The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

Chapter number 1

At 9:55 on a Monday morning, Perry Mason, carrying a brown paper package in his hand, scaled his hat in the general direction of the bust of Blackstone which adorned the top of a low sectional bookcase behind his desk.

The hat made two lazy twists, then settled incongruously at a rakish angle on the marble brow of the great jurist.

Della Street, Mason’s confidential secretary, who had been at the desk opening mail, applauded.

“Getting to be good,” Mason admitted with boyish pride.

“Blackstone,” Della observed, “is probably turning over in his grave.”

Mason grinned. “He’s accustomed to it by this time. For the last fifty years lawyers have been scaling their hats at Blackstone’s noble brow. It marks a period of transition, Della.”

“What does?”

“The hat-scaling.”

“I don’t get it.”

“A couple of generations ago,” Mason told her, “lawyers were stuffy people. They thrust a hand inside their coats while they declaimed oratorically. Busts of Blackstone adorned their offices.

“Then came a new and more flippant generation. Younger lawyers, who inherited the busts of Blackstone with sets of law books and office furniture, resented the stony-faced dignity of the old boy.”

“You should be psychoanalyzed,” Della Street said. “Blackstone probably means something you’re fighting against. What in the world is in the package?”

“Damned if I know,” Mason said. “I think I’m fighting stuffy conventionalities. I paid five dollars for it — the package, I mean.”

Della Street’s voice was a combination of fond indulgence and official exasperation. “I certainly hope you won’t try to charge it as an office expense.”

“But that’s what it is — general expense.”

“And you don’t know what’s in it?”

“No. I bought it sight unseen.”

“That’s a great way for me to try to get along with my bookkeeping, making an entry of five dollars for a package that you don’t know... How in the world did it happen?”

“Well,” Perry Mason said, “it was like this...” and grinned.

“Go on,” Della Street told him, smiling in spite of herself.

“Do you remember Helen Cadmus? Does that mean anything to you?”

“It’s an odd name,” she said. “It seems to me... Oh, wasn’t she the girl who committed suicide by jumping from some millionaire’s yacht?”

“That’s it. Benjamin Addicks, the eccentric millionaire, was cruising on his yacht. Helen Cadmus, who was his secretary, disappeared. The assumption was she had jumped overboard. This package contains... well, now let’s see what it’s marked.”

Mason turned it over and read, “ ‘Private personal belongings, matter of Estate of Helen Cadmus. Public Administrator’s Office.’ ”

Della Street sighed. “Having been your confidential secretary for lo these many years, I sometimes think I know you pretty well, and then something like this happens and I realize that I don’t know you at all. Where on earth did you get that, and why did you pay five dollars for it?”

“Every so often the public administrator sells at public auction bits of personal property that have accumulated in his office.

“As it happened, I was down in the vicinity of the courthouse this morning when the auction was taking place. There was quite a bit of lively bidding over packages which were supposed to contain jewelry, rare linens, silverware, and things of that sort. Then they put this package up, and no one bid on it. Well, you know the public administrator. He’s a friend of ours so I tipped him the wink and started the bidding with five dollars, and the next thing I knew I was stuck with a package and was out five dollars.”

“Well, what’s in it?” Della Street asked.

“Let’s find out,” Mason said.

He opened his pocketknife, cut the string, undid the wrappings, and said, “Well, well, well! We seem to have an English grammar, a dictionary, a couple of books on a shorthand system, some diaries, and a photograph album.”

“Five dollars!” Della Street said.

“Well, let’s look at the photograph album,” Mason said. “Oh-oh, here’s a pin-up picture that’s worth five bucks of anyone’s money.”

She came to look over his shoulder.

“If that’s a bathing suit,” she said, “I...”

“Apparently,” Mason said, “the suit consists of three squares of cloth skillfully knotted about the curves of a very nice figure — I wonder if that is Helen.”

“She wasn’t concealing much from the public,” Della Street said.

