"Ron Goulart - Groucho 3 - Elementary, My Dear Groucho" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

ELEMENTARY,
MY DEAR
groucho
by Ron Goulart




Other Groucho Marx Mysteries

Groucho Marx, Master Detective

Groucho Marx, Private Eye




One

It was shortly before Christmas of 1938 that Groucho Marx matched wits with Sherlock Holmes.
The whole business began as an ill-advised Hollywood pub-licity stunt, but before everything was over Groucho
be-came a detective team again and found ourselves involved in trying to solve a couple of murders.
"This detective stuff is all well and good," Groucho had conceded, "but the next time you get me on a team, see if yo
make it the Los Angeles Angels. I just know I'd make a delightful shortstop. I've already had several years experienc
doorstop, but that's not as good exercise."
We initially got tangled up with the case early on a Tuesday morning in December. It was one of those gray, blurr
Angeles days, overcast and not quite warm enough. A few stray seagulls were circling up in the morning mist, intermi
visible, their mournful cries muffled.
I was driving and Groucho was sitting, slightly slouched, in the passenger seat of my new Ford sedan. He was q
sing-ing "Jeepers Creepers" in a very bad Swedish accent and keep-ing time on the dashboard with his unlit cigar.
vehicle is a considerable improvement over your late Plymouth coupe," he observed, inserting the cigar between his
"Though I really miss that raccoon tail you used to fly from your radio antenna, Franklin."
I'm Frank Denby, by the way, and I'd been writing Groucho's comedy detective show for radio. That, howeve
been canceled back in October and right at the moment we were collaborating on a script for a screwball movie come
was about a poor girl who inherits a bus line and the tentative title was Cinderella on Wheels. We were driving, o
over-cast morning, out to the Mammoth Studios in the valley to talk to a producer about our idea.
And let me mention here, for those of you who've been following these accounts, that I'd been married since June to
Danner, America's best-looking cartoonist. Groucho had served as our best man and also volunteered to sing "Oh, Pro
Me" at the ceremonies. We'd allowed him to do that only after he'd promised he wouldn't accompany himself on his g
nor throw in the yodels he'd been inserting during the wedding rehearsals.
While my career was momentarily floundering, Jane was doing swell. She'd sold her Hollywood Molly comic s
September and as the end of the year approached her syndicate had succeeded in placing it in just under 150 newsp
around the country. Her salary had climbed to seven hundred dollars a week. She'd already earned enough to buy u
new car in addition to a new bicycle for herself.
"I sure hope we sell this damn script," I said to Groucho as we neared the Mammoth Studios spread. "I'm enligh
enough to be able to live off my wife's income for a short spell, but I'd feel a hell of a lot better if my own funds w
hovering near zero."
"Look on the bright side, Rollo," advised Groucho, fishing a book of Trocadero matches out of the pocket
exuber-antly plaid sports coat but making no effort to light his dead cigar. "As long as you're a kept man, it's nice that
being kept by such a bright, attractive young lady as Jane. Now, the last woman who kept me insisted on keeping m