“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Malone said. “Well, then. Do you mean that I’m the one causing all this mental static?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Not at all. It’s definitely coming from somewhere else, and it’s beamed at you, or beamed around you.”
“But—”
“It’s just that I can only pick it up when I’m tuned to your mind,” she said.
“Like now?” Malone said.
She shook her head. “Right now,” she said, “there isn’t any. It only happens every once in awhile, every so often, and not continuously.”
“Does it happen at regular intervals?” Malone asked.
“Not as far as I’ve been able to tell,” Her Majesty said. “It just happens, that’s all. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Except that it did start when you were assigned to this case.”
“Lovely,” Malone said. “Perfectly lovely. And what is it supposed to mean?”
“Interference,” she said. “Static. Jumble. That’s all it means. I just don’t know any more than that, Sir Kenneth; I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life. It really does disturb me.”