ed while Mrs. Fueyo went right on.

"He says he will send me money, but money is nothing compared to my own
boy, my own Mike. He says he must go away, Mr. Malone--but I know you
can stop him! I know it!"

"Sure," Malone said. "But I--"

"Oh, I knew that you would!" Mrs. Fueyo shrieked. She almost came
through the screen at him. "You are a great man, Mr. Malone! I will say
many prayers for you! I will never stop from praying for you because you
help me!" Her voice and face changed abruptly. "Excuse me now," she
said. "I must go back to work."

"Well," Malone said, "if I--"

Then she turned back and beamed at him again. "Oh, thank you, Mr.
Malone! Thank you with the thanks of a mother! Bring my boy back to me!"

And the image faded and died.

Boyd tapped Malone on the shoulder. "I didn't know you were involved in
an advice column for the lovelorn," he said.

"I'm not," Malone said sourly.

Boyd sighed. "I'll bite," he said. "Who was that?"

Malone thought of several possible answers and finally chose one.
"That," he said, "was my mother-in-law. She worries about me every time
I go out on a job with you."

"Very funny," Boyd said. "I am screaming with laughter."

"Just get back to work, Tommy-boy," Malone said, "and leave everything
to me."

He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Lighting a
cigarette--and wishing he were alone in his own room, so that he could
smoke a cigar and not have to worry about looking dashing and
alert--Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He
was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning
just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge and ask
him to pry loose two tickets for "The Hot Seat" that night.

The agent, a tall, thin man, who looked as if he suffered from chronic
stomach trouble, said, "You must be crazy. Are they all like that in
Washington?"

"No," Malone said cheerfully. "Some of them are pretty normal. There's
this one man--Napoleon, we call him--who keeps insisting that he should
have won the battle of Waterloo. But otherwise he's perfectly fine."

He flicked his cigarette in the air and left, grinning. Five steps away
the grin disappeared and a frown took its place.

VIII.

He walked along Sixty-ninth Street to Park Avenue without noticing where
he was going. Luckily, the streets weren't really crowded, and Malone
only had to apologize twice, once for stepping on a man's toe and o