* * * * *
Examining hospital records was not an easy job. The inalienable right of a physician to refuse to disclose confidences respecting a patient applied even to idiots, imbecile and morons. But Malone had a slight edge, due to Dr. Blake's embarrassment, and he put it mercilessly to work.
For all the good it did him he might as well have stayed in his cell. There wasn't even the slightest suspicion in any record that any of the Rice Pavilion patients were telepathic.
"Are you sure that's what you're looking for?" Blake asked him, some hours later.
"I'm sure," Malone said. "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
"Oh," Blake said. After a second he added: "What does that mean?"
Malone shrugged. "It's an old saying," he told the doctor. "It doesn't have to mean anything. It just sounds good."
"Oh," Blake said again.
After a while, Malone said farewell to good old Rice Pavilion, and headed back to Washington. There, he told himself, everything would be peaceful.
And so it was. Peaceful and dispiriting.