“You can’t tell whether it was the public or just some girl friend manipulating a camera and they did it for a stunt. — Oh, here’s a whole mess of monkey pictures.”

“Now I get it,” Della Street said. “Remember, Addicks was her boss. He has a collection of monkeys and apes. He’s doing some psychological experiments.”

Mason nodded and continued to go through the photograph album. He said, “Some pretty good pictures here. Whoever did the photography knew what he was about. They’re sharp as a tack.”

“What are they?” Della Street asked, opening the four volumes of diary.

“Mostly bathing and yachting pictures,” Mason said. “Helen seems to have taken quite a few pictures of monkeys and apes.”

“How do you tell the difference between a monkey and an ape?” Della asked.

“One’s bigger than the other, I guess,” Mason said. “How should I know? Anyway, you can get a good education going through these photographs.”

Della Street said, “Listen to this in the diary, Chief.”

Mason said, “Go ahead, I’m listening,” but he turned the photograph album to the light so that he could study another pin-up picture of Helen Cadmus in a pose guaranteed to attract masculine attention.

Della Street jerked the book of photographs from his hand and said, “You can look at that later. Listen to this.”

She read from the diary:

“Well,” Mason said, “that was evidently quite a household. I wonder what’s going on out there now.”

“Let’s find out,” Della Street said.

Mason frowned thoughtfully. “When you come right down to it,” he said, “no one knows whether that girl committed suicide or not. As I remember it, her body was never found. She was out on the yacht and they were in a storm somewhere off Catalina Island. Addicks gave her some dictation, which she promised to have typed and on his desk by eight o’clock the next morning. The storm kept getting worse and Addicks thought she might have been indisposed. He went to her stateroom to see if she was all right, and found that the bed hadn’t been slept in. So they searched the yacht and she was missing. The assumption was that she’d either been swept overboard by a wave or had committed suicide.

“Addicks put the hush-hush on the case. They called it suicide.”

The phone rang.

Della Street picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” then, “Just a minute, Gertie. I’ll talk with them.”

Once more she said, “Hello. This is Della Street, Mr. Mason’s confidential secretary. Can you tell me just what it is you want?... Who?... Oh, I see...”

She listened for nearly a minute, then said, “Just a minute. I’ll try to get in touch with Mr. Mason. He’s in an important conference at the moment, but if you’ll hang on I’ll try and get through to him.”

“What is it?” Mason asked.

Della Street cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “The Inquirer,” she said. “They want to send a photographer and a reporter up and get some human interest pictures.”

“About what?”

“About you buying the Cadmus diaries. It seems that the public administrator, or someone, tipped off one of the courthouse reporters and they think they have an exclusive on it. They want to run it as a human interest story.”

“Tell them to come on up,” Mason said. “Sure, I’ll pose for them. That’ll give you a chance to explain it to the income tax people, Della. You can tell them that it was five dollars invested in publicity.”

She said, “They seem to think that you may have bought the diaries for a purpose. There’s something about a lawsuit by a Mrs. Kempton against Addicks. Do you know anything about it?”

“Never heard of it,” Mason said, “but don’t let them know that. Be mysterious and enigmatic. That will heighten public interest and give them a good story.”

Della Street said into the telephone, “Mr. Mason is in conference at the moment and then has another appointment, but he can give you a few minutes in exactly thirty-five minutes if you can arrange to be here then.”

She hung up the telephone. “I was hoping you’d get some of this mail out of the way this morning.”

Mason grinned. “Who knows? We might at that. Have Jackson go up to the courthouse, Della, look through the file of actions and find out what the devil the case of Kempton versus Addicks is all about. He can telephone in a report. After all, I don’t want to lead with my chin in this interview, but I’d like the newspaper boys to have a good story. They’re entitled to it, and one never knows when he may need a friendly newspaper contact.”

Della nodded, walked over to the statue of Blackstone and said, “Good morning, Mr. Blackstone. If you don’t mind, I’ll take off the hat which you’re wearing at such a rakish angle. We’re expecting newspaper photographers and we want the office to look dignified.”