- A model is charged with murdering a fashion designer after trying to recover documents showing they had an affair. In addition she was found with drawings of the new fashions which are being stolen from the company to make knockoffs.
- Madge Wainwright, owner of an exclusive women's wear store, sees cheap knockoffs of designs she is selling for big bucks and complains irately to fashion house owner Wally Dunbar and chief designer Rick Stassi, who decide to scrap their previous work and create new designs with model Kitty Wynne as the focus. Madge and Rick were once an item. Wally is seeing Kitty, who also has a history with Rick. Assistant designer Lisa Ferrand wants Rick, but he spurns her. Lisa's husband, photographer and lush Bud Ferrand, shoots a series of Kitty in the new designs. Wally discusses design security with Perry Mason, who assigns the case to Paul Drake, who follows Kitty to Rick's house and finds sketches of the new designs in her car. Newspaper ads appear for a competitor with the new Dunbar designs. Rick is killed and Kitty charged with murder.—richardann
- Perry Mason is approached by one of his regular clients, Wally Dunbar, the owner of a fashion house whose new designs are being stolen by the competition. He's already lost one customer, upscale boutique owner Madge Wainwright, after she sees the cheap knock-off of an expensive coat sold by Dunbar in a department store window. Perry gets Paul Drake on the case and they soon have men keeping an eye on Dunbar's offices. There are several employees who could be at fault here but when Dunbar's clothing designer Rick Stassi is murdered model Kitty Wynne is arrested. She had been seeing Dunbar, so Perry defends her at the preliminary hearing. Stassi and Kitty has once been involved but that was often the case with Stassi who had affairs with several women, including Madge Wainwright and his assistant, Lisa Ferrand, who is married.—garykmcd
- Madge Wainwright (June Vincent) is walking her dog when she looks in a store window. Shocked, she rushes in and starts removing the dress from a manikin, over the window dresser's protests. At Dunbar, Inc., she complains to new owner Wally Dunbar (John Lupton) that she found a $27.50 knock-off of a new Dunbar original that she'd planned to sell for $200 at her exclusive boutique. Rick Stassi (Stephen Bekassy), the designer at Dunbar enters. Wally explains that Madge says she used to work there, but Rick apologizes for being bad at remembering faces. Madge says she's returning the entire line and won't do business with them again, then leaves. Wally says that's the third cancellation in a week, and he's worried. Rick takes the knock-offs philosophically and is more excited about their new line of bathing suits. However, Wally rips up the new designs, saying he wants the line done over from scratch, with increased security measures in place.
The work is underway, with head seamstress Lisa Ferrand (Rita Lynn) making adjustments to a bikini worn by model Kitty Wynne (Terry Huntingdon), who's dating Wally. Rick calls Kitty into his office to check her outfit, and alludes to his possession of notes from her during a brief period when they dated. She asks what he wants. He laughs, then grabs and kisses her. She runs out, yelling "I hate you! I could kill you!", loud enough to be overheard by Yvonne (Maura McGiveney), another model who is hovering outside.
When the design phase is over, Wally goes to Perry for advice concerning security in the upcoming higher-risk phase involving photographs of the new line, showings to selected major customers, etc. He particularly wants an eye kept on competitor Simon Atley (Paul Langton). Perry, quoting Judge Learned Hand, explains that there is no copyright or patent protection for fashion designs, but the unpublished drawings, photographs, etc., can be protected as private property. Wally says this is sufficient - once his new designs go on sale to the public, it's too late for the knock-offs to do him significant damage. Perry will have Paul set up security.
Lisa and Rick have both been working late and are about to leave. She suggests they go have a drink. Uninterested, he suggests she go out with her husband for a change. Paul arrives outside the photography studio and learns from his operative Charlie (Robert Bice) that Kitty arrived shortly before. Inside, photographer Bud Ferrand (John Anderson) seems more interested in his drink than work, but Kitty says the three suits they've photographed her in are all there are for now. The other things in her suitcase are just her own clothes. The phone rings, and Kitty says if it's Wally to tell him that she's already left. However, it's Lisa, who called to tell Bud she's out with Rick. Bud acts mildly disappointed, but once he hangs up he breaks a bottle over the phone.
Paul arrives outside Rick's house and notices Kitty's car. He find the suitcase, with the drawings of the new designs inside it. Later, he explains to Perry and Wally that he found the designs missing during a check and went to Rick's house on a hunch. After Kitty came out of the house, he followed her back to the Dunbar Building, where she left the suitcase, as Paul took it. Wally thinks no harm has been done, but Della comes in with the paper. There's an ad for Atley Wear, with illustrations that are copies of the new Dunbar line. Perry has Della call Rick, but she gets Lt. Tragg, who says Rick is there in body, but not in spirit.
