The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

Chapter number 11

Promptly at 8:30 Mason stopped by the Drake Detective Agency, which had offices on the same floor as Mason’s law offices.

“Paul in?” he asked the girl at the switchboard.

“He’s in,” she said, “and waiting for you, Mr. Mason.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “tell him to come on down to my office. I have an appointment at nine, and Della Street said she was going to be there at eight-thirty.”

Mason went on down to his office and found Della Street waiting.

“Hello, Della. Been here long?”

“About ten minutes.”

“You had a pretty hard day yesterday.”

“I had? You’re the one who had a hard day, playing tag with gorillas. Did you have nightmares?”

Mason grinned. “I didn’t have nightmares, but I had the devil of a time getting to sleep. There’s something about those gorillas — they give you something to think of when they start looking at you and beating themselves on the chest.”

“I’ll say. Is Paul Drake coming in?”

“Uh-huh. I stopped in and left word. See if you can get Homicide on the line for me, Della. We’ll put it up to Lieutenant Tragg and find out what he wants to do.”

Della Street rang police headquarters and found that Lieutenant Tragg was not in his office.

“Try Sergeant Holcomb,” Mason said.

“You know how he hates you,” Della Street warned.

“That’s all right,” Mason told her. “We’ll see what Holcomb has to say. I want information.”

A moment later Della Street nodded. Mason picked up the telephone.

“Hello,” Mason said, “I wanted to get some information about a client of mine, Sergeant.”

“What do you want?”

Mason said, “I want to know whether I’m going to have to get a writ of habeas corpus on Josephine Kempton, or whether you’re going to turn her loose.”

“She’s loose.”

“She is? I haven’t heard anything of it.”

“Well, you will. She was released about half an hour ago. I tried your office and got no answer. You don’t have your residence telephone listed in the book. You’re exclusive. Mrs. Kempton didn’t know where it was, and I didn’t know where it was. Her other attorney, James Etna, had a phone listed. I telephoned him. He said he wanted to come by and pick her up.”

“So you released her,” Mason said.

“That’s right.”

“Then she’s no longer under suspicion?”

“Who said she ever was under suspicion?”

“All right,” Mason said wearily, “I guess that’s that.”

He hung up.

Della Street raised her eyebrows.

“Holcomb says she’s been released,” Mason reported.

Paul Drake gave his code knock at the door.

Della Street opened the door.

“You guys,” Paul Drake said, “fresh as daisies, aren’t you? Had a nice sleep, I suppose. Look at me. I’m groggy. Filled with equal parts of coffee and information.”

“That’s fine,” Mason told him. “Sit down. Keep the coffee, give us the information.”

Paul Drake, a tall, cadaverous, solemn-looking individual, whose eyes had been trained by years of poker-faced observation to show no flicker of expression, assumed his favorite position in the big, overstuffed, leather chair, his long legs hanging over one rounded chair arm, the other arm supporting his back.

He yawned prodigiously, pulled a notebook from his pocket and said, “I suppose you want me to begin at the beginning.”

“That’s right.”

“Benjamin Addicks,” Paul Drake said in a drawl, “said to be fifty-two years old. He’s supposed to have a younger brother Herman Addicks, forty-six. The two were inseparable. They didn’t have any great amount of formal education, came from a poor family.

“Herman dropped out of sight. Benjamin claimed he didn’t have any idea where Herman was. That may have been true. Rumor is that Herman got in a fight and killed someone, and...”

“Snap out of it, Paul,” Mason interrupted sharply. “You’re a detective. What do you care about all the rumor stuff? I want facts. What do you know?”

Drake said, “Actually, Perry, not a damned thing. Addicks is a millionaire. He goes for mining deals in a big way. He’s been here for sixteen years. Before that no one knows a damn thing about him, where he came from, when or how he got his money.”

Mason said incredulously, “You mean his banks don’t know?”

“I mean no one knows. He always refused to answer any question. He’d say, ‘I am asking for no credit at any time. I buy and I sell in hard cash.’ ”

“But, good heavens, Paul, how about the income tax people?”

“He told them he had amnesia. The first thing he remembered was being here, waking up in a hotel with about two thousand dollars on him.”

“Did they believe any such yarn as that, Paul?”

“Certainly not. They managed to get his fingerprints. Up to that time he’d never been printed. The FBI has no record on him.”

