by Ron Goulart
He inquired, “Would it be useful to find out if any of the folks on the list happened to visit the Warlock studios on the day of the murder? If so, I can take care of that tomorrow.”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
“Have you ever seen blue ice cream?”
“Is that the title of a new novelty tune—like ‘Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking?’”
“No, it’s a preamble to my account of my earlier audience with Vince Salermo.”
“Jesus, him again.”
Groucho recounted what had taken place at the Aunt Franny ice-cream emporium and of Salermo’s interest in finding the blackmail stuff pertaining to his henchman Val Gallardo. “Who, according to your reliable sources, did not have anything to do with sending Spellman on to glory.”
It was hot in the late-afternoon Valley, and I was perspiring. “I’m not often given to premonitions,” I began, wiping my forehead with my pocket handkerchief. “But I—”
“I’m often given to palpitations myself, but that’s not exactly the same thing.” Groucho was hunched slightly at the wheel of his Cadillac. “And once I gave a dime to a little old lady selling violets in front of the Brown Derby. It turned out Violet was her daughter and the whole affair was rather … Are you having a premonition now, Rollo?”
“I keep feeling that Enery’s not going to end up happy.”
“Because his lady friend will turn out to be guilty of dispatching Spellman?”
I shook my head. “No, not that, Groucho,” I said. “But I’m finding out that she’s had affairs with quite a few guys and—”
“But only one at a time,” he reminded. “That doesn’t make her promiscuous, only a mite fickle.”
“That can still end up hurting Enery or—”
“Here’s where we turn for Rancho Tygoro.” He guided the car onto a side road.
“By the time this case is cleared up, she’ll probably move on to somebody else.”
“This is Hollywood, where all life is conducted like musical chairs.”
“I know, yeah, but—”
“We are the firm of Marx and Denby,” he observed. “Not Miss Lonelyhearts and Beatrix Fairfax. We, most times, solve mysteries. We do not mend broken hearts. I’ll now officially change topics. Is Jane feeling well?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “Tonight her assistant is going to be working late, so she’ll be with Jane until I get home. I feel better if there’s somebody with her at night.”
Up ahead in the afternoon loomed a high stone wall with a wide, heavy wrought-iron gate. Groucho tapped the brakes, slowing the car. The words RANCHO TYGORO were writ large in copper letters over the gates. Stopping, he honked the horn.
A bearded man wearing a hunting jacket and riding breeches swung the gate open, then came striding toward the Cadillac. He was carrying a rifle under his right arm.
“Thank the Lord the hunting season for Marxes doesn’t open until next month.”
The man frowned in at Groucho. “Who’re you?”
“I hate to admit it in public like this, but I’m Groucho Marx. My faithful companion is Frank Denby. We’ve been invited for cocktails, and later we’re planning to swing from the trees for about a half hour or so.”
The guard said, “You’re in for a fun-filled evening, even without the trees.” He turned, walked away, and opened the gates wider. Using the barrel of his gun as a pointer, he invited us to enter and drive on.
We did.
Eighteen
The house and buildings were a quarter mile from the entrance to the estate. The wide, graveled drive wound through vast green lawns and rows of diligently maintained shrubs.
The main house was in the mission style and at least twice as big as any real California mission. It was rich in slanting red-tile roofs and thick adobe walls. A few hundred feet to the right of the main house was a smaller building constructed along similar lines and with ARTHUR WRIGHT BENSON, INC., in bold crimson-and-gold lettering on its wide redwood door.
Groucho parked the car near the five-car garage, which was also in the mission style. “That’s some home garden,” observed Groucho as he left the Cadillac.
Rising up behind the buildings and stretching for acres into the distance was an immense jungle. There were high palm trees, as well as an assortment of other tropical trees that I didn’t know the names of but had seen in many a jungle epic over the years. Vines and exotic blooms were thick and flickering above the green leaves, and in among the jungle shadows were bright tropical birds. And I was pretty certain I’d seen a monkey jump from sunlight into shade.
