“See, you
are
miffed.”
“Nope, I’m disheartened to realize I married a woman who talks like an associate producer.”
“Whenever you get angry you try to insult me and—”
“Calling you an associate producer isn’t an especially vicious—”
“You always get this way. Really, Frank, a little harmless criticism and you blow up like a—”
“What harmless criticism? What I’m hearing is that my ideas stink.”
“I never said that.”
“Just because I happen to be between radio or movie assignments, doesn’t mean I can’t come up with a—”
“Let me, please, get to my point before you start moaning and groaning up there.”
“Oh, now the fact that I have, once again, sacrificed my comfort to try to sleep in this lofty perch so that you can bask in the comfort of the lower—”
“All I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t want to have a murder-mystery plot on the
Hollywood Molly
radio show.”
I said, “You thought the idea was great this afternoon.”
“I thought it was okay. After thinking it over, I decided that—”
“Having Molly’s actress pal, Vicky Fairweather, fall in love with a big-time Los Angeles gambler is a good notion, Jane,” I insisted. “Plus which, it’s topical. Then when the gangster gets killed, Molly’s friend is accused of murder and she has to play detective so—”
“Don’t tell me the whole stupid idea over again, if you don’t mind.”
“Stupid, huh? I wrote radio scripts for Groucho Marx for two years, but I’m stupid. I sold a screwball movie script to—”
“Groucho’s standards and mine aren’t the same,” my wife pointed out from below. “I’d prefer not to have Molly acting like an idiot and trying to solve murder cases on my radio show.”
I took a deep breath in and out. “Write your own damn show then,” I told her. I turned off my light and maintained a hurt silence.
The Twentieth Century Limited rushed on through the night.
After about fifteen minutes Jane said, “Frank?”
“Yeah?”
“I suppose one murder wouldn’t hurt.”
“No, you’re probably right. It doesn’t fit with Molly.”
Jane said, “We can talk about it tomorrow. Good night.”
“Good night.”
E
arly on Monday morning Groucho was leaving the lounge car, where he’d sung “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” twice, signed three autograph albums, and insulted two Manhattan-bound stockbrokers, when he encountered Dr. Dowling in the gently rocking corridor of the streamliner.
The plump personal physician of Willa Jerome was pale and slightly rumpled, but close to sober. “I’m not sure we’ve met, Mr. Marx,” he said, halting in Groucho’s path.
“If we’d met it would be indelibly etched in your memory, sir,” Groucho assured him. “A female equestrian, for example, who met me, only briefly, in Bangor, Maine, in the spring of nineteen-twenty-six, has never been able to forget the occasion and on the anniversary each year she puts a bouquet of yellow roses on the spot. This is extremely difficult, since the spot in question happens to be beneath a—”
“What I meant was—I’ve been pretty much under the weather all the way from Los Angeles and my memory is a little fuzzy in spots,” he explained. “I’m Dr. Daniel Dowling, traveling with Willa Jerome’s party.”
“Ah, I wasn’t aware she brought a party along. I wonder why I wasn’t invited.”
Dowling smiled, a bit ruefully. “I heard that your friend Mr. Denby was injured. Is he all right now?”
“Yes, Frank’s fine. He’s sitting up and taking nourishment,” Groucho answered. “He’s also taken the purse of a little old lady who’s traveling to Manhattan to open a drive-in seraglio.”
Dowling said, “I hear, too, that you and Denby have been investigating what happened to Manheim on the Super Chief.”
“Very briefly.” Groucho took out a cigar. “We’ve since retired from the case.”
“What’s your theory as to what went on?”
“I wasn’t on the job long enough to come up with a full-fledged theory .”
“So you don’t suspect anyone in particular?”
Groucho elevated his left eyebrow. “Do you?”
“No, not at all,” said Dr. Dowling. “It’s only that I was, naturally, curious. That sort of thing is unusual on a trip east.”
“It rarely even happens on a trip west, for that matter.”
Dowling chuckled without much enthusiasm. “Well, it’s been pleasant to meet you, Mr. Marx,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll meet again in New York.”
“Worse things have happened,” observed Groucho, moving on.
O
ur train pulled into Grand Central Station at a few minutes shy of 10:00 A.M. By a few minutes after, Jane and I were following a Red Cap and our assorted baggage along the strip of red carpet that the New York Central System spreads out for passengers disembarking from the Twentieth Century Limited. According to the promotional handout, the piece of broadloom we were treading on was exactly 260 feet long.
Groucho, guitar case swinging at his side, was slouching along with us toward the gate leading to the main concourse. “Why, may I ask,” he said, “are all these other travelers traipsing on
my
carpeting?”
“The red carpet treatment is for everybody,” said Jane.
