by Ron Goulart
Straightening, Groucho inquired of the producer, “Is that perfume familiar to you?”
Farber said, “What perfume? I don’t smell a damned thing.” His brow wrinkled. “Would it be a clue?”
“Only if you could smell it.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Groucho bowed his head for a few seconds. “Alas, yes, that’s one of my few failings,” he admitted. “That and my penchant for pastrami. And that’s one of the good things about MGM—they have a dandy penchant plan. Thirty dollars every Thursday and on Friday ten pokes with a sharp—”
“I’m a bit late,” I announced as I climbed into the trailer. “Got tied up in traffic.”
“I once got tied up by a Scandinavian aviatrix,” mentioned Groucho. “Tying middle-aged, mangy lovers up with sturdy ropes aroused a—”
“How’s Jane doing, Frank?” Joel was straddling the straight-back chair in front of Spellman’s makeup table.
“She’s considerably calmer than I am,” I replied.
Groucho asked, “Where was the alleged threatening note found?”
The producer stood, indicating the makeup mirror with a pointing thumb. “Tucked into the frame of Randy’s mirror.”
Crossing the room, Groucho stood looking into the mirror. “Now I understand why my wife keeps all the mirrors in our home covered with cheesecloth.” Sighing moderately, he squatted and ran his fingertips over the floor. “A scattering of those pine chips from the potted palms ended up under here.”
“Is that a clue?” asked Joel.
“It might be,” admitted Groucho, “or it might not.”
“With the cops and all sorts of studio people trooping in and out,” said Joel, “just about anybody could’ve tracked those chips in.”
“I was going to toss in a droll remark about Good-bye, Mr. Chips,” admitted Groucho as he straightened up. “But I’ve decided to refrain.”
“A wise decision,” I said. “By the way, the police didn’t find any prints on that note.”
Groucho’s eyebrows climbed. “Not Dorothy Woodrow’s?”
“Not hers, not Randy’s.”
“How do they account for that interesting state of affairs?”
“They don’t. At least not for general consumption,” I answered. “Fact is, they didn’t find a single print of Dorothy’s in this joint.”
“Not that I think the poor kid’s guilty of anything,” put in my producer, “but she might’ve worn gloves, you know.”
“And sent Spellman a pair to use while he read her missive,” added Groucho.
Joel glanced at his gold wristwatch. “Shit, I’m late for a meeting. We have to decide who’s going to replace poor Randy in this goddamn film.” He moved to the doorway. “You boys can nose around all you want.”
“We shall,” Groucho assured him.
“And let me know as soon as you find out anything important.”
“Have the police,” I asked him, “told you how their investigation is coming along?”
“Nope, but who needs cops when we’ve got you guys?” Grinning, he hurried down the metal steps and away.
Nine
Groucho tilted back in the straight-back chair, unwrapped a fresh stogie, and held it like a conductor’s baton for a few seconds. Inserting it between his teeth and not bothering to light it, he said, “Young Farber’s going to be disappointed. He’s expecting a flock of clues.”
“Keep in mind that he hired us,” I reminded. “Which seems to indicate that he’s easily pleased.”
“No need to be self-deprecating, Rollo,” he told me. “Or self-defecating, for that matter. But that latter I leave up to you.” He took a puff of his unlit cigar. “In my younger days I would now have fashioned a pithy remark making use of the similarity between latter and ladder.
“Just as well.”
Groucho said, “Back to business. From what you’ve informed me about your recent rendezvous with your flatfoot chum, the police are going to have a hard time pinning the crime on Dorothy. Unless they can come up with an explanation of how the telltale note exchanged hands without anybody touching it.”
“Detective Tandofsky doesn’t believe she’s guilty, but some of his colleagues do. And it’s possible they know more than we do.”
“Highly possible.”
“Turns out even Tandofsky dated Dorothy. That was a couple years back.”
Groucho rose up out of the makeup table chair. “Not every woman is as steadfast as your missus.” He returned the naked cigar to his coat pocket. “Something not quite perfume lingers in the air, pine chips are scattered on the floor where the fake missive was planted and no place else.” Shaking his head, he went slouching toward the door. “Did the minions of the law unearth any of Spellman’s blackmail paraphernalia?”