“Can you make an estimate of how much he’s worth?”

“Probably two or three million dollars net. He has an enormous income and he has stuff spread around so that it’s pretty hard to get an accurate estimate. Anyway, he was sufficiently well fixed so that he could do anything he wanted.”

“And what did he want to do?” Mason asked.

“There’s the rub,” Drake said. “You know, Perry, if it came right down to a showdown, there’s a two or three million dollar estate there, and he undoubtedly left a will. That will could probably be attacked on the grounds that Benjamin Addicks was of unsound mind.”

“Because of the experiments with apes and gorillas?” Mason asked.

“I think it goes deeper than that,” Drake said. “I think that Benjamin Addicks was afraid of himself. Personally, I think he wanted to kill somebody, or I think he had killed somebody.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because he was trying desperately to prove that homicidal impulses are an inherent part of man’s instinctive equipment. He claimed that civilization might cause those impulses to lie dormant, particularly in the case of a child reared in an atmosphere of security. In a keenly competitive existence he claimed that the urge to kill was an inherent part of the natural instincts of man. He also claimed a man could be hypnotized, could commit murder while he was unaware of what he was doing, and, on awakening from the hypnotic trance, have no knowledge of what he had done — perhaps no memory.”

“In other words, he could have been laying an elaborate plan for defending himself against an old murder charge,” Mason said.

“Or a new one,” Drake commented.

“But surely, Paul, such a prominent personality must have had people trying to check — why, with a history like that, a blackmailer would work for years trying to find the man’s secret.”

“Sure,” Drake said. “The government spent some time on it — even a question of citizenship. Everyone got nowhere. It’s surprising what a man can get away with when he says ‘I can’t remember anything about my past life so I have dismissed it from my mind. After all, the present is the thing, and therefore that’s all I’m interested in.’ ”

“So he spent a fortune trying to demonstrate his theories,” Mason said.

“That’s right — trying to build up his defense.”

“Naturally,” Mason went on, “he could hardly start experimenting with men in order to bring out his ideas.”

“That’s it. He acquired apes and gorillas, trying to teach them to kill, trying to get them hypnotized so they’d obey suggestions.”

“How did he go about it?”

“Lots of ways. He had a couple of trainers out there and a psychologist who was willing to ride along with him. I’ve talked with the psychologist, a man by the name of Blevins. Alan Blevins.”

“Where was Blevins last night?” Mason asked.

“Sitting at home.”

“He wasn’t out at Stonehenge?”

“Everyone connected with the monkey and ape experiments was fired about a week ago,” Drake said. “Addicks just cleaned out the whole outfit.”

“Why?”

“He said that his experiments had been proven successful.”

“What was he doing particularly?”

“Well, that’s what I’m getting at. This Blevins can give you quite a picture, Perry. Of course, Blevins wasn’t very co-operative. I had to get in touch with him about three o’clock this morning and tell him it was an emergency and all of that stuff.”

“Well,” Mason said, “if a gorilla didn’t murder Addicks, the district attorney is going to have a devil of a time proving who did — but you must have been able to get something on Addicks, Paul.”

“Sure. I have a fistful of stuff here. I’ve merely been telling you the stuff I didn’t have.

“His lawyer, Sidney Hardwick, knows something about Addicks’ background, how much I can’t tell, and he won’t tell.

“Addicks made a stake in gold mining, turned to oil. He has accounts in a dozen banks, and he does a lot of business on a strictly cash basis.

“The income tax department doesn’t like it. They are after him all the time. His business manager, Mortimer Hershey, can make figures run up the hill or jump over hurdles.

“Nathan Fallon, a lesser light, has been having trouble with Addicks. Evidently Fallon isn’t above a little cut and kickback once in a while.”

“Better check on Fallon’s whereabouts last night Paul,” Mason said.

Paul Drake looked at the lawyer scornfully. “What the hell do you think I was doing all night?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to find out all the police know, which wasn’t much at first. Nathan Fallon was in Las Vegas, Nevada — and I mean he was there, every minute. Hershey was in Santa Barbara. I’m checking him, and so are the police.”

“Anything else that’s important, Paul?”

“Lots of it. Now here’s something I can’t figure. Addicks didn’t trust anyone in the business deals. He had secrets from Fallon and Hershey.”

