The Ides of Perry Mason 40

 On the 15^th of every month, we deal with a topic related to Our Favorite Lawyer.

The Case of the Substitute Face - Erle Stanley Gardner

This is the twelfth Perry Mason mystery, published in 1938. Unusually for Gardner, this murder story begins on the high seas, on a cruise ship embarking from Honolulu and bound for San Francisco.

Perry and his office manager Della Street are returning from conducting research on the police forces of China and Japan (the paper was later titled "Torture and the Culture of Terror in Areas Occupied by the Imperial Japanese Empire"). Separate staterooms, if you please. Della’s cabin-mate has been Belle Newberry, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Newberry. Though an observer would expect Carl be cheerful on the first vacation in the adulthood of an ill-paid bookkeeper, not so. Carl has been distant and distrait with his family and other passengers

But it’s a distraught Mrs. Newberry who seeks Perry’s professional advice. She suspects her family’s vacation is being paid for with newfound wealth that her husband embezzled from his former employer. Perry tries to put her off, explaining that murder cases are more in his line. Mrs. Newberry is worried that exposure of her husband’s sticky-fingered misdeeds and the ensuing scandal would damage the marital prospects of Belle. Because Perry has been charmed by Belle’s vivacity and dislike of sham (though she herself is pretending to be rich to attract a millionaire’s kid on board), Perry says he will help the family through its thorny problem.

Mason calls his PI Paul Drake to execute a plan. The goal is to cut a deal with Carl’s former employer whereby Carl can keep out of The Big House by agreeing to return the remaining money. The plan has a chance but is blown up when the murder of Carl Newberry takes place.

It looks bad for Mrs. Carl Newberry. An eyewitness puts her on the scene of the crime, an open deck, at the time the ship was buffeted by high winds and torrential rain. Deputy District Attorney, C. Donaldson Scudder, oozes complacency and, seeing the trial as a mere contest of wits, the eyewitness is determined not to be shaken out of what she claims she saw. Although shorter than usual, the courtroom scenes sizzle with exciting give and take. It’s persuasive because the reader knows Gardner is bringing his own 20 years of courtroom experience with difficult witnesses to the story.

Other outstanding scenes feature Perry interviewing persons of interest in fast-paced slangy dialogues. For comic relief, Mason commits a B&E with Paul Drake in his role as BooBoo, Bess Marvin, or Ron Weasley, the sidekick full of trepidation but dependable loyalty and resource when the chips are down, no matter what trouble the hero stirs up. As for the damsel in distress, Della Street goes missing and an alarmed Perry pulls out all the stops to locate her. Before they find her is about as fretful and crotchety as we’ll ever see our favorite lawyer.

I enjoy the Mason mysteries from the 1930s. They feature an ornery attitude born of the Depression, a rough edge of the Little Guy’s Lawyer fighting a criminal justice system savage in its determination to put somebody in the gas chamber even if it’s got to be the wrongly accused in the dock. Gardner also takes swings at the hypocrisy of the rich when it comes to maintaining their perks and social position against the lazy undeserving Rest of Us.