The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

Chapter number 15

Perry Mason and Della Street finished the last of their Chinese dinner.

“Want an almond cake?” Mason asked.

She shook her head and said, “I like the more delicate flavor of those rice flour cookies, those fortune cakes.”

“That’s fine,” Mason told her. “We’ll finish up with tea and fortune cakes. Bring us a bowl of them,” he instructed the waiter.

The Chinese shuffled off, letting the green curtain fall back in the doorway of the booth.

“You know,” Della Street said, “I’m getting the most peculiar hunch. I have a feeling that we’re running on a hot scent. I feel tingly.”

Mason nodded. “We’re going to have to work fast,” he said. “There isn’t a lot of time.”

The Chinese waiter brought back a big pot of tea. “Best kind,” he said. “Ooh loong cha.”

He gave them fresh teacups and a bowl of rice cakes.

Mason extended the bowl to Della Street. She took one, broke it open, read the fortune, smiled, folded the little printed slip of paper and started to put it in her purse.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Mason said.

She shook her head.

“Why, Della,” Perry Mason said, “you don’t ordinarily keep things from me.”

“This one I have to.”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry, Chief.” She colored furiously. “It wouldn’t have been so bad it I’d passed it over to you right at the time, but now it would be — out of the question.”

She opened her purse, took out a coin purse and placed the folded slip of paper with its printed message inside.

Mason broke open a cake while Della Street poured tea.

“What’s yours?” Della asked.

Mason abruptly folded the fortune and started to put it into his side pocket.

Della street laughed. “I caught you that time,” she said. “You haven’t even read it yet.”

Mason grinned, unfolded the slip of rice paper, read the printed message, then passed it across to Della Street.

The message read:

“Well,” Mason said, “I guess we’d better telephone Drake’s office and see if they’ve uncovered anything.”

“Chief, somehow I... do you feel that there’s anything to these fortunes?”

Mason laughed. “Of course not, Della. They have them printed by the hundred. They’re inserted in the cakes and the cakes are baked so that when you break the cake the fortune is inside of it. I don’t know how many different fortunes there are. Probably not over a hundred or so.”

“Have you ever received a duplicate in any of the cakes you’ve eaten?”

“Come to think of it,” Mason said, “I don’t know that I have. I haven’t given it a great deal of thought.”

“Do you believe in Fate?”

Mason said, “The Chinese do to this extent. They’ll put a hundred different messages in a hundred different fortune cakes. They feel that the one you pick out was really intended for you. That’s the way most of their fortunetelling works. Sometimes you shake fortune sticks in a bowl until one drops out.”

She said, “I have a feeling that your fortune has a really personal message for you.”

Mason laughed. “What you’re really trying to say, Della, is that you hope the fortune you picked out has a personal message to you.”

Her face became a fiery red.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mason said, quickly and impulsively reaching out to place his hand over hers. “I was only kidding, Della. I didn’t want you to take me seriously — although,” he added, “I thought your psychology was a bit obvious.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she said. “Do you want me to call Paul Drake’s office?”

“Sit there and drink your tea,” Mason said, “and get over being angry, Della. I’ll go call Paul Drake.”

“I’m not angry. I... I’m...”

“Well, your face flushed up,” Mason said.

Abruptly she averted her eyes, said, “All right, go ahead. Call Paul Drake. You have his number.”

Mason went to the public phone, dropped a coin and dialed the number of Drake’s office.

When Drake’s switchboard operator answered, Mason said, “This is Perry Mason. I’m wondering if Paul Drake...”

“Just a moment,” the voice at the other end of the line interrupted with crisp efficiency.

Mason heard the click of a connection, heard the operator’s voice saying, “Mr. Mason for you, Mr. Drake,” and Drake exclaimed, “Good for you! Where did you get him?”

“I didn’t. He called in. He...”

“Hello, hello, Perry, Perry!” Drake said excitedly.

“Okay Paul, what is it? I thought you were asleep. Have you struck pay dirt?”

“Struck pay dirt by the ton,” Drake said. “Jeepers, what a hunch you had. You’d better play the races tomorrow and mortgage the family fortune.”

