er up the FBI line. I don't think anybody is
going to believe our reports of those interviews."

"But they're true," Her Majesty said.

"Sure they're true," Boyd said. "That's the unbelievable part. They
read like farce, and not very good farce at that."

"Oh, I don't know," Malone said. "I think they're pretty funny."

"Shall we get back to the business at hand?" Her Majesty said gently.

"Ah," Malone said. "Anyhow, it isn't the spies. And what we now have
is confusion even worse compounded."

"Confounded," Boyd said. "John Milton. _Paradise Lost_, I heard it
somewhere."

"I don't mean confounded," Malone said. "I mean confusion. Anyhow, the
Russian espionage rings in this country seem to be in as bad a state
as the Congress, the labor unions, the syndicates, and all the rest.
And all of them seem to have some sort of weird tie-in to these
flashes of telepathic interference. Right, Your Majesty?"

"I believe so, Sir Kenneth," she said. The old woman looked tired and
confused. Somehow, a lot of the brightness seemed to have gone out of
her life. "That's right," she said. "I didn't realize there was so
much of it going on. You see, Sir Kenneth, you're the only one I can
pick up at a distance who has been having these flashes. But now that
I'm here in Washington, I can feel it going on all around me."

"It may not have anything to do with everything else," Boyd said.

Malone shook his head. "If it doesn't," he said, "it's the weirdest
coincidence I've ever even dreamed about, and my dreams can be pretty
strange. No, it's got to be tied in. There's some kind of mental
static that is somehow making all these people goof up."

"But why?" Boyd said. "What is it being done for? Just fun?"

"God only knows," Malone said. "But we're going to have to find out."

"In that case," Boyd said, "I suggest lots and lots of prayers."

Her Majesty looked up. "That's a fine idea," she said.

"But God helps those," Malone said, "who help themselves. And we're
going to help ourselves. Mostly with facts."

"All right," Boyd said. "So far, all the facts have been a great
help."

"Well, here's one," Malone said. "We got one flash each from
Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch while we were questioning them. And
in each case, that flash occurred just before they started to blab
everything they knew. Before the flash, they weren't talking. They
were behaving just like good spies and keeping their mouths shut.
After the flash, th