- The only witness to a rich man's murder is his parrot, who keeps repeating the suspect's name. But in court, everyone is surprised at what the bird says next. Perry does his magic at an informal coroner's Inquest in a rural area.
- Charles Sabin is a wealthy investor who has a rather gruff personality. He is leaving on a fishing trip to a remote cabin he owns but as he leaves he accuses his step-daughter Helen Watkins of stealing from him. He has a pet parrot Casanova who does a couple of tricks and parrots some funny answers. As he leaves he gives orders to his secretary Richard Waid to handle some tasks. Sabin is found dead in his cabin with a parrot saying Helen should turn over a gun. Sabin's wife Stephanie Sabin along with Helen visit Perry who handles some of Sabin's legal business for help. Perry visits the cabin where the Sheriff and a local teacher of criminology are interpreting the evidence. Perry notices a library book that leads him to the librarian Ellen Monteith who says she recently married Sabin making him a bigamist. Ellen is arrested while a Coroner's Inquest is called to determine cause of death. Coroner Andy Templet runs a very informal inquest where Perry re-interprets the evidence.—Anonymous
- Charles Sabin (Maurice Manson) returns home and starts being mean to everyone except his talkative parrot Casanova (voice of Mel Blanc). He ignores his wife Stephanie (Fay Baker), complains his secretary Richard Waid (Dan Barton) hasn't taken good care of Casanova, and accuses his step-daughter Helen Watkins (Pamela Branch) of theft. He's about to go to his cabin near Logan City for some fishing, and orders Richard to stand by the phone, ready at a moment's notice to fly to Denver to pick up papers once a deal is closed. Stephanie has had enough of Charles' peremptory attitude and says she's not going with him - ever.
A few days later, Fred Bascomb (Robert Griffin), owner of a neighboring lodge, looks into Charles' cabin and sees his body on the floor, plus a loose parrot saying "Helen, give me that gun. Don't shoot!" (Note: Despite how Bascomb is listed on IMDb, he is definitely not a coroner.) Soon, Stephanie and Helen are paying a call on Perry, who has done legal work for Charles. They explain that Stephanie drove Helen to her academy then went to a hotel, because she's planning to divorce Charles. Instead of staying at school, Helen came to the hotel, where she stayed with Stephanie. Unfortunately, they forgot to register Helen as an additional guest until a few days later, after the murder.
Perry and Della visit the cabin, where they meet Sheriff Barnes (Frank Ferguson) and Edward Langley (Joseph Kearns), who teaches criminology at the local college. They explain what they've already gleaned from the evidence. They found one string of trout, indicating Charles was still alive when fishing season began Tuesday morning. His alarm clock was set for 5:30 AM and both the clock and the alarm were wound down, so he got up early. He returned for lunch and must have been hungry since he didn't wait to clean the fish he'd just caught. Langley concludes that Charles was killed some time not long past 11 AM on Tuesday. Also found were some women's clothes that Stephanie had said weren't hers or Helen's. Langley says they could be lying, but the sheriff thinks there could have been another woman later. Meanwhile, Perry notices a cookbook from the Logan City library. Richard arrives and is asked to account for his whereabouts. He says that on Monday night he went to Denver in response to a call from Charles. He adds that Charles had mentioned he was calling from a pay phone because the phone in his cabin was dead, and Langley verifies this.
In Logan City, Perry asks librarian Ellen Monteith (Jody Lawrance) who checked out the cookbook, and Ellen admits it was her. She was devastated when she saw the photo in the paper of Charles as a murder victim, since she recognized him as the man she knew as George Walman. They met in the library and discovered similar interests, and Ellen found him to be the kindest, gentlest man she'd ever met. A couple weeks ago they were married in Las Vegas, and George borrowed the cabin for their honeymoon. When they went there, George found a gun - Ellen kept it for protection when working late - in her car and brought it into the cabin. After a week, George said he had to go away for a few days, which is the last Ellen ever saw of him. She forgot to take her gun and a few clothing items when she left the cabin.
Paul reports that Charles' will divides his estate between Stephanie and his brother Arthur. Helen's alibi doesn't hold up - she actually worked as a waitress for a few days between leaving school and showing up at Stephanie's hotel. When Perry next visits Stephanie, the papers are full of Ellen's arrest. Stephanie thinks that the idea of being a bigamist might have amused Charles. At least the arrest gets her daughter off the hook - the parrot must have been saying "Ellen", not "Helen". She has a cousin who's a lawyer, so Perry won't be representing her any longer. She mentions that she's never met Arthur, who's something of a drifter, but Charles said he trusted him. Perry next visits handwriting expert Rufus Bolding (Howard Culver), whom Charles consulted about forged checks totaling $10,000. He supplied Bolding with the cancelled checks and a sample of Helen's handwriting, but they didn't match. He had told Charles this when he called on Monday, and Charles said he'd supply samples of others' handwriting, but Bolding never received any.
