There was a buzz and he picked up the desk-telephone. "Oh, they do," he remarked. "Good!"
He turned back to me. "That was the Finger-Print Division. They're your prints, all right, so we'll cancel the kidnapping charge."
"What's the second strike on me?"
"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."