Groucho Marx, Secret Agent: A Mystery Featuring Groucho Marx

One

Groucho Marx got back into the detective business again on Halloween of 1939. This time he solved, with some help from me, two more Hollywood murders and also managed to break up a spy ring and almost start another radio show.

He was proud of what we were able to accomplish as detectives and counterspies. I can modestly state that I taught the FBI a few new tricks, Groucho told reporters afterwards. Of course, J. Edgar Hoover may never have the need to saw a woman in half or pull a rabbit out of his hat.

The case, although we didn’t know it at the time, actually commenced for us on the night of Monday, October thirtieth. That was when Groucho bumped into, among others, Death, Satan, Paulette Goddard, and three separate Napoleons.

I’m Frank Denby, by the way, and I’d been working again with Groucho on a proposed new radio show. Before I became a scriptwriter, I was a crime reporter with the Los Angeles Times. I’m married to Jane Danner, the best-looking cartoonist in America.

Even though Jane wasn’t feeling exactly great that night, we decided to go to a large costume party at the enormous Seascape Pavilion over in Santa Monica. My wife was dressed as her mother’s favorite author, Jane Austen, and I went as—feeling somewhat sheepish about it—the Shadow.

Jane and I had been doing very well, and I was experiencing something that came close to being happiness. Still I couldn’t help thinking that this Halloween gathering, with its images of skeletons, ghosts, and death, was all too appropriate just now. The Second World War had officially started and was in full swing in Europe. Hitler had invaded Poland early last month; both England and France had then declared war on Germany. Meantime, the Soviet Union had signed a nonagression pact with Germany that put the two countries more or less on the same side. America was, so far, remaining neutral. But just about everybody, except the most dedicated isolationists, expected that would change, maybe before Christmas.

What none of us was aware of that night was that most of the essential figures in our next murder case were attending that Halloween party. Among them were one of the murder victims, plus the murderer, the head of the Nazi spy ring, and our client.

Let me explain who was giving this particular lavish Hollywood party and why Jane had convinced me it would be a good idea for us to accept the invitation.

Our host was Warren Lockwood. He was one of the wealthiest men in Southern California and came darn close to being a Howard Hughes doppelganger. Enormously influential, eccentric, and notorious for his romancing of glamorous movie actresses, Lockwood owned the Warlock Pictures movie studio, as well as the Lockwood Aero aircraft factory and a controlling interest in the Amalgamated Radio Network.

The Hollywood Molly radio show I was writing, based on Jane’s hit newspaper comic strip, didn’t air on Lockwood’s radio network. But the new radio show I was working on with Groucho looked like it had a good chance of getting an Amalgamated slot. On top of which, my agent had been telling me I was probably going to get hired at Warlock Pictures to do a rewrite of the movie script for Ty-Gor and the Ivory Treasure.

Jane was reiterating the above reasons, and a couple more, as we waited in the line of automobiles in front of the gleaming pavilion for an attendant to park our car.

To sum it up, Frank, kowtowing to Warren Lockwood right now couldn’t hurt, she concluded. Besides, Groucho’ll be there too.

I glanced out at the fog that was drifting in across the dark Pacific Ocean. It’s just that it might be too much of a strain for you.

I can stand spending a few hours around Groucho.

C’mon, I mean that in your condition, the physical stress and—

Hey, this isn’t the Olympics, she pointed out. And I’m only three-months pregnant, remember?

The fans who were lined up outside the big bright-lit glass and wrought-iron building were scrutinizing the occupants of the slowly moving cars. There’s Carole Lombard! somebody shouted out in the night.

Like hell it is!

Sure, that’s her dressed up like Joan of Arc.

Naw, Lombard’d never do anything that dumb.

When the scarlet-coated parking guy came around to my side of our Ford sedan, I asked Jane, You’re sure you’re up to going to this shindig?

Absolutely. I’m fine. So relax. Smiling, she opened her own door and stepped out into the misty evening.

Who’s she? cried a roped-off fan.

She’s nobody, shouted another.

Joining my wife and taking her arm, I told them, That’s all you know.

During most of the first half hour or so, I devoted myself to fetching a glass of ginger ale for Jane, whom I’d left sitting in one of the many alcoves overlooking the Santa Monica beach and the misty night ocean.

The Seascape Pavilion was a huge dome-ceilinged place, a cross between the Crystal Palace and a zeppelin hangar. The vast dance floor was ebony hued bordered by walkways of turquoise tile. There was already a crowd of over three hundred colorfully costumed people, the great and near-great of Hollywood, filling the place.

On the bandstand at the left, Warren Sattler and His Kings of Swing were playing. He’d had a fairly successful cover record of I’ll Never Smile Again and the band was playing that as I worked my way through the luminaries of the movie colony plus a large assortment of the usual fringe people.

I was easing my way toward the nearest bar and also hoping to spot Groucho in the crowd. I thought I saw him once, but it turned out to be, I’m fairly sure, his brother Harpo in a Groucho outfit.

