"Nothing's impossible," the old man said. "Work for a theater long
enough and you find that out. Part bloodhound, I said, and part water
spaniel. Should have seen that dog before you start talking about
impossibilities. What a strange-looking beast. And then there was the
time--"
"About the notebook," Malone said.
"Notebook?" the old man said.
"I lost a notebook," Malone said. "I was hoping that--"
"Description?" the old man said, and poised his pencil again.
Malone heaved a great sigh. "Black plastic," he said. "About so big." He
made motions with his hands. "No names or initials on it. But the first
page had my name written on it, along with Lieutenant Peter Lynch."
"Who's he?" the old man said.
"He's a cop," Malone said.
"My, my," the old man said. "Valuable notebook, with a cop's name in it
and all. You a cop, youngster?"
Malone shook his head.
"Too bad," the old man said obscurely. "I like cops." He stood up. "You
said black plastic? Black?"
"That's right," Malone said. "Do you have it here?"
"Got no notebooks at all here, youngster," the old man said. "Empty
billfold, three hats, a couple of coats and some pencils. And an
umbrella. No dogs tonight, youngster, _and_ no notebooks."
"Oh," Malone said. "Well ... wait a minute."
"What is it, youngster?" the old man said. "I'm busy this time of day.
Got to sweep and clean. Got work to do. Not like you tourists."
With difficulty, Malone leashed his temper. "Why did I have to describe
the notebook?" he said. "You haven't got any notebooks at all."
"That's right," the old man said cheerfully.
"But you made me describe--"
"That's the rules," the old man said. "And I ain't about to go against
the rules. Not for no tourist." He put the pencil down and rose. "Wish
you were a cop," he said. "I never met a cop. They don't lose things
like people do."
Making a mental note to call up later and talk to the manager, if the
notebook hadn't turned up in the meantime, Malone went off to find the
bars he had stopped in before the theater.
* * * * *
Saving Topp's for last, he started at the Ad Lib, where a surprised bald
man told him they hadn't found a notebook anywhere in the bar for
something like six weeks. "Now if you'd been looking for umbrellas," he
said, "we could have accommodated you. Got over ten umbrellas
downstairs, waiting for their owners. I wonder why people lose so many
umbrellas?"
"Maybe they hate rain," Malone said.
"I don't know," the bald man said. "I'm sort of a psychologist--you
know, a judge of people. I think it's an unconscious protest against the
fetters of a society which is slowly strangling them by--"
Malone said good-by in a hurry and left. His next stop was the Xochitl,
the Mexican bar on Forty-sixth Street. He greeted the bartender warmly.
[Illustration]
"Ah," the bartender told him. "You come back. We look for you."
"Look for me?" Malone said. "You mean you found my notebook?"
"Notesbook?" the bartender said.
"A little black plastic book," Malone said, making motions, "about so
big. And it----"
"Not find," the bartender said. "You lose him?"
"Sure I lost him," Malone said. "I mean, _it_. Would I be looking for it
if I hadn't lost it?"
"Who knows?" the bartender said, and shrugged.
"But you said you were looking for me," Malone said. "What about?"
"Oh," the bartender said. "I only say that. Make customer feel good,
think we miss him. Customers like, so we do. What your name?"
"Pizarro," Malone said disgustedly, and went away.
The last stop was Topp's. Well, he had to find the notebook there. It
was the only place the notebook could be. That was logic, and Malone was
proud of it. He walked into Topp's trying to remember the bartender's
name, and found it just as he walked into the bar.
"Hello, Wally," he said gaily.
The bartender stared at him. "I'm not Wally," he said. "Wally's the
other barman. My name's Ray."
"Oh," Malone said, feeling deflated. "Well, I've come about a
notebook."
"Yes, sir?" Ray said.
"I lost the notebook here yesterday evening, between six and eight. If
you'll just take me to the Lost and Found department--"
"One moment, sir," Ray said, and left him standing at the bar, all
alone.
In a few seconds he was back. "I didn't see the notebook myself, sir,"
he said. "But if Wally picked it up, he'd have turned it over to the
_maître d'_. Perhaps you'd like to check with him."
