CHAPTER 10
"Well, there it is, Harcourt," I ended my recitation. "Miss Briggs believes me, my wife doesn't, and I don't expect you to. But if you're interested, I can prove I'm Frank Jacklin any number of ways."
The G-Man finished his drink and stared absent-mindedly at the ceiling, while Arthurjean poured him a new shot of Bourbon and water—his fifth.
"Mr. Tompkins," he said at last. "I'm drinking your liquor in your house—or Miss Briggs' apartment, whichever it is—and it's not for me to call you a liar."
"Don't you dare!" Arthurjean warned him. "Not while I'm around, G-Man or no G-Man. Say, what do the initials A. J. stand for in your name? Abba Jabba?"
"What do you think? Andrew Jackson, of course. No, Mr. Tompkins, I won't call you a liar because, to tell the truth, I'm not sure that you are. Lots of funny things have happened in this war. This might have happened. But I can't do anything about it."
"Can't you at least check on the Jacklin angle?" I asked.
Harcourt shook his head. "Before I could do any checking, I'd have to report my reasons to the chief. If I was asked for a reason, I'd have to explain that I had grounds for thinking that Commander Jacklin's soul—and the F.B.I. has never established a policy on souls—had been blown from the Aleutians clear into Westchester County and is now running round in the body of Winfred S. Tompkins, stock broker. That report from me would go from my chief right up to J. Edgar Hoover, the Attorney-General, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Cabinet and President Roosevelt. Now, wouldn't that look nice on my record? Wouldn't that just put me right in line for promotion? Be reasonable, you two. I'm not saying I don't believe this yarn, but it would be worth my job to act like I believed it—and I got a wife and three kids in Brooklyn, no fooling."
Arthurjean remained silent for a few minutes, "Andrew Jackson Harcourt—" she began.
"You haven't said anything about this sinister guy Roscommon," I interrupted. "You could do something about him without worrying about me and my story."
"Roscommon?" Harcourt shrugged his shoulders. "Going after him would remind me of the time we hit the Governor of North Carolina with a Great Smoky barbecued bear. Roscommon is all he says he is and orders are out not to touch him. How do you think we ought to fight this war, anyhow? Blind-fold?"
"What about that Great Smoky bear?" Arthurjean demanded irrelevantly. "You-all from the South, honey-chile?"
"The Old North State, sugar! And you?"
"Tennessee, thank God! And the name's Arthurjean, Andy, and for the millionth time I'll explain that my dad's name was Arthur and my mother's name was Jean, so they ran 'em together, like Johns-Manville or Pierce-Arrow, but it's all one word. No hyphen. So, there!"
I urged them to get over their rebel yell and come back to the subject of the bear.
"Well, Mr. Tompkins," Harcourt explained. "It's this way. Up in the Smokies we have a special way of cooking bear. All you need is a bear, a bee-tree, a two-handed saw and a stick of dynamite. First, you kill your bear. That's mighty important. You skin him and you gut him and truss him up like a chicken. Then you ram him up as far as you can deep inside a bee-tree, just below the honey, and wedge him in so he won't slip. Then you start a slow fire underneath him inside the tree. The fire sort of slow-cooks the bear, like a Dutch oven, drives off the bees and melts the honey-comb. The honey just naturally drips down on the bear meat while she's cooking. Just about the time the tree's ready to fall—course, I should have explained you saw off the trunk just above the honey so the bees can get away from the smoke and the old tree will draw like a chimney—you set a fuse to a stick of dynamite, toss it in the fire and run like hell. Well, sir, the dynamite goes off and just naturally shoots the old roast bear out the tree like a projectile. Then you pick it up, lug it back to the picnic grounds, and I tell you, Mr. Tompkins, it's mighty sweet eating. Now this time we nigh hit the Governor of North Carolina, he was making a political speech over at the old fair grounds, and—"
"I think I get the picture, Harcourt," I said, cutting in on him rapidly. "We did pretty much the same thing with baby seals and popcorn in the Aleutians. When we were after Jap subs, the depth-charges killed no end of baby seals—concussion, I guess. So we'd pick 'em up in a life-boat, clean them, stuff them with unpopped popcorn, and stick them in the fourteen-inch guns. Then we'd touch off a reduced charge behind 'em. Seals are naturally oily so they went out the muzzle like a regular shell. The intense heat of the explosion not only cooked the seal but popped the popcorn. That puffed out, set up air resistance and reduced trajectory. Then we'd send a helicopter out to pick 'em up and have 'em in mess. Cold with chili sauce, they were delicious. One time when we were bombarding Attu, the crew of No. 3 turret forgot we had a seal in the center gun and fired it at a Jap redoubt. It hit—"
"I can see," Arthurjean remarked, "that I've been missing a lot of fun here in New York, though I'll never forget the time we pretended we found a dead mouse in a mince pie at the Waldorf—Now, who in hell can that be?"
The door-bell rang insistently.
Harcourt looked a little uneasy. "I thought it might save a lot of time and trouble," he said, "if I asked Mrs. Tompkins to meet us here. I told her that Miss Briggs was a friend of mine—sugar, you'd better go in the other room and put on red night-things—so you don't need something more de trop than those to worry, Mr. Tompkins."
"That's just dandy, Harcourt," I agreed. "Did you ever see a wife who couldn't spot a sex-situation at a hundred yards up-wind on a dark and rainy night?"
"Can't say I did," the Special Agent admitted, "but I've never had but one wife and she's busy with the kids."
There was a knock on the door and Harcourt opened it with a courtly manner.
"Come right in, Mrs. Tompkins," he said. "My friend, Miss Briggs, is in the other room and will be out in a moment. Mr. Tompkins and I—"
"This," said Germaine, "is Mrs. Rutherford. After Winnie didn't turn up for a couple of nights, we put our heads together and decided that two could worry as cheaply as one. So when I got your message, I just phoned Virginia and here we are. Hullo, Winnie, is this another of your homes away from home?"
Virginia Rutherford looked pretty much the way a roasting bear in a bee-tree might be expected to feel while waiting for the dynamite to explode: very sweet, red-hot and not giving a damn whether she hit the Governor of the Old North State.
"Hullo, Winnie," she remarked dangerously. "This another of your tousled blondes?"
"I resent that," Arthurjean said from the doorway. "This is my flat and I didn't invite you and I'll have you know that I'm a very respectable—well, rather respectable—working girl."
The effect of virtue was only slightly marred by the fact that, as she spoke, a pair of silk panties slowly but inexorably slid below the hem of her skirt and settled in a shimmer at her feet. Arthurjean looked down.
"Oh, hell, girls," she said, "What's the use? Have a drink!"
"Thank you, Miss Briggs," Germaine replied. "I will. Make mine straight Scotch and the same for Mrs. Rutherford. Are you, by any chance, employed in my husband's office?"
"I'm his secretary," Arthurjean admitted.
