It was a little after one o'clock when I reached the Harvard Club. The door-man glanced at my face and automatically stuck a little ivory peg in the hole opposite the name of Tompkins on the list of members. I checked my hat and coat and strolled through the sitting-rooms into the large lounge-library beside the dining-room. A couple of men nodded and smiled as I passed them, so I nodded back and said, "Hi!" in a conversational tone. In the lounge I found a chair and a copy of the World-Telegram, so I decided to catch up with the war-news. The German Armies were beginning to crumble but there was still talk of a stand along the Elbe and Hitler was reported fortifying the mountain-districts of Southern Germany into a redoubt for a last Valhalla Battle. The Pacific news was good. The fighting on Okinawa was going our way and the clean-up in the Philippines was well in hand. The Navy Department discounted enemy reports of heavy damage to American warships by Jap suicide-pilots but, as an old Navy P.R.O., I could tell that it had been plenty. I'd heard about the Kamikazes from some of our pilots who had seen them off Leyte and I had no doubt that they were doing a job on the 7th Fleet. Roosevelt had gone South for a couple of weeks rest at Warm Springs, Georgia, and Ed Stettinius was in the final throes of organizing the United Nations Conference at San Francisco-- "Hi, Winnie? Don't you speak to your old friends any more?" I looked up to see a lean, wolfish-looking man, with a gray moustache, a slightly bald head and definitely Bond Street clothes. "Oh, hullo!" I said and returned to reading the paper. The newspaper was firmly taken out of my hands and the man sat down beside me. "We've got to have a talk," he said. "Why? What's happened?" "There's been a lot of talk about you running around town in the last twenty-four hours, Winnie. None of the other alleged friends we know had the guts to tell you. But I thought your room-mate--" "So you're Merry Vail," I said stupidly. "You're in worse shape than I thought you were, Winnie," he replied. "Yes, I'm Merriwether Vail who started his life-long career of rescuing Winfred Tompkins from blondes and booze at Harvard in 1916. Now, if you'll just crawl out of your alcoholic coma and listen to me for five minutes before you take off for your next skirt, you'll learn something to your advantage." "How about a drink, Merry?" I asked, to keep in character. "Not before five, so help me, and you'd better lay off liquor till you hear this. Here it is. There's a story going the rounds that the F.B.I. is after you. At any rate, at least one obvious G-man has been reported in full cry on your foot-prints." I sat up, startled. This was too much, even for purgatory. What _had_ Winnie been up to?