"Sure," Malone said. The _maître d'_ turned out to be a shortish,
heavy-set man with large blue eyes, a silver mane and a thin,
pencil-line mustache. He was addressed, for no reason Malone was able to
discover, as BeeBee.
Ray introduced them. "This gentleman wants to know about a notebook," he
told BeeBee.
"Notebook?" BeeBee said.
Malone explained at length. BeeBee nodded in an understanding fashion
for some moments and, when Malone had finished, disappeared in search of
the Lost and Found. He came back rather quickly, with the disturbing
news that no notebook was anywhere in the place.
"It's got to be here," Malone insisted.
"Well," BeeBee said, "it isn't. Maybe you left it some place else. Maybe
it's home now."
"It isn't," Malone said. "And I've tried every place else."
"New York's a big city, Mr. Malone," BeeBee said.
Malone sighed. "I've tried every place I've been. The notebook couldn't
be somewhere I haven't been. A rolling stone follows its owner." He
thought about that. It didn't seem to mean anything, but maybe it had
once. There was no way to tell for sure.
He went back to the bar to think things over and figure out his next
move. A bourbon-and-soda while thinking seemed the obvious order, and
Ray bustled off to get it.
* * * * *
Had he left the notebook on the street somewhere, just dropping it by
accident? Malone couldn't quite see that happening. It was, of course,
possible--but the possibility was so remote that he decided to try and
think of everything else first. There was Dorothy, for instance.
Was it possible that she might have the book?
It was. But, if so, how had she got it?
Malone enumerated possibilities on his fingers. First, he could have
dropped it or something like that, and she could have picked it up. But
dropping the notebook was a chance he'd eliminated already. It just
didn't sound likely.
Besides, if he were going to work on the dropping hypothesis, he might
as well start from anywhere, on the assumption that he had dropped it
anywhere on the street.
But if he _had_ dropped it--second finger--and Dorothy had picked it
up, wouldn't she have given it back?
She would have, Malone decided, unless she actually intended to steal
it.
And if she had intended to steal it, she could just as easily have
lifted it out of his pocket in the first place. She didn't need to wait
for it to fall out conveniently, all by itself.
Third finger: why would she steal the notebook? What good was it to her?
And how did she even know he had it?
None of those questions seemed to have any answers. Of course, if she'd
been connected with the Silent Spooks in some way, it would explain a
little--but somehow Malone couldn't see Dorothy as a Silent Spook.
Malone stared at his ring finger and pinky. He pressed the ring finger
down, thinking that perhaps Dorothy had picked the notebook up and just
forgotten to give it back. That was possible, even if not likely.
Only it required that notebook dropping out again.
The pinky went down. She might be some sort of a kleptomaniac, Malone
thought.
That didn't look very probable.
No, Malone decided, realizing that he had no more fingers left, it was
impossible to shake off the feeling that the girl had deliberately taken
the book for some definite purpose of her own.
He decided to give her a call.
He took the drink from Ray and slid off the bar stool. Two steps away he
remembered one more little fact.
He didn't have her number, and he didn't know anything about where she
lived, except that it could be reached by subway. That, Malone told
himself morosely, limited things nicely to the five boroughs of New
York.
And she'd said she was living with her aunt. Would she have a phone
listing under her own name, or would the listing be under her aunt's
name--which he also didn't know?
At any rate, he could check listings under Dorothy Francis, he told
himself.
He did so.
There were lots and lots of people named Dorothy Francis, in Manhattan
and in all the other boroughs.
Malone frowned thoughtfully. _I wish somebody would tell me how to get
in touch with her_, he thought. _She might know more about that book
than I do._
The thought bothered him. But, to offset it, there was a nice new
feeling growing at the back of his mind.
He felt as if he were going to know the answer soon enough.
He felt as if he were going to be lucky again.
In the meantime, he went back to the bar to think some more. He was on
his second bourbon-and-soda, still thinking but without any new ideas,
when BeeBee tapped him gently on the shoulder.
"Pardon me," the _maître d'_ said, "but are you English?"
"Am I what?" Malone said, spilling a little of his drink on the bar.
