Read Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders Online

Authors: Ron Goulart

Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders (11 page)

BOOK: Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders
8.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
J
ust as the police were escorting Bill Washburn out of the theater for further questioning downtown, a very agitated Hal Arneson came pushing his way backstage.
When he recognized the actor, Arneson made a lunge in his direction. “You son of a bitch, you killed Manheim,” he accused loudly, attempting to take a swing at him.
One of Lieutenant Lewin’s men caught the husky publicity man’s arm, tugging him off balance and back. “That’s enough, buddy.”
Lewin had been standing nearby, talking to Groucho, me, and Jane. “Who’s this guy?” he asked us.
“Hal Arneson,” I answered. “He’s Manheim’s flack, troubleshooter, and bodyguard.”
“He didn’t do too well on that last chore,” observed the cop.
“You had it all worked out, huh?” the angry Arneson was shouting. “Decoy me to goddamn Greenwich Village and then lure Manheim here so you could murder him.”
“You’re nuts,” said Washburn. “I didn’t have a damn thing to do with—”
“Suppose you talk to me, Mr. Arneson?” the lieutenant said, moving closer to the group. “I’m Lieutenant Lewin, New York Police.”
We followed.
“This bastard,” said Arneson, breathing through his open mouth, “left a phony message for me at our hotel. It said that Dian wasn’t coming here to the Coronet at all. No, she was going to meet an entirely different boyfriend at the Fischer Hotel in the Village. Gave the room number and every—”
“You believed that of me, Hal?” Dian had been quietly watching them lead her husband out.
“Hell, if you’ll sneak off to meet Washburn, there’s no telling what—”
“Got that note, Arneson?” Lieutenant Lewin held out his hand.
“Naw, I tossed it in a trash can down on Bleecker Street.”
“Did you send it, Washburn?”
“No, damn it,” denied the young actor. “This guy is full of baloney. He and his boss were always imagining that Nancy was up to some—”
“Who might Nancy be?” asked the lieutenant.
“He means me,” explained Dian. “My real name’s Nancy Washburn.”
“To some people it looked overprotective,” said Arneson, frowning. “But this is show business and we were only protecting a valuable property.”
I asked him, “How’d you know Manheim’d been killed?”
He glared at me. “Who asked you to butt in again? Didn’t we make it clear on that train that we didn’t want any help from you or Groucho?”
“It’s commencing to appear,” said Groucho, “that you would have been wise to let us lend a hand on the Super Chief after somebody tried to shuffle Manheim off.”
“That was our problem,” the big man told him. “We didn’t need a baggy-pants clown to interfere.”
“My pants may be roomy,” admitted Groucho, “but they are, sir, far from baggy. In fact, my pants have been held up as examples of natty dressing. James Fenimore Cooper it was who held them up as examples of Natty Bumppo. But he was full of cute tricks like that and back at the stockade we paid him no never mind.”
“I’d like to know more about this attempt on Manheim’s life that took place on the train,” said Lieutenant Lewin.
“You can breathlessly await the full and lurid account that will appear in next month’s issue of
True Confessions,
” Groucho said, “or I can drop in on you tomorrow and tell all.”
“Tomorrow,” said Lewin. “About ten.”
“Why give a damn about that?” asked Arneson, jabbing a forefinger toward Washburn. “You’ve got the killer right there.”
“What we’ve got,” corrected the lieutenant, “is somebody we’re going to talk to.”
Shaking his head, Arneson took a few steps toward Dian. “C’mon, kid, I’ll see you get back to the Waldorf.”
She shook her head. “Groucho’s going to escort me home.”
“You’ve fallen a long way from grace,” Groucho pointed out to the publicity man, “when a woman trusts me more than she does you, old boy.”
 
 
A
bout a half hour later Jane and I were walking, hand in hand, along Broadway. Groucho, after borrowing cab fare from me, had left to escort Dian Bowers back to her hotel. The marquee in front of a small newsreel theater we were passing asked, “War Near?”
“Hitler’s going to move on Poland any day now,” I said, glum.
“Think about the murder,” advised my wife. “It’ll take your mind off the world situation.”
“I’m not feeling much like a detective at the moment,” I admitted. “You and I and Groucho poked around backstage, questioned people, and almost stepped on several cops.” I paused, shrugging. “We sure didn’t find out a hell of a lot.”
