"Oh, they're all interesting," Marshall said. "But for sheer complexity ... well, this is an unusual sort of case, the one I'm thinking about now. I remember it began with a girl named Ned—"
"Dr. Marshall," Malone said desperately, "I'd like to hear about a girl named Ned. I really would. It doesn't even sound probable."
"Ah?" Dr. Marshall said. "I'd like to tell you—"
"Unfortunately," Malone went on doggedly, "there is some business I've got to talk over."
Dr. Marshall's disappointment was evident for less than a second. "Yes, Sir Kenneth?" he said.
Malone took a deep breath. "It's about Her Majesty's mental state," he said. "I understand that a lot of it is complicated, and I probably wouldn't understand it. But can you give me as much as you think I can digest?"
Marshall nodded slowly. "Ah ... you must understand that psychiatrists differ," he said. "We appear to run in schools—like fish, which is neither here nor there. But what I tell you might not be in accord with a psychiatrist from another school, Sir Kenneth."
"O.K.," Malone said. "Shoot."
"An extremely interesting slang word, by the way," Marshall said. "'Shoot.' Superficially an invitation to violence. I wonder—" A glance from Malone was sufficient. "Getting back to the track, however," he went on, "I should begin by saying that Her Majesty appears to have suffered a shock of traumatic proportions early in life. That might be the telepathic faculty itself coming to the fore—or, rather, the realization that others did not share her faculty. That she was, in fact, in communication with a world which could never reach her on her own deepest and most important level." He paused. "Are you following me so far?" he asked.
"Gamely," Malone admitted. "In other words, when she couldn't communicate, she went into this traumatic shock."