“Can you blame him?” Mason· asked.

“No.”

“What sort of secrets, Paul?”

“Well, for instance, Addicks would disappear. One of the members of the yacht crew told me that. He was sore at Addicks because Addicks fired him.

“He said lots of times when Addicks was supposed to be cruising, he’d actually get aboard, then get off at the last minute and have the yacht cruise around when he wasn’t aboard.

“The yacht had a ship to shore phone, and Addicks would telephone the yacht’s captain and give him instructions as to where to sail and all that. Then they’d anchor at Catalina, and first thing anyone would know there would be Addicks, pretending he’d been aboard all the time, shut up in his stateroom, working.”

Mason pursed his lips. “Who was in on it, Paul?”

“Just the captain, and the captain’s as close-mouthed as a clam.”

Mason thought that over, then said suddenly, “All right, Paul, he was calling long distance. He must have placed his calls collect.

“Here’s what you do. By hook or crook get hold of the telephone bills on that ship’s telephone, start tracing the numbers that he called from. Let’s find out where he was when he was hiding from both Fallon and Hershey — do you suppose it was a woman, Paul?”

“Apparently he didn’t have any,” Drake said, “but he certainly was a great boy for cash transactions, and my own idea is he was slipping something over on the income tax department.”

“You’ve got some photos of him?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Well, check on those phone bills and see what you can find out.”

“All right,” Drake said. “Now here’s another thing. He...”

Drake was interrupted by a low, insistent knock at the door.

Della Street opened the door a crack, looked out, then pulled the door back and said, “Good morning. You folks are a little early.”

Etna and Josephine Kempton walked through the doorway.

Mason introduced them to Paul Drake, said to Etna, “How’s everything coming?”

“Coming fine,” Etna said triumphantly. “We’re sitting pretty, Mason.”

Mrs. Kempton nodded and beamed. “They couldn’t have been nicer to me.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of a story did you tell them?” he asked suspiciously.

“I didn’t tell them anything. I did just as you instructed me.”

Mason studied her face for a few moments, then abruptly said to Paul Drake, “I’m sorry, Paul, but we’re going to have to ask you to leave. It’s not that we don’t trust your discretion, but it has been held that a client who has a discussion with her attorney in the presence of a third person waives the benefit of the statutory provisions making such conversation absolutely confidential — Della, of course, as my secretary, is included within the scope of the statute, but you aren’t.”

“That’s fine,” Drake said. “Maybe I can get myself a little breakfast. I’m so damned tired of coffee and ham sandwiches bolted in between telephone calls. I’ll go down and have a real meal off a table.”

Drake left the room.

Mason turned to Etna and Mrs. Kempton. “Sit down,” he said. “Now, Mrs. Kempton, I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“I told you the truth.”

Mason shook his head.

“Mr. Mason,” she said indignantly, “do you think I would lie?”

Mason said, “I know the police. I know how they work. You were alone in that house with a murdered man. You refuse to tell anyone what you know, and yet you claim that the police turned you loose.”

“That’s right. They did. They even sent up to my room and got clothes for me.”

“How’s that?” Mason said.

“Well, they told me that it was necessary to have my clothes gone over carefully by a laboratory man, that they always did that in cases where a witness had been present, at a murder, that it was a matter of routine. They said it would be tomorrow sometime before I could have my clothes back, and that there was no need of waiting there if I didn’t want to, that they’d send the matron up to my room and she could get the clothes for me if I’d tell her what I wanted to wear.”

“They did that?”

“Yes.”

“You gave them a key to your room?”

“It was in my envelope — they take everything away from you and put it in an envelope.”

“And you signed something saying it would be all right for her to go in the room?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then they brought me my clothes. Everyone was just as nice as pie. They told me they were sorry they had had to hold me, that they had now found out all about who murdered Mr. Addicks and that I was absolutely in the clear.”

“Who told you that?”

“The matron.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Well,” she said, “they asked me what I wanted to do, and I told them I wanted to call you.”

“When was that?”

“That was early this morning.”

“Go ahead.”

“It seems that no one knew how to reach you before you came to the office, but Mr. Etna had a phone in his residence. I knew that he’d be up so I told them it would be all right to call him.”

“And he came and got you?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

Mason looked at Etna. Etna nodded.

