There was a brisk knock on the bedroom door. I walked over and opened it, to see F.B.I. Special Agent A. J. Harcourt. He gave me a reproachful glance and pushed his way into the room.
"I can only stop a minute, Mr. Tompkins," he said, "but I have orders from the Director to call on you in person and present the apologies of the Bureau for having inconvenienced you. If you had only told us you were connected with Z-2 there would have been no trouble."
"Sit down, Harcourt," I urged him. Then I crossed to the bathroom door. "Don't come out until you're decent, dear," I called to Germaine. "The F.B.I. is here."
Some muffled instructions answered, so I went around the room and picked up the various scattered wisps of silk and rayon, and thrust them through to my wife.
"That's all I was to say, Mr. Tompkins," Harcourt repeated, still standing, "that the Bureau is mighty sorry about the whole business."
"Sit down!" I told him again. "Now get this Z-2 thing straight. There isn't any Z-2. I just invented it, trying to get myself out of this jam. I never was a Z-2 agent. What I told these people was all moonshine."
Harcourt nodded. "We know, of course, that you're not allowed to admit you're in Z-2 to anybody but the top guys, but we know that Z-2 does exist. If it didn't how could the President abolish it?"
"How's that again?" I asked, sinking into the one easy chair.
"Yeah, special confidential Executive Order No. 1734, signed today, abolishing Z-2 and transferring its duties to the War Department. There was something else, too, about giving you the Order of Merit forquotespecial services which contributed usefully to the conduct of the war.Unquote."
"Listen here, Harcourt," I insisted. "I can't help it if the President pulled a boner. Itoldhim there wasn't any such thing as Z-2 and all he said was that I ought to take a good long rest. I simply got so damned tired of trying to prove that I couldn't remember what Winnie Tompkins had been doing before April 2, that I invented my own alibi—Z-2."
Harcourt scratched his head.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," I assured him.
For the first time since he had delivered his wooden official apology, the Special Agent relaxed. "That's one for the book," he said with deep feeling. "Mrs. Harcourt's little boy isn't going to let it go any farther. So far, only the President of the United States, the Army, the Navy, O.S.S. and the F.B.I. believe you were in Z-2. I'm not sticking my neck out to tell them it's all a lot of malarkey. That leaves only the State Department and the Secret Service. How come you've skipped them? You must be slipping, Mr. Tompkins."
"I'm seeing the State Department tomorrow morning," I explained. "I think I'll let the Secret Service alone. Incidentally, Mrs. Tompkins also believes all this Z-2 business. It will do as a stall until I learn what I was really doing before I drew a blank."
"Not for me!"
We both looked up. In the doorway—which I must have forgotten to latch—stood Virginia Rutherford.
"No Winnie"—she began. "Oh, hullo, Mr. Harcourt—You haven't fooled me. I know there's something behind all this business. Imagine the nerve of that silly General, practically jerking me out of bed to come down and listen to him babble about Von Bieberstein to that pretty Mrs. Jacklin. Who is this Von Bieberstein anyhow? He sounds like a brewer."
"Kurt Von Bieberstein," explained A. J. Harcourt, "is supposed to be the ace Nazi Operative in the U.S.A. The Bureau has been trying to locate him for the last ten years. We don't know what he looks like, nothing about him, except his name. All we ever got on him was one fragment of a short-wave message in 1935 and a letter in a code we couldn't break, just before Pearl Harbor."
The bathroom door opened and Germaine entered the room. "Well, Virginia," she observed, "you seem to be making yourself at home. Mr. Harcourt, have I no legal right to privacy in my hotel room?"
Harcourt rose and bowed. "Certainly, ma'am," he told her. "If you object to her presence you are entitled to order her out. If she refuses to go, you can throw her out or call the house detective."
Jimmie laughed. "Good! Virginia Rutherford, you get out of my bedroom or I'll throw you out."
Virginia relaxed back against the pillow. "Act your age, dearest," she said. "You don't want any public scandal about your husband, do you?"
"Oh!" Germaine paused. "Of course not!"
There was another knock on the door.
"Come in!" we chorused.
This time it was Dorothy Jacklin.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, none too brightly. "So we're all here."
"This is Mr. Harcourt of the F.B.I., Mrs. Jacklin," I said. "He's an old friend of mine."
Dorothy turned to me. "There's one thing I'd like cleared up, Mr. Tompkins," she said.
"Yes?" I asked.
