Círculo del Crimen: El caso de la secretaria insistente

This Spanish-language Perry Mason story, "El caso de la secretaria insistente" (translated from Erle Stanley Gardner's "The Case of the Lucky Loser," 1957), presents a legal mystery centered on a hit-and-run case with unexpected complications. Perry Mason agrees to attend a courtroom proceeding after receiving a mysterious phone call from an unidentified woman who pays him one hundred dollars merely to observe. At the hearing for State of California v. Theodore Balfour, witness Jorge Dempster testifies that he discovered the defendant's damaged automobile—broken right headlight, dented fender, bloodstains on the bumper. However, Balfour claims he lost consciousness around ten o'clock after being drugged at a social gathering, and awakens finding a woman driving his car. The defense attorney, Mortimer Dean Howland, aggressively cross-examines Dempster, highlighting inconsistencies in the testimony and suggesting the defendant's impaired mental state during police questioning. The case intensifies when revealed that the victim sustained both impact injuries and a bullet wound to the head—indicating murder disguised as vehicular homicide.