by Ron Goulart
“When he returns, we can ask—”
“I doubt he’s going to return,” Dinah said from the doorway. “His room’s been cleaned out, suitcases and all. I’ll bet he’s scrammed for good.”
“Then we’ll have to find out where the lad scrammed to.” Groucho, hands behind his back, was peering into the gaping wall safe. “What did your husband keep in here?”
“Search me. Stuff he didn’t want anybody—including me—to see.”
“Money maybe?”
“Christ, Groucho, he could’ve had the Hope Diamond stashed in there for all I know.”
“You didn’t have the combination?”
“I didn’t.”
“How about Pearson?”
“Could be, but I just don’t know,” she said. “Eric never confided in me about things like that. Since he really didn’t like me to hang around his den, I rarely ever came in here.”
“Doesn’t look like the safe was forced, which means it was probably opened by someone who knew the combination.” Backing off, Groucho leaned his backside against the heavy desk. After taking out a fresh cigar, he gestured at the disrupted room with his free hand. “You have any idea what was being searched for?”
“Not the foggiest notion, no.”
Groucho crouched on the rug, scanning the sprawl of papers. “This looks to be mostly material pertaining to his movie work.”
She shrugged. “Well, Eric was very much wrapped up in that,” Dinah said, watching Groucho poke around among the scattered pages. “The last few weeks I was living here, Eric and I had very little to do with each other. We never sat around at dinner comparing our days. We didn’t chat about world events over coffee in the kitchen, speculating on what country Hitler would invade next, or anything like that.”
Straightening up, Groucho said, “I’d better look around the house now and see if somebody forced an entry.”
“I can save you the time, kiddo,” Dinah told him. “I already did that, right after I discovered this mess.”
“And?”
She shook her head. “There’s absolutely no sign of a break-in.”
“It does seem—although I hate to jump to a conclusion—that your vanishing valet may well have had a hand in this.”
“I never much liked the guy,” she said, “so I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“If it was indeed Pearson, we still have to figure out why.”
Dinah asked, “Do you want to see where Eric was murdered?”
“Prior to that,” said Groucho, lighting his cigar, “I’d like to give Pearson’s quarters the once-over.”
“You think he’s mixed up in Eric’s death?
“I think that he’s not here and that nobody seems to know where he is. That arouses my curiosity.”
Dinah said, “Okay, Groucho. You’re the boss.”
The missing valet’s rooms were at the back of the house, on the second floor at the end of a long corridor. Using a key on her ring of house keys, the actress opened the door.
Pearson had a bedroom and bathroom. The rooms smelled strongly of pipe tobacco.
Groucho followed Dinah inside, glancing around. “What’s that door over there lead to?”
“The valet’s quarters have a private entrance,” she said. “You can come up a closed-in staircase from the parking area next to our garages.”
Walking over to the dark wood door, Groucho tried the knob. The door wasn’t locked and opened silently. “So Pearson could exit and enter without your knowing it?”
“Sure, especially after he was through for the day.”
After taking a few steps down the stairs, Groucho returned to the valet’s bedroom and shut the door. “Matter of fact, anybody could come in that way.”
“They’d have to get by Pearson.”
Groucho opened the closet near the bed. There was one suitcase sitting on the hardwood floor, but marks in the faint dust indicated two other bags had been there. One gray business suit hung from a hanger, while almost all the other wooden hangers were empty. But near the wall hung a flowered silk dress and a maroon-colored padded housecoat. “Pearson wasn’t planning to embark on a career as a female impersonator upon the stage, by any chance?”
“What the hell is that stuff doing in there?” asked Dinah, frowning into the closet.
“You’ve never seen them?”
“I’ve never been in this room since Pearson moved in, Groucho.”
At the heavy, claw-footed bureau, Groucho began opening drawers and looking inside each one. “He seems to have emptied most of the drawers,” he said, “except this one.” From a middle drawer he lifted out some black lace panties, a pair of silk stockings, and a lacey brassiere. “More feminine apparel.”
“That so-and-so must’ve had a broad who visited him,” concluded Dinah, picking up the lingerie and inspecting it. “Not very expensive undies.”
“Did Pearson have a steady lady friend?” Crouching, Groucho looked under the bed.
“Search me,” answered the actress. “I really don’t know a dammed thing about the guy’s private life. But it looks like he carried on an interesting one.”
Groucho pulled out a pair of frilly backless woman’s slippers, pink in color. “So you wouldn’t know the name of the lass who visited him?”
“Nope, got no idea,” she said. “If the bum ever comes back, I think maybe I’ll fire him.”
After returning the mules to their original spot, Groucho stood up, creaking slightly. “I’d venture to say that your valet has, as Harriet Beecher Stowe used to say, flown the coop,” he told Dinah. “He packed in a hurry, didn’t take everything. Left a few telltale items behind.”
“And what tale do they tell you?”
“That he’s somebody I want to find, along with his girlfriend.”
Nodding, Dinah said, “Now would you like to see the room where my husband was killed?”
“Lead on,” said Groucho.
Eleven
“Maybe they ran out of curiosity,” observed Groucho as he glanced around the large, beam-ceilinged bedroom.
There was no evidence that Olmstead’s bedroom had been searched.
“Or they did a hell of a good job of tidying up afterwards,” said Dinah, who’d only come a few steps into the room.
Groucho went over to the high wide built-in bookcase to the right of the bed. “Doesn’t look like any of these were disturbed,” he said.
“That’s Eric’s collection of cowboy novels,” the actress explained. “He was nutty about that Old West crap.”
The bright-jacketed books were by Zane Grey, Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, and sundry other chroniclers of Western adventure. “Gave him something to talk about with Ted Timberlake, the Off-key Caballero.” Groucho turned away from the rows of books, then looked again at one of the shelves. “This one’s out of place.” He poked at the spine of a thick, red-covered edition of Emerson’s Collegiate Dictionary.
“I don’t know why he kept that with his cowboy novels.”
“You and your husband had separate bedrooms, huh?” Hands behind his back, Groucho went slouching over to the four-poster bed.
“After the first couple of months we did. Eric had trouble sleeping and sat up reading—or so he claimed.”
“Another insomniac,” he muttered.
The wide bed was neatly made.
“They found him over there by the dresser,” said Dinah, who remained just four or five feet into her late husband’s room.
Circling the bed, Groucho crossed to the dark wood dresser. Crouching, he studied the Persian carpet. “No sign of anything.”
“There was a big throw rug, and the cops took it with them.”
Groucho stood. “You saw him?”
“Yeah, Warren let me take a look, after I bitched about it for nearly ten minutes.” She shook her head. “Eric was lying facedown on the throw rug. There wasn’t … wasn’t much … mess.”
“Where was the gun?”
Afte
r a few seconds she answered, “Jesus, I don’t remember, Groucho.”
“But you saw it?”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “I must’ve, but I can’t remember.”
“Wasn’t in his hand?”
“I don’t think so,” said the actress. “I got kind of wobbly after I saw Eric like that. Felt like I was maybe going to pass out, you know, and Warren put an arm around me and escorted me back downstairs.”
“Lockwood’s certainly been helpful through all this.” Groucho went over to the closet, opened the door.
“Hey, I’m worth millions to Warren, and he’s eager to—among other things—protect my reputation.”
“That’s why he got here before the police?”
“So he says. We still haven’t had a long heart-to-heart chat about what all he was up to.”
“You talked to the police when they got here?”
“Yeah, and I told them Eric would never have killed himself.”
“But they didn’t pay much attention to that.”
“Well, there was the suicide note,” she said, “and no sign that the house had been busted into. So they just patted me on the head and told me I was—as might be expected—hysterical. One of them also patted me on the fanny, as I recall.”
“What happened to that note?”
“Cops took that, too.”
Sitting at the bottom of the clothes closet was a box with the Starlite Costumes logo printed on its lid in blue and gold.
