- Con Bolton is a poor club singer hoping to save enough to marry Irma Hodge, who hopes to inherit money from her dead father. But her stepfather is standing in the way of both events. Con is charged when the stepfather is murdered.
- Perry defends Con Bolton who is accused of killing his future step-father-in-law, Sumner Hodge. Hodge was a bombastic and demanding individual in both his personal and business lives. His step-daughter Irma hated him and Sumner was dead set against the marriage, even to the point of faking an assassination attempt to try and implicate Con. In addition, Irma is to inherit considerable money from her father's estate which Sumner is threatening to hold up. Even his twin brother Adrian Hodge admits that his brother is a dominating Napoleon. When Sumner is killed in a car accident - his brakes had been tampered with - Bolton is arrested. Bolton had been seen working under the car before Sumner left in it. Leo Lazaroff hated the man, believing Hodge stole an idea from his brother that made him lots of money. His business partner Jack Talley was also planning to end their business relationship and Sumner was in the process of buying him out.—garykmcd
- Irma Hodge (Natalie Trundy) is in the study of her stepfather, Sumner Hodge (Philip Ober), loudly arguing with him about her boyfriend, Con Bolton (Paul Carr), who had left the house shortly before. He forbids her to see Con any more, and the entrance of Irma's mother, Mona (Ann Rutherford) fails to ease the tension. Irma vows that "Napoleon" (Sumner's disparaging nickname) won't stop her from marrying Con. When Mona and Irma are alone, the mother says that Sumner does indeed have the power to keep Irma from any share of the family fortune, although she had long been promised a large amount. Later, Sumner fires a rifle at a bust of Napoleon Bonaparte in his study, then enters it before Irma and Mona arrive and claims that someone shot at him.
The next day, Lt. Andy Anderson arrives at Sumner's outer office at Hodge and Talley - manufacturers of dental supplies. Secretary Sally Young (Pat Priest, Marilyn on The Munsters) informs Sumner, then turns to to see Jack Talley (Lonny Chapman). The junior partner reveals that he's selling his interest in the business back to the company and heading for South America. In his private office, Sumner is demanding police protection. He's already told the police of the prior night's shooting and now mentions that he thought that a couple weeks earlier someone might have tried to run him over. He was returning to his car after seeing Con, whom Andy realizes is the same man who was in the Hodge home about an hour before the shooting. Although he's the one who mentioned Con in the first place, Sumner makes a big point of saying that he isn't accusing the young man of anything.
At the Lone Pine Club, where Con works as a folksinger, he's serenading Irma with his rendition of "I Gave My Love a Cherry" when Andy asks to talk to him privately. He tells Con about the shooting, which Con denies knowing anything about. After Andy leaves, the club owner (Vince Barnett) tells Con that if the police come for him again, he'll be out of a job. Con and Irma visit Adrian Hodge (Philip Ober in a dual role) at his antique shop. Adrian explains to Con that he was working at the dental supply firm when Irma's father died, and he introduced his brother to Mona, who needed help running the company. Before long, Sumner had control of both the business and the family. Adrian feels bad about his role and admits that he and his brother dislike each other. He mentions that the bust of Napoleon in Sumner's study was a gift Adrian intended as mockery. Irma wants Adrian to convince Sumner to stop interfering in her life and he agrees to try. He steps into his private office to place a call.
Missing from recent broadcasts of this episode are two explanations: Perry has been retained to contact Con and arrange for him to get an inheritance, which turns out to be a disappointing $1000. Sumner decides that the family should spend some time at their cabin on Lake Ganado, in the mountains near Los Angeles. He arranges for Jack to finish drawing up the papers that will finalize his buy-out, and then deliver them personally to the cabin.
Talley arrives at the cabin and finds Irma alone, as Sumner and Mona are boating. She gets a call from Con who wants her to join him in the nearby village, so she drives down in Sumner's car. Jack drops off the papers, leaves the house, and sees that Sumner and Mona are too far out for him to get their attention. He drives after Irma in his own car. After a while, Jack finds Irma in a diner in the village. He warns her that, even though Sumner is thoroughly unpleasant, he might be right about Con. Con enters, Irma wipes a smudge off his forehead, and they leave on Con's motorcycle, leaving the keys to Sumner's car with village handyman, Mr. Cooper (Tom Fadden), to return to Sumner.
Up at the lake, Mona and Sumner have just returned to the cabin when a call comes in from Jack, explaining what has happened. He believes Irma and Con are eloping. Sumner asks the deputy sheriff protecting him to give him a ride into the village. Once there, he finds a note in his car which, after reading, he angrily tears up. He tells Mr. Cooper to inform his wife and the deputy to inform L.A.P.D. that he's driving back to the city immediately. As he heads down the steep, winding road, his brakes fail and he crashes.
Andy comes to Perry's office. He found a letter from Perry in Con's apartment and wants help locating him, but Perry says he doesn't know Con's whereabouts. Andy warns Perry that if Con doesn't quickly explain his involvement with Sumner, there will be a warrant out for his arrest on a charge of murder. After Andy leaves, Perry asks Della about Con's girlfriend. Della has the number and gets Irma on the phone. Irma tells Perry to come to the antique shop where she's meeting Con. Perry arrives, finding only Irma and Adrian, who gets a call from Mona revealing Sumner's death. Perry gets a call from Paul with details on Sumner's death and says that Con is sitting in Della's office, hoping to get his $1000 immediately. Perry returns and questions Con about the murder and earlier shooting. Con denies any involvement and suggests that someone with an even better motive could be Leo Lazaroff (Dan Seymour), who claims Sumner stole an invention from him.