"Winnie," Jimmie turned on me with a snap like those doors in Penn Station which open by an electric eye, "and you swore that you had nothing to do with the office-girls. I was fool enough to believe you."
"At the time, dear," I explained guiltily, "I didn't know it myself."
Harcourt came lumbering to my rescue. "Before you leap to any conclusions, Mrs. Tompkins," he urged, "I think I ought to explain that I represent the F.B.I. and that Mr. Tompkins came here today at my request. Your husband happens to be in very serious trouble under the Espionage Act. I personally am convinced that there's been a mistake and that he's innocent, but my opinion is of no value unless I can find evidence to support it."
"What's he done?" Virginia Rutherford asked eagerly. "Will he go to jail?"
"Unfortunately, Mrs. Rutherford," Harcourt replied, "I'm not allowed to discuss the nature of the charges against him. No formal indictment has been lodged and if you can help me, none will be made. The important thing is to know where he was and what he was doing from the twenty-fifth of March until the second of April."
"Why the twenty-fifth of March?" my wife demanded. "He was with me at Bedford Hills most of that time. I, and the maid at the house, Myrtle, can testify to that. I don't think he went to the office much that week. It was Holy Week. He and I went to church."
"Mrs. Tompkins," he said, "you are a true and noble lady. It's just too bad that one of our agents has already interviewed the Hubble girl, who testified that Mr. Tompkins didn't come home once all that week."
Germaine sank back in her chair and looked at me with an air of misplaced consecration. "Winnie," she urged, "go ahead and tell him where you were. I'm your wife and I don't care what silliness you were up to or what woman you were with, just so they don't send you to prison."
I smiled at her. "Jimmie," I replied, "I give you my word, I simply don't remember. I don't know where I was. As I told you the other day, I've drawn a blank as to what happened before last Monday afternoon."
Mrs. Rutherford took advantage of the moment of incredulous silence which followed this announcement.
"Don't try to be chivalrous, Winnie," she urged me. "We hadn't planned to advertise it, Jimmie, but Winnie spent that week with me. He rented a flat for me uptown, Mr. Harcourt, about six weeks ago, and we put in a whole week together. I daresay you think I'm a loose woman but—"
Harcourt looked quite painfully embarrassed. "I surely do not want to contradict a lady," he told her, "but the Bureau checked up on that apartment yesterday. The janitor and the cleaning woman both stated that, except for last Monday afternoon and evening when you were there by yourself, neither you nor Mr. Tompkins had been near the place for at least two weeks. The bed linen and the bath towels hadn't been used and the food in the ice-box was stale. There had been no garbage."
"Oh!" flared Virginia, "of all the low-down snoopers!"
"The country's at war, Mrs. Rutherford," the Special Agent replied. "And while I'm at it I might as well save Miss Briggs the trouble of telling me that Mr. Tompkins spent that week here with her. He did not. We've checked this apartment house most thoroughly, as well as Mr. Tompkins' office."
"Why that particular week?" I asked.
Harcourt turned to me apologetically. "In view of your earlier statements to me," he declared, "I'm sure you will understand this explanation. A certain ship did not sail from a certain port until the 26th of March. A certain article was not delivered on board that ship until after she had sailed. Before then, the individual who brought the article to the ship had no knowledge which ship had been selected. Before then, nobody on that ship had any knowledge that any article would be brought on board and had no knowledge of the nature of its voyage. Whatever arrangements were made must have been made during the following few days. That, at any rate, is the working theory the Bureau has adopted. Have you no idea of where you might have been in that period, Mr. Tompkins?"
I placed my head in my hands and thought back to that misty morning ten days before, when the Alaska pulled out of Bremerton Navy Yard and headed north through Puget Sound for Victoria and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I remembered how, as we returned recognition signals to the Canadian base at Esquimault, a destroyer had put out, come alongside and put a civilian passenger aboard us. I remembered the fuss he raised on the bridge while we made a lee for the destroyer and hoisted a large packing-case on board, and how it was hurried below decks with a Marine guard. Then I thought of the run out west, past Dutch Harbor and Adak, our light carrier slipping through the drifting fogs of the Aleutians, while the slow Pacific swell pounded against our port beam and the turbines whined and ship shook and the icy wind whipped across the flight-deck. And I remembered that last night in the mess when Windy Smith—of Texas, naturally—boasted that he—
"No, Mr. Harcourt," I told him, "I'm afraid that the things I remember wouldn't help either of us. You go ahead and see what you can find out about me, and so will I."
"Winnie," Germaine said reproachfully. "Tell him where you were, dear. It's no use pretending that you don't remember. I know that you can explain. I know there's nothing really wrong."
Arthurjean walked across and put her hand on Jimmie's arm. "You'd better have another drink, Mrs. Tompkins," she remarked, "and so had I. This sort of thing is tough to take."
Virginia looked up brightly at Harcourt. "If Winnie won't help himself, I will," she said. "I'll find out what the big dope was doing and when I do—look out!"
"Come on, Jimmie," I told my wife. "Let's go home. I've had about as much of this as I can stand. Harcourt, you know where you can reach me, if you get the word from Washington. In the meantime, why don't you follow up that Roscommon angle? That's the best lead I've struck."
Harcourt finished his Bourbon. "Mr. Tompkins," he observed, "you're quite right but there isn't a single thing I can do about it. We've had top-level orders to lay off that guy and with the Bureau, orders is orders."
CHAPTER 11
When I entered my office on Monday morning, the genteel receptionist informed me with some austerity that Mr. Roscommon was waiting for me.
"Okay, send him in," I directed, bracing myself for what would probably be a stormy interview. If Roscommon was as well-informed as he claimed to be, he must know that I had already reported him to the F.B.I.
"Smart work, Tompkins!" he beamed, giving my hand a vise-like squeeze. "Working as I do with the highest echelons, I'm afraid I sometimes forget the value of naiveté. You couldn't have invented anything better calculated to slow down the Bureau than to report me as a Nazi agent. Even the Director was impressed, though he'll see through your ruse after a couple of days."
"Is that what you wanted to tell me?" I inquired, "because your visit will certainly arouse new suspicions. I assume I'm still under F.B.I. observation."
Axel Roscommon smiled. "Nothing to worry about, old boy, I assure you. Naturally you'll have to go to Washington sooner or later and explain things there. I suggest that you go next week, when the whole Administration will be in a state of maximum confusion."
I asked him whether that would be any change.
"Absolutely, old boy. The war's been managed quite impressively well up to now. After this week, with Roosevelt out of the way, things will begin to fall apart and there will be plenty of pickings but the war is already won, so that won't hurt."
Roosevelt, I observed, was down in Georgia, according to the papers, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep in touch with things in Washington.
