Fowl play? A useless man in the kitchen, gas fumes permeate the home, a duck appears to be drowning in the fishbowl, nonetheless it didn’t die. Maybe that fact has something to do with murder?John L. Witherspoon, a wealthy patrician, is certainly loath to allow his daughter marry Marvin Adams, the child of the convicted murderer, something Marvin’s mother managed to maintain a secret—until now. To set the love-struck lass straight, Witherspoon engages Perry Mason to consider the twenty-year-old proof that sent Marvin’s father towards the gallows, and demonstrate that the young man is kin to the murdering kind.

Reopening the situation, however, quickly starts up a can easily of worms. While Mason dredges days gone by for new clues, a blackmailer threatens to dredge up the complete sordid affair in the society pages. Then your whistle-blower is done in by a dose of deadly homemade gas, and the damning evidence factors to chemistry whiz Marvin. Like dad, like son? Like hell, says Mason, who models out to bird-dog the smart killer who’s trying to carefully turn the youthful swan right into a sitting duck.