Erle Stanley Gardner
The Case of the Grinning Gorilla
Foreword
Some fifty years ago Dr. R. B. H. Gradwohl, WHO had completed a thorough training in the best schools of Germany in the subjects of legal medicine and pathology, came to St. Louis and became a coroner’s autopsy physician.
At that time the field of legal medicine, particularly in this country, was in its infancy. The coroner system was more impregnated with politics than efficiency, and Dr. Gradwohl, surveying the enormous responsibilities of his office, recognized all too keenly the necessity for inaugurating a program of long-term improvements and arousing greater interest in the field of legal medicine.
As Dr. Gradwohl recently said to a friend, “I found myself in an almost impenetrable forest. It has been my life’s work to fight my way through that forest into the daylight of greater professional efficiency in the whole field of medicolegal investigation.”
One of Dr. Gradwohl’s crowning achievements was his work to help bring about the foundation of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, which has recently attracted widespread attention.
Almost thirty years ago he started a laboratory in the St. Louis Police Department, and after many difficulties has brought it up to the very highest level. In fact, the work of this laboratory ranks with the best anywhere in the country. It consistently evaluates clues by the use of techniques which unfortunately are available to only a few of the best organized police laboratories in the country.
Dr. Gradwohl is not a young man, but he certainly is a vigorous man. There is an impressive dynamic quality about him. Not only is he possessed of the highest professional qualifications, but if he thinks a man is guilty he shows the persistency of a bloodhound in tracking down the scientific facts which will demonstrate that guilt.
On the other hand, in several instances where his opinion has differed with that of the prosecutor, he has shown himself equally vigorous in protecting the rights of a man whom he felt was falsely accused of crime.
I mention these matters generally because readers will find the name of Dr. Gradwohl mentioned in this book, and I want them to know that he is not a fictional character, nor is the startling work that has been attributed to him along the lines of the particular point mentioned in this book fictitious.
Some months ago Dr. Gradwohl confided to me that he was engaged in research work which might have far reaching repercussions in the legal field. I have been in close touch with him while he has been pursuing his experiments, and I now have in my possession photographic reproductions of tests establishing theories which are destined to have an important effect on medical testimony, particularly in cases of homicide.
Dr. Gradwohl searches out the truth. His primary concern is to establish truth both in and out of court. He seeks to establish that truth by scientific proof rather than inference, surmise, or conjecture. Essentially he is a scientist.
At times he is a blunt man. When it is a question of pursuing truth, he doesn’t bother to be diplomatic. If it’s black, it’s black. If it’s white, it’s white.
When Dr. Gradwohl communicated the results of his most recent experiments to a member of the St. Louis police force, the police official digested the information in wide-eyed wonder, and then said, “But, Doctor, isn’t this apt to raise hell with your evidence?”
Dr. Gradwohl looked him straight in the eye and said, “It isn’t going to affect my evidence in the least, sir, but it may raise hell with your proof!”
I know of no anecdote which is more typical of the man, or which could do more to give my readers a thumbnail sketch of the individual whose name is mentioned in the pages of this book.
And so I dedicate this book to my friend:
R. B. H. GRADWOHL, M.D.
Erle Stanley Gardner.
Chapter number 1
At 9:55 on a Monday morning, Perry Mason, carrying a brown paper package in his hand, scaled his hat in the general direction of the bust of Blackstone which adorned the top of a low sectional bookcase behind his desk.
The hat made two lazy twists, then settled incongruously at a rakish angle on the marble brow of the great jurist.
Della Street, Mason’s confidential secretary, who had been at the desk opening mail, applauded.
“Getting to be good,” Mason admitted with boyish pride.
“Blackstone,” Della observed, “is probably turning over in his grave.”
Mason grinned. “He’s accustomed to it by this time. For the last fifty years lawyers have been scaling their hats at Blackstone’s noble brow. It marks a period of transition, Della.”
“What does?”
“The hat-scaling.”
“I don’t get it.”
“A couple of generations ago,” Mason told her, “lawyers were stuffy people. They thrust a hand inside their coats while they declaimed oratorically. Busts of Blackstone adorned their offices.
“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.