“From the detention cells?” Mason asked.

“Well, not exactly,” Etna said. “I picked her up in the garage downstairs.”

“The garage?”

“Yes.”

“What garage?”

“The police garage, where they...”

“That’s where they drove us in last night,” Mrs. Kempton interrupted. “You’ll remember there was a storage garage back of the place where they let us out. Well, I didn’t want to bother anyone, so I told the police that I’d just go on down to the garage and wait there, that they could tell Mr. Etna to come there and get me.”

“So you were waiting there?”

“Yes, right where they took us last night, where we got out of the car.”

Mason turned to Etna. “You couldn’t drive in there?” he asked.

“No, but I left my car outside, and went to the door and motioned to Mrs. Kempton, and she came running out. Why? Does it make any difference?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Mason said.

“I don’t get it,” Etna said.

Mason said, “Mrs. Kempton, you’re leaving out something.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re leaving out something significant, some fact that...”

She interrupted him to shake her head in positive negation. “I’m telling you everything, Mr. Mason.”

“And Mr. Etna drove you directly here?” Mason asked.

“He took me to my apartment first. I stopped there for five or ten minutes, then we drove here.”

“She has a couple of questions she wants to ask you,” Etna said.

Mrs. Kempton nodded. “Mr. Mason, when a man dies what happens to his bank account — I mean any checks that are outstanding?”

Mason said, “Checks are no good after a man dies. His bank account is frozen. As soon as the bank is notified of his death it stops payment on all checks.”

“But suppose a man had a cashier’s check?”

“A cashier’s check,” Mason said, “is a check given by a bank. Banks don’t die.”

“And if it... well, I’m just wondering...”

“Why are you wondering?” Mason asked.

“Oh, on account of the way Mr. Addicks did business. You know, Mr. Mason, he worked on a cash basis a lot. He juggled things around, and I know he used to do business with cash and with cashier’s checks. He’d buy cashier’s checks from different banks and then endorse them.”

“And you’re wondering if his endorsement on a cashier’s check would invalidate the cashier’s check in case he died before the check was cashed?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Just so I can get the picture straight in my own mind.”

Mason said, “The cashier’s check would be paid — but right now I want to know what happened out there at that house.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m going to tell you the truth, and I’m going to tell you the whole truth, and then you can tell me what to do. I hardly dare to say a word to anyone because what I have to say sounds so...”

“What have you told the newspapermen?” Mason interrupted.

“Nothing.”

“Did they talk with you?”

“No. The police told me they’d turn me loose early this morning so that the newspapers wouldn’t know anything about it. That would give me a chance to get myself adjusted.”

Mason said in an aside to Etna, “This thing gets more and more cockeyed every minute.”

“Oh, the police can be considerate,” Etna said.

“Sure they can,” Mason said, “but they’re not going to antagonize every newspaper reporter in order to do it.”

“They did it this time.”

“Damned if they didn’t,” Mason said in an undertone. “Go ahead, Mrs. Kempton. Tell us what happened. How did you happen to go out to Stonehenge in the first place?”

“Mr. Addicks telephoned me.”

“Where did his call reach you?”

“At my room.”

“How did he get your number?”

“That I don’t know.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that he wanted to see me.”

“Did he tell you what about?”

“He said he wanted to apologize in person for the great wrong that he had done me. He said he had something important to tell me.”

“Did you tell Mr. Etna about the conversation?”

“No. Mr. Addicks told me to say nothing to anyone, but to come out to his house at six o’clock.”

“At six?”

“Yes. He said he had some important appointments that would keep him busy until six, and then he had some appointments at six-forty-five. So I was to be there exactly at the stroke of six.”

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get in?”

“I went around to the door at 546 Rose Street.”

“It was open?”

“No, it was locked.”

“How did you get in?”

“I had my key.”

“You mean you’ve been keeping a key all this time...?”

“Well, I had a key and I was never asked to turn it in.”

“Did Addicks know that?”

“He asked me if I had my key, and I told him yes. He said that was fine, to come right in the back way, and go up to his offices on the second floor — why, what’s wrong with that, Mr. Mason? I’ve done that hundreds of times when I was working there.”

“That was when you were working there,” Mason said. “This is different.”

“Well, good heavens, I couldn’t expect a busy man like Mr. Addicks to come all the way down the stairs and across that corridor just to let me in, when I had a key and knew the way.”

