Out Like a Light Part 32

Had he left the notebook on the street somewhere, just dropping it by accident? Malone couldn't quite see that happening. It was, of course, possible--but the possibility was so remote that he decided to try and think of everything else first. There was Dorothy, for instance.

Was it possible that she might have the book?

It was. But, if so, how had she got it?

Malone enumerated possibilities on his fingers. First, he could have dropped it or something like that, and she could have picked it up. But dropping the notebook was a chance he'd eliminated already. It just didn't sound likely.

Besides, if he were going to work on the dropping hypothesis, he might as well start from anywhere, on the a.s.sumption that he had dropped it anywhere on the street.

But if he _had_ dropped it--second finger--and Dorothy had picked it up, wouldn't she have given it back?

She would have, Malone decided, unless she actually intended to steal it.

And if she had intended to steal it, she could just as easily have lifted it out of his pocket in the first place. She didn't need to wait for it to fall out conveniently, all by itself.

Third finger: why would she steal the notebook? What good was it to her?

And how did she even know he had it?

None of those questions seemed to have any answers. Of course, if she'd been connected with the Silent Spooks in some way, it would explain a little--but somehow Malone couldn't see Dorothy as a Silent Spook.

Malone stared at his ring finger and pinky. He pressed the ring finger down, thinking that perhaps Dorothy had picked the notebook up and just forgotten to give it back. That was possible, even if not likely.

Only it required that notebook dropping out again.

The pinky went down. She might be some sort of a kleptomaniac, Malone thought.

That didn't look very probable.

No, Malone decided, realizing that he had no more fingers left, it was impossible to shake off the feeling that the girl had deliberately taken the book for some definite purpose of her own.

He decided to give her a call.

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 she lived, except that it could be reached by subway. That, Malone told himself morosely, limited things nicely to the five boroughs of New York.

And she'd said she was living with her aunt. Would she have a phone listing under her own name, or would the listing be under her aunt's name--which he also didn't know?

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

He did so.

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

Malone frowned thoughtfully. _I wish somebody would tell me how to get in touch with her_, he thought. _She might know more about that book than I do._

The thought bothered him. But, to offset it, there was a nice new feeling growing at the back of his mind.

He felt as if he were going to know the answer soon enough.

He felt as if he were going to be lucky again.

In the meantime, he went back to the bar to think some more. He was on his second bourbon-and-soda, still thinking but without any new ideas, when BeeBee 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 inquired.

"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 to know why you asked me."

"Well," BeeBee said, "I knew you couldn't be American. Not after the phone call. You don't have to hide your nationality here; we're quite accustomed to foreign visitors. And we don't have special prices for tourists."

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 the upstairs booth. A long-distance call, personal."

"Oh," Malone said. "Who'd know I was--" He stopped, thinking hard. There was no way in the world for anyone to know he was in Topp's. Therefore, n.o.body could be calling him. "They've got the wrong name," he said decisively.

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

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

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 Malone knew he was right. He knew exactly how he'd been located, and by whom.

Looking at the face in the screen alone, it might have been thought that the woman who appeared there was somebody's grandmother, kindly, red-cheeked and twinkle-eyed. Perhaps that wasn't the only stereotype; she could have been an old-maid schoolteacher, one of the kindly schoolteachers who taught, once upon a time that never was, in the little old red schoolhouses of the dim past. The face positively radiated kindliness, and friends.h.i.+p, and peace.

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

She was, Malone knew, completely insane.

Like all the other telepaths Malone and the rest of the FBI had found during their work in uncovering a telepathic spy, she had been located in an insane asylum. Months of extensive psychotherapy, including all the newest techniques and some so old that psychiatrists were a little afraid to use them, had done absolutely nothing to shake the firmest conviction 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 to be a telepath. This was perfectly accurate. It had been her help that had enabled Malone to find the telepathic spy, and a grateful government had rewarded her.

It had given her a special expense allotment for life, covering the clothing she wore, and the style in which she lived. Rooms had been set aside for her at Yucca Flats, and she held court there, sometimes being treated by psychiatrists and sometimes helping Dr. Thomas O'Connor in his experiments and in the development of new psionic machines.