"Are you English?" BeeBee inquired.
"Oh," Malone said. "No. Irish. Very Irish."
"That's nice," BeeBee said.
Malone stared at him. "I think it's fine," he said, "but I'd love to
know why you asked me."
"Well," BeeBee said, "I knew you couldn't be American. Not after the
phone call. You don't have to hide your nationality here; we're quite
accustomed to foreign visitors. And we don't have special prices for
tourists."
Malone waited two breaths. "Will you please tell me," he said slowly,
"what it is you're talking about?"
"Certainly," BeeBee said with aplomb. "There's a call for you in the
upstairs booth. A long-distance call, personal."
"Oh," Malone said. "Who'd know I was--" He stopped, thinking hard. There
was no way in the world for anyone to know he was in Topp's. Therefore,
nobody could be calling him. "They've got the wrong name," he said
decisively.
"Oh, no," BeeBee said. "I heard them quite distinctly. You _are_ Sir
Kenneth Malone, aren't you?"
* * * * *
Malone gaped for one long second, and then his mind caught up with the
facts. "Oh," he said. "Sure." He raced upstairs to the phone booth,
said: "This is Sir Kenneth Malone," into the blank screen, and waited
patiently.
After a while an operator said: "Person to person call, Sir Kenneth,
from Yucca Flats. Will you take this call?"
"I'll take it," Malone said. A face appeared on the screen, and Malone
knew he was right. He knew exactly how he'd been located, and by whom.
Looking at the face in the screen alone, it might have been thought that
the woman who appeared there was somebody's grandmother, kindly,
red-cheeked and twinkle-eyed. Perhaps that wasn't the only stereotype;
she could have been an old-maid schoolteacher, one of the kindly
schoolteachers who taught, once upon a time that never was, in the
little old red schoolhouses of the dim past. The face positively
radiated kindliness, and friendship, and peace.
But if the face was the face of a sentimental dream, the garb was the
garb of royalty. Somebody's grandmother was on her way to a costume
party. She wore the full court costume of the days of Queen Elizabeth I,
complete with brocaded velvet gown, wide ruff collar and bejeweled
skullcap.
She was, Malone knew, completely insane.
Like all the other telepaths Malone and the rest of the FBI had found
during their work in uncovering a telepathic spy, she had been located
in an insane asylum. Months of extensive psychotherapy, including all
the newest techniques and some so old that psychiatrists were a little
afraid to use them, had done absolutely nothing to shake the firmest
conviction in the mind of Miss Rose Thompson.
She was, she insisted, Elizabeth Tudor, rightful Queen of England.
She claimed she was immortal--which was not true. She also claimed to be
a telepath. This was perfectly accurate. It had been her help that had
enabled Malone to find the telepathic spy, and a grateful government had
rewarded her.
It had given her a special expense allotment for life, covering the
clothing she wore, and the style in which she lived. Rooms had been set
aside for her at Yucca Flats, and she held court there, sometimes being
treated by psychiatrists and sometimes helping Dr. Thomas O'Connor in
his experiments and in the development of new psionic machines.
She was probably the happiest psychotic on Earth.
Malone stared at her. For a second he could think of nothing to say but:
"My God." He said it.
"Not at all, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "Your Queen."
Malone took a deep breath. "Good afternoon, Your Majesty," he said.
"Good afternoon, Sir Kenneth," she said, and waited. After a second
Malone figured out what she was waiting for.
He inclined his head in as courtly a bow as he could manage over a
visiphone. "I am deeply honored," he said, "that Your Majesty has called
on me. Is there any way in which I might be of service?"
"Oh, goodness me, no," said the little old lady. "I don't need a thing.
They do one very well here in Yucca Flats. You must come out soon and
see my new throne room. I've had the decorations done by ... but I can
see you're not interested in that, Sir Kenneth."
"But--" Malone realized it was useless to argue with the old lady. She
was telepathic, and knew exactly what he was thinking. That, after all,
was how he had been located; she had mentally "hunted" for him until she
found him.
But why?
"I'll tell you why, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "I'm worried
about you."
"Worried? About me, Your Majesty?"
