Groucho Marx, Private Eye
Page 20
“Okay, you’re right so far,” admitted Branner.
“One of you fellows got wind of what Brian Montaine was planning to do,” said Groucho. “Probably because he confided in a few too many of his friends and one of them—”
“I found out about it,” said Cortez. “Now can we—”
“Relax, Jack,” Branner advised his colleague. “Go on, Groucho.”
“You went to Dr. Benninger—that was probably you, sergeant—and told him what the celluloid King Arthur was going to do,” Groucho went on. “You told him to drop in on his longtime client and give him what is known in the trade as a hot shot. We know Benninger telephoned Montaine on the night the actor died. Probably he told him he had to come over and talk to him, maybe even suggested that he was ready to tell what he knew, too. The two of them could go to the papers with the story. So Montaine, all alone in his mansion, let the doctor in. Benninger sapped him and gave him the fatal hypo.”
Branner lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one. “That’s pretty much, sure, what happened.”
“The doctor, though, was very upset by the whole business.” Groucho locked his hands behind his back and commenced pacing. “He started fretting even before he did the deed, but you leaned on him enough to make him go ahead. Afterward, he felt even worse. You began to worry that he’d crack, too, and start talking. You didn’t want that, so you arranged a death for him and—”
“Enough of this crap,” cut in Cortez. “I helped Branner get rid of Benninger. The bastard was feeling, for Christ sake, guilty. And he was drinking even more than usual. We had to keep him quiet and killing him was the simplest way. Now can we get on with this?”
Groucho nodded in the sergeant’s direction. “Why frame Frances London for the job?”
“She was convenient,” he answered with a shrug. “She used to date Benninger, they’d just had a public squabble at the Troc. She had a nice reputation for getting drunk and doing violent things and, just as I figured, nobody would believe her story that she was on the wagon now and had been set up. Oh, and I never much liked her either.”
“You hired Maggie here to help build the frame,” said Groucho, indicating the blonde with his thumb.
“Didn’t she already tell you that?” He smiled his thin smile again. “I knew Maggie and I was aware she looked something like the London dame. I wanted some honest witnesses to testify that they’d seen Frances London hammering on the doctor’s door and threatening to break in.”
“And Benninger was already dead when Maggie staged her charade?”
“Sure, we’d already taken care of him,” said Branner.
“And you’d already conned Frances into driving out to a job interview, where some of your goons were waiting.”
“Some of Jack’s goons,” corrected the cop. “They’re good at that sort of thing. Knock a dame out, give her a shot to keep her asleep, pour booze into her through a rubber tube. They’re craftsmen.”
Groucho went over to stand near Maggie’s chair. “Anything further you’d like to state, my dear?”
“Nope, you’ve summed it up great, Groucho,” the blonde said, tucking her handkerchief away in the front of her dress. “Except I might add that after tonight’s performance, I think I ought to be considered for radio work.”
Branner scowled. “What in the hell are you two babbling about?”
Groucho now used his thumb to point at the beamed ceiling. “There’s a microphone planted up there, sarge,” he explained. “Borrowed from the Nationwide Broadcasting Network, along with two technicians from that popular comedy hit, Groucho Marx, Private Eye, and installed under the supervision of our talented director, Annie Nicola.”
“You son of a bitch.” Cortez jabbed his gun at the air separating him from Groucho. “You been broadcasting this over the radio?”
“Not exactly, Jack. We’ve merely been making an electrical transcription.”
“Then let’s have that damn transcription so we can—”
“The disk is in a studio several miles from here,” explained Groucho. “This delightful conversation was sent along the airwaves to the recording studio, where it now resides safely. A wonderful feature of these transcriptions, fellows, is that they can be played many, many times and give hours of pleasure to—”
“We may not have the record,” said Branner, “but we’ve got you and Maggie.”
