... and I'll get back to that.
The episode opens with a man entering a woman's bedroom with a butcher's knife in his hand. The woman awakens, sees the man, and begins screaming. Someone else enters the bedroom and awakens the man. He's been sleepwalking, and it looks like he planned to stab his wife to death.
We get caught up on everything we just saw with the next scene. Apparently the sleepwalking man was Peter Cole and the woman was his wife Doris. The scene is a conversation between Peter's partner Frank Maddox and Peter's soon to be ex wife, Doris. After the sleepwalking incident occurred Doris moved out of the house and filed for divorce. Her divorce will be final the following day. Frank Maddox has come up with a scheme to extort money from Peter in exchange for Doris not holding up the divorce even longer. We also see that Doris has not exactly been a loving and faithful wife to Peter given the passionate kisses that she and Frank Maddox share.
When Peter gets this ultimatum from Frank, he and his stepbrother, his other partner, employ Perry Mason. Perry comes up with a scheme that will turn the tables on Maddox and enable Frank to be free without paying extortion money. The parties all meet at Pete's house and decide to stay the night so things can be settled in the morning. That night Maddox and Cole's stepbrother change bedrooms at the last moment. The next morning Cole's stepbrother is found stabbed to death in his bed, and the murder weapon - a long and sharp kitchen knife from the cupboard - is found under Peter's pillow. Peter is missing, the obvious implication being that Peter stabbed his brother in his sleep, thinking that it was Maddox since those were the sleeping arrangements of which he was aware at the time he retired. What goes on here? Watch and find out.
Although it was a fascinating entry, I felt a couple of things were out of place. First, right before the divorce is final, we see Pete, his niece, and some woman named Lucille May celebrating his imminent divorce. We never see much of this woman. We don't know where this woman came from other than that she and Peter have waited fifteen years to be married, which is a phrase, unexplained, that is stated repeatedly. Why? Why didn't he marry her fifteen years ago rather than faithless greedy Doris? Questions never answered.
The other thing that was odd was that Perry gave a very important surveillance job that would normally go to Paul Drake to some twenty year old engaged to Pete Cole's niece who due to his inexperience could really mess up this vital task.
Finally let me just state that I would never employ Perry Mason for an attorney in some routine civil matter. Divorces, cheating spouses, business partner and trust disputes all evolve into murder cases at a time when being convicted of murder meant the gas chamber. Yikes!