ildings, or heard a
shot, or saw anybody at all lurking or loitering anywhere near to the
scene."

"Lovely," Malone said. "Sounds like a nice complicated job."

"You don't know the half of it," Wolf said. "There's also the Miami
Beach Chamber of Commerce. According to them, Flarion died of a heart
attack, and not even in Miami Beach. Everything happening down there
isn't happening, according to them; Miami Beach is the one unsullied
beauty spot in a mixed-up United States."

"All I can say," Malone offered, "is good luck. This is the saddest
day in American history since the assassination of Huey P. Long."

"Agreed," Wolf said. "Want me to tell Burris you called?"

"Right," Malone said, and switched off.

* * * * *

The assassination of Nemours P. Flarion, he told himself, obviously
meant something. It pointed straight toward some entirely new kind of
answer. Granted, old Nemours P. had been a horrible mistake, a
paranoid, self-centered, would-be, dictator whose final act was quite
in keeping with the rest of his official life. Who else would be in
Miami Beach, far away from his home state, while the President was
declaring nationwide martial law?

But that, Malone told himself, wasn't the point. Or not quite the
point, anyhow.

Maybe some work would dig up more facts. Anyhow, Malone was reasonably
sure that he could reassign himself from vacation time, at least until
he called Burris. And he had work to do; nobody was going to hand him
anything on a silver serving salver.

He punched the intercom again and got the Records office.

"Yes, sir?" a familiar voice said.

"Potter," Malone said, "this is Malone. I want facsimiles of
everything we have on the Psychical Research Society, on Sir Lewis
Carter, and on Luba Ardanko. Both of these last are connected with the
Society."

"You're back on duty, Malone?" Potter said.

"Right," Malone said. "Make that fast, will you?"

Potter nodded. "Right away," he said.

It didn't take long for the facsimile records to arrive, and Malone
went right to work on them. Maybe somewhere in those records was the
clue he had desperately needed. Where was the PRS? What were they
doing now? What did they plan to do?

And why had they started the whole row in the first place?

The PRS, he saw, was even more widely spread than he had thought. It
had branches in almost every major city in the United States, in
Europe, South Africa, South Americ