Just shy of midnight, I awakened Dorgan and hooked him up to his leash. Then I encouraged him to sniff the Babs McLaughlin handkerchief that Groucho had purloined.
The bloodhound, after doing an enthusiastic job of sniffing, lunged for the door of our rustic Shadow Lodge cabin.
Jane turned off our lights while I held Dorgan back, then opened the door a few inches.
There were no outdoor lights down at this end of the property and only misty darkness showed outside.
Carrying the small flashlight and short-handled spade we’d brought along in the rumbleseat with the borrowed dog, Jane stepped, very carefully and cautiously, out into the foggy night.
Dorgan and I followed.
Two cabins away someone was playing Bing Crosby’s record of “I Surrender, Dear” on what sounded like a very old wind-up Victrola.
“Do you really think,” asked Jane in a whisper, “that the McLaughlin woman is buried hereabouts?”
“It’s a possibility we have to look—”
The hound had been vigorously sniffing at the air. Suddenly he went padding off to the left, head down, nose snuffling at the ground. Since I was attached to him by a short length of leather leash, I went along.
Jane caught up with us just as Dorgan pulled me into the woods beyond the farthest cabin. “I’m feeling extremely uneasy,” she confessed, walking beside me on the mossy trail.
“The anticipation of unearthing a corpse late at night makes most everyone feel uneasy,” I told her, taking hold of her arm with my free hand.
“Maybe so, but I’m experiencing the sort of goosebumps you get when somebody’s watching you.”
“We followed a pretty roundabout route our first hour driving up here out of L.A.,” I reminded. “And neither one of us spotted anybody following our car, nary a soul.”
“Suppose somebody was already up here, waiting for intruders?”
“Oh,” I said quietly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking about.”
“Dickerson the overage bellboy would’ve told me if—”
“This is the same overage bellhop who sold you a guest’s registration card for twenty bucks, isn’t it?”
“You’re right, Dickerson may not be exactly one hundred percent trustworthy.”
The bloodhound had been progressing more slowly into the woodlands for the past minute or so. He halted completely now, looking around at the dark oaks and pines we were in the midst of. Then he lurched to the right, leaving the trail completely to go barging into the brush.
Nearly ten scratchy minutes later, after dragging me through nettles, brambles, over fallen trees and by something that couldn’t have been but certainly felt like cactus, he came to a stop in a small clearing in the night woods.
“I haven’t been on a hike like this since I quit the Girl Scouts,” said Jane when she caught up with us.
Dorgan was very fretful. He started circling a patch of ground at the far side of the clearing, ground that was covered over with dead leaves and dry twigs.
Then, as Jane turned the beam of the flash on that spot, the dog began scratching at the ground. He got the cover of leaves and dry brush cleared away and went to work with his paws on the moist ground below.
Moving closer, I said, “Looks like part of the ground under here has been disturbed lately.” Working in a sort of partnership with Dorgan, I uncovered a large section of recently turned earth.
“Disturbed by the digging of a grave, you mean?”
I stood up and back. “Well, it’s about the right dimensions. Six feet by three feet.” I pulled back on Dorgan’s leash to keep him from digging deeper. “Whoa, boy. I’ll take over.”
“You’re supposed to say ‘Whoa’ to horses, not bloodhounds.”
“Since you’re an expert on animal husbandry, you hold him while I start digging.”
She exchanged the spade for the leash. “Sit, Dorgan, sit.”
Very reluctantly, the dog backed away and sat on the ground, making sad, whimpering noises.
I scrutinized the possible grave site and decided to start shoveling at the right-hand end.
In roughly fifteen minutes I was looking down on the dirt-covered outline of the head and shoulders of a corpse. “Now comes the even more gruesome part.” I set the spade aside, tugged out my pocket handkerchief and knelt beside the body. I took a deep breath of foggy night air, exhaled it slowly and gingerly started brushing the last of the earth off the dead face.
Jane had moved nearer and was shining the flashlight directly into the shallow grave.
“Frank!” she said when the features were showing.
There’d been quite a bit of deterioration, but you could still recognize the corpse. It wasn’t Babs McLaughlin.
“That’s Tom Kerry,” said Jane softly.
* * *
Earlier, at the Hollywood Bowl, Groucho had stretched out on the stage and attempted to make himself as flat as possible. Three more rifle shots had come flying at him.
All missed, though one went clean through the hat that had fallen off his head when he’d dived for the floor.
The uniformed guard had yanked out a pistol after the first shot and come running to the edge of the stage. “There he is,” he shouted, firing his .38 into the far darkness. “Way the hell up there.”
Two more guards had materialized out among the seats and were running uphill in pursuit of the gunman.
Groucho, still sprawled, narrowed his left eye and looked out at the rows of empty seats. “Worst audience response I’ve had since we played New Castle, Pennsylvania, in the autumn of 1916,” he said.
“Up that way, cut the bastard off!” another of the guards was calling out.
The guard from the stage had dropped off into the aisle below and was running up it.
The orchestra leader, who’d also thrown himself to the stage at the sound of the first rifle shot, sat up. “Are you all right, Groucho?”
“No bullet holes,” he replied. “Although my morale is at a low ebb just at the moment. Yourself?”
“Unhurt, thank you.” Busino rose to his feet, walked to the edge of the stage to squint out into the gathering night. “I think your assailant got away into the brush beyond the furthermost seats.”
A bit shakily, Groucho became upright again and then bent to scoop up the injured hat. “I suppose a bullet hole adds a touch of mystery to this headpiece.” He tugged it back on top of his bewigged head, frowning.
Two of the guards were walking dejectedly back toward the front of the Bowl. “Lost him,” one of them called through cupped hands.
“Why would someone want to shoot Harpo Marx?” the conductor asked.
“I think this particular marksman wanted to bag me, Maestro.”
Busino looked puzzled. “But nobody knew you were going to be taking your brother’s place here tonight.”
“On the contrary,” said Groucho. “A select handful of people did. What I have to do now is find out in whom they confided.”
“After this outrage, we’ll have to postpone the—”
“Like hell we will,” cut in Groucho. “The show will go on as planned. Nobody else is going to try to take potshots at me tonight, I’m sure.”
“Well, that’s a very brave and courageous attitude, Groucho.”
“Forget courage and bravery,” he said. “Once I take this Harpo outfit off, I don’t intend to put it on ever again. If I don’t do this tonight, I never will.” He reached into his pants pocket for a cigar. “Now show me where I can find a telephone. One I don’t have to drop nickels in, by the way.”