"I certified to O.S.S. that you were with Z-2. I've checked over our confidential files and I can't find any record of Z-2. Things like that go on my efficiency rating and I might get into trouble. After all, you were admitted to the Administration Building without the usual references and identification. General Donovan is very strict about such things."
"There is no such thing as Z-2, Mrs. Jacklin," I assured her.
"Aha!" Virginia chortled, "here it comes."
"Winnie!" Germaine was hurt.
"President Truman just today signed a special order abolishing Z-2 and transferring its duties to the War Department. If you need the references for the O.S.S. record that dear little colonel of yours can get it from General Wakely at G-2. That's right, isn't it, Harcourt?"
"That's right, Mr. Tompkins. All government intelligence agencies have been notified. When you get back to your office, Mrs. Jacklin, you'll find that O.S.S. has a copy of the order."
Dorothy turned to me. "Isn't that lousy!" she exclaimed. "After all the splendid work Z-2 did, to have the Army take it over and grab the credit!"
I shrugged my shoulders. "It's what we expect in this government game," I said. "A passion for anonymity is not only expected of us, it's rammed down our throats. Only Admirals and Generals are good at intelligence. Period. However, I'm just as glad it's over. The President told me to take a rest and I think it's a good idea."
"Well!" said Germaine. "Of all ingratitude!"
"I think the best idea is for us all to go downstairs and have some champagne cocktails," I suggested. "Things often seem better that way."
Harcourt looked grave. "I'm not allowed to drink on duty, Mr. Tompkins," he observed, "but I'm not on duty now. Come on, Mrs. Jacklin," he continued, "let's go on and show them."
Dorothy looked startled. "Show them what," she asked.
"Show them that we intelligence services can take it ma'am," the Special Agent observed. "You're O.S.S. and I'm F.B.I. and these others have just been consolidated out of the game."
Dorothy flashed him a smile. "Well—" she began doubtfully.
"Go ahead, Harcourt," I urged with malice aforethought. "Show her a photo of your wife and three children in Brooklyn."
He grinned. "That gag was strictly for Miss Briggs," he said, "but down here I'm an unmarried man."
"Pooh!" said Dorothy. "I never saw an administrator down here yet who let himself worry about a wife and family somewhere else. The F.B.I. must be weakening."
Harcourt smiled. "Well, anyhow, Mrs. Jacklin, ma'm, the first round of drinks is on me—just to celebrate Mr. Tompkins' happy release."
I didn't care so much for that one. "Expense account, you spy-catcher?" I asked.
The Special Agent nodded. "Yep," he agreed. "My own expense. I was ordered to apologize handsome to you, sir, for the Bureau, and by gum we Harcourts do it right. What'll it be? Root beer or Moxie?"
The next morning, early if not bright, found me fumbling my way around the corridors of the State-War-Navy building in search of the proper official to handle secret intelligence reports. I finally unearthed him in the form of six-feet of languid Bond Street tailored perfection—a red-headed diplomat lily by the name of Dennis Tyler, Chief of the Liaison Section. To him I addressed myself.
"Oh, yes, so you're Tompkins—of Z-2," he observed. "Yes, yes. Quite too tragic for you."
"Tell me, Mr. Tyler," I inquired, "did you ever hear of Axel Roscommon?"
Tyler leaned back in his chair and contemplated me soulfully. "Now don't tell me that poor old Axel is a Nazi agent, Mr. Timkins—"
"Tompkins, Mr. Wiley."
"The name is Tyler, Mr. Tompkins," he grinned. "No, dear old boy—to quote Axel—we do notthinkthat Mr. Roscommon is a Nazi Agent. We know it. I had the devil of a time fixing it up with the F.B.I. so they wouldn't arrest him. We can't let the Swiss—God bless their cuckoo-clocks—represent Hitler over here. We need a man of the world who realizes that milk chocolate has no place in diplomacy, to maintain contact with the Third Reich. No, Axel's a fine fellow. He's on a strict allowance. One military secret a month—usually a little one and every now and then a phoney—so as to keep his job. He sees that our people in Berlin get the same allowance. All very cozy and no harm done."
I nodded agreement. "Yes, Mr. Tyler," I told him, "I know the picture. It's just that I have a hunch that Roscommon may be Kurt Von Bieberstein."
Tyler exploded. "Absolute, obscene rot, Tompkins! Not a word of truth in it. Roscommon is foxy, if you like, but he hasn't got Von Bieberstein's ruthlessness. No, we made a thorough check on our Axel, before we let the Gestapo accredit him to this government. He's just a good contact-man and a first-rate field operative—plays a dashing game of backgammon and a sound hand of poker, holds his liquor well, and, with an unlimited expense account, stands unlimited rounds of drinks. No, we can't get on without Axel Roscommon. He's taken half the sting out of my income-tax, he's so lavish with his friends.