Roscommon stood close against my desk and leaned forward on his hands, facing me. "Listen carefully, old boy," he said, "and keep this to yourself. Roosevelt will be dead before the week's out—on Friday the thirteenth if there's any symmetry to be expected in this crazy world. It's the same stuff they gave Woodrow Wilson over at Paris in the spring of 1919. You may remember that chap Yardley wrote a book, 'The American Black Chamber,' and told how the American Intelligence got word of a plot to poison Wilson by one of America's allies. Not long after, Wilson had a slight illness and a few months later had a stroke, as they called it. You see your American Constitution—marvelous document, that!—makes absolutely no bloody provision for the illness of a President, and Wilson's paralysis paralyzed your government for nearly two years, while America's allies cleaned up on the peace-arrangements.
"Roosevelt is tougher than Wilson was. They slipped him the first dose at Teheran early last year. When he came back that spring he had a slight illness—they called it influenza—and he was never quite the same. Except for a few trusted social associates, close friends and members of the family, he was kept in strict seclusion. Then, with his amazing vitality, he began to throw off the stuff and staged a magnificent political campaign last fall. So they had to try again at Yalta early this year. The second time they gave him too much. He had one bad attack on the cruiser coming back from the Mediterranean. When he addressed Congress, he had the same gaunt look and thick speech that Wilson had towards the end. The final stroke is due this week and has been held off only because he's taking things easy. No, old chap, Roosevelt's doomed and all I can tell you is that the Germans had no part in it. Only five men in America know about this, and F.D.R. is one of them."
"You're talking utter piffle," I replied. "I can see how Hitler or Tojo might want to get rid of Roosevelt but who else? Why don't you warn the authorities. Or I could."
Roscommon smiled rather sadly. "What good would it do? There's no antidote after the first twenty-four hours. If Roosevelt hasn't warned them, why should you? All that would happen would be to put yourself under the blackest kind of suspicion. Just fancy the reaction of the American Intelligence. You march in and say, 'See here, the President's been poisoned and will die before the end of the week.' They promptly call for an ambulance and an alienist and send you to St. Elizabeth's for observation. Then the President does die. 'By the Lord Harry!' they think, 'this chap we locked up said Roosevelt would die and now he has died. He probably had a hand in it himself. Let's fix him just to be safe!'"
I nodded. "Yes, I can see that," I agreed. "Look at what happened when Lincoln was assassinated. But if I'm not to pass word on to anybody, what's the point of telling me about it—assuming it to be true, which I doubt?"
"Naturally you doubt me, my boy, naturally. All you need do is to wait until Friday the thirteenth and if I'm right you'll know it and if I'm wrong you'll know it. But I assure you that I am not wrong. The war is over and Roosevelt is the only obstacle to certain long-range practical arrangements for organizing the peace. The Old World, mind you, doesn't like outsiders like Wilson and Roosevelt telling them what to do with victory. From now on, America is going to be immobilized. It's all rather simple, really, but I haven't time to explain how simple it is because the explanation is bloody complicated."
"You still haven't told me why you have passed on this fantastic story to me," I pointed out.
"Oh, that? It's just this, my boy. Sell the war short! Sell it short! You must use all the funds that Ribbentrop gave you to get a real nest-egg. With Germany defeated, our intelligence will need funds—decentralized funds—and this is your chance to do an important job. I don't care what the Foreign Minister told you to do with the money. Forget him—he's a dead duck, anyway. Just take the cash and sell the war short. Make a killing and then we'll be able to finance future operations."
After Roscommon had made another of his abrupt departures, I buzzed for Arthurjean and told her to ask my partners to come in.
Wasson was the same as he had been before—plump, dark-haired and energetic. Philip Cone was taller, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a quiet manner and a sleepy expression.
"Morning, Graham. Morning, Phil," I greeted them. "The other day, Graham, you got peeved because I wanted to go slow on the Fynch portfolio. I only had a hunch then but I knew we'd better not rush into one of our regular reinvestment run-arounds. Now I've made a check and I see the new line. Boys, from now on, we've got to sell the war short."
"What do you mean 'sell the war short?'" Wasson demanded. "The Japs are good for another year and those Nazis are fighting pretty damn well, too. You don't mean to go America First, separate peace or any of that rot, do you?"
"You know me better than that," I reproved him. "No. My tip is that the Germans will surrender within a month and the Japs before Labor Day. What do we do to clean up?"
"Je-sus!" Cone drawled appreciatively. "The bottom will drop out of the market!"
"No, Phil it won't," Wasson objected. "They won't let it. That would be an admission that Wall Street is cashing in on the war."
"Well, aren't we cashing in?" asked Cone, "I haven't heard a single broker or banker committing suicide since Pearl Harbor."
"Nuts to that talk!" Wasson replied. "No, Winnie, my point is that Wall Street can't afford a peace-scare selling wave, and if stocks start to drop the big boys will move in and support the market."
"How about commodities, Graham?" I asked. "You know that end of the business. The whole world will be hungry and naked. Can't we move in there without risk?"
Wesson laughed bitterly. "There will be only about eighteen governments and government boards riding herd on you every time you move in with real money in that racket. Anyhow, they tell me that this guy Roosevelt has ordered the F.B.I. to move in on the Black Market."
"Well, boys," I observed, "the way you put it we can't do a damn thing to make money out of the same kind of tip-off that set the House of Rothschild up for a hundred years after the Battle of Waterloo. That doesn't make sense."
Phil Cone smiled sheepishly. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, Winnie. We can cash in but we'll have to step out of our field. We could shift a million dollars to Canada. You can get a Canadian dollar for ninety cents American. A year from now it will be back to par. That's better than ten percent on your money in less than a year."
"What about South America?" I asked.
"Lay off the Latins, Winnie," Wasson advised me. "Brazil's the only country in South America that's good for the long pull and just now is no time to monkey with Brazil. They've got some politics just now."
I considered things a bit. "Let's see if we can figure out a way to make a quick killing," I said. "Suppose, for example, something drastic happened—like Roosevelt dying on one of his plane-trips—to mark the end of some of these controls. What would happen to the market?"
Wasson chuckled. "If that guy popped off, there'd be dancing in Wall Street and you'd have to shut down the Exchange because the ticker couldn't keep up with the buying orders. Prices would go higher than the Empire State Building. Hell! They'd hit the stratosphere."
"Is that your opinion, Phil?" I asked.
Cone shook his head. "Only a few suckers would feel like that, Winnie," he told me. "The big-time operators would be shivering in their boots. As long as F.D.R. is in the White House there's no limit to what they can make out of the war. If Roosevelt died now, you'd see the bottom drop out of the market and the damndest wave of labor strikes we've had since 1890."
"Damn it, Phil," I objected. "I wish you and Graham would get together on this one. I can't quite follow all your ideas. Business conditions and war-orders would continue, wouldn't they?"
Cone shook his head again. "No," he insisted. "The business community's got confidence in Roosevelt. Sure he's a tough baby, sure he's got a lot of dumb Harvard men sore at him, sure he's got the labor leaders and the G.I.'s rooting for him. But he's done a good job with the war, he's let people make money and some of his best friends are multi-millionaires, like Astor and Harriman. If he was to die, we'd have this Missouri guy—whatsisname? Truman?—and what can he offer?"
