I nodded. "He said that I needed a good long rest and that you must take very good care of me." She looked up at me, large-eyed, through a haze of steam. "Oh, Winnie," she declared. "I _am_ so proud of you. To think that all the time you've been doing secret intelligence! And I believed you were just chasing around after those silly girls. Don't you think you could have trusted your wife?" she asked. I shook my head emphatically. "That was part of my cover," I replied. "If you hadn't been worried about me it wouldn't have looked natural. If I'd told you, you wouldn't have worried and the Axis agents--" I left the thought trailing. Germaine sucked reflectively on the corner of her wash-cloth. "Yes," she agreed at last, "I can see that, but I don't see how I can ever trust you again." I laughed. "Then don't trust me," I told her. "We'll still have a good time. Suppose you get dressed now and come downstairs and we'll have champagne cocktails to celebrate." "Celebrate what?" she asked, loosing the stopper with her toes. "Celebrate the liquidation of Z-2," I said. "It's being taken over by the Army. My work is done anyhow. And tomorrow I have to see the State Department. Mr. Truman tells me they need men like me--God help them!" "The State Department!" She jumped out of the tub, scattering water lavishly on the floor and on me. "Are they going to make you an Ambassador or something?" "Come down to earth, Jimmie," I urged her. "I'm a Republican from New York; not a Democrat. I may have done an even better job than they think I've done, but I know one thing I didn't do to qualify for a diplomatic job." "What's that?" she asked, towelling herself vigorously. "I never contributed a dime to the Democratic National Committee," I confessed. CHAPTER 20 There was a brisk knock on the bedroom door. I walked over and opened it, to see F.B.I. Special Agent A. J. Harcourt. He gave me a reproachful glance and pushed his way into the room. "I can only stop a minute, Mr. Tompkins," he said, "but I have orders from the Director to call on you in person and present the apologies of the Bureau for having inconvenienced you. If you had only told us you were connected with Z-2 there would have been no trouble." "Sit down, Harcourt," I urged him. Then I crossed to the bathroom door. "Don't come out until you're decent, dear," I called to Germaine. "The F.B.I. is here." Some muffled instructions answered, so I went around the room and picked up the various scattered wisps of silk and rayon, and thrust them through to my wife. "That's all I was to say, Mr. Tompkins," Harcourt repeated, still standing, "that the Bureau is mighty sorry about the whole business." "Sit down!" I told him again. "Now get this Z-2 thing straight. There isn't any Z-2. I just invented it, trying to get myself out of this jam. I never was a Z-2 agent. What I told these people was all moonshine."