His eyebrows rose. “You mean, Brünhilde, that this isn’t part of the exclusive welcome that Mayor LaGuardia has arranged to commemorate my advent in Manhattan?”
“Seems not.”
Groucho sighed. “On previous visits I was treated like royalty,” he said. “Of course, the royalty they treated me like was Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, but even so it was heartwarming.”
“The least you would expect,” said Jane sympathetically, “is the key to the city.”
“On my last sojourn LaGuardia did give me the key to the city. Not
this
city, admittedly, yet the thought was there.”
Jane noticed that I was frowning at the crowd of recent passengers that was marching up ahead of us. “Something wrong?” she inquired.
“I just noticed May Sankowitz walking up there about twenty or so people ahead of us,” I said. “Looks like Len Cowan, the dancer, is with her.”
Stretching up, Groucho peered ahead. “He is, Rollo,” he confirmed. “Which is deuced odd, since the entire
Step Right Up
troupe was supposed to have remained in Chicago.”
“Maybe he isn’t through heckling Manheim.”
Glancing around, Jane said, “I don’t see any sign of Manheim or his protégée.”
“They’re remaining aboard the train until the peasantry has withdrawn,” explained Groucho. “Then they’re holding a small press conference out under the clock.” He shook his head forlornly. “Ah, I well remember when I was the darling of the newspapers and reporters flocked to interview me. I was also, until they got a closer look at me, the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi and for good measure the—”
“Julius Marx,” exclaimed a somewhat nasal voice. “Welcome to the world’s largest flea market, sometimes known as Manhattan.”
An extremely dapper man of about forty, grey haired, grey suited, and wearing a snap-brim grey fedora, was hurrying along the train platform toward us.
“Leo, companion of my childhood,” said Groucho.
“It’s Leo Haskell,” Jane told me quietly as the two men embraced.
“Who?”
“Haskell, the poor man’s Walter Winchell,” she elaborated. “He writes the
Broadway Beat
column for the
New York Daily Tab.
”
“Oh, that Haskell.”
“I’m touched,” Groucho was saying, “that you came to greet me, Leo, and welcome me to—”
“To be honest, Groucho, I’m here to interview this week’s hot cinemaiden,” the Broadway columnist told him. “Dian Bowers they call her out in Tinselvania. But, listen, I can always use an inch about you. What’s this I hear about you walking the planks on Broadway again, in some Japaretta?”
“I’ll be doing
The Mikado
at the—”
“Word is that the latest celluloid opus you and your brothers have perpetrated is a massive stinkeroo of the first order. True or false, Groucho?”
“It is a wee bit fragrant, Leo, but—”
“And what the heck’s the lowdown on Manheim? Did somebody really try to ventilate his clockwork en route to the Apple? Did they attempt to close his drapes for good or—”
“Whoa. Give me a chance to read the subtitles under your dialogue, Leo.”
“Whoops, there’s Willa Jerome, the lithesome Limey lass, and her entourage coming our way,” said Haskell, looking beyond Groucho. “I’ll be ankling, Groucho. Give me a jingle.” He left us.
We started walking again. “That was Leo Haskell,” said Groucho.
“So we gathered,” I said.
“In my youth, which is now officially known as the Dark Ages, my brothers and I shared several vaudeville bills with Leo. He was a mere hoofer in those days and hadn’t yet discovered his God-given ability to mangle the English language and peer through keyholes.”
Jane and I parted with Groucho in front of the terminal and in less than a half hour we were in our hotel suite on Central Park South.
W
earing her slip and a candy-stripe blouse, Jane was sitting cross-legged on the love seat in the living room of our suite at the St. Norbert Hotel. She had a copy of the latest
New Yorker
open on her lap and was studying the
Goings-On About Town
section.
I was standing by a high, wide window and gazing down at the afternoon Central Park far below.
“How about Buddy Ebsen?” asked Jane.
“In what context?”
“As a dancer starring in this new musical
Yokel Boy
. We could see if we can get tickets for that or—”
The phone rang again.
I answered it. “Yeah?”
“Is this Miss Danner’s secretary?” inquired a very polite female voice.
“Actually I’m one of her valets,” I said. “But I can convey a message.”
“This is Mr. Diggs’ secretary at Empire Features Syndicate,” she said. “Might I speak to her?”
“Sure. Hold on.”
Jane untangled herself from the love seat and I handed her the receiver. “Yes, hello,” she said. “Oh, certainly. We like the suite very much and I want to thank you all for arranging it for us. Tomorrow afternoon?” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Tomorrow at two o’clock for our first meeting at the syndicate okay by you?”
