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rachelkaser · 2 years ago

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Masonry Monday: The Case of the Cautious Coquette

A hit-and-run, a mysterious witness, a blackmailer-and-blackmailee married couple, and a final-act twist make for one of Perry Mason’s most complicated cases yet.

Who’s Who

Perry Mason’s client: Elaine Barton, a young model in love who has the ultimate baggage -- a slimy husband who won’t give her a divorce

The victim: Harry Pitkin, Elaine’s estranged husband who was blackmailing her and may have some dirt on the other suspects

Suspects: Ross Hollister, Elaine’s rich, older boyfriend, who’s in love with her but doesn’t trust her, going so far as to have detectives follow her Sheila Cromwell, Ross’s business partner, an older widow who seems to be overly involved in their relationship Stephen Argyle, Harry’s employer, who may or may not have been involved in a hit-and-run accident involving another of Mason’s clients Robert Finchley, Mason’s other client, who suffers a hit-and-run while trying to provide for his ailing mother

The Setup

A man lets rings the doorbell of an apartment, and the woman who answers is obviously unhappy to see him. The woman is Elaine Barton, and she accurately guesses that the man is here for money and refuses to give him any. The man, Harry Pitkin, tells her to ask her boyfriend, Ross Hollister for the money. Elaine again refuses and tells him to leave. He reveals he’s her husband, who she left five years previously. She begs him to divorce her, but he still tells her it’ll take money. He snatches a ring off of her finger, a gift from Hollister, and leaves. Elaine pulls a derringer out of her desk drawer and looks at it.

A week later, Elaine and Hollister are swimming together at his house. He notices that something’s wrong with her, but she doesn’t tell him what’s going on. Another woman arrives: Sheila Cromwell, Ross’s business partner. She apologizes for interrupting, saying she needs to pick up company books that Ross was supposed to inspect. Sheila also hands Ross a letter. Ross says he forgot to inspect the books, but he’s due to leave town the next day. He offers to look them over that night and leave them at Elaine’s apartment the next morning, and the two women can exchange them. Elaine agrees and gives Ross her spare key.

Sheila says goodbye and leaves. Elaine jealously notes that Sheila always manages to show up during their dates and is clearly interested in Ross. She quickly apologizes. Hollister asks if she’ll fly to Vegas with him and marry immediately, but Elaine refuses. Hollister says he doesn’t understand her feelings, and notices her ring is gone. Elaine makes her excuses and goes to dress. Hollister opens the letter. It’s from a detective agency, saying they’ve identified the man who visits Elaine. He crushes the letter in his fist. Later that night, Harry calls up Elaine and asks for the rest of the money for a divorce, which she doesn’t have. He gives her another couple of days.

Enter Perry Mason, Attorney at Law

In Perry Mason’s office, Della delivers an anonymous letter he just received. It smells of woman’s perfume and the envelope contains a key. The note inside isn’t signed, but it’s a response to an ad he’d run in the previous day’s paper, regarding the hit-and-run of Bob Finchley. The note says that if Mason wants to find a witness to the accident, which took place on May 3rd at 10 pm at a location in Los Angeles. The note says the witness is Elaine Barton, but she can’t get in touch with Mason, but he’ll find the license plate number of the car responsible in a notebook on her desk. It also gives her address.

Della protests that this note and key are likely a trap. Perry agrees and says he’ll spring it anyway. He goes to Elaine’s apartment and rings the bell. When no one answers, he lets himself in with the key and looks around. He sees Elaine asleep in the bed, and quickly goes back outside and rings the bell again. Elaine wakes up and answers the door, and is baffled to see the famous attorney at her door. She invites him in and says she needs to wake up, so goes to put the coffee on. When she comes back, Perry shows Elaine the ad he placed in the paper -- there’s a $500 reward for anyone who witnessed Finchley’s hit-and-run.

