The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

Chapter number 4

Perry Mason swung his car to a point where two square pillars furnished supports for wrought iron gates which barred a wide graveled driveway.

A watchman, a big deputy sheriff’s star pinned on his chest, a five-cell flashlight in his hand, a revolver holstered in a well-fitted cartridge belt, stood just behind the gates.

The beam of the flashlight pilloried the occupants of the car.

Mason rolled down the window.

“What do you want?” the watchman asked.

“The first thing I want,” Mason said, “is for you to take the beam of that flashlight out of my eyes.”

The flashlight wavered, then went off.

Mason said, “the next thing I want is to see Benjamin Addicks.”

“What I want to know,” the watchman said, “is whether Benjamin Addicks wants to see you.”

“He said he did.”

“What’s the name?”

“Perry Mason.”

“Wait right there,” the watchman said. “Now don’t get out of the car. Just wait right there until I telephone the house.”

He crossed over to a boxed-in telephone which was recessed in one of the square columns of masonry which supported the gates.

“Nice friendly people, aren’t they?” Mason said to Della Street.

“Well, perhaps he has to be. This is rather an isolated spot out here, Chief, and, after all, the man’s supposed to be wealthy. I presume he could be pestered with prowlers.”

The watchman hung up the telephone, and pressed a switch which started the ponderous gates swinging slowly back on well-oiled hinges.

The watchman came up to stand by the car on Mason’s side.

“All right,” he said, “he’s expecting you. Now you follow this gravel driveway all the way. When you come to the stone porch on the house with the big pillars, you drive right up to the stone steps and stop the car. There’ll be somebody there to meet you. Leave the car right there. Don’t stop before you get there, and don’t get off the graveled driveway. Understand?”

“I understand,” Mason said, “but I’m not particularly impressed with the cordiality of your welcome. What happens if we should get off the graveled driveway?”

“Plenty would happen.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, for one thing you’d find that you’d crossed beams of invisible light, and when you cross one of those beams all hell breaks loose. Sirens scream, floodlights turn on, and the doors of the kennels automatically open. That releases the police dogs. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you want to experiment, go ahead and find out.”

The watchman turned away.

Mason said to Della Street, “I guess Mr. Addicks has arranged for ample protection. Anything that he lacks in hospitality he seems to make up in efficiency.”

He eased the car into gear and slid through the gates, the tires crunching the gravel on the wide, sweeping driveway, which curved through landscaped grounds, which, to the uninitiated eyes, might seem to furnish plenty of opportunities for concealment.

After a few moments the big house loomed in front of them, a solid masonry affair that had its lines softened here and there by bits of ivy clinging to the stone.

Mason said, “All the soft, pleasing architecture of a state prison.”

He slid the car to a stop by the steps on the front porch.

A porch light came on to flood the place with brilliance. Somewhere in the back dogs were barking with savage insistence.

Mason switched off the motor and his headlights, opened the car door, and walked around to assist Della from the car. She opened the door and without waiting jumped to the steps leading to the porch and ran lightly up the stairs.

The big front door swung open and Nathan Fallon came out to greet them.

“Welcome to Stonehenge,” he said.

“Stonehenge?” Della Street exclaimed.

Fallon said, “That’s the name of the place. Rather a huge mansion, Miss Street. It has plenty of room for all of Mr. Addicks’ requirements. Room for entertaining, room for working, and room for his animal experimentation.”

“Can you tell me just what is the purpose of this animal experimentation that you refer to?” Mason asked.

Nathan Fallon didn’t bother any longer to keep up the front of smiling affability. He looked at Mason through his thick-lensed glasses in silent appraisal.

“No,” he said.

For a moment there was silence, then Nathan Fallon stepped back to indicate the door. “Won’t you come in?” he invited.

They entered a reception hall, which, with its ponderous, powerful architecture, still seemed to carry out the motif of a state prison.

Curtains parted from a doorway on the right, and a tall, slender individual stood there surveying them.