"What on earth made you confuse him with Von Bieberstein?" he concluded. "Kurt's a devil. He's slipped through the fingers of every Allied intelligence service. Even the Gestapo doesn't know much about him. He's never been photographed or fingerprinted and he reports directly to Hitler. Even Himmler has no file on him."
"It was only this, Mr. Tyler," I told him. "It was Roscommon who warned me two days before Roosevelt's death that the President would die within the week. That isn't easy to laugh off."
Tyler became deadly calm. "Don't ever repeat that story outside of this room," he warned me. "We know who did it and why. We'll settle that score some day. In the meantime, just forget it, unless you don't mind diving into the East River in a concrete life-belt."
"Then Roscommon wasn't guessing," I observed.
"Of course he wasn't guessing. As a matter of fact, it was I who told him. Just as it was I who told F.D.R. God! He was a good sport. He listened to what I had to say and then do you know what he did? He laughed. He said that so many Americans had died in this war that one more made no difference and he ordered me to hold off until after the peace treaty before getting the group responsible."
This was getting too deep for me, but I owed it to Germaine to make a grab for the brass ring.
"President Truman was very complimentary about my work for Z-2," I told him. "He wants me to take a rest now that the War Department has taken over our work. After that, I wondered whether there mightn't be something in the diplomatic service. The President thought I would be useful here. I've plenty of money and—"
Dennis Tyler groaned convulsively, hunched forward over his desk and clutched his flaming red head in his hands.
"—and you have a beautiful wife who would make a charming American Ambassadress, no doubt: Yes, Mr. Tompkins, I see it all. You went to a good school, no doubt you even attended Harvard. You just missed combat service in the last war and were unfortunately too old for this one. You know how to make money in Wall Street, if it wasn't for those damned Roosevelt taxes. You do not speak French—except for the purpose of 'La Vie Parisienne'—nor German nor Italian nor Spanish nor Russian, not to mention Arabic and Chinese. You know nothing of economics, sociology, natural science or political geography. You have been to Canada, the West Indies and no doubt to 'Gay Paree,' and to cap the list of your qualifications, you are a Republican and this is a Democratic Administration."
"Then there isn't a chance," I mumbled, my cheeks flaming with embarrassment.
"DidIsay that you had no chance?" demanded Dennis Tyler. "On the contrary, you seem to be fully qualified for any diplomatic post within the gift of this Administration, at least as much as any of a dozen of our well-named envoys extraordinary. But, Tompkins, you're a decent sort of chap. Don't do it! For your wife's sake, if not mine, let the poor old State Department go to hell in its own quiet way without speeding the process—Oh, well, I suppose I shall never learn. Doubtless you will be our next Ambassador to Portugal and I shall have one more black mark against me."
I held out my hand. "If the popular demand becomes too great for me to resist, Mr. Tyler," I assured him, "I may be forced to accept a diplomatic appointment, but even then you would be safe from me. I don't like double-talk."
Dennis Tyler looked up, shook my hand and winked broadly at me. "Just between us, Tompkins," he whispered, "who put you up to that Z-2 line of yours? You have the whole town fooled. No, don't look virtuous, dear old boy—again to quote the immortal Axel—I happen to know that you can't possibly be connected with Z-2, because until yesterday, when the Army grabbed it, I was head of Z-2 myself!"
"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 whothoughthe was Jesus Christ, one whoknewhe was Jesus Christ and two who were afraid the voters would realize that they werenotJesus 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, Iwantto 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.
The white-coated medical man—he said that he was associate psychiatrist at the Phipps Clinic—beckoned me to follow him into a side-room. He waved me to be seated and closed the door.
"You see, Mr. Tompkins," he told me, "everybody's crazy."
There is no point in recounting the stages which had converted my panic flight from the wrath of the Secret Service into this interview with one of Johns Hopkins psychiatric staff, except that I had been amazed by the ease with which he had drawn me aside shortly after I had sat down in the waiting-room.
"Of course I realize, doctor," I replied, "that everyone must be abnormal since that is how you establish an average normality. My case is so peculiar, though, that I'd like to have you check on me."
"Here we can take you only on the recommendation of a registered physician or psychiatrist," he told me. "We're understaffed and over-crowded as it is. My advice to you would be to return to your home—you live near New York, you say—and put yourself in the hands of your regular family physician. There are plenty of institutions in your part of the country which are fully qualified to give the necessary treatment. Even if you were recommended to us now we could only put you on the waiting list."
