"They aren't causing much of anything," Boyd said. "Except a lot of unbelieving laughter farther up the FBI line. I don't think anybody is going to believe our reports of those interviews."
"But they're true," Her Majesty said.
"Sure they're true," Boyd said. "That's the unbelievable part. They read like farce—and not very good farce at that."
"Oh, I don't know," Malone said. "I think they're pretty funny."
"Shall we get back to the business at hand?" Her Majesty said gently.
"Ah," Malone said. "Anyhow, it isn't the spies. And what we now have is confusion even worse compounded."
"Confounded," Boyd said. "John Milton. 'Paradise Lost.' I heard it somewhere...."
"I don't mean confounded," Malone said. "I mean confusion. Anyhow, the Russian espionage rings in this country seem to be in as bad a state as the Congress, the labor unions, the Syndicates, and all the rest. And all of them seem to have some sort of weird tie-in to these flashes of telepathic interference. Right, Your Majesty?"
"I ... believe so, Sir Kenneth," she said. The old woman looked tired and confused. Somehow, a lot of the brightness seemed to have gone out of her life. "That's right," she said. "I didn't realize there was so much of it going on. You see, Sir Kenneth, you're the only one I can pick up at a distance who has been having these flashes. But now that I'm here in Washington, I can feel it going on all around me."
"It may not have anything to do with everything else," Boyd said.