The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

Chapter number 5

Perry Mason eased his car through the big iron gates. The watchman stood suspiciously alert. The moment the car had passed through the stone portals, the heavy, wrought iron gates swung ponderously on their hinges, clanged shut, and an iron bar dropped into place.

Mason stepped on the throttle.

“Well, that’s that,” Della Street said.

“Quite a bit of action for one evening,” Mason said.

“What do we do now?”

“We do several things,” Mason told her. “One of the things is that we try to get hold of James Etna. Let’s hope he’s still up. There’s a drugstore with a phone booth down here about half a mile, as I remember.”

Mason put the car into speed.

“Did you notice the peculiar, musty odor in that house?” Della Street asked. “It was something that... I can’t place it, and yet it gave me the creeps.”

“The odor of a zoo,” Mason said, “Animals are confined in cages.”

“It makes goose pimples,” she said, laughing.

“It’s a creepy place,” Mason told her. “I’d like to know a lot more about Benjamin Addicks, but, after all, it’s no skin off our nose, Della. We’ll do James Etna a good turn and let it go at that.”

He drove to the drugstore. Della Street called James Etna’s residence, talked for a minute, then nodded to Mason and said, “It’s all right, they haven’t gone to bed yet. I’ve talked with his wife. He just got in from the office.”

She said into the transmitter, “This is Mr. Mason’s secretary, Mr. Etna. Just hold on a moment, please.”

She got up from the stool. Mason slid into position in the telephone booth, and said, “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour of the night, Etna, but there were some rather peculiar developments. As a matter of fact, Addicks’ attorneys are going to be in touch with you trying to effect a compromise, and I thought that in view of your courtesies extended earlier in the evening I should let you know what happened.”

“Addicks won’t compromise,” Etna said, his voice weary from the strain of his long night session at the office. “He’s one of those obstinate chaps who will fight just as long as he has anything to fight with, and that’s going to be a long time. He swears he has never paid out a nickel by way of compromising lawsuits yet, and he doesn’t intend to.”

“He’ll pay out a nickel now,” Mason told him. “As a matter of fact, Sidney Hardwick is probably going to call you within the next few minutes, or at least as soon as you open the office in the morning, and start talking compromise.”

“What happened?”

“They found the platinum watch and the big diamond solitaire which Addicks thought Mrs. Kempton had stolen.”

“The devil they did!” Etna exclaimed jubilantly over the telephone.

“That’s right.”

“Where were they and how did they happen to find them?”

“As a matter of fact,” Mason said, “I found them.”

“You did?”

“That’s right. I was running through these Helen Cadmus diaries, and I noticed that she referred to a hiding place where one of the more mischievous monkeys had a habit of putting trinkets, particularly trinkets in which he thought Helen Cadmus was interested. So I went out to see Addicks at his suggestion, and told him I thought it would be a good plan to look in this hiding place.”

“Where was it?”

“A stone urn in the hallway.”

“Well, well, well!” Etna exclaimed. “That certainly puts a new face on the situation. As a matter of fact, Mason, that was what bothered me about the case. I couldn’t be absolutely certain of my client. I thought she was honest, but, after all, the evidence in the case, that is, the evidence indicating that she might have taken the articles in question, was entirely in the control of the opposite side. You know how that is. They might have introduced any amount of circumstantial evidence which would have shown that Addicks had at least a reasonable ground for believing that she had taken the objects. Then I’d have been on the defensive all through the case.”

“Of course,” Mason pointed out, “there’s another legal hurdle. As Hardwick tried to tell me, the situation is not exactly changed in its legal implication. The fact that the articles have been found doesn’t affect his defense that it’s a privileged communication, and...”

Etna laughed gleefully. “Let him try to pull all those technicalities,” he said. “If I’m not on the defensive, I can smash through their defensive. I’ll reduce the case to its simplest form, Mason. A hard-working woman does her best to give satisfaction to a millionaire. The millionaire discharges her abruptly and without any reason. Thereafter he accuses her of dishonesty and blackens her reputation and prevents her from obtaining a livelihood because he claims she stole a very valuable diamond ring and a platinum watch. Then he finds the platinum watch and the diamond ring right there in his own house, where they had been all the time. My client is without funds, and hasn’t been able to get work, and Addicks is a multimillionaire. Now you figure how that’s going to look to a jury. I don’t give a damn how many technicalities they raise now. They’re hooked, and hooked good.”

“Well, I thought I’d let you know,” Mason said.

“Look here, Mason, that’s mighty fine of you. Now, of course, I assume that you want to be associated in the case. I haven’t as yet made definite arrangements in regard to a fee, but, of course, this information that you have given is...”

“Wait a minute,” Mason told him, “don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be associated in the case. I’m simply giving you this information as a matter of friendly accommodation.”

“Well... well, what do you want?”

“Nothing,” Mason said, “except that after the settlement has been completed I’d like to have Mrs. Josephine Kempton drop in at my office for a visit.”

“A visit?”

“That’s right,” Mason said. “I’m interested in the strange death of Helen Cadmus, and the circumstances under which it happened. I’d like to know just a little something about the setup there.”

“Mrs. Kempton will be in your office at any time you say,” Etna told him.

“How about ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“She’ll be there, and I’ll be there with her. I want to shake hands and tell you how much I appreciate the information you’ve given me, Mr. Mason. Good night.”

“Good night,” Mason said.