Groucho Marx, Secret Agent

by Ron Goulart

  Looking up, Groucho said, “It depends on how many people are in your movie.”

  “No, I—”

  “I’ll autograph all the chorus girls first. Then, time allowing, I’ll scribble something on each of the ingenues, and—”

  “What I’d like you to do is sign your name on this cast on my left arm,” he explained, pointing to it. “I broke it falling out of a tree.”

  “I’d heard the Tarzan auditions over at MGM were getting tougher, but I didn’t realize how tough.”

  “I’m not an actor.”

  “Neither am I.” Finding his fountain pen, he scrawled his name on the plaster.

  After the young man left, the gaunt waiter drifted over. “You alone?”

  “Essentially we’re all of us alone, Mellman,” he answered. “My upcoming philosophical dissertation is based on that notion, borrowing from the basic writings of Descartes. And if you think I’m going to make some obvious remark about putting Descartes before the horse, you’re not far from wrong.”

  Mellman sighed. “Have you thought about a vacation in some warm, dry climate?” he asked. “Your sense of humor seems to be atrophying. And, I might as well mention this, too, you’re nowhere near as acerbic as you used to be. I was listening to your recent conversation with the kid with the broken wing, and you came nowhere near the rudeness you’re capable of.”

  “Apparently, my boy, you have me confused with Groucho Marx,” he said. “Actually I am Scattergood Marx, the kindly old—”

  “Here comes your cohort,” announced the waiter.

  I had just entered the restaurant and was approaching the booth.

  Twelve

  Groucho finished telling me what had happened during his visit to Dinah Flanders’s mansion, then picked up the second half of his pastrami sandwich and took a bite. Returning it to the plate, he said, “Before I show you the alleged code message, have you got any questions or observations or astute comments, Rollo?”

  Resting both elbows on the tabletop, I said, “They only searched Olmstead’s den, the one room where Dinah hardly ever went.”

  He nodded. “One possibility is that they knew that’s where he kept what they were looking for.”

  “I’m also curious as to why they didn’t search the den the same night Olmstead was killed.”

  “Possibly they were interrupted,” said Groucho, pausing to take another bite of his sandwich. “Or mayhap we’re dealing with two separate groups—the killers and the housebreakers.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said, unconvinced. “There’s also the possibility that the vanished Pearson searched the den before taking off.”

  “Despite the fact that butlers and valets are usually up to no good in mystery novels, it still seems to be that Pearson behaved in a very un-valetlike manner by deserting Dinah in her hour of need and skipping out.”

  “He could simply have been scared.” I took a sip of my coffee. “And anyway the guy probably wasn’t a valet.”

  “You found out something, Rollo?”

  I recounted what I’d heard from May Sankowitz, finishing up by saying, “I’ll try to dig up an address for Pearson’s Santa Catalina hideaway. We may want to chat with him.”

  “The lad telephoned Lockwood before alerting either Dinah or the police,” said Groucho. “Therefore, it’s possible he was planted in the household by Lockwood.”

  “To protect Dinah, or to keep an eye on Olmstead?”

  “We’ll have to ask Lockwood about that.”

  “Might annoy him.”

  “You keep forgetting, young fellow-me-lad, that I’ve been annoying people since I was no higher than Primo Carnera and it hasn’t affected my brilliant career in the cinema or on the airwaves. It has hardly even fouled up my drayage business.”

  I sat back, spreading my hands wide. “Okay, but I’m always leery of messing with tycoons.”

  “Myself, I’m more leery of typhoons,” he said. “Also baboons, monsoons, and Looney Tunes.”

  “Okay, we’ll approach Lockwood.” I drank some more coffee.

  “Macaroons,” added Groucho.

  I asked, “Do you think Dinah was leveling with you? She really doesn’t have any idea why someone would want to kill her husband?”

  “Let us rather say that at the moment I’m inclined to believe the lass,” he answered. “Now then, fill me in on what the Beverly Hills constabulary had to say about Olmstead’s death.”

  “Not much.” I told him about my meeting with Detective Mulvane.

