perfectly well that
he was staring at the biggest, most startling and most complete
disclosure of all. And he couldn't see it.

He stared at the folders for a long minute. What did they tell him?
What was the clue.

And then, very slowly, the soft light of a prodigal sun illuminated
his mind.

"Mr. Malone," Malone said gently, "you are a damned fool. There are
times when it is necessary to discard the impossible after you have
seen that the obscure is the obvious."

He wasn't sure whether that meant anything, or even whether he knew
what he was saying. But, as the entire structure of facts became
clear, and then turned right upside down in his mind and changed into
something else entirely--something that told him not only who, and
where, but also why, he became absolutely sure of one thing.

He knew the final answer.

And it _was_ obvious. Obvious as all hell!

XIV

There was, of course, only one thing to do and only one place to go.
Malone teleported to the New York offices of the FBI and went
immediately downstairs to the garage, where a specially-built Lincoln
awaited him at all times.

One of the mechanics looked up curiously as Malone headed for the car.
"Want a driver?" he said.

Malone thanked his lucky stars that he didn't have to get into any
lengthy and time-consuming argument about whether or not he was on
vacation. "No, thanks," he said. "This is a solo job."

That, he told himself, was for sure. He drove out onto the streets and
into the heavy late-afternoon traffic of New York. The Lincoln handled
smoothly, but Malone didn't press his luck in the traffic which he
thought was even worse than the mess he'd driven through with the
happy cab driver two days before. He wasn't in any hurry now, after
all. He had all the time in the world, and he knew it. They--and, for
once, Malone could put real names to that "they"--would still be
waiting for him when he got there.

_If_ he got there, he thought suddenly, turning a corner and being
confronted with a great mass of automobiles wedged solidly fender to
fender as far as the eye could see. The noise of honking horns was
deafening, and great clouds of smoke rose up to make the scene look
like the circle of Hell devoted to hot-rod drivers. Malone cursed and
sweated until the line began to move, and then cursed and sweated some
more until he was out of the city at last.

It took quite a lot of time. New York traffic, in the past forty-eight
hours,