“Go on, Paul, what is it?”

“B. F. Barnwell and Helen Cadmus were married in a little Nevada town that no one would ordinarily check up on. A little place where a person would hardly think to look, a place north and east of Las Vegas on the road to Ely.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “Give me the dope, Paul.”

“Got a pencil there?”

“Just a minute. I’ll get Della. Hang on.”

Mason left the receiver off the hook, hurried back to the booth, beckoned to Della Street. “Get your pencil and notebook, Della.”

Della pushed back the carved teakwood chair, ran to the telephone, opened her purse, hurriedly pulled out a shorthand notebook, hooked one strap of the purse over her left wrist, held the receiver to her ear and said, “Go ahead, Paul.”

Her pencil, flying over the page of the shorthand notebook, made a series of pothooks, then a figure and a name.

“That all?” she asked. “All right, the boss wants to speak with you.”

She turned away from the telephone. Mason grabbed the receiver, said, “Yes, Paul?”

“I’ve given the dope to Della, Perry. I’ve got the thing sewed up. The main thing is that after the marriage was performed, the Justice of the Peace wanted to know where he should send the documents after all the red tape had been complied with, and there was a moment’s silence, then the woman said, ‘Send them to Mrs. B. F. Barnwell.’ She gave an address, a little California town up on the edge of the desert.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Della has the dope?”

“Della has it. Now, for the love of Mike, Perry, don’t expect me to go tearing up there and...”

“I don’t,” Mason said. “Here’s what I want you to do, Paul.”

“What?” Drake asked in a weary voice.

“Go take a good hot bath,” Mason said. “Finish up with a cool shower, crawl into bed and sleep just as long as you can, because when I wake you up you’re going to have to go to work.”

Drake said wearily, “Is that music to my ears? I’d just started to go home when that message from Nevada came in. The elevator operator said you folks had just gone out for chow. I’ve been calling all the restaurants where you usually eat.”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said. “I intended to call your office but I didn’t think you’d get anything this soon. I thought you were asleep. Be seeing you, Paul.”

Mason hung up the telephone, grabbed Della Street’s arm, said, “Come on, Della, we’re on our way.”

He ran toward the cashier’s booth at the head of the stairs, pulled a ten dollar bill from his wallet, threw it on the counter and said to the Chinese cashier, “We haven’t time to wait for a statement. There’s ten dollars. Leave the waiter a dollar tip...”

“Must have waiter’s check,” the calm, unperturbed Oriental said.

Exasperated, Mason threw one of his professional cards on the desk, picked up the ten dollar bill, pulled a fifty dollar bill from his pocket, and slammed it down on the desk. “All right, you don’t trust me. I trust you. You give the waiter a dollar tip, and I’ll come in sometime tomorrow or the next day and pick up the change. Until then — good-by.”

He reached for Della’s wrist, and then went pell-mell down the flight of stairs to the street.

Mason ran to where his car was parked.

“All right, Della,” he said. “Hang on.”

He unlocked the car. Della Street jerked the car door open, jumped in, slammed the door shut behind her, reached across the seat back of the steering wheel to unlock the door on the driver’s side.

Mason slid in behind the steering wheel, stepped on the starter, then, easing the car away from the curb, began to open the throttle.

At the second intersection Della Street said, “and you object to my driving!”

“This time,” Mason told her, “we’re really in a hurry.”

“So I gathered,” Della Street said.

They picked their way through the more congested traffic of the city, hit a freeway and were soon spinning along with the needle of the speedometer indicating seventy miles an hour.

Twice Della Street glanced at Perry Mason, but seeing the fierce concentration of his face knew that his busy mind was working ahead, planning moves even as he crowded the car along.

Twenty minutes later they were out in the open and Mason sent the speedometer up into the eighties.

“What will happen if you get caught?” Della Street said.

“Darned if I know,” Mason said. “We’ll have to find out. Keep an eye on the road behind, Della.”

“At this rate of speed you’ll overtake some traffic officer who’s cruising along about sixty-five,” she said.