His eyes were slate gray, utterly without expression, and were so large that when he closed his eyelids the process seemed deliberately exaggerated as though one might have been looking at the eyes of an owl. The slow closing of the lids disclosed a distinct convexity of the big eyes, then the lids opened again like the shutters of twin studio cameras perpetuating a photographic image on film.

“Good evening,” the man said in a voice that somehow made the simple greeting a matter of slow, deliberate formality.

“This is Mortimer Hershey,” Nathan Fallon said, “Mr. Addicks’ business manager.”

“I take it,” Hershey said, “the young lady is Miss Street, and I have the honor to address Mr. Perry Mason.”

“That’s right.”

“Won’t you step in here, please.”

He ushered them into a room which was a cross between a library and a huge office.

There was a massive table fully fifteen feet long. Comfortable leather directors’ chairs were arranged along one side of this table.

Huge as was the table, the very size of the room kept it from dominating the surroundings. Low bookcases ran around three sides of the room. Over these bookcases were oil paintings depicting knights engaged in battle.

Some of these pictures showed armored knights on horseback, leaning forward, lances set, charging each other. Others portrayed individual knights engaged in hand to hand conflict. Still others showed bodies of armored knights charging against footmen; bowmen drawn up in battle array, releasing arrows from their longbows, arrows which arched heavily in flight, indicating their weight and momentum as they sped toward a group of armored knights; horses screaming in agony or dying among corpses of foot soldiers piled one on the other and armored knights holding shields and swords that were crimson with blood.

Elsewhere around the room were big leather chairs in which a person could settle down into luxurious comfort. There were footstools in front of each of these chairs, and beside each chair was a shaded reading light. The room itself was illuminated by an indirect lighting system.

“Won’t you be seated?” Hershey invited, and led the way toward the table, pulling out chairs so that Mason and Della Street could sit on one side, Nathan Fallon and Hershey on the other.

“Now then,” Hershey said, smiling with slow deliberation, “I wish to apologize to you, Mr. Mason, on behalf of Mr. Addicks.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Because you were underestimated.”

“You mean Mr. Addicks underestimated me?”

“Fallon did,” Hershey said, and turned to look deliberately at Fallon. He raised his lids, lowered them, and raised them again.

There was something in the slow, winking appraisal which seemed deliberately scornful, but Hershey’s lips remained in a fixed smile.

He turned back to Mason.

“All right,” Mason said, “I’ve been underestimated, and I’ve been apologized to. The apology wasn’t at all necessary.”

“Certainly not.”

Mortimer Hershey opened a drawer in the desk. He took out a sheaf of bank notes and slowly, deliberately counted them until he had thirty new, crisp, one hundred dollar bills before him.

“What’s that for?” Mason asked.

“The diaries and the photographs,” Hershey said.

“And why do you make that offer?”

“Because Mr. Addicks wants them. Of course, Mr. Mason, you understand that Mr. Addicks would never admit that he paid any such sum for the documents, and you would be under no necessity to make any such admission.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this,” Hershey said. “The books of Mr. Addicks would not show that you had been paid three thousand dollars. The books of Mr. Addicks would show that you were reimbursed the amount of five dollars which you paid for the books. The other three thousand dollars would be in the nature of a gift which Mr. Addicks would make you. As such, it would not be subject to income tax. Do I make myself clear?”

“Oh quite,” Mason said. “The only thing I don’t understand is why Mr. Addicks is so anxious to get hold of the photographs and the diaries.”

“There are reasons.”

“I think,” Mason said, “that I would prefer to discuss the matter with Mr. Addicks. I thought that I was going to see him. That’s why I came out here.”

“Mr. Addicks begs to be excused. He is indisposed.”

Mason shook his head. “I came out here to see Benjamin Addicks. You told me he was indisposed and couldn’t come to see me. I told you I’d come out to see him. I want to talk with him.”

