For eighteen years she had kept the original note, envelope and all. She had sent only a copy to Bronson, tracing Harry¹ Gooddorf’s signature.

‘Baby, we’re set!’ said Pat. ‘I always thought it was a girl got Taylor.’

He was so elated that he opened a drawer and brought forth² a half-pint of whiskey. Then, with an afterthought, he demanded:

‘Is it in a safe place?’

‘You bet it is. He’d never guess where.’

‘Baby, we’ve got him!’

Cash, cars, girls, swimming pools swam in a glittering montage before Pat’s eye.

He folded the note, put it in his pocket, took another drink and reached for his hat.

‘You going to see him now?’ Helen demanded in some alarm. ‘Hey, wait till I get off the lot. I don’t want to get murdered.’

‘Don’t worry! Listen I’ll meet you in “the Muncherie” at Fifth and La Brea — in one hour.’

As he walked to Gooddorf’s office he decided³ to mention no facts or names within the walls of the studio. Back in the brief period when he had headed a scenario⁴ department Pat had conceived a plan to put a dictaphone in every writer’s office. Thus their loyalty⁵ to the studio executives could be checked several times a day.

The idea had been laughed at. But later, when he had been ‘reduced back to a writer’, he often wondered if his plan was secretly followed. Perhaps some indiscreet remark of his own was responsible for the doghouse where he had been interred⁶ for the past decade. So it was with the idea of concealed⁷ dictaphones in mind, dictaphones which could be turned on by the pressure of a toe, that he entered Harry Gooddorf’s office.

‘Harry —’ he chose his words carefully, ‘do you remember the night of February 1st, 1921?’

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