The Rat Race by Jay Franklin (book club books txt) 📕

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