Original subtitles

Yes, darling.

I know it's Sunday.

And I know I promised to take you out for dinner.

But I cannot help myself.

Yes.

Elaine, please understand.

Your father is still a stranger in this country. A poor stranger who has to work

and work hard for a living.

Business here is bad.

Very bad.

I'm worried.

I try only to help. You understand?

Yeah.

Yes, Elaine.

I'll try to finish the paperwork early.

Then perhaps he still can go out.

Goodbye. Goodbye, my baby.

Fire department, can I help you?

Box 4775.

Yes, ma 'am. We'll take care of it right away.

That's Sutton and Main.

Confirming phone call. Bloom up. Smoke and fire both. The warehouse.

28's first in.

Engine 28 from Westlake.

Respond to box 4775.

Sutton and Main. A structure fire.

West Lake from Platoon Commander Moorfield.

Platoon Commander from West Lake.

This is a 100 by 200 foot warehouse fully involved.

Send out a full third alarm assignment.

We need more blowers and an extra squad.

I picked up the call, saw the loom about a mile away.

We going in for a closer look?

Gary, you're retired, remember?

Yeah.

Look, my driver's fighting for me on the other side of the fire.

Monitor the radio, will you? I'll be right back.

Sure.

Sure.

Oh, this baby's a beaut. You get me all the coverage you can.

Will do, Johnny.

Well...

Well, if it isn't former Deputy Fire Chief Cary York.

They told me you had a ham operator's rig and were running around town in your

car picking up fire department shortwave broadcasts. Still make them believe

you're a real fireman? Get off my back, Tom.

Now with you on the scene, it's like old times, isn't it, Chiefy?

I warn you! you, Tom?

I, uh, I don't have to stick around now. I can predict the outcome of this fire

in advance. A total loss.

I'll let me alone. I'll kill the pipsqueak. General, this is a dangerous

You're in the way. Well, didn't your public relations ever tell you the

Estate is never in the way?

I'll notify you when we have a statement for the press.

Oh, I'll bet.

Platoon Commander Farrell Moorfield and the fire department presided as another

structure was converted into a parking lot.

We did the best we could, said the deputy chief. You say that. I've heard

story before.

Gary, you're old enough to know better. Now, why didn't you let me hit him? Or

get hit?

Him?

Where'd Blake from, platoon commander?

Send out an aid unit.

Platoon commander from West Lake. Right.

Arson? No question of it.

Somebody wanted to sell this warehouse to the insurance company.

This warehouse?

I own it, Donald.

Get help and move the rest of those parked cars off the street. There's more

fire equipment coming in. Yes, sir.

Are you sending homicide lieutenants out chasing fires now? And they promoted

you to the fire department arson unit.

No homicide, Johnny.

Before they are in this tortuous place, you sold the manager.

And it's a pretty bad check.

I think you know.

Art and end the chance of murder.

You may get ourselves one sweet honey in the story.

It has now been firmly established that the burning of the warehouse was arson,

to which yours truly, Tommy Town, adds, criminally deliberate arson.

Why do I say criminal arson?

Facts, ladies and gentlemen, indisputable facts.

Another Town in Angel Town exclusive.

The downtown transfer and storage warehouse was in serious trouble. Not

the company losing money, but its records, I am reliably informed, had

subpoenaed by the fraud section of the tax department.

And, and ladies and gentlemen, the warehouse itself had been threatened

the month with cancellation of its fire insurance.

Still more facts.

The automobile in which the gasoline, the cotton waste, and the alleged

incendiary's gloves were found, hold on, that automobile was registered in the

name of the identical man who is the sole owner of the warehouse company.

His name, former Deputy Fire Chief Cary York.

What's so funny?

Dead and buried.

You want to bet where I'm going they got plenty of firemen?

We need a refill.

We need something more than that. If we mess around in court, we're going to

need a good lawyer.

He's meeting us at headquarters in the morning.

The best.

Perry Mason.

This is an accurate transcript of the telecast?

The TV station showed us the tape.

We had a court stenographer make that transcript.

We need a copy of the film itself as evidence in court. I'll arrange for it.