“There are a lot of facts Tandofsky isn’t sharing with me.” I followed him down the stairs. “By now they’ve also gone through Spellman’s place in Malibu. But it’s unlikely I’ll be able to learn what they’ve dug up.”
“Well, right now we’ll simply have to cast our bread upon the waters,” he said, heading in the direction of the indoor jungle. “And with any luck, within a few days we’ll have a whole lot of soggy bread.”
“I’m going to see my friend May Sankowitz this afternoon.”
“The estimable lady who’s employed at Hollywood Screen magazine and is a veritable fount of Hollywood gossip and scandal?”
“That May Sankowitz, yeah.”
Groucho halted near a stand of tall palm trees from which dangled very believable-looking vines. “Whilst you’re gathering background on Spellman’s lives and loves, young sir, I’ll be dropping by the Hillcrest Country Club,” he informed me. “As you may recall, the Hillcrest is the only country club in all of Greater Los Angeles that will accept Talmudic scholars such as myself as members. I intend to have an informative chat with Lew Hershman.”
“Spellman’s agent, that’s a good idea.”
“Spellman’s agent and a bondified goniff. Just the chap to inform me about the skeletons in Spellman’s closet and provide a thorough enemy list.”
“But it’s raining, so he can’t play golf. You sure the guy will be there?”
“Hershman has never laid a hand on a golf club, Rollo. He goes to the Hillcrest most afternoons to play pinochle.”
“I’ll telephone you tonight, Groucho. We can compare notes and plan our next moves.”
“Since you’re close to Enery McBride, try to get him to persuade Dorothy to turn herself in.” Eyes narrowing, Groucho lurched forward.
Working his way through some bright green imitation brush, he leaned toward a patch of real ferns. “Here’s an interesting bit of ephemera,” he mentioned as he plucked a small lace-trimmed handkerchief that was entangled with a fern. “Smells a bit like sandalwood.”
Emerging from the foliage, he held the hanky near my nose. “That it does,” I agreed.
“In all the Agatha Christie mystery novels I’ve ever read—which amounts to one and a half—a handkerchief always has telltale initials embroidered on it. Say “GM,” for instance, and that leads the amateur sleuth to suspect that the killer is Gustav Mahler or George Murphy or Gene Markey or—though I have an ironclad and slightly rusty alibi—Groucho Marx.”
“No initials on this one, though.”
“If I were given to profanity, I’d say, ‘Drat it all,’ at this point.” He folded the hanky and slipped it into a jacket side pocket that he didn’t store cigars in. “No initials, no laundry marks, no spots of blood.”
“Dorothy had the feeling somebody was still hanging around that night,” I said, nodding toward the jungle. “It could’ve been a woman.”
“It could well have been a woman lurking. Lurking is, I believe, the apter word.” Knees slightly bent, he made his way across the darkened soundstage toward the exit. “I was quite good at lurking in my youth, but then I graduated to peeping. You’ve no doubt heard the expression ‘The man’s a re
gular Peeping Groucho.’”
“Possibly once.”
“Yes, it’s not catching on the way we planned.”
Outside, the rain was coming down heavier.
Heading away from the Warlock studios, I clicked on the radio in my Chevy. As fate would have it, I came in on the middle of one of Johnny Whistler’s Hollywood gossip broadcasts.
“ … have an open letter to Tyrone Power,” the columnist was saying in his piping voice. “But first a bit of good advice to that over-the-hill movie clown, Julius ‘Groucho’ Marx. Groucho, you’re a movie actor and not a detective. Forget the brutal murder of the late, gifted Randy Spellman, whom all of moviedom is mourning, and leave the investigation to those who are qualified for such serious work. Admittedly, you’ve had a bit of luck in the past, sticking your nose into other people’s murder business. But, take it from me, enough is enough. And stop leading that screenwriter stooge of yours astray. His lovely and enormously gifted wife is Jane Danner, who draws the marvelous comic strip Hollywood Molly in the Los Angeles Times, which is one of the more than seven hundred newspapers that carry my column. She’s expecting a visit from Brother Stork any edition now, and her hubby should be at her side and not aiding and abetting you in your follies. So, take a …”
I switched stations and got a cooking show. A kindly old lady told me how to fry my lamb chops in lard.