“If you insist,” Hershey said, “I am quite certain that Mr. Addicks would be willing to see you, but, after all, Mr. Mason, I can assure you that this offer is complete and final. Mr. Addicks won’t raise it not so much as a red cent. You can either accept it or reject it.”

“All right,” Mason said promptly. “It’s rejected.”

“You reject offers rather abruptly,” Hershey said.

“Well, if you’d prefer more diplomacy,” Mason told him, smiling, “I’ll state that in view of the fact that I find the diaries most interesting, and in view of the fact I think they offer a very distinct clue, I do not care to part with them.”

“Clue?” Hershey said in cold solemnity.

“A clue,” Mason said.

“To what, may I ask?”

“Certainly you may ask,” Mason said, “and I won’t answer. The answer to that question will be reserved for Mr. Addicks himself.”

“You understand, Mr. Mason, that this is going to cause Mr. Addicks some inconvenience, but I’ll be very glad to convey your message to him, and I’m quite certain he’ll be willing to see you. If you’ll wait just a moment, please.”

Hershey turned and looked at Fallon.

Nathan Fallon jumped up from the chair as though he had suddenly received an electric shock, and, walking with his distinctive, energetic strides, crossed the room and went through the curtained doorway.

Hershey looked at the three thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills, picked up the money, stacked the bills together in an inviting pile and made a gesture of extending them toward Mason. Mason shook his head.

Hershey opened the drawer in the table, dropped the money back into the drawer, then closed it, put his hands in front of him on the table, interlaced long fingers, and sat silent and motionless.

A moment later the heavy draperies at the far end of the room parted, and a barrel-chested man, leaning heavily on a cane, came hobbling into the room. His face was partially covered by a bandage, and his eyes were concealed behind dark glasses. Nearly all of the right side of the face, and part of the left side, was covered by the bandage. The left side had a bit of gauze held in place by adhesive tape, which failed to conceal evidence of a blue-black beard under the clean-shaven skin.

It was hard to judge the face beneath the bandage, but the jaw seemed heavy, and the low forehead was surmounted by a shock of black hair, cut short.

“Mr. Benjamin Addicks,” Hershey announced.

Addicks nodded, said, “How do you do? How do you do? Sorry that I’m indisposed.”

Followed by Nathan Fallon, he hobbled across the room and extended his hand.

“Mr. Perry Mason,” Hershey said.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Mason. Heard a lot about you. Followed a few of your cases in the newspapers.”

“And Miss Street, Mr. Mason’s secretary,” Hershey went on.

“Good evening, Miss Street. I’m very pleased to meet you. Sorry I’m a little bit banged up. I do animal experimenting, you know, and it’s not always conducive to good health.”

The bandaged face contorted into a twisted grin.

“One of those damn gorillas,” Addicks went on to explain, speaking slowly through the bandage, “caught me a little too close to his cage, grabbed my coat, and before I could slip out of it, jerked me around so he got hold of my arm, and pulled me toward the cage. I flung back and tried to kick loose. He caught my foot and made a grab; caused some pretty deep scratches and bruises on my face. I’ll be all right, but I’m not very presentable.”

He pulled out a chair and eased himself into it in the manner of a man who is sore and stiff.

“The gorilla,” Nathan Fallon explained, “was trying to grab Mr. Addicks’ throat. If he’d ever caught it in his powerful fingers he’d have torn the throat right out.”

“Now wait a minute,” Addicks said impatiently. “You’re always jumping at conclusions from insufficient data, Nathan. You’re a damned old woman that way. I don’t think the gorilla was making a grab for my throat. I’m not too satisfied but what he was just after my necktie.”

He turned to Mason and said, “Gorillas are like that. They’re eager to get hold of some article of wearing apparel, particularly something that’s loose. If you wear a necktie around ’em they’re very apt to reach through the cage and grab you by it — and, of course, if he’s developed vicious tendencies, he’s a very dangerous animal.”

“You deliberately encourage this type of danger?” Mason asked.

“I’m conducting scientific research,” Addicks said. “I want to know how deeply the homicidal instincts have been implanted in the minds of the higher primates.”