I murmured something vague about war-conditions and neurotics, but he raised his hand like a traffic-cop and interrupted me.
"The war, at least so far as active service is concerned, has taken a load off us, Mr. Tompkins," he informed me. "You see, in normal times people live under any number of pressures which force them to restrain their natural impulses. War gives them outlets—including sex, a sense of gang solidarity, and permission to commit acts of violence and homicide—which would result in jail-sentences for them at other times. Of course, there are a good many psychos coming out of actual combat but the government takes care of them. No, the bulk of our current cases are essential civilians: generals, administrators, politicians, business executives—who find that the war simply redoubles the pressures on them. Some of them are really insane in the medical sense but their positions are so high that we dare not insist on their hospitalization. Instead, we have a simple prescription which most of them find no difficulty in taking. Perhaps it would help in your case."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Oh, just go out and get drunk now and then, and find yourself a girl-friend. Blow off steam, in other words. Find an outlet for your natural impulses. If the White House had consulted me, Roosevelt might still—Oh, well, no use crying over spilt milk. Half the mental trouble in this country is due to people trying to be something they are not, and the other half is due to people trying not to be something that they naturally are. Primitive people are rarely troubled with neuroses."
"But you said that everybody's crazy, doctor," I objected. "How does that fit into the picture?"
"Mr. Tompkins," the psychiatrist remarked, "you must have noticed that the only sane people today are the alleged lunatics, who do what makes them happy. Take the man who thinks he is Napoleon. HeisNapoleon and is much happier than those who try to tell him that he isn't. The real maniacs are now in control of the asylum. There's a theory among the psychiatrists that certain forms of paranoia are contagious. Every now and then a doctor or a nurse here and at other mental clinics goes what they call crazy and has to join the patients. My theory is that it is sanity which is contagious and that the only sane people are those who have sense enough to be crazy. They are locked up at once for fear that others will go sane, too. Now, take me, I'm—"
At that moment two husky young men came in and led him away. After a short interval one of them returned.
"I'm sorry this happened, sir," he apologized. "Dr. Murdoch is a tragic case. He was formerly employed here and every now and then he still manages to escape to one of our consultation rooms. He's quite harmless. What was he telling you?"
"That the only sane people in the world were the lunatics," I said.
The young man nodded. "Yes, that's his usual line. That's what got him committed in the first place. For my money, he's right but he oughtn't to go around saying it. And what can we do for you?"
I told him that the "associate psychiatrist" had advised me to put myself in the hands of my family doctor and had prescribed a dose of wine, women and song as a method of restoring my mental balance. I was troubled by serious loss of memory, I said, and needed treatment.
He nodded again. "Boy, when I finish my internship and start private practice, am I going to clean up in the upper brackets with that one! Murdoch's crazy to waste that on these people in Phipps. They can't follow his advice. This one is strictly for Park Avenue."
I left the clinic, phoned the hotel in Washington from a pay-booth in a corner drug-store, and told Germaine to join me at Pook's Hill. I said that I had had to leave Washington in a hurry and would explain when I saw her. I added that I'd just had a consultation at Johns Hopkins and had decided to take medical treatment.
"I know one thing you don't need treatment for—your nerve!" she replied and hung up on me.
When I reached the house in Bedford Hills, I was welcomed by Mary-Myrtle at the front door and by the loud barking of Ponto from my bedroom. Germaine had not yet returned.
"How's Ponto?" I asked the maid.
"Oh, he's fine," she told me, "just fine. He eats his food and sleeps regular and is just like he was."
"Good, I'll take a look at him."
I went upstairs and held my bedroom door ajar.
"Hullo, Ponto old boy," I said in the curious tone one uses towards dogs, children and public men. "Here I am back from Washington."
He lay on my bed, with ears pricked up, gazing at me intently.
"Yes, Ponto," I continued. "I got the Order of Merit from President Truman himself and met all the big shots, so if you take a bite at me now it will be sabotage."
Ponto put his ears back and let his tongue dangle from the side of his mouth, while his tail made a haze as it thumped delightedly on the pillow. If he hadn't been an animal, I would have said he was laughing.
"There, old fellow," I soothed him.
He wuffed affectionately, jumped to the floor, and stood beside me, panting and drooling.
"Thank God, you're well again, Ponto," I told him. "We can't have two loony people in this house. Now it's my turn to go to the vet's and be treated."
