s the address of Herbert Sidney Granton. Paul remembers Granton lives at the address Fayette gave at his arrest, meaning Fayette and Granton are likely the same person. On a hunch, Perry tells Paul to call the Keymont and ask for Fayette. Paul goes to the payphone in the hall and calls the desk, pretending to be an airline. The clerk offers to ring Fayette, who doesn’t answer. Paul does get the room number: 815.

The Murder

When Perry and Paul arrive at room 815, they find Fayette, dead from a gunshot wound on the bed. Paul wants to call the police, as he doesn’t have Perry’s legal protections. Suddenly the door opens and Tragg walks in, completely unsurprised to see Perry. With him is Lt. Jaffrey, a Vice Squad officer who almost immediately gets aggressive with Perry and Paul -- especially when Tragg reveals they believe Fayette’s murder is tied in with Claremont’s, and that the latter was one of Jaffrey’s boys.

Tragg tells Mason that the next-door neighbor heard an argument and a shot, and called the police before Mason got there. Those cops summoned homicide, and Tragg arrived just as the clerk told Jaffrey that Mason was in room 721. So they left the crime scene as is to see if Mason would enter it. Mason promises to answer Tragg’s question, but asks to leave the dead man’s room out of respect. Jaffrey says they can use 721 to talk, as they know it’s empty. Back in 721, Jaffrey tries to pressure Paul into answering his questions.

Seeing that Tragg isn’t on his side, Mason relents and tells Tragg about Morey calling him, and the message that led him up to room 815. Tragg asks where Morey and Dixie are, and Mason says he doesn’t know (Jaffrey doesn’t believe him and thinks he’s helping Morey cover up). Tragg demands he produce the two by the end of the day. Mason is an officer of the court, so he must produce them, or Tragg will ask Burger to start disbarment proceedings against him. The next morning, Paul rushes into Della’s office and tells her to wake Perry: The police found Morey and Dixie.

While Perry visits Morey at the jail, Morey asks Perry to represent Dixie, too. He finally tells Perry the whole truth: Dixie is engaged to Tom Sedgewick, Morey’s small-time crook half-brother. He says that Sedgewick was planning to play stool pigeon for Officer Claremont, but panicked and fled to Portland with Dixie after Claremont was murdered. Perry asks if Morey thinks Tom killed him, and Morey is positive he didn’t . . . until Perry hits him with the fact that Dixie and Tom pawned the murder weapon in Portland. Morey is shocked and realizes Tom likely is the killer and now he’s really in a mess.

Perry asks for more details about Tom. Morey says Tom came back because he has tuberculosis, but Fayette, Tom’s contact, threatened to kill both Tom and Dixie if they ever returned. Dixie saw Fayette in the restaurant, and fled because she’s the only one who knows where Tom is hiding. Dixie later left the hospital when an anonymous caller told her to check into the Keymont Hotel to find out who killed Claremont. She asked Morey to come with. After he called Perry, two thugs came in and took his gun. Perry asks if Morey killed Fayette, and Morey swears he didn’t. In Perry’s office, he tells Paul to dig up everything on the Keymont’s night clerk, Frank Hoxie. He wants to know how Hoxie knew they’d be in room 721.

The Trial

Burger opens the hearing with a statement. He’s proceeding against both Dixie and Morey for the murder of George Fayette, and says their motive stems from the murder of a police officer. The judge reminds him that the defendants can only face one accusation in court, but Burger promises it’s justified. Burger’s first witness is Frank Hoxie. Hoxie testifies that Dixie and Morey entered the hotel at 9:30 pm, registering under phony names. Morey also asked if anyone checked into 815, and Frank told him (Morey) that Fayette had.

On cross, Mason asks how long Hoxie has worked for the Keymont. Hoxie says three years. The only time he wasn’t working the night desk was during a month the hotel paid for him to fly to Mexico City to collect a bill. That was a year ago, on September 17. Mason asks if Hoxie has ever been convicted of a felony. Burger objects, and it’s overruled. Hoxie admits he was convicted of armed robbery, for which he served five years in San Quentin. But he’s been straight for 10 years. He had trouble staying employed, until a sympathetic cop got him the job at the Keymont Hotel, which would overlook his record. The cop still checks up on him.

Next, Mason questions Hoxie’s memory for faces. He shows Hoxie a picture of Officer Claremont and asks if he’s seen him. Hoxie says yes: He saw Claremont on September 17, the night he left for Mexico. Claremont was visiting George Fayette, the murder victim. Mason submits the picture as evidence, and says that this testimony has uncovered a new avenue of investigation, and asks for a recess to gather evidence. The judge grants it. Perry tells Paul to look more closely into the Keymont Hotel. As he’s leaving the courtroom, Mason takes Tragg aside and confides to him his suspicions about who actually killed both George Fayette and Officer Robert Claremont...

