ing. He tried
to picture a man opening a door and saying: "Come out quick--Mr.
Frembits is Maloneizing again."

It didn't sound very plausible. But, after all, he did have a
deep-seated conviction. He tried to think of a shallow-seated
conviction, and failed. Didn't convictions ever stand up, anyhow, or
lie down?

He shook his head, discovered that he was on Sixty-ninth Street, and
headed for the FBI headquarters. His convictions, he had found, were
sometimes an expression of his precognitive powers; he determined to
ride with them, at least for a while.

By the time he came to the office of the agent-in-charge, he had
figured out the beginnings of a new line of attack.

"How about the ghosts?" the agent-in-charge asked as he passed.

"They'll be along," Malone said. "In a big bundle, addressed to me
personally. And don't open the bundle."

"Why not?" the agent-in-charge asked.

"Because I don't want the things to get loose and run around saying
_Boo!_ to everybody," Malone said brightly, and went on.

* * * * *

He opened the door of his private office, went inside and sat down at
the desk there. He took his time about framing a thought, a single,
clear, deliberate thought:

_Your Majesty, I'd like to speak to you._

[Illustration]

He hardly had time to finish it. A flash of color appeared in the
room, just a few feet from his desk. The flash resolved itself into a
tiny, grandmotherly-looking woman with a corona of white hair and a
kindly, twinkling expression. She was dressed in the full court
costume of the First Elizabethan period, and this was hardly
surprising to Malone. The little old lady believed, quite firmly, that
she was Queen Elizabeth I, miraculously preserved over all these
centuries. Malone, himself, had practically forgotten that the woman's
real name was Rose Thompson, and that she had only been alive for
sixty-five years or so. For most of that time, she had been insane.

For all of that time, however, she had been a genuine telepath. She
had been discovered during the course of Malone's first psionic case,
and by now she had even learned to teleport by "reading" the process
in Malone's mind.

"Good afternoon, Sir Kenneth," she said in a regal, kindly voice. She
was mad, he knew, but her delusion was nicely kept within bounds. All
of her bright world hinged on the single fact that she was unshakably
certain of her royalty. As long as the FBI catered t