Ponto's answer was to lick my hand convulsively and wag his tail and otherwise give a splendid impersonation of an affectionate "Friend of Man" whose beloved master has returned. So I took him downstairs with me and turned him out for a run on the lawn while I sat in my den and tried to get my thoughts in order.
What worried me most was Virginia Rutherford's sudden change in manner. From having been definitely the woman scorned—angry, hurt and hell-bent for revenge—she had adopted an air of friendly complicity the moment I had left the White House. This made no sense to me. Germaine was unchanged but that was because she was a simple woman who was in the obvious process of falling in love with her own husband. Whatever I did would be all right with her, which was a great comfort but not much help. Then, too, I was beginning to get uneasy at the increasing glibness and complexity of the lies I was telling. It was almost as though I were playing a part for which at some time I had once rehearsed. As Tyler had told me in the State Department, itwouldbe interesting to know how I happened to invent the legendary "Z-2."
There was the crunch of gravel as an automobile slowed to a stop outside, the click of a key in the lock and then Germaine was in the den and in my arms, with all the etchings of ducks staring at her.
"Winnie," she exclaimed. "Youarethe most unexpected person. I had the most awful time at the Willard after you phoned me. When I tried to pay the bill they wouldn't take my check because my name wasn't Grant. In fact, I had to telephone that nice Mrs. Jacklin before I could find a bank that would give me the money. Then that Mr. Harcourt from the F.B.I. came in and talked to me for the longest time. He seemed quite surprised when I told him you had gone to Johns Hopkins. Don't you feel well, dear?"
"I never felt better," I assured her. "No, Jimmy, that was because somebody in the Secret Service got the idea that I ought to be put in an asylum. It's a nasty little trick of theirs, I gather, to send a man to the booby-bin for life if they don't like him but have no evidence against him. So I thought I'd play it smart and beat them to the punch. That's why I went to Baltimore, to get a mental check-up at the Phipps Clinic."
"Did they—Are you—Are you all right?" she faltered. "I couldn't bear it if—"
I laughed and gave her a good hug. "I'm all right," I told her. "They didn't have time to examine me but gave me two bits of advice. First, I was to get Jerry Rutherford to handle my case. I guess you need political influence now to get yourself locked up. And then, I was told that I ought to have more licker and wimmin in my life. It seems I'm getting in a rut."
"Winnie!"
"Uh-huh! They recommended it for curing highly inhibited cases like mine. I'm repressed or something."
"It must be something," Germaine observed fifteen minutes later. "Oh, dear, I didn't even think whether the door was locked. I'm a sight. You don't act repressed to me."
She turned her face towards me, her eyes laughing.
"In any case, I'll have to see a doctor," I said, "and it might as well be Rutherford. He knows so much about me that I won't have to do a lot of explaining."
"Winnie!"
Germaine swung her feet to the floor and straightened her clothes. "Winnie," she repeated, "mustyou go to a doctor? Can't we try theotherprescription—I mean, give it agoodtry?"
I shook my head.
"No can do. I've got to get my memory straightened out. You and I—well,we'reall right now. But there's my business and then there's the Secret Service. Ican'tseem to remember a thing before the second of April and I did so much lying in Washington, trying to cover up, that I may get into real trouble. That's what Virginia said, that I'd lied myself into a worse mess than I'd lied myself out of."
My wife pouted. "Don't these treatments take a long time?" she asked. "I remember when they sent Cousin Frederick to the asylum after that time when he put tear-gas in the air-conditioners in the Stock Exchange, it was three years before they let him out. Of course hewascrazy, though we pretended it was only drink. That time he tried to tattoo the little Masters girl—But won't they keep you locked up and do things to you?"
"Hanged if I know," I said, "but they can't keep me there a day longer than you or I want. It isn't as though I was being committed to an asylum. It's just that there's a bad crack in my memory. They'll try to find out what's wrong and patch it up. Perhaps I won't have to stay after all."
"Do they let wives come and visit their husbands?" she asked dreamily. "I mean—"
"I've never heard that the medical profession encouraged that kind of therapy," I told her.
"Speaking of insanity," I continued, "Ponto, you will be glad to know, is back to normal."
She got up and made a face at me. "Of course," she remarked with deliberate provocation, "If you think more of Ponto than you do of me. I'm so glad, Winnie, to know that Ponto is better. He's your dog, isn't he? What was wrong with him? What medicine did you give him? What did the vet say—"
She ended in a startled squeak and ran for the door.
"You beast!" she exclaimed, turning on me, "itwaslocked, all the time. Oh, Winnie—"
A thousand years later she said once more, "Oh, Winnie!"
Then she laughed.
"Just the same," she said, "I'm glad about Ponto. I still think I don't like the way he's been acting."
She yawned.
"And now, sir," she added, "will you please let me go to my room. I'mstillrather dirty from my trip and I ought to get a few things unpacked. And besides," she laughed again, "I'm ravenously hungry."
"So am I," I remarked truthfully, "but—"
"Iknowwe're both crazy," she told me some time later, "and perhaps they'd better give us a double-room at the asylum. But I know that unless I eat something right away I'll be dead in the morning."
"Let's see if there's anything in the ice-box," I said. "Mary's probably given up dinner long ago."
"Her name is Myrtle," Germaine corrected me.
Dr. Rutherford's office was tastefully furnished, in the suburban medical manner, to suggest a Tudor tap-room. There was, of course, a spotless chrome and porcelain laboratory connecting, as well as an equally sanitary lavatory.
"Good of you to squeeze me in, Jerry," I remarked to Rutherford. "Fact is I need your professional opinion."
Rutherford stroked his little dab of a moustache. "I've sent in my application to the Army Medical Corps," he told me. "I hoped you'd come to straighten out the money end."
"That will be taken care of any time you need it," I assured him. "Miss Briggs at my office will have full details. I'll phone her and my lawyer to fix it up as soon as I get back to the house."
"Well, what seems to be wrong with you, old man?" he inquired. "War getting too much for you? Got a hang-over? Need vitamins? Bowels regular? I must say you're got a better color and have lost weight since the last time I saw you."
"It's nothing wrong with my body, and Ihavelost weight," I explained. "It's my mind. I've had a complete loss of memory as to what happened before April second. In Washington, I was lucky to avoid the booby-hatch. They couldn't handle me at Hopkins, so they told me to consult my family physician. I guess that means that you are elected."
"Family physician is good," Rutherford remarked with a rather unprofessional grin. "But hell! I'm no psychiatrist. Of course, in practice around here I bump into a few psychopathic cases but I must say you've never struck me as the type."
I assured him that I was in dead earnest about this matter, that I must somehow get myself certified as sane or I might be in trouble with the government.
"Rot, my dear fellow!" Rutherford assured me. "You've had some kind of psychic trauma or shock that's resulted in temporary amnesia. That could happen to anybody. You're as sane as I am."
I asked him whether he'd be willing to sign a medical certificate to that effect.
"Well," he replied slowly, "that's another story. I'm not a specialist along psychiatric lines. Up here I get mostly baby-cases, indigestion, some alcoholism and now and then, thank God, a real honest broken leg. My name on a certificate wouldn't mean much in sanity proceedings. I'd rather have you run over to Hartford and see Dr. Folsom at the Sanctuary. He has the stuff and the equipment to put you through the standard tests."
"That's okay by me, Jerry," I agreed, "but I'd still like you to put me through a few paces so that your records will show that this is on the level. If some bright boy in Washington decides to throw me in the asylum for making nasty faces at the Big Brass, I want to have a clean medical record for use in a counter-suit for false arrest."
Rutherford stood up and looked out the window. "I'm a hell of a poor choice for a man to look into your private life, after this business with Germaine and Virginia," he observed.
"That's why I want to keep it all in the family," I told him. "Listen, Jerry, until she came out to Pook's Hill the other day I have no recollection of ever setting eyes on Virginia. Under the circumstances, she's as superfluous as a bridegroom's pajamas. I faked as well as I could but the plain fact is that I have no memory of her, of you, of Jimmie or anybody around here before April 2nd. Now that's not normal, to put it mildly."
"You know, Winnie," the doctor remarked professionally, "I think that your quote loss of memory unquote is nothing but a defense mechanism. I know a bit about your affairs and they seem to have got so complicated—with three or four women on a string, business problems, liquor and so forth—that you simply decided subconsciously not to remember anything about them. Your mind's a blank as to everything you want to forget."
I shook my head. "The trouble is, Jerry, that my mind's not blank at all. I remember a hell of a lot but it's all about another man."
"How's that again?"
So I told him the whole story, from beginning to end, skipping only the bits about the thorium bomb and Z-2 for reasons of security, and omitting the name of the carrier. He took notes and studied them for a while. Then he looked up at me and smiled.
