- Martha and Rita show up at a beauty salon and both answer to "Mrs. Bradford." Their husband Joe turns up dead on his boat, Martha is charged with his murder, and a candle on the table is leaning about twenty degrees.
- At a Beverly Hills beauty salon, two women answer to the name "Mrs. Joseph Bradford" and both have identical keys to the same address. Martha Bradford, who currently lives there, tries to contact her husband, but he refuses to talk to her; he has a habit of mistreating her. That night the other woman, Rita, enters the house, scaring Martha, who finds Rita's wet footprints. The next day Martha contacts Perry for help in finding her husband to learn the truth. Joe's second-in-command, Jack Harper, sends them on a wild-goose chase where they meet Larry Sands and a sheepherder who have little good to say about Joe. When confronted, Harper tells them Joe is on his boat in the harbor. Perry and Della visit the boat and find Joe Bradford dead and a crooked candle in a hurricane lantern that has burned evenly. Martha's fingerprints are on the candle although she swears to Perry she was never on the boat. Why was the candle crooked and how does it fit into the case?—Anonymous
- There's confusion at a Beverly Hills beauty shop when there are two Mrs. Joseph Bradfords, brunette Martha (Nancy Gates) and blonde Rita (Doris Singleton). They even have keys to the same house. At the office of his land investment company, boss Joe Bradford (Bruce Cowling) tells subordinate Jack Harper (Robert Clarke) to get his boat, the Mary Belle, ready to be sailed to San Diego for an important business deal. Martha calls, but Joe puts her off by arranging a rendezvous he has no intention of keeping. He tells Jack to remember whose wife Martha is.
That night, Martha's in bed when she hears a prowler, so she comes downstairs with a gun. She sees muddy prints from a woman's shoes on the floor, and goes back upstairs, dresses, and goes out. Rita is hiding in the house and sees this. The next day, Martha tells her story to Perry. He tries to call Joe but gets Jack, who after sending Perry and Martha on a wild goose chase admits Joe's plans to use the Mary Belle. She (the boat) is at La Cuesta harbor, where old salt Captain Noble (Francis McDonald) takes them out to the her in his boat. Boarding, they find Joe face down, dead. There's also a broken hurricane lamp with a candle that's tilting to one side, although it had been burning evenly. Back at the Bradford home, Lt. Tragg arrives and takes Martha in for questioning.
At the office, Paul reports that Rita was Joe's first wife, but he got a Mexican divorce before marrying Martha. Rita arrives, still insisting that she's the one and only Mrs. Bradford. Perry takes her to Burger's office, where she says that she went out to the boat to talk to Joe but found him dead. He was face up, not the way Perry found him. After she leaves, Burger tells Perry he's charging Martha with the murder. He produces a pair of her shoes, with blood on them that matches Joe's type.
Jack is on the Mary Belle, gathering up his personal possessions. The police are finished with her, having gone over her with a fine tooth comb). Company surveyor Larry Sands (Whit Bissell) arrives, wondering if he can find anything that will help Martha. Jack is even more anxious, since he and Martha are romantically involved. At least he has an alibi, as around the time of the murder he bought gas with a credit card, miles away from the harbor. Larry says he has no alibi. In fact, he soon goes to Perry and confesses to the murder. They go to Burger, who wonders how Larry killed a much larger man. Larry says he brought a rock from the beach and hit Joe on the head before he could move. In falling, Joe hit the table, breaking the hurricane lamp and putting out the candle, which he relit. Burger asks if there was anything unusual about the candle, but Larry can't think of anything. "Wasn't it crooked?" asks the D.A. "Come to think of it, yes" answers Larry. Burger immediately calls him a liar, since he's wrong about the murder weapon and the time of death.
In court, Tragg identifies the actual murder weapon, a small fire axe with traces of Joe's hair and blood, but no fingerprints. However, Martha's prints are on the candle, which is still stuck to what's left of the hurricane lamp at the same odd tilt. Rita testifies that she now realizes Joe had divorced her, but has no memory of it or anything for two years up to just before she went to the beauty shop. She also tells of entering her former house that night, seeing Martha leave, and finding Joe's body. Perry and Della spend that night aboard the Mary Belle, along with a dummy they put in the face-up position that Rita had described for Joe's body. Some hours later, everything in the cabin starts to tilt to one side. The dummy falls over to the position Perry found. The candle has burned out, and Della lights a new one. To keep it straight up and down, she has to put it at an angle to the slanted table.
Jack testifies that he bought the hurricane lamp and candles as part of outfitting the Mary Belle for the trip to San Diego. She had developed electrical problems, so these were now needed to light the cabin. Capt. Noble explains that at low tide, the boat would list to starboard in the shallow harbor. Using a model, Perry shows how this relates to the crooked candle. Low tide was at 1:17 AM, so Martha must have been on the boat and replaced the candle (leaving her prints) around then, 8 hours after the murder. Larry testifies about his false confession, mentioning out his errors. Perry accuses him of making the mistakes intentionally. The hurricane lamp and candles were new, hadn't been mentioned in public, and had been removed when he met Jack on the boat. Therefore, he had no way of knowing about the hurricane lamp or candles, crooked or not. He breaks down and confesses. He killed Joe because he loved Martha, but when he learned she loved Jack, he lied to protect himself and make Martha look more guilty.
In the office, Della gets a call from Martha, who is mailing in her check. She wants to avoid Perry, who's spoiling to lecture her about the folly of clients who don't tell their lawyer the truth. Paul comes in and borrows $75 for his date with his new client, Rita, who wants to know about her two missing years. Paul figures that until he can help with her past, he might as well try to make her present memorable.
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