“There was no one else to let you in?”

“No. He was alone in the house.”

“Did he tell you that when he telephoned?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “You recognized his voice?”

“Oh yes. Of course, he laughed about the way he had to mumble with that bandage on.”

“What time was it he called you?”

“About two-thirty in the afternoon.”

“You went out there?”

“Yes. I took the bus that got me to the Olive Street intersection at exactly five-fifty. You see, I know the bus schedules from having been out there so much.”

Mason said, “Hang it, I’m jumpy about this thing. Let me hit the high spots. Was he alive when you got there?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say to you?”

“That’s just the point. He didn’t have a chance to say anything. He was killed just as I entered the...”

“Who killed him?”

“A gorilla.”

Mason said, “Come, come, Mrs. Kempton. Let’s be practical.”

“Mr. Mason, please don’t doubt what I’m telling you. I’m telling you the absolute truth. I saw it with my own eyes. Mr. Addicks was lying on the bed and this gorilla plunged a knife into him several times.”

“Which gorilla was it?”

“Mr. Mason, I can’t swear which gorilla it was. It was one of the three large ones, but I don’t know which. You see it wasn’t normal — the gorilla killed him while it was in a hypnotic trance.”

Mason regarded her with thoughtful eyes.

“You don’t believe me, do you, Mr. Mason?”

Mason said, “Even if I did, a jury wouldn’t.”

“Well, I don’t know why not,” she flared. “After all, that’s what Mr. Addicks had been trying to do for years and years. He was trying to get a gorilla that he could hypnotize, and...”

“All right,” Mason said. “It’s your story. Let’s not waste time arguing. I want to know what happened.”

“Well, I entered the room. At first I couldn’t see Mr. Addicks. I called out his name, and then I saw him lying there on the bed. He looked as though he might be asleep, and this gorilla came from around the corner by the bathroom. It was hypnotized, Mr. Mason.”

“You’ve said that twice. How do you know?”

“The expression of the eyes. The gorilla grinned at me and moved over to the bed with that peculiar shambling walk, and — it was grinning all the time, as if it enjoyed turning the tables on the man who had tortured it.”

“What did you do?”

“I screamed, and I fainted.”

“Did you know there were gorillas loose in the house?” Mason asked. “Were any of the animals loose when you went along that walk past the cages?”

“No, everything was shipshape. Two big gorillas were in one of the cages that were opened later, and the friendly gorilla in the other.”

Mason said, “Then somebody turned those gorillas loose between the time you...”

“The gorilla did that.”

“Which one?”

“The gorilla that killed Mr. Addicks.”

“How do you know?”

“Why, I know, Mr. Mason. You can’t be around them very long without knowing how they work. Those cages had bar locks that could be worked from the outside, and the minute one gorilla got loose, why, he’d open the other cages. That’s one of the first things he’d do.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

She said, “Well, I fainted. I came to and one of the friendly little gorillas, who has always liked me, was sitting down beside me. He was making little whimpering noises of sympathy, and he licked my face with his tongue. I think that’s what wakened me out of my faint.”

“Were you frightened?” Mason asked.

“Not particularly. I recognized this gorilla as soon as I opened my eyes.”

“Then what?”

“Then,” she said, “I spoke to him, and he was tickled to death to see that I was all right. He patted my cheek and ran his hands over my hair, and was just as pleased as he could be.”

“Then what?”

“Then I got up and looked around, and I could see that Mr. Addicks was dead. I could see the knife sticking out of his back. So I went to the telephone and tried to get Mr. Etna, and I couldn’t get him. I tried and tried to get you and couldn’t get you, and I was just desperate when Miss Street finally answered the telephone.”

“Why didn’t you call for the police?”

“Because I didn’t know what to do, Mr. Mason. I didn’t know but what you’d tell me to get out of the house and not let anyone know I’d been there. But... well, I just didn’t know what to do.”

“And where was this big gorilla all this time?”

She said, “One of the first things I did was to lock every door leading into Mr. Addicks’ suite of rooms upstairs.”

“How about your friendly gorilla?”