“You do, true,” admitted Groucho. “But what we’ve got, waiting silently and patiently in the master bedroom and elsewhere, is a select group of policemen. They are all, to a man, armed and honest.”
Cortez said, “Bullshit, we didn’t see any cars anywhere around here or—”
“Most of them are former Boy Scouts,” Groucho said. “After hiding their police vehicles at a respectable distance, they snuck silently over here quite awhile ago.” He took a cigar from his coat pocket, unwrapped it, and lighted it with a wood match. “It would be a good idea if you would both surrender your weapons.”
Cortez said, “It’s a bluff.”
The bedroom door opened halfway and someone said, “It isn’t a bluff, Jack.”
Branner tossed his gun on a chair. “Don’t worry, Jack, we’ll get out of this,” he said.
“Transcription,” muttered Cortez and dropped his gun to the floor.
Groucho took a puff on his cigar. “I saw Chester Morris pull a trick like this in a B movie once,” he confided in Maggie. “But I really wasn’t sure it would work in real life.”
Thirty-five
That Tuesday afternoon’s rehearsal turned out to be a memorable one.
Polly Pilgrim showed up in jeans and an old sweatshirt. “I’ve decided I’m not ready to be glamorous,” she told me when I joined her on the studio stage. “So no more fancy clothes for rehearsals, Frank. My mother agrees with me, too. She also told me that she was gawky and overweight when she was my age.”
“Most everybody was.”
“Oh, I don’t think Myrna Loy was.”
“One of the few possible exceptions. You’re living with Frances now?”
“Yes, and it’s-swell,” the young singer answered. “I’m staying at her place in Manhattan Beach while she gets all her things packed and ready to move and then she’ll come and live with me in the mansion.”
“Looks like your father and your chauffeur are going to be charged with kidnapping and several related infractions.”
“I hope they send them both up the river for a good long stretch.”
“That’s likely what’ll happen.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m having some men crate up all his things and haul them away. My idea was to have them dump the crates way out in the Pacific Ocean, but my mother says I should just have them put in storage.” She made a face. “I wouldn’t mind, if you want to know, putting my father in a crate and dumping him somewhere.”
“Best thing to do is—”
“Groucho.” She’d noticed him loping along the aisle and leaped free of her folding chair. She ran down the steps and started for him.
He dropped his guitar case before she got both arms around him in an enthusiastic hug.
“Usually it’s two falls out of three,” Groucho gasped, “but I’m willing to concede the match right now.”
“I just wanted to thank you again,” Polly told him, relaxing her hug. “I’m really happy now, Groucho, and my mother and I are together, and I—”
“If you don’t want to get hauled away for suffocating aging troubadours, Pollyanna, ease up on the death grip.”
She laughed, letting go of him. Then she noticed the guitar case. “You’re not going to sing any Gilbert and Sullivan on our show, are you, Groucho? Our Hooper ratings are awful enough now without—”
“Fear not, little princess,” He crouched and retrieved the guitar. “I am merely going to warble a jingle that Frank and I whipped up. It extols the virtues of all five flavorful flavors of Mullens pudding and all and sundry who’ve heard it agree that
it will add plenty of new zing to our broadcasts. As you may recall from our last episode, Old Zing had fallen in the well along with Tiny Bobby the lame tap dancer from the Old Sod, and—”
“As long as it’s not Gilbert and Sullivan.” She darted, kissed him on the cheek and ran back onto the stage.
“Being the object of your affection, child, is a challenging job,” he informed her as he sat down two chairs over from me. “You are no doubt aware, Rollo, that for many years psychical investigators have struggled to communicate successfully with the dead.”
“I was aware of that, Groucho, yes.”
“It may interest you to know that less than an hour ago I accomplished an equally difficult feat,” he announced. “Yes, strange as it may seem, I was able to carry on a coherent conversation with an advertising executive.”
“One of those guys from BBD and O?”
