He nodded, looking sick. "She's a gypsy, if that's what you mean, Gyp," he said to me. "I'm sorry. You know I'm sorry."
"Has she made any statement, Fred?" I asked softly, staring at the surface of my desk.
"She demanded to be taken at once to the Chief of the Division of Psychic Investigation, Mr. Joseph Tinker," he said.
"Give any reason?"
He was quiet for a while, until I looked up. "She said," Fred told me, "she said Gyp Tinker was her son."
I smiled wanly at him. "Obviously I can't let a statement like that go unchallenged, not in my position as the man charged with extirpating the danger of the snakes," I said.
"Obviously," Fred agreed. "Now that you know about it. If you had done as I asked, Gyp ..."
"Get her over here, Fred," I said. "I'll see her at once. And send Anita in as you leave."
"Sure, Gyp," he said, starting for the door.
"And thanks, Fred," I said. "But it never would have worked."