The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

“Then came a new and more flippant generation. Younger lawyers, who inherited the busts of Blackstone with sets of law books and office furniture, resented the stony-faced dignity of the old boy.”

“You should be psychoanalyzed,” Della Street said. “Blackstone probably means something you’re fighting against. What in the world is in the package?”

“Damned if I know,” Mason said. “I think I’m fighting stuffy conventionalities. I paid five dollars for it — the package, I mean.”

Della Street’s voice was a combination of fond indulgence and official exasperation. “I certainly hope you won’t try to charge it as an office expense.”

“But that’s what it is — general expense.”

“And you don’t know what’s in it?”

“No. I bought it sight unseen.”

“That’s a great way for me to try to get along with my bookkeeping, making an entry of five dollars for a package that you don’t know... How in the world did it happen?”

“Well,” Perry Mason said, “it was like this...” and grinned.

“Go on,” Della Street told him, smiling in spite of herself.

“Do you remember Helen Cadmus? Does that mean anything to you?”

“It’s an odd name,” she said. “It seems to me... Oh, wasn’t she the girl who committed suicide by jumping from some millionaire’s yacht?”

“That’s it. Benjamin Addicks, the eccentric millionaire, was cruising on his yacht. Helen Cadmus, who was his secretary, disappeared. The assumption was she had jumped overboard. This package contains... well, now let’s see what it’s marked.”

Mason turned it over and read, “ ‘Private personal belongings, matter of Estate of Helen Cadmus. Public Administrator’s Office.’ ”

Della Street sighed. “Having been your confidential secretary for lo these many years, I sometimes think I know you pretty well, and then something like this happens and I realize that I don’t know you at all. Where on earth did you get that, and why did you pay five dollars for it?”

“Every so often the public administrator sells at public auction bits of personal property that have accumulated in his office.

“As it happened, I was down in the vicinity of the courthouse this morning when the auction was taking place. There was quite a bit of lively bidding over packages which were supposed to contain jewelry, rare linens, silverware, and things of that sort. Then they put this package up, and no one bid on it. Well, you know the public administrator. He’s a friend of ours so I tipped him the wink and started the bidding with five dollars, and the next thing I knew I was stuck with a package and was out five dollars.”

“Well, what’s in it?” Della Street asked.

“Let’s find out,” Mason said.

He opened his pocketknife, cut the string, undid the wrappings, and said, “Well, well, well! We seem to have an English grammar, a dictionary, a couple of books on a shorthand system, some diaries, and a photograph album.”

“Five dollars!” Della Street said.

“Well, let’s look at the photograph album,” Mason said. “Oh-oh, here’s a pin-up picture that’s worth five bucks of anyone’s money.”

She came to look over his shoulder.

“If that’s a bathing suit,” she said, “I...”

“Apparently,” Mason said, “the suit consists of three squares of cloth skillfully knotted about the curves of a very nice figure — I wonder if that is Helen.”

“She wasn’t concealing much from the public,” Della Street said.

“You can’t tell whether it was the public or just some girl friend manipulating a camera and they did it for a stunt. — Oh, here’s a whole mess of monkey pictures.”

“Now I get it,” Della Street said. “Remember, Addicks was her boss. He has a collection of monkeys and apes. He’s doing some psychological experiments.”

Mason nodded and continued to go through the photograph album. He said, “Some pretty good pictures here. Whoever did the photography knew what he was about. They’re sharp as a tack.”

“What are they?” Della Street asked, opening the four volumes of diary.

“Mostly bathing and yachting pictures,” Mason said. “Helen seems to have taken quite a few pictures of monkeys and apes.”

“How do you tell the difference between a monkey and an ape?” Della asked.

“One’s bigger than the other, I guess,” Mason said. “How should I know? Anyway, you can get a good education going through these photographs.”

Della Street said, “Listen to this in the diary, Chief.”

Mason said, “Go ahead, I’m listening,” but he turned the photograph album to the light so that he could study another pin-up picture of Helen Cadmus in a pose guaranteed to attract masculine attention.

Della Street jerked the book of photographs from his hand and said, “You can look at that later. Listen to this.”

She read from the diary: