I gave him a full account of my encounter with the Secret Service and ended by producing the certificate of sanity signed by Dr. Folsom. "There it is," I declaimed. The Special Agent smiled. "You're nothing if not thorough, Mr. Tompkins. Have you had any luck filling in that blank period before Easter? The Bureau would feel much happier if you could remember. Now don't get me wrong. The case against you is closed. You're off our books. We believe that you're telling the truth, but just the same it seems funny you can't remember." Virginia Rutherford turned on him, like a battleship bringing a battery of 16-inch guns to bear on a freighter. "Perhaps he has a good reason for not remembering," she remarked. "Perhaps he went somewhere, with some one--in skirts!" "That's just what puzzles us," Harcourt admitted. "We've had fifty agents from the New York office alone making checks, as far north as Montreal, in Portland, Boston, Providence, and even Cincinnati and Richmond. We've checked trains, buses, airlines and the garages, as well as the hotels, boarding-houses and overnight cabins. There isn't anybody that can remember seeing Mr. Tompkins, with or without a woman, during that week." "Then you're still investigating me?" I asked, while a chill went down my spine. The Special Agent shook his head. "Not at all, Mr. Tompkins. Like I told you, the investigation was called off last week, when we established your Z-2 identity. This is just the result of the inquiries we started the week before last." "And you can't find a trace?" I asked. "Not a thing," he said. Mrs. Rutherford turned to me, flung her arms around me and planted a far from sisterly kiss on my lips. "Winnie, old dear," she observed, "you are simply incredible." And she left the apartment. "Wonder what she meant by that?" Harcourt mused. "We're probably happier in ignorance," I told him. "Come on, A. J., I'll buy a taxi down town. I've got to stop in at my office and gather some of my unearned income. They tell me we've made nearly three million dollars in the last ten days." Harcourt consulted his note book. "The Bureau's figures put it at two million eight hundred seventy thousand and two hundred forty-six dollars and seventy-one cents, if you want to know," he said. "So you _are_ keeping me watched," I remarked. "What do _you_ think?" asked Special Agent Harcourt of the F.B.I. CHAPTER 27 "What's the big idea?" I demanded. "I thought I was in the clear." Harcourt looked somewhat embarrassed. "Perhaps I oughtn't to tell you this, Mr. Tompkins," he explained, "but like you said, you're in the clear with the Bureau. We've checked and double-checked and any way we slice it, you're still okay. Maybe you're Tompkins with a lapse of memory, maybe this yarn of yours about Jacklin is on the level, but we're sure of _you_."