by Ron Goulart
Groucho gasped, took a step to the rear, and slapped the back of his hand to his forehead. “Lord, this innocent waif has found out one of my deepest, darkest secrets,” he lamented sadly. “Let’s just hope she never learns that the source of all my strength is in my hair.”
* * *
I hung around Groucho’s kitchen after Polly had been driven off into the night in her limousine. “I still don’t quite understand your change of heart about her,” I told him. “Only yesterday you were saying that spending time with Polly Pilgrim was like sitting through a plague of locust twice.”
He was crouched in front of the open refrigerator, surveying the contents. “Goodness, did I say something that clever, witty, and downright cute?” he asked, registering surprise. “Remind me to contact Bartlett first thing in the morning and urge him to add that to his next compilation of brilliant quotations.” Extracting a small casserole dish, he nudged the door shut with his hip. “I’m tempted to add that Bartlett and I make quite a pair, but will probably refrain.”
“Wise course,” I agreed. “What about your policy shift regarding our resident nightingale?”
Groucho had the dish up close to his face and was scowling into it. “What do you suppose this stuff is?” he wondered. “I’d tag it the remnants of a meatloaf if it weren’t for the coconut on top.”
“Now I know how Jane feels when she tries to—”
“Gracious me, I should certainly hope you know how that attractive wench feels by now, since you’ve probably felt her person innumerable times.”
“Feels when she tries to get a straight answer out of me.”
After sniffing at the dish, he said, “I’m going to chance eating this, whatever it may be.” He carried it over to the table and sat across from me. “Very well, Mr. Kaltenborn, I’ll come clean.”
“Do, yes.”
“You’ll have to swear, Rollo, not to reveal what I’m about to confide in you to a living soul, nor to any of my assorted brothers.”
“Agreed.”
“It’s common knowledge, by the bye, that the Marx Brothers are also to be found in five flavorful flavors. Especially my brother Pistachio Marx.”
“Polly,” I reminded.
“Poor Polly isn’t an especially likable tyke.” He lurched free of his chair and trotted over to the silverware drawer. “And when she materialized on my doorstep this evening, my initial impulse was to apply what Emily Post refers to as the old heave-ho.” He returned clutching both a spoon and a fork. “But then she started crying and asked me to help her.”
I eyed him. “I’ve never suspected you of having a sentimental side.”
“It was a distinct surprise to me, too,” he admitted. “I conclude, however, that because I have a daughter of my own some of my paternal feelings for Miriam must’ve spilled over onto this midget Lizzie Borden.”
“Sounds logical.”
“It does?” He shrugged his left shoulder. “Wellsir, there’s another first for me.”
I picked up my coffee cup and took a sip. “How do you want to start looking into this mess?”
Groucho leaned back in his chair. “I used to know Frances London pretty well—in a strictly avuncular way, you understand,” he said. “She was at Paramount the same time we were. I’ll fix it so I can visit her in the pokey tomorrow first thing.”
“Okay, I’ll contact somebody with the Bayside cops and get as much background on the Benninger murder as I can.”
“As I recall, not even counting dear Sergeant Branner, the bobbies over there aren’t especially given to cooperating with our firm, Rollo.”
“True, but I still know a few cops who should help out,” I assured him. “I’ll also check with a friend or two on the Times for background information on both Frances London and Dr. Benninger.”
“What time do I have to show up for the broadcast tomorrow?”
“No later than five.”
He rubbed his palms together. “Splendid, that means I’ll have the whole blessed day to poke my snoot into other people’s business.” He scooped up a spoonful of the contents of the casserole dish and held it out to me. “Care to share this?”
“Have you decided what the hell it is?”
“No,” he said, “which is why I’m looking for volunteers.”
Four
The next morning, he told me later, Groucho drove himself to Bayside and parked about a block from the city jail. That’s where Frances London had been moved while she was waiting for her hearing.
The day was a gray, foggy one and as he went slouching past a small grocery store, the screen door flapped open, and a husky woman in a polkadot housedress came charging out in his direction.