“Oh, I left him in there. He was perfectly safe. He was just like a child. He was to glad to see me I couldn’t get him away. He’d clap his hands and...”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“Well,” she said, “I told you that I’d meet you down at the door at 546 Rose Street. I didn’t hardly dare to go out in the corridor, but after a while I decided it would be all right — that was about the time that I was expecting you. So I gently unlocked the door to the corridor and looked out. Everything was quiet, so I sneaked out into the hallway and... well, I guess something hit me. I remember seeing all kinds of shooting stars, and the next thing I knew, I was lying there on the floor with consciousness coming back to me, and then I saw you standing there facing the gorilla, and as soon as I saw that gorilla I knew you were going to have trouble.”

“Why?”

“Because that gorilla was one of the really bad ones. He was really dangerous. You couldn’t tell what he’d do. I guess he must have smashed the door down or something, because I remember seeing the broken door, and I think it was the sound of some terrific crash that helped me to regain consciousness.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“You know all the rest. I knew we were in terrible danger, and I... well, I told you what to do.”

Mason said, “This is the screwiest, most cockeyed story I have ever heard in my life.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mason. It’s the truth.”

“The whole truth?”

“The whole truth, so help me.”

Mason got up and began to pace the floor. After a moment he said, “I suppose there’s one chance in a hundred that it could be the truth. But whoever knocked you out would have then carried you back to the room. I look at you while you’re talking and you sound almost convincing. Then I look away and I can’t believe my ears.”

“Mr. Mason, are you doubting my word?”

“Yes,” Mason said.

She became angry. “I’ve told you exactly what happened.”

“Well,” Mason said, “when you stop to figure the environment out there, I suppose that you could say perhaps there was one chance in eight or ten the story might be the truth, but who’s going to believe it? A jury won’t, a judge won’t, the newspapers won’t.”

“I don’t see why anyone should disbelieve it. After all, Mr. Addicks had been deliberately training those gorillas to do just that thing, he’d been trying to hypnotize them and give them homicidal impulses and...”

“It’s completely crazy,” Mason said.

“There’s nothing crazy about it!” she flared at him. “If you ask me, Mr. Addicks had something terrible in his past. He was always afraid that he was going to be charged with a murder. I think that it was a murder that had been committed in some foreign country, and I think Mr. Addicks was going to claim that he had been hypnotized by someone, and that gradually the hypnotic influence had worn off, but that he had never regained his memory.”

Mason walked over to stand by the window. “Yes,” he said slowly, “when you look at the case in the light of the undisputed facts you can see that — but, good Lord, fancy trying to put up a defense like that in a courtroom and in front of a jury.”

“Don’t worry. You won’t have to,” she said. “The police have found out about that gorilla because they turned me loose and apologized for holding me. I don’t see what you’re worrying about a jury for, Mr. Mason. I’m not going to be charged with anything.”

“And there’s the craziest thing of the whole business,” Mason said. “You’re alone in a house where a man is murdered. If you’d told this story and signed a written statement they might have turned you loose while they made an investigation — you didn’t tell them this story, did you?”

“I didn’t tell them anything.”

“Well, don’t,” Mason warned. “Keep your lips closed until I can find some way of checking this thing. Hang it all, when you stop to figure the thing in the light of the facts it probably is all right, but it’s such a crazy story to try to make anyone believe.”

“But it had to be that way, Mr. Mason. There was no one in the house except Mr. Addicks, myself and the gorillas.”

“Exactly,” Mason said, “and there’s no reason why a shrewd person, who knew the way Mr. Addicks had been training his animals, couldn’t have plunged a knife into him while he was asleep, and then claimed that he’d been killed by a gorilla.”

“But what possible motive would I have for doing that?”

“That,” Mason said, “is what gets me. I can’t understand what possible motive you had for going out there without talking with James Etna or calling me.”

“I suppose I should have done so, but Mr. Addicks asked me to say nothing to anyone.”

Mason was on the point of saying something else when knuckles banged on the door with booming authority.

“Open up, Mason,” Sergeant Holcomb’s voice ordered. “This is the police.”

Mason nodded to Della Street. She opened the door.

Sergeant Holcomb, smiling triumphantly, said, “Well, well, Mason, this is the case we’ve been waiting for. This is the one we really want. Come on, Mrs. Kempton. You’re going with us.”

“Going with you?” she said. “Why, you’ve just turned me loose.”

“We sure did,” Holcomb agreed. “And now you’re going back with us, and this time the charge is first-degree murder.”

