Elementary, My Dear Groucho

by Ron Goulart

  “Let us begin,” urged Groucho.

  We were able to do everything I’d outlined in less than ten minutes.

  As I was wiping my greasy hands on my pocket handkerchief, however, a lean middle-aged man holding a .45 automatic appeared in the open garage doorway.

  “Be so kind, chaps, as to raise your hands,” he requested.

  The lanky man with the gun took three careful steps in out of the bright morning. “The first thing you blokes are going to do,” he instructed, “is tell me what sort of damage you’ve up and done to the Duesenberg.”

  “Ah, you’ve got us all wrong, kind sir,” Groucho informed him. “We are but a pair of nature-loving vagabonds who’ve lost our way.”

  “I don’t know who this young hooligan is, but you, sir, are one of the blooming Marx Brothers,” accused the man who must be Truett, Ravenshaw’s valet. “I can’t tell you apart, but I had the extreme misfortune of sitting through one of your beastly cinema efforts once.”

  “Beastly, you say? That may well be the most positive critique we’ve ever gotten for one of our movies.” Smiling, Groucho held out his hand. “Permit me to introduce myself. I’m Hippo Marx, also known as the King of the Jungle. This open-faced lad is my cousin, Blotto Marx, who, except for a regrettable tendency to swill down moonshine, is a pillar of society and sometimes a souvenir pillow from Niagara Falls.”

  Truett didn’t shake hands, warning, “Keep your distance, Mr. Marx. I’d hate to have to shoot you, but I’d be within my rights, since you’re, the pair of you, trespassers and vandals.”

  “C’mon, Truett,” I told him, “you aren’t going to shoot anybody. Ravenshaw’s in enough trouble already.”

  “Meaning what, sir?”

  “Meaning that faking a kidnapping is a criminal offense, for one thing.”

  “There’s nobody knows it’s faked, sir.”

  “They will as soon as we—”

  “Ah, but you blokes might just be staying in the woods for a bit, so … Here, what’s wrong with him?”

  Groucho had turned quite pale and was pressing his right hand to his chest. “Frank, I … Oh, Jesus … Give me my pills … Quick!”

  “I don’t have your medicine, Groucho,” I said, sounding worried. “Remember when you had that attack last night? I gave you the bottle.”

  “No, that … that can’t be …” His eyes rolled upward, he began shivering violently.

  “What is it?” Truett, lowering his gun hand, moved up closer to the afflicted Groucho.

  “His heart,” I explained. With my left hand, while he was distracted, I lifted a tire iron off the small workbench next to me.

  “Frank, I want Eloise to have my gold watch,” Groucho was gasping, knees wobbling wildly. “You can have the chain … and, remember …” He suddenly rose up on his toes, his eyelids fluttering. Then, with a keening groan, he fell forward right into Truett.

  At that same moment I jumped to a position where I could whack Truett’s gun hand with the tire iron.

  He howled in pain, dropping the automatic on the concrete garage floor.

  While he was still howling, I spun him around and punched him several times, hard, in the chin.

  He fell to his knees, passed out, and dropped down in a sprawl next to the bright yellow Duesenberg.

  “Another admirable display of fisticuffs,” said Groucho, straightening up and brushing at the front of his sports coat.

  I was already moving toward the doorway of the garage. “Let’s get the hell clear of here.”

  We slipped around the back of the garage and into the woods, retracing our steps.

  “Who, by the way, is Eloise?” I asked as we were trotting uphill toward where we’d left my car.

  “I have no idea,” Groucho answered. “But if I actually owned a gold watch, I’d definitely want somebody named Eloise to have it after I was gone.”

  Thirty-two

  They’d finished posting the big billboard advertising The Valley of Fear on the wall of the Mammoth studios and you could see all of Miles Ravenshaw decked out as Sherlock Holmes now.

  “We should’ve brought along a Groucho poster to slap up,” said Jane.

  I stopped the car at the studio gates. “Good morning, Oscar,” I said to the plump uniformed guard who’d left the tile-roofed shack to approach our car.

  He looked from me to his clipboard. “You must be Mr. Marx’s friend, Frank Denby,” he decided. “And this pretty lady is Jane Denby.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “You and the missus can park in Visitors Lot B, the one right next to the softball field,” Oscar told me.