“We found out that nobody saw who propped Manheim’s body up to fall out on the stage,” she reminded. “It was dark backstage, with only an occasional flash of lightning and a lot of noise from the imitation thunder. Distracting—and somebody also knocked that stagehand out.”
“Yeah, and all he remembers is that just before he got conked on the head he smelled some kind of leathery aftershave lotion.”
“Could be a clue.”
“Sure, we can ask Lewin to round up all the guys in Manhattan who smell like an old saddle.”
Jane said, “Manheim was a pretty hefty guy. You’d have to be husky to lug him around backstage.”
“Then the killer is probably a circus strong man who smells like an old saddle.”
She let go of my hand, made a fist, and gave me a light poke in the upper arm. “C’mon, let’s have a little less gloom,” she suggested. “You and Groucho are eventually going to solve this.”
“So you and Groucho seem to think. Myself, I—”
“Frank! Frank Denby! Hey, wait up.”
I halted, glancing back over my shoulder. A small man, not more than twenty-five or so, was running along the night street in our wake. He had wavy dark hair and was dressed in the kind of expensive double-breasted suit you usually see in men’s fashion magazines and not in real life.
Panting, he reached us. “Gee, I had to run a whole block to catch up with you, Frank,” he said, smiling, holding out his hand. “Good to see you again.”
I shook hands, not sure who he was. “Same here, I guess. Who exactly—”
“It’s me. Nigel Windhurst,” he announced.
That didn’t mean anything to me.
Jane said, “You wrote
Make Mine Murder.”
“Bingo,” he said, grinning at her. “You’re Frank’s wife, huh? You ought to do something about his clothes.”
“I’ve thought about burning them, but he gets cranky when I suggest that,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Where does Frank know you from, Mr. Windhurst?”
“When Frank and I were buddies, my name was Stanley Sherman,” he told her. “Many’s the happy day we—”
“Stan?” I said, taking another look at him. “Where’d you get the dark wavy hair?”
“It’s not entirely mine, Frank,” he admitted. “You remember how they used to razz me on the
Los Angeles Times
because I was going prematurely bald? Well, when I struck it rich, I figured I could afford not to be prematurely bald anymore. I also capped my teeth.”
I turned to Jane. “Stan was a copyboy on the
Times
when I—”
“Cub reporter,” he corrected. “I came to Manhattan about four years ago and after the customary period of struggle, I clicked on Broadway. First with
The House on Gallows Hill
, which ran for fourteen months, and then with
Murder Gets Married.
That’s still playing over at the Belasco. Sort of in the
Thin Man vein
, only a lot funnier and with a better plot.” He sighed. “Gosh, when I heard you’d been backstage at
Make Mine Murder
, I got really excited, Frank.” He grinned at Jane. “I haven’t seen this mug for years, Mrs. Denby.”
“Don’t be so formal. You can call me Mrs. Mug.”
The playwright chuckled. “Terrible about Daniel Manheim getting killed in the middle of our play,” he said, taking on a more serious expression. “But, gee, that publicity’s going to be great. ‘Real Murder Halts
Make Mine Murder
.’ A terrific headline, don’t you think?”
“What’ll you do,” asked Jane, “if they arrest your leading man for the murder?”
Stan frowned. “That would be a bum break,” he acknowledged. “But we could run with his understudy if we had to. Although, heck, I’d hate to see Bill Washburn get in any big trouble. He’s such a nice guy.”
“I didn’t notice you backstage, Stan,” I mentioned. “Were you—”
“Cops wouldn’t let me back until they were finished nosing around. Gee, I told them I was the author, but that didn’t mean much to them,” he said. “I’d been watching the play from the back of the house when Manheim fell out of the closet.”
We started walking along Broadway again and the erstwhile copyboy fell in at my side. “So you didn’t see anything that went on behind the scenes?” I asked.
“Not a darn thing, no,” he answered. “Are you and Groucho Marx investigating this murder?”
“In our amateur capacity,” I said.
“That’s swell,” said Stan. “You know what I think? Your escapades as crime busters would make for a terrific play. World-famous comedian joins forces with struggling writer. It’d be a sure hit.”
Jane said, “But you’ll let Frank struggle with the idea first, won’t you? Before you turn it into a hit yourself.”
He chuckled. “Hey, gosh, I’ve got enough great ideas of my own to last me for years, Mrs. Denby,” he assured her. “Though if I did write a play about your husband and Groucho, I know who I could get to play your part.”
“Besides me myself, you mean?”
