- A lonely heiress, Marylin Clark, looks for a con man who swindled her sister through a lonely hearts magazine, leading to the sister's death. Marylin finds Charles Barnaby, but he winds up dead, and she is charged with murder.
- Edmund Lacey runs a lonely hearts magazine where people respond to ads in it. One particular ad has been placed by a woman who says she inherited a considerable fortune and is quite good looking. She receives volumes of replies but has not responded to any of them. Lacey contacts Paul Drake to help determine who she is saying the postal service is concerned he may be abetting fraud. Paul is able to compose a letter that does get a response that Lacey intercepts. His real desire is to have the con man Charles Barnaby make contact with her to swindle her. On the other end she is looking for the man who she blames for the death of her sister. Barnaby makes contact saying he is land poor with money needed to finish drilling for oil on his property. He falls for the heiress Marylin Clark who is indeed quite beautiful. He decides to cut Lacey out of most of the profits while at the same time his female partner Delores Coterro becomes jealous of the beautiful Marylin. When Barnaby dies from poisoned champagne just before their marriage, her step-brother George Moore brings in Perry to defend her.—Anonymous
- George Moore (Richard Crane) enters the office of Lacey Publishing and takes the mail from Box 96. Agnes Sims (Betty Lou Gerson) sees him and tells her partner Edmund Arthur Lacey (Robert H. Harris) about it. Lacey tries to follow George, but gets a powerful sock in the face for his trouble. He goes to Paul Drake's office and explains his lonely-hearts magazine to Paul, drawing attention to an ad from an attractive 23-year-old woman with a big inheritance. Lacey needs to prove to the postal authorities that this isn't a fraud, and his own efforts to find her have been unsuccessful (and painful). Paul charges him $200, then composes a letter in which he frankly admits he's writing because she's rich, and which he'll mail to Box 96.
In her home, Marilyn Clark (Kathleen Crowley) reads a letter that sounds like Paul's to George, her step-brother. However, this letter is from a Charles B. Bartleby. Despite George's doubts, she answers it with an invitation to meet. When she meets Charlie, he's unsure of himself and something of a rube, but Marilyn is charmed. Later, Lacey phones Paul to call him off, saying that Marilyn has revealed herself, and the postal authorities are satisfied. In fact, Lacey is with Charlie, who has dropped his rustic accent, and Charlie's accomplice Delores (Anna Navarro), who plays the jealous other woman in the "blow off" of their con game. Although Marilyn might be good for up to $75,000, Charlie will only let Lacey have $1000. Lacey can't go to the police, because he interfered with the U.S. mails when he substituted Charlie's letter for Paul's original one.
The con game enters its next stage as Charlie tells Marilyn that he needs money to pay for drilling for oil on his land, or he'll lose everything. Her solution is that they get married, and they kiss. Paul goes to Perry, worried that Lacey's shenanigans could cost him his license. Deciding he needed to know what was going on, he tailed Marilyn (who really is a wealthy heiress) and saw her getting a certified check for $50,000 from her bank. Marilyn also met Charlie, whom Paul recognized as a well-known con man. Paul saw Charlie purchase a wedding ring, then pick up two airline tickets to Rio at a travel agency. Perry recommends that Paul inform the bunco squad.
Lacey is lurking around outside Charlie's motel bungalow when Marilyn arrives and enters. They're about to get married, and Marilyn gives Charlie the certified check. Charlie brings out some champagne, but he's still doing his bumbling act and has to hunt around for glasses. Delores enters and goes into her screaming, furniture wrecking act, which frightens Marilyn off. As she's leaving, Delores gives Charlie a good whack on the head, and he falls to the floor. Lt. Kramer (Robert B. Williams) of the bunco squad enters, expecting to arrest Charlie and Delores, but Charlie is dead.
A distraught Delores confesses to Lt. Tragg, who informs her that Charlie wasn't kill by the blow, but by poison. He orders an APB for the arrest of Marilyn. George asks Perry for help and brings her to Marilyn. She explains that a year ago, her sister fell for Charlie's con game, became pregnant by him, and committed suicide after he left with her money. She left a diary with the detailed story, giving Marilyn the information she needed to lure Charlie into trying the same thing with her, so she could turn him over to the authorities. Poison was never part of the plan. Marilyn doesn't want to turn herself in, but Perry makes it a condition for helping her.
Perry interviews Delores and points out that she and Lacey are also possible suspects in the murder. On his way out, he has to dodge an ashtray thrown at him by the temperamental Delores. A little later, Lacey is taking money from the safe in his private office, when Delores starts shooting at the door from the outside, shouting "Assassino!". She enters, but has exhausted her rounds. Tragg enters and arrests both her and Lacey. They were tipped off about Lacey by Agnes, who realized that he was absconding with her share of the lonely-hearts profits as well as his own.
In court, Lacey can't explain what he was doing outside Charlie's bungalow on the night of the murder. George admits that if anything happened to Marilyn, he would inherit her fortune. Delores testifies that on the day the blow off concluding the con game was to occur, she followed their standard procedure. She packed, paid off the motel bill, picked up airline tickets, then waited out of sight until the moment for her betrayed woman act came. She refuses to answer Perry's cross-examination questions, so Perry agrees to defer them until after Burger has a chance to explain the consequences to her. The autopsy surgeon (Robert McQueeney) testifies that Charlie was killed with prussic acid, which was in the champagne bottle. After adjournment, Paul and Della go to the motel to reenact how the poisoning could have occurred. Perry's unhappy, because Marilyn could have added the poison while Charlie was getting glasses, and he can't find an alternative. Della draws a comparison to a ship in a bottle, which gives Perry an idea.
Delores is back on the stand, now prepared to answer Perry. He goes on the attack immediately, pointing out that when she picked up tickets (to Hawaii) at the travel agency, she could have found out about the two to Rio that Charlie had already picked up. He was planning on abandoning her and really going off with Marilyn. He produces a hypodermic syringe like one that Delores bought the day before the murder. She responds that she's a diabetic, as her doctor can verify. Perry seems nonplussed for moment, but then points out that a diabetic's syringe would have a needle much shorter than the 2-inch needle on the one Delores bought. However, it's perfect for injecting poison through the cork of a champagne bottle. Delores breaks down and confesses. "If I don't have him, nobody can!"
In his office, Perry explains that Delores shot at Lacey just to avert suspicion from herself. She had no intention of hitting him. The one thing that got Perry thinking about her was the wedding ring Charlie bought, which he wouldn't need unless he planned to really marry Marilyn.
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