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rachelkaser · 2 years

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Masonry Monday: The Case of the Fugitive Nurse

Tensions between an unhappily married couple reach snapping point when the wife refuses to give her doctor husband a divorce. She’s accused of drugging his coffee, causing him to crash a plane he was flying. However, the husband later turns up alive with his nurse mistress.

Who’s Who

Perry Mason’s client: Janet Morris, a self-admitted shrew of a wife who refuses to give her husband a divorce until she meets his mistress

The victim: David Kirby, a good-for-nothing buddy of Dr. Morris’s who helps him fake his disappearance, only to wind up dead in a plane crash

Suspects: Charles Morris, Janet’s husband, who wants to marry his nurse and doesn’t care what he has to do to achieve that outcome Gladys Strome, Morris’s mistress and nurse, who isn’t sympathetic when the wife makes it clear she has no intention of disappearing Angela Kirby, David’s wife, the owner of a drive-in who’s frustrated as he constantly steals from her and neglects their business Philip Connors Reese, the manager of the airport where Morris keeps his plane, who has a photographic memory

The Setup

A man exits an apartment, look around furtively every direction. Two police officers shadow him in to the courtyard and apprehend him, with a woman in a mink coat identifying him as a thief. The man, Dave Kirby, tells the woman, Mrs. Janet Morris, that he wouldn’t steal from her husband and the two men are friends. The police officers search him, finding a flask full of booze and fat packet of cash, as well as the apartment key. They bring him in.

Later, in the police station, Lt. Brewer reports Kirby was carrying over $92,000. However, a Sergeant enters and says Doctor Morris has arrived and confirms he did send Kirby to fetch the cash. Lt. Brewer is suspicious because Mrs. Morris didn’t know about the apartment, and says he’ll be reporting Morris’s stash to the Treasury Department. Janet and Morris have a tense encounter, where he accuses her of spying on him, and she insists she doesn’t want a divorce and didn’t know Kirby was his friend.

In Perry Mason’s office the next morning, Janet tells the lawyer about the situation, adding that she understands why Dr. Morris is straying. The mistress is his nurse, Gladys Strome. She doesn’t want a divorce, but she doesn’t want Perry to defend her husband if the Treasury Department pursues legal action for his unreported income. As she points out, the community property laws dictate the money is half hers, meaning she also has a legal stake in it. Perry agrees to do so. After Janet leaves, Della says the woman is hard to read: Is she more worried about her husband or the money?

At Dr. Morris’s office, he snogs Gladys Strome and complains to her about what happened during the night. Lt. Brewer has already put the Treasury Department on the doctor’s scent. Gladys asks what the doctor intends to do, and he makes a vague allusion to choosing a direction. He gets on the phone and call Kirby’s Drive-In in Loganville, where he sent David Kirby on a bus the night before. Kirby answers and tells the Doc he’d be happy return to Los Angeles.

Kirby takes a swing from his flask and opens a safe in the office of the drive-in, taking out some money from a lockbox. His wife, Angela, angrily takes the money from him, despite Kirby’s protestations that he needs bus fare to help Doc Morris. Mrs. Kirby thinks the doctor is a bad influence. She demands he stay and help at the drive-in. After she leaves, he takes out another lockbox for sales tax money and breaks the lock with a hammer.

In Dr. Morris’s office, he’s holding a packed suitcase and saying goodbye to Gladys. Janet walks in and introduces herself to Gladys as Mrs. Morris. Kirby wisely makes himself scarce. Janet lights up a cigarette and coolly regards Gladys. She asks Gladys for a favor: To break up with Dr. Morris. Gladys points out that Janet, who hasn’t been involved in the Doc’s life, isn’t in a position to ask for that. She in turn asks Janet to divorce Morris, but Janet refuses and leaves.

The Murder

In the airfield on Friday morning, manager Mr. Reese greets Doc Morris, who’s loading his small plane. As Mr. Reese walks off, he notices Janet walking up and stops to watch. The doc asks Janet what she’s doing there, and Janet hold out a thermos of coffee. She also tells him that, after speaking to Gladys, she’s changed her mind and will give him a divorce. He’s still suspicious of her motives and gives her the brush-off. As he walks away, Janet puts the thermos into the plane, which Mr. Reese sees. Shortly after, the small plane wobbles low in the sky and crashes in a fiery wreck.

Sometime later, Lt. Tragg arrives at the airport at the request of Mr. Reese. According to Reese, the authorities are investigating Doc Morris’s plane crash, but he’s not so sure it was an accident. Seconds before the crash, Dr. Morris spoke to a radio operator, who said his last words were about how he was sleepy. The authorities picked up personal items from the crash, and Reese hands Lt. Tragg the burnt thermos, saying he suspects that Dr. Morris was drugged and that Mrs. Morris put the thermos in the plane.