Elaine protests she doesn’t know anything about it, and was home that night. Nevertheless, she invites Mason to stay for coffee. He looks through her desk again and finds her gun and her notebook. Sure enough, in the back page is a license plate number and “Cad. Sedan.” He makes a note of it. When Elaine returns with the coffee, she leaps at the chance to secure the great attorney’s help. She tells him about being blackmailed and asks for his help to scare her blackmailer off. Perry thanks her for the coffee and the excellent performance, then excuses himself.

In the hospital, Perry confers with Bob Finchley, who says he doesn’t remember anyone like Elaine the night of the accident, but he may not have seen her. He wants to leave the hospital as he needs to support his mother, but Perry tells him not to worry about it. Perry gets a call from Paul, who ran the plate number: The car belongs to Stephen Argyle. Perry tells him to check with Argyle’s insurance company. Perry pulls up to Argyle’s house, walks over to the car in the driveway and notices that the right front fender has some damage to it.

The Murder

Mason introduces himself to Argyle and tells him about his car being implicated in the hit-and-run. Argyle says this isn’t possible, as he was at the country club that night. His chauffeur drove him there and back. Mason tells Argyle about Finchley’s broken him and asks to meet the chauffeur. Surprise: It’s Harry Pitkin. Harry corroborates the country club story and says the car was damaged while he was out on an errand. Mason asks Argyle if he knows Elaine Barton, which catches Harry’s attention. Argyle says he doesn’t. Mason leaves a card with both of them and departs.

Harry arrives at the country club and gives the doorman a package from Argyle. The doorman initially says Argyle wasn’t at the club Monday night, but quickly changes his story when he sees the package contains medicine for his arthritis and $100. Later, Bates, an adjuster for Argyle’s insurance company, meets with Argyle. The company got Drake’s inquiry and wants to settle quickly; they also know about Pitkin’s bribe. Bates says he can settle it out of court if Argyle keeps it a secret from the company. Cut to Bates in Finchley’s hospital room, offering him $3,500 if he signs a release. Finchley uneasily signs it.

In his office, Perry’s upset about Bates’s underhanded tactics. He gets a call from Elaine Barton, who asks him to come over to her apartment. He initially refuses, but then agrees. He’s late to arrive, but he has a gift: the $500 reward for the witness. She insists she didn’t see the accident and denies writing the license number in her notebook when he shows it to her. He asks why she called him, and she opens her bedroom door, revealing the body of Harry Pitkin with her gun beside it. She says he was her husband. Perry phones the police.

As Tragg is investigating, he asks Elaine questions about her husband, which Perry says she shouldn’t answer. He declares he’s representing her, and Tragg tells her to pack a bag as he’s taking her downtown. Later, the ballistics experts tells Tragg the fatal bullet was fired from her gun and her fingerprints are on it. However, there’s one right forefinger print he can’t identify. Tragg tells him to run it down, as he doesn’t want the case tossed by Mason on account of a single fingerprint.

The Investigation

Perry calls on Argyle later that night. Argyle tries to turn him away, which fails, and insists his settlement was generous. Perry tells him about Pitkin’s murder and asks when he last saw his chauffeur. Argyle says the day before -- it was Pitkin’s day off. Perry thanks him and leaves. The next day, he visits Elaine at the jail and asks about the ring that Pitkin pawned. Elaine says Ross gave it to her, and that he didn’t know he was married. She doesn’t know where to find Ross, as he’s currently out of town, supposedly in Canada.

Perry asks whether Hollister had a key to her apartment, and Elaine tells him about loaning one to him so he could drop off the books. She also explains who Sheila is. She assumes Sheila retrieved the books, as they weren’t there when Elaine got home from work. Hollister was supposed to leave the key under the mat for her. Perry shows her the key he was mailed, and Elaine says it’s the key she gave him. He again asks her where he can find Hollister, but Elaine, crying, swears she doesn’t know.

