Tuesday, August 28, 2018

The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

"The Case of the Glamorous Ghost" was a fun one. Mason comes into work one morning and Della asks him if he's seen the papers. Mason says no, so she tells him the fantastic story of a young woman running around a park the night before in just a light raincoat who claims she's lost her memory (a couple were making out in the park, and the female chased this girl with a tire iron because she thought she was coming onto her boyfriend). The paper published her picture in the hopes that someone would recognize her and claim her. And, apparently, it worked because her half-sister, Olga, is in the waiting room. Intrigued, Mason has Olga come in and talk to him. Olga tells him her younger half-sister, Eleanor, is a wild girl who has used amnesia to get out of scrapes in the past. Apparently Eleanor claimed she was running off with her boyfriend, Douglas Hepner, and they were married in Arizona. This happened two weeks earlier. Olga hadn't heard a word from her sister since, until she showed up nearly naked in the park. Mason goes with her to the hospital to ID her sister, and it is Eleanor. Mason also feels it would be prudent to put Eleanor somewhere out of circulation for a bit, until he can get to the bottom of things and has a friendly doctor tuck her away anonymously in a sanitarium.
Then Douglas Hepner's body turns up in the park, with Eleanor's gun lying beside it.
That complicates things a bit.
There was all kinds of fun sidetracks with gem smuggling. The best part was (of course) a courtroom scene, when Perry finally drags out of a witness that he was hiding in a woman's closet, watching her dress. When Mason asked him why he didn't leave the apartment while the woman was in the bath, the man claimed he was confused. No kidding, Perry quips dryly (I'm paraphrasing). It was a laugh out loud moment.

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