“It would seem,” Mason said, “that you were very close to finding out.”

“I jerked back instinctively,” Addicks said. “Hang it, I thought for a minute he was trying to grab my throat, but thinking back on it I can’t exclude the possibility that he was merely grabbing for my necktie. They do that, you know, and this one was particularly tricky. They’re big animals, but they’re quick as a flash, Mason, just as quick as a flash.”

“I saw it all,” Fallon said, “and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was grabbing for your throat, Benny.”

“Well, he certainly gave me a rough time,” Addicks admitted. “I sort of surprised him by bringing up my foot and kicking, and bracing against the bars. Then Nathan yelled at him and picked up a club.”

Mason said, “It would seem that your experiments are destined to be inconclusive until they reach a point where a gorilla has very definitely killed someone.”

Addicks regarded him with cold, watchful eyes, then shrugged his shoulders. “I think you misunderstand what I’m trying to do, Mr. Mason, and frankly, I see no reason to explain. I’m more interested in learning something about the real explanation of hypnotism than anything else. Some people don’t approve. I don’t give a damn whether they do or don’t. They’re my gorillas. I buy ’em, and they’re mine.”

“I doubt it,” Mason said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You may be able to get physical possession of the gorillas,” Mason said, “but morally I don’t think a man can really own any living thing. The animal has a right to his own development through the phenomena of life.”

“You’re a lawyer. I have a legal title. You’ll have to admit that.”

“I was discussing moral ownership, moral responsibilities.”

“Give me physical possession of something that’s locked behind iron bars in a cage, and give me a bill of sale to it, and you can have all your moral responsibilities. I’ll take legal title as far as I’m concerned.”

“You wanted to see me about something?” Mason asked.

“I did, but I don’t now.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You did. You were offered three thousand dollars for those diaries. You turned the offer down. Okay, if that’s the way you want it, that’s the way we’ll play. The offer is withdrawn. The price has gone back to five dollars. Is that clear?”

“That’s clear,” Mason said. “The money is yours, the diaries are mine.”

“Let’s understand each other, Mason. You’re a smart lawyer. I’m a mean fighter. You give those diaries to the press and start stirring up things about Helen’s death, and I’ll break you.”

Mason got to his feet. “Talk big if you like to impress your employees,” he said. “It doesn’t tell me anything except that you’re scared. Come on, Della. Let’s go.” They left the room, followed by the three men.

In the hallway, Mason said to Della, “Can you give me a hand for a moment, Della?”

“What do you want now?” Addicks said.

“I want to see what’s in that stone urn.”

“What makes you think anything’s in it?” Addicks asked.

Mason smiled coldly. “The diaries. My diaries.”

“Nathan, you and Mort lift that urn down. Turn it up. Show Mason there’s nothing in it.”

They lifted down the big stone urn, deposited it gently on the floor.

Nathan Fallon turned a pocket flashlight down into the dark interior. Immediately it seemed as though the interior of the urn had been illuminated with a thousand scintillating reflections.

“Good heavens!” Fallon said. “That’s a big diamond in there, Benny.”

“Get it out,” Addicks said curtly.

Fallon reached down into the urn, but his arm wouldn’t quite get to the bottom. “I’ll have to take off my coat,” he said, “and I don’t know whether I can reach it even then.”

“We can turn the urn upside down,” Addicks said. “Get hold of it, you fellows. Turn it up. Let’s see what the devil’s in there.”

They grasped the upper edge and bottom of the urn, tilted it over to its side, then slowly lifted. The first thing that came rolling out was a huge diamond ring.

“My solitaire!” Addicks exclaimed.

A platinum watch came slithering down the smooth side of the urn.

Fallon grabbed it.

“Tilt it up a little more,” Mason said.

A whole collection of jewelry, coins, a wallet, a card case, a girl’s compact, rolled out to the floor.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Addicks said.