  A deep frown appeared on Groucho’s forehead as I concluded. “This is going to be even trickier than I expected,” he said. “We’ve got Warren Lockwood covering up something, we’ve got Beverly Hills’ finest playing dumb.” He shook his head. “There’s no gun on the premises, yet they’re ruling it a suicide.”

  “We’re going to have to learn who exactly put the lid on this. Mulvane implied that the FBI is probably involved.”

  “And we’d best find the lass who was a part-time roommate in the alleged Pearson’s quarters,” filling me in on what he’d found in Pearson’s room.

  “Dinah has no idea who she was?”

  “None at all, Rollo.”

  “We’ll add her to our list of people to find.”

  Thoughtfully, Groucho finished his sandwich. After wiping his mouth with the paper napkin, he reached into the breast pocket of his coat. “Feast your eyes on this cryptic missive, Watso.”

  He unfolded the yellow memo he’d found at the Beverly Hills mansion and pushed it across the table to me.

  Picking it up, I studied its mix of Arabic numbers and Roman numerals. “Very distinctive calligraphy. We’d better show this to Jane, see what she can tell us about the author,” I said. “What it looks like is a book-based code.”

  “Which is?”

  “You and your correspondent agree on a certain book. You drop him a note saying something like ‘twenty-six, fifty-two,’” I explained. “He picks up his copy of the book, turns to page twenty-six in The Mayor of Casterbridge, and finds the fifty-second word on the page is scram. He puts the book back on the shelf, grabs up an already-packed bag, and scrams.”

  “What about the Roman numerals in the middle of each number?”

  “Probably a book with the type set in columns on the page. Column one, column two.”

  “Well, then all we have to do is examine every blooming book in Olmstead’s library until we locate the tome in question,” Groucho said. “I have dibs on Riders of the Purple Sage and …” He stopped, sat up, narrowed one eye. “Aha, Emerson’s Collegiate Dictionary.”

  “Hum?”

  “Olmstead had a vast collection of cowboy fiction in his bedroom,” he answered. “But amongst all those sagebrush sagas was a copy of Emerson’s Collegiate Dictionary. I’m betting that may well be the book used for code messages.”

  “Then let’s go take a look at his copy of—”

  “No need.” Groucho stood up. “I have a copy of the selfsame dictionary across the street in my office. I consult it quite often when writing memorable letters to my wide circle of friends. And to my circle of wide friends, such as Kate Smith. We’ll go take a look at it.” He pointed at the code message. “Bring that along, Rollo, and while you’re at it, you might as well pick up the check.”

  Nan rose to her feet as Groucho and I walked into the outer office. “We had some interesting visitors while you were out to lunch, boss,” she announced.

  “Some of your wizard and warlock chums?” he asked.

  An otherwise-rational person, Groucho’s secretary had a tendency to become romantically involved with professional magicians. She had just recently broken up with the Great Zatara.

  Shaking her head, she said, “Not exactly, no. These gents work for the government.”

  “What government, pray tell? If it’s Guatemala or Burma, I’m not going to let it worry my mind.”

  “This government. To be exact, these gents were with the Federal Bureau of Invest
igation.”

  Groucho lowered himself onto the small polka-dot sofa near her desk. “Landsakes, whatever would a couple of G-Men want with little old me?”

  Picking up her memo pad, she consulted it. “The guy who did all the talking is James Goodrich, and his silent partner was introduced to me only as Agent Lewis. They’re both with the Los Angeles office of the bureau,” she said. “Agent Goodrich would very much like you to telephone him at your earliest convenience. I told him you were hiding out somewhere in the Mojave Desert to avoid creditors and irate husbands, but he still wants you to call.”

  Taking a fresh cigar from a pocket of his sport coat, Groucho asked, “You sure these galoots were legit FBI men and not merely a couple of stray bit players from a Republic Pictures serial?”

  “They had all the proper identification, chief.”

  “By the way, I believe I instructed you not to address me as ‘boss’ or ‘chief’ anymore and always to use a simple ‘Your Holiness.’”

