"That's a report phoned in by one of your partners that you seemed
to expect President Roosevelt's death two or three days before it
happened."
"I did," I explained. "A man named Axel Roscommon came to my office,
said that he was the chief Nazi agent in the United States, and told
me that Roosevelt had been poisoned at Yalta. I had already reported
Roscommon to the Bureau and was told to let him alone. Roscommon said
that only a few people, including Roosevelt, knew about the poisoning.
I wanted to pass on the warning but was told that it was too late, that
I would simply expose myself to suspicion. So what I did was to make
normal business preparations to take advantage of its effect on the
Stock Market."
Lamb looked up at the ceiling and remained silent for a few minutes.
"So that's the way it was," he said. "For your personal information,
Mr. Tompkins, Roscommon told the Director the same thing a month ago
but when Mr. Hoover tried to warn the Secret Service he had his ears
slapped back. If I'd known about the Roscommon angle in your case I
would have told the New York office not to worry. I thought perhaps
that this was another angle on the same story."
"Do you believe that President Roosevelt was assassinated, Mr. Lamb?" I
asked, point-blank.
He shrugged his shoulders. "No, I do not," he replied. "Not officially,
that is. It is not inconceivable and the Secret Service is so set in
its ideas and methods that--well, frankly I'd rather not believe it.
I have no evidence, aside from a verbal warning which might have been
coincidence. Some of our toxicologists say that it could be done,
others deny that there is a virus which can produce the symptoms of a
paralytic stroke. In any case, it's outside of our jurisdiction."
I heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God I'm clear of that one," I said.
"I shouldn't like to be mixed up, even by accident, in anything like
that. I remember what happened to Dr. Mudd."
Lamb nodded. "The doctor who bandaged Booth's leg after the murder of
Lincoln? Yes, I can see your point."
"How about the third charge?" I asked.
Lamb looked serious. "That's not going to be so easy, Mr. Tompkins," he
announced. "Harcourt reports that he doesn't think there's anything to
it, but Naval Intelligence has the jitters about this Alaska business.
It seems to be pretty well established that on the afternoon of April
second you stated that the U.S.S. Alaska had been sunk in an explosion
off the western Aleutians. That was over ten days ago and there is
still no word from the carrier. The last report came from Adak which
had picked the ship up by radar on the first. The report given us was
that you represented that it was all a dream. What worries the Navy
about this explanation is that no public announcement had ever been
made of the Alaska's launching or commission. She's a sneak-carrier
built under stringent security regulations and until you came into the
picture the Navy was pretty sure that there'd been no leak."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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