  “Thanks.”

  “Wasn’t Mr. Marx supposed to be here today, too?”

  I did a mild take. It was a quarter to twelve and Groucho’s press conference was scheduled to start at noon. “He didn’t get here yet?”

  Oscar shook his head. “Not so far, no.”

  “Well, he’s not likely to miss this event,” I said.

  “You never can tell with Groucho Marx.” Chuckling, Oscar returned to the guard shack.

  The wrought-iron gates swung open and I drove onto the Mammoth grounds.

  “Groucho stopped by our place over an hour ago to pick up my artistic creations,” said Jane, concern in her voice. “Where the heck did he get to?”

  “Let’s hope he’s going to show up within the next ten minutes.” I drove along the palm tree-lined street to Lot B. “Otherwise our presentation’s going to fall a little flat.”

  “You think maybe somebody waylaid him?”

  “I’d prefer to believe that isn’t the reason for his not showing up.”

  “We should’ve insisted he come along in our car.”

  “He seemed to have some reason for driving here alone.”

  “Well, maybe that’s why he’s late.”

  I parked the auto between a Rolls-Royce and a gray Duesenberg. “The Ford is definitely not a successful screenwriter’s car,” I said, getting out to jog around and open Jane’s door for her. “No wonder Lew Marker and other Hollywood moguls and tycoons laugh at my script efforts.”

  “They’re supposed to laugh, ninny, you’re writing comedies.”

  “True,” I agreed. “We’ll keep the car, then.”

  As we neared Soundstage 2, an elephant came thumping by down the middle of the street, led by a young man in a robe and turban.

  “I keep getting it mixed up,” said Jane, slowing to watch the elephant parade by. “Is it African elephants or Indian elephants that have big floppy ears like this one?”

  “Elephants that have either Tarzan or Jane riding on their backs are African elephants,” I explained. “At least that applies when you’re at MGM.”

  There was a uniformed Burbank police officer standing just outside the open soundstage doorway. He, too, had a clipboard. “Name?” he inquired.

  “Frank and Jane Denby.”

  He scanned his typed list. “Oh, yeah, here you two are. Except it says ‘Jean.’”

  “That’s my maiden name,” said Jane.

  “Is Groucho Marx inside yet?” I asked the cop.

  He shook his head. “He hasn’t come in this way so far.”

  “Oy,” I observed. I took Jane by the hand and we entered the cavernous Soundstage 2.

  Until you got to the 221 B set, it was dimly lit and shadowy all around.

  Sergeant Norment came striding up as we neared the edge of the set. He fished out his pocket watch and dangled it up toward me. “Don’t tell me Marx has disappeared, too?”

  “We already saw him this morning, Jack,” I said. “He’s en route.”

  “By way of San Luis Obispo?”

  “He’ll be here. Groucho never fails to appear if there’s anything resembling an audience.”

  “They’re fidgeting already,” said the policeman. “He better make his entrance damn soon.”

  Quite a few folding metal chairs had been added to the furnishings of Sherlock Holmes’s 221B Bak
er Street study. Occupying the rows of chairs were Erika Klein, a bald man I assumed must be Gunther, M. J. McLeod, Lew Marker, Guy Pope, Randell McGowan, a neat, dapper man I figured to be Professor Hoffman, Victoria St. John, Nan Sommerville, the Astounding Zanzibar, Isobel Glidden, and Randy Grothkopf, who was a small sun-browned man with a head of not quite believable russet hair.

  Gil Lumbard of the Hollywood Citizen-News and Dan Bockman from the L.A. Times were sitting in chairs in the first row, looking around and taking notes. Lumbard gave me a lazy salute when he saw Jane and me taking chairs in the back row. Norm Lenzer from the Herald-Examiner was squatting beside the armchair that Felix Denker had been murdered in. He seemed to be fascinated by the cushion. There were three newspaper photographers standing at the edge of the set, plus a photographer I was pretty sure worked for Motion Picture magazine now. Sitting cross-legged on a dolly was the little guy who was a legman for Johnny Whistler.