Perry visits Leo, who explains that his brother, Max, invented an improved plastic for use in filling teeth. However, Max, who was rather impractical, turned all his papers over to Hodge & Talley for evaluation, so when Max died of a seizure Leo had no evidence of his claim. Leo visited Sumner who said he'd investigate but, from then on, there were orders at the gate not to admit him. Perry checks this information with Jack, who says that Leo is a crank. The firm spent years perfecting the formula it was putting into production. He also reveals that Sumner, tired of differences of opinion with Jack, wanted him out of the firm as soon as possible. Therefore, the company had an immediate need of $200,000 in cash for the buy-out, enough to perhaps put Sumner's personal finances in a delicate position. Jack speculates that Sumner's objections to Con might have merely been an excuse not to give a large amount of money to Irma at this time. With Sumner dead, the deal is off. Presumably, Mona and Irma keep the money. Andy enters, saying the killer may have assumed the same thing. He arrests Con.
At the preliminary hearing, Mona testifies that Con visited Sumner at home just before the trip to Lake Ganado. It ended with Sumner knocking Con down the front steps. Irma admits that her father didn't leave a will. Her share of money was merely a long-standing promise from Mona and Sumner. Andy testifies that the master cylinder of Sumner's car had been intentionally punctured. Tests showed that the kind of damage inflicted would make the brakes fail around the point where they did, making this the cause of death. Jack testifies that, as he followed Irma into town, also a winding downhill road, her brakes appeared to be working perfectly, as far as he could tell. Mr. Cooper testifies that he saw Con underneath Sumner's car doing something to it. During a recess, Con tells Perry that he was trying to fix the brakes because Irma had said they pulled to one side. He never touched the master cylinder. Unsatisfied with his results, he told Irma to leave Sumner a note warning him about the brakes. Perry replies that doesn't sound like the note Sumner read, which contained something that made him suddenly decide to drive straight to L.A.
Leo testifies that Max's formula was a non-toxic epoxy that would make plastic fillings strong enough to use on the chewing surfaces of teeth. It would be worth millions. Perry asks him if, when Max said he handed the formula over to Hodge & Talley, he meant Hodge himself or the company. Max replies that he doesn't know but it makes no difference. Adrian testifies that he still spent time at the firm at the time of Max's claim and he tried to help. Adrian knew that Sumner kept a strongbox hidden somewhere but got caught looking for it in Sumner's office and was banished from the company grounds. Perry asks why someone as aggressive as Sumner would demand police protection. Adrian says his brother did something similar when they were kids."A teacher gave him a licking - not a bad one. He deserved it." Sumner added bruises and tears - so the teacher was nearly fired, while Sumner got an A. After that, all the teachers either pitied Sumner or feared him. Adrian suggests that Sumner could have faked the shooting in a similar ploy. However, he can't explain why Sumner would go to so much trouble. He admits that he and Mona were working together to figure out what Sumner was up to and that he had met her in the Lake Ganado village on the day of the murder.
With Mona back on the stand, Perry produces the strongbox, which the police found at the Hodge estate, and asks her to examine papers found inside. She doesn't recognizing most of the handwriting, but at the end is a note in Sumner's hand, "Sally, don't forget the list of agencies." Sally testifies that she was to type up the papers and send them to the firm's head chemist for testing. She did so and the chemist reported back that the process was perfect. The "list of agencies" meant that Sumner wanted a list of good private detective agencies.
Jack testifies that he can't explain what this all means because he was on his way out and no longer informed of company details. Perry refers back to his earlier testimony that the brakes on Sumner's car looked fine when Irma drove it. Both Irma and Mona are ready to testify that the brakes pulled to one side, with Irma also mentioning the warning note to Sumner. Jack agrees that this wouldn't have sent Sumner speeding off to L.A. Perry says that in the time between when Mr. Cooper saw Con under the car and when Sumner arrived, someone could have punctured the master cylinder and left a different note. Perry asks how the buy-out of Jack's share of H&T was being handled. Jack says that there would be five $40,000 checks drawn on the company, payable to bearer. Perry says that would make it easy for Sumner to cash most of the checks himself, thereby stealing from his own company. Jack would have to go along - because Sumner could prove that he was the one who stole Max Lazaroff's formula. Jack starts to deny this but Perry reminds him that Sumner had hired private detectives. The reason Sumner set up his demand for police protection was because he knew Jack had a motive to kill him. Jack admits that he tampered with the brakes and left a fake note from Irma, saying that she and Con were going to take everything from the strongbox. As they leave the courtroom, Perry admits to Burger that he has no idea what P.I. firm Sumner hired. He tells the D.A., "You don't expect me to do all your work, do you?"
Later, at the Lone Pine Club, Con is entertaining diners with his rendition of "This Train is Bound for Glory". Adrian wants to apologize to Mona for bringing Sumner into her life, but she says he's not to blame. Nevertheless, he comes with a peace offering, a new bust of Napoleon. Perry says that two's company, three's a crowd, and he's not sure what four is, so he leaves.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content