Mason said dryly, “The diary indicated that the monkey, Pete, was rather mischievous at times and had developed a tendency to pick up objects, particularly objects which he thought Helen Cadmus prized, and conceal them in this Grecian urn.”

“So that explains it!” Addicks said.

Mason looked him squarely in the eye. “I believe there is a trial coming up day after tomorrow, the case of Josephine Kempton, who is suing you for defamation of character.”

“Oh, that!” Addicks said.

“Ah-hah!” Fallon exclaimed. “Now the thing becomes apparent. Now we see why the great Perry Mason interested himself in the dairies of Helen Cadmus. Now we begin to get the whole picture, Benny.”

Addicks looked at him for a moment, then said, “Shut up.”

He turned to Perry Mason. “You’re clever. I like clever men. What’s your position?”

“I haven’t any,” Mason said.

Nathan Fallon said, “Don’t you get it Benny?”

Addicks picked up the watch, turned it over and over in his hand. “No, I don’t get it, and I doubt like hell if you do.”

“This is the thing that Mason has been planning all along. He set an elaborate trap for us,” Fallon went on.

“Keep talking,” Mason said. “You’re doing fine, Fallon. Just watch what you say.”

“I don’t have to watch what I say,” Fallon said angrily. “When you went through this hall the first time you tossed those objects into the stone urn, then you made up a story about a monkey having hidden them.”

“I didn’t go near the stone urn,” Mason said.

“You walked right by it.”

“You were standing right here with me at the time.”

“I had my back turned. I was leading the way into the other room.”

Mason said, “Fallon, I want you to look at me, look me right in the eyes.”

Fallon looked at him.

“You’re a damn liar,” Mason said.

Fallon doubled up his fist, then thought better of it.

“Now wait a minute,” Addicks said. “This thing is moving pretty fast. I want to get some more information about this business. Hershey, I have confidence in you. Were you standing where you could see Mason when he walked past this urn?”

“He didn’t go near the urn,” Hershey said. “He looked at it, but he didn’t go near it, and he couldn’t have tossed anything in it. You can see for yourself there’s dust all over these things. They’ve been there a long time.”

“That’s the trouble with you, Fallon,” Addicks said. “You’re always putting two and two together and making six, and then trying to sell me on the idea that that’s the answer. Dammit, you’re going to get us all into trouble. Now sit down and shut up.”

The telephone in the entrance hallway rang sharply.

“Now what the devil?” Addicks said, and then to Fallon, “Answer it.”

Fallon picked up the telephone, said, “Hello, this is Nathan Fallon... Who is it?... Well, Mr. Addicks wasn’t expecting him... Just a moment.

“Here’s something,” Nathan said to Addicks. “Your lawyer, Sidney Hardwick, is out there.”

“I can’t see him,” Addicks said. “I’m definitely not going to subject myself to any further nerve strain or have any further visitors tonight. To hell with him. I didn’t ask him to come out.”

“Well, he says it’s important,” Fallon said. “What are we going to do? We can’t very well turn him away from the gate.”

Addicks turned. “Who are you to tell me what I can do and what I can’t do, Fallon? I picked you up out of the gutter. Some day I’ll toss you back. I told you I wouldn’t see Hardwick and I meant it. I don’t care how important it is.”

Addicks hobbled from the room, then came back to stand for a moment in the doorway. “You played your cards damned cleverly, Mason,” he said. “Good night.”

Mortimer Hershey gave Fallon a meaning look. “You’re going to have to take care of Hardwick, Nathan.”

Fallon said into the telephone, “Open the gates. Sidney Hardwick can come in any time.”

He hung up the phone and said, “I’m going to have to ask you to wait right here a minute, Mr. Mason. I’m sorry I shot my face off the way I did. I’m sorry. I was trying to protect Benny’s interests. You see how much thanks I got for it.”

Mason, bending over the assortment of objects which had spilled from the urn, said to Della Street, “Make a list of every object that was in this urn, Della.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Fallon warned. “Don’t touch a thing there. I’m warning you.”