  “Slipped my mind.” Nan again consulted her memo pad. “Would you be interested in what they told me they wanted?”

  “I’d be absolutely fascinated.”

  “Seems, so Agent Goodrich claimed, that the local office of the FBI has gotten wind of the radio show you and Frank are working on. Furthermore, they hear you are going to play a character named J. Edgar Bedspread, Undercover Man,” Nan explained. “They’re concerned that J. Edgar Hoover, their esteemed and highly sensitive Director, will be upset to have his name held up to ridicule in such an unseemly manner. Agent Goodrich would like to persuade you to change the character’s name.”

  “Let’s see … J. Edgar Blanket, J. Edgar Motel, J. Edgar Pajama, or possibly—”

  “You seem to be implying, Nan,” I cut in, “that these FBI agents had another reason for dropping in.”

  “Well, Agent Goodrich seemed quite interested in finding out if Groucho was playing detective again,” she answered. “And if so, what exactly was the case he was poking his snoot into?”

  “It’s very interesting that the FBI is interested in what I’m interested in,” he observed. “Very interesting indeed.”

  “It’s got to tie in with Olmstead’s death,” I suggested.

  He stood up. “Let us go into my inner sanctum and decode the message,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  Thirteen

  Pacing in a somewhat zigzag fashion, Groucho read the first notation to me. “Fifteen-zero-six … Roman numeral two … five.”

  I was sitting behind his desk with his copy of Emerson’s Collegiate Dictionary resting on the tan-colored blotter. Opening the fat book toward the back, I flipped pages until I reached page 1506. “The fifth word in the second column is will.”

  “That’s good,” observed Groucho. “Because where there’s a will there’s a way. Although in some cases where there’s a will there’s an oy vay.”

  After I wrote ‘will’ on a sheet of paper, I said, “Next number.”

  “Page two-eighty-nine, column two, word three.”

  “The second word of the message is contact.”

  “Ah, Philo, we’re actually getting a message here. One word might be a coincidence, but two words indicate we’ve picked the right book to use.”

  “It does indeed.”

  The next word was you, and then came at and party.

  Groucho came over and sat on the edge of the desk. “Obviously alluding to the fabled Lockwood Halloween party of the other evening.”

  In a little more than ten minutes, we had the entire thing deciphered.

  It read,—“Will contact you at party. Want lock wood information soon. G.”

  “Bingo,” said Groucho, picking up the sheet of paper and looking over what I’d written down.

  When I leaned back in the swivel chair, it made a metallic keening noise. “I’m guessing,” I said, “that this G. doesn’t want information about Lockwood’s movie activities.”

  “Nope—it’s much more likely that this was a request for some inside dope on what’s going on behind the guarded gates of the Lockwood Aero airplane factory.”

  I suggested, “That could be why the FBI is interested in you.”

  “All right. Despite what the isolationists keep saying, America’s getting closer and closer to getting pulled into World War Two.” Groucho dropped off the desk to resume pacing. “Lockwood is, so rumor has it, working on planes and accessories that’ll aid the war effort, if and when we join up.”

  “Olmstead was close to Dinah, and Dinah is very close to Lockwood,” I said. “So there’s a strong possibility Olmstead could’ve used Dinah’s influence to get a look at what’s going on at the Lockwood Aero setup.”

  “Nazi spies do you think, Rollo?”

  “Sounds like, but where exactly did Olmstead fit in? Was Olmstead a German agent himself? Was he being blackmailed into providing information? And did Dinah actually know what was going on?”

  “Tune in next week for the answers to these and other perplexing questions,” said Groucho. “And you can add, Who is G?”

  “Grim Reaper?”

  “Too hokey,” said Groucho. “It could stand for Greta Garbo, but I somehow doubt that. Might even stand for Gestapo.”

  “Or Groucho.”

  “No, I can say without fear of contradiction—or fear of concertinas, for that matter—that I am not now nor ever have been a spy,” he said, raising his right hand briefly. “I have been a Peeping Tom, but that was back in the days before I pawned my telescope.”