“Willa Jerome,” he announced with a pleased grin. “It turns out she’s a great admirer of mine. Do you know who she is? Very talented British actress who’s in a film called
Trafalgar—”
“We’ve met,” said Jane. “Mostly on trains.”
I inquired, “How do you know she’s a fan of yours, Stan? Was she at the opening tonight or—”
“Willa knew the Estlin Brothers in England, before they came over here to produce plays on Broadway,” he explained. “She visited them last night, saw our final dress rehearsal, and took the time to tell me how terrific she thought
Make Mine Murder
was. She’d love, she mentioned, to do a really good stage play when she has some free time from the Hollywood grind.”
“I was thinking,” I said, “that Greta Garbo would be a better choice to portray my wife.”
After watching my face for a few seconds, Stan chuckled again. “I see your husband’s still the great kidder he was when we were reporters together in the old days, Mrs. Denby.”
“Yes, he brings an enormous amount of laughter into my life,” she admitted.
We reached a corner and the young playwright said, “I’ve got to go meet some people over at the Stork Club, so we’ll say so long here.”
“So long,” I said.
“Listen, Frank, I think you and your wife owe it to yourselves to see the whole play some night soon,” he said, holding out his hand. “Give me a ring—I’m in the book—Nigel Windhurst, remember—and I’ll have them leave a pair of tickets for you at the box office. Sure nice meeting you, Mrs. Denby. Good night now.” He went hurrying away into the bright-lit Broadway night.
“Dorothy Lamour,” said Jane.
“Hm?”
“That’s who I’d like to see play me on stage and screen.”
“She doesn’t look anything like you,” I pointed out.
“Well, okay, you can cast somebody else, but she has to wear a sarong.”
“It’s interesting,” I said.
“What?”
“The way Willa Jerome keeps recurring in our lives,” I said.
T
wo uniformed cops asked Groucho for his autograph before he reached Lieutenant Lewin’s office in the precinct house. The lieutenant, wearing a different wrinkled suit, was sitting behind a slightly lopsided desk. The only thing in the office that wasn’t faded was a small New York World’s Fair poster tacked to the wall above one of the dented green filing cabinets.
Settling into the dark wooden chair facing the desk, Groucho inquired, “Who’s your decorator? The reason I ask is, I’m planning on opening a nationwide chain of latrines and I just feel he’d be absolutely perfect for the job of furnishing them.”
“How’ve you been, Groucho?”
“Well, Herb, about five months ago I thought I had an ingrown toenail, but that turned out to be a false alarm and I’ve been fit as a fiddle ever since. Are you going to hold Bill Washburn for murder?”
“We’re going to be asking him a few more questions.”
“He didn’t do it.”
“Maybe not,” said the policeman.
“If Washburn had murdered Manheim, he wouldn’t have been so stupid about it,” Groucho pointed out. “He wouldn’t have rigged the body to upstage him in his own play, and wouldn’t have hidden the knife in his own dressing room.”
Lewin nodded. ‘There were no prints on the knife, in case you were wondering.”
“I didn’t expect you’d find Washburn’s fingerprints on the thing.”
When Lieutenant Lewin leaned back in his swivel chair, it made a rasping noise. “Now tell me about what happened while you show folks were traveling on the Super Chief from LA,” he requested.
Groucho obliged, filling him in on the attempted assault on Manheim, and about both Arneson and me getting bopped on the head. In conclusion he said, “The means used by our mystery man on the train—blackjack and knife—are the same as those used by the person who actually killed Manheim, Herb.”
“Similar, yes.”
“Therefore, since Washburn was thousands of miles from the scene of the first crime, he isn’t your man.”
“Unless he heard about the attempt on Manheim—from his estranged wife, say—and thought it would be a nifty idea to imitate the style of that other assailant. Lots of copycats around, Groucho.”
“He imitates the methods of somebody else, but then leaves the knife in his dressing room?”
“Some people think it’s smart to act dumb.”
“Here’s something else to contemplate,” put forth Groucho. “Both the late Manheim and his stooge Arneson worked mightily to put a lid on what happened. They didn’t want any police called in, didn’t want Frank Denby and me to investigate, didn’t—”
“That last sounds sensible to me,” cut in the policeman. “I don’t think I’d want one of the Marx Brothers trying to find out who assaulted me.”
“I’ll ignore your cruel slur on my ratiocinative capabilities, Herbert,” said Groucho magnanimously. “I merely suggest to you that Manheim acted like somebody who perhaps had something to hide. Mayhap he and Arneson didn’t want to risk having the law look into their activities.”