Midway between the publishing offices and the main house was a tall flagpole, from which fluttered the American flag, the California bear flag, and a pennant that simply displayed the letters AWB. Just to the left of the pole stood a life-size bronze statue of Ty-Gor. The jungle man held a knife high in his right hand, and his bare left foot was resting on the back of a slain leopard. A plaque at the base read, THE IMMORTAL TY-GOR, CREATED BY ARTHUR WRIGHT BENSON.
Pausing to gaze at the statue, Groucho said, “I wonder how I’d look in bronze. No, I’d probably get restless posing, and so, no doubt, would the leopard.”
Before I could reply, the front door of the house came flapping open. “You can go straight to hell, Jack,” said the angry blonde young woman who came rushing out into the late afternoon. “You’re a no-good shit.”
She paid us no heed, brushing against Groucho and running toward the garages.
“Alicia, you’re being damned foolish about … oh, hello, Groucho.” Jack Benson emerged from the big ranch house. “And Frank. My father will be pleased to know you’re here.”
“And your sister?”
“Oh, Alicia is just having one of her tantrums. It has nothing to do with you fellows.”
A garage door automatically growled open, and a small yellow roadster came roaring out and headed for the gates of the estate.
My father will join us any minute now,” Jack Benson told us, scratching absently at his nose. His sunburn was beginning to peel there.
He’d escorted Groucho and me into a large, lofty living room. The walls were an off-white stucco, and thick, darkwood beams crisscrossed the high ceiling. The chairs were of raw wood and leather. Hanging over the deep stone fireplace was an oil painting of Marge Benson, AWB’s current wife, that was done in a manner somewhere between John Singer Sargent and a pulp magazine cover artist. She was a pretty woman with chestnut hair and a somewhat petulant look. The bookcases contained a wide range of novels, including what looked to be a complete collection of Benson’s Ty-Gor books in every language they’d ever been printed in.
“Let me fix you fellows a drink,” Jack offered with just a trace of cordiality.
Groucho settled into one of the wood-and-leather chairs. “Ginger ale.”
“How about you, Frank—something a little stronger?”
“Plain seltzer.”
Looking disappointed, Jack crossed to the liquor cabinet. “I hope it won’t offend you teetotalers if I mix myself a Manhattan.”
“Anything you desire,” said Groucho as he drew a cigar from his coat pocket.
“You know,” said AWB’s son while opening a bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale, “it wasn’t my idea to invite you to the ranch, Groucho.”
“Being a part-time detective, I’d already deduced that.”
Jack poured ginger ale into two sturdy crystal goblets. “We’re all out of seltzer, Frank, so I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for ginger ale. Or is that too strong for you?”
“I can handle it,” I replied. “Why exactly did your sister make such an intense exit?”
“None of your damned business really.” He tossed a few ice cubes into each glass of ginger ale and left them sitting on the sideboard while he mixed himself a Manhattan. “Where the hell did they hide the cherries?”
Getting up, Groucho crossed over to him. He picked up our two glasses, delivering one to me. “I think I ought to
warn you, young sir,” he said in Jack’s direction, “that while I am a dedicated disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and believe in nonviolence, Frank here is a direct descendant of the Clan MacDenby. He can accept no more than … how many is it, Franklin?”
“Three.”
“The lad can accept no more than three personal insults before he’s obliged to fetch his claymore … whatever that might be … and start cracking skulls. He’s also available for cracking walnuts during the holiday season.”
“He’d better not lay a hand on me,” warned Jack, “or I’ll have him thrown off the estate and barred from Warlock.”
“Easy now, Son.” Arthur Wright Benson had entered the room. He was a tall, balding man in his middle sixties, tan and wearing a tweed suit with leather patches on the elbows. “You won’t do anything like that, and you well know it. Good evening, Groucho.” He held out his hand.
Groucho shook it. “Now that we’ve gotten the majority of the insults and threats out of the way,” he told the author, “perhaps we can get to your reason for inviting us to your rancho.”
