The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

“Do you know anything else that might help us?” Mason asked.

“No.”

“Well, thanks a lot. I don’t think we need to detain you any longer right now, Mrs. Blevins, but we may want to talk with you again later.”

“Any time,” she said, “any time after four o’clock. You can call me and I’ll come in any time. Mr. Drake has my number.”

“Thank you,” Mason said.

She rose from the chair, started for the door, then suddenly detoured to take Perry Mason’s hand in both of hers. “You’re sweet,” she said. “Here’s something that may be of help. Addicks wasn’t his real name. I know that Alan managed to hypnotize him once and learned that his real name was Barnwell. If there’s anything else, you just let me know.”

Her eyes were grateful as she gave Mason a very cordial smile. Then she opened the door and went out, swinging into the corridor with a saucy flip of her skirts.

“Do you any good?” Drake asked.

Mason grinned at him and said, “Paul, the last few minutes have really done things for me. Start your boys working in Nevada, then go on home, take a good hot bath, crawl into bed and get some sleep.”

“You mean that?” Drake asked in surprise.

“Sure I mean it,” Mason said and hurried out of Drake’s office.

Mason opened the door of his private office.

Della Street, who had been standing by his desk, arranging some papers, looked up as he entered.

Mason reached her in two swift strides, put his arms around her, picked her off the floor, whirled her around, and then held her to him. “Baby,” he said, “we’ve struck pay dirt.”

She looked up at him somewhat wistfully. “All of which, I presume, accounts for this sudden display of enthusiasm.”

“It isn’t enthusiasm,” Mason said, hugging her to him, “it’s affection.”

“Well,” she said, “it must have been important information.”

“Get the newspapers?” Mason asked.

“Yes. Reporters are on their way up here. I told them it was hot, and they’re coming up fast.”

“Good girl,” Mason said, and looked down into her eyes.

She put her hands on his shoulders, her face tilted up. Mason bent forward tenderly.

Her lips clung to his for a long moment, then she suddenly was pushing him away, grabbing a Kleenex from her purse and wiping the lipstick off his lips.

“Chief,” she exclaimed, “have you forgotten that a bunch of observant, keen-eyed newspaper reporters are due to burst in here at any minute?”

Mason smiled, patted her shoulder and said, “It’s okay, Della. We’re going to give them something that will jolt Mr. Sidney Hardwick right back on the heels of his shoes.”

“Good. I hope you do it. How’s my mouth? Am I smeared? Oh, you wouldn’t know anyway!”

“I can see anything a keen-eyed reporter can,” Mason said.

She laughed, went to the mirror, adjusted her lips for a moment, and then said, “There’s someone at the door to the outer office now.”

“I’ll see the reporters out there,” Mason said.

He followed her to the outer office, greeted two reporters who had arrived simultaneously. While he was passing cigarettes a third arrived, and then a fourth.

“What’s the big news?” one of the reporters asked. “I hope it’s good. We certainly broke our necks getting over here. Your secretary intimated it was red hot.”

“It is red hot,” Mason said.

“What is it?”

“You have the information about the holographic will that Benjamin Addicks left?”

“Hell, yes. I hope you didn’t think that was news. Hardwick, Carson and Redding released information about that two hours ago. It’s in the late edition.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “The will’s no good.”

“What do you mean, it’s no good?”

“Just what I said,” Mason told him. “He didn’t make provisions for his wife.”

“His wife? Benjamin Addicks was a bachelor.”

“That’s what some people would like to have you think.”

“You mean he wasn’t?”

Mason shook his head.

“What the devil? — Don’t kid us, Mason. Good Lord, Benjamin Addicks was an important figure. He was nutty as a fruit cake and he was all goofy over this idea of the gorilla experimentation, but, after all, the guy was prominent. If he had married anyone the newspapers would have played it up. Not too big, but at least they would have played it up. Everything the guy did was news on account of his money and on account of his private zoo of gorillas.”

“You’re forgetting that there’s a big gap in his biographical data,” Mason said. “The man was married.”

“Where did he get married?”

“Here and there.”

“Come on, come on, give us the low-down.”

“Benjamin Addicks,” Mason said, “lived with a woman as his wife.”

“Where did he live with her?”

“In the house with him a part of the time.”

“Are you going to claim that Josephine Kempton...?”

“Not so fast,” Mason said. “The wife was Helen Cadmus. I’ll give you fellows the addresses of some motels where they registered as man and wife, and I can tell you there’s been an absolute photographic identification. You can take a picture of Helen Cadmus and check on it if you want to.”

“Aw, forget it,” one of the men said. “He was playing around with his secretary. That doesn’t mean he was married to her or that it makes the will invalid.”