“Arneson told me only this morning, Groucho, that they were thinking only of the impending opening of
Saint Joan
and didn’t want any
negative publicity to detract from that. Guilty consciences had nothing to do with it.”
“Malarkey,” observed Groucho, locating a fresh cigar in the pocket of his umber-colored sports coat. “To a gent like Arneson there is no such thing as bad publicity, so long as you get your client’s name in the news. If Manheim had been caught burning down an orphanage, Arneson would’ve sent out a press release headed
Producer of Saint Joan Has a Hot Times
“You don’t much like Arneson.”
“I’ve never let him sign my dance card, no.”
Lieutenant Lewin said, “Well, I won’t stop you fellows from poking your noses into the Manheim case, Groucho. As I believe I’ve already mentioned, however, don’t do a single damn thing that’s going to put you in my way or screw up my investigation.”
“We’ll solve the mystery without your even noticing it, Herb,” promised Groucho and lit his cigar.
 
 
T
he gold-trimmed revolving doors deposited me on the morning sidewalk in front of our hotel. Jane had preceded me and was waiting a few feet to the right of the gold-trimmed doorman.
“You’re sure you want to go ahead with this?” she asked as I pulled up beside her.
“Didn’t I once vow I’d follow you to the ends of the earth? And this sounds like a much shorter trip.”
From the side pocket of her plaid coat she took a small notebook and flipped it open to a middle page. “Okay, most of the secondhand bookstores I want to visit are down around Fourth Avenue and vicinity,” Jane said, consulting the list of addresses she’d copied out of the telephone directory. “If you think maybe you’ll get bored while I hunt for old back issues of
Judge
and the
New Yorker
and the old
Life,
why then we can separate and meet for lunch someplace in Greenwich Village around one this—”
“No, I’m looking forward to browsing in a bunch of cluttered bookshops,” I assured her. “After breathing all that clean pure air out in LA, I’m eager to inhale dust, mildew, bookworm droppings, and assorted effiuvia.”
“Since we’re going to be spending most of the afternoon from three on with the people at the network,” she said, slipping the little notebook away, “I just wanted to do something this morning that doesn’t have a darn thing to do with
Hollywood Molly
. And collecting old cartoon magazines is the closest thing I have to a hobby.”
I put my hand on her arm. “Hey, I’m willingly going with you,” I reminded her. “Stop apologizing and rationalizing, okay?”
She nodded, smiling. “Manhattan does that to me,” she confessed. “Brings out the schoolgirl. I get sort of giddy, excited, and insecure all at the same time. But … what is it, Frank?”
I was looking beyond her and the expression on my face had become what you might have called mixed. “Groucho is approaching from the direction of Sixth Avenue.”
Jane glanced over her shoulder. “So he is, and he looks quite purposeful.”
“For Groucho, yes.”
Unlit cigar clenched in his teeth and pointing skyward, arms swinging at his sides, knees slightly bent, Groucho was making his way toward us through the midmorning scatter of pedestrians.
He was still about five feet away from us when a plump woman stepped into his path.
“Why, it’s Groucho Marx!” she exclaimed, very pleased.
“It is? And here I thought it was probably Bastille Day.”
The woman asked him, “What’s the name of your next movie?”
“Well, if it’s a boy, we’re going to call it
Cimarron
,” he answered. “And if it’s a girl,
Lupe Velez.”
She giggled. “Mr. Marx, you’re spoofing me.”
“Oh, no, I’d never do that in a public place, my dear woman,” he said. “However, I’d be perfectly happy spoofing you in the privacy of my
hotel room. If you drop up there of an evening, we’ll spoof till the cows come home. Although I’m somewhat doubtful that the whole herd can fit into that dinky elevator. But then that’s not my problem, let Neville Chamberlain worry about it. That’s why we elected him president, after all.”
“Chamberlain isn’t president, he’s—”
“Well, see? I haven’t read a newspaper for over a week and I’m completely out of touch.” Bending some, he caught her hand, kissed it, and eased around her. “And now, good-bye.”
“Good morning, Groucho,” said Jane. “You’re looking very dapper.”
He frowned down at himself. “I am? I’ll have to complain to my valet about that,” he said. “But let’s get to the point of this meeting. Rollo, there are some matters about the case I want to discuss with you. Are you free?”
“As a matter of fact, Jane and I—”
“Frank, stay with Groucho,” cut in Jane. “I don’t mind roaming the bookstores by myself.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty near absolutely.” She leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see you back here at the Saint Norbert around two.”
