The Rat Race

When the bomb exploded, U.S.S. Alaska, was steaming westward, under complete radio silence, somewhere near the international date-line on the Great Circle course south of the Al...

"There are several gentlemen waiting for you, Mr. Tompkins," she announced. "Some of them have been here since before lunch. Do you plan to receive them or shall I ask them to r...

"May I speak to Mrs. Jacklin?" I asked the switch-board girl. She promptly referred me to Information, who told me that Mrs. Dorothy Jacklin was on Extension 3046, shall-I-conne...

As soon as I was connected with Arthurjean I asked her to meet me at her apartment as soon as she could make it. Then I hailed a cab and was driven south through Central Park to...

My wife sat down beside me and studied me closely. "You _look_ different," she remarked. "To me, at any rate. You're sort of coming to a focus. If only--. You're so different an...

Dr. Rutherford's office was tastefully furnished, in the suburban medical manner, to suggest a Tudor tap-room. There was, of course, a spotless chrome and porcelain laboratory c...

"Say, old man, what happened to your hand?" Graham Wasson, plump, dark and fortyish, but very clean-cut and with a Dewey dab on his upper lip, was my questioner. He sat across t...

The events which brought me into the office of Edward Lamb, Deputy Director of the F.B.I., on Friday the thirteenth, had developed so rapidly that I could scarcely believe that...

After a pleasant breakfast, in the course of which my wife read the social news in the New York Herald-Tribune and I the business news in the New York Times, I excused myself an...

"Well, there it is, Harcourt," I ended my recitation. "Miss Briggs believes me, my wife doesn't, and I don't expect you to. But if you're interested, I can prove I'm Frank Jackl...

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...

She thrust a blue-and-white celluloid saucer at me, with a number on it, and passed a mimeographed form, which I duly signed "Robert E. Lee, C.S.A.," and which she duly accepted...

Wednesday, the twenty-fifth, dawned bright and fair. My mind was fully made up and I was feeling fine. Germaine was still anxious about me at breakfast but I soon convinced her...

"Poor old Winnie!" he expostulated. "Why didn't you try something comparatively safe, like robbing a she bear of her whelps or yelling 'Hurray for Hitler' in Union Square? Harry...

"And so, Arthurjean," I concluded, "my guess is that for some crazy reason it's up to me to take up where Winnie left off and try to do a good job with the hand he's dealt himse...

"It's a bit too hard to explain, Virginia," I said, "but something came up and I don't think I can go through with it. In fact, I know I can't go through with it."

The white-coated medical man--he said that he was associate psychiatrist at the Phipps Clinic--beckoned me to follow him into a side-room. He waved me to be seated and closed th...

"Not necessary. This is entirely informal. As a matter of fact, I have some gentlemen from Washington whom I think you will be interested in meeting. This is entirely unofficial...

When Dr. Pendergast Potter arrived, he proved to be a short, square-built man, with a red spade beard and soft but shifty brown eyes--like an Airedale's. He had, he told me almo...

"I am--or was--the head of Z-2," Tyler replied. "You know, Mr. Tompkins," he continued, "I find it most intensely interesting that you should have picked on that particular comb...

Tompkins, Wasson & Cone maintained sincere-looking offices on one of the upper floors of No. 1 Wall Street. The rooms were carefully furnished in dark wood and turkey-red uphols...

"That wasn't quite my question, sir," I replied. "I asked you whether you could justify the Lord's putting my soul into another man's body. Am I to be responsible for the sins t...

As the door to the room slammed convulsively behind Myrtle, Mrs. Rutherford relaxed, laid the automatic on the sofa between us, and flung back her mink coat. She was an appetizi...

The girl moved quite close to me, in helping me off with my things and it was only by a distinct effort of will that I refrained from giving that provocative hip the tweak it so...

"It's--it's just that everything is so queer," Germaine began. "You've changed so that you almost seem like a different person. You even look better, not so flabby, as though yo...

There is no point in describing the various problems of logistics involved in my reaching General Wakely's office in the Pentagon early on Sunday morning. All the Pentagon stori...

"Okay, send him in," I directed, bracing myself for what would probably be a stormy interview. If Roscommon was as well-informed as he claimed to be, he must know that I had alr...

On the morning of Monday, April 23rd (the date seemed unimportant at the time), I took the early morning train into New York. Spring had done its fell work and the club car was...

"I don't see how you can call it nonsense," I told her. "There he stood in my office, a little man with a big Adam's apple, telling me that God was on my track. I'm used to bein...

As I looked at the guileless, friendly face, my heart sank. Here was one man who should not be deceived. It would be as easy as stuffing a ballot box.

"Perhaps I oughtn't to tell you this, Mr. Tompkins," he explained, "but like you said, you're in the clear with the Bureau. We've checked and double-checked and any way we slice...

After I left St. Patrick's-by-the-Gashouse I went to a corner saloon and telephoned the F.B.I. I asked for Harcourt but was told that he was out to lunch, which reminded me that...

The grill in the Governor Baldwin was not crowded and we had no trouble getting a pleasant table in the corner, while four colored men blew into metal objects, hit things and de...

I was lying down in the kitchen, near the stove, on an old rug which Mary-Myrtle had spread for me. She was really a nice girl. My educated nose informed me that she was kind, y...

My opportunity to settle the account did not present itself for more than twenty-four hours. Early the following morning, Myrtle was kicked out and crept upstairs. Winnie slamme...