Sounds like you think we might have a case, Mr. Mason.

Yes, we complete a good case just as they complete a good defense.

Defense?

Fair comment in the public interest. Fair comment, my foot. Town lost his

in a hillside brush fire six months before I retired.

I was in command at the fire.

He blames you?

We never had a chance to save it. Almost gale force, Santana winds, one road in,

water pressure down. Even the Borade bombers couldn't get at it. It was a

gosling before we got there.

We did the best we could anyway. Almost lost a man.

But town blames the department.

Yeah, and me especially.

There's still the defense that what he said was true.

True? The truth of a defamatory statement, Mr. York, is a complete

action for slander.

Perry, firemen have to live together.

They have to learn to know and trust each other.

Know they can depend on each other for their safety and their lives.

I worked in the department for 30 years with Kerry York.

I'll stake my life on it.

He never set that fire.

Did you, Mr. York?

Did you set that fire?

No.

Everything town said was a lie.

All right.

We'll make sure of that.

Then we'll serve town with a demand that he broadcast a public retraction of his

charge of arson.

Moorfield.

Thank you.

A charge of arson and murder.

What are you talking about?

That was the hospital, Kerry.

Otto Joseph, your warehouse manager.

He just died.

But somebody was guilty of murder and arson both.

And if it wasn't Kerry York, then who was Mr. Drake?

Find out why, Gertie. Then you find out who.

Well.

Did you get a list of everything in the warehouse from York's accountant, Paul?

Yep. Here's every last item.

You know, if the arson wasn't aimed at the warehouse, perhaps it was aimed at

something inside the warehouse.

Check out each item carefully with the accountant, then run them down.

That will be a pleasure.

S. Quinn, accountant.

From your tone, I gather S doesn't stand for Saul or Scott or Stanley.

Sylvia, and she's quite a doll.

And Dorian's a lucky guy.

Dorian York, Terry York's son?

She's his bookkeeper, too.

And she'd love to take care of Dorian as well as his book.

What does he do?

He owns a small factory.

Eats out a living manufacturing potentiometers.

Pot... poten... what?

Potentiometers. That's a gimmick for figuring potential differential.

Now I know.

It's a sensitive measuring device, Gertie. Normally used as a component of

large, complicated electronic equipment.

That helps, too.

Have some copies made of these, would you please, Gertie? Oh, certainly, Mr.

Mason.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Will you kindly explain to me exactly what that communication is?

Since I represent Kerry York in the prospective litigation, it would not be

ethical for us to discuss it, Mr. Towne.

You might ask your own attorney.

I'm asking you, Mason, you, and I want an answer. You'll get one.

One year with counsel, not before.

Well, that's up to me, isn't it? I don't want one, and I don't need a lawyer to

answer something as ridiculous as this.

If that's your decision, any competent attorney will warn you that you're

a serious mistake.

You lawyers make me sick.

Demand an immediate retraction?

Tell me, Counselor, how do you correct the truth?

Was it the truth?

Oh, come off it. York was all but caught lighting the match.

You slanderously alleged he was guilty of arson. And of murder, too. Don't

forget that.

And all to collect insurance and burn his records.

Now, how do you get out of that?

Paul? According to Sylvia Gwynn, Terry York's accountant, the insurance you say

he wanted to collect lapsed a week before the fire.

What? And as for the burned records, an authenticated duplicate set is on file

in Ms. Gwynn's office.

Civil Code Section 48A.

If a correction is not broadcast within three weeks after service of demand, the

plaintiff may recover not only special but general damages.

And he may also recover punitive damages.

Well, how about the gasoline and the cotton and the gloves? How do you

them? I don't. You explain them.

Yours is the burden of proof.

That they were carry orcs? That he used them? And if I don't? If you neither

retract nor prove your defense, Mr. Towne, the jury will be asked to award

damages totaling one and one -half million dollars.

Mr. Drake, this is Ross Walker.

He owns San Pedro Shipping, the company that stored over half the materials in

the warehouse.

Thanks for meeting us here, Mr. Walker.

I thought we might be able to identify some of the debris.

I doubt it.