Squatting, Groucho opened the box. “His Sinbad costume,” he said, lifting up the turban.
“I guess I’d better return the damn thing.”
As Groucho started to set the turban aside, it unfurled some, and a slip of yellow memo paper fell free and fluttered down to land atop the Sinbad sash.
“By Jove,” said Groucho, picking up the slip of paper and studying it. “Any idea what this is, my dear?”
Slowly, somewhat reluctantly, she came over to look at the memo. “Never saw it before, and I’ve got no idea what it means.”
It consisted of a list of numbers, written in a neat calligraphic hand: 1506-II-5, 289-II-3, 1528-I-21, 84-II-9, 970-II-5, 1482-I-16, 786-I-18, 1514-II-28, 684-I-3, 1253-II-30, 538-I-1.
“Code messages are pretty melodramatic,” said Groucho. “But I have a hunch that’s exactly what this happens to be. May I take it?”
“Sure, go ahead,” said the actress. “But why in the hell would Eric have had a code message tucked into his turban?”
“Yet another thing we have to find out.” Groucho folded the slip neatly down the middle and slipped it, carefully, into the breast pocket of his sport coat.
After talking with May Sankowitz, I still had a couple hours before I was due to meet Groucho.
Driving along Santa Monica Boulevard, I noticed a movie theater that was showing At the Circus along with the latest Dr. Kildare and selected short subjects. Jane and I had seen Groucho’s movie the week before, but I decided it wouldn’t hurt me to look at it again. Hopefully the experience would inspire me to greater heights while I was working on our radio scripts.
Parking my Ford, I strolled to the theater and paid my two bits. Inside the middle-sized movie palace a very pretty blond usherette guided me along an aisle in the darkened theater, using her flashlight to point me to an empty seat.
I’d arrived midway through the newsreel, just in time to see German tanks rolling along the streets of Warsaw. This was the version of the weekly news that the Warlock studios produced, and our announcer friend Harry Whitechurch was providing the narration.
The next item showed dozens of sturdy Teutonic types marching neatly down a bright afternoon street in Pasadena. Four abreast, clad in paramilitary uniforms, marching in a slightly modified version of the goosestep.
There were about a hundred people sitting in the afternoon theater, and at least half of them booed or hissed.
“Members of the Sons of Germany staged a rally this week in the peaceful Southern California town of Pasadena,” narrated Whitechurch in his deep, rich voice. “They marched across town to the rally site, drawing a crowd that contained more hecklers than supporters. Oppressed peoples in invaded countries have seen a lot of marching Germans lately, but they have to watch in silence.”
The next sequence of the newsreel showed a dapper man in his forties, his hair and neatly trimmed beard a premature gray. “Werner Spearman, German consul in Los Angeles, says Hitler and Nazi Germany want nothing but peace and prosperity,” said Whitechurch as we saw Spearman walk up the steps of the consulate in L.A. The camera cut to a close-up of Spearman.
He looked directly into the lens, smiling thinly. “My country has only the greatest respect for the United States,” he assured us. “What is going on in Europe is all perfectly natural and is no concern of America’s. At this time it would not be wise for your president to involve you in our war.”
Spearman also drew boos and hisses, and some teenagers in the back rows yelled out, “Heil, Hitler!”
Then Dinah Flanders was walking along a stretch of private beach in Malibu, wearing white slacks and a white bathing-suit halter. Holding her hand and looking very pale in his Hawaiian-pattern shirt was Eric Olmstead. “Hollywood mourns the passing of the brilliant director Eric Olmstead, who died this week at his palatial home in Beverly Hills,” Harry Whitechurch told us. “His bride of just a few months, the lovely and popular Dinah Flanders, was devastated by her talented husband’s tragic passing. She vows, however, to continue her successful career and will next be seen in the Warlock production of She Means Trouble.”
Next came footage of Dinah and Olmstead driving up to the entrance gate in the high stucco walls of the Lockwood Aero plant. The actress was at the wheel of her convertible, and her husband, wearing dark glasses, was sitting beside her.