“Groucho Marx,” she cried.
He halted, making a hushing motion. “There’s an ordinance against shouting things like that on a public street, madam.”
From her purse she yanked out a red-covered autograph book. “Could you say something to my mother?” she asked, thrusting the book and a fat fountain pen toward him.
“Certainly, drag the old girl around to my place any time after nine and I’ll recite ‘Casey at the Bat’ to her.”
The woman shuffled closer to him. “No, I mean say something in this autograph album,” she explained. “She’s a devoted fan of you and your wonderful brothers. So could you write—‘Hi, Helen, I’m Groucho Marx?’”
He accepted the book and pen. “Are you sure that’s right?” he asked her, brows furrowing. “I was under the distinct impression that she was Groucho Marx and I was Helen Twelvetrees.”
“No, no, my mother’s name is Helen Kammerman,” she told him. “And you can’t possibly be Helen Twelvetrees.”
“Well, of course,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “I just remembered that ever since that last bout of slippery elm disease I’ve been Helen Tentrees.” He scribbled his signature in the book. “But, say, Helen Tentrees makes a nice moniker. Of course, when Christmas rolls around I use my Santa Monica.” He returned everything to the woman and continued on his way.
* * *
Frances London sat with her hands folded in her lap. She’d faded quite a bit since Groucho had seen her last. She was thinner, her blond hair no longer had that platinum sparkle and there didn’t seem to be any feistiness left in her.
The visiting room at the city jail was a small shadowy place with a wire-mesh screen dividing it in two. It had a sour, forlorn smell. The actress sat in the middle chair of the five straight-back wooden chairs and Groucho sat on the other side of the barrier. There were no other prisoners or visitors there, but in a corner on Frances’s side stood a husky police matron with her arms folded.
“Mussolini in drag,” murmured Groucho.
“I appreciate your coming to visit, Groucho,” Frances said quietly. “Though I’m not sure why you have.”
“Polly asked me to, for one thing,” he replied, resting his hands on the long, rough wood table he was sitting at. “And I’ve always had a great deal of admiration for you, especially back in the days when we were organizing the Guild.”
Her smile was thin and fleeting. “Long time ago,” she said.
“I don’t think you know Frank Denby, but he’s the boy wonder who’s writing the scripts for my radio show,” continued Groucho. “Last fall he and I had some luck finding out who killed Peg McMorrow.”
“I knew Peg. Poor kid.”
Groucho reached into his jacket pocket for a fresh cigar, then remembered he wasn’t supposed to smoke here. “Your daughter came to see me last night, Frances,” he told her. “She asked Frank and me if we’d help you. We said we would—if you don’t mind.”
“You mean you want to try to find out who really killed Russ Benninger?”
Groucho nodded. “We’re amateurs, but we work pretty well together.”
“Yes, you really took care of those bastards who killed Peg,” the blond actress said. “I don’t know if you or anyone can help me much, Groucho, but I don’t see how you
can do me any harm and it would be swell to have you on my side.”
“Consider us on your side, my dear.”
“Roger’s provided a lawyer for me.”
“I know, yes, that schmuck Caldwell.”
“I imagine my former husband believes I really did shoot Russ Benninger while I was in some sort of drunken frenzy,” she said. “But Caldwell wants me to plead temporary insanity.”
“Yeah, Polly told us.”
“Maybe I should go ahead and do that, make it easy for everybody.” She raised her head to look directly at him. Her eyes were underscored with darkness. “But, I swear to God, I didn’t kill him, Groucho.”
“No, I don’t think you did,” he answered. “Not just because I’d like to believe in you—but because I don’t see how any woman as bright as you are, kiddo, could cook up such a dumb alibi.”
“I’ve done a lot of dumb things since you knew me last,” she admitted. “But this isn’t one of them.”
“Fill me in,” he requested, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the worn table, “on what happened.”
