Trama

Perry takes on the case of Jefferson Pike who is referred to him by none other than DA Hamilton Burger. Pike and Burger are old friends - Pike once saved his life - and the DA officially removes himself from anything to do with the case.

In a hunting and fishing village, Jefferson Pike tries to confront Denver Leonard, but Leonard refuses to see the old man. Pike steals a revolver from Leonard's car and shoots himself in the leg, intending to implicate Leonard. Leonard's ranch foreman, Hal Kirkwood, helps Pike dress the wound. When Pike arrives at his lodge, he finds his friend Hamilton Burger there so he drops the issue of the wound. Pike's son, Fred, was once a professional ice skater, but was injured in a car accident and can no longer perform. Leonard accuses Fred of forging his name to checks to cover his medical expenses. Asa Culver, the angel for a new ice show, rightly suspects his wife Vita of carrying on with Leonard. Leonard is killed and Pike arrested. By coincidence, Pike's friend District Attorney Hamilton Burger is vacationing in the area. Burger calls Perry Mason to defend his friend and recuses himself and his department from the case. The case is prosecuted by a special prosecuted appointed by the attorney general.—richardann

Jefferson Pike (J. Pat O'Malley) has just been thrown out of a var by hunting buddies of Denver Leonard (Walter Coy). Jeff demands to talk with Denver, who says he isn't interested in anything the old man has to say. After the others go back in the bar, Jeff notices Denver's car. He puts on gloves, takes a gun from the car, shoots himself in the leg (managing to hit only flesh, so he can limp rather well), and returns the gun to the car. When Denver emerges from the bar, Jeff hides until Denver drives off. Hal Kirkwood (Dabbs Greer), foreman of the ranch owned by Denver's wife Joan (Barbra Fuller), comes by and is shocked to see that Jeff has been wounded. Jeff tells Hal that Denver shot him and that he intends to inform a deputy sheriff, confident they'll find the bullet and match it to Denver's gun. Hal supports the idea, as he resents Denver for his bragging and incompetence at managing the ranch.

Returning to the Pike Gun Club with Hal, Jeff sees that club member Hamilton Burger has dropped by with some friends. He introduces Jeff to them as the father of Fred Pike (Ron Foster), noted Olympic ice skater. Burger notices Jeff's wound, and Hal starts to relate what Jeff told him, but Jeff interrupts, saying he merely caught his leg in some barbed wire.

At the ranch, Fred is sitting in a darkened room, drinking and watching film of his glory days as a skater. When Denver enters, Fred tells him of his resentment for talking him into turning pro. Denver says he's not to blame for Fred's fast driving and the ensuing accident that ended his skating career. He plans to revive the show in which he and Fred are partners. They'll build it around Vita Culver (Ruta Lee), a skater whose rich husband Asa (Philip Bourneuf) is expected to finance the show. Fred doubts that Vita is good enough, but Denver pressures into cooperating by bringing up a check Fred once forged. Fred says there's more to that story, as he was desperate to get some of the money Denver owed him. Still, he goes along with Denver's plan. Joan Leonard enters, hoping that her arrangements will impress the Culvers as much as possible, given the deteriorating condition of the ranch. She says that they now very much need something to succeed.

In the evening, Asa writes a check, making it clear that he was mainly won over by Fred's impressive ideas for the new show. He then goes into the other room to watch more footage of Fred at Lake Placid. (This wouldn't be the Winter Olympics, which were at Lake Placid in 1932 and 1980.) Once he's gone, Denver and Vita grin at the check, and he marvels at "the suckers there are in this world". They kiss.

Late that night, Burger has returned home and gets a call from Jeff. He needs to contact a criminal lawyer to advise Jeff and Burger asks who he has in mind. We next see Perry on the phone with Burger, agreeing to go to the gun club, with the quip that he's stunned that the D.A. would be drumming up business for him.

Perry is as good as his word, but as he arrives Fred comes out and explains that Jeff is at the ranch with the police. Denver has been murdered. When Perry and Fred arrive at the ranch, Jeff is telling Lt. Tragg that he came to the ranch late at night to see Denver alone. As Tragg asks why, Jeff notices that Fred is there, and answers that it was to kill Denver. Perry warns Jeff not to give up his rights against self-incrimination. Tragg orders Sgt. Brice (Lee Miller) to take Jeff away and says that Perry is interfering with a police officer. He's about to send him away when Burger arrives and tells Perry "I'm glad to see you got here." This utterly confuses Tragg, who excuses himself to attend to the crime scene.

Later, Perry and Burger confer. Perry notes that the murder occurred by 1:30 AM, but the D.A. got the call from Jeff at 2. This suggests Jeff is trying to protect Fred. Burger explains that once after a hunting mishap, Jeff carried him three miles through an icy marsh. He saved Burger's life, but in doing so lost two toes to frostbite. The D.A. will disqualify himself from the prosecution, and Perry agrees to defend Jeff "even if he did save your life."

At an ice rink, Perry and Della talk with Vita. She says that the party broke up around 12:45, although Asa had left earlier. Vita says Denver escorted her to the guest cottage, then apparently went to his personal cottage, where he spent his nights. He had mentioned that he intended to go hunting in the morning. She claims she barely knew the Leonards, and there was nothing personal between her and Denver.

