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from Europe, who’s sick, and she’s gone to visit her on a ranch out in the desert. See?”
    â€œYeah,” said Morrison Pickens, rising, “I see.”
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    He did not have to be announced to Claire Peemoller, star of Farrow Films, who wrote all the scripts for Kay Gonda’s pictures. He just walked in. It was never necessary to announce the press to Claire Peemoller.
    Claire Peemoller sat in the center of a long, low modernistic couch.There was no spotlight lighting the place where she sat; it only seemed as if there were. Her clothes had the trim, modernistic elegance of glass furniture, suspension bridges, or transatlantic clipper planes. She looked like the last word of a great civilization, hard, clean, wise, concerned with nothing but the subtlest and deepest problems of life. It was only Claire Peemoller’s body, however, that sat on the couch; her soul was on the walls of her office. The walls of her office were covered with enlarged photographs of illustrations for her magazines. The photographs showed gentle young girls and sturdy young men embracing, babies squinting up at parents clutching hands in reconciliation over the crib, old ladies whose faces could sweeten the blackest cup of coffee.
    â€œMr. Pickens,” said Claire Peemoller, “I’m so glad to see you. It was simply wonderful, but wonderful, of you to drop in. I have a great story for you. I was thinking that the public has never really understood the psychological influence of the little things in a writer’s childhood that shape her future career. It’s the little things that count in life, you know. For instance, one day when I was seven, I saw a butterfly with a broken wing and it made me think of—”
    â€œKay Gonda?” asked Morrison Pickens.
    â€œOh,” said Claire Peemoller, and her thin lips closed tight. Then she opened them again to add, “So that’s what you came about . . .”
    â€œWell, surely, Miss Peemoller, you should have guessed that—today.”
    â€œI did not,” said Claire Peemoller. “I’ve never been under the impression that Miss Kay Gonda was the only subject of interest in the world.”
    â€œI only wanted to ask you what you thought of all those rumors about Miss Gonda.”
    â€œI haven’t given it a thought. My time is really valuable.”
    â€œWhen did you see her last?”
    â€œTwo days ago.”
    â€œNot on May 3rd?”
    â€œ
Yes
, on May 3rd.”
    â€œWell, did you notice anything peculiar in her behavior then?”
    â€œWhen has she behaved in any manner that wasn’t peculiar?”
    â€œWould you mind telling me about it?”
    â€œI mind it very much indeed. And who wouldn’t? I drove all the way down to her house, that afternoon, to discuss her next script. It’s a lovely story, but lovely! I talked for hours. She sat there like a statue. Not a word out of her, not a sound. Down-to-earthiness, that’s what she lacks. No finer feelings in her. But none! No sense of the great brotherhood of men under the skin. No—”
    â€œDid she seem worried or unhappy?”
    â€œReally, Mr. Pickens, I have more important things to do than to analyze Miss Gonda’s moods. All I can tell you is that she wouldn’t let me put in a little baby or a dog in the script. Dogs have much human appeal. You know, we’re all brothers under the skin and—”
    â€œDid she mention that she was going to Santa Barbara that night?”
    â€œShe doesn’t mention things. She throws them at you in pails. She just simply got up in the middle of a sentence and left me flat. She said she had to dress, because she was having dinner in Santa Barbara. And then she added: ‘I do not like missions of charity.’”
    â€œWhat did she mean by that?”
    â€œWhat does she mean by anything? ‘Charity’—just