“Tuesday afternoon I got a phone call from Nate Winston, my present agent,” she began. “Well, it turned out it really wasn’t him, but I thought it was. He told me that—”
“Wait, hold it,” requested Groucho, holding up his hand. “Nate, as I understand it, denies he phoned you. That gives us two possibilities. He’s lying, which wouldn’t be an unusual pastime for an agent, or somebody impersonated the guy.” The furrows on his brow increased. “Which do you think it was?”
She sighed quietly. “At the time it sounded like Nate,” she answered. “But the police questioned him, so did Caldwell. Nate was having a late lunch meeting with a director out at Republic at the time I got the call.”
“Still something to look into, though.”
“This person, whoever the hell it really was, said that Lou Hagenaur was looking for my type of blonde—or at least the type I used to be—to star in a series of quickie mysteries for the Wheelan Studios,” she went on. “Wisecracking blond reporter stuff—if you can’t get Glenda Farrell, get Frances London sort of part. I used to know Lou when he was with Fox and I liked him. So it didn’t seem funny that he’d want me to drop by his home in Pasadena that night at seven o’clock to talk about the possibility of my doing his series.”
“You already have a series in the works at MGM. So why were you interested in this deal?”
“No, Groucho, all I actually have—or had—with Metro was a one-picture deal. If they liked me in that and if the movie did okay at the box office, then we were going to talk long-term deal,” she explained. “Right now, hell, I’d try out for a job as Gene Autry’s sidekick if it sounded steady.”
“I might take a crack at that one myself. I have quite a reputation as a yodeler, you know,” he said. “What transpired once you got to Pasadena? I take it the house wasn’t really Hagenauer’s?”
“No, it was his place,” she said. “But he’s away at Palm Springs for the whole week.”
“Meaning whoever lured you there knew something about Hagenaur’s comings and goings.”
“I suppose it does, yes. The police, though, think I keep up with Lou’s schedule and that’s why I picked his empty house to use in my fake alibi.”
“Who let you into the joint?”
She answered, “When I got to his front door, there was a memo sheet thumbtacked to it. It said—’Back soon, hon. Let yourself in and wait in the living room. Hugs, Lou.”
“Did he favor expressions like hon and hugs?”
“Used them all the time,” Frances said. “Well, I opened the door and walked on in. That was it, Groucho. I wasn’t more than a few steps into the hallway when I got sapped.”
“Were there lights on in the place?”
“The hall was dark, that’s why I didn’t notice anybody waiting there to hit me,” she said. “But while I was standing out on the porch, I noticed lights in the what must’ve been the living room. But all the doors opening onto the hallway were closed and hardly any light spilled out.”
“You didn’t see who conked you?”
“No.”
“Didn’t hear anything, smell anything?”
She frowned and rubbed her fingertip across the bridge of her nose. “That’s odd—why’d you mention smell?”
“Oh, it’s just something we private eyes inquire about.”
“I’d forgotten this, Groucho, but I think I got a whiff of that stuff people use to hide liquor on their breath. A violets sort of scent—Sen-Sen.”
“Unfortunately there are quite a few people in Hollywood with bad breath, but it’s something.”
Frances went on. “After I was knocked out they must’ve shot me up with something to make me sleep.” She pushed up the coarse sleeve of her gray jailhouse dress. There was a small inflamed circle just below her elbow bend. “When I woke up, it was like coming out of ether after an operation. I found myself sprawled on my rug like a drunk and the damned cops were all over the place.”
“Did they find any trace of a drug in your blood?”
“They say no. Only too much booze.”
Groucho steepled his fingertips under his chin. “What about Dr. Benninger—did you actually threaten the guy?”
“They claim they have witnesses who heard me do that.” She shook her head. “But, no, I never did. I was at the Trocadero having a late snack and Russ happened to drop in. He was drunk, which he often was lately. Anyway, he stopped by my table and made some nasty remarks. My escort suggested that he get the hell out of there and the two of them traded a few punches. The only thing I told him was to leave me alone.”
“Who was your escort?”
“Not important.”
“Even so.”
