The Murder of a Fifth Columnist by Leslie Ford Page A

Marshall know?”
    “He said he did,” Pete said sardonically.
    Colonel Primrose’s “—When?” was shot out so abruptly that all of us started.
    “—Tonight at dinner,” Pete said, blankly. “He said he was going to the F. B. I. tomorrow. He told Bliss Thatcher that.”
    Colonel Primrose put his hand in his inside coat pocket, took out a telegram, unfolded it and handed it to Captain Lamb. He read it through twice before he handed it back, not further enlightened so far as I could see. Colonel Primrose took it and handed it to me—rather to the surprise of everybody else and certainly to Sergeant Buck’s silent but granite displeasure. It was addressed to the Colonel at his house on P Street.
    “Have inside dope authorship of Truth Not Fiction,” I read. “Will you undertake verification as public service. Personal angle makes it inadvisable my name be connected with public exposure. Can meet you my hotel Washington Tuesday night.”
    It was signed “Corliss Marshall.”
    Colonel Primrose took it out of my hand, folded it again, and then apparently changed his mind. He handed it to Pete and waited, looking at him very casually, which meant he was seeing straight through him. Pete’s jaw hardened and the anger smoldered in his eyes as he read it. He handed it back.
    “You think Corliss’s fine feelings wouldn’t let his name be connected with a public exposure of a friend, Colonel?” he asked ironically. “It would be the first time in his life he didn’t want all the publicity he could get, at whoever’s expense. Or was he trying a little anonymous blackmail?”
    “Or perhaps he was… afraid something might happen to him.”
    It was Ruth Sherwood who said that. There was something about the way she said it that made even Captain Lamb look at her sharply. It was as if she knew very well what that kind of fear was like.
    “And something did,” I said.
    It frightened me—not so much for her as for that girl asleep behind the easily opened door of my apartment. Maybe that was what the matter was.
    Colonel Primrose nodded. “I don’t understand why he said he was going to the F. B. I. when he knew he was meeting me in less than an hour.”
    “Because it sounded better,” Pete said promptly. “It made a bigger guy out of Corliss Marshall.”
    “Or possibly he wanted to frighten somebody,” Colonel Primrose said. He looked at Pete for a moment, and took a step forward from the desk. “If you don’t write ‘Truth Not Fiction,’ Hamilton,” he said coolly, “I think it’s up to you to prove it. Corliss Marshall—if that’s what he thought—isn’t the only person in Washington who thinks it. For one very good reason, I’ll advise you to do something about it, and do it quick. Good-night.”
    If he’d slapped Pete Hamilton across the face he couldn’t have given him a more stunning shock. Pete stood there, his mouth open, his cigarette burning to a long crazy cylinder between his fingers, staring after him long after he’d followed Captain Lamb out the door and closed it behind him.

11
    I suppose it wasn’t more than a minute that he stood there rooted to the floor, but it seemed like an age. Then he strode forward, the door slammed shut and he was gone.
    I turned blankly to Ruth Sherwood.
    “For Heaven’s sake,” I demanded, “what is going on?”
    She was sitting there with her hands in her lap, just as she’d been before, but the most extraordinary change had come over her. She looked as if she’d been sick for years. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and her skin was the color of dirty water. She shook her head.
    “I don’t know,” she answered painfully. “Just what Bliss Thatcher told me last night. They’ve had to cancel all press conferences in his division. This newsletter’s been printing off the record information. They don’t know who it is. It’s dangerous—for the press as well as the country. If they can’t trust accredited correspondents,