Later, in Dr. Morris’s office, Tragg questions Janet about her husband’s alleged accident. He asks her if she knows what morphine sulfate is, and she does. According to Tragg, while the body was almost completely destroyed, they found morphine sulfate in his stomach. He also notes that Janet was seen putting the thermos in the plane. He tells her to call a lawyer if she knows one. She picks up the phone and asks the operator for Perry Mason’s office number. Without missing a beat, Tragg tells her, “It’s Madison 5-1190.”

The Investigation

In Burger’s office, Janet admits to Perry that she lied to the DA about how well she and her husband were getting along. She’d agreed to give him a divorce at the airfield, but no one heard the conversation. Tragg enters and says he has to book Janet. Perry comforts her, telling her they’ll get to the bottom of it. After she goes, Tragg tells Mason they have a motive: Not only is Janet the heir to the doctor’s large estate, he also left her $125,000 in insurance. Back in Perry’s office, Paul reveals that isn’t quite accurate: The doctor also left $50,000 to Gladys, who’s not only the sole supporter of her mother and brother, but also mysteriously away on vacation.

Perry notes that the $92,000 Kirby retrieved hasn’t been found, and it wasn’t likely to have all burned up. He asks for the address to Kirby’s Drive-In in Loganville, and heads out to visit. At the drive-in, he meets the very caustic Mrs. Kirby, who’s very concerned with pinching pennies. He asks where Kirby might be, and she says he’s likely on a bender, as he stole $154 from the locked box and she hasn’t seen him in a week. Perry says Kirby saw a lot of Doc Morris before the crash and might know something. She’s upset at his implication and sends him packing.

In the DA’s office, Lt. Tragg welcomes in Mrs. Kirby. She tried to report her husband missing, and Burger asks if she knows where the $92,000 went. He insinuates that Kirby could have killed to keep the money. Mrs. Kirby stands up and furiously defends her husband’s character, saying he was a pilot in the war. After she storms out, Burger notes that Kirby was a flier. He tells Tragg to go to the site of the plane crash and search the area.In Chadley, Paul’s already on the scene with his own men. Paul finds the broken mouth of a flask. One of his men finds a small, platinum medallion with a Leo on it. It has Dave Kirby’s name on it.

The operative asks what put Mason on to the identity of the victim, and Paul says Perry was suspicious that Gladys didn’t rush home from her “vacation” when she got word of his “death.” Tragg arrives and confiscates the medallion, noting that just because Janet got Kirby by mistake, it doesn’t change their case at all. Later, in Loganville, Lt. Tragg interrupts Mrs. Kirby at the grill. She apologizes for losing her temper with Burger. Tragg solemnly hands her the medallion, and she asks where he got it. When he tells her Kirby was the actual victim of the plane crash, she breaks down in tears.

The Trial

Burger gives his opening statement, claiming that Janet killed Kirby in an attempt to kill her own husband, as she was sole legatee of his estate. His first witness is Mr. Reese. He asks when Doc Morris’s plane took off, and Mr. Reese gives precise timestamps and descriptions of the people on the field. He also recounts Janet arriving at the airfield, gives the description, make, model, and license number of her car and even gives the license number of the car she parked next to. He also describes seeing Janet put the bottle of coffee in the plane’s cabin.

On cross, Mason asks Reese how he’s able to give such a detailed and precise account of the day, and Reese says he has a photographic memory. Mason asks Reese to demonstrate by describing Burger without looking at him. Reese gives an exact description of Burger’s suit, down to the loose button on his sleeve, which even the man himself hadn’t noticed. Given his powers of observation, Mason asks how Reese missed the substitution of Kirby for Doc Morris, and Reese says it’s because he was called away from the airfield. Mason points out that Reese didn’t see everything and had no idea what was in the bottle.

The judge calls for an adjournment, and Paul enters the courtroom to tell Perry he still can’t track down either the doctor or Gladys. Perry notes that the doctor wanted to disappear, but couldn’t be sure Kirby wouldn’t blab -- which gives him a motive to silence Kirby. He also notes that Gladys’s mother and brother have to know something, as Gladys financially supported them. Next we see him and Della in their apartment. Both the Stromes are eating heartily, and Mrs. Strome deflects questions about Gladys.

Perry says it’d be worth $100 to locate Gladys. When Mrs. Strome goes into the kitchen, brother Arthur quickly takes the bait, telling Perry that Gladys and the doctor are in Boca de Oro, Mexico, living under the name Hennessey. Gladys sends them money regularly. Perry flies to Mexico during the adjournment and finds Gladys and Doc Morris living together. Morris is convinced Janet tried to kill him, but Perry points out that he’s alive and asks about the substitution. The doctor says they’d planned for Kirby to lay a trail to Salt Lake City, and Kirby himself wouldn’t know where the doc was, so he couldn’t give him up.

