That Sweet Little Old Lady Part 28

"Give her time," Burris said. "Give her time. Remember her mental condition."

Boyd looked up. "Rome," he said in an absent fashion, "wasn't built in a daze."

Burris glared at him, but said nothing. Malone filled the conversational hole with what he thought would be nice, and hopeful, and untrue.

"We know he's someone on the reservation, so we'll catch him eventually," he said. "And as long as his information isn't getting into Soviet hands, we're safe." He glanced at his wrist watch.

Dr. Gamble said: "But--"

"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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 st.i.tch 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.

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridic--

Well, Queen Elizabeth had seemed pretty certain when she'd pointed him out in Dr. Dowson's office. And even though she'd changed her mind, how much faith could be placed in Her Majesty? After all, if she'd made a mistake about Burris, she could just as easily have made a mistake about the spy's being at Yucca Flats. In that case, Malone thought sadly, they were right back where they'd started from.

Behind their own goal line.

One way or another, though, Her Majesty had made a mistake. She'd pointed Burris out as the spy, and then she'd said she'd been wrong.

Either Burris was a spy or he wasn't. You couldn't have it both ways.

Why couldn't you? Malone thought suddenly. And then something Burris himself had said came back to him, something that--

_I'll be d.a.m.ned_, he thought.

He came to a dead stop in the middle of the street. In one sudden flash of insight, all the pieces of the case he'd been looking at for so long fell together and formed one consistent picture. The pattern was complete.

Malone blinked.

In that second, he knew exactly who the spy was.

A jeep honked raucously and swerved around him. The driver leaned out to curse and remained to stare. Malone was already halfway back to the offices.

On the way, he stopped in at another small office, this one inhabited by the two FBI men from Las Vegas. He gave a series of quick orders, and got the satisfaction, as he left, of seeing one of the FBI men grabbing for a phone in a hurry. It was good to be _doing_ things again, important things.

Burris, Boyd and Dr. Gamble were still talking as Malone entered.

"That," Burris said, "was one h.e.l.l of a quick lunch. What's Her Majesty doing now--running a diner?"

Malone ignored the bait. "Gentlemen," he said solemnly, "Her Majesty has asked that all of us attend her in audience. She has information of the utmost gravity to impart, and wishes an audience at once."

Burris looked startled. "Has she--" he began, and stopped, leaving his mouth open and the rest of the sentence unfinished.

Malone nodded gravely. "I believe, gentlemen," he said, "that Her Majesty is about to reveal the ident.i.ty of the spy who has been battening on Project Isle."

The silence didn't last three seconds.

"Let's go," Burris snapped. He and the others headed for the door.

"Gentlemen!" Malone sounded properly shocked and offended. "Your dress!"

"Oh, _no_," Boyd said. "Not now."

Burris simply said: "You're quite right. Get dressed, Boyd ... I mean, of course, Sir Thomas."

While Burris, Boyd and Dr. Gamble were dressing, Malone put in a call to Dr. O'Connor and told him to be at Her Majesty's court in ten minutes--and in full panoply. O'Connor, not unnaturally, balked a little at first. But Malone talked fast and sounded as urgent as he felt. At last he got the psionicist's agreement.

Then he put in a second call to the psychiatrists from St. Elizabeths and told them the same thing. More used to the strange demands of neurotic and psychotic patients, they were readier to comply.

Everyone, Malone realized with satisfaction, was a.s.sembled. Even Burris and the others were ready to go. Beaming, he led them out.