one fixed delusion:
she believed she was Queen Elizabeth I.

She was still at Yucca Flats, along with the other telepaths Malone's
investigation had turned up. And she still believed, quite calmly, that
she was Good Queen Bess. Malone had been knighted by her during the
course of the investigation. This new honor had come to him through the
mail; apparently she had decided to ennoble some of her friends still
further.

Malone made a note mentally to ask Boyd if he'd received one. After all,
there couldn't be too many Knights of the Bath. There was no sense in
letting _everybody_ in.

Then he realized that he was beginning to believe everything again.
There had been times, when he'd been working with the little old lady,
when he had been firmly convinced that he was, in fact, the swaggering,
ruthless swordsman, Sir Kenneth Malone. And even now....

* * * * *

"Well?" Lynch said.

"It's too long a story," Malone said. "And besides, it's not what I came
here about."

Lynch shrugged again. "O.K.," he said. "Tell it your way."

"First," Malone said, "what's your job?"

"Me? Precinct Lieutenant."

"Of this precinct?"

Lynch stared. "What else?" he said.

"Who knows?" Malone said. He found the black notebook and passed it
across to Lynch. "I'm on this red Cadillac business, you know," he said
by way of introduction.

"I've been hearing about it," Lynch said. He picked up the notebook
without opening it and held it like a ticking bomb. "And I mean hearing
about it," he said. "We haven't had any trouble at all in this
precinct."

"I know," Malone said. "I've read the reports."

"Listen, not a single red Cadillac has been stolen from here, or been
reported found here. We run a tight precinct here, and let me tell
you--"

"I'm sure you do a fine job," Malone said hastily. "But I want you to
look at the notebook." He opened it to the page with Lynch's name on it.

Lynch opened his mouth, closed it and then took the notebook. He stared
at the page for a few seconds. "What's this?" he said at last. "Another
gag?"

"No gag, lieutenant," Malone said.

"It's your name and mine," Lynch said. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Malone shrugged. "Search me," he said. "The notebook was found only a
couple of feet away from another car theft, last night." That was the
simplest way he could think of to put it. "So I asked the Commissioner
who Peter Lynch was, and he told me it was you.