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The Case of the Waylaid Wolf

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The Case of the Waylaid Wolf, by Erle Stanley Gardner

This book is dedicated to Park Street, an attorney of San Antonio Texas, and an investigator and counsel of the Court of Last Resort. They have investigated cases where innocent persons have been wrongly convicted. His "Perry Mason Room" is dedicated to the ideals of unswerving loyalty to a client, a devotion to the cause of justice, and an indomitable fighting spirit.

This story begins in a company parking lot. Arlene Ferris can't start her car that evening, but a stranger happens by and offers her a ride. He is the son of the company's owner. Then Loring Lamont makes a detour to their country home to drop off some papers. This turned out to be a trick on Arlene, she escaped Loring's advances, and the next day consulted Perry Mason. But they find out that Loring was murdered that night, and the police know Loring was with a young woman. Mason advises his client to visit her friend, and begins working on this case. The police find Arlene and charge her with the murder.

Chapter Five tells of the problem with personal identification. If a victim looks over mug shots, and later sees that person in a police lineup, the victim will likely identify a familiar face. Some people have accurate memories, other people don't. The cross-examination in Chapter Ten focuses on the identification by two eye-witnesses. As in the real world, its who you know that can help you land a job (Chapter Twelve).

Then Mason finds that Arlene's friend got a payoff to skip town, and finds a solution to Arlene's innocence that is consistent with the known facts. "The function of a court of law ... is to see that justice is done" (Chapter Fourteen). The newly discovered facts leads to the real killer, and Arlene is freed. One of the lessons of this story is why circumstantial evidence (the clothes on the victim) is most reliable.