Sometime later, Mason meets with Sheila at a club for a lunch date. She tells him she saw Pitkin sometimes at the office, as Argyle was a business associate of hers and Ross’s. She says Ross called her that morning, concerned about Elaine, but she won’t give the name of the town in Canada where he is. She told him not to return, as she feels Mason will be able to get Elaine exonerated. Mason says he would still like Hollister to return before the preliminary hearing, and Sheila says she’ll tell Ross that when he calls. Then she rather snidely says Elaine shouldn’t count on it, as she likely won’t hear from him for a week or two.

The Trial

At the preliminary hearing, Burger calls Frederick Arms to the stand. Arms is a detective with the agency Hollister hired to keep an eye on Elaine. During the two weeks they watched her, Pitkin visited her twice. On April 29, the morning after the first visit, she bought a gun from a pawn shop. On cross, Mason asks about Hollister’s unreasonable suspicion, but Burger objects and it’s sustained.

Next, Burger asks Argyle about Pitkin’s employment. He worked for Argyle for eight months and was a good employee. He never had quarrel with Hollister. On cross, Mason asks Argyle about how well he knew Elaine -- not at all, Argyle says. Mason finds it strange that he was in business with Ross but didn’t know his girlfriend’s name. He also says he wasn’t aware of the relationship between Elaine and Pitkin until Mason told him about it.

MASON: Have you ever been hired before by a man to shadow his wife or girlfriend? ARMS: Yes sir, hundreds of times. MASON: And wouldn’t you say that, in a great many cases, it was the man who should have been watched because of his unreasonable suspicions?

The next witness is Sheila. She testifies that Elaine professed great fondness for Hollister and wouldn’t let anyone stop her from marrying him. On cross, Mason asks about Sheila’s interest in Hollister, and his location. She testifies about the book discrepancies and says the day she asked about them was the last time she saw Hollister. She didn’t retrieve the books, as Hollister didn’t leave the key under the mat for her. Mason presses her on not trying harder to get in touch with him about this, and where the books are. Sheila breaks down on stand, and the Judge adjourns the hearing until the morning so she can collect herself.

Sheila arrives at a telegram office -- she’s sending a message to Hollister, who’s apparently still in California. As soon as she leaves, Paul stands up and takes the sheet under the one she used, then leaves. He visits the cabin where the telegram was sent, and no one answers his knocks. He sees the telegram sticking out from under the door and peeks in one of the windows with a flashlight. Four more telegrams sit on the floor inside the locked door, unopened.

The next day, Perry continues the cross-examination. She tells him that Hollister was upset about Elaine’s lies and the detective’s report, and she suggested he take a vacation to think. She won’t say where, but Perry produces the telegrams proving she knew exactly where he was. She protests he didn’t kill Pitkin but can’t produce anything to back that up. The Judge urges Burger to investigate her for possible perjury charges.

Burger calls another witness to the stand, one who produces a piece of surprising new evidence. With this new evidence, Mason is able to narrow the list of suspects who could have killed Pitkin down to one...

In Summation

I had to cut this one off really early, because there’s a final-quarter twist that I don’t want to spoil for those who haven’t seen this episode before. I’ll talk about it later with as much discretion as I can. I won’t spoil the culprit of the episode, but there will still be mild spoilers for that particular part of the episode. So if you want to go into this episode with the twist unspoiled, don’t read that part. And it’s worth seeing the episode for yourself.

This episode has one of my favorite tropes, which I’m sure I’ve spoken about before: One smaller crime leading to the unraveling of a bigger, much more complicated criminal endeavor. By the time this episode’s over, there’s much more going on here than a sleazy husband blackmailing his estranged wife -- in fact, it’s amazing that that’s how the episode starts, because I’d almost forgotten about it by the time it ends.

Most times, when I praise a Perry Mason story, it’s because there’s one interesting or memorable element about it -- or more. Just look at the Fan Dancer’s Horse with its signature ostrich fans, or the Negligent Nymph with its damning message in a bottle. But this episode is a good example of a case not needing that kind of element to be a good, solid mystery. It’s still got a great hook, that of a relatively humble problem and a mysterious letter that gets Mason involved.

