Elementary, My Dear Groucho

by Ron Goulart

  By the time the woman had located her autograph book in the depths of her purse, Groucho had made his way to the steps of the Britannia.

  There a lanky man in a sharkskin suit detained him. “I have a picture of you,” the man said, starting to search in his coat pockets.

  “They tell me there are now safe and painless ways to remove tattoos.”

  “It’s not a tattoo, it’s a photograph.”

  “That’s an unusual thing to have stuck to your backside.”

  “It’s not stuck to my backside.”

  Groucho started to climb the marble steps. “Well, don’t come crying to me because your glue isn’t working.”

  “It’s in a little album of movie star pictures and I’d really appreciate it if you’d sign it.” He found the small book and handed it, open to the right page, over to Groucho.

  He scowled at the small photograph. “You’re sure this isn’t Balzac’s death mask?”

  “It’s you, Mr. Marx. I sent MGM two bits for it.”

  After signing his name across the small studio portrait, he plucked a dime out of his jacket pocket, and gave it to the lanky man. “They definitely overcharged you, my boy,” he said, and went hurrying up into the Britannia Club.

  The heavy oaken door of the two-story brownstone building swung open inward while Groucho was still three steps from it.

  P. G. Wodehouse emerged, recognized Groucho, and smiled. “Delightful running into you, Marx,” he said, extending his hand.

  Shaking hands, Groucho smiled up at the tall, balding author. “Delightful running into you, Plum.”

  Wodehouse bestowed what might have been a sympathetic look on him and continued on his way down to the sidewalk.

  A profound silence, scented with furniture polish, closed in around Groucho as soon as he entered the lobby of the Britannia Club.

  The walls were paneled in dark wood and over the arched entryway to the silent Reading Room hung an oil painting of King George VI. On the left loomed a shadowy cloakroom and on the right a small office that had Club Secretary engraved in gold on its pebbled glass upper portion.

  Soundlessly the door now eased open.

  A slim, pale man, dapper in a navy blue blazer and gray flannel trousers, came floating out. His pale blond hair was parted in the middle and his wrinkle-rimmed eyes were narrowed. “Surely, old man, you’ve intruded here by mistake?” he suggested in a subdued voice.

  “You’re the gink who sent for the exterminator, aren’t you?” inquired Groucho loudly. “Just let me at those cockroaches.”

  The club secretary’s eyes narrowed even further and he made a hush-hush gesture with his pale right hand. “You have, as I suspected from the outset, blundered onto the wrong premises, my good man,” he informed him. “We haven’t so much as seen a single insect here at the Britannia ever.”

  Reaching into a side pocket, Groucho offered, “Would you like to take a gander at some? I brought along samples of cockroaches, termites, mealy bugs, and some strange-looking little green devils that nobody at the office has, thus far, been able to identify.”

  “No, please, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”

  “Before you do, would you let Randell McGowan know I’m here to keep my appointment with him.”

  The pale man fingered the gilded club crest on the pocket of his blazer. “You’ve been jesting with me?”

  Groucho rolled his eyes in an apologetic way. “I fear so, yes.”

  “I must tell you, my dear sir, that I don’t especially enjoy having my leg pulled.”

  “If I had little bitty runty legs like yours, I wouldn’t enjoy it either,” sympathized Groucho. “Now how’s about telling McGowan I’m here?”

  The club secretary took a backward step. “Who shall I say wishes to see him?”

  “Groucho Marx.”

  “Groucho?” His eyes narrowed until he appeared to be squinting. “Your given name is Groucho?”

  Groucho sighed. “Alas, yes,” he admitted. “I was named after a rich uncle in the hopes of a substantial inheritance. But when the old bird kicked off, he left all his dough to a home for oversexed canaries.”

  “I’ll summon someone to escort you to the dining room, which is, I believe, where you’ll find Mr. McGowan.” He returned, with alacrity, to his office and shut the door.

  Approximately five minutes later a reedy, slow-moving man in his early seventies came shuffling in from the Reading Room. He was clad in a venerable suit of tails and held a small sheet of cream-colored paper clutched in his bony right hand. When he’d tottered his way to about three feet of Groucho, he halted and inquired in a polite dim voice, “Mr. Marcus?”

