The Impossibles Read online

either.

  All the same, it was an idea. He decided to give the girl a call andfind out for sure. Maybe she remembered something that would help him,anyway.

  He took the drink from Ray and slid off the bar stool. Two steps away,he remembered one more little fact.

  He didn't have her number, and he didn't know anything about where shelived, except that it could be reached by subway. That, Malone toldhimself morosely, limited things nicely to the five boroughs of NewYork.

  And she said she was living with her aunt. Would she have a phonelisting under her own name? Or would the listing be under her aunt'sname, which he also didn't know?

  At any rate, he could check listings under Dorothy Francis, he toldhimself.

  He did so.

  There were lots and lots of people named Dorothy Francis, in Manhattanand in all the other boroughs.

  Malone went back to the bar to think some more. He was on his secondbourbon and soda, still thinking but without any new ideas, whenBeeBee tapped him gently on the shoulder.

  "Pardon me," the maitre d' said, "but are you English?"

  "Am I what?" Malone said, spilling a little of his drink on the bar.

  "Are you English?" BeeBee said.

  "Oh," Malone said. "No. Irish. Very Irish."

  "That's nice," BeeBee said.

  Malone stared at him. "I think it's fine," he said, "but I'd love toknow why you asked me."

  "Well," BeeBee said, "I knew you couldn't be American. Not after thephone call. You don't have to hide your nationality here; we're quiteaccustomed to foreign visitors. And we don't have special prices fortourists."

  Malone waited two breaths. "Will you please tell me," he said slowly,"what it is you're talking about?"

  "Certainly," BeeBee said with aplomb. "There's a call for you in theupstairs booth. A long-distance call, personal."

  "Oh," Malone said. "Who'd know I was--" He stopped, thinking hard.There was no way for anybody in the world to know he was in Topp's.Therefore, nobody could be calling him. "They've got the wrong name,"he said decisively.

  "Oh, no," BeeBee said. "I heard them quite distinctly. You _are_ SirKenneth Malone, aren't you?"

  Malone gaped for one long second, and then his mind caught up with thefacts. "Oh," he said. "Sure." He raced upstairs to the phone booth,said, "This is Sir Kenneth Malone," into the blank screen, and waited.

  After a while an operator said, "Person-to-person call, Sir Kenneth,from Yucca Flats. Will you take this call?"

  "I'll take it," Malone said. A face appeared on the screen, and Maloneknew he was right. He knew exactly how he'd been located, and by whom.

  Looking only at the face in the screen, it might have been thoughtthat the woman who appeared there was somebody's grandmother, kindly,red-cheeked, and twinkle-eyed. Perhaps that wasn't the onlystereotype; she could have been an old-maid schoolteacher, one of thekindly schoolteachers who taught, once upon a time that never was, inthe little red schoolhouses of the dim past. The face positivelyradiated kindliness, and friendship, and peace.

  But if the face was the face of a sentimental dream, the garb was thegarb of royalty. Somebody's grandmother was on her way to a costumeparty. She wore the full court costume of the days of Queen ElizabethI, complete with brocaded velvet gown, wide ruff collar, and bejeweledskullcap.

  She was, Malone knew, completely insane.

  Like all the other telepaths Malone and the rest of the FBI had foundduring their work in uncovering a telepathic spy, she had been locatedin an insane asylum. Months of extensive psychotherapy, including allthe newest techniques and some so old that psychiatrists were a littleafraid to use them, had done absolutely nothing to shake the firmconviction in the mind of Miss Rose Thompson.

  She was, she insisted, Elizabeth Tudor, rightful Queen of England.

  She claimed she was immortal, which was not true. She also claimed tobe a telepath. This was perfectly accurate. It had been her help thathad enabled Malone to find the telepathic spy, and a gratefulgovernment had rewarded her.

  It had given her a special expense allotment for life, covering theclothing she wore, and the style in which she lived. Rooms had beenset aside for her at Yucca Flats, and she held court there, sometimesbeing treated by psychiatrists and sometimes helping Dr. ThomasO'Connor in his experiments and in the development of new psionicmachines.

  She was probably the happiest psychopath on Earth.

  Malone stared at her. For a second he could think of nothing to saybut, "My God." He said it.

  "Not at all, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "Your Queen."

  Malone took a deep breath. "Good afternoon, Your Majesty," he said.

  "Good afternoon, Sir Kenneth," she said, and waited. After a secondMalone figured out what she was waiting for.

  He inclined his head in as courtly a bow as he could manage over avisiphone. "I am deeply honored," he said, "that Your Majesty hascalled on me. Is there any way in which I might be of service?"

  "Oh, goodness me, no," said the little old lady. "I don't need athing. They do one very well here in Yucca Flats. You must come outsoon and see my new throne room. I've had the decorations done by--butI can see you're not interested in that, Sir Kenneth."

  "But--" Malone realized it was useless to argue with the old lady. Shewas telepathic, and knew exactly what he was thinking. That, afterall, was how he had been located; she had mentally "hunted" for himuntil she found him.

  But why?

  "I'll tell you why, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "I'mworried about you."

  "Worried? About me, Your Majesty?"

  "Certainly," the little old lady said, inclining her head just theproper number of degrees, and raising it again. "You, Sir Kenneth, andthat silly little notebook you lost. You've been stewing about it forthe last hour."

  It was obvious that, for reasons of her own, the Queen had seen fit tolook into Malone's mind. She'd found him worrying, and called himabout it. It was, Malone thought, sweet of her in a way. But it wasalso just a bit disconcerting.

  He was perfectly well aware that the Queen could read his mind at anydistance. But unless something reminded him of the fact, he didn'thave to think about it.

  And he didn't like to think about it.

  "Don't be disturbed," the Queen said. "Please. I only want to helpyou, Sir Kenneth; you know that."

  "Well, of course I do," Malone said. "But--"

  "Heavens to Betsy," she said. "Sir Kenneth, what kind of a detectiveare you?"

  "What?" Malone said, and added at once, "Your Majesty." He knewperfectly well, of course, that Miss Thompson was not Queen ElizabethI--and he knew that Miss Thompson knew what he thought.

  But she didn't mind. Politeness, she held, was the act of beingpleasant on the surface, no matter what a person really thought.People were polite to their bosses, she pointed out, even though theywere perfectly sure that they could do a better job than the bosseswere doing.

  So she insisted on the surface pretense that Malone was going through,treating her like a Queen.

  The psychiatrists had called her delusion a beautifully rationalizedone. As far as Malone was concerned, it made more sense than most ofreal life.

  "That's very nice of you, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "But I ask youagain, what kind of detective are you? Haven't you got any commonsense at all?"

  Malone hated to admit it, but he had always had just that suspicion.After all, he wasn't a very good detective. He was just lucky. Hisluck had enabled him to break a lot of tough cases. But some daypeople would find out, and then--

  "Well," the Queen said, "at the very least you ought to _act_ like adetective." She sniffed audibly. "Sir Kenneth, I'm ashamed that amember of my own FBI can't do any better than you're doing now."

  Malone blinked into the screen. He did feel ashamed in a vague sort ofway, and he was willing to admit it. But he did feel, wistfully, thatit would be nice to know just what he was being ashamed of. "Have Ibeen missing something?" he said.

  "Outside
of the obvious," the Queen said, "that you've been missingyour notebook--or rather Mike Fueyo's notebook--"

  "Yes?" Malone said.

  "You certainly have," the Queen said. "Don't you see what happened tothat notebook? You've been missing the only possible explanation."

  "But there isn't any," Malone said. "Unless Miss Francis has it."

  Her Majesty gave him a bright smile. "There!" she said.

  "There,