Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders

by Ron Goulart

  We started walking along Broadway again and the erstwhile copyboy fell in at my side. “So you didn’t see anything that went on behind the scenes?” I asked.

  “Not a darn thing, no,” he answered. “Are you and Groucho Marx investigating this murder?”

  “In our amateur capacity,” I said.

  “That’s swell,” said Stan. “You know what I think? Your escapades as crime busters would make for a terrific play. World-famous comedian joins forces with struggling writer. It’d be a sure hit.”

  Jane said, “But you’ll let Frank struggle with the idea first, won’t you? Before you turn it into a hit yourself.”

  He chuckled. “Hey, gosh, I’ve got enough great ideas of my own to last me for years, Mrs. Denby,” he assured her. “Though if I did write a play about your husband and Groucho, I know who I could get to play your part.”

  “Besides me myself, you mean?”

  “Willa Jerome,” he announced with a pleased grin. “It turns out she’s a great admirer of mine. Do you know who she is? Very talented British actress who’s in a film called Trafalgar—”

  “We’ve met,” said Jane. “Mostly on trains.”

  I inquired, “How do you know she’s a fan of yours, Stan? Was she at the opening tonight or—”

  “Willa knew the Estlin Brothers in England, before they came over here to produce plays on Broadway,” he explained. “She visited them last night, saw our final dress rehearsal, and took the time to tell me how terrific she thought Make Mine Murder was. She’d love, she mentioned, to do a really good stage play when she has some free time from the Hollywood grind.”

  “I was thinking,” I said, “that Greta Garbo would be a better choice to portray my wife.”

  After watching my face for a few seconds, Stan chuckled again. “I see your husband’s still the great kidder he was when we were reporters together in the old days, Mrs. Denby.”

  “Yes, he brings an enormous amount of laughter into my life,” she admitted.

  We reached a corner and the young playwright said, “I’ve got to go meet some people over at the Stork Club, so we’ll say so long here.”

  “So long,” I said.

  “Listen, Frank, I think you and your wife owe it to yourselves to see the whole play some night soon,” he said, holding out his hand. “Give me a ring—I’m in the book—Nigel Windhurst, remember—and I’ll have them leave a pair of tickets for you at the box office. Sure nice meeting you, Mrs. Denby. Good night now.” He went hurrying away into the bright-lit Broadway night.

  “Dorothy Lamour,” said Jane.

  “Hm?”

  “That’s who I’d like to see play me on stage and screen.”

  “She doesn’t look anything like you,” I pointed out.

  “Well, okay, you can cast somebody else, but she has to wear a sarong.”

  “It’s interesting,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The way Willa Jerome keeps recurring in our lives,” I said.

  Twenty-one

  Two uniformed cops asked Groucho for his autograph before he reached Lieutenant Lewin’s office in the precinct house. The lieutenant, wearing a different wrinkled suit, was sitting behind a slightly lopsided desk. The only thing in the office that wasn’t faded was a small New York World’s Fair poster tacked to the wall above one of the dented green filing cabinets.

  Settling into the dark wooden chair facing the desk, Groucho inquired, “Who’s your decorator? The reason I ask is, I’m planning on opening a nationwide chain of latrines and I just feel he’d be absolutely perfect for the job of furnishing them.”

  “How’ve you been, Groucho?”

  “Well, Herb, about five months ago I thought I had an ingrown toenail, but that turned out to be a false alarm and I’ve been fit as a fiddle ever since. Are you going to hold Bill Washburn for murder?”

  “We’re going to be asking him a few more questions.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “Maybe not,” said the policeman.

  “If Washburn had murdered Manheim, he wouldn’t have been so stupid about it,” Groucho pointed out. “He wouldn’t have rigged the body to upstage him in his own play, and wouldn’t have hidden the knife in his own dressing room.”

  Lewin nodded. ‘There were no prints on the knife, in case you were wondering.”

  “I didn’t expect you’d find Washburn’s fingerprints on the thing.”

  When Lieutenant Lewin leaned back in his swivel chair, it made a rasping noise. “Now tell me about what happened while you show folks were traveling on the Super Chief from LA,” he requested.