Perry and Wally go to Rick's house, where they find Lisa waiting outside. Sgt. Macready (Herbert Patterson) says she was picked up on suspicion of drunk driving and named Rick as someone who could confirm that she only had a couple of drinks. Lisa says that she hadn't really been with Rick - it was just the first thing that came into her head. Macready says Rick was shot next to his car, apparently after a struggle, judging from the shot that went wild and hit a post. Tragg comes out with a gun, saying it's registered to Wally, who says he gave it to Rick weeks ago as a security measure. Tragg releases Lisa, but asks Wally to come with him voluntarily to answer some questions. Perry doesn't object, as long as Tragg's questions are about Wally's personal experience of the past night.
Perry, having learned that Kitty has been arrested for murder, visits her in jail. She says she went to Rick's house and looked in all the rooms, but he wasn't there. She explains that she had dated Rick for a brief period, during which she sent him some notes and posed for him. Afraid that Rick would threaten to lie to Wally about the innocent nature of their relationship, she searched the house for the notes and drawings. She found them, grabbed her coat, and left. Once she got home, she burned the notes and drawings. She has no idea what the design drawings were doing in her suitcase.
Perry visits Atley and explains that the lack of copyright law for fashions won't shield him from a charge of knowingly acquiring stolen property. Perry also notes that the designs in Atley's ad lack the little finishing touches that Lisa added to Rick's design. Atley says he paid Rick $25,000 for designs that he drew while sitting there as Atley watched him. No one else was involved. Later, Perry speculates that Rick put the designs in Kitty's suitcase. Paul reports that the police found ashes in Kitty's suitcase and might be able to reconstruct some of the potential blackmail material. Also, there was a crumpled $100 bill on the floor of her closet and another in her car.
In court, forensics technician Ellis (Bill Idelson) identifies the murder gun, which he says was little-used, had streaks of gun oil from being wiped, and had a strand of linen caught in the breach. Madge Wainwright testifies that she'd called Rick at work that night, trying to track down a friend, and spoke to both him and Lisa. She also says that when she worked at Dunbar, she knew all about Kitty dating Rick and the "nearly nude" posing. She says they obviously had a serious relationship, but Kitty shouts "No! That's not true!" On cross-examination, she says that Rick gave special attention to all the attractive women at Dunbar, for a while. She says that included herself, but is silent when Perry asks her for how long, and he lets it drop. Yvonne testifies about what she overheard (since no client of Perry's ever threatens to kill someone without it coming out in court). Miller (Victor Rodman), the Dunbar outside night watchman, testifies that when he came on duty at 10:30 he locked the parking lot, but paused to let Rick drive out. He mentions that his duties included cranking up the open windows of cars in the lot and adjacent streets if it threatened to rain. Tragg testifies that there were intermittent showers, so cars around Rick's house left muddy tracks. The only ones were Kitty's, Paul's, and Rick's (which was still there). He identifies a linen handkerchief with a K.W. monogram as having been found on the ground outside Rick's house. Tests showed that it was stained with the type of gun oil found on the murder weapon.
As court recesses, a stunned Kitty confirms she does have handkerchiefs like that. When asked, she describes the car coat she was wearing, took off when she entered Rick's house, and put on again as she left. Della finds it at her house and shows Perry how the slit leads either into the pocket or through the coat. Perry thinks that the murderer was hiding when Kitty entered, took a handkerchief from the coat, wiped the gun with it, then put it back in the coat along with two $100s in order to frame Kitty. However, the three items were really just in a fold of the coat and gradually fell out - one on the ground, one in Kitty's car, and one in her closet.
Paul testifies that he saw no one except Kitty at Rick's house. Burger thanks him for being a cooperative witness. On cross, he says that it was drizzling and he did not see Rick, only his car. Recalled, Miller says that despite the poor visibility, he's sure that he saw Rick. He was alone in his car, unless someone was flat on the floor. Perry describe some cars and Miller doesn't remember having cranked up the windows of any of them. However, in the case of a pink '59 T-bird, that's because it had power windows, which he couldn't operate without the key. Madge says that's her car. Back on the stand, she says that the friend she was looking for when she called Rick was Atley. Later, she left her car there for Atley, who didn't want his own car recognized, and walked home. Atley was waiting in the parking lot for Rick, who wanted more money, and Atley needed to work it out with him. However, when the lot was about to close at 10:30 he wasn't sure what to do. Atley himself shouts that he never had any dealings with Madge, and is removed from the court by the bailiff. Perry says what by now is fairly obvious, that she's attributing to Atley things that actually happened to herself. She admits that she's the one who drove Rick's car off the lot. He couldn't do it, because she'd already killed him.
At a public showing of the new swimsuit line, Perry says that Madge had been Rick's accomplice in the past and wanted a share of his new deal with Atley. They were in his car, arguing, and the gun was right there. Paul adds that she drove the car to Rick's house to look for the money. She fired a shot into a post to convince the police that the murder occurred there. Then he pauses to watch Kitty and the other models, saying "Sometimes this business if fun."
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