Holcomb and two other officers pushed their way into the office, took Mrs. Kempton by the arms, and, before she could protest, snapped handcuffs on her.

“See you in church, Mason,” Holcomb said.

“Just a moment,” Mason said, getting between the officers and the door. “Have you got a warrant for the arrest of this woman?”

“Right here,” Holcomb said, pulling a folded paper from his pocket.

Mason stepped forward.

The two officers gave him the shoulder, pushing him away from the door. Sergeant Holcomb rushed Mrs. Kempton into the corridor.

Mason gained the door.

An officer pushed him back. “Go get a writ if you want,” he said, “but don’t try to interfere with officers in the performance of their duties.”

The other officer and Sergeant Holcomb hurried Mrs. Kempton down the corridor.

“You’re damn right I’ll get a writ,” Mason said angrily.

“That’s the spirit,” the officer grinned. “Get a couple of ’em.”

Mason said to Etna: “Go check the records, slap a writ on them if they aren’t in order, Jim.”

Etna nodded, and started toward the elevators.

“Take the stairs,” Mason said as he turned back to the office. “Quick, Della, help me search this place for a microphone. If they’ve been listening in on a confidential communication made to an attorney by a client, we’ll show them something they’ve never even thought of.”

Mason and Della Street frantically searched the office.

At the end of an hour they admitted themselves baffled. They had looked in every nook and corner, behind every picture. They had moved furniture, raised the rug, inspected every inch of the walls.

“Well?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “I don’t get it. They’ve got something that we don’t know about.”

“What could it be?”

“I’m hanged if I know.”

“Do you suppose she’ll tell the police the same story she told us?”

“I hope not,” Mason said.

The lawyer walked over to the window, stood moodily looking down at the traffic of the busy street.

Suddenly he turned. “Della,” he said, “there’s such a thing as becoming too skeptical.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Kempton tells us a story that sounds weird and bizarre and therefore we immediately reject it.”

“You mean she might have told the truth?”

“There’s one other possibility.”

“What?”

Mason said, “Let’s look at it this way, Della. Suppose you wanted to kill Benjamin Addicks and suppose you wanted to have it appear that someone else had done it and that you weren’t guilty.”

“Well?” she asked.

“So,” Mason said, “you would get Josephine Kempton into the house. You would get her to tell a story that absolutely no jury on earth would believe. Then you’d go ahead and kill Benjamin Addicks and be pretty certain that Josephine Kempton would be convicted.”

“But how on earth would you get her to tell any such story?” Della Street asked.

“Look at the whole thing,” Mason said. “Look at it from a cold-blooded, analytical standpoint. What about Mrs. Kempton’s story?”

“It sounds crazy,” Della Street said promptly. “It sounds like — like a nightmare.”

“And that,” Mason said, “is probably exactly what it is.”

“What do you mean by that, Chief?”

“Look at the facts in the case,” Mason said. “Addicks has employed people around him who have been trying to use hypnotism on animals, particularly gorillas.”

“Well?”

“Mrs. Kempton has two periods of blackout. The first time she thought she had fainted. The second time she thinks someone hit her on the head.”

“Go on,” Della Street said.

Mason said, “Suppose someone put Mrs. Kempton in a hypnotic trance, and while she was in that hypnotic trance he told her this story that she was to believe when she regained consciousness.”

Della Street’s eyes widened. “Chief,” she said, “I bet that’s it! That would account for the whole thing, and...” Suddenly the eager enthusiasm left her manner, her voice trailed away into silence.

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“But,” Della Street said dubiously, “you couldn’t get any jury to believe that hypnotism story any more than you could get them to believe the gorilla story.”

“Not with the evidence presently available,” Mason said, “but this is just the beginning of the case.”

“Could a woman be hypnotized and have a synthetic nightmare of that sort implanted on her consciousness so that it would be remembered as an actual experience when she awakened?”

“I think so,” Mason said. “I’m going to check. After all, hypnotism is a subject I know very little about. But all of that still doesn’t explain how it happened the police were so triumphantly certain of themselves when they came and arrested Mrs. Kempton. They must have uncovered something. We’ll know a lot more within the next day or two. There are a lot of angles to this case we still don’t know about.”

“Perhaps even a few curves,” Della Street said demurely.