I encountered a few actors and actresses I knew. Chester Morris, decked out as Henry the Eighth, stepped on the edge of my Shadow cape. He apologized and added, We ought to do another radio show, kid. Somebody goosed me, and I turned to see Carole Lombard, who was indeed in a Joan of Arc costume. Richard Dix, who’d been one of my idols in my youth, was dressed as a Royal Canadian mountie and already unsteady on his feet. He gestured with the hand holding his bourbon and water, asking, Have you ever seen such a gathering of assholes? I answered, Often, alas, and pushed onward.

Looming up ahead of me in the costumed crowd was Larry Shell, a photographer who was still with the L.A. Times. He was wearing one of his usual rumpled gray suits and, as a concession to the occasion, a lopsided pirate hat. He raised his camera and snapped a picture of a redheaded starlet in a hula skirt.

Standing next to her, one thick hand on her arm, was Jack O‘Banyon. Actor and amateur fascist, O’Banyon had organized a group of sympathetic cronies a couple years back and dubbed it O’Banyon’s Silver Shirt Brigade. Dressing up in specially tailored uniforms, the gang practiced military drills and rode horses in mock cavalry exercises. Sort of storm troopers on horseback.

O’Banyon, a wide, thickset man about six-foot-one, was wearing a Silver Shirt Brigade uniform that night. It consisted, as might be expected, of a silver shirt, black jodhpurs and boots, and a crimson armband that displayed a Maltese cross in a white circle. Groucho and I had had a run-in with the guy while we were investigating the Sherlock Holmes murder case.

As I got closer, I heard the bulky actor saying to Shell, Hey, pansy, didn’t you hear what I said? No pictures of me and my girl.

Hey, this is still a democracy, Jack, and I’m free to—

Give me the goddamn camera, Shell. The actor let go of the hula girl to hold out a hand. Like several of the other guests, he’d had a head start on his boozing.

I pushed toward them. Back off, O’Banyon, and forget about it, I advised.

He scowled at me. Oh, it’s the extra Marx Brother. The honorary Hebrew boy, the thickset actor said with an uncordial smile. Keep your nose out of my damn business, Denby.

Shell grinned at me. Hi, Frank, he said, lowering his camera. If you’re the Shadow, aren’t you supposed to be invisible?

It comes and it goes, Larry. How’ve you—

Hey, you two bastards, cut in the Silver Shirt, I want that frigging camera right now.

Fellows, this is a party, and everybody has to get along. Ronald Reagan, dressed as a cowboy, had left the side of his fiancée, Jane Wyman, and stepped between O’Banyon and us.

Lowering his voice, O’Banyon leaned close to the Warner actor. Listen, Ronnie, I don’t want any pictures of me and this particular dame printed anyplace. So I’ve got to have—

"Larry and the Times won’t run any pictures that’ll bother you, Jack, Reagan told him, glancing back over his shoulder at Shell. Isn’t that so, Larry?"

Hell, I was planning to crop the son of a bitch out of it anyhow, the photographer said.

Now he’s calling me names and—

Fellows, let’s have a truce, advised Reagan, pushing up the brim of his tan Stetson with his thumb. You and Miss Truett go one way, Jack, and Larry and his friend will go another. Okay?

After mumbling for a few seconds, O’Banyon grabbed his date’s arm and moved away.

Thanks, Ronnie, said Shell. That was very diplomatically handled.

I seem to have a gift for this sort of thing, he admitted, smiling. And I’m really not fond of these uniformed bullies. He returned to Jane Wyman.

Thank you, too, Frank. I think I could’ve handled O’Banyon, but I appreciate your support, Shell said. And how’s Jane?

Expecting.

Boy, that’s swell. Keep in mind, by the way when it comes to picking a name, ‘Larry’ is a lot snappier than ‘Groucho.’ He glanced around. Lot of rival camera guys here tonight, so I better be mushing on. See you around, buddy.

I continued my journey toward the bar.

Dashiell Hammett, whom I’d met once, seemed to be in civilian clothes. Maybe he’d come as his own Thin Man, but I couldn’t ask him. He was passed out at the bar, slumped on a stool with his gray head resting next to an abalone-shell ashtray.

The fellow standing next to me while I waited for Jane’s ginger ale and a Regal Pale beer for myself was dressed as some sort of Egyptian god. I was fairly certain he was Boris Karloff, but he might’ve been George Zucco. Because of the jackal-head mask, it was tough to tell.

Myrna Loy bumped into me as I was struggling my way back to Jane, and a little of the hard-won ginger ale went splashing out of the glass and onto my dark cloak. Groucho had introduced me to her at a party a couple years back, but it was obvious she had no recollection of that.

Oh, I’m terribly sorry, she apologized.

That’s okay, I said. Who’re you supposed to be, by the way?

I’m not at all sure. I ordered Maid Marian, but they sent this by mistake. Any ideas?

Madame Curie?

Not with this plunging neckline, no. And you’re supposed to be?

The Shadow.

She nodded, smiled, said, How charming, and moved on.

