“She suspected.”
“You read about the supposedly stolen property being discovered?”
“Yes, I did. I certainly should have guessed the correct solution myself. Good Lord, I had all the facts available. It just never occurred to me to suspect a monkey. That little mischievous devil! And I’m so fond of him, too — but he’s a devil.”
“Where’s the monkey now?” Mason asked.
“He’s... he’s being taken care of. Don’t worry, he’ll have a home.”
“Do you think Josephine Kempton is telling the truth about...?”
“She never told the truth about anything in her life. She’s a congenital liar. She’s a plotter, a sneak, a vicious, backbiting, nasty-minded woman, and she killed Benjamin Addicks. I know it just as well as I know I’m sitting here.”
Mason said, “How do you know it?”
“I don’t know it by any evidence, but I’m absolutely certain that’s the case.”
Mason said, “You don’t want to be interviewed by the newspaper reporters, do you?”
“No.”
“All right,” Mason told her, “start packing.”
“What do you mean?”
Mason said, “I’m going to put you in a place where you’re safe for the time being. You were crazy to think that you couldn’t be found in a place of this sort. You left a broad enough trail to...”
“I guess I did at that,” she said, “but I was... well, I was emotionally upset and — and, frankly, it never occurred to me that in a show-down Benny really would marry me. I thought he’d support the child — I don’t know, I thought he might be proud of him.”
“Of him?”
“Yes. He’s a fine strapping boy,” she said. “He’s going to have all of Benny’s intelligence, and if I have anything to do with it, and I think I’ll have a lot to do with it, he’s not going to have any of Benny’s phobias — you see, Mr. Mason, Benny made a big mistake. He ran away. When a man starts running away from things in life he builds up a whole chain of complexes and fear.
“My son isn’t going to be like that. He’s going to face things squarely!”
“All right,” Mason told her. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
“Just what are you going to do? What can you do?”
Mason said, “You’re going to pack up. Della Street is going to take you and your child to another motel. Della Street is going to register in that motel. You’re going to be her sister. You’re not going to use the name Addicks. You’re not going to use the name Barnwell.”
Mason looked at his watch. “You probably have fifteen or twenty minutes. I wouldn’t push my luck any more than that. Della will help you pack.”
“When you come right down to it, Mr. Mason, why shouldn’t I come out in the open right now? I have suddenly realized that I’m starting to do the same thing Benny did. I’d be running away...”
Mason interrupted sharply, “There’s a difference between retreating until you can fight at the right time and at the right place and just running away.
“There’s a crazy woman who wants to kill your child. It’s all right to be courageous, but let’s find out more about this woman before we take chances on that young life it’s your duty to protect.”
She hesitated for a moment, then took some clothes, went to the bathroom, said, “Let me dress,” and closed the door.
“Chief,” Della Street said, “do you dare to hide her?”
“I have to hide her, Della.”
“Why?”
“Because if the newspapers get hold of that story of hers that Mrs. Kempton killed Benjamin Addicks, it will set off a chain reaction of adverse public statement. I don’t dare take that chance.”
“But isn’t it a crime to conceal a witness?”
“What is she a witness to?”
“Well, all of the things that she’s told you.”
“She’s told me a lot about the disappearance of Helen Cadmus,” Mason said, “and she’s told me a lot of stuff that she heard from Benjamin Addicks about Addicks’ past life, but that doesn’t mean she’s a witness to those things. She could talk to a newspaper reporter but she couldn’t talk to a jury. She isn’t a witness unless she can testify to something. The thing we’re investigating at the present time is the murder of Benjamin Addicks. She can’t testify to a damn thing in that.”
“Just the same, if the police find out...”
Mason grinned. “Remember what the fortune cake said, Della — ‘courage is the only antidote for danger.’ ”
Chapter number 16
Perry Mason’s interview with the newspaper reporters brought instant response.
Sidney Hardwick, as the attorney who had represented Benjamin Addicks during his lifetime, and as attorney for the executor of the estate, promptly denounced Mason’s interview as “sheer wishful thinking, an attempt to cloud the issues, a fevered imagination desperately seeking some way of escape for a desperate client.”
District Attorney Hamilton Burger characterized it more sharply. “An attempt to squirm out from under by blackening the reputation of a dead girl who is no longer able to defend herself. A dastardly, despicable, last-minute attempt conceived in deceit, born in desperation, and ultimately destined to crucify his client.”
Mason, with the newspapers tucked under his arm, walked into court to attend the preliminary hearing in the case of People versus Josephine Kempton.
James Etna, moving up alongside, said in a low voice, “I think we won’t have any trouble getting a continuance, Mr. Mason.”
“Who wants a continuance?” Mason asked.
“Good heavens, we don’t want to go to trial the way things are now, do we?”
“We may not want to go to trial,” Mason said, “but I’m perfectly willing to hear what they have to say by way of evidence in a preliminary hearing.”
“Well, you’re the boss,” Etna told him. “I know that the district attorney really wants a continuance, but, of course, he wants the defendant to ask for it.”
Judge Mundy took his place on the bench. The court was called to order.
“People versus Kempton,” Judge Mundy called.
“The defense is ready,” Mason said.
District Attorney Burger’s face showed surprised irritation. “I had understood that the defendant wanted a continuance, and the prosecution was prepared to stipulate that a continuance would be granted.”
“I don’t know what gave you that understanding,” Mason said.
“I received that understanding from a conversation with someone who had been talking with James Etna, your associate counsel.”
“Did you indeed?” Mason told him. “Just who was this person and what did he say?”
“I prefer not to divulge the source of my information.”
Mason said, “I have made no request for a continuance and I’m quite certain Mr. Etna didn’t.”
“I didn’t say that he made a request for a continuance.”
“The defense is entitled to proceed if it wishes,” Judge Mundy ruled.
“We’re prepared to go ahead,” Hamilton Burger said sullenly.
“Very well, proceed.”
Burger called one of the radio officers who had answered the call to Stonehenge as his first witness. The officer described conditions as he had found them, told about the night watchman running around with a gun, the dogs having a gorilla up a tree, two more gorillas roaming loose in the house, about the cages, the discovery of the body in the upstairs room, the resulting trouble that ensued in trying to corral the huge gorillas.
Finally, with the aid of two experts from the zoo, some drugged fruit, and by utilizing the combined services of the police and fire departments, the apes were returned to their cages shortly before daylight.