"Just a minute, Grant. I'm not done with you. We're going to finish
this Z-2 business right now." He pushed a button and uttered into his
desk-phone: "Sergeant! Bring those women in here."
A moment later the door opened and Dorothy, Germaine and Virginia
appeared, each looking as bedraggled as any woman who has been awakened
too early.
"Winnie!" Germaine's face lighted up like a traffic go-sign. She
crossed the room and kissed me. "I thought--"
General Wakely coughed, severely.
"Mrs. Tompkins," he announced, "I'm Major-General Wakely. This is G-2.
The C.I.C. has rounded up your husband's chief associates for this
interview. We're about to close in on the most dangerous Nazi spy-ring
in existence. You know Mrs. Rutherford, of course, and this other woman
goes under the name of Mrs. Jacklin."
"My name _is_ Mrs. Jacklin," Dorothy replied with feeling, "and the
O.S.S. will want to know by what authority--"
Wakely waved her and the O.S.S. aside. "Very clever, Mrs. Jacklin,
or should I say Mrs. Von Bieberstein?" He turned back to Germaine.
"Thanks in part to your husband, Mrs. Tompkins," he continued, "we
have at last got on the track of Hitler's ace operative in the Western
Hemisphere, Kurt Von Bieberstein, or should I say Frank Jacklin? We
almost had him cornered five years ago but he took advantage of the
confusion after Pearl--after the Navy let us--after the declaration of
war, and went into hiding as a naval officer. It was only by accident,
when Mr. Tompkins accidentally supplied the missing link, that we found
the trail again."
"That's handsome of you, General," I said, "but I think that
Counter-Intelligence deserves full credit."
He beamed at me.
"And what am I doing here, General Wakely?" Virginia cooed at the
specimen of military manhood.
Wakely smiled before he remembered that he was a pattern of military
efficiency. "You are known to Counter-Intelligence, Mrs. Rutherford, as
one of the best agents in Z-2."
"But what is Z-2?" Virginia was frankly bemused. "Of course, I've heard
of Intelligence. Isn't that something that belongs to the Army?"
The General oozed approval. "Gad! Tompkins, you train your agents
well. She'd never admit a syllable without your permission. No, Mrs.
Rutherford, Z-2 is to be liquidated and we're here to find this fellow
Von Bieberstein."
Dorothy stood up. "I've heard all the drivel I propose to stand for,"
she announced. "Frank is a decent, loyal American and it's not his
fault that we couldn't get along together. I've never heard of Von
Bieberstein in my life. Mr. Tompkins," she added, turning to me, "if
you had anything to do with this high-handed foolishness--you say you
knew Frank--"
"Mrs. Jacklin," I told her. "I don't think that your husband, and I
knew him well, was disloyal for one moment of his life. In any case,
military intelligence can't lay a finger on your husband."
"And why not?" Wakely demanded.
"Because he's dead, General," I said.
"Suicide, eh?"
"No, sir. He went down with--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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