"Got any comment on that, Graham?" I asked.
"The way Phil puts it, it sounds reasonable," Wasson admitted, "but I still say that the first reaction to anything like that would be a buying wave which would send the market way up."
I considered for a couple of minutes. "I can't say I agree with you," I said at last. "The big boys wouldn't let that happen any more than they'd let a peace-scare knock the bottom out of the market. What would labor and the G. I.'s think and do if they read that the Stock Market quotations went over the top at a thing like that."
"Well, Winnie," Cone observed. "It isn't likely to happen."
"That's so," I agreed. "However, I think it would be a good idea to work out a representative list of industrials and go short on the market generally for the next thirty days. We can unload the Fynch portfolio as a starter. We ought to be able to pick up two or three hundred thousand if we work it right."
Cone nodded. "Graham and I will go to work on it now, and we'll have the list ready before start of business tomorrow morning. That will be the tenth, won't it?"
Wasson looked uneasy. "I don't like it so much, Winnie," he said, "but I've never seen you lose money on a hunch yet so I'll string along. Come on, Phil, this is a hell of a big war we're trying to sell short. Let's hope we don't fall flat on our face."
CHAPTER 12
The phone rang. "Mr. Tompkins?" A girl's voice inquired. "Just a moment, Mr. Willamer of the Securities and Exchange Commission will speak to you."
I didn't like that "will." "And who the hell, Arthurjean, is Mr. Willamer of the S.E.C.?" I asked in an aside.
"The woiks," she said.
"Hullo, Tompkins," a clear phonogenic baritone inquired. "This is Harry Willamer. I saw your list of selling-orders this morning and wondered if you would drop in and see me."
"Certainly," I said. "Shall I bring my books?"
"Not necessary. This is entirely informal. As a matter of fact, I have some gentlemen from Washington whom I think you will be interested in meeting. This is entirely unofficial, of course."
"How about meeting me at the Pond Club at one o'clock?"
"That will be grand," Mr. Willamer answered heartily. "The Pond Club at one o'clock it is."
I turned to Arthurjean. "What kind of go-round is this? I start selling and inside an hour the S.E.C. is on my tail. Isn't speculation legal any more?"
"Baby," she remarked, "anything's legal as long as you're in with the right guys. All I can tell you is that Willamer is hot stuff. His aunt is a cousin of Jesse Jones or maybe it's Henry Morgenthau. So you watch yourself and don't do any talking out of turn."
It was Tuesday, the 10th, and I had launched my plan of selling the war short in a determined campaign to unload G.M. and U.S. Steel. I was well covered in case of a rise, but there was already a million dollars of the firm's money in the operation, behind the Fynch million which I had used to break the ice.
The Pond Club was the same as ever. Tammy was polishing the glasses in his little bar and there were no fellow-members in evidence. After all, I decided, they weren't likely to show up much before three o'clock. However, I decided that privacy was called for, especially if Commander Tolan put in an appearance.
"Tammy," I explained, as he produced his usual pick-me-up and waited for me to down it. "I'm expecting some gentlemen to join me in a few minutes. Is there a room where we could have a private conversation and still get something to drink?"
"Well, sir, Mr. Tompkins," the steward said, "I think I could let you use the Minnow Room. That's private and there's a dumbwaiter to the bar. Just push the buzzer and say what you want in the phone and I'll send it right up to you."
"It sounds like perfection," I told him. "I'll go on up to the Minnow Room. The gentleman I'm expecting is named Willamer and he'll have some friends with him. Just send them up when they arrive. How do you get there?"
Tammy looked a trifle startled. "That's where you had your bachelor dinner, sir," he reproved me. "Up the stairs and first door to your left, sir. You'll remember it when you see it, I'm quite sure."
Tammy was right. No one who had ever seen the Pond Club's Minnow Room was likely to forget it. The wall on one side was lined solid with illuminated tanks containing gold-fish making fishy little zeros with their stupid mouths. The other walls were enlivened by frescoes of drunken fish in various hilarious attitudes. Indirect lighting gave a sort of Black Mass or Diabolical Fish-Fry effect to the whole. It was definitely not a room to stay sober in.
"Tompkins?" The door opened and an egg-smooth young man with a baldish head and pale eyebrows stood in the entrance. "I'm Harry Willamer. Meet the rest of the gang. Here's Winston Sales of the War Production Board, Lieutenant-Colonel George Finogan of the Army Quartermaster Corps and Commander Raymond Coonley of the Navy Bureau of Supplies."
Except for the uniforms, they might have been cousins—they were all fattish, baldish and blondish. They were all egg-like men, middle-aged, all hearty in manner and all seemed to have no particular reason for existing.
"Well, gentlemen," I asked, "what will you have to drink?"
"Scotch-and-soda," said Willamer. "Hell, let's make it Scotch for everyone and save trouble."
"I'd like a whiskey sour," objected Commander Coonley. "I've got butterflies in my stomach after working with those hot-shots from Detroit last night."
"Okay," Willamer accepted the amendment. "One whiskey sour. Any other changes?"
There were none, so I signaled to Tammy and our order was filled.
"Tompkins," Willamer remarked. "You'll excuse this short notice but when I spotted your selling-orders in the market this morning I knew we had to move fast. First of all, I'd like to know why you are selling, when everybody else is buying."
"Mr. Willamer," I explained, "it's none of the S.E.C.'s goddamned business what or why I sell so long as I follow the regulations."
Willamer laughed. "Who said anything about the S.E.C.?" he demanded. "Oh, I get it. You thought this was an informal investigation by the Commission. Right? My fault. Should have told you that this has nothing to do with your firm's market-position or the S.E.C."
I took a reflective swallow of Scotch. "Then what the hell is this?" I asked.
Harry Willamer drew himself up, "We," he explained, "are the Inter-Alia Trading Corporation. Your selling orders suggest that you don't expect the war to last much longer."
"I don't," I told him.
"Neither do we," Willamer continued. "That's why we've been busy organizing Inter-Alia. It's a neat set-up. Sales here, on the War Production Board, is in a position to advise us of all cut-backs in war-contracts and keep in touch with the whole contract-termination program. Colonel Finogan is in the Quartermaster Corps and is the only man in the Army—"
"In the world, Harry," Finogan corrected him.
"Right you are, George, in the world—who knows where all the surplus war-stocks are located. His office routes them to the depots. That in itself is worth a million dollars to the company. Anything from jeeps to nylons, Colonel Finogan knows where they are and what price will buy them. Commander Coonley is in the same position on Navy Supplies. Between him and Finogan there isn't an ounce of anything from parachute-silk to bull-dozers which we can't locate. As for me, I watch the way money and markets move here in Wall Street."
I finished my drink. "That sounds wonderful, Mr. Willamer, but what has it got to do with me? You have the makings of a ten million dollar corporation between the four of you."