In jail, Jeff admits that he knew about the bad check charge Denver was holding over Fred. He was angered when his son returned, extremely drunk. He went to Denver's cottage, but the lights were out and he stumbled around. He saw Denver on the floor, but he was breathing. That's when he went home and called Burger. Perry is called away to hear from Tragg that the case is nearly ready for indictment. Hal is there, and he says he told the police where to find the bullet, still basing his account on the lie Jeff told him about being shot by Denver. Tragg says that the murder weapon was Denver's own shotgun, used as a club. The only fingerprints on it are Denver's and Jeff's. Perry returns to Jeff and sternly demands the whole truth.

In court, Darryl Teshman (Dennis Patrick) introduces himself to the judge (S. John Launer) as the special prosecutor appointed by the state Attorney General to try the case. Dr. Hoxie (Michael Fox) testifies that marks on the shotgun exactly match the pattern of wounds on the skull, so only it could be the murder weapon. On cross examination, Perry asks if the wounds, including one on the top of the head, might have been dealt to a man who'd already fallen, and Hoxie says they could. Tragg testifies that the gun had been thrown into some junk by the side of the road that leads from the ranch to the gun club or to the main highway. He says that there was gun-cleaning material laid out on a small table. Perry demonstrates how the shotgun could have been leaning against this table when Jeff, stumbling in the dark, bumped into it and grabbed it as it fell. Burger, watching the proceedings from the gallery, is pleased, but Teshman objects and is sustained.

Joan testifies she finished washing the dishes at 1:30 AM and told ranch hand Pedro Guitterez (John A. Alonzo), who was drying, that he could go home. Then she retired to her bedroom in the main house. She knew her husband and Jeff had differences over Fred, but was unaware of the details. As Fred left around 12:30, she mentioned to Denver and Vita that he was too drunk to drive, but they just laughed. Pedro testifies that as he started home, he saw Jeff walking to Denver's cottage. As he walked, he looked back and saw someone with a flashlight near the barn. He thought it was Hal. He heard but did not see Jeff's truck driving away, as there were no headlights.

Hal testifies to the intention he and Jeff shared to put Denver is prison. He assumed Jeff got cold feet on seeing the D.A. The police were able to find the bullet in a couple minutes, since Hal told them exactly where to look, based on where Jeff said he had been standing when shot. Perry says that Jeff himself had spent over an hour on hands and knees looking for that bullet, unsuccessfully. Hal admits that he had taken the bullet himself earlier, intending to see Denver prosecuted in any case. He goes into a tirade about how Denver was mistreating his wife, cheating, stealing, and ruining the ranch.

During a recess, Della and Pedro are in Denver's cottage, stomping and dropping things to make noise. Perry listens from the guest cottage. It's reasonably quiet with the window closed, but once Perry opens it there's quite a din. He is joined by Joan, and the two of them go to the other cottage, where Della shows Joan one of Denver's jackets that had been lying around. She says it's the one he was wearing earlier that evening, and goes to hang it up. Della shows Perry a handkerchief she took from the jacket, and indicates to Perry he should look at a lipstick smear on it.

Back in court, Perry reviews Asa's testimony about times, and shows that he's been evasive. The judge orders him to answer questions directly from now on. Asa says the he sleeps with the window open. Perry doubts he could have slept through the noise coming from Denver's cottage and doubts that he really was asleep, and possibly not even there when Vita came. He had evidence that Vita got shots for tropical diseases a couple weeks to the murder, and it was known that Denver had planned a trip to Cuba. Was she going with him? He asks if Vita used a shade of lipstick called Latin Flame. Teshman objects, and from his seat Burger mutters "Oh sit down. Be quiet.", then "Good!" when the judge overrules. Asa says he doesn't know about the lipstick, which Perry reveals as the shade found on Denver's handkerchief.

Vita, rising from her seat, says that Asa wasn't in the guest cottage when she arrived, and that he must have known about her affair with Denver. Asa admits he went out with a flashlight for a long walk, and while out saw the truck leaving. When he returned, Vita was there, apparently asleep. Vita takes the stand and confirms hearing the truck around 1:30 and that Asa came to the guest cottage later. Perry asks if she thinks her husband was the killer. It had to be someone who was hiding in the shadows and saw Jeff grab the shotgun. Vita begins to sob, but Hal tells her she needn't continue. "Mr. Mason knows who saw Pike leave his fingerprints on that gun. He's been aiming at me all along. I killed Leonard. I killed the gasbag."

Later at the gun club, Jeff, Perry, and Burger wonder if Vita really cared for Denver or just wanted to make sure he really put her in an ice show. Jeff feels sorry for Hal, who let himself get so angry about Denver's misdeeds that he resorted to murder. Perry says that wasn't the entire story - there was a blackmail scheme gone awry. It came out in Hal's confession that he dug up the bullet in order to blackmail Denver with it, as he still believed the Denver-shot-Jeff story. Of course, Denver wouldn't even know what Hal was talking about. Fred is leaving for Tahoe, where he has obtained a good job. He's promised that he'll handle the matter of the forged check on his own. Burger gets the last word: "I think I won this case."