The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

“After I had tested the check and identified the fingerprint, the check was put back behind the cushions of the car approximately where I understood it had been found.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then the defendant was released from custody.”

“When?”

“That was around eight o’clock, I would say, on Thursday morning.”

“And where were you?”

“With five other witnesses, I was concealed on a balcony where we could watch what happened.”

“And what did happen?”

“At the defendant’s request, she was...”

Etna said, “Oh, I object to the witness testifying about all of this hearsay.”

Mason gently tugged at Etna’s coattails as a signal for him to sit down.

“We won’t be technical, Your Honor,” Mason interposed. “I don’t think there’s any question on earth but what the defendant did request to be released at the police garage where Mr. Etna could pick her up. We certainly don’t want to do anything that’s going to interfere with getting the actual evidence before the court.”

Judge Mundy nodded approvingly.

Etna slowly sat down.

Mason whispered to him, “This is their bombshell. They thought we’d be blown up. Don’t let the prosecutors think it means a thing. If it doesn’t bother us, then they’ll begin to worry, thinking we have some countermove, and will be tempted to show all their hand. After all, that’s all we can expect to do at a preliminary hearing of this kind — get them to show everything they have so they don’t save a surprise for us when they come to trial before a jury.”

“Go right ahead,” Hamilton Burger said to the witness.

“Well, as soon as she thought she was alone, she checked over the police cars that were parked there in order to find the car in which she had been taken to the police station. Those cars all had numbers on them and... well, she was looking for car seven.”

Judge Mundy interrupted and said, “I appreciate the attitude of the defense in this case, but, after all, Mr. Denny, you’re testifying to a lot of conclusions. Just testify to what you saw.”

“Well,” Denny said, “by arrangement, two men were left where she could see them. Then those two men were called to other parts of the garage, so that as far as the defendant could see there was no one watching her.”

“Then what happened?” Burger asked.

“She walked to two of the parked cars, looking at the numbers. When she came to the third car, which happened to be number seven, the car in which she had been taken to police headquarters, she opened the door, raised the cushion and took out this cashier’s check.”

“How did you know it was this check she took out? Did you see it?”

“It was folded. I could see it was a piece of paper.”

“How did you know it was the cashier’s check?”

“I’d inspected the car ten minutes before she was released. At that time the cashier’s check was between the seat cushions and the back of the car. As soon as the defendant left the garage, in the company of five other witnesses I returned and inspected the car. The check was gone.”

“Had the car been out of your sight in the meantime?”

“No, sir. We had kept an eye on that car every minute of the time.”

“You may cross-examine,” Burger said.

Mason yawned, glanced at the clock, said, “No questions.”

“What!” Burger exclaimed in surprise.

“No questions,” Mason said.

“That’s all,” Judge Mundy said. “Do you have any more witnesses, Mr. Burger?”

Burger, apparently considerably nonplussed, glanced at Mason.

Etna leaned forward to whisper to him, but Mason warned him back with a gentle kick under the table.

Mason’s attitude showed that he apparently considered the evidence of but minor importance.

Judge Mundy looked at the unperturbed defense counsel, then at Hamilton Burger, who was now holding a frantic whispered conference with Ginsberg.

“Your next witness, Mr. District Attorney,” Judge Mundy said.

“Call Frank Cummings.”

Cummings testified that he was a deputy sheriff, and was also a brother of the matron at the jail. On Thursday morning he had accompanied the matron to the apartment of Josephine Kempton. The matron let herself in with a key that had been obtained from Mrs. Kempton, and the matron then picked out certain clothes which she was to take back to the defendant. The witness, Cummings, had thereupon bored a small hole in the transom over the door, had donned a pair of coveralls and placed a stepladder in the outer corridor. When the defendant arrived at the apartment house on being released from jail, the witness was working on the stepladder, apparently repairing some wiring in the corridor. As soon as the defendant had entered the apartment and had closed and locked the door from the inside, the witness had moved the stepladder over to the door and mounted the steps so that he could peer through the hole in the transom. He had then seen the defendant raise her skirt, take a folded piece of paper from the top of her stocking, go to a bookcase, open a book and place the open book on the table. She had then fastened the check to a page in the book by means of Scotch tape, and then had replaced the book in the bookcase.