"You were what?" I demanded.
"I am--or was--the head of Z-2," Tyler replied. "You know, Mr.
Tompkins," he continued, "I find it most intensely interesting that
you should have picked on that particular combination--Z-2--for your
higher echelonics. In fact, I should like to have you psycho-analyzed,
in order to learn why you, of all people, should have selected the
super-secret insignia of the super-secret Roosevelt intelligence
outfit. Not that it matters now, of course," he added. "With this new
growth across the street I'd be lucky if the White House knew the
difference between Z-2 and B-29."
I studied Tyler's face. Who he was, I had only a remote idea, so many
had been the different offices that had shunted me around. But in spite
of his airy-fairy persiflage and la-di-da manner, I felt that he was
straight.
"Okay, chief," I said. "I confess. I robbed the bank but I didn't shoot
the cashier. That was Muggsy. You see, chief, it was this way--"
Tyler sat back and heard me out from A to Z-2, in the history of my
last two weeks.
"I can't expect you to believe me, Mr. Tyler," I concluded, "but I'd
like to have it on record somewhere in this town that I had told the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and all I get for it
is an Order of Merit citation."
"Few escape it!" he cried. "My poor old bewildered Tompkins. Of course
I believe you. Stranger tales than yours have passed across my desk. I
have served under one President who _thought_ he was Jesus Christ, one
who _knew_ he was Jesus Christ and two who were afraid the voters would
realize that they were _not_ Jesus Christ. I have seen five successive
Secretaries of State who had no doubt that they were God's Vice-Regent
on earth. As for drawing a blank, Mr. Tompkins, that is no news to this
Department. What we diplomatic underlings fear is when our superiors
fail to draw blanks. Why I remember--but no matter."
"Then what would you do if you were me, Mr. Tyler?" I asked him. "I'm
the innocent victim of the damndest set of circumstances ever dreamed
up."
The red-headed young diplomat looked at me warily. "The
Department, sir," he said, "does not answer hypodermic--I mean
hypothetical--questions. What is good enough for the Department is good
enough for me."
"But here I find myself," I reminded him, "in high favor with the
intelligence forces and with the reputation of a Don Juan in the bosoms
of my family, and no idea how I got there."
Tyler chuckled. "I always knew they were plural," he said. "Think
nothing of it. Stupider men than you have stood in far higher repute in
this town and the reputation of Don Juan is easily acquired. For all
you know, you may be a perfectly sterling family man and quite devoid
of political intelligence."
"How's that again?"
"Just a figure of speech," Tyler answered airily. "Just the same, Mr.
Tompkins, it would be interesting to know why you picked on Z-2 and
where you got your undoubted talent for brass-knuckled duplicity. So
far as I can see, you've sold yourself as Z-2 to all the brass hats,
including the Kansas City lad who woke up to find himself President."
"Again in my own defense," I said, "I did it only because the F.B.I.
had a gun at my back and were going to give me the works if I didn't
clear myself inside of twenty-four hours. I always thought," I added,
"that in this country you were assumed innocent until proved guilty."
Tyler winked wickedly. "There's a war on," he announced, "and doesn't
the F.B.I. know it!"
I bade the diplomat good-bye and left the State Department with a
sense of personal uneasiness. Who would have dreamed that there was a
Z-2 organization before I imagined it! If this kind of thing kept on
happening it mightn't be a bad idea to take a fling at the Hartford
Sanctuary and have myself psyched by experts.
"Beg pardon, sir, but are you Mr. Tompkins?"
The Hart, Shaffner & Marxed youngster who accosted me on the State
Department steps had a definite bulge under his left shoulder that
warned me he was armed.
"Yes, and who are you, sir?" I inquired.
"I'm Monaghan from the Secret Service," he told me. "The Chief wants to
see you."
"And who is the Chief?" I asked.
"Chief Flynn, of course," he said. "It's only a few steps over at the
the Treasury Building."
"All right, Mr. Monaghan," I agreed. "I'll come along quietly. Am I
under arrest? Should I send for my lawyer?"
"The Service don't go much for lawyers," he said. "This way, sir."
With Monaghan at my elbow, I turned right on Pennsylvania Avenue and
walked in front of the White House and turned down East Executive
Avenue to the side-entrance of the Treasury. A few baffling twists and
turns in the corridors of Morgenthau, and I found myself in a large,
sparsely furnished room, facing a white haired Irishman.
"This is Tompkins, Chief," Monaghan reported and left me with the
gimlet-eyed Secret Service executive.
"You W. S. Tompkins?" he asked me.
"Yes. And who are you?"
"My name's Flynn."
Neither of us said anything for a couple of minutes. He was obviously
waiting for me to ask him why I had been brought to him--so I
deliberately kept silent, pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. Seeing
no ash-tray, I flicked the burnt match on the official green carpet and
waited for him to open the conversation.
"So you don't need to be told why you're here, Tompkins," he purred.
"I came here, Mr. Flynn," I told him, "because one of your men
practically put a gun at my ribs in front of the State Department. What
do you want? A ticket to a prize fight? A good write-up in the papers?
Tell me what it will cost me and I'll pay within reason. I didn't know
that the Irish had got control of the Secret Service or I would have
mailed the money ahead--in cash, of course, no checks, all small bills
not consecutively numbered."
Flynn scowled out the window in the general direction of the White
House. I dropped some more cigarette ash on the carpet.
Suddenly he whirled to me. "We're here to protect the President," he
snapped, "and we don't propose to take any lip from you."
I said nothing. Then I noticed the flag over the White House at
half-mast.
