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."