  Our chairs were near Holmes’s chemistry workbench. I noticed that somebody had left an empty potato chip bag next to the detective’s Bunsen burner.

  “I certainly want to help the police in every way I can to track down the murderer of my good friend,” said Guy Pope. “But my dear Alma grows very nervous when I’m away from Merlinwood for too long, Sergeant.”

  “We’ll be starting any minute now,” I said, my voice sounding a little shaky. The way it had sounded back in high school when I was called on to answer a question I really didn’t know the answer to.

  The old swashbuckler glanced over at me, a frown touching his handsome face. “Do I know you, young fellow?”

  “I’m Frank Denby, Groucho’s associate.”

  “And a bigger pain in the patootie than even Groucho is,” added Grothkopf. “Just another showboat who actually doesn’t know his backside from his elbow.”

  “I bet I do,” I began. “When I—”

  “Neither the time nor the place for that,” cautioned Jane, tugging at my coat sleeve.

  “Frank is not a showboat at all,” said Victoria St. John, “if I might put my two cents’ worth in, although I’ve never quite comprehended that expression, despite the fact that I had a very good and thorough education, or why we put so low a price on our honest opinions, unless perhaps it derives from some custom in old England, but even there, where it would probably have been twopence worth instead of two cents’, that can’t have been a large sum, except to people who may’ve been devastated by the—”

  “Get to the point,” the publicity man urged Victoria.

  “I was merely defending Frank Denby’s character, Mr. Grothkopf,” she said. “And I must say that someone with such a fictitious-looking head of hair really ought not to be calling the kettle—”

  “Ah, the chimes are striking high noon,” said Groucho, coming in through the door next to Sherlock Holmes’s desk. “Time to begin our little private inquest.”

  He was wearing an Inverness cape over his tweedy sports coat and had a Holmesian deerstalker cap on his head at a slightly skewed angle. Tucked up under his arm was a scruffed black attaché case with a few battered travel stickers from South American hotels slapped on its sides.

  All four photographers started snapping pictures and flashbulbs flashed.

  “You didn’t come in through the studio gate,” I said.

  “I did not, Rollo, no.”

  “Then how’d you get in here?”

  He set the case on Holmes’s desk with a smack. “The same way the killer did the other night,” he said. “I wanted to see if I could do it, too. And I did.”

  Thirty-three

  Shedding the cape, Groucho hung it carefully on Sherlock Holmes’s coat rack. He took off the deerstalker, tossed that onto the desk. “Before we get to the murder of Felix Denker,” he announced, “there are a few other items to take care of.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said the scowling Grothkopf, “that you’re going to sing first?”

  “No, fear not, I didn’t bring my mandolin.”

  “You don’t play the mandolin.”

  “Yet another reason for leaving it home.” Groucho hoisted himself up and sat on the edge of the detective’s desk, legs dangling. His socks didn’t match, one being green-and-white checks and the other a yellow-and-red argyle. “There has been, thanks to the noble efforts of the Mammoth publicity machine, considerable discussion in the press about a challenge issued by Miles Ravenshaw, hereinafter referred to as the hambone of the first part, to myself and my associate, Frank Denby. The fact that Ravenshaw was portraying none other than Sherlock Holmes on the silver screen apparently addled his wits, persuading him he had some talent for the solving of mysteries. He was, however, woefully—”

  “Miles used to be a Scotland Yard inspector,” said the publicity man loudly. “He, unlike you, Groucho, had professional experience in criminal investigation and—”

  “The only firsthand experience Ravenshaw ever had with police work was when he got a ticket for double-parking his Duesenberg on Rodeo Drive last summer.” He opened the attaché case and took out his legal pad. “After being sacked as a bookshop clerk in London for allegedly pilfering from the cash register, Ravenshaw became a touring actor and inflicted his modest talent on the provinces until he landed a few bit parts in the West End. From there it was into the cinema and finally Hollywood. At no time during the whole shabby odyssey was Ravenshaw ever connected with Scotland Yard. His entire career as a police inspector is moonshine brewed by Grothkopf and associates.”

  “That’s ridiculous, it’s nonsense,” charged Grothkopf, standing up. “Miles Ravenshaw’s record with Scotland Yard is—”

  “Can you show us a copy of that record, Randy?” asked Bockman.