"Why's that flag at half-mast, Mr. Flynn," I asked.
"Because the President's dead."
"Was he murdered?" I asked.
"He was not! He died of natural causes, but we don't go for people
plotting to kill any President, even if he's dead. Our job depends on
it."
I rubbed out the stub of my cigarette on the corner of his mahogany
desk and lighted another one.
"Since Roosevelt wasn't murdered, what am I here for?" I asked. "I'm
a perfectly respectable New York business man. I'm registered at the
Willard and my wife can identify me. I have plenty of other references,
if you need them. The F.B.I., say, or General Wakely in Counter
Intelligence. If you have anything to ask me, I'll be glad to try to
answer questions, but I'm damned if I propose to sit here and let
myself be accused of something I never dreamed of doing."
"And what are you going to do about it?" he asked. "Sue?"
"Oh, I have no doubt that you can beat me up and send me to the
hospital, but as soon as I'm out I'll tell my story and then I guess a
man named Flynn will be looking for another job."
Flynn smiled. "And why do you think the hospital will be letting you
go, Mr. Tompkins? Of course, if it was only for a broken leg or a
fractured skull, it would be easy, but what about St. Elizabeth's?"
I raised my eyebrows.
"Never heard of it," I said.
"St. Elizabeth's," he explained, "is where we send people in Washington
who aren't right in the head. We have a lot of alienists and
psychiatrists there who can look you over, keep you under observation.
They can hold you there as long as they like, because if there's any
question about a man's sanity, they would be failing in their duty if
they let him go."
"In other words, Mr. Flynn," I interrupted, "you threaten to send me to
the local lunatic asylum if I raise any objection to your methods. Is
that the game?"
Flynn was on familiar ground here. "Mr. Tompkins," he asked me. "How's
your health? You don't look any too good to me. Don't you think you'd
be better for a little special care?"
I laughed admiringly. "So that's how it's done, is it? Well, I never
thought the Secret Service was reduced to blackmail. Okay, I'll pay."
"Who ever mentioned pay?" Flynn was indignant.
"Nuts!" I replied. "Cops are all the same. They jail Capone for income
tax because they can't convict him of being a racketeer. You think
you're being cute by sending people to the booby-hatch if you have no
proof that they're dangerous. So, go ahead, send me to St. Elizabeth's
but don't think for one minute that I'm not on to the Irish."
Flynn's face grew slowly and magnificently purple. "By God!" he
shouted. "What's the matter with Ireland, anyhow?"
"Ireland?" Now he was on my ground. "Too proud to fight the war for
freedom. Ireland? To hell with Ireland! This is the United States of
America. What has Ireland to do with your duty to the United States?"
Flynn slumped back in his chair, muttering.
"Go!" he said hoarsely. "Get out of here, get out of this building, get
out of this town. By God Almighty, if I catch you here within the next
twenty-four hours, I--I--"
"Scratch a cop and find a four-flusher," I observed incautiously.
"You're still looking for Booth in Ford's theatre and are figuring ways
to guard Garfield in the Union Station. For all you know, Roosevelt may
have been killed, but if he was, you know I had nothing to do with it.
The record shows I'm one of the few people who tried to do anything
about it. And you don't dare touch the man who told me."
"Who was that?" Flynn demanded sullenly.
"Axel Roscommon," I said, "another Irishman, so you don't dare lay a
finger on him."
"Roscommon!" Flynn snorted. "A black Protestant from Ulster. He's no
Irishman, but I can't touch him, as well you know. The bloody British
in the State Department are protecting him."
"So you take it out on me, eh?" I suggested.
Flynn drew himself up. "See here, Mr. Tompkins," he said, "I've told
you to get out of Washington and stay out of Washington. In a job like
mine I have to follow my hunches and my hunch is that if you aren't out
of here by noon tomorrow we'll send you over to St. Elizabeth's for
observation. After all, we can't have people threatening the President."
"When did I ever threaten the President?"
"Sure and you did it just now," declared the Chief. "You used
threatening and abusive language about the President of the United
States, within the meaning of the Act, and the Secret Service is not
going to stand for it."
"In other words, Mr. Flynn," I observed, "You can't win against the
Cops. Anything to keep their job. Okay, I know when I'm licked. I'll
leave town and I'll even beat you to the booby-hatch. If this is
sanity, I _want_ to be locked up."
Chief Flynn hunched his shoulders and scowled at me.
"Yes," I told him, "I'll check myself with the psychiatrists."
"Mr. Tompkins," Flynn remarked quietly, "the more I see of you the more
I feel that you ought to have immediate medical attention."
He lifted his telephone and began dialing a number.
"And won't that look swell on your record," I said, "when President
Truman gives me a citation for the Order of Merit the same day that
Chief Flynn locks me up as a threat to the President."
"Oh!" Flynn laid down the receiver and looked at me with dawning
respect.
"Oh! is right," I replied, and left the room.
Nobody tried to stop me as I walked out of the Treasury but I knew
that I must take no more chances. From now on it was a race to the
alienists, and the best hope for continued liberty lay with my getting
there first.
I hailed a taxicab. "Drive me to the Phipps Clinic, Johns Hopkins
Hospital," I told the driver.
"Jeeze, Chief! That's in Baltimore."
"You are absolutely right," I told him, "and it's fifty bucks for you
if you get me there inside the hour."
I sank back on the cushions of the rear seat. I had come out of the
Washington rat-race worse off than when I had entered it. Then it was
merely a question of my liberty. After three days it had become a
matter of my sanity.