The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

An officer pushed him back. “Go get a writ if you want,” he said, “but don’t try to interfere with officers in the performance of their duties.”

The other officer and Sergeant Holcomb hurried Mrs. Kempton down the corridor.

“You’re damn right I’ll get a writ,” Mason said angrily.

“That’s the spirit,” the officer grinned. “Get a couple of ’em.”

Mason said to Etna: “Go check the records, slap a writ on them if they aren’t in order, Jim.”

Etna nodded, and started toward the elevators.

“Take the stairs,” Mason said as he turned back to the office. “Quick, Della, help me search this place for a microphone. If they’ve been listening in on a confidential communication made to an attorney by a client, we’ll show them something they’ve never even thought of.”

Mason and Della Street frantically searched the office.

At the end of an hour they admitted themselves baffled. They had looked in every nook and corner, behind every picture. They had moved furniture, raised the rug, inspected every inch of the walls.

“Well?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “I don’t get it. They’ve got something that we don’t know about.”

“What could it be?”

“I’m hanged if I know.”

“Do you suppose she’ll tell the police the same story she told us?”

“I hope not,” Mason said.

The lawyer walked over to the window, stood moodily looking down at the traffic of the busy street.

Suddenly he turned. “Della,” he said, “there’s such a thing as becoming too skeptical.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Kempton tells us a story that sounds weird and bizarre and therefore we immediately reject it.”

“You mean she might have told the truth?”

“There’s one other possibility.”

“What?”

Mason said, “Let’s look at it this way, Della. Suppose you wanted to kill Benjamin Addicks and suppose you wanted to have it appear that someone else had done it and that you weren’t guilty.”

“Well?” she asked.

“So,” Mason said, “you would get Josephine Kempton into the house. You would get her to tell a story that absolutely no jury on earth would believe. Then you’d go ahead and kill Benjamin Addicks and be pretty certain that Josephine Kempton would be convicted.”

“But how on earth would you get her to tell any such story?” Della Street asked.

“Look at the whole thing,” Mason said. “Look at it from a cold-blooded, analytical standpoint. What about Mrs. Kempton’s story?”

“It sounds crazy,” Della Street said promptly. “It sounds like — like a nightmare.”

“And that,” Mason said, “is probably exactly what it is.”

“What do you mean by that, Chief?”

“Look at the facts in the case,” Mason said. “Addicks has employed people around him who have been trying to use hypnotism on animals, particularly gorillas.”

“Well?”

“Mrs. Kempton has two periods of blackout. The first time she thought she had fainted. The second time she thinks someone hit her on the head.”

“Go on,” Della Street said.

Mason said, “Suppose someone put Mrs. Kempton in a hypnotic trance, and while she was in that hypnotic trance he told her this story that she was to believe when she regained consciousness.”

Della Street’s eyes widened. “Chief,” she said, “I bet that’s it! That would account for the whole thing, and...” Suddenly the eager enthusiasm left her manner, her voice trailed away into silence.

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“But,” Della Street said dubiously, “you couldn’t get any jury to believe that hypnotism story any more than you could get them to believe the gorilla story.”

“Not with the evidence presently available,” Mason said, “but this is just the beginning of the case.”

“Could a woman be hypnotized and have a synthetic nightmare of that sort implanted on her consciousness so that it would be remembered as an actual experience when she awakened?”

“I think so,” Mason said. “I’m going to check. After all, hypnotism is a subject I know very little about. But all of that still doesn’t explain how it happened the police were so triumphantly certain of themselves when they came and arrested Mrs. Kempton. They must have uncovered something. We’ll know a lot more within the next day or two. There are a lot of angles to this case we still don’t know about.”

“Perhaps even a few curves,” Della Street said demurely.

Chapter number 12

Shortly before noon Della Street’s telephone rang. She answered it, said, “Yes... oh yes... just a moment. I’ll see.”

She turned to Perry Mason and said, “Sidney Hardwick of Hardwick, Carson and Redding.”

Mason nodded.

“Yes, Mr. Mason is here. He’ll talk with Mr. Hardwick. Put your party on, please.”

Mason picked up the telephone, said, “Hello, Mason speaking... Hello, Mr. Hardwick.”

Hardwick said, “Mr. Mason, I’m in rather a peculiar position. I’d like to have a conference with you and Mr. James Etna.”

“When?” Mason asked.

“At your earliest convenience.”

“Where?”

“At any place you want. At your office if you wish.”

“What about?”