Plot

A man who nearly drowns learns it is believed he is dead. Because he recently found he is dying, he decides to stay dead so his wife can collect his insurance. However, she is charged later when he is found shot dead after calling her.

After Willard Nesbitt falls out of his fishing boat, he is presumed to have drowned. His wife Eve knows little about their financial situation or his business interests and so seeks Perry Mason's assistance. Her husband was in the process of liquidating his business partnership with Lloyd Castle who had offered a $10,000 settlement to Nesbitt but Nesbitt never signed the contract. Castle forges Nesbitt's signature and gives Mason the $10,000 for Eve. She also gets to cash in her husband's insurance which had a double indemnity clause in case of accidental death. When Castle's company announces a major mining find just after breaking up the partnership, Perry suggests that the signature on the contract may not be Nesbitt's. The case takes a sudden and bizarre twist however when, weeks after his disappearance, Willard Nesbitt is found dead in his home having been killed only a few hours earlier. He had seen the mining news and called Eve to meet him. Eve is charged with murder and Perry sets out to make sense of it all and find the real killer.—garykmcd