“That’s a chance we have to take. I’m watching the license numbers of the cars ahead. You help me keep an eye on the road behind.”

Three hours later Mason slowed the car to read a sign at a crossroad and then turned to the right.

Della Street said, “From the looks of this place they roll up the sidewalks at seven o’clock. You’re not going to find anyone up this time of night.”

“We’ll get them up,” Mason said.

Della Street said, “There’s the place. It’s a motel, Chief, and there’s no one up.”

“We’ll get someone up.”

Mason rang the bell at the office, and after a few minutes later a man, rubbing sleep from his eyes, shuffled to the door. “Sorry,” he said, “we’re full up. Can’t you see that sign No Vacancies? You’re...”

Mason said, “Here’s five dollars.”

“I tell you we’re full up. I couldn’t let you have a place if...”

“I don’t want a place,” Mason said. “I simply want to know what cabin is occupied by Mrs. Barnwell.”

“Mrs. B? She’s in number eleven, but she’s gone to bed.”

“Thanks,” Mason said. “Buy yourself a bottle of hooch, and I’m sorry we woke you up.”

Mason and Della Street walked rapidly down a little cement walk which bordered the patio parking place surrounded by stucco cottages.

“Here’s our cottage,” Mason said.

He looked for a bell. There was none. He tried to open the screen door. It was latched on the inside.

Mason tapped his knuckles on the door.

A woman’s voice, sharp with alarm, said, “Who is it, please?”

“A message,” Mason said, “a very important message.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll have to know who you are. I...”

“Turn on the light,” Mason said. “It’s a message. It has to do with the validity of a marriage ceremony performed in Nevada. Now are you interested?”

A light clicked on inside.

“Just a minute,” the feminine voice said.

A moment later the outer door was opened. A vague, shadowy figure of a young woman bundled in a loose wrapper stood in the doorway. The screen remained latched.

“All right. What is it please?” she said.

Mason, holding a fountain pen flashlight in his right hand, pressed the button. The beam shone through the screen in the door, full in the woman’s face.

She jerked back and said sharply, “Don’t do that!”

Mason said, “I’ve found out what I wanted to know, Miss Cadmus.”

“Mrs. Barnwell, please.”

“I want to talk with you about that.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk with you about anything,” she said sharply, and started to close the door.

“I think you do,” Mason told her. “If you don’t talk with me now, you’ll have to talk with the newspaper reporters two hours from now.”

“The newspaper reporters?”

“Yes.”

“How did they — how could they locate me?”

“Through me,” Mason said.

A masculine voice edged with irritation came from the adjoining cottage. “Oh, pipe down! Hire a hall or go get a woman that feels sociable. Don’t stand out there and argue. I want to sleep!”

Mason stood quietly at the screen door, waiting.

The figure in the doorway remained motionless for a matter of seconds, then a hand reached out and snapped off the hook.

“Won’t you come in?” she invited. “And please try not to wake the baby.”

Mason held the door open for Della Street and followed her into the cabin.

Mason carefully closed the door behind them.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

The cottage was a spacious, comfortable affair. The small sitting room was comfortably furnished, with good rugs on the floor, and they could see through the door to a bedroom containing a double bed and a crib.

Mason said, “I’m Perry Mason, the lawyer. This is Della Street, my secretary. I’m going to put the cards on the table with you. I’m one of the attorneys representing Josephine Kempton. She’s charged with the murder of Benjamin Addicks — your husband.”

The woman sat with tight-lipped hostility. “Keep talking.

Mason said, “My connection with the case is purely fortuitous. I bought your diaries and...”

“I read about it in the papers. What did you want with them? Were you trying some kind of legalized blackmail? Did you think I’d be foolish enough to put anything in them that...?”

“You put things in them that you didn’t know you’d put in them,” Mason said. “That is, you put things in that you don’t think other people would find out.”

“Such as what?”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“I don’t know. I want to find out.”

“And how do you think I got here?”

“That I can’t understand. I took elaborate precautions.”

“I know you did,” Mason said. “The point I’m making is that there was more in those diaries than you had realized. Now then, I want your story.”

“Well, you won’t get it.”

