Erle Stanley Gardner Trivia

1. Why does Mrs. Matilda Benson tell Perry Mason that she is a "dangerous dowager"?

From Quiz "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager"

Answer: She's old enough and rich enough to do darn well as she pleases.

Matilda Benson is an original with a capital "O". She is sixty-eighty but looks a young fifty. Mrs. Benson tells Perry that after her rich husband died, she threw off all traces of convention and started living exactly how she pleased. She does not carry a .410 derringer-loaded cane, but Mrs. Benson has been known to pack a .38 automatic in her purse. First published in 1937, "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager" is one the early Perry Mason mysteries written by Erle Stanley Gardner, whose long career as a mystery writer spanned four decades. His Perry Mason mysteries were so very readable because Gardner was himself an attorney and knew all the legal ins and outs first hand.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: The Case of the Waylaid Wolf

The clue is in the word "Wolf". Later on spoiled Loring Lamont ends up dead and Arlene ends up employing Perry Mason. Hamilton Burger (the D.A.) moves in for the kill when he suspects Perry has planted evidence on Arlene's behalf.

From Quiz Perry Mason Plots and Titles

Answer: The Case of the Mischievous Doll

First published in 1963, this novel is about two look alike girls; in the end Mason realises in the nick of time that there was only one girl and saves an innocent girl from the gallows!

From Quiz "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager"

Answer: Sylvia Oxman (her granddaughter)

Oh, what a tangled web that Mrs. Benson wants Perry to unravel! Her granddaughter, Sylvia Oxman, owes over $7,000.00 to Sam Grieb and Charlie Duncan, the owners of "The Horn of Plenty", a floating gambling casino out beyond the legal limit. The pressure is on Sylvia to pickup the IOU's, but she doesn't have the cash, and her not-so-nice estranged husband, Frank, is wanting the IOU's for his own nefarious scheme. Mrs. Benson wants Perry to redeem the IOU's without starting a bidding war between her and Frank Oxman.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: The Case of the Horrified Heirs

It is really a story of two widows. Loretta Trent is the one with all the money. Virginia Baxter is the one that ends up in the neatest of frames.

From Quiz "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager"

Answer: Paul Drake

Perry Mason takes the man who he knows will back him up in a tight spot-and who knows how to keep his mouth shut-his friend, private detective Paul Drake. Perry's simple, but clever plan, is to let Grieb think Paul Drake is Frank Ozman and then offer Grieb a small premium for the IOU's. It would have worked, too, but in walks Sylvia! Archie Goodwin was Nero Wolfe's right hand man, but Saul Panzer was the man Wolfe trusted the most after Archie. Do you remember Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, one of the best of the hardboiled genre? Writing as A.A. Fair, Erle Stanley Gardner wrote the mystery series that featured Donald Lam and Bertha Cool, also.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: Bride

"Coquette" is a word used by Erle Stanley Gardner in another of his titles. "If it hadn't been for you, I'd have been convicted of murder" is what the client says to Perry at the end of the case. Della Street, the ever faithful secretary, also plays a significant role in this case.

From Quiz Perry Mason Plots and Titles

Answer: The Case of the Moth Eaten Mink

"The Case of the Moth Eaten Mink" was first published in 1952 and was the first Mason case to be televised. Featuring a cop-killer case, the book ends with a shoot out with Lt. Tragg killing the villain who is none other than the head of the vice-squad!

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: Fugitive

"Begin in the middle," says Mason to his client as he gets the non-grieving widow to tell her story. He always likes to do things the unusual way. Della has already summed up Mrs. Malden as an "expensive toy" for Dr. Malden to keep up.

From Quiz Perry Mason Plots and Titles

Answer: The Case of the Shapely Shadow

First published in 1960, this book involves a twenty dollar bill which is a key issue in the case! In a stunning courtroom maneuver, Perry tricks the prosecution into handing the case to the jury without an argument. The jury takes just a few minutes to acquit Mason's client.

From Quiz "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager"

Answer: Pistol

Bert Custer and Marilyn Smith had stepped outside to do a little necking on deck when a pistol comes flying over their heads and splashes into the water. They were standing amidships right above Sam Grieb's office at the time.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: Glamorous

"They've got a bunch of gorillas covering the district attorney and he isn't in the happiest of moods this afternoon," reports Paul Drake to Perry Mason as he tries to get some information on a vital witness. Do you really think that Hamilton Burger ends up smiling?