  Groucho obliged, filling him in on the attempted assault on Manheim, and about both Arneson and me getting bopped on the head. In conclusion he said, “The means used by our mystery man on the train—blackjack and knife—are the same as those used by the person who actually killed Manheim, Herb.”

  “Similar, yes.”

  “Therefore, since Washburn was thousands of miles from the scene of the first crime, he isn’t your man.”

  “Unless he heard about the attempt on Manheim—from his estranged wife, say—and thought it would be a nifty idea to imitate the style of that other assailant. Lots of copycats around, Groucho.”

  “He imitates the methods of somebody else, but then leaves the knife in his dressing room?”

  “Some people think it’s smart to act dumb.”

  “Here’s something else to contemplate,” put forth Groucho. “Both the late Manheim and his stooge Arneson worked mightily to put a lid on what happened. They didn’t want any police called in, didn’t want Frank Denby and me to investigate, didn’t—”

  “That last sounds sensible to me,” cut in the policeman. “I don’t think I’d want one of the Marx Brothers trying to find out who assaulted me.”

  “I’ll ignore your cruel slur on my ratiocinative capabilities, Herbert,” said Groucho magnanimously. “I merely suggest to you that Manheim acted like somebody who perhaps had something to hide. Mayhap he and Arneson didn’t want to risk having the law look into their activities.”

  “Arneson told me only this morning, Groucho, that they were thinking only of the impending opening of Saint Joan and didn’t want any negative publicity to detract from that. Guilty consciences had nothing to do with it.”

  “Malarkey,” observed Groucho, locating a fresh cigar in the pocket of his umber-colored sports coat. “To a gent like Arneson there is no such thing as bad publicity, so long as you get your client’s name in the news. If Manheim had been caught burning down an orphanage, Arneson would’ve sent out a press release headed Producer of Saint Joan Has a Hot Times

  “You don’t much like Arneson.”

  “I’ve never let him sign my dance card, no.”

  Lieutenant Lewin said, “Well, I won’t stop you fellows from poking your noses into the Manheim case, Groucho. As I believe I’ve already mentioned, however, don’t do a single damn thing that’s going to put you in my way or screw up my investigation.”

  “We’ll solve the mystery without your even noticing it, Herb,” promised Groucho and lit his cigar.

  The gold-trimmed revolving doors deposited me on the morning sidewalk in front of our hotel. Jane had preceded me and was waiting a few feet to the right of the gold-trimmed doorman.

  “You’re sure you want to go ahead with this?” she asked as I pulled up beside her.

  “Didn’t I once vow I’d follow you to the ends of the earth? And this sounds like a much shorter trip.”

  From the side pocket of her plaid coat she took a small notebook and flipped it open to a middle page. “Okay, most of the secondhand bookstores I want to visit are down around Fourth Avenue and vicinity,” Jane said, consulting the list of addresses she’d copied out of the telephone directory. “If you think maybe you’ll get bored while I hunt for old back issues of Judge and the New Yorker and the old Life, why then we can separate and meet for lunch someplace in Greenwich Village around one this
—”

  “No, I’m looking forward to browsing in a bunch of cluttered bookshops,” I assured her. “After breathing all that clean pure air out in LA, I’m eager to inhale dust, mildew, bookworm droppings, and assorted effiuvia.”

  “Since we’re going to be spending most of the afternoon from three on with the people at the network,” she said, slipping the little notebook away, “I just wanted to do something this morning that doesn’t have a darn thing to do with Hollywood Molly. And collecting old cartoon magazines is the closest thing I have to a hobby.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “Hey, I’m willingly going with you,” I reminded her. “Stop apologizing and rationalizing, okay?”

  She nodded, smiling. “Manhattan does that to me,” she confessed. “Brings out the schoolgirl. I get sort of giddy, excited, and insecure all at the same time. But … what is it, Frank?”

  I was looking beyond her and the expression on my face had become what you might have called mixed. “Groucho is approaching from the direction of Sixth Avenue.”