Jane listened to Whistler quite a bit in order to keep up with Hollywood news. If she’d heard Whistler’s diatribe, it probably had upset her. I decided to stop by home before catching up with May Sankowitz.
Myra Kendig was a twenty-year-old art school grad. A blonde, she was somewhere between slender and skinny, and she’d been assisting Jane on her comic strip since the previous December.
When I stopped home that rainy afternoon, Myra and Dorgan were in the studio. She was at Jane’s drawing board, filling in backgrounds on a Hollywood Molly daily.
Dorgan was sprawled near her feet and snoring with considerable vigor.
“Hi, Mr. Denby.” She smiled. “Jane’s resting.”
“Did she happen to hear—”
“Johnny Whistler? Oh, yes, she did,” Myra answered. “We never did get to hear that jerk’s open letter to Tyrone Power.”
“Did Jane throw the portable radio or simply turn it off?”
“Started to toss it, thought better, and clicked the darn thing off.”
“Good, in her condition she shouldn’t be throwing radios around. Even small ones.”
Wide awake, Dorgan was staring up at me. He decided he knew me and proceeded to stand up on his hind legs and lick my hand.
“You know, Mr. Denby,” said Myra as she set her pen on the taboret, “Jane’s not anywhere as delicate as you think.”
“I’m aware of that,” I acknowledged. “Thing is, Myra, I’ve had no previous experience of impending fatherhood, and so—”
“Why aren’t you out sleuthing?” Jane appeared in the doorway, fresh from her nap.
I went to her, took her hand. “Made a stop en route,” I explained. “Happened to hear Whistler’s show, and I thought you—”
“No, he didn’t upset me,” my wife assured me. “Although, that part about your being a stooge did seem to ring true, don’t you think?”
Dorgan trotted over, looked up at her, and attempted to smile and pant at the same time.
“You sure you’re okay, Jane?”
“Fit as a fiddle, tip-top, crackerjack, and so forth. Really,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “Takes more than that pipsqueak to unsettle me.”
“Actually, I may’ve used that half-wit broadcast as an excuse to stop by and see you,” I admitted as we went into the living room.
“As I interpret the California marriage laws, you can visit me as often as you care to without needing any excuse at all.”
“No kidding? Is that something those pesky Socialists snuck through?”
Jane sat on the sofa. “How are you and Groucho coming along?”
Sitting beside her, holding her hand, I gave her a condensed version of what we’d dug up thus far. I didn’t have to do all that much condensing, since we hadn’t as yet gathered a mass of information.
I ended up with, “If Enery telephones, urge the guy to get Dorothy to quit being a fugitive, huh?”
“I will, yes.”
I stood up. “I’ve got an appointment to talk to May Sankowitz.”
“I’m not a bit jealous,” she told me.
Ten
Groucho decided to stop at his office for a change of sports coats and a new supply of cigars before venturing on to the Hillcrest Country Club. He also wanted to lock the perfumed handkerchief away in a desk drawer.
Standing near the entrance to the building was a dark-haired young man wearing a loose-fitting brown suit and a bold blue-and-orange hand-painted necktie. “Excuse me, sir,” he said timidly.
“I can excuse everything but that necktie.”
“I understand that Groucho Marx has an office somewhere in this building here.”
“Do you happen to be a process server, a bill collector, or a disgruntled husband?”
“No, sir, I’m a tourist from Iola, Wisconsin, and I was hoping to get his autograph.”
“Groucho Marx,” murmured Groucho thoughtfully. “Groucho Marx. The name does ring a bell. Or rather it rings a distant gong. He’s that singing cowboy, is he not?”
“No, sir, Groucho Marx is a funny comedian. You know, part of the Marx Brothers.”
“Which part? Never mind, don’t tell me. I can guess,” he said. “What exactly does this low buffoon look like?”