I was back at the window watching Central Park South. “I’m only a humble lackey, mum. Mine is not to reason why, mine—”
“Yes, that’ll be fine,” she told the phone, thumbing her nose at me. “Oh, really? Yes, that would be swell. I’ll get back to you on that, Miss Spaulding. Fine. Good-bye now.” Hanging up, Jane returned to her
chair. “Miss Spaulding, who’s the private secretary of the syndicate president, says they can get us whatever theater tickets we might want.”
“Can they give us a roll of nickels to use at the Automat, too?”
Jane stood up again, eyeing me. “Boy, you’re sure being a sourpuss,” she observed. “Are you still upset because my syndicate is treating us to this hotel suite and all the—”
“I guess I am, yeah. Freeloading off Empire Features isn’t exactly the way I like to—”
“Well, I think it’s swell,” she said, hands on hips. “And, Frank, this is something I earned. Me, with very little help from anybody else. The way I see our marriage—sometimes you earn the money, sometimes I do, most times we both do. So don’t begrudge me the times when I’m doing terrific in my chosen profession, huh?”
I sulked for about thirty seconds, then thought better of it. “Okay, sorry,” I said. “Won’t happen again.”
She sat, retrieved the magazine. “Or would you rather see Carmen Miranda?”
“Is she the one who wears bananas on her head?”
“She also sings and she’s in a show called The Streets of Paris. We could see if we can get tickets to that,” said Jane. “There’s also a new comedy team called Lou Costello and Bud Abbott in that one.”
“Used to be if you wore bananas on your head, they locked you up someplace.”
“Not if you’re from Brazil.”
“I’m still not clear as to what a Brazilian Bombshell is doing on the streets of Paris.”
“We could go to the darn show and find out, Frank.”
“Let’s go to both of them, Ebsen and Carmen Miranda,” I suggested. “Not concurrently, but on—”
The telephone rang again.
T
he murder didn’t take place until that Tuesday night.
Groucho, as he later told me, had spent most of the afternoon at a rehearsal hall down in the West 30s working on The Mikado. Earlier he’d had lunch with George S. Kaufman and Monty Woolley at the Algonquin. Kaufman, with Moss Hart, had written The Man
Who
Came to Dinner and Woolley was starring in it at the Music Box. “Why people will pay good money to see a fellow portray a hairy Alec Woollcott is beyond me,” Groucho had informed them.
At a little after seven that evening, dressed in a conservative dark suit, Groucho was slouching unobtrusively along Broadway in the theatrical district. Under his breath he was singing lines from
The Mikado.
“Behold the Lord High Executioner. A person of noble rank and title.”
A plump middle-aged woman emerged from a coffee shop, glanced at him, then gasped. “I know who you are,” she said.
Groucho halted. “Well, quick, tell me. I’m simply dying to know.”
“You’re George S. Kaufman, aren’t you?”
He leaned closer, confiding, “Right you are, madam. I am indeed the renowned playwright and podiatrist.”
“We laughed all through
The Man Who Came to Dinner
. Last week, my husband and I.”
“Yes, and I can tell you there were a lot of complaints about the pair
of you. Here I pen a somber tragedy and you and your spouse go tittering all over the place and spoiling it for everybody.”
After eyeing him for a few seconds, she giggled. “You’re pulling my leg, Mr. Kaufman.”
Groucho rolled his eyes, shook his head. “I pass. I won’t respond to such obvious bait.”
“Tell me, what’s your next play going to be? I hear rumors that you and Mr. Hart have a new—”
“I’ve made up my mind to try a comedy this time,” he informed her. “It will be based on the life of the funniest man in America. A humble fellow named Groucho Marx.”
“Oh, he’s not all that funny,” she said, nose wrinkling. “If you want to see somebody who’s really funny, go catch Bobby Clark in
The Streets of Paris.”
“By Jove,” he said, moving along, “I believe I’ll do that at once.”
A few moments later he entered Alfie’s Pub, a narrow shadowy little bar just off Broadway. He stood for a moment near the paneled door. Then he spotted Dian Bowers sitting by herself in a booth.
He made his way over to her, bowed, kissed her hand, and sat opposite. “You’re looking a mite peaked, my child. Is all well?”
“To be honest, Groucho,” said the actress, “not much is well at all. Manheim and Arneson have been at me off and on all day not to go to the opening of Jim’s play tonight.” She sighed quietly. “Matter of fact, I had to sneak out of the hotel to come over here and meet you.”
“Women who rendezvous with me often have to sneak and slink,” he said. “You really, however, have to tell Manheim that his overly paternal attitudes toward you are—”
“And I also think he’s got somebody shadowing me.”
Groucho glanced around the moderately crowded bar. “Somebody other than Arneson?”
