After a two year absence, Hartley Bassett returns to his home and business on the very day that his company is to be reorganized. He picks up where he left off, taunting his wife, abusing his employees, and in general, tweaking the noses of all of his employees. Of course he ends up dead. But how is a little unusual. He is lying on the floor of his old office, a piece of toupee clutched in one hand. His stepson Dick (Robert Redford), who hates him too, laughs when his body is discovered. Dick's recently wedded bride , Teddy, was in the next room and said that she saw the killer. Teddy then conveniently disappears.
Prior to the murder, Peter Dawson, who headed the company in Hartley's absence, has come to Perry Mason to ask his help in protecting the company from Hartley's rampaging. Dawson wears a toupee, and one of them is missing. It is part of that missing toupee that is in Hartley Bassett's hand when he died. So Perry Mason is on yet another contracts case turned murder.
There were several things that were never cleared up. Hartley Bassett never said where he was for the past two years or why he was there instead of home. He never even claimed to have amnesia. It would have seemed that the business AND his wife would have had a counter argument concerning his neglect of both, but Perry Mason didn't even mention it.
It was interesting to see Robert Redford as the preppy, short tempered, somewhat spoiled stepson of the victim. This was Redford's first year as an actor on film and TV, with eight credited TV appearances before this one.
This is worthwhile viewing, but it's not one of the better episodes of Perry Mason.