"Well," Malone said in a bored, tired voice. "So this is the one who won't talk."
Kenneth J. Malone sat at his desk, in his Washington office, surrounded by piles of papers covering the desk, spilling off onto the floor and decorating his lap. He was staring at the papers as if he expected them to leap up, dance round him and shout the solution to all his problems at him in trained choral voices. They did nothing at all.
Seated cross-legged on the rug in the center of the room, and looking like an impossible combination of the last Henry Tudor and Gautama Buddha, Thomas Boyd did nothing either. He was staring downward, his hands folded on his ample lap, wearing an expression of utter, burning frustration. And on a nearby chair sat the third member of the company, wearing the calm and patient expression of the gently born under all vicissitudes: Queen Elizabeth I.
"All right," Malone said into the silence. "Now let's see what we've got."
"I think we've got cerebral paresis," Boyd said. "It's been coming on for years."
Boyd gave a short, mirthless bark. "Funny?" he said. "I'm absolutely hysterical with joy and good humor. I'm out of my mind with happiness." He paused. "Anyway," he finished, "I'm out of my mind. Which puts me in good company. The entire FBI, Brubitsch, Borbitsch, Garbitsch, Dr. Thomas O'Connor and Sir Lewis Carter--we're all out of our minds. If we weren't, we'd all move away to the Moon."
"And drink to forget," Malone added. "Sure. But let's try and get some work done."
"By all means, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. Boyd had not included her in his list of insane people, and she looked slightly miffed. It was hard for Malone to tell whether she was miffed by the mention of insanity, or at being left out.
"Let's review the facts," Malone said. "This whole thing started with some inefficiency in Congress."
"And some upheavals elsewhere." Boyd said. "Labor unions, gangster organizations--"
"Just about all over," Malone said. "And though we've found three spies, it seems pretty obvious that they aren't causing this."
"They aren't causing much of anything," Boyd said. "Except a lot of unbelieving laughter farther up the FBI line. I don't think anybody is going to believe our reports of those interviews."