Britt, the woman behind Bogart’s right shoulder, calls her horse, which is seated beside her, Thumper. She thinks that’s cute. It is Thumper who, in his devotion, on what had been meant to be a riding picnic in Topanga Canyon, trampled Britt’s sometime lover, the agent Riggs, to death. Riggs, in his signature fedora, still haunts them both in the folds of the curtain. Britt is as yet unaware of this, but Thumper sees, and is feeling skittish. Of course there’s more to the story.⠀