“I think I will,” Mason said confidently.

“What makes you think so?”

“Because,” Mason said, “I have all the damaging parts of the story. I know the motels where you stayed with Benjamin Addicks. I know the entries in your diary to the effect that you were going to take happiness where you found it, and that you wouldn’t force the issue as long as there wasn’t any. And then, when you found out there was going to be an issue, you had to face the situation and you put that in your diary.

“I know what happened aboard the yacht. I know that you and Addicks fixed it up so you would pull the wool over the eyes of everyone and make it appear you had committed suicide. I don’t know why he took all those elaborate precautions. That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“If you’re so smart, go ahead and find out.”

“I know,” Mason said, “that you were married in Nevada. I know that you directed that the documents solemnizing the marriage should be mailed to you at this address. I know that Addicks’ real name was Barnwell.

“Now then, I can make some guesses. They aren’t the type of guesses that you might like to have me make. I can communicate my guesses to the newspapers. They’ve been after me for an interview.”

“Go ahead and give them one.”

“I have already given them an interview in which I have pointed out that because of certain entries in your diary I felt that you had communicated to Mr. Addicks that he was about to become a father. I have already told them about the motels where you stayed with Mr. Addicks, registered as husband and wife, and I have witnesses who have identified your picture. The newspapers have the story. They’re going to break out with it tomorrow morning.”

“Why did you have to do that to me?” she asked.

“I didn’t do it to you,” Mason said. “ I’m a lawyer. I’m engaged in a case where I had to get at the facts. I didn’t make the facts. I didn’t cut the pattern. I only discovered the facts.”

“And then you had to blab them to the press.”

“I did it because it was the thing to do. There was a reason why Mr. Addicks couldn’t marry you. What was it?”

“I don’t know why I should tell you.”

“I don’t know why you shouldn’t.”

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Just what is your interest in this?”

“I’m trying to find out the truth.”

“And you’re representing Josephine Kempton?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” she said bitterly. “If you want the truth about her, I’ll give you all the truth about her. She killed him!”

“You mean she killed Benjamin Addicks?”

“Of course she killed him. She wanted to kill me more than she wanted to kill him. That’s one of the reasons that Benny decided we’d make it appear that... well, that I was already dead.”

“It seems to me,” Mason said, “that’s an unduly complicated way of trying to find a solution to a simple problem.”

“The problem wasn’t simple.”

“Why didn’t he clear up that marriage problem with his first wife?” Mason asked, his casual manner masking the fact that he was taking a shot in the dark.

“Because he couldn’t.”

“Why?”

She shrugged her shoulders said, “Suppose you do the talking for a while?”

Mason said, “All right. I’m a lawyer. The only possible solution that I can think of why Mr. Addicks wouldn’t have acknowledged you publicly as his wife is that he didn’t have the legal right to do so, and the only reason I can think of why he didn’t have the legal right to make you his wife is that he had another wife living, a wife who had perhaps thrown the hooks into him for alimony, and who had refused to give him a divorce.”

She shook her head.

“Not right?” Mason asked.

She said bitterly, “The newspapers have given him a lot of publicity from time to time. They’ve published his picture plenty of times. You haven’t heard anyone come forward and say that she was his wife. You haven’t learned of any prior marriage.”

“That’s one of the things that puzzles me,” Mason admitted reluctantly.

She said, “It puzzled me, but I cared enough about him to ride along and take things the way they came.”

“You cared that much for him?” Della Street asked.

She regarded Della Street speculatively and said, “He was good to me. I was willing to let it ride along on any kind of a basis that he wanted as long as — as long as it only affected the two of us.”

“I still don’t get the story,” Mason said.

“You’re not going to get it.”

Mason glanced at Della Street, said, “For some reason the man didn’t feel he was at liberty to marry, and yet when it became necessary for him to marry in order to give his child a name, and to give you some measure of protection he went ahead and married. But before he did that he went through an elaborate rigmarole to make everyone think that you were dead. That must have meant that he — oh-oh, I believe I have it.”

“What is it, Chief?” Della Street asked.

“He felt that any woman whom he married would be in the greatest danger.”

