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

"Would that be Felix Denker," asked Groucho as he rear-ranged the coat, "the noted emigre director?"
"Yes, he's got a three-picture contract with the studio."
"I ran into him quite a few times at Anti-Nazi League fes-tivities, Rollo," Groucho told me. "I admired his political
even though I thought Denker himself was an unmitigated putz and a pain in the tokus." He puffed on his cigar. "But I su
it's not polite to speak too ill of the dead. So cancel the putz part of that remark."
Pointing a thumb at the wide doorway, I suggested, "We'd better go take a look."
Groucho patted Isobel on her lower back. "Are you capable of guiding us, my child?"
"I think so, yes," she said. "I really have to go back there eventually anyway. I dropped my script on the set when
him sitting there dead."


The dead man was sitting stiffly in Sherlock Holmes's arm-chair in the study at 221B Baker Street. He was tilted
left in the velvet chair, his rigid left arm hovering over the small stack of early twentieth-century magazines that were sca
on the end table.
Felix Denker, a lean man in his middle fifties, had been shot twice on the upper right side of his chest. His twisted
and the front of his cream-colored silk shirt were splotched with dark, dried blood. His black hair was still neatly par
the middle and slicked down, but his monocle had fallen to the floor of the set and lay on the white bearskin rug. Ther
no sign of a gun.
With Isobel's help, we'd located the control panels and turned on sufficient lights.
Careful not to disturb anything too much, I'd approached the body of the murdered director. Judging by the progr
rigor mortis, I figured he'd been shot several hours earlier. "Looks like he's been dead since last night," I said. "When
see Denker last, Isobel?"
She'd remained at the edge of the set, her reclaimed script clutched tightly to her chest with both hands. "Well, when
the studio yesterday evening at around six, Mr. Denker was still in his office in the Directors Building."
Groucho was wandering around in the simulation of Holmes's lodgings. "1 assume Felix was directing The Val
Fear?" he asked the blonde.
"Yes, and he hated it."
"Having to work with Miles Ravenshaw would give any-body the heebie-jeebies." Groucho leaned over to peek in
microscope that rested on the chemistry bench in the corner. "How'd Little Egypt get in there?"
"He and Mr. Ravenshaw were continually squabbling, sure, but that wasn't what upset him," explained Isobel, try
look at Groucho without looking at the corpse. "Mammoth had pretty much promised Mr. Denker that he'd be directin
quality films, but then they stuck him with a mystery. His first American film, Lynch Mob, was nominated for an Os
1936, you know."
"Yes indeedy, Felix had mentioned that fact to me on more than one occasion." Groucho was inspecting the pipe ra
the set wall. "It always annoyed him when I stoutly insisted that I'd once seen a Walt Disney Silly Symphony with the
title as his masterpiece."
"Was he shooting the Holmes movie here last night?" I asked Isobel.
"No, we did only outdoor stuff yesterday over at the Lon-don standing set." She frowned. "We weren't due to u
set until this afternoon. I only tried hunting for him here be-cause he had a habit of looking over the day's sets by h
sometimes."
"So he might've dropped in here last night to do that?"
"I suppose, yes."
"That's odd." Groucho was crouched next to Denker's body, eyeing his stiff left hand. "Forefinger's bloody."
There was dried blood thick on the dead director's finger. "Hey, it looks like he scrawled something on the cover o
magazine."
The top magazine was a prop copy of The Strand from 1915. Up just under the logo Denker had apparently star
write something on the pale cover, using his own blood for ink.
"Appears to be the number four," concluded Groucho, squinting.
It did look like an open-topped numeral four. "A dying mes-sage, maybe?" I glanced over at the script girl. "Four
anything?"