Elaine fits pretty neatly between Perry’s two usual female clients. She’s not the shy, abused wallflower, but she is dealing with a problematic man in her life who she can’t quite handle. She’s also not the obstructive liar like some of his other clients, cooperating as best she’s able to. The difficulty is that she’s stuck in a complex frame-up, and she has no connection to it other than being a convenient patsy, so she’s not able to be much help.

I also liked that Perry has another client here -- a hit-and-run victim, proving he’s not always involved in a murder case. Given that Finchley says that he’s only got a few dollars in the bank and is eager to get back to work, the implication is that Perry is taking the case pro bono and is helping to look after Finchley’s mother while he recovers. This is why I like Perry: He’s really a good egg.

The plot here does feel a bit contrived, given the number of apparent coincidences that bring the main cast together. Ross Hollister is in business with Argyle, whose chauffeur just happens to be the estranged husband of Hollister’s current girlfriend? I kept expecting this to turn out to be relevant to the mystery, somehow, but no -- it’s just a coincidence. I like this mystery enough that I wouldn’t ding it on that alone, but still -- I don’t necessarily approve of it.

Part of me also wishes that we could dispense with using slightly older women as jealous coworkers friendzoned by the male love interest. We had Helen Rucker in the last episode and now Sheila Cromwell in this one. I know they exist, but perhaps we shouldn’t rely on them so heavily as a source of drama. In this case, Ross doesn’t even seem to think Sheila could be interested in him, like he hasn’t even realized she’s a woman. Women don’t lose all their appeal when they hit 35! Come on, 1950s!

Okay, here’s the SPOILER, so everyone who doesn’t want to read can just skim over the next section, which I’ll put in italics so it’s easy to find the endpoint: After Sheila testifies, Burger calls a sheriff to the stand who reports they found Ross Hollister’s body hidden in the woods near his cabin. He was dead before Pitkin, turning this case into a double-murder, a relative rarity for Perry Mason cases.

I enjoy this because it completely changes the dynamics of the mystery. Up to now, the only motive for Pitkin’s murder that anyone, even Perry can come up with is his blackmailing of Elaine. But once it’s revealed that Hollister, the only person besides Elaine who would have killed because of that, has been dead the whole time, they have to find a new motive. And Hollister’s murder gives them more than enough to go on -- it reveals there’s been a second motive percolating under the viewer’s nose the whole time.

There are a couple of things in this episode that aren’t explained, but I can’t really talk about them without spoiling the end of the episode, so I’ll leave them alone for now. The one part I can talk about is how much I hate that Finchley was pressganged into signing that release. That makes the final scene, where Perry puts the upstart Mr. Bates into his place and sends him scuttling out of the office, much more satisfying.

The Verdict

Judgement: ⚖⚖⚖ (three scales out of four) (Perry Mason gets involved in a true tangle of a mystery in the course of solving a simple hit-and-run. This case has a relatively helpful client, an excellent cast of suspects, and a final twist that changes everything -- and it’s all the more exciting for it.)

#perry mason #raymond burr #the case of the cautious coquette #s01e18 #masonry monday #paul drake #della street #paramount plus

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ganymedesclock · 6 years ago

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My beef regarding female characters in an action series who use “seduction” as a means of getting things done can basically be summed up in three points.

The first is: seduction is not a valid strategy. Even if your femme fatale can count on the idea that the vast majority of her opponents are going to be specifically attracted to women, which, she... can’t, there’s no way she can guarantee that she’s everyone’s type, or that everyone will drop what they’re doing to ogle / assist a woman they’re attracted to. A tactic is not a useful tactic if it is rendered totally moot in the event of asexual people, those not attracted to women, happily married monogamous individuals, people who are just not really feelin’ the sexy right this second, anyone of particular ethical fiber, anyone of a cautious or calculating persuasion who thinks to be suspicious of one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to coercion, anyone who fights in a manner or environment that makes them unable to discern their opponent, anyone who’s difficult to distract in general, or anyone who fights fast and reflexively and will only realize their opponent is a pretty lady after they’ve thrown all their punches... and that’s not a complete list. Odds are good that the majority of situations any sort of actiony lady encounters are not situations she can seduce herself past.