“But why?” Della Street asked.

Mason held up his hand. “First,” he said, elevating his forefinger, “he didn’t feel that he was legally free to marry. Second, he felt that any woman in whom he took a serious interest would be in great danger. That spells a certain pattern to me, Della — as a lawyer.”

“I don’t get it, Chief.”

Mason looked at the woman in the wrapper. “Perhaps Helen can tell us.”

“And perhaps Helen won’t.”

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s make a stab at it, Della. At some stage in his life Addicks had married. That marriage had never been dissolved by death or by any decree of divorce. Now why not?”

Della Street shook her head. “There isn’t any reason. If he’d married he’d have been divorced. No matter what it cost him he’d have bought his way out of that and got into the clear. He might have been very cautious about taking a second adventure in the field of matrimony, but he certainly would have secured his legal freedom.”

“If he could have,” Mason said.

“What do you mean, if he could have?”

“There’s one legal situation, one very interesting legal situation under which he might not have been able to accomplish what he wanted.”

“What?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “In many states it is impossible to divorce a woman who has been adjudged insane.

“Now then, suppose that Benjamin Addicks had married. Suppose that woman had been adjudged insane. Addicks’ hands were tied. And furthermore, suppose that woman developed a form of insanity that would make her dangerous, that would — I think we’re getting somewhere, Della.”

Mason inclined his head slightly toward the woman in the wrapper.

She was having trouble with her face. A spasm of grief contorted it, then she suddenly said angrily, “Damn you! What are you? A mind reader? Do you have to go prying into peoples’ lives and...?”

“I think,” Mason said, “you’d better tell me about it, Helen.”

She said, “I went through ten thousand hells. You have no idea what it meant.”

“Who is this woman?” Mason asked. “Where is she confined?”

“That’s just the point,” Helen said. “She isn’t confined. She escaped. She’s at large. She’s a homicidal maniac. Do you see what that means?”

Mason narrowed his eyes in thoughtful concentration.

“She’s absolutely, utterly insane. She’s jealous. She traced Benny and blackmailed him. She told him that if he ever married or tried to marry she’d kill the woman. And she meant it. My marriage to Benny isn’t any good legally.”

“Then why go through the marriage ceremony?”

“For what it might be worth to give the child a name.”

“Where’s the first wife?”

“No one knows.”

“Why wasn’t she kept confined somewhere?”

“You can’t keep her confined anywhere. She escaped every time she was locked up. That’s why Ben had to keep his affairs in such shape that he could give her cash quickly. The woman is utterly, ferociously mad. She’d kill him and she’d love to kill me.”

“She didn’t kill him?”

“No, Josephine Kempton did that — but if you’ve told the newspapers about my marriage, or even if she thinks I am the mother of Benny’s child, she’ll hunt me out and kill me. She’s diabolically ingenious and utterly vindictive.

“You see, she’s still insane as far as the law’s concerned. There wasn’t a thing Benjamin Addicks could do. An action for divorce wouldn’t lie, and he couldn’t even clarify their property matters. And if he tried to do anything, it would necessarily have disclosed his true name and his true past.”

“What about his past?”

“He killed a man.”

“I thought that was his brother.”

“No. There was some garbled gossip to that effect. Benny kept track of Herman, but Herman thought Benny was dead.”

“Did your husband actually kill a man?”

“He claimed he didn’t really know. He never told me the details. When I learned how he felt I never asked for them.”

“But his wife kept in touch with him?” Mason asked.

“Certainly.”

“How?”

“The phone would ring. It would be a call from a pay station. It would be her voice. She’d direct him to put a certain amount of money in the form of cash in a package and leave the package at a certain place. It was all done as mysteriously as though she had been getting ransom for kidnaping.”

“And Addicks had some messenger he could trust who delivered the money?”

“Yes.”

“Certainly he didn’t dare to put you in that situation.”

“No. It was Mortimer Hershey who did that. Sometimes it was Nathan Fallon.”

“Did they know what they were doing?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Mason. I don’t think they did. Benny was so afraid of being blackmailed. Heavens, I’m telling you this whole story and I had no intention of doing it, but I’ve been so lonely, and then — now Benny’s gone. He’s all I had a tie to and...”