Sylvia said when she called that you wanted to go over a list of what I had

here. I didn't know it was customary for truckers to store cargo that was en

route. It isn't.

Normally what wasn't on the road would be in my own warehouse down in San

The business has been good.

Better than good.

I've had to use the Pedro warehouse for more office space and for overseas

shipments prior to loading.

Mr. Walker carried his own insurance. His total loss was covered.

Overseas? Then you have both trucks and ships.

A couple of tired World War II scouts, hardly a fleet.

Look, Drake, I'm busy. Mind if we get rebellious? Sure.

As a shipper, I know that you didn't own any of this merchandise, but I'd kind

of like to find out who did.

Let's start with this medicinal alcohol.

Chief? Barry, this is Captain Hillman.

Fifteen years on these fireboats, ten years before that when the art was

downtown. He's forgotten more about incendiaries than most men know.

Bill, this is Barry Mason.

Captain Hillman, pleasure to meet you.

She thinks you may be the man to help me. Not if you expect me to say Cary

could be an arsonist.

Anybody fingering him as a torch ought to have his head examined.

Suggestions have been made that that's what should be done to York.

Look for signs of pyromania.

Waste of time.

You'd have spotted it years ago.

You seem sure.

Mr. Mason, only a small percentage of the male population who can qualify as

firemen for this department ever pass the rigorous examinations, physical or

mental. On the rawest recruit to the oldest timer, like Kerry, every man is

subjected to continuous training, continuous examination.

You think for a minute, Mason, that an incipient firebug, a man with any kind

a mental twist, could last for 50 years, let alone become deputy chief?

You know the facts about the warehouse fire?

Arson, no question of it.

Can you tell from the type of fire, how it was started, what the arsonist was

trying to destroy?

Much more than books and papers, that's for sure.

Why do you say that?

Those crates of medicinal alcohol.

Torch that and in half a minute you have an inferno.

Enough intense heat to melt most metals.

There was something in that warehouse made of metal that the arsonist

deliberately wanted to destroy. That, Mr. Mason, is my educated guess.

Well, that does it.

One more thing. This item here marked Coilatron. What is it? Some kind of an

expensive manufacturing machine.

Latest thing on the market.

It winds coils for a thing called a potentiometer.

Potentiometer?

No.

Here's a photograph of the Coilatron potentiometer coil winding machine that

asked about.

That machine runs about $50 ,000.

It's a continuous, high -speed, extremely precise, self -correcting

More than pays for itself.

Improved accuracy with better costs through higher yields.

At least that's what my brochure promises and what the machine delivers.

Are many of these made, Mr. Herbert?

No, the market's pretty limited.

Outside of the Iron Curtain, I'd say a potential of approximately 25 machines.

Then it's not exactly a secret weapon.

No, Mr. Drake.

But it does represent automated high -precision electronics methods.

And industrial know -how can be just as vital as the latest ICBM.

Did Dorian York have one, or had he ordered one of these machines?

Unfortunately, no.

Why unfortunately?

Well, you see, with this machine... Portable TV set right here in the

just for the three of us. In case we wanted to talk after the broadcast.

Want a cup of coffee?

No, thanks.

He said on the phone that this is the last day.

Three weeks exactly after being served in demand for correction.

Really? Risk a million and a half dollar lawsuit?

I'm an attorney, not a soothsayer.

I'd say it depends on what town thinks he found out. What his attorney or the

station's attorneys have advised him. What town thinks he found out?

What is there to find out? Kerry said he'd meet us here.

Where is he?

Oh, I don't know. He phoned about an hour ago, said he was leaving for here

then. He doesn't live that far away.

Well, it's slow driving if he comes all the way on Mulholland.

Perry, you were telling me something about what town thinks he found.

Ladies

and

gentlemen, some time ago on this program I asked a question.

A question that implied a charge on my part that former Deputy Fire Chief Cary

York was a criminal arsonist. And as it turned out, by implication, a murderer.

Subsequently, I was informed that this broadcast constituted slanderous

defamation of character, and a demand was made that I broadcast a retraction.

I'm happy to take this occasion to make a correction.