  “I don’t have the actual documentation, no, but to question a man of Miles Ravenshaw’s obvious integrity is—”

  “In my vaudeville days,” mentioned Groucho, “hecklers were often tossed out into the alley. If you keep intruding in my discourse, Grothkopf, I’ll have to ask the bobbies to give you the old heave-ho.”

  Lumbard asked him, “You can prove what you’re saying about Ravenshaw?”

  “I’ll give you a list of my sources after my lecture,” promised Groucho. “Now, while we’re still dwelling on the topic of Ravenshaw, let’s turn to The Mystery of the Missing Ham. Frank, do you have that woodland address handy?”

  I’d memorized the address of the cabin where Ravenshaw, Truett, and the disabled Duesenberg were languishing. “Yeah,” I said, and recited it.

  “Anyone dropping in at that rustic locale,” suggested Groucho, “will find Ravenshaw.”

  Lenzer asked, “You’re saying that’s where the kidnappers took the guy?”

  “I’m saying, Norman, that that’s where Ravenshaw took himself to avoid having to admit that he was no closer to solving the case than he had been the day he started,” answered Groucho. “The abduction was another publicity gimmick, designed to keep Ravenshaw’s name in the news and at the same time get him off the hook.”

  “I’ve heard about enough of this crap.” Grothkopf, fists clenched, stood up again. “You can’t stand there, Groucho, and say that a decent and respected—”

  “Here’s something else I’m going to say,” he cut in. “You and Ravenshaw rigged the whole thing. I’m stating this in front of witnesses, Grothkopf, and if you believe I’m lying, sue me for slander. Otherwise, sit down and cease your prattling.”

  “They got you on this one, good and proper,” Mary Jane told her boss. “Don’t make it worse.”

  From the edge of the set Sergeant Norment said, “Faking a kidnapping is a lot more serious than getting a parking ticket, Grothkopf.”

  “I don’t know a damn thing about that,” insisted the publicity man. “If Miles took it upon himself to stage a phony—”

  “Can I have that address again, Frank?” the sergeant requested.

  “Sure.” I gave it to him.

  “Siegel, get in touch with the Santa Barbara police, ask them to che
ck on this.”

  Somewhat subdued, Grothkopf sat down.

  Lighting a cigarette, Sergeant Norment eyed Groucho. “Have you ever, Marx, heard of something called withholding evidence?”

  “I’m not withholding a thing, Sarge,” he said, spreading his arms wide and assuming a guileless expression. “The whole purpose of this press conference is to unload everything we know on the world. I’m even prepared to reveal my shirt and shoe sizes.”

  The cop blew out smoke and said nothing.

  Groucho left the desk to wander over to a large steamer trunk that was sitting on the bearskin rug. He perched atop it.

  I leaned close to Jane. “Groucho managed to round up a pretty impressive trunk,” I whispered.

  Groucho cleared his throat importantly. “What we’re dealing with is not one murder but two,” Groucho began, holding up two fingers. “The first one has thus far been written off as an accident, but—”

  “Who was murdered?” asked Bockman of the Times.

  “A young woman named Marsha Tederow,” answered Groucho. “She worked right here at Mammoth as an art director. She was also very romantically involved with Felix Denker.”

  “Please, Groucho,” requested Erika Klein softly. “There’s really no need to smear poor Felix’s memory by bringing up his unfortunate tendency to—”

  “Ah, but there is,” countered Groucho. “Because if Marsha hadn’t been having an affair with your husband, she never would have found out about Dr. Helga Krieger.”

  “Who?” asked Lumbard.

  “Spell that,” said Lenzer.

  While Groucho was spelling the name, Sergeant Norment moved onto the 221B Baker Street set. He walked over and seated himself in Dr. Watson’s armchair. “Go on, Marx,” he said.

  Groucho told them about Dr. Helga Krieger, explaining that she was a dedicated Nazi who’d dropped from sight in Germany in the early 1930s and that she’d been picked by the Hitler espionage system to be smuggled into America with a new face and a new identity. “Felix Denker was involved in that business,” added Groucho, “which is why he was killed.”