The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

...don’t know whether I can stand this much longer. Poor Pete seems to realize that something is being done to him and he keeps clinging to me for protection. I don’t mind about the others so much, but I do worry about Pete. If they start trying to break down Pete’s mind and undermine his nervous system, I’m going to do something about it. That’s definite. I’ve been saving up a little money and I am going to try and buy Pete if Mr. Addicks will sell him. I know that he won’t sell him if he has any idea I’m trying to spare Pete from what the others have gone through. I don’t know whether the S.P.C.A. will do anything about this or not, but if I can’t buy Pete I’m certainly going to do something about it.

“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.”

Chapter number 2

On Tuesday morning Mason unlocked the door of his private office, took off his hat and held it poised for a moment as he stared speculatively at the bust of Blackstone.