"This beats anything in Freud," he observed. "I still stick to my off-the-cuff diagnosis that you had something that gave you a shock—it needn't have been anything big, you know; just a straw that broke the camel's back—and then developed this loss of memory as a defense mechanism. And this transfer of personalities with Jacklin—metempsychosis is the fancy word for it—is not the usual type of schizophrenia, but it falls into a pattern of wish-fulfillment.
"You probably don't remember it but ever since I've known you, you've been grousing about this fellow Jacklin, whom none of us have ever met. It's been close to an obsession with you. I gather that you had some kind of a school-boy crush on him, which he ignored, and your feelings turned to hatred. You seem to have kept close track of him and his doings all these years. Subconsciously you must have identified yourself with him. I'm just guessing now—Folsom could make a scientific check—but I should say that you may have developed a split personality, based on envy and jealousy for this chap. Jacklin's had to make his own way, while you've always had plenty of money and good business connections, especially since you got over the depression. He was in uniform, serving his country, and you were a civilian, enriching yourself. He had separated from his wife while you were tangled up with a lot of women...."
"But how did I know that Mrs. Jacklin had a mole on her left hip?" I asked.
"Nine women out of ten have at least one and often more moles on both their hips," he said, "as you should know. In any case, I take it that you didn't verify the statement. No, Winnie, at the Sanctuary they can deal with this sort of thing scientifically and tell you how to make the readjustment."
"My wife doesn't want me to readjust too much," I told him. "She'd rather have me crazy and stick around with her than sane but off chasing a bunch of skirts."
"Can't say that I blame her, old man," he agreed, controlling himself with a visible effort, "but that's her affair and nothing to do with your case."
"Quite!" I told him, "and let me say that you've been a hell of a good sport about this mess. Believe me, Jerry, I'm not trying to alibi myself so far as Virginia is involved, but I don't remember anything about her and me that couldn't be taught in a Methodist Sunday School. It's—it's almost as though I had been born again, given a last chance to relive my life. If that's what trauma does for you, we ought to have more of it."
"Listen, Winnie," the doctor remarked. "This is between us, of course, but the sanest thing you ever did was to get shed of Virginia. She's fun and all that, but after a few weeks it's boring to live with a one-track mind with red hair. Germaine is worth a dozen of her. Perhaps when I get back from the Army, Virginia will have settled down enough to be a doctor's wife. You'll see that she gets the money, won't you?"
"Sure," I agreed, "and I'll give you a tip I learned at Hopkins. The short-cut to medical riches. A loony psychiatrist there says he always advises middle-aged men to do a little heavy drinking and woman chasing, in order to get rid of their inhibitions. There ought to be a fortune in that kind of medical treatment, especially in Westchester."
Jerry Rutherford laughed. "Westchester's discovered the prescription all by itself," he said, "and they're just beginning to learn that when a middle-aged American sheds his inhibitions, there's damn little of him left. Now, you'd better run along and get packed for a stay in Hartford. I'll phone Folsom and tell him you're driving over this afternoon. He'll fix you up if anyone can."
"Swell!" I thanked him.
When I got back to Pook's Hill, I called the office and told Arthurjean that I was leaving for a rest-cure at the Hartford Sanctuary and to tell my partners that I didn't want to be disturbed by business affairs until further notice. I asked her to get hold of Merriwether Vail and meet me at the Sanctuary as soon as they could make it. They were to bring the necessary papers so that I could deed over $15,000 to Dr. Jeremiah Rutherford of Bedford Hills, to be paid in monthly installments of $1,000 to his wife. I added that there was nothing seriously wrong with me but that the best advice I could get recommended a rest-cure to head off a possible nervous breakdown. Then I said good-bye to Germaine, gave Ponto a farewell pat on the head and piled into my Packard for the drive to Hartford.
The Sanctuary proved to be a large, pleasant brick building—something about half-way between a country club and a summer hotel—in the better groomed suburbs of Hartford, with a fine view of the Connecticut River. The ample grounds were surrounded by a high spiked iron fence and the gates to the driveway were closed, until I had identified myself to the guard on duty. In fact, it reminded me of the routine of getting admitted to the White House grounds, except that this time I was not accompanied by General Wakely. At the front door, a uniformed attendant took charge of my bags and gave directions to have my car sent to the garage. Then I was ushered into one of those hospital waiting-rooms that defy all interior-decorating efforts to give them a respectable, homelike touch.
A few moments later, a pretty nurse in a white starched uniform directed me to follow her. We went through a door, which she was careful to lock behind her, along a corridor and up one flight of stairs to a pleasantly furnished bedroom, where my bags were already waiting for me. She told me to get undressed and go to bed—which I did, after she had carefully unpacked my belongings, removing my razor and my nail-file.