Willamer raised a soft, white, well-manicured hand in a traffic-stopping gesture. "All but one thing, Tompkins," he said. "We haven't got working capital to exploit this set-up. That's where you come in. Tompkins, Wasson & Cone controls between three and five million dollars and are smart operators. So long as you stuck to conservative methods, no dice for Inter-Alia, but when I saw you gambling on the early end of the war, I said to myself, this is where we can do business with Tompkins."
"How much do you need?" I asked.
"Three hundred thousand would be enough to start with," Willamer reckoned.
"Half a million," Finogan amended.
"Say you need half a million to start with and I put it up, what do I get out of it?" I demanded.
Willamer looked a little secretive. "Well, Tompkins," he admitted. "You'll get good security for your money, of course, and a share in what we make. Say a fifth, since there are four of us in it already."
"That sounds reasonable," I agreed, "assuming you have a sure thing. What's your first operation, once you get the money in Inter-Alia to finance it?"
Willamer looked still more secretive. "That is a firm secret, Tompkins," he told me. "If you decide to come in with us, I'll let you in on our plans, but this thing is too big to talk about until we see the color of your money."
I stood up. "Well, then, gentlemen," I announced, "will you have one more round of drinks and then kindly get the hell out of here? I'm delighted to have met you personally but I don't see the point of wasting our time unless I know what I am putting my money into."
"Tell him, Harry," Sales urged. "We can trust Tompkins not to take advantage of our plans. The way we're set up we could block him easy if he tried to double-cross us."
"That's right," I said. "It's your plan and you have the inside track."
"Well, then," Willamer explained, "here's our first operation. The Army and Navy have huge stocks of atabrine and quinine—left over from Africa and the South-west Pacific. As soon as the fighting stops, Colonel Finogan and Commander Coonley will declare these stocks surplus to be sold at spot-sales where they are. We will be the only bidders and we get a world-corner on malaria. The whole world needs that stuff and if we move fast, during the confusion after victory, we can sew it up and make the world pay our price. We ought to double our money in three months."
"Double!" snorted Sales. "We ought to quintuple it like Papa Dionne. South America is just lousy with dollars and here's a way to get 'em back home. Malaria's a big item down there. No quinine, no oil."
"Well, gentlemen," I told the Inter-Alia boys, "I'll have to think it over. As Mr. Willamer knows, I'm pretty heavily committed in the present market. Get in touch with me about the end of the month and I might be able to put—say, twenty thousand dollars—into your proposition."
Willamer smiled unpleasantly. "Come, Tompkins," he said, "you can do much better than that. Perhaps you don't realize that the S.E.C. might just decide to investigate your firm's market-position. You can afford to put in at least $100,000 now and, when you get out of your present operation, make up the balance of that half million."
I went to the dumbwaiter and pushed the buzzer. "Tammy," I spoke into the phone, "will you come up here and show these gentlemen out of the club. We've finished our talk."
"Nothing doing," I said to the others. "I don't shake down well."
Willamer blinked his watery blue eyes at me. "That's libelous," he stated. "I'm a lawyer and I ought to know. You can't accuse me of blackmail in the presence of witnesses. By God, Tompkins, I'll have the examiners in your office at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. And I'll sue you for damages."
"Oh no, you won't," I informed him. "I didn't call you a blackmailer and I doubt that your friends will care to testify. You didn't know—perhaps I forgot to mention it—but this room is wired for dictaphones and a complete phonographic record of this conversation is already on wire. I'll send it over to the F.B.I. in the morning, unless you—"
"Excuse me, Harry," said Commander Coonley with an air of decision. "I didn't hear any reference to blackmail by Mr. Tompkins. I'd better be getting back to my office."
"Me, too," chimed Lt. Col. George Finogan.
"Nice to have met you, Tompkins," Winston Sales observed as he strode briskly for the exit.
Harry Willamer turned to me, not without dignity. "You son of a bitch!" he remarked feelingly, and followed the others.
I waited until it was reasonably sure that the Inter-Alia group had left the building. Then I went downstairs to the bar and found Tammy alone.
"Tammy," I said. "You overheard our conversation down the dummy, didn't you?"
"Oh no, sir. Not at all, Mr. Tompkins. I—"
"Of course you did, Tammy. You heard these gentlemen try to blackmail me and you heard me tell them to go to hell, didn't you?"
I languidly waved a twenty-dollar bill under his snubby nose.
"Now that you put it that way, sir," the little bar-steward admitted, "I do remember hearing that Mr. Willamer say that unless you gave him $100,000 he'd start investigating your books."
"Splendid!" I congratulated him. "Just remember that, when the time comes. Now see if you can get me Mr. Merriwether Vail on the phone. He's in the Manhattan Directory—a lawyer."
"Merry?" I asked, after we had been connected. "I have a feeling I'm going to need your legal services.... No, it's not that one ... it's another kind of jam ... I'm being blackmailed.... No, you dope, it's not a woman, it's an official.... Yes, I'll stick here until you can get over.... What shall I order for you, a double Scotch?... Right! At the Pond Club."
There was one more move to make. I called Bedford Hills, person-to-person call, and asked for my wife. After the usual duel between local and suburban operators, Jimmie's voice answered. "Winnie," she said. "Thank goodness you telephoned me. You'd better come out at once. The most dreadful things have been happening."
"It's not so wonderful here either," I told her. "Listen, Jimmie, you come on in—"
"It's Ponto," she said, paying absolutely no attention to what I was saying. "He's drunk—yes, drunk! He managed to upset that decanter of old brandy you keep on your night table and lapped it up. Now he's howling and hiccoughing like mad and I'm afraid to go near him."
"Oh, Jimmie, to hell with Ponto. Let him sleep it off. You come on in to town. We've got to do some fast thinking. I'll meet you in the Little Bar at the Ritz at five o'clock. Bring your night things, and mine, too. We may have to leave town in a hurry. I'll explain when I see you."
CHAPTER 13
Merry Vail listened to my account of the encounter with the Inter-Alia gang and then rolled his eyes toward heaven.
"Poor old Winnie!" he expostulated. "Why didn't you try something comparatively safe, like robbing a she bear of her whelps or yelling 'Hurray for Hitler' in Union Square? Harry Willamer is a vindictive guy and his aunt or his mother-in-law is related to Jesse Jones. At least that's what the Street believes."
"What can he do to me?" I asked. "I have him cold on a charge of blackmail."
"Like hell you do!" said Merry. "First thing he'll check with the F.B.I. to find out if there is a recording of your talk. And there isn't. So it's your word and Tammy's against that of four high-ranking government officials. You ask what they can do to you? You just call Phil Cone at your office and see if they haven't started doing it already."
The steward made the phone connection and in a few minutes Cone's languid voice was complaining over the wire.
"Say, Winnie, what the hell have you been up to?"
"Nothing, Phil. Why?" I asked.