“Now wait a minute,” Mason said, “let’s control the emotions for a little while, Mrs. Barnwell. Let’s get down to brass tacks on this thing. What about Josephine Kempton? Did she know about you and Mr. Addicks?”

“She suspected.”

“You read about the supposedly stolen property being discovered?”

“Yes, I did. I certainly should have guessed the correct solution myself. Good Lord, I had all the facts available. It just never occurred to me to suspect a monkey. That little mischievous devil! And I’m so fond of him, too — but he’s a devil.”

“Where’s the monkey now?” Mason asked.

“He’s... he’s being taken care of. Don’t worry, he’ll have a home.”

“Do you think Josephine Kempton is telling the truth about...?”

“She never told the truth about anything in her life. She’s a congenital liar. She’s a plotter, a sneak, a vicious, backbiting, nasty-minded woman, and she killed Benjamin Addicks. I know it just as well as I know I’m sitting here.”

Mason said, “How do you know it?”

“I don’t know it by any evidence, but I’m absolutely certain that’s the case.”

Mason said, “You don’t want to be interviewed by the newspaper reporters, do you?”

“No.”

“All right,” Mason told her, “start packing.”

“What do you mean?”

Mason said, “I’m going to put you in a place where you’re safe for the time being. You were crazy to think that you couldn’t be found in a place of this sort. You left a broad enough trail to...”

“I guess I did at that,” she said, “but I was... well, I was emotionally upset and — and, frankly, it never occurred to me that in a show-down Benny really would marry me. I thought he’d support the child — I don’t know, I thought he might be proud of him.”

“Of him?”

“Yes. He’s a fine strapping boy,” she said. “He’s going to have all of Benny’s intelligence, and if I have anything to do with it, and I think I’ll have a lot to do with it, he’s not going to have any of Benny’s phobias — you see, Mr. Mason, Benny made a big mistake. He ran away. When a man starts running away from things in life he builds up a whole chain of complexes and fear.

“My son isn’t going to be like that. He’s going to face things squarely!”

“All right,” Mason told her. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Just what are you going to do? What can you do?”

Mason said, “You’re going to pack up. Della Street is going to take you and your child to another motel. Della Street is going to register in that motel. You’re going to be her sister. You’re not going to use the name Addicks. You’re not going to use the name Barnwell.”

Mason looked at his watch. “You probably have fifteen or twenty minutes. I wouldn’t push my luck any more than that. Della will help you pack.”

“When you come right down to it, Mr. Mason, why shouldn’t I come out in the open right now? I have suddenly realized that I’m starting to do the same thing Benny did. I’d be running away...”

Mason interrupted sharply, “There’s a difference between retreating until you can fight at the right time and at the right place and just running away.

“There’s a crazy woman who wants to kill your child. It’s all right to be courageous, but let’s find out more about this woman before we take chances on that young life it’s your duty to protect.”

She hesitated for a moment, then took some clothes, went to the bathroom, said, “Let me dress,” and closed the door.

“Chief,” Della Street said, “do you dare to hide her?”

“I have to hide her, Della.”

“Why?”

“Because if the newspapers get hold of that story of hers that Mrs. Kempton killed Benjamin Addicks, it will set off a chain reaction of adverse public statement. I don’t dare take that chance.”

“But isn’t it a crime to conceal a witness?”

“What is she a witness to?”

“Well, all of the things that she’s told you.”

“She’s told me a lot about the disappearance of Helen Cadmus,” Mason said, “and she’s told me a lot of stuff that she heard from Benjamin Addicks about Addicks’ past life, but that doesn’t mean she’s a witness to those things. She could talk to a newspaper reporter but she couldn’t talk to a jury. She isn’t a witness unless she can testify to something. The thing we’re investigating at the present time is the murder of Benjamin Addicks. She can’t testify to a damn thing in that.”

“Just the same, if the police find out...”

Mason grinned. “Remember what the fortune cake said, Della — ‘courage is the only antidote for danger.’ ”