  Jane glanced over her shoulder. “So he is, and he looks quite purposeful.”

  “For Groucho, yes.”

  Unlit cigar clenched in his teeth and pointing skyward, arms swinging at his sides, knees slightly bent, Groucho was making his way toward us through the midmorning scatter of pedestrians.

  He was still about five feet away from us when a plump woman stepped into his path.

  “Why, it’s Groucho Marx!” she exclaimed, very pleased.

  “It is? And here I thought it was probably Bastille Day.”

  The woman asked him, “What’s the name of your next movie?”

  “Well, if it’s a boy, we’re going to call it Cimarron,” he answered. “And if it’s a girl, Lupe Velez.”

  She giggled. “Mr. Marx, you’re spoofing me.”

  “Oh, no, I’d never do that in a public place, my dear woman,” he said. “However, I’d be perfectly happy spoofing you in the privacy of my hotel room. If you drop up there of an evening, we’ll spoof till the cows come home. Although I’m somewhat doubtful that the whole herd can fit into that dinky elevator. But then that’s not my problem, let Neville Chamberlain worry about it. That’s why we elected him president, after all.”

  “Chamberlain isn’t president, he’s—”

  “Well, see? I haven’t read a newspaper for over a week and I’m completely out of touch.” Bending some, he caught her hand, kissed it, and eased around her. “And now, good-bye.”

  “Good morning, Groucho,” said Jane. “You’re looking very dapper.”

  He frowned down at himself. “I am? I’ll have to complain to my valet about that,” he said. “But let’s get to the point of this meeting. Rollo, there are some matters about the case I want to discuss with you. Are you free?”

  “As a matter of fact, Jane and I—”

  “Frank, stay with Groucho,” cut in Jane. “I don’t mind roaming the bookstores by myself.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Pretty near absolutely.” She leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see you back here at the Saint Norbert around two.”

  Groucho observed, “You’re an exceptional woman.”

  “I am,” she agreed and asked the doorman to get her a taxi.

  Groucho and I found an unoccupied bench and sat down.

  He said, “Central Park is a mite roomier than Griffith Park. And there’s a better class of squirrels.”

  “What happened to Bill Washburn?”

  “That’s one of the topics I wanted to talk about, Rollo,” he answered. “The police are holding him for further questioning, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to charge him with anything.”

  “For now?”

  “There’s no guarantee that they won’t eventually arrest him for murdering Manheim,” said Groucho. “There are those, apparently, who’d like to do that right now, but Lieutenant Lewin isn’t completely convinced that Washburn is a half-wit.”

  “Since only a half-wit would hide the murder weapon in his own dressing room.”

  “Exactly,” he said, nodding. “Unless, of course, Washburn is trying to be tricky and using the only-a-half-wit gambit to try to outfox the law.”

  “That knife really is the one that was used on Manheim?”

  “That it is. A fairly common type of kitchen knife that’s sold all across this great land of ours.”

  “Any fingerprints on the thing?”

  “Nary a one, no,” said Groucho. “No footprints either, meaning our killer wore gloves and shoes.”

  “I suppose nobody saw anyone suspicious sneaking into Washburn’s dressing room to plant the knife, huh?”

  “If they did, they’re maintaining a discreet silence.” Groucho leaned back on the green bench. “One of the problems we face, and a major reason for sticking with this case and finding the real killer, is that Bill Washburn makes a dandy candidate for the role of killer.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Manheim stole his wife, persuaded her to separate from him, changed her name, and tried to prevent them from ever seeing each other again,” amplified Groucho. “Those are some pretty good reasons for not being fond of Manheim.”

  “Then last night Manheim shows up in person to threaten Washburn,” I picked up. “They have a noisy argument, yell at each other, and—”

  “Whenever I have noisy arguments, I try never to speak above a whisper,” said Groucho. “I also refrain from slugging my opponents during a debate or leaving them sprawled in my dressing room afterwards.”

  “You have to admit that Washburn had motive and opportunity,” I said. “Last night anyway.”