The gate swung open, and Lockwood, smiling cordially, came striding out to meet his star.
“In happier days,” said Whitechurch, “the lovely Dinah Flanders and her ill-fated husband were frequent visitors to the Lockwood Aero facility in the Southern California town of Hawthorne. On this bright sunny afternoon in June of this year, Warren Lockwood himself escorted the happy couple around the airplane factory. He showed them how Lockwood Aero is contributing to the growing military strength of America.”
An animated cartoon about a grumpy bear followed the newsreel, then a Pete Smith Special, and then the Dr. Kildare second feature. I learned about several new diseases, but I never had time to see the Marx Brothers again.
Legs slightly bent, hands deep in the pockets of his umber-colored slacks, unlit cigar clamped in his teeth, Groucho was making his way along Sunset toward Moonbaum’s Delicatessen. When he stopped at a corner to wait for the traffic light to change, a pretty blond bobby-soxer halted nearby.
Glancing over at him, she suddenly gasped. “Are you who I think you are?” she inquired.
“Depends on who you think I am. If you think I’m Cornelia Otis Skinner, you’re dead wrong,” he replied. “However, if you think I’m Oliver Wendell Holmes, you’re getting warm.”
The light changed, and they both started across the street. “What I meant to say is, you’re Groucho Marx, aren’t you?”
“That’s a terrible thing to accuse a man of, especially without a smidgen of proof.”
“Well, even without your moustache, you—”
“I used to raise smidgens when I was a boy. We tried racing them one season, but found that because of their tiny little feet, they couldn’t run very fast, and thus—”
“Would you sign something for me?”
They reached the opposite curb. “Certainly, my child. I’m especially good at signing mash notes and not half-bad at proclamations. Of course, those I have to nail on church doors, so you—”
“My autograph book.” The girl produced it out of her small red leatherette purse. “They’re really going to be excited when I get back to Altadena and tell them I actually met Groucho Marx.”
“More likely they’ll run you out of town on a rail and pin a red letter to your sweater.” He signed his name, added a few X’s, and returned the book and her fountain pen. “Since you’re such a sweet and wholesome moppet, I’ll waive my usual signing fee. And it’s lucky for you this isn’t a national holiday, because then I’d also wave the flag and that always attracts a crowd. And now, farewell.”
The bobby-soxer watched as he entered the delicatessen.
As Groucho passed a booth near the entrance, a plump woman in a flowered dress cried out, “Duck Soup!”
Frowning, he halted. “Madam, I fear you’ve made a serious mistake,” he told her. “I am not your waiter, and if you want a bowl of duck soup, you must—”
“No, you’re Groucho Marx and—”
“Several people have accused me of that today, and, frankly, I—”
“What I meant when I blurted out, ‘Duck Soup!’ was that—”
“Ah, yes, I see. You’re one of the gourmets who’s trying to pry the fabled Marx recipe for duck soup out of me,” he accused. “Well, let me tell you that wild horses couldn’t get that recipe. Which is fortunate for them in a way, since wild horses are not especially fond of dining on soup. I will, being in a benevolent mood, provide you with one of the secret ingredients. It’s duck.” He took a few steps, then stopped again. “Oh, and be sure to remove the feathers first; otherwise—”
“No, what I’m trying to tell you, Mr. Marx, is that Duck Soup! is my favorite Marx Brothers movie.”
“Oh, so? My favorite Marx Brothers movie is Son of the Sheik, chiefly because we’re not in it. Not even Zeppo.”
“How can it be your favorite Marx Brothers movie, if you’re not in it?”
“That was the last thing Rudy Valentino said before he passed away.” Bowing, Groucho resumed slouching his way to his favorite booth and sat down.
I wasn’t there yet. He settled back on his seat, picked up the freshly mimeographed menu.
A young man with a broken arm was just getting out of the booth across the aisle. Recognizing Groucho, he crossed timidly over. “Would you autograph my cast, sir?”
