NEW HIGH IN U.S. COLLEGE FACULTIES
Teachers were apparently resigning all over the place, in virtually every department of virtually every college. That made sense. And the other item, on page three, made just as much sense:
HIGHER TAXES VOTED THROUGHOUT U.S. FOR TEACHER INCOME RISE State and Federal Aid Also Promised in Drive to Raise Salaries Now
Apparently, teachers were resigning just as they were about to get more money than they'd ever seen before. But Malone could fit that into the pattern easily enough; it was perfectly obvious, once he thought about it.
Malone didn't have time to go through much more of the paper; the facsimile records he'd been waiting for arrived, and he put the Post aside and concentrated on them instead. Maybe somewhere in the records was the clue he desperately needed.
The PRS was widely spread, all right. It had branches in almost every major city in the United States, in Europe, South Africa, South America and Australia. There was even a small branch society in Greenland. True, the Communist disapproval of such non-materialistic, un-Marxian objectives as Psychical Research showed up in the fact that there were no registered branches in the Sino-Soviet bloc. But that, Malone thought, didn't really matter. Maybe in Russia they called themselves the Lenin Study Group, or the Better Borshcht League. He was fairly sure, from what he'd experienced, that the PRS had some kind of organization even behind the Iron Curtain.
Money didn't seem to be much of a problem, either. Malone checked for the supporters of the organization and found a microfilmed list that ran into the hundreds of thousands of names, most of them ordinary people who seemed to be interested in spiritualism and the like, and who donated a few dollars apiece each year to the PRS. Besides this mass of small donations, of course, there were a few large ones, from independently wealthy men who gave support to the organization and seemed actively interested in its aims.
It wasn't an unusual picture; it was just an exceptionally big one.
Malone sighed and went on to the personal dossiers.
Sir Lewis Carter himself was a well-known astronomer and mathematician. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Mathematical Society. He had been knighted for his contributions in higher mathematics only two years before he had come to live in the United States. Malone went over the papers dealing with his entry into the country carefully, but they were all in order and they contained absolutely no clues he could use.
Sir Lewis' books on political and historical philosophy had been well-received, and he had also written a novel, But Some Are More Equal, which, for a few weeks after publication, had managed to reach the bottom of the best-seller list.
And that was that. Malone tried to figure out whether all this information did him any good at all, and he didn't have to think for very long. The answer was no. He opened the next dossier.
Luba Vasilovna Garbitsch had been born in New York. Her mother had been a woman of Irish descent named Mary O'Keefe, and had died in '68. Her father, of course, had now been revealed as a Russian agent, and was at present making his home, such as it probably was, in good old Moscow.
Malone sighed. Somewhere in the dossiers, he was sure, there was a clue, the basic clue that would tell him everything he needed to know. His prescience had never been so strong; he knew 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. He was sure of only one thing: the final answer.
And it was obvious. Obvious as all hell.
Chapter 13
There was, of course, only one thing to do, and only one place to go. Malone went downstairs without even stopping to wave farewell to the agent-in-charge, and climbed into the big, specially-built FBI Lincoln that waited for him.
"Want a driver?" one of the mechanics asked.
"No, thanks," Malone said. "This one's a solo job."
That was for sure. He drove out onto the streets and into the heavy late afternoon traffic of Washington, D. C. The Lincoln handled smoothly, but Malone didn't press his luck among the rushing cars. He wasn't in any hurry. He had all the time in the world, and he knew it. They--and, for once, Malone knew just who "they" were--would still be waiting for him when he got there.
If he got there, he thought suddenly, dodging a combination roadblock consisting of a green Plymouth making an illegal turn, a fourteen-year-old boy on a bicycle and a sweet young girl pushing a baby carriage. He managed to get past and wiped his forehead with one hand. He continued driving, even more carefully, until he was out of the city.
It took quite a lot of time. Washington traffic was getting worse and worse with every passing month, and the pedestrians were as nonchalant as ever. As Malone turned a corner, a familiar face popped into view, practically in front of his car. He swerved and got by without committing homicide, and a cheerful voice said: "Thanks, sorry."
"It's okay, Chester," Malone said. The big man skipped back to the sidewalk and watched the car go by. Malone knew him slightly, a private eye who did some work on the fringes of Washington crime; basically a nice guy, but a little too active for Malone's taste.
For a second he thought of asking the man to accompany him, but the last thing Malone needed was muscle. What he wanted was brains, and he even thought he might be developing some of those.
He was nearly sure of it by the time he finally did leave the city and get out onto the highway that went south into the depths of Virginia. And, while he drove, he began to use that brain, letting his reflexes take over most of the driving problems now that the Washington traffic tangle was behind him.
He took all his thoughts from behind the shield that had sheltered them and arrayed them neatly before him. Everything was perfectly clear; all he had to do now was explain it.
Malone had wondered, over the years, about the detectives in books. They always managed to wrap everything up in the last chapter--and that was all right. But they always had a whole crowd of suspects listening to them, too. And Malone knew perfectly well that he could never manage a set-up like that. People would be interrupting him. Things would happen. Dogs would rush in and start a fight on the floor. There would be earthquakes, or else somebody would suddenly faint and interrupt him.
But now, at long last, he realized, he had his chance.
Nobody, he thought happily, could interrupt him. And he could explain to his heart's content.
Because the members of the PRS were telepathic. And Malone, he thought cheerfully, was not.
Somebody, he was sure, would be tuned in on him as he drove toward their