“You don’t have to spell out things in front of little Polly,” Groucho said. “She’s surely heard the word bubbadeeoh before, since these days young people use all sorts of foul language on the playground and in the—”
“Which adman did you talk to?”
“Buzz Hodges it was who telephoned me from far off Manhattan.”
“What’d he say?”
Groucho took a fresh cigar from the pocket of his maize-colored checkered sport coat. “Because of all the mentions of Groucho Marx, Private Eye that have appeared in the yellow press across this vast land of ours after you and I solved the Benninger case, he thinks our ratings will climb without any further tinkering. So we don’t have to make any changes whatsoever in our radio show until further notice.”
“That’s great,” I said, grinning. “And Colonel Mullens agrees?”
“Apparently so,” answered Groucho. “There are rumors that some of his more disgruntled employees heaved the old gent into a vat of his own butterscotch pudding. When he surfaced he was speaking with such a distinct Highland accent that he was relieved of his command and put to work in the shipping room. The particular ship they assigned him was the Lusitania and—”
Polly said, “You’re in an awfully silly mood today, Groucho.”
“You’ve noticed it, too? I suspect it has something to do with that earthquake in Mexico.”
“They haven’t,” she said, “had an earthquake in Mexico recently.”
“Well, there you are,” he said, unwrapping the cigar. “We sent out well over a hundred invitations to our nearest and dearest friends stating, ‘Drop over to the Marx hacienda for an After the Mexican Earthquake Party.’ How do you think I must feel when you tell me there was no earthquake? The answer, little girl, is lopsided and covered with polka dots.”
“Frank,” said our director, Annie Nicola, from the booth. “Pick up the phone down there. You’ve got an emergency call.”
“Jesus, what’s wrong?” I sprinted over to the small table that held the phone and grabbed up the receiver. “Hello?”
“You sound distressed,” said Jane.
“Are you okay? Were you in an accident? Are you sick?”
“Is this one of those multiple choice things?”
“Annie said it was an emergency call so I assumed—”
“Sorry, but the switchboard girl told me they couldn’t put me through to you unless it was an emergency.”
“Okay, so what’s the real purpose of your call?”
“I’ve reached an important decision,” she said. “And I didn’t feel I wanted to wait until you came home to tell you.”
“Is this something that’s going to cause me to walk into the ocean fully clothed and never return?”
“Didn’t they already do that in A Star Is Born?” she said. “No, this is, far as I can tell, good news.”
“Okay. What?”
“I think I actually made this decision the other night when we almost got killed again,” Jane began. “Let’s get married before we move into the new place.”
I laughed. “That’s great. And you’re sure?”
“Absolutely, which is another first for me.”
“I accept your proposal,” I said, laughing again. “We’ll work out the details tonight.”
“I’m happy,” she said and hung up.
I walked back over to Groucho. “Well,” I said, grinning.
“What did you win?”
“Jane and I. We’re going to get married. Right now.”
“Could you possibly wait until the rehearsal is over?”
“I mean, you know, before we move in together. Any day now. Momentarily.”
Standing up, he shook my hand. “This is likely to be the only serious thing I’m going to say for the rest of the week, Frank,” he said. “But congratulations. She’s a splendid girl and far too good for the likes of you.”
“Would you be our best man?”
He blew out smoke. “Well, I was sort of hoping to be the flower girl,” Groucho said. “Still and all, I suppose I can settle for best man.”
About the Author
Ron Goulart has published a number of mysteries and nonfiction books dealing with the world of the comic strip—most recently, Comic Book Encyclopedia. He lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut. You can sign up for email updates here.
Also by Ron Goulart
Groucho Marx, Master Detective
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
About the Author
Also by Ron Goulart
Copyright
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
GROUCHO MARX, PRIVATE EYE. Copyright © 1999 by Ron Goulart and the Estate of Groucho Marx. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Production Editor: David Stanford Burr
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First Edition: April 1999
eISBN 9781250090942
First eBook edition: June 2015
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