The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

“When there were mixed gatherings?”

“Well, people she knew. She wasn’t — I’ll put it this way, there wasn’t anything modest about Helen. She was a frank sort of a girl, and I know that she loved to be out in the sunlight. She had a body that was one of the most beautiful bronzed bodies you’ve ever seen. She’d tanned herself until she was just, well, just a beautiful bronze.”

“Except, of course, where the bathing suit came?” Mason asked.

“That was the thing that annoyed her more than anything else, having white streaks on her body. No, Mr. Mason, she had a sunbathing place on the roof, and she would sunbathe in the nude. She wanted her body to have a uniform tan. I think she was even more proud of her tan than she was of her... well, of her curves. And her curves were all right and were all in the right places.”

“Wouldn’t it be unusual for a girl like that to have committed suicide?”

“Very unusual.”

“Where were you when the suicide took place?”

“I was on the yacht.”

“On that cruise?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to know something about that. What can you tell me?”

“I’ll tell you all I can. Mr. Addicks wanted to go over to Catalina. He nearly always took Helen with him on his trips, and very often he took me.”

“Who took care of the house while you were gone?”

“We had quite a staff of servants that came in by the day. I had over-all charge and supervision. I also had supervision of keeping things up on the yacht, and, believe me, that’s a job, Mr. Mason. You can have all the sailors in the world to keep the thing shipshape outside, but the things on the inside, the staterooms and the... well, cleaning up, cleaning out the ash trays, getting rid of all the mess that they’d have in the big room after they’d been out on a cruise. Cigars and cigarette stubs, glasses, empty whisky bottles, all of that. It was quite a chore.”

“Did anyone help you?”

“No. I handled that by myself. Of course, you understand that even a big yacht is more or less crowded, and there isn’t room to carry a large staff of servants, particularly women servants. The men can bunk together up in the front of the boat, but with the women it’s different. We had to have rooms of our own.”

“All right, let’s get back to what happened that day.”

“Mr. Addicks wanted to go to Catalina. He telephoned down and had the yacht all ready. He expected that we’d take off about two o’clock in the afternoon, but he was delayed with some important business matters that came up, and didn’t get down there until about five o’clock. By that time one of those sudden, terrific windstorms had come up. There was a storm warning out for small craft, but Mr. Addicks went out anyway.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, it was quite a storm. We finally had to heave to and just take it. We didn’t get into Catalina until the next morning.”

“Now how did you go down to the yacht? In automobiles?”

“Yes.”

“You went down with Mr. Addicks?”

“Yes.”

“And Helen went down with him?”

“No, she left about — oh, I don’t know, about an hour before. She drove the sport convertible down and went aboard. She had some typing to do. That was what had caused the delay in the first place. Some business matter had come up, and Mr. Addicks dictated a lot of stuff to her. I believe there were some agreements and some confidential letters that went with them.”

“Go on.”

“Well, she went down to the yacht. Mr. Addicks stayed behind to gather up some more stuff, then he and I went down together.”

“Were there any guests?”

“No. There were some people we were going to pickup in Catalina, but there was only the crew, Helen and me.

“When did you last see Helen?”

“That afternoon — now wait a minute, I didn’t see her. On the way down Mr. Addicks decided there were some corrections he wanted to make in the letter or agreement, or whatever it was he’d given her, so as soon as we went aboard he went directly to her stateroom. He was dictating in there for — oh, I don’t know, I guess a half an hour.”

“How do you know he was dictating?”

“Oh, I could hear him. Helen’s stateroom was next to mine. We shared a bath between the rooms. I remember I went to the bathroom to wash up, and I heard Mr. Addicks dictating, and evidently he wasn’t relying on shorthand but was dictating directly to the typewriter because I’d hear him dictating and could hear Helen pounding away on the typewriter.”

“Then what happened?”

“There’s an inner and an outer harbor. We started out, but it was terribly rough outside, so Mr. Addicks put in at the outer harbor, and we waited for the wind and sea to go down. They didn’t go down.

“Mr. Addicks telephoned his friends in Catalina. Their time over there was limited. Mr. Addicks’ yacht was a big seagoing affair that could sail around the world, so he decided to put out and go over at half speed.”

“How long did he dictate?”

“I guess until it got too rough for Helen to type. It was terrible.”

“You heard him dictating after you put out?”

“Oh yes.”

“For how long?”

“I can’t tell. I’m a poor sailor. I went to sleep.”

“To sleep?” Mason asked.