The young man, fiddling with his gaudy tie, had been studying Groucho’s face. “Well, he sort of looks like you. Except he’s got a moustache and he wears baggy pants, a badly fitting coat, and he makes rude remarks all the time.”
“Then except for the moustache I could well be he.”
“Gee, are you?” He produced a thick autograph book from inside his jacket.
Groucho accepted the album. “In point of fact, I’m the world’s greatest forger, and I can produce a Groucho Marx autograph that will fool them back in Racine, Wisconsin.”
“Iola, Wisconsin.”
“There, too.” He signed the book with one of his own fountain pens, returned the book to the partially stunned fan, and went bounding gracefully up the stairs to his second-floor office.
Nan looked up from her typing. “Your fame as a detective is spreading.”
“So’s that rash on my backside,” Groucho said. “Truth to tell, I dare not sit down for fear of—”
“You’ve had two phone calls from a lady who sounds most eager to talk to you about Randy Spellman.”
Perching on the edge of his secretary’s desk, he inquired, “Who?”
“None other than Laura Dayton.”
“Columbia Pictures’ answer to Bette Davis,” he said. “And, until a couple years ago, Randy Spellman’s spouse.”
“She divorced the guy at least three years ago,” said Nan. “But she says she’s got some interesting stuff she’d rather tell you than the cops.”
“Where and when would she like to tell all?”
“She wants to know if you can drop by her place in Bel Air around six tonight.”
“I can.”
“Then I’ll phone her,” said Nan. “She bought, you know, the Barney Kains mansion a while back.”
Groucho sighed. “Kains was an admirable silent comedian. He used to be a very funny man.”
“So did you,” said Nan.
I decided to wait under the long, wide awning in front of Earl Carroll’s restaurant and nightspot on Sunset for May Sankowitz. Tucked under my arm was a furled red-and-yellow-polka-dot umbrella Jane had loaned me.
May was inside, due out shortly, attending the Golden Orange Award luncheon. Once a year in the spring, the members of the Motion Picture Reporters and Columnists League passed out a bunch of awards to movie people.
Not
feeling up to watching the tail end of the festivities, I was stationed on the sidewalk. Across the boulevard I noticed somebody that I was pretty sure was Edgar Bergen heading toward the CBS building. Built in a style that was a movie art director’s notion of Art Deco, the Columbia Broadcasting complex was a fairly new addition to Sunset. Bergen was carrying a paper shopping bag, but it didn’t look roomy enough to tote Charlie McCarthy around in.
“Hi, Frank. How’s Jane getting along?”
Joan Blondell had just stepped out of Earl Carroll’s, and a gray Packard was pulling up to the curb for her.
“Much better than I am.”
The blonde actress asked, “Isn’t your baby about due?”
“Less than three weeks.”
“Say hello to Jane for me,” she instructed me as she stepped into the backseat of the car. “Oh, and don’t worry about Whistler calling you a stooge.”
The door closed, the Packard drove away into the afternoon rain.
“You could’ve come inside to wait, Frank.” May Sankowitz had emerged and was taking hold of my arm.
“Say, Frank, you really aren’t a stooge for Groucho.” Joe E. Brown was following in May’s wake, clutching a baseball-sized gold orange to his chest. “Most Lovable Movie Comedian again this year. Box-office poison, but still lovable.” He grinned his very wide grin and went jogging toward the parking lot.
May asked, “Have I mentioned to you that I’ve become a vegetarian?”
“At least twice, yeah.”
She was a small, compact woman of about fifty. Her short-cropped hair was an autumn-leaf brown at the moment. “Since I am, I didn’t eat much lunch in there. Let’s go someplace where you can treat me to a nutburger.”
“Can we get to such a place without crossing state lines?”
She nudged me in the side with an elbow. “Little joint called the Garden Spot is just around the corner. We can walk there.”
I unfurled the umbrella, held it high, and we started off.
The Garden Spot was just wide enough to squeeze two rows of six white-covered tables into. It smelled of raw fruit, steamed vegetables, and herbs.
