Received word from associates in Papeete that your confederate has arrived and that you’re on your way. So I’m on my way as well. We have our boat, and we’re off: The Solomons, New Guinea, Indonesia, Japan, San Francisco, our fortune. My friends do not wish to meet you. I do not wish for you to meet them.

I promise the cessation of all packages. I wish us both peace of mind, whatever we did. We were young. We were fools: all three of us. We’ve done our penance.

What our friend did or didn’t do is his affair. No?

It’s his affair.

I wish you good luck on your project. I wish you long life—

Your friend Hecate.

It was dated 1 July: just about the time we arrived.

Our guide offered to sell us the Aviatiks.

Murnau’s relationship with Flaherty ended in mid-September. David grew increasingly despondent about their quarrels and took to drinking as much as his brother. Some evenings he was confined to his chair by inebriation. During one of those nights, he let slip a story from Flaherty’s filming of Moana in Samoa, in 1923.

Flaherty had become good friends with a German trader. The trader had done a great deal to facilitate their welcome with the natives. After two of Flaherty’s lab-assistants killed another native in a dispute, the trader and Flaherty had a falling-out, the former accusing him of obstructing the course of justice by refusing to hand the two over to the authorities. Flaherty, however, was determined not to lose weeks training new lab-assistants. He leveled countercharges against both the Resident Commissioner, who’d taken the trader’s side, and the trader himself, claiming they were homosexuals who’d preyed upon Samoans. The Commissioner was told that the charges would be dropped if he left the country. He committed suicide that night. The trader, after being arrested, tried, and banished, committed suicide on the steamer carrying him back to Europe.

Even drunk, David had been unable to look at Murnau throughout the recounting of the story.

The next morning, Murnau terminated his partnership with Flaherty. It was arranged that Flaherty would buy out his share for five thousand dollars, to be paid when he next had five thousand dollars. Both Flahertys, it was decided, would leave by mail steamer for San Francisco within the next two weeks.

Crosby meanwhile came down with a case of blood poisoning.