"What is that supposed to mean?" Boyd said.
"How should I know?" Malone said. "I"m too busy to go around and around like this. But since you"ve picked the spies up, I suppose it won"t do any harm to find out if they know anything."
Boyd snorted again. "Thank you," he said, "for your kind permission."
"I"ll be right down," Malone said.
"I"ll be waiting," Boyd said. "In Interrogation Room 7. You"ll recognize me by the bullet hole in my forehead and the strange South American poison, hitherto unknown to science, in my esophagus."
"Very funny," Malone said. "Don"t give up the ship."
Boyd switched off without a word. Malone shrugged at the blank screen and pushed his own switch. Then he turned slowly back to Her Majesty, who was standing, waiting patiently, at the opposite side of the desk.
Interference, he thought, located around him...
"Why yes," she said. "That"s exactly what I did say."
Malone blinked. "Your Majesty," he said, "would you mind terribly if I asked you questions before you answered them? I know you can see them in my mind, but it"s simpler for me to do things the normal way, just now."
"I"m sorry," she said sincerely. "I do agree that matters are confused enough already. Please go on."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Malone said. "Well, then. Do you mean that _I"m_ the one causing all this mental static?"
"Oh, no," she said. "Not at all. It"s definitely coming from somewhere else, and it"s beamed at you, or beamed around you."
"But--"
"It"s just that I can only pick it up when I"m tuned to your mind,"
she said.
"Like now?" Malone said.
She shook her head. "Right now," she said, "there isn"t any. It only happens every once in awhile, every so often, and not continuously."
"Does it happen at regular intervals?" Malone asked.
"Not as far as I"ve been able to tell," Her Majesty said. "It just happens, that"s all. There doesn"t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Except that it did start when you were a.s.signed to this case."
"Lovely," Malone said. "Perfectly lovely. And what is it supposed to mean?"
"Interference," she said. "Static. Jumble. That"s all it means. I just don"t know any more than that, Sir Kenneth; I"ve never experienced anything like it in my life. It really does disturb me."
That, Malone told himself, he could believe. It must be an experience, he told himself, like having someone you were looking at suddenly dissolve into a jumble of meaningless shapes and lights.
"That"s a very good a.n.a.logy," Her Majesty said. "If you"ll pardon me speaking before you"ve voiced your thought."
"Not at all," Malone said. "Go right ahead."
"Well, then," Her Majesty said. "The a.n.a.logy you use is a good one.
It"s just as disturbing and as meaningless as that."
"And you don"t know what"s causing it?" Malone said.
"I don"t know," she said.
"Nor what the purpose of it is?" he said.
Her Majesty shook her head slowly. "Sir Kenneth," she said, "I don"t even know whether or not there _is_ any purpose."
Malone sighed deeply. Nothing in the case seemed to make any sense. It wasn"t that there were no clues, or no information for him to work with. There were a lot of clues, and there was a lot of information.
But nothing seemed to link up with anything else. Every new fact was a bright, shiny arrow pointing nowhere in particular.
"Well, then--" he started.
The intercom buzzed. Malone jabbed ferociously at the b.u.t.ton. "Yes?"
he said.
"The ghosts are here," the agent-in-charge"s voice said.
Malone blinked. "What?" he said.
"You said you were going to get some ghosts," the agent-in-charge said. "From the Psychical Research Society, in a couple of large bundles. And they"re here now. Want me to exorcise "em for you?"
"No," Malone said wearily. "Just send them in to join the crowd. Got a messenger?"
"I"ll send them down," the agent-in-charge said. "About one minute."
Malone nodded, realized the man couldn"t see him, said: "Fine," and switched off. He looked at his watch. A little over half an hour had pa.s.sed since he had left the Psychical Research Society offices. That, he told himself, was efficiency.
Not that the books would mean anything, he thought. They would just take their places at the end of the long row of meaningless, disturbing, vicious facts that cluttered up his mind. He wasn"t an FBI agent any more; he was a clown and a failure, and he was through. He was going to resign and go to South Dakota and live the life of a hermit. He would drink goat"s milk and eat old shoes or something, and whenever another human being came near he would run away and hide.
They would call him Old Kenneth, and people would write articles for magazines about The Twentieth Century Hermit.
And that would make him famous, he thought wearily, and the whole circle would start all over again.
"Now, now, Sir Kenneth," Queen Elizabeth said. "Things aren"t quite that bad."
"Oh, yes, they are," Malone said. "They"re even worse."
"I"m sure we can find an answer to all your questions," Her Majesty said.
"Sure," Malone said. "Even I can find an answer. But it isn"t the right one."
"You can?" Her Majesty said.
"That"s right," Malone said. "My answer is: to h.e.l.l with everything."
Malone"s Washington offices didn"t look any different. He sighed and put the two big packages from the Psychical Research Society down on his desk, and then turned to Her Majesty.