“Let me apologize for my son’s—”
“I’m thinking of getting a spread like this for myself, though with no jungle attached,” Groucho continued. “I plan to christen it Rancho Groucho, which has a nice ring to it. Of course, my nicest ring was the one I got from Jack Armstrong for a dime and a Wheaties box top. Darn thing glowed in the dark, told you where the North Pole was, and played ‘The Light Cavalry Overture.’”
Benson suggested, “Let’s go into my den, gentlemen. Jack, get over to the offices and take care of that dust jacket problem, will you? Tell them I want a lot more yellow, and we need it by Monday at the latest.”
“I thought I was going to sit in on this confab with these road-show gumshoes.”
“You’re not, no,” his father told him.
Arthur Wright Benson’s den was overrun with dead animals. The paneled walls were decorated with the mounted heads of two elk, a moose, a bear, and a lioness. In a shadowy corner behind Benson’s big oaken desk stood a stuffed gorilla, arms raised above its head and glass eyes glaring red. On the hardwood floor there were at least six animal-skin rugs, including a zebra, a tiger, and a spotted leopard. Two walls were given over to bookshelves holding more copies of AWB’s novels along with bound volumes of the Ty-Gor comic book. Movie posters for the Ty-Gor motion pictures, dating as far back as 1928, hung in pale wooden frames on one wall. The other wall was crowded with framed inscribed photos of a variety of celebrities ranging from Herbert Hoover to Jean Harlow.
“My wife,” explained the author, somewhat apologetically, as he took his place behind the neatly ordered desk, “is a bit under the weather tonight and sends her regrets. She’s been a real fan of the Marx Brothers pictures since she was in high school.” He gestured at the floor. “She fancies herself an animal lover, which is why I keep all my animal trophies in here and not in the living room.”
“Did you shoot all these critters yourself?” inquired Groucho from the leather armchair he’d chosen.
Benson shook his head. “Regrettably I no longer have much time for hunting,” he confessed. “I bought most of these from a taxidermist in Pasadena.”
I asked, “Why exactly did you want to see us?”
He said, “Let me first apologize for my son’s behavior. He and my daughter both have tempers, and at times it gets the better of them.”
“I’m wondering,” said Groucho, “why you’re interested in Spellman’s murder. I was under the impression you were trying to dump the fellow.”
Resting both palms on his desktop, Benson said, “I was of the opinion that Randy was no longer in any shape to play Ty-Gor. But to millions of loyal fans he was Ty-Gor. As the creator of the most popular jungle hero in the world, I obviously think of Ty-Gor as one of the family. Therefore, I feel obliged to make certain that the killer of the man who represented my character to so many be brought, swiftly, to justice.”
“We’re already,” I pointed out, “looking into Spellman’s murder.”
“I’m aware of that, Frank. What I’d like to see happen is you and Groucho keeping me informed on your progress. If you will, I’d also like to help finance your investigation.”
“As odd as it may seem,” Groucho told him, “we don’t charge any fees. With us this is merely a sideline. Before that it was a chorus line, but our legs gave out.”
“As for filling you in on our progress,” I added, “we’re not at the stage where we can discuss what we might suspect. And we’re a ways from proving anything.”
Benson glanced over his shoulder at the angry stuffed gorilla. “I see,” he said slowly. “Well, there is one other favor I’d like to ask.”
“I’m not available to take over the role of Ty-Gor,” Groucho said. “If that’s the favor.”
“My wife, Marge, is a sometimes-volatile woman,” he said. “She’s still quite young and a very outgoing creature.” He rose to his feet. “You may hear rumors about her. Stories that she and Spellman were more than just friends. Have you?”
“No,” Groucho lied.
“No,” I lied.
“You may eventually,” said Benson. “I can assure you the stories are completely untrue, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pay them any attention.”
“In one ear and out the other,” promised Groucho. “Or, in my case, in one ear, out a nostril, back in the other ear, and out a different orifice entirely. That is known in both medical and geographic circles as the Scenic Route.”
