The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

“That’s our case, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said.

Mason said, “I call Your Honor’s attention to the fact that I wanted to look up one point and ask some more questions on cross-examination. I need a little more opportunity for research upon one technical point, and would like to confer with my associate. It is approaching the hour of the afternoon adjournment. Would it be possible for the Court to continue the case until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock?”

Judge Mundy shook his head. “You’ve had ample opportunity to prepare your case, Mr. Mason. The district attorney offered to stipulate to a continuance when the case was called. You didn’t want it. You wanted to go ahead with the case. The Court isn’t going to let you try it piece-meal. I’ll take a recess for fifteen minutes so you may have opportunity to confer.

“The Court will now take a fifteen-minute recess.”

Judge Mundy walked to his chambers.

Mason turned to where Mrs. Kempton was seated, the matron a few feet away.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Kempton whispered to him. “I tried to be smart and it backfired. Put me on the stand and I’ll tell the real truth and clear everything up.”

“Clear it up here and now. Were you lying to me?”

“Only about the cashier’s check, and I didn’t really lie about that. I merely held out on you.”

“All right, where did that check come from?”

“From the little table by Mr. Addicks’ bed. He was asleep, and he’d been drinking. The check was there, all made out to me. I knew at once he had been intending to give it to me...”

“Wait a minute, you say it was made out to you?”

“On the back, yes.”

“You mean you didn’t forge his signature on the endorsement?”

“Of course not. It was all signed when I first saw it, so I took it. I knew that was why he’d wanted me to go out there.”

“You don’t expect anyone to believe that?”

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“Well, we’ll not let anyone hear it until we can check certain things.”

“Mr. Mason, I want you to call me to the stand. I want to tell them exactly what happened.”

Mason shook his head. “Let us do the talking for a while.”

“You think I’m lying, don’t you?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yes you do.”

“Well, you told us one story which didn’t prepare us for being slapped in the face with this cashier’s check.”

“I just left that out. I didn’t lie to you. There were some things I didn’t tell you, that’s all.”

Mason said, “If I put you on that witness stand now they’ll crucify you.”

He turned to Etna. “Our time’s getting short, Jim. We’ve got to do something.”

“Let’s make another try to get a continuance until tomorrow morning.”

“The judge won’t give it to us. He wants to get the case cleaned up today. He feels that it’s only a preliminary hearing, that there’s already enough evidence before the Court to bind the defendant over.”

“Well, what are we going to do? We can’t put her on the witness stand.”

Mason said, “A lawyer runs into situations like this every once in a while, Jim. We’ve got to find some way of keeping things going until the judge has to take the evening adjournment.”

“There isn’t any way,” Etna said. “They’ve tossed us the ball and we have no place to run. This business about the cashier’s check and that clumsy forgery — we can’t explain it, Mason, and if we don’t explain it we’re licked. I wish I’d never seen her — despite the fact that I needed the fee on that settlement. I...”

Mason shook his head. “You have to take them as they come, Jim. You can’t skim the cream all the time. Every once in a while Fate hands you something.”

“Josephine Kempton has had our loyal support. She has no right to make monkeys of us,” Etna said.

Mason grinned. “Are you trying to be funny?”

Etna’s smile was halfhearted. “I didn’t mean it in exactly that way, but this story about the gorilla and — then we get the absolutely crazy story about this check — and she gets caught trying to conceal it!”

“Well,” Mason said, “we’ll try to stall until we can get things clarified a little.”

“How are you going to stall?”

“I left myself an opening,” Mason said, “in the cross-examination of the technical witnesses. There’s one point that I don’t think they know about. Ever hear of Dr. Gradwohl of St. Louis?”

Etna shook his head.

“You should have,” Mason said. “He was largely instrumental in founding the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and he’s been doing some research work lately that’s going to give these boys a headache. I didn’t intend to spring the point until I’d had an opportunity to brush up on the technical facts, but — here we go!”

Mason indicated the door to the judge’s chambers which opened to let Judge Mundy re-enter the courtroom.

Chapter number 17

Judge Mundy glanced at his watch. “Will you please proceed as rapidly as possible with your case, gentlemen. I see no reason why we can’t conclude the matter today.”

Mason said, “If the Court please, we had arranged for a cross-examination of Philip Groton.”

“Wasn’t that simply as to a matter of his qualifications?” Judge Mundy asked.

“It has to do with his qualifications.”