"My, my," Malone said. "Almost lunchtime. I have to go over and have
lunch with Her Majesty. Maybe she's dug up something more."
"I hope so," Dr. Gamble said, apparently successfully deflected. "I do
hope so."
[Illustration: "One more crack out of you...."]
"Well," Malone said, "pardon me." He shucked off his coat and trousers.
Then he proceeded to put on the doublet and hose that hung in the little
office closet. He shrugged into the fur-trimmed, slash-sleeved coat,
adjusted the plumed hat to his satisfaction with great care, and gave
Burris and the others a small bow. "I go to an audience with Her
Majesty, gentlemen," he said in a grave, well-modulated voice. "I shall
return anon."
He went out the door and closed it carefully behind him. When he had
gone a few steps he allowed himself the luxury of a deep sigh.
* * * * *
Then he went outside and across the dusty street to the barracks where
Her Majesty and the other telepaths were housed. No one paid any
attention to him, and he rather missed the stares he'd become used to
drawing. But by now, everyone was used to seeing Elizabethan clothing.
Her Majesty had arrived at a new plateau.
She would now allow no one to have audience with her unless he was
properly dressed. Even the psychiatrists--whom she had, with a careful
sense of meiosis, appointed Physicians to the Royal House--had to wear
the stuff.
Malone went over the whole case in his mind--for about the thousandth
time, he told himself bitterly.
Who could the telepathic spy be? It was like looking for a needle in a
rolling stone, he thought. Or something. He did remember clearly that a
stitch in time saved nine, but he didn't know nine what, and suspected
it had nothing to do with his present problem.
How about Dr. Harry Gamble, Malone thought. It seemed a little unlikely
that the head of Project Isle would be spying on his own
men--particularly since he already had all the information. But, on the
other hand, he was just as probable a spy as anybody else.
Malone moved onward. Dr. Thomas O'Connor, the Westinghouse psionics man,
was the next nominee. Before Malone had actually found Her Majesty, he
had had a suspicion that O'Connor had cooked the whole thing up to throw
the FBI off the trail and confuse everybody, and that he'd intended
merely to have the FBI chase ghosts while the real spy did his work
undetected.
But what if O'Connor were the spy himself--a telepath? What if he were
so confident of his ability to throw the Queen off the track that he had
allowed the FBI to find all the other telepaths? There was another
argument for that: he'd had to report the findings of his machine no
matter what it cost him; there were too many other men on his staff who
knew about it.
O'Connor was a perfectly plausible spy, too. But he didn't seem very
likely. The head of a Government project is likely to be a
much-investigated man. Could any tie-up with Russia--even a psionic
one--stand against that kind of investigation? Malone doubted it.
Malone thought of the psychiatrists. There wasn't any evidence, that was
the trouble. There wasn't any evidence either way.
Then he wondered if Boyd had been thinking of him, Malone, as the
possible spy. Certainly it worked in reverse. Boyd--
No. That was silly.
Malone told himself that he might as well consider Andrew J. Burris.