Note: In the introduction to this 1951 production, Erle Stanley Gardner says that it deals with circumstantial evidence – which is “infallible if it is available.” Gardner has a mother scrub a crime scene to cover up for her kid. Totally believable. My mom and aunt? They’d have the bleach put away and the fingerprints gone before the cops even hit the driveway.
The Case of the Angry Mourner – Erle Stanley Gardner
Belle Adrian wasn’t the type to break into houses, but fear makes you do things you’d never reveal on canasta night. Fear for Carlotta, her daughter - young, headstrong, and lately skiing with Arthur Cushing, a man whose playboy charm was as cheap as his cologne. Arthur had a reputation: a Casanova in tweed, now stuck in a wheelchair with a busted leg. Didn’t stop him from sniffing around the ladies.
Dinner at Arthur’s place ended badly. He got frisky, Carlotta smacked him, and left, humming The Snake and damning herself for not expecting a wolf to act like a wolf. That was the last Belle heard - until a shot cracked the night like, well, a gunshot. When Belle slipped into Arthur’s digs, she found him dead, slumped in his chair. Panic set in. She pictured Carlotta pulling the trigger, so Belle did what any mother with a guilty imagination might: she cleaned up the mess.
Trouble is, resort villages breed two things – a taste for gossip and neighbors with binoculars. Sam Burris and his wife had both. They saw Belle sneaking in, and they’d talk. Carlotta, meanwhile, thought Belle had done the horrid deed.
Enter Perry Mason, vacationing nearby, sun on his face and big on the outdoors like his creator. Belle calls on him, but she doesn’t spill the whole story. That’s the Mason curse: clients lie like rugs, then expect him to sweep up the dirt. He listens, asks questions, and senses holes big enough to drive an ATV through.
The hardcore reader doesn’t tarry in these novels; you hit the bumps and trust Gardner to steer. Characters aren’t shaded; they’re bold as neon. Carlotta, fiery and proud. Belle, protective to a fault. Arthur, a handsy wolf with teeth. Fill in expositions as you please - Gardner trusts our imagination to fill in business and backgrounds.
The evidence plays musical chairs between a mother and
daughter who could give Judy and Liza a run for drama. Meanwhile, Mason’s
courtroom maneuvers are so slick the bailiff should put down plastic yellow warning A-frames. All of
it unfolds in a small town where gossip travels faster than a speeding bullet.
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