  “Close enough.”

  “If you’d follow me, sir?”

  “Darn, I was hoping you were going to say, ‘Walk this way.’”

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “And well you should. Lead on.”

  Perplexity briefly touched the waiter’s time-lined face. Then with a resigned sigh, he turned and began slowly to retrace his steps.

  The Reading Room contained nine fat dark leather armchairs and a claw-footed table that held a neatly arranged assortment of British periodicals, including The Illustrated London News and The Strand. On the walls hung several large oil paintings of past Britannia Club cricket teams. Groucho recognized David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith, and Nigel Bruce in two of the paintings.

  Sitting in one of the armchairs was C. Aubrey Smith himself. The stately old actor was asleep, snoring sedately, with an open copy of the London Times draped across his lap.

  There were two other gentlemen occupying the quiet room, but Groucho didn’t recognize either. Both looked up from their magazines to scowl at his footfalls coming across the thick Persian carpet.

  The shuffling waiter opened a heavy door, then stood aside and whispered, “You’ll find Mr. McGowan at table six.”

  “I appreciate your guiding me here,” he said in a whisper. “If I need any help finding my way out, I’ll just give a holler.”

  “Oh, no, sir, you mustn’t do that.”

  Bowing slightly, Groucho slouched into the beam-ceilinged room.

  It contained exactly a dozen small tables, each covered with a crisp white linen cloth. At the moment only four of the tables were occupied. There was a small bar in one corner and three other members of the Britannia sat there, quietly drinking.

  McGowan was a portly man in his middle forties. He was dressed in a tweedy suit and his black mustache was clipped in military fashion. “Deucedly glad you could find the time to drop by, Groucho, old man.”

  Groucho sat opposite him. “I didn’t know you talked this way in real life.”

  The actor blinked. “Afraid so, old boy,” he said. “Gotten to be a beastly habit. Due to playing far too many pompous sons of Albion since I arrived in Hollywood. Pity, don’t you know, but there it is, eh?”

  “Both my offspring thought you were splendid in The Many Loves of Bonny Prince Charlie,” Groucho told him. “It isn’t every man who can bring off wearing kilts in Technicolor.”

  “You’re a deucedly perplexing chap, Groucho, old man,” said McGowan, picking up his glass and taking a small sip. “Difficult to tell when you’re ragging a fellow and when you’re sincere.”

  “Here’s the key to deciphering my dialogue,” he offered. “I’m never sincere.”

  “Care for a splash of something, old cock? Having a gin and it myself.”

  Groucho shook his head. “No, thanks, McGowan,” he said, resting both elbows on the table. “Is The Valley of Fear going to continue?”

  “Afraid so, yes,” he said after another sip of his martini. “Mammoth’s bringing in Frederick Bauer to take over the direction and we’re going back into production next week.”

  “You’re not overjoyed at the prospect?”

  The portly actor said, “Getting bloody tired of working with Miles Ravenshaw, if you must know, old fellow. Blighter possesses an enormous ego, even for an actor, a
nd hasn’t enough talent to work in the chorus of a Christmas pantomime, let alone the cinema. He makes a dreadful Holmes.”

  “I hear Twentieth is thinking of doing a Holmes movie with Basil Rathbone.”

  McGowan winced. “Have you ever been invited to one of those ostentatious parties that Rathbone and his memsahib throw?”

  “Once or twice, yes.”

  “Far too showy for my taste, don’t you know. They’re definitely, one must say, not British sort of parties.”

  “You had something to tell me?”

  “Well, yes, old boy, although I’m not at all certain it’ll help you determine who killed Felix Denker,” he said. “There was another dreadful chap, by the way.” He picked up his glass once again.

  “You have some information about who might’ve killed Denker?”

  “Actually, Groucho, old fellow, I simply overheard a small portion of a conversation a few days ago at the studio,” the actor explained. “Wouldn’t want this to get around, but there’s a young lady playing a small part in the film that I’ve rather taken a fancy to, don’t you know. I was flitting off to meet her on the sly at one of the indoor sets for our picture, one that wasn’t being used that day. While making my way there, I chanced to hear some noise coming from the London pub set. Keeping in the shadows, I eavesdropped.”

