Erle Stanley Gardner

When Perry Mason stumbles upon a classified ad for a brown-haired woman with specific physical attributes, he takes note of the seemingly suspicious request. Then the woman hired for the job reaches out, fearing that her new employer--who pays her and her chaperone to stay inside an apartment and answer to another woman's name--might be using her for nefarious purposes. But by the time Mason works out the first mystery, a second, with murder, is just...

The bait is half of a $10,000 bill, delivered to Perry Mason by a man who promises the second half of the note should his companion, a silent masked woman, ever require the lawyer's services. When a dead body is discovered soon after, Mason feels the hook--but how can one prove the innocence of a person whose identity is unknown?

"Helen Kendal's woes begin when she receives a phone call from her vanished uncle Franklin, long presumed dead, who urges her to make contact with criminal defense attorney Perry Mason; soon after, she finds herself the main suspect in the murder of an unfamiliar man. Her kitten has just survived a poisoning attempt, as has her aunt Matilda, the woman who always maintained that Franklin was alive in spite of his disappearance. Lucky that Helen took...

Julia Branner insists her marriage was sabotaged by her millionaire father-in-law, who forced her to give up her baby girl for adoption. Now, years later, a young woman appears, claiming to be Julia's long-lost daughter. But Julia insists the heir-apparent is a fake--and vows to keep the family fortune from falling into the wrong hands. Abetted by a bishop with questionable credentials, Julia plans to expose the imposter. But things take a devilish...