"Certainly," the little old lady said, inclining her head just the
proper number of degrees, and raising it again. "You, Sir Kenneth, and
that silly little notebook you lost. You've been stewing about it for
the last hour."
It was obvious that, for reasons of her own, the Queen had seen fit to
look into Malone's mind. She'd found him worrying, and called him about
it. It was, Malone thought, sweet of her in a way. But it was also just
a bit disconcerting.
He was perfectly well aware that the Queen could read his mind at any
distance. But unless something reminded him of the fact, he didn't have
to think about it.
And he didn't like to think about it.
"Don't be disturbed," the Queen said. "Please. I only want to help you,
Sir Kenneth; you know that."
"Well, of course I do," Malone said. "But--"
"Heavens to Betsy," she said. "Sir Kenneth, what kind of a detective are
you?"
"What?" Malone said, and added at once: "Your Majesty." He knew
perfectly well, of course, that Miss Thompson was not Queen Elizabeth
I--and he knew that Miss Thompson knew what he thought.
But she didn't mind. Politeness, she held, was the act of being pleasant
on the surface, no matter what a person really thought. People were
polite to their bosses, she pointed out, even though they were perfectly
sure that they could do a better job than the bosses were doing.
So she insisted on the surface pretense that Malone was going through,
treating her like a Queen.
The psychiatrists had called her delusion a beautifully rationalized
one. As far as Malone was concerned, it made more sense than most of
real life.
* * * * *
"That's very nice of you, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "But I want to
ask you again: what kind of detective are you? Haven't you got any
common sense at all?"
Malone hated to admit it, but he had always had just that suspicion.
After all, he wasn't a very good detective. He was just lucky. His luck
had enabled him to break a lot of tough cases. But some day people would
find out, and then--
"Well," the Queen said, "at the very least you ought to _act_ like a
detective." She sniffed audibly. "Sir Kenneth, I'm ashamed that a member
of My Own FBI can't do any better than you're doing now."
Malone blinked into the screen. He did feel ashamed in a vague sort of
way, and he was willing to admit it. But he did feel, wistfully, that it
would be nice to know just what he was being ashamed of. "Have I been
missing something?" he said.
"Outside of the obvious," the Queen said, "that you've been missing your
notebook--or, rather, Mike Fueyo's notebook."
"Yes?" Malone said.
"You certainly have," the Queen said. "Don't you see what happened to
that notebook? You've been missing the only possible explanation."
"All I can figure," Malone said, "is that Dorothy Francis picked my
pocket."
"Exactly," the Queen said. "Now, if you'd only wear proper clothing, and
a proper pouch at your belt--"
"I'd be stared at," Malone said. "In court clothing--"
"No one in New York would stare at you," the Queen said. "They'd think
it was what they call an advertising stunt."
"Anyhow," Malone said, "I wasn't wearing court clothing. So that made it
easy for her to steal the notebook."
Her Majesty gave him a bright smile. "There!" she said.
"There, what?" Malone said.
"I knew you could do it," the Queen said. "All you had to do was apply
your intelligence and you'd come up with just the fact you needed."
"What fact?" Malone said.
"That Miss Francis has your notebook," the Queen said. "You just told
me."
"All right," Malone said, and stopped, and took a deep breath. After a
pause he said: "What is that supposed to mean? What on Earth would she
want with it? Just to look at all the pretty pictures?"
"Don't be silly," the Queen said, with some asperity. "She doesn't even
want to look at the thing. She doesn't care what's in it."
Malone closed his eyes. "Riddle time," he murmured. "Great." Then he
sighed. "O.K.," he said. "What _does_ she want with it? She must have
some use for it. She isn't just a kleptomaniac or something--is she?"
"Of course not," the Queen said.
"Then she has a reason," Malone said. "Fine. But what is it? Is she an
auxiliary member of the Silent Spooks, or something like that? Don't
tell me she's Mike Fueyo's girl friend. I don't think I could take that.
It's too silly."
"Naturally it's silly! Sir Kenneth, I--" She stopped, and her face lit
up suddenly with pleasure. "Now you're on the right track!" she said.
"You just keep right on with that line of thought."