"Well, here I am," I told him, "and Mrs. Rutherford needn't feel bothered. What is it now?"
"We just wanted to get the rights of your run-in with the Secret Service," he told me. "Our liaison there told the Director that you stood Chief Flynn on his ear and that Flynn threatened to swear out a lunacy warrant against you. How come?"
I gave him a full account of my encounter with the Secret Service and ended by producing the certificate of sanity signed by Dr. Folsom.
"There it is," I declaimed.
The Special Agent smiled. "You're nothing if not thorough, Mr. Tompkins. Have you had any luck filling in that blank period before Easter? The Bureau would feel much happier if you could remember. Now don't get me wrong. The case against you is closed. You're off our books. We believe that you're telling the truth, but just the same it seems funny you can't remember."
Virginia Rutherford turned on him, like a battleship bringing a battery of 16-inch guns to bear on a freighter. "Perhaps he has a good reason for not remembering," she remarked. "Perhaps he went somewhere, with some one—in skirts!"
"That's just what puzzles us," Harcourt admitted. "We've had fifty agents from the New York office alone making checks, as far north as Montreal, in Portland, Boston, Providence, and even Cincinnati and Richmond. We've checked trains, buses, airlines and the garages, as well as the hotels, boarding-houses and overnight cabins. There isn't anybody that can remember seeing Mr. Tompkins, with or without a woman, during that week."
"Then you're still investigating me?" I asked, while a chill went down my spine.
The Special Agent shook his head. "Not at all, Mr. Tompkins. Like I told you, the investigation was called off last week, when we established your Z-2 identity. This is just the result of the inquiries we started the week before last."
"And you can't find a trace?" I asked.