And—happy thought!—maybe one of them would turn out to be a high-grade imbecile, or even a moron.
Even if they only turned up another imbecile, he thought wearily, at least Dr. O'Connor would have something to work with.
He reported back to Burris when he arrived in Washington, told him about the interview with Dr. O'Connor, and explained what had come to seem a rather feeble brainstorm.
"It doesn't seem too productive," Burris said, with a shade of disappointment in his voice, "but we'll try it."
At that, it was a better verdict than Malone had hoped for. He had nothing to do but wait, while orders went out to field agents all over the United States, and quietly, but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents probed and pried and poked their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any rate, as they were able.
It was not an easy job. The inalienable right of a physician to refuse to disclose confidences respecting a patient applied even to idiots, imbeciles, and morons. Not even the FBI could open the private files of a licensed and registered psychiatrist.
But the field agents did the best they could and, considering the circumstances, their best was pretty good.
Malone, meanwhile, put in two weeks sitting glumly at his Washington desk and checking reports as they arrived. They were uniformly depressing. The United States of America contained more subnormal minds than Malone cared to think about. There seemed to be enough of them to explain the results of any election you were unhappy over. Unfortunately, subnormal was all you could call them. Not one of them appeared to possess any abnormal psionic abilities whatever.
There were a couple who were reputed to be poltergeists—but in neither case was there a single shred of evidence to substantiate the claim.