“It’s okay, I think I ditched the guy,” she said. “A seedy fellow, some sort of private investigator, I’d guess.”
“How big is he?”
“Not more than five foot four or so.”
“In that case I’m prepared to thrash the fellow should he cause you any trouble,” volunteered Groucho. “And since I recently invented a thrashing machine, I’ll be—”
“I’m really not too happy about the way things are going, Groucho.”
“You can wear a veil and nobody will know I’m your escort, my dear.”
“I mean, I’m so damned tired of being told what I can and can’t do, who I can see, where I can go,” she said forlornly. “I’m tired of the whole business.”
“After
Saint Joan
opens, kiddo, you’ll be a star and you can tell everybody where to get off,” he said. “Of course, you can also do that if you’re a bus driver and that’s a lot less trying.”
Dian smiled. “I’m sorry I’m in such a gloomy mood,” she said. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“The worst thing that’s happened all day is that I was accused of being George S. Kaufman.”
“Come to think of it, Groucho, you do look a little bit like him.”
“Only below the waist,” he said.
She reached across to pat his hand. “Would you like something to drink before we head for the Coronet Theatre?”
“I would,” replied Groucho. “But I don’t see Ovaltine on the menu.”
T
he tickets Bill Washburn had left for his estranged wife at the box office were for seats in the third row of the orchestra section.
A very stylishly dressed matron in the seat behind Groucho said to her handsome escort, “Look, dear, isn’t that the theater critic George Jean Nathan over there on the aisle?”
“Looks a good deal like him, Iris.”
Groucho turned, resting his elbow on the back of his seat. “Actually, folks, that’s Nathan Jean George, his cousin.”
“I’ll thank you not to intrude on a private conversation, sir,” admonished the handsome escort.
“And I’ll thank you not to continue to babble once the play starts,” Groucho said. “It annoys me extremely when people talk while I’m trying to eat peanut brittle and clip my toenails.”
“You’re a first-class boor,” said the woman.
“It’s too late to try to flatter me now.”
Dian touched Groucho’s arm, saying quietly, “This isn’t my opening night, but I sure feel nervous and uneasy.”
“Perhaps you still identify with your husband,” he suggested.
“I suppose I do.”
“Could be you still like the guy.”
She said, “Yes, I think so.”
Groucho glanced back at the couple behind them. “Don’t look now, folks, but Gene Tunney, Gene Tierney, King George, and Nathan Delicatessen just came in and sat on George Jean Nathan’s lap.”
They both ignored him.
About ten minutes later the houselights dimmed and the curtain rose on the first act of
Make Mine Murder
. It was a comedy mystery, pretty much in
The Cat and the Canary
tradition. The opening scenes took place in a gloomy Long Island mansion during a thunderstorm. An assortment of lively, and mostly suspicious, characters were gathering for the midnight reading of a will.
The actress who was taking the part of the granddaughter of the deceased eccentric millionaire was Elena Styverson, who’d been playing ingenues on Broadway for nearly a decade now. Her first entrance drew enthusiastic applause from the audience. Bill Washburn, a lean dark-haired young man, had the part of Jake Scanlon, a wisecracking reporter for a New York tabloid. He’d barged into the mansion, hoping for a story about the dead man’s allegedly strange will. When he initially stepped onto the stage, there wasn’t much in the way of applause, except from Dian and Groucho.
Pringle, the crotchety old lawyer who knew the secret of the will,
vanished mysteriously at the end of the second scene. In the third, the reporter and the granddaughter, who’d formed a somewhat bickering team, decided to hunt for the old man. The veteran actor Andrew Truett was playing the lawyer.
When they were alone in the living room, with lightning flashing and thunder booming outside in the stormy night, Elena Styverson said, “You know, Mr. Scanlon, in the movies they always—”
“Hey, kid, you can call me Jake. All my friends do.”
She smiled, moving toward a closet door. “Okay, Jake.”
“And you were saying, sweetheart?”
“Oh, that in the movies they always find missing people stowed in the closet.”
Washburn laughed, pushing his hat brim up. “That’s only in the movies.”
“Even so, Mr.—I mean, Jake. Even so, we’d better look and make sure Mr. Pringle hasn’t gotten in there somehow.”
Laughing, Washburn strode to the closet door and took hold of the knob and turned it. “Come out of there, Pringle, old boy.”
He yanked the door open.
A body fell out and slammed onto the Persian carpet with an echoing thud.
Elena Styverson screamed.
Washburn started to put an arm around her, then stepped back and said, “Holy Christ, that’s not a dummy.”
Dian, exhaling sharply, gripped Groucho’s arm. “My god, it’s Manheim.”
“That it is,” he agreed. “And this time it looks like he’s really dead.”