The Case of the Garrulous Gambler

A wealthy young man. Larry Benton, is playing poker with three other men. Suddenly, one of the men accuses Larry of cheating at cards and pulls a gun. There is a struggle, the gun goes off, and the man with the gun is dead. One of the other men left before the struggle, but the one who is still there agrees to dispose of the dead man's body. The dead man had no family and will not be missed.

The next day the man who left before the shooting, Wallace, begins blackmailing Larry Benton over this killing. But Larry has no money of his own, so he forges four five thousand dollar checks that belong to his much older brother, self made industrialist Steve Benton. When Steve catches on but his brother will not tell him why he forged the checks, he goes to Perry for help. When all of this leads to murder, Perry is there to help some more. As usual, his client is innocent but does lie about some important things. And one thing I have said about all of this is not true. But you'll need to watch and find out what that is.

What makes this easy on Perry is that everybody who is involved is about as sincere on the stand as a used car salesman, and they are none too bright. Perry shows his street smarts in this one by conning the con men at a couple of junctures. He even has Hamilton Burger agreeing that justice is more important than his conviction rate! A most unusual and entertaining episode.

Unlike the another reviewer I was actually caught off guard till near the end of who was the actual guilty party in this tale of mischief.

It begins at a card game when Larry Benton accuses Mike Granger of cheating. Well, Mike does not take to kind about being called a cheater and pulls a revolver on Larry. A shoving match breaks out and Larry believes that he has killed Mr Granger.

The next day Larry is confronted by another person at the card game named Ben Wallace that is set on blackmailing Larry about the murder. Larry has to steal money from his brother Steve Benton to pay the blackmail money.

It is not long before another person at the card game, Johnny Clay, is murdered. And it just so happens that Steve Benton is wiping off a fire poker when Ben Wallace enters the room. It is not long before Lt Tragg has a murder warrant on Ben and Perry agrees to defend him in court.

This is a unique mystery as you will find that a trick was being played but soon backfires when someone wants more than their cut of the prize. The writers do an great job of giving us many suspects but it will come down, not to a confession, but Perry making sense of the situation. Good watch!

A young former convict with a chip on his shoulder, uses his brother to pay off blackmail. He, himself, has been set up in a con game, but the brother is a good businessman. HIs willingness to go to bat for the younger guy gets him in the defendant's chair. The whole conceived plot is beyond belief.

Dick Foran is Perry Mason's client in this episode, an oilman who is forever bailing his brother Wynn Pearce out of trouble. In this case Pearce is rather nicely set up as the culprit of a murder that didn't ever happen. This all arose out of a dispute over cheating at a poker game. When one of the plotters against Pearce winds up really dead than Foran is arrested for his murder.

A few attempts at red herrings really don't work here since the culprit is all, but advertising it on the six o'clock news that he did it. No suspense in this particular episode.

With Perry Mason I always like surprises.