Perry points out that Doc Morris is still legally married to Janet. The doctor says he got a divorce in Mexico and is now married to Gladys, and he doesn’t care that it isn’t legal in California. Perry tries to convince either of them to come back to California and testify, and they initially refuse until the doctor agrees to fly out the next day -- only once Perry leaves, he says he never specified they’d fly to California. Back in court, Perry notes he’s not convinced they’ll return. Burger asks Tragg when Janet bought the bottle -- the day before the murder.

On cross, Perry asks Tragg about the confusion over the body. Tragg says it was burned beyond recognition, and it had a coat belonging to Dr. Morris. They established the identity of Kirby with his medallion. Mason asks why he didn’t then speak to the doctor, and reveals their location in Mexico. Tragg smugly says the police found them too, and Dr. Morris and Gladys are escorted into the courtroom. Burger tries to call Morris to testify, but Mason objects, saying that in California the doctor is still legally married to Janet and can’t testify against her.

Instead, Burger calls Gladys to the stand. She testifies about Doc Morris’s unhappy marriage and Janet’s refusal to give him a divorce. On cross, Mason needles Janet by refusing to call her Mrs. Morris. He asks her about Kirby’s relationship with the doctor, and Gladys says Morris treated Kirby with a sedative when he was drunk. Perry asks if it was morphine sulfate, and Gladys waffles on the answer. With all the information he’s been given, however unwillingly, by all of the witnesses, Perry is able to figure out who else would have the means and motive to drug David Kirby...

In Summation

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: One of my favorite mystery tropes is the not-mistaken identity — where the investigator’s initial assumption is that the alleged murderer killed the victim by mistake, only for it to be revealed the real murderer knew exactly who they were killing. In this case, I don’t think Perry is fooled for a moment, as he’s the first one to figure out Kirby is the victim rather than Doc Morris.

Credit to Burger, though — he’s not far behind. He figures it out after his conversation with Mrs. Kirby, where she mentions that he was a pilot. Tragg and Burger both put in good showings this week, as they manage to track down and detain Doc Morris and Gladys despite them being in a foreign country (though I’m sure both of them were more eager to help the prosecution than the defense in this case). We also see Tragg having to inform Mrs. Kirby of her husband’s death, surely not his favorite duty as a police officer.

Janet is a bit of a confusing protagonist. Della notes in her first scene with Perry that she can’t figure out if their client cares about her husband or his money, and I can’t help but agree. Normally in one of these episodes, such a contentious marriage would be explicitly the fault of the abusive husband, as it has been in the past. Here, however, even Janet seems to allude to there being some validity to Doc Morris’s dislike and mistrust of her, telling Gladys she wants to make up for past mistakes.

That’s not to say I’m wholly sympathetic to the Doc and Gladys here. Whatever can be said about their discontent with Janet, they apparently planned to leave her high and dry -- or, I assume so, since they didn’t plan for the plane crash and didn’t intend to fake the Doc’s death outright. I really don’t see why Doc Morris, who apparently has plenty of money, couldn’t sue for a divorce on his own. Gladys could fight it, and he’d probably have to pay her alimony, but I still say that would be simpler than what they ended up doing.

Leaving these characters aside, probably the most interesting (or at least the loudest) side character in the story is Angela Kirby. It’s always amusing to watch Perry, Burger, and Tragg go up against someone so unwilling to cut them any slack. While her primary characteristic is that she’s cheap -- even telling her fry cook to put three half-slices of pickles on her burgers instead of three slices -- but her more obvious one is how she can drown out anyone in the room, including her own husband (not that that’s difficult).

Though, if Mrs. Kirby is fun to watch, Reese is only slightly less so. He uses his photographic memory to provide the most precise testimony of the entire series, even noticing details that other people present in the scene do not. By the way, I didn’t realize until researching for this episode that apparently the recall that those with photographic memories have is not infinite -- they allegedly only have perfect recall for a short time. Also, even Perry notes in this episode that his abilities have their limitations.

Actually, when you think about it, everyone would have “won” in this case if not for Reese’s inquiry. Janet would have gotten her husband’s estate, the Doc and Janet would have gotten away clean, and Kirby’s murderer would almost certainly never have been discovered. I would applaud him for that if he hadn’t been the one to erroneously accuse Janet, all because he saw her put a thermos in the plane.

This scene also contains one of my favorite Tragg moments this season. When he’s detaining Janet, he tells her that she should call a lawyer if she knows one. She does, in fact, know one, and Tragg turns away to give her privacy to make her call -- until he hears her ask the operator for Perry Mason’s number. He provides the number without hesitation. They’d previously used “Madison 5-1190″ as the number for headquarters, but this is the episode where they canonized it as Perry Mason’s office number.

The Verdict

Judgement: ⚖⚖⚖⚖ (four scales out of four) One of the best fake-out cases in the series, it follows the changing fortunes of a discontented married couple. The supposed murder victim turning up alive is just one of the twists, and the final confession is one of the series’ most dramatic.

#perry mason #masonry monday #raymond burr #della street #paramount plus #s01e22 #paul drake #the case of the fugitive nurse #hamilton burger

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