“I’m not touching anything,” Mason told him. “I’m looking. Is there any objection to looking?”

Fallon hesitated a moment, then said, “I’ve said enough. Hardwick will answer all questions now.”

He opened the front door. “Well, well, well, Mr. Hardwick. Come on in. Come right on in!”

Hardwick, a tall, bony-faced individual in the middle sixties, with a long nose, sharp chin, bushy eyebrows, keen gray eyes, paused in the doorway to shake hand with Fallon.

He wore glasses from which dangled ostentatiously a black ribbon. There was a hearing aid in his right ear. He said, “How do you do, Nathan? How’s Benny this evening?”

“Benny isn’t at all well,” Nathan said. “He can’t see you.”

“What?” Hardwick exclaimed in surprise. “Can’t see me? It’s important. I’ve told him about the complications that have necessitated that his will be...”

“A lot of other things are important,” Fallon said meaningly, jerking his thumb over to where Perry Mason and Della Street were standing. “We’re in a little trouble.”

“What do you mean?” Hardwick asked, seeing Mason and Della Street for the first time.

“We’re having legal troubles,” Nathan Fallon said. “This is Perry Mason.”

“Well, bless my soul, so it is,” Hardwick said. His face lit up in a smile. He came over and extended a strong bony hand, which gripped Mason’s cordially.

“Miss Della Street, my secretary,” Mason said.

Hardwick bowed. “So pleased to meet you, Miss Street. Well, well, Mason, what brings you here?”

“I came here,” Mason said, “at the request of Mr. Addicks, and on an entirely different matter. As Mr. Fallon will explain to you, we have just uncovered evidence indicating that the alleged thefts claimed to have been committed by Mrs. Josephine Kempton, a housekeeper, were actually committed by a monkey.”

Hardwick’s face instantly lost its smile and became fixed in a look of professional gravity. He turned to Fallon. “How did it happen, Nathan?” he asked.

“Mr. Mason came here to see Hershey and me about another matter. We offered him some financial adjustment.”

“What matter?” Hardwick asked, his voice cracking like a whip.

“Those diaries of Helen Cadmus.”

“I saw Mason’s picture in the paper in connection with those,” Hardwick said. “That’s another thing I want to see Addicks about.”

“We offered him money for them.”

“How much?”

“Three thousand.”

“What happened?”

“He turned it down.”

Hardwick frowned, turned to Mason. “Really, Counselor, I would have anticipated you’d have been glad to turn those diaries over in return for what you paid for them.”

“If they’d acted halfway decent, I’d have given them the diaries,” Mason said. “But they were scared stiff. I thought I’d see what it was that was frightening them.”

“Just the thought of publicity,” Hershey said.

Mason’s smile was coldly skeptical, a silent contradiction of Hershey’s words.

Hershey closed his eyes.

“Go ahead,” Hardwick said.

Nathan Fallon supplied the information. “From reading those diaries, Mason got the idea of looking in the stone urn here in the reception hallway. You can see for yourself what we found in it. There it is on the floor. Benny has the diamond ring, but there’s the platinum watch, a girl’s compact, some other jewelry, a billfold that probably is pretty well filled with cash. In fact, I think that’s my billfold.”

Hardwick walked over to look down at the assortment of stuff on the floor.

“I can tell you in a minute about the billfold,” Fallon said.

He stooped over, picked up the billfold, opened it, smiled and showed Hardwick the identification card in the front of the billfold.

“Well,” he said, “that’s it. I’ve been missing it for some time.”

“How much money is in it?” Hardwick asked.

“Thirty-two dollars when I lost it,” Fallon said. He unfolded the leather so that he could peer inside of the billfold, said, “That’s right,” and hurriedly dropped it into his pocket.

“Better count it and see if there’s any missing,” Mason suggested.

Fallon looked at him coldly. “It’s all there.”

Hardwick said, “This complicates the situation. Mason, what’s your interest in this?”

