Over My Dead Body

We hadn't bumped into a G-man before in the course of business, and when he entered I did him the honour of swivelling clear around for a look. He was all right, medium-sized, with good shoulders and good eyes, a little skimpy in the jaw, and he needed a shoeshine. He told us his name again and shook hands with both of us, and took from his pocket a little leather case which he flipped open and exhibited to Wolfe with a reserved but friendly smile.

"My credentials," he explained in an educated voice. He certainly had fine manners, something on the order of a high-class insurance salesman.

Wolfe glanced at the exhibit, nodded, and indicated a chair. "Well, sir?"

The G-man looked politely apologetic. "We're sorry to bother you, Mr Wolfe, but it's our job. I'd like to ask whether you are acquainted with the Federal statute which recently went into effect, requiring persons who are agents in this country of foreign principals to register with the Department of State."

"Not intimately. I read newspapers. I read about that some time ago."

"Then you know of that law?"

"I do."

"Have you registered?"

"No. I am not an agent of a foreign principal."

The G-man threw one knee over the other. "The law applies to agents of foreign firms, individuals or organizations, as well as to foreign governments."

"So I understand."

"It also applies, here, both to aliens and to citizens. Are you a citizen of the United States?"

"I am. I was born in this country."

"You were at one time an agent of the Austrian Government?"

"Briefly, as a boy. Not here, abroad. I quit."

"And joined the Montenegrin army?"

"Later, but still a boy. I then believed that all misguided or cruel people should be shot, and I shot some. I starved to death in 1916."

The G-man looked startled. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said I starved to death. When the Austrians came and we fought machine-guns with finger-nails. Logically I was dead; a man can't live on dry grass. Actually I went on breathing. When the United States entered the war and I walked six hundred miles to join the A.E.F., I ate again. When it ended I returned to the Balkans. shed another illusion, and came back to America."

"Hvala Bogu," I put in brightly.

Stahl, startled again, shot me a glance. "I beg your pardon? Are you a Montenegrin?"

"Nope. Pure Ohio. The ejaculation was involuntary."