- Fay Allison and her roommate Anita are found unconscious by Fay's aunt, Louise Marlow, who calls her attorney Perry Mason in desperation. In the girls' apartment Perry and Della discover a key that leads them to the body of Carver Clement.
- Fay Allison sends her fiancé Dane Grover off to his bachelor party then relieves her roommate Anita Bonsal who wants to go out. Anita leaves the apartment but instead of going out goes to the next floor to see Carver Clement who is her boyfriend. Clement is supposedly getting a divorce so that he and Anita can marry although Anita had originally had her eyes on Dane Grover. Clements says he will be down to the car shortly so Anita goes there to wait but after nearly an hour she returns to the apartment she shares with Fay where they decide to make hot chocolate. Later that night Fay's aunt Louise Marlow arrives for the wedding using a key she was sent only to find both girls in bed knocked out. She calls her friend Perry who sends a doctor. He and Della arrive to find the girls have been drugged and a key to Clements apartment in Fay's purse. When they enter Clements apartment, they find him dead with a red lipstick kiss on the forehead. Perry is forced to save Fay's life twice when the evidence is against her piles up.—Anonymous
- Carver Clement (John Holland) lets himself into the Mandrake Arms apartments, flirts with a girl in the lobby, then heads to apartment 702, which he rents under the name Phillip Walsh. Meanwhile, outside apartment 604, Fay Allison (Sue England) sends her fiancé Dane Grover (Douglas Dick) off to his bachelor party, then takes over doing the dishes from her roommate Anita Bonsal (Jean Willes). Anita says she doesn't resent her for marrying Dane, who had dated Anita first. Anita announces she's going to be out late, then secretly goes up to 702. Carver is supposedly getting a divorce so that he and Anita can marry, but for now she insists on going out, as it's only 9:15. She says she'll wait in the car, but not for long. However, it's 9:58 when she finally gives up. When she returns to 604, she suggests hot chocolate. While Fay is making it, Anita grabs a box from the medicine cabinet, and eyes a pile of Fay's clothes.
At 1:30 A.M., Fay's aunt Louise Marlow (Frances Bavier) arrives for the wedding, using a key she was sent, only to find both girls unconscious. She calls her old family friend Perry, who informs Dr. Hawley (Howard Culver) of the emergency. He and Della arrive to learn that Fay has suffered a severe overdose of barbiturates, and Anita a moderate overdose. Perry is sure this couldn't be an accident, so he and Della look for clues. They find keys to both 604 and 702 in Fay's purse. They to go 702, where Shirley Tanner (Gloria McGehee) emerges from 704 across the hall and complains about the noise from all the comings and goings. Perry and Della enter, to find Carver dead, with a vivid lip mark from a kiss on his forehead. As they leave, they encounter Don Rolston (Douglas Evans) and Vera Payson (Joi Lansing) on the way to visit Carver. Shirley comes out again to complain about even more people going into 702. Vera seizes on the fact that Carver already has company to insist to Don that they should leave. From the lobby, Perry calls Louise and tells her to arrange for an ambulance to take Fay and Anita to a private sanitarium. Della goes outside to check the name on the buzzer for 702, but then needs Perry to let her back in because the door is locked.
Later, Lt. Tragg arrives with police officers and police lab technician George Harlan (John Harmon). The homicide lieutenant has questions for Perry, but also some answers. Carver has been dead since 9 or 10, from what turns out to be cyanide in his drink. Tragg wonders why Carver doesn't have a key to his own apartment. He finds clothes, which are identified by dry cleaning marks as belonging to Fay. The next day, at the sanitarium, Anita tells Tragg and Perry that she never used sleeping pills, but Fay sometimes did. She also denies knowing Carver. Fay makes the same denial, and also insists she didn't drug the chocolate.
Back at the office, Paul reports that the poisoned glass in 702 had been wiped clean, but a second glass had Fay's fingerprints. Don did Carver's taxes, and Vera's a party girl. Perry wonders how they got into the building, since Carver certainly didn't buzz them in. He tells Paul to check out all the tenants in the building. Fay's fiancé Dane arrives with money to pay for her defense, which Perry accepts, but tells him he'll need to help in other ways. Dane agrees, and warns Perry that the police are sure to find out that Fay was at his family's house on a day when the gardener was using cyanide.
In court, Don testifies that he and Vera rang 702 and were buzzed in, then they spent several minutes in the lobby arguing about whether to go up and see Carver. During this time, the elevator doors closed and it went up, so when they were finally ready to use it, they had to call it and wait for it to come down. When it did, no one was in it. Burger objects to all this testimony about elevator movements, since they could be caused by any tenant visiting any other tenant. For once, Burger is sustained, but Perry doesn't appear to be bothered by it. Shirley testifies about seeing Perry outside her apartment. She states that she had sublet apartment 704 about a week before the murder, from Jerome Hill, who was leaving town. Della has to testify that she and Perry found the key to 702 in Fay's purse. Lab technician Harlan testifies about the fingerprints, and on cross-examination says that lip prints are as distinctive as fingerprints. Perry has him compare Fay's to ones of Carver in a crime scene photo, and they don't match.
During a recess, Perry frets that he doesn't yet have the answers that will conclusively exonerate Fay, Paul reports that Jerome Hill never left town after subletting his apartment to Shirley. Back in court, Anita testifies that she didn't know Carver, but Perry produces charge account records signed by him, paying for expensive gifts with the monogram "AB". He accuses her of giving Fay a dangerous dose of sleeping pills, hoping to kill her, and also moving her clothes and a glass with her fingerprints into 702 so she'd be blamed for the murder. Her motive was that she wanted Dane for herself. Hysterical, Anita runs out of the witness stand to a window, threatening to jump.
Burger moves for a mistrial due to all the melodrama, but Perry says that if given some leeway he can clear everything up. He begins to question Shirley, but suddenly presses a paper to her lips and asks for Harlan to check the lip print. Shirley says that won't be necessary. Carver had dumped her for Anita, so she moved across the hall and waited for an opportunity to poison him (apparently thinking Anita would be blamed, since her clothes were in the apartment). She buzzed in Don and Vera and returned to 704 a little before Perry and Della arrived. Anita confesses that she came back to 702, found Carver dead, and hatched her plan to shift the blame to a dead Fay. This included taking Carver's apartment key and putting it in Fay's purse.
Fay and Dane leave for their honeymoon, and she kisses Perry goodbye. He reveals what set him after Shirley. Hill had vacated his apartment because Shirley paid him a $500 bonus to sublease it, when other apartments in the building were for rent. Della wipes a big smooch mark from Perry's cheek. He seems very pleased with himself.
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