The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

“So there you have a peculiar situation. A lawyer insisting that a client’s will needed to be changed because the principal beneficiary was dead, and the client, knowing that she wasn’t dead, stalling the lawyer along. After all, when Hardwick mentioned that he had been insisting that Benjamin make a new will because of certain complications which had arisen, I should have begun to guess what the situation was right then.”

“But the marriage to Helen Cadmus is actually bigamous?” Drake asked.

“It is if his first wife is still alive, but somehow I have as idea she isn’t. Hershey says that it’s been eighteen months since anyone has heard from her. Before that she used to put the bee on Addicks about once every four or five months.”

“Why did they pull this attack on you?” Drake asked.

“For the very good reason that they knew I was suspicious. They knew that Josephine Kempton had told me her story of the murder. They had an idea that I had begun to smell a rat.

“By the time court adjourned this afternoon I had begun to realize the significance of the shaven cheek that I had seen on the person whom I had interviewed. Then I began to get a glimpse of the truth. On the way out to Stonehenge I thought the thing through to a conclusion.

“I knew they would like to dispose of me. I knew that if they could kill me under such circumstances that Della Street could actually see a strange grinning gorilla, and run for the police, her story of the murderous gorilla would be believed because it would conform to Josephine Kempton’s story.

“I knew, therefore, that they would let Della Street get a glimpse of the gorilla. If she should then start to run for the police, they’d let her go. That would leave me to cope with whoever was in the house. If there had been three men I might not have taken the chance, but there were only two — Herman and Hershey. Herman, of course, looked terribly formidable in the big gorilla skin. He was actually a pushover. He couldn’t move fast carrying the weight of the gorilla skin, the awkward head, and all the padding. He could just about walk, manipulate the knife and that was all.

“So I gave them a chance. Herman set the stage, then went out to the private bar to prepare drinks. He slipped into the gorilla suit and appeared at the door long enough to let Della Street get a glimpse of him. Then he disappeared and fired several shots. Then, dressed in the gorilla skin, he appeared in the doorway with a knife.

“Under ordinary circumstances a man would have been completely paralyzed at such a formidable apparition. I should have turned to run, and there was good old Hershey to pretend that he was assisting me, falling all over things so that the gorilla would have a chance to close the distance.

“By the time Della Street arrived with the police, she would find two badly shaken men, both of whom would have sworn that they had seen a gorilla who had escaped through the grounds, and that the gorilla had killed me. They had both shot at him and they thought perhaps had wounded him — or, if they had needed to do it, Hershey could have shot me, claiming he had killed me accidentally while aiming at the gorilla.”

“You were taking chances,” Drake said.

“Some chances,” Mason admitted. “I made up my mind that if it came to a showdown I would tell them that the jig was up, that Della was in on the secret and had gone to get the police.”

Drake said, “Just the same, it took nerve.”

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “but it was the only way I could think of to get them to show their hand so I could have absolute proof.

“I think I’d better go get in touch with Helen Cadmus and let her know what the situation is — by the way, Della, you remember that I left a bill at the Chinese restaurant where we ate, and told the cashier I’d be back for the change?”

She nodded.

“I dropped in there to pick up the change and the man gave me your coin purse. It seems that you dropped it when you pulled your notebook from your purse.”

Della Street’s face suddenly colored.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“The fortune paper that was in it.”

Mason shook his head. “Apparently you must have put that paper some place else, Della. There wasn’t any paper in it.”

“Oh,” Della said, relief in her voice.

“Well,” Mason said, “you entertain Paul Drake, Della. Get out that bottle of whisky, and we’ll have a drink on it. I’ll go out to the switchboard and put through a call to Helen Cadmus. We can at least take a load off her mind.”

Mason went out to the outer office, plugged in the telephone line, and, as he did so, took from his pocket the folded piece of rice paper from the fortune cake which had been delivered to him by the Chinese together with Della Street’s coin purse.

On the paper appeared in fine print:

“If you marry him you will be very happy and present him with a man child who will be very like his father.”