In Summation

I’m sure you can find this bit of trivia on any cache of info about the show, but this was actually the pilot episode and the first one filmed. It’s amazing to think, actually, because even though this was the first time Raymond Burr, William Hopper, and Barbara Hale acted together, they were all excellent together and had great chemistry. If you didn’t know this was the pilot then you’d probably assume they’ve been working together for years, especially in the final scene, in which they all feast at Morey’s steakhouse while discussing the case.

The mystery is a much more complex, investigation-heavy affair than is typical for Perry Mason. But I think that’s to its benefit -- even a law procedural can be a detective show for one episode, and that’s what makes it one of my favorites. Some the cinematography and shot composition is a bit less polished than previous (or I should say, subsequent) episodes, but it still got a noirish vibe that I enjoy.

As I say, this is probably the episode where Perry is the closest to a detective, rather than a lawyer. He frequently makes deductions with the evidence, especially in the hotel room, when he swiftly determines, with one glance, that the message supposedly left for him is a trap. He even makes small, pointed deductions: For example, he punctures the old chestnut of gunshots vs car backfiring by noting that the person reporting it, a parking attendant, would know the difference between the two sounds. Paul is no slouch either, putting on a great act on the phone to get information about the victim. The only reason it doesn’t work is because Hoxie is aware of who he is.

MASON: It’s Perry Mason, Lieutenant. Will you do me a favor? TRAGG: I doubt it, but go ahead. [...] MASON: You know I never discuss my clients’ affairs. TRAGG: Last night I did you a favor. Today I ask you a question, you get cozy with me. You must ask me a favor again sometime. [...] TRAGG: *completely unsurprised to see Perry at the crime scene* Funny thing -- you don’t see a fella for several weeks, and then all of a sudden you run into him twice in one day.

On Perry Mason’s spectrum of clients, which range from savvy to boneheaded, Morey falls somewhere in the middle. He tries his best, but he’s involved in a problem that’s miles over his head. I don’t want to judge, because I’m not sure how I would react under that kind of pressure, but he could not really have made it easier for the crime syndicate to frame him if he’d tried. It doesn’t even occur to him that his brother and Dixie might be holding out on him until Perry gives him the facts, and only then does it hit him what a mess he’s in.

It’s a pity that Dixie doesn’t get any chance to speak in her own defense -- in fact, she barely speaks at all. Still, actress Kay Faylen manages to do a lot of non-verbal acting in the opening, when this seemingly nondescript waitress is menaced by a gangster, chased by a car, and finally run over in the street. And, as my husband pointed out while watching this episode, she’s a trooper for managed to outrun a car in heels.

The other characters also turn in good performances. Mae Nolan is a ray of comedy in this otherwise bleak episode, kissing up to Perry because, as Paul guesses, she’s made him for a big tipper. Frank Hoxie initially comes off a bit smug, but slowly becomes terrified as it becomes clearer how deep he’s in. Even Jaffrey plays his role as the aggressive cop as hard as he can, hassling Paul because he knows the detective doesn’t have Mason’s lawyerly duty to protect Morey and Dixie.

But the standout star of the episode, in my opinion, is Ray Collins. He makes this case extra personal, playing up Tragg’s intense dedication to his job and his anger that Perry may be, even inadvertently, helping to cover up the murder of a cop. I’m going to dip into slight spoiler territory, but the episode’s climax involves a shoot-out between him and the culprit in Perry’s office, about the closest thing to an action scene this series has. In the book this episode is based on, Tragg kills the culprit, but here he merely wounds them. This is even better, because when Perry goes to call an ambulance for the wounded party, Tragg stares down at them with absolute contempt and says, “Don’t hurry.”

From a series’ fan perspective, this is also one of the few times we get a glimpse into Perry’s and Paul’s apartments, with Perry getting a late night call and immediately waking Paul up as well. It’s also one of the broadest glimpses yet of the Perry Mason legal office, as Perry greets several employees when he arrives in the morning. Usually we only see Della and sometimes Gertie, but this is a reminder that yes, Perry Mason does have a proper legal team at his disposal and multiple cases on his plate at any given time.

The Verdict

Judgement: ⚖⚖⚖⚖ (four scales out of four) Perry gets himself mixed up in organized crime, playing both lawyer and detective for two clients in this most noir-inspired of Mason episodes.

#perry mason #masonry monday #raymond burr #della street #s01e13 #the case of the moth-eaten mink #paul drake #paramount plus

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