  “Eavesdropped on who?”

  “Coming to that, dear chap,” said McGowan. “It was Erika Klein, Denker’s wife, you know, and that young woman who was killed in an automobile accident just a few days later. Marsha Tederow, I believe the poor lass’s name was.”

  “That’s her name, yes. She and Erika were arguing?”

  “Erika slapped the girl across the face and called her a greedy, conniving bitch. The Tederow girl simply laughed at her, pushed her aside, and left,” said the movie Dr. Watson. “I didn’t hear anything else of their discussion. The reason this incident struck me as odd is this, Groucho, old boy. Quite a few of us were aware that Denker was apparently having a romance with this Tederow wench, but the word around the studio was that his wife didn’t much care.”

  “You’re saying that she apparently did.”

  “I’m saying, don’t you know, that the lady had a seemingly angry encounter with Marsha Tederow,” clarified McGowan. “I’m assuming it had to do with her husband’s philandering, but I can’t swear to that. Still and all, old fellow, I thought you might be able to use the information in some way. Some way, I say, that will put a spanner in Ravenshaw’s works.”

  Groucho promised, “I’ll send for a spanner at once.”

  Nineteen

  The Ivy Hotel in downtown Los Angeles had known better days, but that was almost twenty years earlier. Now the sylvan murals that decorated the large lobby’s walls were faded and peeling, several of the frolicking shepherdesses looked to have complexion problems, and the gamboling lambs were suffering from mildew. The imitation marble pillars, all eight of them, were chipped and stained, and the one nearest the elevator cages had a distinct list to the left.

  Someone had been burning a pungent, churchly incense in the lobby the afternoon I dropped in to call on my old L.A. Times informant. The scent didn’t mix well with the longer-running smells of disinfectant, fly spray, and unwashed clothes.

  A scruffy bulldog was dancing a jig on a threadbare stretch of carpeting in the center of the big domed room. A gaunt man in an oversize tan overcoat was sitting on the gilded sofa near him and keeping time on a sprung tambourine.

  “C’mon, Boswell,” he urged, “strut your stuff.”

  The old dog looked weary and forlorn, but he kept spinning and hopping on his shaky hind legs, panting.

  The audience for the performance consisted of a small gray-haired woman in a flowered dress and the curly-haired clerk.

  On my way to the desk, I stopped near the struggling bulldog. Pointing a thumb down at him, I asked the man with the tambourine, “If I give you a half a buck, will you let him stop?”

  “Make it a buck and I’ll also buy Boswell a soup bone to gnaw on.”

  “Deal.” I tossed him a silver dollar.

  “Take a break, Boswell.”

  The dog, producing a collapsing accordion sound, slumped down onto the floor.

  I continued on to the desk.

  “Surely you don’t intend to register?” inquired the platinum-haired clerk.

  “I’d like to see Tim O’Hearn.”

  “Well, that must make you just about the only person so inclined in all of Greater Los Angeles.” He was using a cologne that smelled strongly of lilacs.

  “Which room?”

  “Three-thirteen. Elevators are on the blink today, so you’ll have to hoof it.”

  “You ought to spray the lobby with whatever it is you’re using on yourself,” I advised him, and headed for the imitation-marble staircase.

  “My, aren’t we catty this afternoon.”

  All but one of the orange-tinted light bulbs in the dangling fixtures in the third-floor hallway were burned out and the survivor was flickering badly.

  Behind the door of 313 a radio was playing loudly. I recognized the voice of Harry Whitechurch, who’d been the announcer on our late Groucho Marx, Private Eye radio show, booming above the organ music. “Once again,” he was saying, “it’s time for The Struggle for Happiness, the heartwarming story of one student nurse’s search for love and a satisfying career in our troubled modern world. Our show is brought to you by Bascom’s foamy shampoo, the purest …”

  I knocked on the door. “Tim, it’s me.”

  The radio stopped.