“I’m interested.”

“I understand, but in what way? Who has retained you?”

“No one,” Mason said and then added, “as yet.”

“Well, now,” Hardwick said, “that poses, of course, an interesting question. Under the circumstances I would suggest that Mr. Addicks retain you to assist me in handling this case which is coming up the day after tomorrow, a case in which, of course, it may be possible — however, I think I’ll discuss the legal aspects with you after you have been retained.”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said, “but I’m not open to a retainer from Mr. Addicks.”

“Are you giving me to understand then that you’re retained by Mrs. Kempton?”

“Not exactly,” Mason said. “I do happen to know something about the suit, and I have discussed it with her attorney.”

“All right,” Hardwick said, “let’s be fair about this, Mr. Mason. Don’t tell Mrs. Kempton or her lawyer anything about this until we have had a chance to effect a settlement.”

Mason smiled and shook his head.

“You mean you’re going to them with the information?”

“I mean I’m going to tell James Etna of Etna, Etna and Douglas, about the entry in the diary, and I’m going to tell him about what we found.”

“It won’t do a particle of good,” Hardwick said. “It may do harm.”

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

“Let’s look at the thing from a cold, legal standpoint,” Hardwick went on. “There are two instances in which one person may accuse another person of crime with no liability on the part of the person making the accusation. One of them is in the event the person actually is guilty of the crime. The law of slander and libel in this country is different from what it is in many countries. Here the truth is always a defense to a statement with might otherwise be libelous or slanderous.”

“Thank you for telling me the law,” Mason said.

Hardwick smiled. “I’m not telling you the law. I’m pointing out a legal situation. The second class of case, Mr. Mason, is a privileged communication.

“Now let’s suppose Mr. Addicks accused Josephine Kempton of crime. He has two defenses. In the event she was guilty of crime, he can plead the truth, and that’s a complete defense. In the event she wasn’t guilty of crime but he said she was, all he needs to do is to show that the communication was privileged. In other words, that he was acting in good faith in giving information to a person who had a legitimate interest in the matter. That completely disposes of any question of defamation.”

Mason stretched his arms, yawned, and said, “I never like to argue legal points unless I’m paid for it. So far no one has retained me, and somehow I don’t think anyone is going to.”

Hardwick said, “Of course, Mr. Mason, circumstances have put you in rather a peculiar position. Am I to understand that you first suspected the articles in question might have been concealed in this stone urn because of entries in the diary of Helen Cadmus?”

“That’s right.”

“Those entries were in her handwriting?”

“Frankly, Counselor, I don’t know.”

“Of course, such entries wouldn’t be evidence of anything,” Hardwick said. “They couldn’t be introduced in court. It’s merely something that Helen Cadmus has written. They could have been self-serving declaration.”

“In what way?” Mason asked.

“She could have taken these things herself and concealed them in the urn and then gone to the trouble of making this entry in the diary so that in the event she was ever involved in any way, she could refer to the entry as supporting her statement that the monkey had been concealing things here. Surely, Mason, you don’t need to have me point out to you that this would be a self-serving declaration?”

Mason said, “I don’t think I need to have you point out anything to me.”

Hardwick turned to Nathan Fallon. “I think we had better go into conference with Mr. Addicks at once.”

“He told me to tell you he wouldn’t see you,” Fallon said obstinately. “He’s been hurt. Yesterday he was almost killed by a gorilla that he’d been training. I saw the whole thing.”

Hardwick frowned. “Well, Nathan, I think we won’t need to detain Mr. Mason and Miss Street any longer. I take it they were just leaving.”

“That’s right.”

“Good night,” Hardwick said abruptly, shaking hands with Mason and bowing once more to Della Street.

Fallon said, “I’ll telephone the gateman so that he’ll let you out, Mr. Mason. I think it’s only fair to warn you to keep driving at a steady pace right on down the driveway and through the gate. Don’t stop and, above all, don’t get out of the car. Good night.”

“Good night,” Mason said.