  “But he wasn’t on the Super Chief when the earlier attempt was made on Manheim,” said Groucho. “Which leads me to speculate that the true killer is one of our fellow passengers.”

  “It wasn’t me or Jane and it wasn’t you,” I began. “And—”

  “It couldn’t have been me,” said Groucho, “because I always refuse to take part in any mystery case where the killer turns out to be the private detective.”

  “The fact that Dian Bowers was with you at the time of the murder rules her out, too.”

  “Yes, by risking her reputation by being seen in public with me, the child provided herself with an ironclad alibi.”

  I paused to watch three guys in business suits ride by on bicycles. “I’m wondering about Arneson.”

  Groucho was leaning toward a grey squirrel who was approaching us across the slanting Central Park stretch of grass. “I know what you’re going to say,” he told the squirrel. “Harpo’s your favorite.” He returned his attention to me. “Arneson was supposed to be dedicated to protecting Manheim.”

  “Sure, but when he got to the theater last night, he wanted everybody to know he was just showing up for the first time.”

  Groucho took a book of paper matches out of the pocket of his rustcolored sports coat, lit his unlit cigar. “We might jot Arneson down on our tentative list of suspects,” he said finally, exhaling a swirl of smoke. “But I’m dubious—and, please, no Smith and Dale routines.”

  “That dancer—Len Cowan. The guy who hates Manheim for ruining his sister,” I said. “He’s a possibility, too.”

  “Yep, we’d best find out why he isn’t dancing his heart out in Chicago as originally planned.”

  “I’ll check with May Sankowitz—she seems to be a chum of his.”

  After taking a long thoughtful puff on his cigar, Groucho said, “And we ought to find out more about the activities of Willa Jerome and her coterie.”

  “I forgot to tell you that she was at the theater on Monday night.”

  “Oh, so? A whole night early for the opening?”

  “She’s a friend of the producers and attended the final dress rehearsal.” I told him about our running into Stanley Sherman, alias Nigel Windhurst.

  “You’re falling behind on your acorn quota,” Groucho told the squirrel, who was standing
on his hind legs and eyeing us from a couple feet away. “I’ve been thinking, Frank—which is something I try to do at least once every day, rain or shine. I’ve been thinking that it’s somewhat odd that two of the women who are involved in this mess were also chummy with the late Nick Sanantonio.”

  “Meaning there might be some kind of link between the gambler’s murder and Manheim’s?”

  He shrugged his left shoulder and took another puff of his cigar. “Might be a connection, might just be a coincidence,” he said. “Or mayhap one of the damsels is a jinx and every guy she comes near gets bumped off.”

  “I’ll contact one of my informants back in Los Angeles, dig up some more about Sanantonio’s relationship with these two actresses,” I offered. “You should be able to get Dian Bowers to provide you with some details of what really went on between her and Sanantonio and if Manheim ties in somehow.”

  “I’m going to see the lady in question right after my Mikado rehearsal this afternoon,” he said. “I’ll ask a few deft and subtle questions, not to mention a whole batch of blunt and offensive ones.”

  “Manheim had a reputation for being extremely protective of his protégées,” I said. “If Sanantonio was tomcatting around Dian, maybe Manheim warned him off and that annoyed some of the guys in the Mob.”

  “It’s not a good idea to annoy the Mob, no,” he said, stretching up off the bench. “All this pastoral tranquility is giving me palpitations. Let’s move on.”

  We moved on and the squirrel went bouncing away toward the nearest tree.

  Twenty-two

  The Maximus Publications Building rose a dozen-and-a-half stories above Lexington Avenue in the East 50s. The eleventh floor was devoted to movie magazines, pulp fiction magazines, and comic books.

  As I made my way back to May Sankowitz’s temporary office, I noticed cover proofs for Movietown, Hollywood Screen, Snappy Detective, Snappy Western, Hyperman, and Capt. Starr Comics scattered on desks, pinned to drawing boards, tacked to corkboard walls. There were about thirty people scattered around at desks, boards, and in cubbyhole offices. About half of them were talking either to each other or on telephones and just about all of them were smoking. It was pretty much like a newsroom, though not as noisy.