When I said that Cary York started that fire to collect insurance on his

warehouse and also to destroy company records, I was wrong.

Very wrong, ladies and gentlemen.

Cary York criminally, deliberately started that fire to save his son's

from bankruptcy, and I can prove it.

Chelsea Rodman.

My signal.

Platoon Commander.

What is it, Carl?

A car.

Turned on Mulholland.

Went over a cliff.

Smashed to bits on the rocks 100 feet below.

Rescue squad's there now, bringing up the body.

Kerry York's car.

You just heard him. I saw him on TV.

No, you didn't.

What you saw was filmed early this afternoon, then played back tonight.

Townsman dead for over half an hour.

Strangled to death before the car was pushed over the cliff.

Andy, I'm afraid so, Perry.

Perry.

He's under arrest for the murder of Thomas Towne.

The cliff.

Not a very pretty picture, Terry.

Who, Mr. Mason?

Who torched my warehouse?

Killed my manager, Otto Joseph?

Who killed town?

Among other things, that who was most likely somebody with a key to the side

door of your warehouse.

What?

Otto and I had the only two keys, and that was a special lock.

Did you ever have a duplicate key made?

No. Did Otto?

I don't think so, no.

Elaine would know, though, for sure.

Otto Joseph's daughter, Elaine Joseph.

Yes, Papa had a spare key made.

He asked me to have it made for him.

The... How do you call it?

The locksmith.

The spare key, Miss Joseph.

Now, was that spare key for your father personally?

Or was it for somebody else?

Papa didn't tell me.

So many things he didn't tell me.

Some sort of special trouble he might have been in.

Could that have been part of the things he didn't tell you? No, Mr. Mason.

It's what sits on his heart so heavily for so many years.

And what was that?

Mama.

Mama back in the old country.

Your mother still alive?

Everything was ready.

He had planned for so long to escape, to leave that country which

no longer was the country we loved.

Mama, I remember always she was so sick.

And that night when we were to go, she was again sick.

You didn't change your plans except that your mother stayed.

It's hard to remember.

Only that she...

Cried.

For the little one, there must be hope.

Papa cried.

I remember that.

And then Mama wasn't there.

You heard from her afterwards?

Yes. And then you didn't hear?

Do you know?

No.

Only guessing, Miss Joseph.

It's a familiar pattern.

International blackmail.

Papa paid and paid.

Every penny we could save, we could borrow, we could find.

The books, Mr. Mason.

Mr. York's books.

Your father tampered with the books?

No, he didn't tamper. He stole.

So that Mama would... We were both so desperate, Mr. Mason.

That Mr.

York is a good man.

He's a man with God's love in his heart.

Mr. Mason, I will do anything to help Mr.

York. You already have, Miss Joseph.

You've given me information that could lead to the name of the person guilty of

the crimes Carrie York will be charged with in court tomorrow.

Everyone please rise and face the flag of our country.

Recognizing the principles for which it stands, Division 3 of the Municipal

Court of the County of Los Angeles, State of California is now in session.

The Honorable Benjamin Penna, Judge presiding.

Be seated and come to order.

The state versus Cary York.

Is counsel for the state present?

Present, Your Honor.

Counsel for the defense?

Present, Your Honor.

Section 738 of the penal code provides that before an information is filed,

there must be a preliminary examination of the case against the defendant and an

order holding him to answer, made under Section 872. Will the defendant rise?

The clerk of the court will read the complaint to the defendant and ask him

whether he pleads guilty or not guilty to the offense charged therein and to a

previous conviction or convictions of crime if charged.

Your Honor, the penal code provides that a defendant represented by counsel may,

when brought before the magistrate, waive his right to an examination before

such magistrate.

The defendant, Kerry York, through counsel, does so expressly waive.

With a plea of guilty, Mr. Mason?

No, Your Honor, without a plea of guilty.

Mr. Berger.

There is nothing in 860 which prevents the district attorney or the magistrate

from requiring the examination be held.

The prosecution is happy to stipulate to the waiver of examination, Your Honor.

It appearing to me that the offense of murder in the within complaint mentioned

has been committed, and that there is sufficient cause to believe the within

named Kerry York guilty thereof.

