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A wealthy man is upset over his daughter’s choice of a husband, and threatens to change his will. Bradford Randal phones his lawyer immediately to get the ball rolling on the changes. To ensure his family won’t get his money, he names The Society of war Victims and Displaced Persons is a charity that he plans to leave his fortune to. Elsewhere, Casey finds himself stumbling into the Blue Note in the morning, after working the night shift. Ann rushes in to tell of the murder of Bradford Randal.
Casey and Ann learn the details of Bradfords daughter, and her intended husband, Count Giuseppe. The old man is the kind that you just want to kill, and the daughter has a reputation that’s just as fiery. Might there be something fishy happening with the house servants, or the lawyer? The lights go out, the will is gone, and accusations fly. The cops put the mansion into lockdown, and keep the occupants from leaving. Now it’s up to Casey to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Back in the Blue Note, Casey reviews the details with Ann and Ethelbert. The practice of deduction is carried out. who is the most likely suspect? Casey knows, and goes for a confrontation. The killer admits to the crime, and their motives which were actually much more noble than the overbearing and rich Bradford. In a final moment in the Blue Note, Casey and Ann tell what the fate of the killer turns out to be.
PS: Spoiler alert, but I can’t help it. It was the maid. Here’s what is a mild irritation for me. Of course, with the sensibilities of the culture in the OTR era where the guys in the white hats win, and justice is served correctly, this is one of those gray areas that you’d just like to see the maid get off the hook. In a way she does, but you have to admire her selflessness.
The official moral is that there’s no excuse to take justice into your own hands. Leave it to the legal system to deal with it. Now, the maid didn’t have any personal gripes with old Bradford. She was a victim of war-torn Europe, and survived a hard life of the traumas and atrocities of war. In short, she had PTSD as badly as any hardened combat troop.
When she saw what a petty person her boss was, and the way he used the power his money brought, she saw it as a matter of his not understanding how lucky and privileged he was to be so sheltered, even in making huge profits from the war machine. All she did was take advantage of a prime moment to put his money to good use with that charity. Even if she were to face the death penalty, and never see a penny of the benefit from those mega bucks, she was willing to do it for her fellow survivors.
To the credit of the writers, she does go to court, and though found guilty, she is sent to a sanitarium where she could get medical attention for her mental trauma.
