What with one thing and another, I didn't get back to the office until the Market closed on Thursday afternoon. I found my two partners in pretty good control of our operations but frankly mystified as to the cause of the official mugging of Tompkins, Wasson & Cone. We had laid out two and a half millions in all, despite the attempt to scare us off. The market had continued steady. Neither Graham nor Phil asked me any direct questions about the events on Wednesday. They talked straight business and kept their curiosity in check. It was close to half-past four when we finished our general discussion of the operation, so I decided that they were entitled to some kind of explanation in return for their loyalty. "See here, boys," I told them. "You've both been perfectly swell about this rat-race the S.E.C. started. Harry Willamer tried to put the squeeze on me for half a million dollars to finance him and a bunch of official bastards in a shady deal. When I turned him down he threatened to tie us up with a Commission investigation. I bluffed him out of it at the time by pretending there was an F.B.I. dictaphone record of our talk, so he laid off the heavy heat and just started needling us a little. Any time now he'll make the check at the F.B.I. and when he finds there isn't any record he'll try to tie us up tighter than a drum. All we can do is wait it out. The market's going to start dropping any day now and we'll clean up." "Oh!" Wasson said. "Was that it? Willamer's a bad actor. Thanks for telling us, Winnie. Phil and I knew that there must be something screwy when--" The door flew open and Arthurjean appeared, her face white. "God!" she said at last. "He was such a swell guy. He--" "Who? What's the mat--" "It's Roosevelt!" she choked. "He's dead. It just came in on the ticker." "No!" "He died at Warm Springs." And she hid her face in her hands and left the room, sobbing. Phil Cone stood up, paper-white, crossed over and turned up the radio. "Flash!" the announcer was saying. "Warm Springs, Georgia. President Roosevelt died this afternoon following his collapse from a severe cerebral hemorrhage. More in a moment. Keep tuned to this station." "Well, I'll be eternally damned!" I said. "So he was right--" Cone whirled on me. "You knew about this," he stated flatly "When we were talking yesterday morning. You had more than a hunch. You knew he was going to die." "Be your age, Phil," I told him. "How in hell _could_ I know?" "Je-sus Ke-rist!" Wasson growled. "This will knock holy hell out of the Market. Lucky trading's closed for the day. They can't open tomorrow. They'll have to shut down all the exchanges. They'll have to close the banks. God! What a mess!" Cone still looked dazed. "No dancing in the streets?" he asked bitterly. "I thought this was going to send values sky-rocketing."