At the inquest in Logan City, coroner Andy Templet (Edgar Buchanan) insists there will be a lack of procedural formalities and technicalities. Fred describes how he noticed Charles' car parked at the cabin at a time when he hadn't seen him around. Therefore, he looked in through the window. His visibility was somewhat limited by the reflection, but he could see a few things: the body on the floor, the parrot walking around, and the table with papers on it. He also noticed Ellen driving in the vicinity. She tells Perry that she was hoping to recover her things from the cabin, but changed her mind when she saw people around. On cross-examination, he explains how Charles had bought the land that was the best spot for fishing and posted no-trespassing signs, which was not good for Fred's lodge.
District Attorney Ray Sprague (Jason Johnson) produces the parrot that was found at the murder scene and in the sheriff's custody every since. He gets the parrot to utter the "Helen (or Ellen) give me that gun. Don't shoot." line and demands that it be entered in evidence. Perry doesn't object, but requests and is granted the right to "cross-examine" the bird, even though it's obviously not a sworn witness. Stephanie comes forward and attempts one of Casanova's tricks, to perch on a finger extended toward it. Instead, the bird tries to bite her. She next says "Are you a lazy bird?" but instead of saying Casanova's response of "I'm a very busy bird", it asks for a martini. It's clear that this bird is not Casanova, although the significance of that fact to the case is unclear.
Next Langley, who clearly imagines himself a modern Sherlock Holmes, strings together assorted observations to conclude that Charles was murdered around the time Ellen was seen in the area. This gives her opportunity, which combined with her undisputed motive (drawn into a bigamous marriage) and means (her gun), is enough to convince Langley that she must be the killer. However, Perry starts poking holes in Langley's chain of reasoning. When did he lay down a new fire that he never lit: the previous night (on top of hot coals)? in the morning (when Langley says he was in such a hurry to go fishing that he didn't shut off his alarm but let it run down)? or when he came back for lunch (when Langley says he was in such a hurry to eat that he didn't clean the fish he'd caught)? Perry concludes that the facts all fit if you accept that the murder took place Monday evening. The fire for Monday night was never lit because Charles was dead by the time it was cold enough for a fire. Langley protests that Charles would never have started fishing before the opening of the season, but Perry counters that the murderer would have no such qualms, and could have caught fish to confuse the time of death. It follows that the murder was planned well in advance, since it would have taken a great deal of time to train the substitute parrot to make the desired incriminating remarks. Presumably, the murderer brought along a weapon, but took advantage of finding Ellen's gun in the cabin. Furthermore, if he was killed when Perry believes, then Charles could not have called when Richard said he did.
Richard takes the stand and admits that he lied about the call. He'd gotten in a financial bind and resorted to forging checks. Knowing Charles would inevitably learn who was the forger, he planned to kill him. He brought the parrot he'd trained to a shack near the cabin, where he had a phone tap. That's how he learned that Bolding had the forged checks, and in a murder case they'd certainly end up being traced to him, so he couldn't kill Charles. Instead, he went to the cabin to beg for mercy, but found Charles dead. Knowing he would be an obvious suspect, he went ahead with the parrot-switching and fishing parts of his plan, hoping his alibi would hold up. He examined the papers on the table for anything that might incriminate him, put them back in Charles' briefcase, went to the airport, pretended to receive a call for the benefit of observers, then caught the plane to Denver. Perry has the court clerk/reporter (Jesslyn Fax) read back Fred's testimony about seeing the papers on the table. He could have only seen them like that earlier, when he murdered Charles. That probably explains why he's fled the courtroom.
As the sheriff runs off after Fred, Ellen gets a tap on the back, turns around, and rushes into the arms of her husband. It's Arthur Sabin, who met and married her under the name George Walman, which he adopted years earlier to disassociate himself from Charles. Perry says this didn't surprise him, because it was hard to believe that Charles, who was a total loss for everyone else, could be the kindest, gentlest man Ellen had ever met. He also admits that Richard looked guilty until his completely logical mention of putting the papers back in the briefcase made everything fit. Coroner Templet says the fact that neatness saved Richard's life should be a lesson for Della, who needs to clean up all the papers that are strewn around.
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