"It's just that the word's been passed to lay off Tompkins, Wasson & Cone. The brokers don't want to handle our orders. You know Manny Oppenheimer of Auchincloss, Morton, Caton, Beauregard & Oppenheimer? You know how he used to lick your boots if you stood still long enough for him to kneel down and stick his tongue out? Well, Manny cut me. Yeah, that's right. Cut me! What's cooking? Even my best friends won't tell me whether it's B.O. or dishpan hands."
"Just keep on plugging, Phil," I urged. "They can't refuse to handle our orders if we insist. I'll put in some calls on this.... Yeah, I'm up at the Pond Club with my attorney ... I'll try to call you back. That guy Willamer is back of this because I wouldn't go along with his proposition."
"Oh-oh!" Phil observed dismally. "That's enough for me. Think I'd better join the Marines?"
"You keep away from the recruiting-sergeant until we finish this operation," I told him.
I turned to Vail. "Merry," I said, "this is one for you to handle. Brokers are trying to get out of handling our orders and tenth-raters like Manny Oppenheimer are high-hatting Phil Cone. You put in a call and find out what it's all about."
Vail meditated. "Okay," he said at last. "You understand I'm acting as your attorney now?"
"Sure," I agreed.
He dialed a number. "I'd like to speak to the U.S. Attorney's office," he told the switch-board operator. "Yes, I'll wait.... Yes.... Oh, Ned?... This is Merry Vail. I've been retained by Winfred Tompkins. What I want to know is whether there are any charges against him.... Yeah, he's with me now.... No, he won't try to leave town. Suspicion of kidnapping?... No fooling?... That's cockeyed.... Listen, counselor, my client is innocent and stands ready to answer all charges—"
He turned to me. "Hell, he hung up!"
"What was that about kidnapping?" I asked.
"Oh, something completely screw-ball," my attorney said. "It's only that his office has received an anonymous charge accusing you of having kidnapped Winnie Tompkins and masquerading in his place. Ned also told me you were in trouble with other governmental agencies and said he'd see me in court."
"Damn!" I objected. "That sounds like Virginia Rutherford's idea of a snappy way to find out where I was before Easter. It doesn't make sense. If I kidnapped Tompkins, who am I supposed to be? I'm ready to take a finger-print test any time, even with these bandages on my right hand."
Vail clucked his tongue. "That attitude won't help," he said. "If you don't look out they'll say your prints prove that you're the man who kidnapped Charley Ross. No, Ned is full of prunes and he doesn't put much stock in this kidnapping angle, but the wolves are after you all right. Now I've passed the word, you can't leave the State, of course."
"Damn you, Merry," I objected. "I never told you—"
"You retained me, Winnie. That's enough. You'd be a damn fool to pull out now. Every G-man in America would be after you. My advice is to stick around. Today's the eleventh, Wednesday. Well, you have a week-end coming up, so you might just as well go on commuting between your office and Bedford Hills as be pulled off the fast freight at Oneonta."
"Damn that Rutherford woman!" I remarked. "She is the one who turned me in to the District Attorney. Up to now I've just had a few friendly passes from a nice guy from the F.B.I."
"I can't advise you on the subject of your sex life," Vail said. "But you have nothing to fear if you remember to cultivate a clean-cut manly expression and an air of amazed innocence as you tell the Judge, 'Not guilty, your Honor, and I reserve my defense.'"
"What shall I tell Phil Cone, though?" I asked.
"Wait a minute and I'll put in another call," Vail said. He dialed another number. "I want to speak to Joe," he said. "Yes. Joe. Tell him it's Merry Vail.... Joe, this is Merry.... Same to you. Say, what's all this b.s. about Winnie Tompkins.... Oh ... the hell you say!... I don't believe.... No, that's definitely not true.... If it was anybody but you, Joe, I'd advise him to sue for libel.... Yeah, he's my client.... Of course he's innocent.... Lay you five-to-one in thousands he is.... Done!"
Vail turned back to me. "That was the chief fixer in New York," he told me. "His word is good. This kidnapping charge is a phony. Just a move to tie you up. What they think they have on you is a charge under the Espionage Act, communicating with the enemy. Joe was vague but it sounded plenty tough. The S.E.C.'s passed out word to be cagey in trading with you. They can't black-list you or freeze your funds without a hearing, but they sure can put on the heat. How much did Willamer want you to put into his racket?"
"Half a million," I told him. "One hundred thousand now and the rest in thirty days."
Merry Vail drew a wry face, sucked in his lips and signaled to Tammy for another drink. "As a member of the Bar and an officer of the court," he remarked, "I can't advise you to pay blackmail. On the other hand, if you could see your way to making a substantial investment in the Inter-Alia Corporation, it might make things much pleasanter all around."
I shook my head. "No, Merry," I told him, "and you are through as my attorney. I'll take my chances without a lawyer from now on, if that's the sort of advice I pay you for. I don't mind a gamble but these boys figure to use malaria to put a financial squeeze on the whole world. Ever see a man die of malignant malaria, Merry? It's not nice and it's not necessary, if you have atabrine or quinine. No, damn it, you go peddle your papers and I'll fight this out alone. Tammy," I added. "Get me the office, please. I want to talk to Mr. Cone again."
Vail grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. "Like hell you'll do without an attorney, you damn fool!" he said. "I'm sticking with you, with or without a fee. Say," he added, "what's come into you to make you act this way? You used to get the heebie-jeebies at the mere thought of legal complications."
"Phil," I said into the phone. "This is Winnie. Things are plenty bad for me personally. You and Graham can pull right out now if you wish. That louse Harry Willamer or somebody has put me on the spot and I'm trying to prove I'm not a Nazi agent.... No, neither are you, but you might have a hell of a time proving it. That's swell of you, Phil, but I don't want to get you or Graham in trouble. Now's the time to pull out of the firm if you like. Naturally I'm innocent but just now it's tough. Okay, you take it up with Graham, will you? I don't want to have to worry about either of you.... Sure I'm in a jam but it's not your fault and has nothing to do with the firm...."
When I put the telephone back in its cradle I looked up to see Merry Vail staring at me.
"Winnie," he said, "you're innocent for my money. Fun's fun but this thing is dangerous. Now I'm your attorney and you'll sure as hell need one so it's no use firing me. I don't know what sort of a frame they've figured for you or why the F.B.I.—"
I laughed. "Okay, Merry," I told him, "you're still my attorney. The F.B.I.'s been swell. The Special Agent assigned to check up on me, A. J. Harcourt, couldn't be nicer. I'd trust him not to pull a fast one."
Vail frowned. "The F.B.I. may be swell," he answered, "but their hand can be forced. They have to act on information received and superior orders. Your man Harcourt may be the nicest guy in the world but if he's told to bring you in he'll bring you in."
"Then what's your advice, counselor?"
"My advice to you, Winnie," he said, "is to try to forget about it. Just go right ahead with your plans, whatever they are, just so you don't try to leave this jurisdiction or go into hiding. The best thing you could do is to go back to Bedford Hills and mind your own business and don't let these government so-and-so's push you around. Hell, this is a free country!"
