"Don't blame yourself, Sir Kenneth," the Queen put in. "I did do my best to mislead you, you know."
"You sure did!" Malone said. "And later on, when we were driving here, she said the spy was 'moving around.' That's right; he was in the car behind us, going eighty miles an hour."
Barbara stared. Malone got a lot of satisfaction out of that stare.
But there was still more ground to cover.
"Then," he said, "she told us he was here at Yucca Flats—after we brought him here! It had to be one of the other six telepaths."
The psychiatrist who'd muttered: "Impossible," was still muttering it.
Malone ignored him.
"And when I remembered her pointing at you," Malone told Burris, "and remembered that she'd only said: 'He's right there,' I knew it had to be Logan. You weren't there. You were only an image on a TV screen. Logan was there—in the room behind the phone."
Burris had found his tongue. "All right," he said. "Okay. But what's all this about misleading us—and why didn't she tell us right away, anyhow?"
Malone turned to Her Majesty on the throne. "I think that the Queen had better explain that—if she will."
Queen Elizabeth Thompson nodded very slowly. "I—I only wanted you to respect me," she said. "To treat me properly." Her voice sounded uneven, and her eyes were glistening with unspilled tears. Lady Barbara tightened her arm about the Queen's shoulders once more.
"It's all right," she said. "We do—respect you."