Thing is, almost any female character who’s even implied to use any sort of seduction at any time is virtually always depicted investing heavily in her appearance to the detriment of practical armor and gear that’s going to get her past those statistic majority of situations she can’t flirt past.

And, yes, someone who’s more of an infiltrator, informant, or otherwise going to be flitting around social events rather than swinging from skyscrapers and kicking teeth in is going to find slightly more situations she can flirt past, but, even then, if a string of people get horribly compromised because a pretty blonde flirted with them, they’re going to cotton on fast.

The second problem is that if we’re presuming the femme fatale uses seduction during combat, the implication is that any red-blooded man can’t possibly control himself at the sight of a pretty young thing- and of course the vast, vast majority of her enemies are going to be red-blooded men.

In short, it’s a twofer to the idea that no matter how exceptional this one woman is, she’s just that- one woman, in a society where it’s so shocking and abnormal that she’s a competent woman because we all know women are docile coquettes that people will genuinely fail to defend themselves upon realizing she’s a woman, because that means she must be less dangerous.

And, also, the idea that a pretty lady in a push-up bra is an irresistible siren call that will force men to abandon logic (because we usually don’t see these seductive assassins winning over other women or NB people- it’s overwhelmingly heterosexual men) which leans towards the idea of rape culture. Especially because often, we see that no matter how flirtatious or competent she is, various male characters will find her attractive and get the upper hand on her anyway, which rapidly descends into deeply uncomfortable territory.

The third problem is if seduction is a useful combat advantage (which it isn’t), there is a glaring lack of male characters that use it.

This isn’t about impractical assassins in blatantly sexualized costumes are fine as long as there are just as many willowy, washboard-abs men in tight leather as there are women. This is about the message it sends if all your male action stars can “merely” get by with combat skills and overwhelmingly nonsexual charisma, while the only people dipping into- and heavily dipping into- this ‘potent combat advantage’ are women.

In short, it implies that all these male characters are better fighters than the women, who are forced to “cheat”- because a woman being attractive to the men around her is seen as something she’s doing as a malicious temptress to mock them. But in a context where the guys get the last laugh- because the seductress assassin is never the main character. She’s a supporting hero or a villain, and either way, at some point in the series, various male characters will get the better of her, thwart her ‘wiles’. Implicitly, spring the “trap” of her dangerous sexuality and get away having been kissed and fawned on but not summarily beheaded.

The vast majority of these characters are associated specifically with the black widow spider- at first glance, you might say nothing wrong with that, the female black widow is larger and more powerful than her male counterpart.

However, if that was merely the case, we’d expect to see femme fatales based on lionesses or hyenas with just as much prevalence. Off the top of my head I can think of three seductive killer characters based off black widows and not one based on either of those other animals. The closest I can think of is Harley Quinn who doesn’t have a hyena motif but keeps hyenas.

Why the black widow?

The female black widow doesn’t just indiscriminately tear around eating male spiders- at least, if that’s the case, it’s not what pop culture knows her for. She specifically eats her mate. It’s right there in the name. Hyenas and lionesses don’t do that.

It frames the widow-themed assassin firmly as a (largely, straight male) fantasy. Again, the guy gets the last laugh- even if he’s killed, this beautiful, powerful lady still had sex with him (though works may pull short of actually showing her having sex). She still needs to get far more physically intimate and far more undressed than any of her male co-stars do to achieve the same end results.

Especially because at the end of the day, it’s not about her sexuality- because if she solves problems by flirting, there’s a limited number of people she can sway to affect that problem and she’ll have to flirt no matter how much she potentially hates all of them. And if she can solve the problem purely by other skills... then there’s no reason those other skills shouldn’t receive top billing in her writing.

#writing ruminations #readmore

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