The case of the lame canary
by Erle Stanley Gardner
Category: Canaries

"Keep your eye on the birdie! Here's a rough-and-tumble case, as wild as a game of no-limit poker. It begins with Rita Swaine. She was young and attractive, and she came into Perry Mason's law office with a caged canary and a hard-luck story about her sister's domestic troubles. It obviously wasn't a case for Perry Mason, who specialized in homicides. But then Perry noticed the canary was lame... His curiosity got the best of him... There had been an accident, the girl said; wouldn't Perry Mason help? When Mason found out what was wrong with the canary, he had the clue to the accident, and also to Rita Swaine's panic... and to the dead man in an upstairs room with a bullet in his heart!" --