She glanced away. “Jake Hannigan, runs the bookshop on Little Santa Monica,” she said finally. “He’s married, but not living with his wife.”
“I know Jake, he’s not a bad chap,” said Groucho. “Why’d you and the doc call it quits, child?”
“I realized I didn’t much like him.”
“Other dames?”
“Sure, there always were,” Frances replied, “But the major reason was something else.”
“Such as?”
“Well, a couple of times he insisted we have dinner with—”
“Times up, folks.” The husky matron had started lumbering over toward them.
“Grant us a few more minutes,” requested Groucho.
“Can’t. I’ve already let you run way over, Mr. Marx,” she said in her rumbling voice. “The reason for that is that I just loved you in A Day at the Races.”
He leaned closer to the screen. “Finish up what you were telling me, Frances.”
“Go talk to Alice Wakeman. She used to be his nurse and I talked this all over with her. She’s a friend of mine, lives in Hollywood.”
“Get moving, Mr. Marx.” The matron put her big hand on Frances’s shoulder, urging her to leave the chair. “Oh, and say hello to the cute Marx Brother for me.”
He rose up. “I’m the cute Marx Brother, madam.”
“No, you’re not. I mean the really cute one with the curly hair and the harp. Harpo, that’s it. Say hello to him.”
He touched the fingertips of his right hand to the partition. “I’ll come see you again soon, Frances.”
“Thanks, Groucho.”
The matron led her out of the room.
Five
When Groucho got back to where he’d parked his Cadillac, there was a tall, thin man in a rumpled blue suit and aging gray fedora leaning against the driver’s side door smoking a Camel cigarette.
Groucho halted a few feet from him. “I thought they’d demoted you to walking a beat somewhere in the vicinity of a nice stretch of quicksand, Branner.”
“Nope, no such luck, Julius.” The lean police sergeant straightened up, grinning, smoke spilling out the corners of his mouth. “Despite all the lousy stories you and y
our pal, Frankie Denby, spread about me, I’m still on the job. This isn’t Hollywood, see, and we don’t buy bullshit quite so easy.”
Groucho nodded back in the direction of the city jail. “Nevertheless, there are several cells yonder that you’d fit in nicely, sarge,” he mentioned. “Were I you, I’d make my reservations plenty of time ahead.”
“And you might start thinking of optioning a slab, Julius.”
Groucho’s cigar had gone dead, and he tugged out a book of Musso and Frank matches and relit it. “Even though I haven’t heard chitchat this sparkling since the last time Oscar Levant was on Information, Please, I really must be going,” he told the policeman as he unlocked his door.
Sergeant Branner patted the hood of the Cadillac and then stepped back and away. “Funny how so many of your tribe go in for big flashy autos.”
“Not my tribe, officer. We travel chiefly by pinto pony and sometimes buffalo.” Opening the car door, he slid in behind the wheel.
The cop moved closer. “Oh, one more thing,” he said, lighting a fresh cigarette from the dying one. “It’s not a very smart idea to get yourself involved with the Dr. Benninger business.”
“Oh, so?”
“Few years ago when Frances London would get herself into trouble here in Bayside, Paramount would pull strings to get her off and keep her out of the can,” said Branner, resting one thin hand on the edge of the open car door. “This time she doesn’t have a powerful studio behind her anymore, so that platinum bitch isn’t going to get off. I’d be damned unhappy with anybody who tired to see that she did.”
After scanning the policeman’s gaunt face, Groucho asked, “What the hell are you covering up this time, Branner?”
Branner gave him another thin grin. “Just making conversation, Julius,” he maintained. “But it would be a good idea for you to keep in mind that Bayside isn’t Beverly Hills and you’re not quite so important here as you are there.”
“Gracious me, that’s distressing news,” said Groucho, eyebrows climbing. “Because in Beverly Hills the denizens hold me in low esteem and make it a habit to cast stones at me every time I go driving by. And they do that even though I always cordially inquire, ‘Denizen anyone?’”
