- Perry's client is menaced by a car driven by a hooded man, whom she shoots at with a gun that was planted in her room. When the guy winds up dead from a bullet, Perry confuses matters by firing an identical gun later at the scene.
- A nervous red headed Evelyn Bagby returns to her apartment at night after her shift as a waitress. She finds a snub nosed 38 Colt revolver in her cigarette case which is not hers. She calls Perry Mason whose answering service patches her through to him. She is calling due to a previous run-in with the police where she was accused of stealing jewelry but was acquitted. Perry has her go to a motel in Hollywood but on the way there a hooded man tries to force her off the road. She fires the gun toward the car but not at the man causing him to go off the road. She brings the gun to Perry who drives out to the scene of the accident only to find the man dead from a bullet wound and homicide there. The man killed had stolen $1500 from Evelyn when she first came to Hollywood. Paul Drake learns that two identical guns were bought by the prominent man Mervyn Aldritch for him and his fiancé, an actress. Perry decides to fire a second gun at the scene later to confuse the police to extract the truth about the people involved and find the real killer.—Anonymous
- Evelyn Bagby is shocked when she returns home to find a revolver in the cigarette box on her coffee table. Having recently gone through trial accused - but acquitted - of having stolen jewelry from movie star Helene Chaney, she calls Perry Mason for help. He advises her to go to a motel for the night but as she does so, is followed by a man in another car wearing a hood over his head. She fires the gun at the car which goes off the road. Perry learns that the driver of that car was shot and Perry's private investigator Paul Drake learns that the gun Evelyn found was one of two identical pistols bought by the rich and powerful Mervyn Aldritch who is also happens to be engaged to Heaine Cheney. It's clear to Perry that Evelyn is innocent and is being set up by someone to take the fall.—garykmcd
- Waitress Evelyn Bagby (Whitney Blake), the titular restless redhead, is being spied on by a hooded man as she enters her apartment building. In her apartment, she opens a cigarette box and finds a .38 revolver, so she calls Perry. He explains how to check if the gun has been fired recently - it hasn't. Evelyn wants help because she was recently acquitted of stealing jewelry from movie star Helene Chaney (Gloria Henry) at a motel in Riverside, CA. Perry tells her to go to a hotel, but on the way a car driven by the hooded man tries to force her off the road, so she fires the gun, although not aiming at him. The car with the mystery driver veers off the road.
Evelyn arrives at Perry's office convinced that she just escaped a murder attempt. Perry calls Paul to trace the gun's ownership and goes to the scene of Evelyn's escape to find a crash scene and LAPD Homicide already there. He gets a peek at the hood found on the victim. It's a pillow from the apartment building where Evelyn was staying. When Perry is back at his office, Lt. Tragg storms in, asking who sent Perry to the murder scene. He reveals that the victim was named Harry Merrill, and he died from a .38 bullet in his head. Tragg leaves without seeing Perry's client, but promises "I'll be back." Once he's gone, Evelyn explains that Merrill, originally named Lester Gladden, was a man who stole $1500 from her five years ago in a "you ought to be in pictures" scam. Two months ago, Merrill walked into the cafe where Evelyn works, and she demanded her money back. He said she should come to the Eucalyptus Grove motel in Riverside, but instead of getting her money, she walked into trumped-up charges of stealing jewelry.
The next morning, Paul reveals that the gun was one of an identical pair bought in Riverside by movie mogul Mervin Aldritch (Ralph Clanton). Tragg arrests Evelyn, and soon after Paul shows Perry a marriage certificate for Gladden/Merrill and Hester Charles (now famous as Helene Chaney). Aldritch, who is now engaged to Helene, admits that he paid Merrill $10,000 not to make trouble by claiming he hadn't been properly served papers in his divorce. Perry hands Aldritch the .38, on which he had earlier put a small file mark, and asks Aldritch if it's his personal gun, or its mate, which he bought for Helene. Aldritch goes to check if his own gun is in the glove compartment where he left it, then returns saying that gun is missing. He hands a revolver back to Perry, but it's the other one, which Perry hadn't marked. Perry then goes to the crime scene and manufactures false evidence by firing the new gun into a post and a tree. On his way to the office, Perry is met by Tragg, who takes the gun, and says that Merrill's pillow hood had no bullet hole, so he'd been shot, then planted in the crashed car.
At the preliminary hearing, Perry takes advantage of the fake evidence he planted to convince the court that the gun without a file mark, which he truthfully claims was never in Evelyn's possession, was the murder weapon. He calls the manager of Evelyn's apartment building to the stand and asks her if anyone else in the court had rented a room from her. She points to Louis Boles (Vaughn Taylor), hen-pecked manager of the Eucalyptus Grove motel, but states that he used the place not to sleep in but to watch Evelyn's apartment. On the stand, Boles denies a series of accusations from Perry, but then lets slip that there was no registration card for Merrill on the night of the jewelry theft because he'd never signed one. After that, he confesses that he was in league with Merrill to frame Evelyn, but Merrill reneged on the bribe he'd promised. Boles then schemed to murder Merrill for the $10,000 payment he'd received from Aldritch, so he could get away from his shrewish wife. In the office, Perry explains to Della and a relieved Evelyn that Boles shot Merrill, planted the gun in Evelyn's apartment, became the hooded driver in the hope that Evelyn would fire the gun but not hit him, then set up the fake crime scene.
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of The Case of the Restless Redhead (1957) in Australia?
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