  “Who?” asked Tim O’Hearn, not opening the door.

  “Frank Denby.”

  “You sound like him.”

  “Lots of people have been telling me that of late. Can it be because I am Frank Denby? C’mon, Tim, let me in.”

  The door opened a few inches and O’Hearn, a thin, worn-out man of fifty, looked out at me. “I can’t be too careful.”

  “Apparently not.”

  After a few seconds he moved back from the doorway. “You might as well come in, Frank.”

  All the shades were down and the venerable dark brown drapes drawn in the small room. “You’ve given up cheese sandwiches.”

  “A doctor I bumped into in Pershing Square a few weeks back told me cheese was bad for me.” Sitting on the edge of his unmade folding bed, he nodded me toward an armchair. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  I gingerly lifted a saucer that held the remains of a moldering sandwich off the seat and sat. “And what is it you’ve switched to?”

  “Baloney—it’s a better source of protein.”

  Part of another baloney sandwich, rich with some sort of green mold, was perched atop a scattered pile of old, much-annotated racing forms near the lopsided bureau.

  “So what have you found out about—”

  “I ought to get more than five bucks for this particular assignment, Frank,” my informant complained. “No, I ought to get hazard pay as well.”

  “All I asked you for was a line on locating Franz Henkel.”

  Hunching his shoulders, O’Hearn glanced at the masked windows. “Usually you’re curious about gangsters and thugs, and that’s dangerous enough,” he said. “But now I’m brushing shoulders with Nazis and Gestapo agents and—”

  “Wait, whoa. How’s Henkel connected with the Gestapo?”

  “I’m not sure he is,” admitted O’Hearn. “But the guy is in the Bund and groups like that. It makes me really uneasy.”

  “Any idea where he’s hiding out?”

  O’Hearn’s lean face took on a pained expression and he rubbed a knuckle under his nose. “I don’t know for sure yet, but I got you a lead on a guy who does. Thing is, you’re going to have to deal directly with this bastard.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Name is Lionel Von Esh,” answered my informant. “He works as some kind of stagehand out at the Mammoth studios. Word is he’s not an especial pal of this Henkel�
�s, but he knows where the guy is lying low and he’s willing to sell that info.”

  “Okay, where do I contact this Von Esh?”

  “He frequents a place in Hollywood called Siegfried’s Rathskeller. It’s just off Cherokee and sounds like it must be a German hangout.”

  “It does at that. Is he expected there tonight?”

  O’Hearn nodded. “Any time after ten,” he said. “And he wants twenty bucks for what he knows.”

  “You contacted him directly?”

  “Naw, but the guy who set this up is reliable, Frank. Trust me.”

  I stood up and took out my wallet. “How do I recognize Von Esh?” “He’s got reddish blond hair that he wears in one of those heinie haircuts. And he has an X-shaped scar just under his left eye.” He traced an X under his eye and then held out the hand to me.

  I passed him a five-dollar bill. “Keep digging around about the Denker murder, see what you pick up.”

  “Okay, but if storm troopers bust in here and rough me up, just remember how little you paid me.”

  “If they kill you, though,” I said, “I’ve got a swell wreath we can use.”

  At 4:00 P.M., carrying a dozen red roses wrapped in green paper, I walked confidently in to the sunny reception room of the Golden Hills Rest Home out in the Valley. It had taken three phone calls to former newspaper colleagues to obtain this particular address. I went striding right up to the desk, where a plump woman in a pale green nurse’s uniform sat with hands folded and a smile on her face.

  “Didn’t it turn out to be a lovely day?” she asked me.

  “It certainly did,” I agreed, returning her smile.

  “And how can we help you here at Golden Hills?”

  Holding the bouquet of roses a little forward, I said, “I’m Albert Payson Terhune, chairman of the Shut-in Visitor Committee of the Screen Writers Guild.”

  “My, that sounds like a fascinating occupation.”

  “It is. We’ve just learned that one of our members, Clair Rickson, is residing here under the name Clarinda Raffles,” I explained, rattling the flowers. “I’ve dropped by to deliver what we like to call a Sunshine Shower and present her with—”