  “What we have to find out is what exactly Olmstead was up to,” I said. “And what espionage agents might be interested in at Lockwood Aero.”

  “We can simply ask Lockwood about the latter.”

  “Before we talk directly to Lockwood, Groucho, let me check with a friend of mine who’s a senior editor at Aviation Week,” I offered. “He knows a lot that never gets into the newspapers.”

  “Do that,” agreed Groucho. “I’ll be getting in touch with the estimable Zeppo to learn what he’s found out for us about Olmstead’s past. And I’ll track down Betty Boop and Zorro for more information on what the Grim Reaper was up to with Olmstead.”

  “Jane’s trying to trace his costume.”

  Groucho sighed. “My once-fabled wit is definitely slowing down,” he said. “It wasn’t too long ago that I’d have been able to come up with several pithy jests about the fact that a cartoonist was tracing something.”

  Getting up from behind the desk, I made a go-ahead gesture with my right hand. “You’re welcome to try.”

  “Let me sleep on the matter. Which isn’t going to be, I can assure you, as comfortable as sleeping on the mattress.”

  “Can I borrow that original code message to have Jane look at the calligraphy?”

  Groucho folded the yellow sheet in half and handed it to me. “Guard this with your life,” he said. “Or you might prefer to guard it with a couple of sturdy goons armed with baseball bats.”

  Heading for the door, I said, “I’ll call you tomorrow, and we can set up another meeting.”

  “Oh, and do try to work on those revisions for our Groucho Marx, Secret Agent script.”

  “I’ll see if I can fit that in to my busy schedule as a counterspy,” I promised.

  Jane and I were having dinner in the breakfast nook. I set aside my fork, saying, “Dorgan doesn’t bark over nothing.”

  “Sure he does,” she told me. “He’s a very imaginative bloodhound. Has to do with the fact that he used to be a movie dog.”

  “Nevertheless, he doesn’t bark for no reason, and I’ll wager Rin Tin Tin didn’t either.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry I brought it up, Frank. Really all I was doing, dear, was making small talk about what happened around the house today.”

  I asked, “You didn’t see anything? Nobody lurking outside?”

  “No, nothing and nobody,” answered my wife. “Why are you getting so het up over this?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s s
tarting to look like Groucho and I may be digging into something that involves espionage and spies.”

  Jane frowned. “You didn’t mention that earlier.”

  “Just came to that conclusion late this afternoon.”

  “Eat the rest of your pie and then tell me.”

  I finished up my wedge of cherry pie. “You sure you ought to be baking pies in your condition?”

  “Frank, I consulted with the pediatrician on this, and he assures me that cherry, apple, and peach pies won’t put any strain on me in my delicate state,” she told me. “However, I’m to avoid baking mince or lemon meringue.”

  “Okay, okay. I guess I’m developing a mother hen complex,” I said.

  She smiled across the table at me. “I’m perfectly fine, Frank,” she assured me.

  I reached out, put my hand over hers. “Bake all the pies you want,” I said. “Except custard.”

  She slid out of the breakfast-nook bench. “Now tell me all about the spies and saboteurs and how it ties in with what happened to Eric Olmstead,” she requested. “I’ll wash the dishes while—”

  “I’ll do the dishes. You sit back down, Jane.”

  “In China women work in the rice fields until the day they’re rushed off to the maternity ward.”

  “You can harvest all the rice you want, but I’ll help with the damn dishes.” I got up, started gathering them.

  While I washed and Jane dried, I filled her in on what Groucho and I had learned during the day and what conclusions we’d reached so far.

  Later, when we were sitting on the living room sofa, I produced the code message. “Here’s the infamous calligraphy sample,” I said, handing it to Jane.

  “The message in the turban.” Jane took the slip of yellow paper.

  Dorgan came waddling over, settling into a comfortable position near my feet.

  Jane said, “Looks to me like whoever wrote this learned to letter in Europe.”

  “I noticed the sevens.”

  “There are a lot of other touches,” she said. “I don’t think I’m letting your mention of spies influence my judgment, but I’d say this was done by someone who was educated in Germany or Austria.”