I order that he be held to answer the same.

The record will show examination waived by request of the defense.

Defendant is bound over for trial in Superior Court.

This court is adjourned.

Well, what's going on, Perry?

I expected a real struggle to get York bound over. Saving the taxpayers' money.

A contribution to economy.

Sure it is.

Or it's a stall to give you time to pull some kind of a grandstand stunt.

I warn you, Perry, if you do...

What are you figuring to do?

The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Uh -huh.

You feeling all right?

King was also a murderer, Hamilton, who took the bait and fell in the trap.

Thanks a lot.

Exactly how far would you go to help carry York?

Personally, there's no limit.

Just name it.

And the department?

Harry, Los Angeles has close to 500 square miles to cover, to protect.

A third of it's brush -covered. Fireman's nightmare.

The rest, you name it.

Exotic fuels for defense, every conceivable industry, the harbor, every

fire hazard you could think of.

You haven't answered my question.

Now, look, Perry.

Every man in the department hit the bricks, house to house, pleading,

explaining. They got a $14 .5 million fire bond issue on the belt.

It got on. It got passed.

I know.

You were given a real vote of confidence.

But my question... Some pans underwater.

On your way, Gertie.

Well, Mr. Mason, where are you going?

Oh, to make arrangements to start a fire.

Underwater. Looking for something?

I don't know why I agreed to meet you or why I agreed to meet you here.

I do.

The so -called irresistible urge of the criminal to return to the scene in the

crime.

Your bookkeeping that bad?

No, but my judgment often is.

You mean in not reporting the fact that Otto Joseph was stealing from Carrie

York?

Just hearing it said out loud somehow makes me feel better.

You still haven't told me why you asked me to come here.

Well, I have a feeling that if you look real hard...

You just might find a sealed envelope that somehow, miraculously, didn't get

burned in the fire.

And then?

Then, at exactly 8 o 'clock tonight, not a moment earlier, you open it and read

what's inside it.

Now, couldn't you have just handed me that envelope and some nice, cozy little

cocktail down?

But that one of you... Good luck.

Mr. Mason, come on in.

Sit down.

Thank you.

I followed your instructions.

The place is empty.

Oh, except for the usual security guards at the gate.

That's good, Mr. Walker.

Well, maybe I can decide that for myself if you were to tell me what this is all

about. Mr. Walker, why does an arsonist set a fire?

Why?

To burn down a building.

To get rid of it.

To get rid of what's in it.

Or get rid of something not in it.

Now, look, Mason, you didn't get me here to kill an evening just to answer

riddles. Otto Joseph was forced to make a duplicate key to York's warehouse.

Forced to turn that key over to another person.

Well, that doesn't make any sense either.

How do you force a man to become an accomplice to arson?

Simply by threatening to have his wife killed if he doesn't.

I didn't know Otto had a wife.

According to the OSS, she died years ago.

But the friends of mankind who run Joseph's country these days decided to

Otto think she was still alive.

Why? To blackmail him.

Keep him on the string just in case they ever needed him.

As they did.

Needed him? For what?

To smuggle a Coilatron out of this country.

You know, Mason, for a minute you had me going there.

Come on now.

This Coilatron, whatchamacallit, you're talking about was burned.

Completely destroyed in that fire.

A substitute wooden crate with a dummy metal frame inside was burned.

That was the reason for the arson. To look as if the Coilatron were destroyed.

To keep anyone from even suspecting where it was going.

I suppose you know or think you know where that is?

I do know a ship is due in Los Angeles Harbor within an hour.

A ship that will dock here at your warehouse.

A ship scheduled to stop at the free port of Salina Cruz, where cargo can be

transhipped without anyone knowing or caring where it's going.

Of all the crazy...

I'll never know what happened.

Outside.

Outside.

I'll be right behind you.

It's on a dolly.

Push it door to door.

That's the biggest thrill of my life, Dad.

Well, then how about it? Yes, sir. From now on, I'm a confirmed skin diver.

What?

A square peg, that's what you are, what you'll always be, a square peg.

I'm hungry. Let's eat.