The Whenabouts of Burr Read Online Free

items as a parlor suite left behind by Mrs. Heber Votaw, President Harding’s sister; God’s own number of moldering trophies shot by Col. Roosevelt; Christmas presents which had met with the disapprobation of First Ladies Hayes, Garfield, Wilson, Hoover, and Truman; and five divans inlaid with mother-in-law-of-pearl and presented by an ousted claimant to one of the Trucial Sheikdoms during the Coolidge Administration. This was known as the Clutter Room, and Luella Gosport had obtained the key from the White House’s Housekeeper on a pretext. President Gosport felt confident that it was not bugged.
    Nate Swift ran his lean hand over his dark hair. “Mr. President,” he said, “I am willing to be of whatever service I can to you, both as an old American and a loyal friend—I mean, as a loyal American and an old friend.”
    â€œI’m going to give you a note to Dr. Dutton, the new Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures,” the President decided. “He’s going to make you Field Observer.”
    Swift, who had been leaning back, sat up straighter. The inlaid divan had been designed for shorter, softer bodies than his own. “The Bureau of Weights and Meas ures? Field Observer?”
    The President smiled, pleased both at the thought of his idea and at his friend’s reaction to it, which was puzzlement. “That’s right. Principle of the Purloined Letter. You want to hide something, leave it laying right out in the open. It’ll never be observed. Now, Nephi Gundarson may be a dumb prick, but he’s after all not a hundred percent dumb. He’ll be watching like a hawk to see what new appointees are going in what slots. But he hasn’t got all the time in the world, so of course he’ll concentrate on spook sections such as the C.I.A., N.S.A., D.D.I., and so on. Will he even think of looking into the Bureau of Weights and Measures? Will anybody? Of course not! That’s what they call in Hollywood ‘the beauty part of it’, you see.
    â€œNobody suspects the Bureau of Weights and Measures! And your title, Field Observer, well, that puts nobody up tight. Investigator, yes. Observer, no. You go anywhere—anywhere I send you, that is—and you look at anything and you report back to me. That is, of course, you can make some routine report for the archives of the Bureau, but that’s all. Nobody will bother about it. F.B.I. has its informants planted all over the place, but not there !”
    He got up, rubbing the base of his spine. “Think of it this way, Nate. What you’ll be doing, you’ll be helping to insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare. You’ll take it, of course.”
    They walked towards the door. “Of course, Mr. President,” said Nathan Hale (Nate) Swift.
    * * * *
    The late Mr. Romeo Romero, an importer of the finer sorts of olive oil, antipasto, and tomato conserves, was proud of his Italian birth and his American citizenship: therefore he named his first-born son Amerigo Vespucci. His son was equally proud of both estates, and did not really disparage his own name. But noting that untutored American tongues often found it difficult to master all the syllables of it, soon came to call himself what most of his friends called him: to wit, simply Ves . The firm of Romero Associates was second to none in the field of insurance investigations, ranging from checking on applicants to looking into claims; arson, the firm did not care to handle, leaving it to well-known specialists in the field; but for all matters involving the oddly-named area of “inland marine” policies, the name of Romero was a byword, and this was hardly less so in cases of personal liability claims.
    The nature of his work, the quickness of his mind, his natural zeal and indefatigability, resulted in his meeting not only the professional criminals, but magnates and their wives, stars of stage and