"But I phoned Jimmie to meet me at the Ritz at five o'clock," I objected, "with our traveling things."
Vail glanced at his wrist-watch. "It's not three yet. If you phone her now the chances are she hasn't left. Tell her to stay put. Remember, the less you act guilty or scared the safer you are. The dog doesn't start to chase the rabbit until the rabbit starts to run."
I phoned back to Pook's Hill and was rewarded by catching Jimmie five minutes before the taxi was due to pick her up.
"Hold everything, dear," I told her. "Plans have changed. I'm coming out on the first train I can catch. How's Ponto?"
"Thank Heaven you called," Winnie's wife replied. "I couldn't find your dressing gown and your traveling case is in the room with Ponto and I didn't want to disturb him.... Oh he's snoring like mad. Passed out cold, I guess. He shakes the house. I never knew dogs got drunk, did you?"
When I first arrived at Pook's Hill I had a definite program in mind. First, I went to the kitchen, broke a raw egg into a tumbler and soused it in Worchester sauce. Then I added a good slug of brandy from the portable bar in my den. Armed with this Prairie Oyster, I went boldly to the second floor, opened the door to my bedroom and contemplated the debauched Great Dane.
Really, I could never have believed that a dog could look so completely blotto. Ponto was a bum in every sense of the word. He lay drooling and snoring on the bed, dead to the world.
"Ponto!" I ordered.
An ear pricked up, then dropped languidly back again. Then a blood-shot eye opened and shut. There was a half-whine, half snarl, interrupted by a violent hiccough.
"Here you are, Ponto!" I stated firmly, advancing on the bed, glass in hand.
The blood-shot eye opened again and the beast began to shake and shiver. I walked up, lifted his jowl in one hand, made a little funnel of his lip and poured in the Prairie Oyster. Then I clamped a firm control on the jaws, held Ponto's head back and let it slide gulping down his gullet.
Ponto heaved. He shuddered. He shook himself free, leaped from the bed and ran around the room, lurching, whining and shaking his head violently. He stopped and sideswiped his muzzle with a clumsy paw. He lay down on his back and rolled.
Then the dose took hold. A noble expression seemed to pour over his brow. His eyes opened wide and remained open, with a clear and friendly gleam. He stood up, shook himself, ran into the bathroom, gulped some water from his bowl very noisily, and then came bounding back.
"Wuff!" He said to me.
Then Ponto reared on his hind legs, placed two large paws on my shoulders and proceeded to lick my face thoroughly with a rough, wet tongue. I had made a friend, I decided. As Androcles had won the lion by removing the thorn from its paw, so had I tamed Ponto by administering first-aid.
There was a tap at the door. It was Jimmie. "Are you all right, Winnie?" she asked. "Is he still asleep?"
"Asleep!" I was contemptuous. "No, he's awake. Ponto and I are pals. We understand each other. He had a hang-over and I fixed him. We're buddies now, aren't we, old fellow?"
The answer was a low savage growl and I leaped through the door barely in time to escape his earnest but rather shaky attempt to remove a couple of pounds of meat from my exterior.
"Hell!" I explained, "that beast's not human. Let's send him back to the vet's and get something easier to live with—a Yorkshire or a poodle."
"I'd like a Chihuahua," said Germaine, "or one of those little Belgian Schipperke gadgets."
"How about a collie?" I asked.
Germaine raised piteous eyes to me. "Do you want to make me ill, with your talk of collies?" she asked. "Now come on down to the den and tell me what's been going on in town."
"Well, Jimmie," I began, "it's a long, long story—"
CHAPTER 14
"If it's going to be long," she said, "we'd both better have a drink. You always think better if you have a glass in your hand."
"Now, what is it you want to know?" I answered, after we were comfortably settled in front of the electric fire.
"It's—it's just that everything is so queer," Germaine began. "You've changed so that you almost seem like a different person. You even look better, not so flabby, as though you took regular exercise. At least I see a change, and then suddenly I find that you've been carrying on with that Briggs girl and I can't tell whether you've really changed or are just trying to fool me. She's a nice person, of course, and if you must have another girl, I'd rather have you pick someone—oh—safe and comfortable like her. But you said you hadn't been playing with the office girls. And then there's Ponto. He used to adore you and you swore by him. Now he tries to bite you and you want to get rid of him. And then there's all this talk about where you were during Holy Week and that F.B.I. man and Myrtle tells me they've been asking a lot of questions about you and Virginia. What have you been doing, dear, that you can't remember when our whole life may depend on it?"
"Jimmie," I told her. "I wish to God I knew. You must believe me when I tell you I can't remember things before Easter Monday. That was the second and today is the eleventh and I can remember everything that's happened since then. Before that it is all blank and all mixed-up in that dream I had."
She moved away from me, slightly. "You can't tell me that the F.B.I. would be interested in your dreams," she said sharply. "Not in time of war."
"They are in this dream," I told her. "You see I dreamed—if you want to call it that—that a certain American ship blew up in the North Pacific. The trouble is that the public hasn't been told that there is such a ship, like that 'Old Nameless' in the Solomons, and that the Navy Department doesn't know what happened to it. I believe that it did blow up. Harcourt believes my story, in the main, but from the F.B.I. angle they have to check up on whether I'm not part of an Axis spy-ring which could have caused the explosion. If I could only remember where I was and what I was doing the week before I could clear myself."
Her face lighted and she relaxed. "Oh, is that all?" she exclaimed. "I know you couldn't have done anything like that. All you've probably been doing is to go off with one of those silly girls of yours to some out-of-the-way place. That ought to be easy to check, even if you registered under a false name. For the first time, you know," she added, "I'm almost glad you've been chasing all those stupid blondes of yours. It will make it easy to establish your alias."
"Alibi," I corrected her. "Let me fix you another drink. From now on," I added, "there are going to be no more blondes or red-heads. I like Arthurjean Briggs—she's named Arthurjean for her father and mother. It's one word like Marylou or Honeychile—but she's more like a friend than a—oh—you know. You saw her. But I guess you're right. I must have been chasing around so much my mind got tangled up in itself and sort of blew a fuse. If I can't get my memory straightened out soon I'll look up a psychiatrist and see if he can't fix me."
"You know, Winnie—" Germaine began and then fell silent.
"Yes, Jimmie?"
She turned towards me and smiled rather wistfully. "You know, I was going to say that you and I—perhaps—Well, it's so long since we've been really—oh—close to each other. I wondered—"
"You mean that perhaps we ought to patch things up between us?"
"Isn't that what a wife's for?" she asked. "I mean—I mean when things get difficult it ought—there ought to be one person to whom you could turn."
I slipped my arm around her and drew her close to me on the lounge. She lowered her face against my coat and I could feel her shaking.
"You're crying!" I said. "You mustn't cry."
