The door didn't say anything at all except "Lt. P. Lynch." Malone looked
at it for a couple of seconds. He'd asked the Desk Sergeant for Lynch,
shown his credentials and been directed up a set of stairs and around a
hall. But he still didn't know what Lynch did, who he was, or what his
name was doing in the little black notebook.
Well, he told himself, there was only one way to find out.
He opened the door.
The room was small and dark. It had a single desk in it, and three
chairs, and a hatrack. There wasn't any coat or hat on the hatrack, and
there was nobody in the chairs. In a fourth chair, behind the desk, a
huskily-built man sat. He had steel-gray hair, a hard jaw and, Malone
noticed with surprise, a faint twinkle in his eye.
"Lieutenant Lynch?" Malone said.
"Right," Lynch said. "What's the trouble?"
"I'm Kenneth J. Malone," Malone said. "FBI." He reached for his wallet
and found it. He flipped it open for Lynch, who stared at it for what
seemed a long, long time and then burst into laughter.
"What's so funny?" Malone asked.
Lynch laughed some more.
"Oh, come on," Malone said bitterly. "After all, there's no reason to
treat an FBI agent like some kind of a--"
"FBI agent?" Lynch said. "Listen, buster, this is the funniest gag I've
seen since I came on the Force. Who told you to pull it? Jablonski
downstairs? Or one of the boys on the beat? I know those beat patrolmen,
always on the lookout for a new joke. But this tops 'em all. This is
the--"
"You're a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said tartly.
"A what?" Lynch said. "I'm not Irish."
"You talk like an Irishman," Malone said.
"I know it," Lynch said, and shrugged. "Around some precincts, you sort
of pick it up. When all the other cops are ... hey, listen. How'd we get
to talking about me?"
"I said you were a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said.
"I was a--what?"
"Disgrace." Malone looked carefully at Lynch. In a fight, he considered,
he might get in a lucky punch that would kill Malone. Otherwise, Malone
didn't have a thing to worry about except a few months of
hospitalization.
Lynch looked as if he were about to get mad, and then he looked down at
Malone's wallet again and started to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Malone demanded.
He grabbed the wallet and turned it toward him. At once, of course, he
realized what had happened. He had not flipped it open to his badge at
all. He'd flipped it open, instead, to a card in the card-case:
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE
PRESENTS THAT Sir Kenneth
Malone, Knight, is hereby formally
installed with the title of
KNIGHT OF THE BATH
and this card shall signify his right
to that title and his high and respected
position as officer in and of
THE QUEENS OWN F.B.I.