Phyllis Coates

            On Sunday I was still stuffed up and horking during song practice.

Every Sunday morning there is a silver car that either cruises past the donut shop slowly or stops for a while as the driver peers across the street. He never gets out and no one ever comes to get in. He reminds me of a guy cruising for hookers but I don’t know if that’s what’s going on.

I watched an episode of Perry Mason. This story begins with Marian coming home starting to shout at her roommate Diana and telling her to get out. Diana says she has as much right there as she does. Marian pulls a gun and gives her five seconds. Diana grabs her arm and they struggle. The gun goes off and a bullet goes into the wall. Diana gets the gun from Marian and she is holding it when the building superintendent, Mr. Kessler bursts in. Diana tells him it was an accident and asks Marian to confirm that but she says nothing. The next day Diana is at work as a secretary on the estate of Matthew Bartlett. Bartlett’s stepson Tony comes in and kisses her next. She tells him to stop doing that and to stop spreading rumours about her to Marian. Diana is called away to talk with the gardener. Tony reads a letter that Diana has just opened that informs his stepfather that he has a four-year-old grandson. Tony takes the letter to his mother Helen because he’s worried that if Bartlett has a grandson it will affect his inheritance. Helen assures him that she won’t let anything stand in the way of his security. Diana has an apartment on the Bartlett estate and that evening she walks out of the shower to find Helen and Tony waiting for her in her room. Helen picks up a jewellery case belonging to Diana and pulls from it some of her own jewellery, accusing Diana of having stolen it and then she demands that she leave. Diana says she's staying there until Bartlett returns that night and then she’ll tell him about the missing letter concerning his grandson. Tony grabs her, slaps her hard and then throws her out. Diana goes straight to Perry Mason’s office in her bathrobe with a coat over it and with a black eye. Mason goes to see Bartlett the next day. He says he believes Diana and he’s also known that he’s had a grandson for five months. Lieutenant Tragg walks in and announces that Diana was murdered last night. Tragg asks them to come and identify the body. Bartlett looks at the body and tells Tragg that it’s not Diana but rather Marian. The police are looking for Diana because Marian was killed with a gun that Bartlett had given her. Diana shows up at Mason’s office the next day. She says that she’d received a call the night before telling her that her car had been stolen by Marian and that it had been involved in an accident. She took a bus to the location she’d been given, found her car, saw Marian’s body and ran away. Tragg arrives and arrests Diana. Mason visits Diana in jail. She tells him that it had been Marian that had been first offered the job working for Bartlett but she turned it down and recommended Diana even though Diana had no secretarial experience. Bartlett’s grandchild, Bobby used to visit Marian in their apartment, though Marian would always pick Bobby up and drop him off but his mother Norma never came. In court, Mason cross-examines Tony. He claims he didn’t give Diana a black eye but that he did throw her out rather than call the police over the alleged theft. Bartlett comes to offer his daughter-in-law, Norma $100,000 to give him custody of Bobby, and she accepts. The DA gets hold of Marian’s diary and Mason is allowed to spend a couple of hours reading it. He discovers that Marian was actually Bobby’s mother. Marian gave up Bobby to Norma, not realizing that Norma's plan had been to sell Bobby to Bartlett all along. Mason accuses Norma of killing Marian. Norma drives away and the police pursue her but she slams into a bus. In the hospital she admits that she killed Marian just before dying. Mason goes to see Bartlett, who is having a great time with Bobby. He tells him there is something that he should know but doesn’t have the heart to tell him Bobby isn’t genetically his grandson. Instead he tells him that he’ll need a woman to take care of Bobby and Bartlett asks if he thinks that Diana will be willing to take the job. Mason thinks so since she’s very fond of Bobby. Bartlett goes to call her.

Diana was played by Whitney Blake, who later co-created the sit-com One Day at a Time, which made a star out of Valerie Bertinelli. 

Helen was played by Irene Hervey, who acted in over fifty films and as many TV shows.

Norma was played by Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane in the first season of The Adventures of Superman in 1951 and the movie Superman and the Molemen.