I noticed Dinah Flanders just after that, but had no premonition that I’d soon be entangled in her life. A strawberry blonde, she was a discovery of Warren Lockwood’s and, at the moment, the most popular and successful star that Warlock Pictures had.

Her latest movie, This Dame Is Dynamite, had been a box-office smash earlier in the year, and she was at work on a new one, tentatively titled She Sure Did. That night she was dressed, even though she wasn’t carrying a head on a platter, as Salome.

About five months ago, with considerable attention from all the newspapers, wire services, and movie-fan magazines, Dinah had married director Eric Olmstead. A Britisher, he’d come to the States in 1937, after directing a couple of very successful films in England. There was talk he might soon be working on a big-budget movie with his wife.

A lean, balding man in his early forties, he was dressed as Sinbad the Sailor. When I worked my way around the couple, they seemed to be having a quiet disagreement.

You really ought to go home, Eric, the actress was urging.

No, I’m perfectly all right, darling. I assure you.

If you aren’t careful, kiddo, you’ll …

I pushed forward into the crowd and didn’t overhear anything further. Up close the director had looked very pale.

Glad you could make it, Frank, old man.

Warren Lockwood was standing in my path, grinning. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his late thirties, handsome in a somewhat weather-beaten way. It was news to me that he knew me by sight, since we’d never met and the invitation had been sent out by his staff.

Good evening, happy Halloween, I said. Very nice party. Cozy.

He shrugged. Too many assholes in attendance, but that’s the way it goes in Hollywood.

So I hear.

"And I’m sure a lot of them have contagious diseases, but you have to risk that once in a while. I understand you’re doing a swell job with the Hollywood Molly radio show, Frank. Is the lovely Jane here with you?"

I left her over yonder. I’m on my way to—

Give her my best. Very charming young lady, and such a terrific artist. I’m thinking of starting a newspaper syndicate of my own, and I may see if we can buy up her contract. I wanted to be a cartoonist myself, but I got sidetracked.

It usually doesn’t pay as much as you’re—

Oh, and talk to Bob Wiener at Warlock about rewriting that lousy Ty-Gor script. What we have now is a piece of crap. We can use some humor, and see what you can do about the damn elephants. Oh, and we—

A very languid Julius Caesar had pushed up to us and taken hold of Lockwood’s arm. It was the director Jason Smollet, lean, in his fifties, not more than five-foot-five. He was accompanied by a very handsome, very suntanned blond young man who was apparently impersonating Puck. Earlier in the thirties Smollet had had great success with a string of lavish historical epics in the Cecil B. DeMille manner, among them Rendezvous in Vienna and My Lady Greensleeves. Lately, though, he’d slipped some and his most recent film, released nearly a year ago, was a Columbia B movie called Bride of Satan.

Making an excuse-me gesture in my direction, Lockwood shook free of the director’s grasp. You’re looking well, Jason.

Smollet laughed, very briefly. "I can assure you, Warren, that I am not feeling well, he said. Truth to tell, I’m feeling rather lousy."

Sorry to hear that. Maybe you should’ve stayed home and—

I’m feeling bad, Warren dear, not because of any illness, Smollet told him, but, rather, because you seem to have betrayed me.

He double-crossed you, for Christ sake, said the handsome Puck.

Hush, Rudy, advised the angry director. I’m perfectly capable of handling my own—

How, exactly, did I betray you, Jason?

You promised me, not three months since, that I’d direct the epic you were planning to do with Robert Taylor.

We’ve been having trouble with MGM about loaning Taylor out to us, said Lockwood. Soon as we iron out certain—

Oh, really, Warren dear? I’m not, you know, some pea-brained little starlet you’re trying to lay on your casting couch, cut in Smollet. I can’t be screwed with an obvious line of bull. His voice, growing angrier, was also rising.

We can take this up in a few days, Jason. Make an appointment to—

Such an obvious stall is beneath you, Warren dear. I was just talking to George Cukor over by the bar, and he tells me that Louis Mayer has already agreed to loan you Bob Taylor.

George is a fine director, but he tends to exaggerate.

He also, being a dear friend of mine, continued the angered director, informed me that you’re offering the picture to that pudding-faced Limey, Eric Olmstead.

Not at all true. And now I really have—

Just because you used to sleep with Dinah Flanders is no reason to give this project to that talentless husband of hers.

Very quietly and evenly Lockwood said, We’ll drop this for now, Jason.

The handsome blond, Rudy, said, There’s Olmstead over there near Patsy Kelly.

Splendid, Rudy. I’ll go thrash this out with Olmstead here and now. Smollet turned away. "He’s a mediocre director, but a fairly honest man. He’ll tell me the truth."

Lockwood warned, I don’t want one of your tantrums at my party, Jason.

Adjusting his laurel wreath, Smollet glanced over his narrow shoulder. I won’t go beyond a snit, Warren dear, he promised as he and Puck left us.

I suppose I should’ve told him I have no intention of ever hiring him for a damn thing, said