From Quiz Perry Mason Plots and Titles

Answer: The Case of the Careless Cupid

"The Case of the Careless Cupid" was published in 1968 and starts with a shadowing case and ends with Mason unraveling the murder in the court room. An interesting facet of this case is how Mason uses the lie detector test to declare his client innocent and counters the DA's malicious media campaign.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: diamonds

The cops were searching the building for a young woman who had been in the private rooms of a jewellery company just along the corridor. Perry keeps quiet and pretty soon he is up to his neck in a case of murder.

From Quiz Perry Mason Plots and Titles

Answer: The Case of the Deadly Toy

This Mason novel was published in 1959 and features an interesting case where the murderer is supposed to be a young boy who has shot his father by mistake. Horace Selkirk tries to bully Mason into helping him, but in the end Mason plays a switching of witnesses trick which leaves Selkirk and the DA in tangles!

From Quiz "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager"

Answer: Della Street

Was there ever a more faithful "Girl Friday" than Della Street? As soon as she learned that the "Chief" had been present when Sam Grieb's body was discovered, she knew the police would try to serve him with a subpoena. She hurried right over to Perry's apartment and packed him a suitcase and arranges for him to hideout in the apartment adjoining hers. Then she hurries back to Perry's office and is there waiting for him when he shows up in the wee hours of the morning. Paul Drake told Della "Gee, Della, you're a good kid! I wish I could get someone who had just one percent as much loyalty for me as you have for Perry. How does he work it?"

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: Spurious

In this case Perry talks about his moment of revelation. He compares it to an optical illusion when you think you see a flight of black stairs going up but what you actually are looking at is a flight of white stairs going down. Lies turn into truth. Truth turns into lies and that's how he realised that the woman was "spurious" or false.

From Quiz "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager"

Answer: He saw Mrs. Benson throw a gun into the ocean.

Frank Oxman had 500,000 reasons to frame Sylvia, his estranged wife, for murder. Sylvia's $500,000.00 trust fund would then go to the couple's six-year old daughter, and Frank would get custody of both the child and the trust. Frank's motive for wanting Sylvia's gambling IOU's in the first place was so he could prove her incapable of managing it herself. "The Case of the Dangerous Dowager" was first published 1937 and $500,000.00 was a lot of money back then.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: Bonanza

Only Erle Stanley Gardner could come up with a contract which seems to be about selling clothes but which is actually a trick so that an unscrupulous man can cash in on the jackpot or the bonanza.

From Quiz Perry Mason Plots and Titles

Answer: The Case of the Fabulous Fake

"The Case of the Fabulous Fake" was first published in 1969. Mason's client is trying to find out who was blackmailing her brother and ends up being accused of murder! The case ends with Mason using a coat found at the scene of the crime. Mason makes the murderer wear the coat and makes him confess to the crime.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: Restless Redhead

This story gives us a vivid insight into cross-examination technique. In the opening chapter Mason generously shows a young attorney how to break down the lies of a witness. Later on there's a trial for murder. As Mason says at the end, "There isn't any normal routine when you're dealing with redheads."

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: The Case of the Fiery Fingers

The poison that Nellie gives to Perry Mason for analysis turns out to be four aspirin tablets. This is another one of those cases where Mason turns over his evidence to Lieutenant Tragg so that the police can get the credit.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: The Case of the Gilded Lily

The case centred around fingerprints that were intended to prove that a woman had been at the scene of the crime. Perry backs his hunch and Sergeant Holcomb ends up looking a fool once again. To "gild the lily" is to try to improve on something that doesn't need improving.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: The Case of the Cautious Coquette

Mason realises that pleading guilty to a hit and run accident is a good way of building an alibi for another, much more serious crime. "It's a trap of some sort," Drake said. "Well, the bait interests me, Paul." "That's the theory on which traps are constructed," Drake said.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: The Case of the Velvet Claws

Before this time Gardner had written lots of short-stories for "Black Mask" and other detective magazines. Pretty soon afterwards he was writing the "Perry Mason" stories on a factory basis with a team of stenographers and typists.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

Of course there could be a lot more "Perry Mason" stories out there if they ever produced in book-form all the episodes from the various television series. Certainly some of the stories were inspired by ideas that Erle Stanley Gardner put forward to other writers.

From Quiz Perry Mason on the Case

Answer: It is the only case he ever lost.

You can be sure that though Perry loses in court, his real client does not suffer for it. There is also a television "Perry Mason" story in which he loses the trial and the appeal and his client is put on Death Row. Even then you know what is going to happen.

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