"Beg pardon, sir, but are you Mr. Tompkins?" The Hart, Shaffner & Marxed youngster who accosted me on the State Department steps had a definite bulge under his left shoulder that warned me he was armed. "Yes, and who are you, sir?" I inquired. "I'm Monaghan from the Secret Service," he told me. "The Chief wants to see you." "And who is the Chief?" I asked. "Chief Flynn, of course," he said. "It's only a few steps over at the the Treasury Building." "All right, Mr. Monaghan," I agreed. "I'll come along quietly. Am I under arrest? Should I send for my lawyer?" "The Service don't go much for lawyers," he said. "This way, sir." With Monaghan at my elbow, I turned right on Pennsylvania Avenue and walked in front of the White House and turned down East Executive Avenue to the side-entrance of the Treasury. A few baffling twists and turns in the corridors of Morgenthau, and I found myself in a large, sparsely furnished room, facing a white haired Irishman. "This is Tompkins, Chief," Monaghan reported and left me with the gimlet-eyed Secret Service executive. "You W. S. Tompkins?" he asked me. "Yes. And who are you?" "My name's Flynn." Neither of us said anything for a couple of minutes. He was obviously waiting for me to ask him why I had been brought to him--so I deliberately kept silent, pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. Seeing no ash-tray, I flicked the burnt match on the official green carpet and waited for him to open the conversation. "So you don't need to be told why you're here, Tompkins," he purred. "I came here, Mr. Flynn," I told him, "because one of your men practically put a gun at my ribs in front of the State Department. What do you want? A ticket to a prize fight? A good write-up in the papers? Tell me what it will cost me and I'll pay within reason. I didn't know that the Irish had got control of the Secret Service or I would have mailed the money ahead--in cash, of course, no checks, all small bills not consecutively numbered." Flynn scowled out the window in the general direction of the White House. I dropped some more cigarette ash on the carpet. Suddenly he whirled to me. "We're here to protect the President," he snapped, "and we don't propose to take any lip from you." I said nothing. Then I noticed the flag over the White House at half-mast. "Why's that flag at half-mast, Mr. Flynn," I asked. "Because the President's dead." "Was he murdered?" I asked. "He was not! He died of natural causes, but we don't go for people plotting to kill any President, even if he's dead. Our job depends on it." I rubbed out the stub of my cigarette on the corner of his mahogany desk and lighted another one.