Benson came around to the front of his desk, resting one foot on the head of the leopard rug. “I’ve enjoyed talking to you gentlemen,” he assured us. “Since you won’t accept a fee, let me give you each an autographed copy of Ty-Gor and The Sunken City. That’s number twenty-one in the ongoing series of Ty-Gor novels.”
“I’m almost overwhelmed by the gift.” Groucho stretched up out of his chair. “I’m sure my colleague is as well.”
“I believe I’m actually even closer to overwhelmed than you, Groucho.”
Taking two yellow-covered copies of the novel off a nearby shelf, the author distributed them to us. He opened the door of the den. “I’m afraid it’s a little late to give you the grand tour of my jungle,” he said. “But you both must come back someday soon and do that.”
“I for one shall,” Groucho promised. “Several people have told me to go climb a tree of late, and this will be my chance.”
Nineteen
I was up at the true crack of dawn the next morning. While Jane slept, Dorgan and I, after I fed him and took him for a short walk in the gradually warming morning, settled down in my office.
Page 7 of the 27-page Hollywood Molly radio script, due the following Tuesday, was still awaiting me in my typewriter. Hunching slightly, tapping my lower front teeth with the eraser end of my favorite mechanical pencil, I read aloud what so far existed on the page.
JERRY WARBLER (on filter mike): My next exclusive item concerns cinema cowpoke Sam Wyoming, currently starring in the Republic oater Deputy Sheriff of Devil’s Doorknob. Sam, minus his Stetson, was spotted last night at a movie-land hot spot wining and wooing moompitcher up-and-comer Marsha Invader … . Does that mean he’s tossed his longtime tootsie, Molly McKay, soon to be seen in the musical remake of Lost Horizon, entitled Tiptoe Through Tibet, aside? Now an open letter to—
SOUND: Click of radio being turned off.
MOLLY: Sam, I know the studio made you take out that starlet, but you might have told me about it.
SAM: Well, shucks, Molly.
MOLLY: Instead I have to find out from that dippy movie gossip Jerry Warbler.
SAM: Well, shucks, Molly.
“So what do you think, Dorgan? Is that up to my usual hilarious standard?”
“Sounds fine to me, but I could be prejudiced.” Jane, wearing the bathrobe her aunt in Fresno had made for her, was standing in the doorway.
“You feeling okay?”
“Fine,
but I was having trouble sleeping with our forthcoming daughter tap-dancing within.” She came into the room. “Good morning, Dorgan.”
Our bloodhound wagged his tail, made pleased woofing noises as my wife settled into the room’s sole armchair.
“I’ll make you some coffee,” I offered, pushing back from my desk.
“No, no,” Jane said, making a stop-right-there gesture with her right hand. “I’ve already started a pot of coffee. It’s not that your coffee is especially noxious or—”
“I thought you told me my coffee-making was improving.”
“But improving at an awfully slow rate.”
“Okay, I’m a big-enough hombre, as Sam Wyoming would say, to take a little honest criticism, ma’am.”
Jane smiled. “I was thinking about what you told me about your visit to Rancho Tygoro last night.”
“Have you come up with any ideas?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “More a far-fetched notion,” she said. “Anyway, has it occurred to you that Benson’s jungle has rows and rows of trees in it?”
“Sure, I noticed that last … wait a minute,” I said. “You mean the Tygoro jungle could be the woodland on Spellman’s homemade map?”
She nodded. “Is there a pool or a small lake in that jungle?”
“We didn’t get a chance to tour the jungle, but old Benson invited us to come back sometime,” I answered. “Yeah, and Spellman was out there quite a bit when they were filming Ty-Gor and the Leopard Queen.”
“So it’s possible the guy could’ve buried some of his steamier blackmail stuff there, twenty-one and a half feet from the pond … if there is a pond,” Jane suggested. “Or he maybe saw somebody else hiding something in the jungle.”
“We’re going to have to take a look around, just in case.” Jane got up slowly. “Think I’ll fix myself some oatmeal.”
“I can do that.”
