“At a later meeting, I got to chat up Edgar Wallace. He was very pudgy and very British. Always eating sweets. Very rotund. Sweated profusely in the California warmth. At first, he seemed to think my name was Kay Fay! Which gave us all a laugh. And then, ten days later, he caught pneumonia from all that sweating and was soon dead. Merian ditched most of his script and went with a new one by James Creelman and Ruth Schoedsak [sic].”