The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

The witness stated he immediately got back down the stepladder, moved the stepladder to the far end of the corridor, and waited until the defendant had emerged from her apartment. He had then re-entered the apartment, opened the book to the page in question and taken out the paper.

“What was that paper?” Hamilton Burger asked.

The witness grinned. “It was the cashier’s check for twenty-five thousand dollars, which has been introduced in evidence.”

“Cross-examine,” Burger said.

Mason regarded the man with a tolerant smile.

“You had no authorization to enter the apartment either the first time or the second time, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“Where did you get the key with which you entered the apartment the second time?”

“I had a duplicate key made.”

“You knew you had no right to search that apartment without either a search warrant or permission from the owner?”

The witness glanced at Hamilton Burger, said, “I hadn’t thought of it at the time.”

“You can think of it now, can’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Actually you had studied the law in regard to searches before you became a deputy sheriff, hadn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you knew that what you were doing was illegal?”

“If you want to put it that way, yes.”

“I want to put it that way,” Mason said. “That’s all. I have no further questions of this witness.”

The next witness was an officer of the zoo, who stated that he had been called to Stonehenge; that he had arrived on the night of the murder and had found there gorillas at liberty; that he had previously visited the place on several occasions to check with Benjamin Addicks on his experiments with the gorillas; that he was familiar with the number of gorillas and their general characteristics; that under his supervision the gorillas had been returned to their cages; that then he had checked those gorillas for blood splatters; that he had found none.

“Cross-examine,” Burger said.

“What do you mean by blood splatters?”

“I mean that their coats were very carefully checked for the purpose of seeing whether there were any drops of blood.”

“Why was that done?”

“It was done at the request of the district attorney.”

“In order to save time,” Hamilton Burger said, “I would state to the Court and Counsel that my next witness, a pathologist, will show that the nature of the wounds which were inflicted upon Benjamin Addicks was such that there would necessarily have been a considerable spurting of blood from the first wound in the neck, which was also a fatal wound, and that whoever inflicted that wound must have been splattered with human blood.”

“Oh, I see,” Mason said. “Go right ahead.”

“I’m finished,” Burger said. “You may cross-examine.”

“There was no evidence of blood upon any of these gorillas?”

“None. Not on the coats — now just a moment, one of the gorillas had certain blood splotches, not droplets but splotches, which had come from a cut in the gorilla’s foot. Evidently he had cut his foot upon a sharp piece of glass.”

“How do you know?”

“Because there was a piece of glass, a segment, in the form of a sliver, embedded in the gorilla’s foot.”

“What became of that piece of glass?”

“Oh, it was just an ordinary piece of glass. I don’t know what was done with it.”

“Who extracted it?”

“I did.”

“You extracted it from the gorilla’s foot?”

“Yes.”

“Was it painful?”

“The gorilla was asleep at the time. In order to assist in their capture they were given fruit containing a powerful sedative. I found the gorillas in a highly excited condition. The very savage police dogs had been making quite a commotion. The gorillas were all quite excited. The sounds of the sirens, barking of the dogs, and the unusual noises incident to the change in environment, and the fact that they knew they were violating the discipline of the place...”

“How did they know that?” Mason asked.

“Because they had been liberated from their cages. A gorilla has a very high order of intelligence. He knows when he’s supposed to be in a cage, and he knows when he gets out under circumstances that make his exit a contravention of the disciplinary procedure.”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

Burger said, “We will now call Mortimer Hershey as our witness.”

Hershey took the witness stand, was sworn, and testified that for some two weeks prior to the murder, Benjamin Addicks had been planning a big business deal; that the details of this deal were locked entirely within the mind of his employer; that the witness knew some of the details but nothing whatever about the consideration; that Addicks customarily kept matters of consideration and price entirely to himself.

Late on the Tuesday evening preceding the murder, Addicks had called Nathan Fallon and Mortimer Hershey into a conference. He had told them he wanted to make a new will, that he intended to have it solemnized in proper legal form, or, as he expressed it, “with all the legal trimmings,” at a later date, but in the meantime, since he wanted to be certain that his house was in order, he had made this new will.

“Did he tell you the terms of the will?”