Groucho observed, “You’re an exceptional woman.”
“I am,” she agreed and asked the doorman to get her a taxi.
 
 
G
roucho and I found an unoccupied bench and sat down.
He said, “Central Park is a mite roomier than Griffith Park. And there’s a better class of squirrels.”
“What happened to Bill Washburn?”
“That’s one of the topics I wanted to talk about, Rollo,” he answered. “The police are holding him for further questioning, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to charge him with anything.”
“For now?”
“There’s no guarantee that they won’t eventually arrest him for murdering
Manheim,” said Groucho. “There are those, apparently, who’d like to do that right now, but Lieutenant Lewin isn’t completely convinced that Washburn is a half-wit.”
“Since only a half-wit would hide the murder weapon in his own dressing room.”
“Exactly,” he said, nodding. “Unless, of course, Washburn is trying to be tricky and using the only-a-half-wit gambit to try to outfox the law.”
“That knife really is the one that was used on Manheim?”
“That it is. A fairly common type of kitchen knife that’s sold all across this great land of ours.”
“Any fingerprints on the thing?”
“Nary a one, no,” said Groucho. “No footprints either, meaning our killer wore gloves
and
shoes.”
“I suppose nobody saw anyone suspicious sneaking into Washburn’s dressing room to plant the knife, huh?”
“If they did, they’re maintaining a discreet silence.” Groucho leaned back on the green bench. “One of the problems we face, and a major reason for sticking with this case and finding the real killer, is that Bill Washburn makes a dandy candidate for the role of killer.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Manheim stole his wife, persuaded her to separate from him, changed her name, and tried to prevent them from ever seeing each other again,” amplified Groucho. “Those are some pretty good reasons for not being fond of Manheim.”
“Then last night Manheim shows up in person to threaten Washburn,” I picked up. “They have a noisy argument, yell at each other, and—”
“Whenever I have noisy arguments, I try never to speak above a whisper,” said Groucho. “I also refrain from slugging my opponents during a debate or leaving them sprawled in my dressing room afterwards.”
“You have to admit that Washburn had motive and opportunity,” I said. “Last night anyway.”
“But he wasn’t on the Super Chief when the earlier attempt was
made on Manheim,” said Groucho. “Which leads me to speculate that the true killer is one of our fellow passengers.”
“It wasn’t me or Jane and it wasn’t you,” I began. “And—”
“It couldn’t have been me,” said Groucho, “because I always refuse to take part in any mystery case where the killer turns out to be the private detective.”
“The fact that Dian Bowers was with you at the time of the murder rules her out, too.”
“Yes, by risking her reputation by being seen in public with me, the child provided herself with an ironclad alibi.”
I paused to watch three guys in business suits ride by on bicycles. “I’m wondering about Arneson.”
Groucho was leaning toward a grey squirrel who was approaching us across the slanting Central Park stretch of grass. “I know what you’re going to say,” he told the squirrel. “Harpo’s your favorite.” He returned his attention to me. “Arneson was supposed to be dedicated to protecting Manheim.”
“Sure, but when he got to the theater last night, he wanted everybody to know he was just showing up for the first time.”
Groucho took a book of paper matches out of the pocket of his rustcolored sports coat, lit his unlit cigar. “We might jot Arneson down on our tentative list of suspects,” he said finally, exhaling a swirl of smoke. “But I’m dubious—and, please, no Smith and Dale routines.”
“That dancer—Len Cowan. The guy who hates Manheim for ruining his sister,” I said. “He’s a possibility, too.”
“Yep, we’d best find out why he isn’t dancing his heart out in Chicago as originally planned.”
“I’ll check with May Sankowitz—she seems to be a chum of his.”
After taking a long thoughtful puff on his cigar, Groucho said, “And we ought to find out more about the activities of Willa Jerome and her coterie.”
“I forgot to tell you that she was at the theater on Monday night.”
“Oh, so? A whole night early for the opening?”
“She’s a friend of the producers and attended the final dress rehearsal.” I told him about our running into Stanley Sherman, alias Nigel Windhurst.
BOOK: Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders
8.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Fever by Amy Meredith
Surface Tension by Brent Runyon
Thinblade by David Wells
DASHED DREAMS by Worley-Bean, Susan
The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley
And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac
Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson
Keep it Secret by Olivia Snow
Crime Always Pays by Burke, Declan