"Oh, Winnie, I've been so alone—so—"
I raised her face to mine and kissed her, tasting the wet, salt tears. Her lips were warm and soft against mine. Suddenly she pressed herself against me and responded to my kiss so fiercely that we were both startled. We sprang apart, almost guiltily.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh—you haven't kissed me like that—"
She raised her lips again and this time we held it.
What with one thing and another, I didn't get back to the office until the Market closed on Thursday afternoon. I found my two partners in pretty good control of our operations but frankly mystified as to the cause of the official mugging of Tompkins, Wasson & Cone. We had laid out two and a half millions in all, despite the attempt to scare us off. The market had continued steady.
Neither Graham nor Phil asked me any direct questions about the events on Wednesday. They talked straight business and kept their curiosity in check. It was close to half-past four when we finished our general discussion of the operation, so I decided that they were entitled to some kind of explanation in return for their loyalty.
"See here, boys," I told them. "You've both been perfectly swell about this rat-race the S.E.C. started. Harry Willamer tried to put the squeeze on me for half a million dollars to finance him and a bunch of official bastards in a shady deal. When I turned him down he threatened to tie us up with a Commission investigation. I bluffed him out of it at the time by pretending there was an F.B.I. dictaphone record of our talk, so he laid off the heavy heat and just started needling us a little. Any time now he'll make the check at the F.B.I. and when he finds there isn't any record he'll try to tie us up tighter than a drum. All we can do is wait it out. The market's going to start dropping any day now and we'll clean up."
"Oh!" Wasson said. "Was that it? Willamer's a bad actor. Thanks for telling us, Winnie. Phil and I knew that there must be something screwy when—"
The door flew open and Arthurjean appeared, her face white.
"God!" she said at last. "He was such a swell guy. He—"
"Who? What's the mat—"
"It's Roosevelt!" she choked. "He's dead. It just came in on the ticker."
"No!"
"He died at Warm Springs." And she hid her face in her hands and left the room, sobbing.
Phil Cone stood up, paper-white, crossed over and turned up the radio.
"Flash!" the announcer was saying. "Warm Springs, Georgia. President Roosevelt died this afternoon following his collapse from a severe cerebral hemorrhage. More in a moment. Keep tuned to this station."
"Well, I'll be eternally damned!" I said. "So he was right—"
Cone whirled on me. "You knew about this," he stated flatly "When we were talking yesterday morning. You had more than a hunch. You knew he was going to die."
"Be your age, Phil," I told him. "How in hell could I know?"
"Je-sus Ke-rist!" Wasson growled. "This will knock holy hell out of the Market. Lucky trading's closed for the day. They can't open tomorrow. They'll have to shut down all the exchanges. They'll have to close the banks. God! What a mess!"
Cone still looked dazed. "No dancing in the streets?" he asked bitterly. "I thought this was going to send values sky-rocketing."
Wasson swung on him. "The hell with that talk, Phil," he snapped. "I was just shooting the bull. Roosevelt dead! Jesus H. Christ! You know, he wasn't a bad old buzzard after he got rid of all that New Deal nonsense and set to work winning this war."
Cone had recovered his poise. "Sure he did a swell job winning the war, but now we're going to lose the peace, sure as shooting!"
"Hell!" Graham's choice of expletives was strictly rationed. "This means that Truman will take over. What sort of a guy is he? You got any idea, Winnie? He's not up to Roosevelt, that's sure."
I shook my head. "I don't know from nothing," I began. "Sh!"
The radio announcer resumed his broadcast. "Warm Springs, Georgia. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed away at four thirty-five this afternoon, Eastern War Time, following a severe cerebral hemorrhage. The late President had been spending a few days at his Georgia retreat getting rested after his strenuous trip to the Yalta Conference. Earlier this afternoon he complained of a severe headache and almost immediately became unconscious. He died peacefully a little later. His death came at a moment when American troops in Germany and on Okinawa were driving ahead toward the victory he—"
Cone switched it down again. "He had a headache!" he muttered. "What do you think we're going to have?"
The telephone rang. I picked up the instrument. It was one of those automatic phonograph recordings. "The Stock Exchange will not be open tomorrow by order of the Governors, out of respect for the memory of the late President Roosevelt. That is all—The Stock Exchange will not be open—" the metallic feminine voice went on. I hung up.
"You're right about one thing, Graham," I said. "That was an automatic message to say the Exchange will be closed tomorrow. It's probably on the ticker, too."
It was.
Cone sat down suddenly, as though his legs had turned to rubber.
"Now it will all start again," he said. "Sell out and pack up, pack up and clear out."
I crossed the office and put my hand on his shoulder. "Cheer up, Phil," I told him. "It won't be as bad as that. Graham and I will stick with you and that's true of Americans generally."
Cone shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "Thanks, Winnie," he remarked. "You're a good fellow and a good friend. I've got something to say to you. You won't like it. I got worried yesterday when you started talking about Roosevelt maybe dying and I tipped the F.B.I. on what you said."
I laughed. "If the F.B.I. arrested every man in Wall Street who had ever talked about Roosevelt dying the jails wouldn't hold them. Don't worry, Phil. In your shoes I'd have done the same thing."
The phone rang again. It was the receptionist. "Mr. Harcourt is here to see you, Mr. Tompkins," she informed me. "Shall I ask him to wait?"
"Tell him I'll see him in a couple of minutes," I replied.
"This is it, boys," I told my partners. "It's the F.B.I. Now, the Market's going to drop. It will be a bear market in a big way, dignified as hell, and we're in ahead of the others. You two just carry on. Try to get a line on this guy Truman. Some of our Kansas City correspondents may have the dope. Phil, no hard feelings about this F.B.I. angle. They've been riding me for days on some crazy story Ranty Tolan started about me last week."
Wasson looked at me coldly. "If I thought that you had anything to do with this—" he began.
"Oh skip it!" I begged him. "You know me better."
I picked up the phone and told the receptionist to send Harcourt in.
"Mr. Tompkins," he said. "I've been ordered to ask you to come up to the Bureau's headquarters right away."
"Am I under arrest?" I asked.
"Well," Harcourt admitted, "I haven't got a warrant but I think maybe you better come with me."
"What's the charge?"
"My chief will tell you what it's all about," he said. "My orders were to bring you in for questioning."
"Okay," I agreed. "I'll come along quietly. Phil, will you tell Miss Briggs to ring up my wife and say I won't be home tonight and not to worry. I'll be all right."
Harcourt came and laid his hand on my arm. "Come along then," he ordered gruffly.
"How about my lawyer?" I inquired. "Graham, will you phone Merry Vail and tell him I've been taken up to the F.B.I. for questioning?"
Harcourt looked up at me. "Is Merriwether Vail your lawyer?" he asked. "I wouldn't bother to call him. We've picked him up too. All your associates, outside of business and—er—pleasure, are being rounded up. The President's dead, Mr. Tompkins, and you're going to do some talking to my chief."