"Dr. Folsom will be by to see you in a few minutes, Mr. Tompkins," she informed me. "Just ring if you want anything."
After she left, I felt good and mad. How in blazes did they expect to minister to a mind diseased, if they began by the old routine of getting the patient stripped and bedded? Then I realized that this was just a simple matter of establishing the institution's moral superiority, at the very outset, and my anger evaporated. I lay back and dozed for a few minutes until the door opened and a burly man, with a glittering eye and strangler's hands, entered my room.
"I'm Dr. Folsom, Mr. Tompkins," he informed me. "Dr. Rutherford phoned that you were coming over for a check-up. Before we get down to business, there are a few routine questions I'd like to ask."
They were routine: Name, age, address, next of kin, annual income, banking connections, name of recommending physician, and whether patient had previously received mental treatment in an accredited psychiatric institution.
"Shall we mail the bills to Mrs. Tompkins?" he asked.
"Hell, no! Give them to me. I brought along my check-book."
Dr. Folsom nodded approval. "Here is the bill for the first week," he said. "We generally ask our patients to pay in advance."
He handed me a folded piece of fine bonded paper. On it, tastefully inscribed, was the information that I owed The Sanctuary, Hartford, Conn., $250.00 for room, board and attendance for the period of April 20-25, inclusive. There was a space for my signature and the doctor thrust a fountain-pen into my hand. "Just sign there and we'll send it to your bank for collection," he said.
"What's all this fine print?" I suddenly demanded.
"Oh, that's just a matter of form," he explained.
"Wait a minute," I urged. "I was always taught that when in Hartford you ought always to read the small print at the bottom of the page."
I studied it out. "The above signature," it read, "constitutes an agreement not to leave or attempt to leave The Sanctuary without the prior approval of the Management."
I looked at Dr. Folsom. "If you don't mind, doctor," I told him, "I'd prefer to sign one of my own checks and have it cleared in the usual way. What's the idea of having me sign away my liberty like that?"
Folsom smiled disarmingly. "That's one of the ways we judge whether a patient is really sane. Only a crazy man would sign it," he explained. "More seriously, Mr. Tompkins, you must remember that a private asylum has quite a problem in controlling its patients. They are not generally committed to our care by court orders and usually come here only at the request of their families with their own reluctant consent. Without a signed agreement of that kind, we might be exposed to legal annoyances, suit for damages or even a kidnapping charge, if a patient changed his mind and decided to act nasty."
"I see your point, doctor," I told him. "I've asked my attorney and my private secretary to meet me here a little later today. I have some business I must clean up before I can settle down for treatment. I'll consult him about the kind of agreement to sign with the Sanctuary. So far as I'm concerned, I don't see the necessity for any agreement. I want to get a simple sanity test and see if you can recommend any course of treatment for dealing with a serious loss of memory."
"I'm not sure that it is the management's policy to accept a patient under such unusual conditions," he said. "I'll have to consult my associates."
"See here, doctor," I replied. "All I want now is to have one of the psychiatrists give me the works, tell me whether I'm sane or crazy, and then I'll pull out. I don't want to stay here under false pretenses and I don't intend to stay here a minute longer than I want to. I'll pay any fee you charge, within reason, but I'm damned if I'll sign my own freedom away, with Wall Street getting set to shoot the works."
Dr. Folsom laughed. "I can't say that I blame you, Mr. Tompkins. And you don't sound unbalanced to me."
"But I want a document signed to that effect," I declared. "You see, some of my business associates have been trying to have me adjudged incompetent so as to get control of my money. It's about three million dollars at present quotations. So I'm out to build up my defenses in advance of the show-down.Nowdo you understand?"
"Oh!" The Director of the Sanctuary was enormously relieved. "That's no trouble at all. I'll send up our business psychiatrist, Dr. Pendergast Potter—he studied under Jung in Vienna, you know—and he'll give you our standard businessman's sanity-test. We have quite a few cases like yours, you know. It's surprising how many business partners seize on insanity as a key to robbing their associates. It's done every day. And our fee for this service will be five thousand dollars."
"Five thousand dollars it is!" I agreed.
"Good!" Dr. Folsom beamed. "I'll send Potter over right away."
When Dr. Pendergast Potter arrived, he proved to be a short, square-built man, with a red spade beard and soft but shifty brown eyes—like an Airedale's. He had, he told me almost at once, studied with Jung in Vienna and I thought of that mischievous parody—