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the bruise on my forehead. “After she had laid you out, what did she do? Pour water over you or skip with your wallet?”
    “She skipped without my wallet. She didn’t take a thing . . . she wasn’t the type. Don’t get this woman wrong, Carol, she isn’t the usual kind of hustler.”
    “They seldom are,” Carol murmured smiling at me.
    I ignored that. “While I was unconscious, she must have dressed, packed her grip and gone off into the storm. That was quite a thing to do . . . it was blowing and raining like hell.”
    Carol studied my face. “After all, Clive, even a hustler has her pride. You were rather beastly to her. In a way, I admired her for knocking you on your conceited head. Who was the man, do you suppose?”
    “Barrow? I have no idea. He looked like a travelling salesman. Just the kind of jerk who’d pay a woman to go out with him.”
    I hadn’t told Carol about giving Barrow the hundred and ten dollars. I didn’t think she’d understand that part of the story.
    “I suppose you didn’t want to get rid of him so you could have a heart to heart chat with the lady?”
    I felt suddenly irritated that she should have touched truth so quickly. “Really, Carol,” I said sharply, “a woman of that type doesn’t appeal to me. Aren’t you being a little ridiculous?”
    “Sorry,” she said, wandering over to the window. There was a pause, then she went on, “Peter Tennett said he’d be over. Will you have supper with us?”
    “I now regretted telling her about Eve. “Not tonight,” I said, “I’m tied up. Is he calling for you?”
    I wasn’t tied up, but I had an idea at the back of my mind and I wanted the evening to myself.
    “Yes, but you know Peter . . . he’s always late.”
    I knew Peter Tennett all right. He was the only one of Carol’s friends who gave me an inferiority complex. But I liked him. He was a grand guy. We got along fine together, but he had too many genuine talents for me. He was producer, director, script writer, and technical adviser all rolled into one. Everything he undertook had, so far, been successful. He had the magic touch and he ranked as number one at the Studios. I hated to think what he made in a year.
    “Can’t you really come?” Carol asked, a little wistfully. “You ought to see more of Peter. He might do something for you.”
    Lately, Carol had been continually suggesting various people who might put something in my way. It irritated me that she should think I needed help.
    “Do something for me?” I repeated, forcing a laugh. “What on earth could he do for me? Why, Carol, I’m getting along fine . . . I don’t need any help.”
    “Sorry again,” Carol said, not turning from the window. “I seem to be saying all the wrong things tonight, don’t I?”
    “It isn’t you at all,” I said, going over to her. “I’ve still got a headache and I’m edgy.”
    She turned. “What are you doing, Clive?”
    “Doing? Well, I’m going out to dinner. My — my publishers . . .”
    “I don’t mean that. What are you working at? You’ve been at Three Point for two months now. What’s happening?”
    This was the one subject I wanted to avoid with Carol. “Oh, a novel,” I said carelessly. “I’m just laying out the blueprint. I start working seriously next week. Don’t look so worried,” and I tried to smile at her assuringly.
    Carol was an extraordinarily difficult person to lie to. “I’m glad about the novel,” she said, shadows in her eyes, “but I wish it were a play. There’s not much in a novel, is there, Clive?”
    I raised my eyebrows, “I don’t know . . . film rights . . . serial rights . . . maybe Collier’s will take it. They paid Imgram fifty thousand dollars for his serial rights.”
    “Imgram wrote an awfully good book.”
    “And I’m going to write an awfully good book too,” I said. Even to me, it sounded a little lame. “I’ll write another play in a little while, but I’ve got this idea for a book and