Naturally, the gems were fake. But then, Malone thought, the Queen was mad. It all balanced out in the end.
As they approached the sanitarium, Malone breathed a thankful prayer that he'd called up to tell the head physician how they'd all be dressed. If he hadn't—
He didn't want to think about that.
He didn't even want to pass it by hurriedly on a dark night.
The head physician, Dr. Frederic Dowson, was waiting for them on the steps of the building. He was a tall, thin, cadaverous-looking man with almost no hair and very deep-sunken eyes. He had the kind of face that a gushing female would probably describe, Malone thought, as "craggy," but it didn't look in the least attractive to Malone. Instead, it looked tough and forbidding.
He didn't turn a hair as the magnificently robed Boyd slid from the front seat, opened the rear door, doffed his plumed hat, and in one low sweep made a great bow. "We are here, Your Majesty," Boyd said.
Her Majesty got out, clutching at her voluminous skirts in a worried manner, to keep from catching them on the door jamb. "You know, Sir Thomas," she said when she was standing free of the car, "I think we must be related."
"Ah?" Boyd said worriedly.
"I'm certain of it, in fact," Her Majesty went on. "You look just exactly like my poor father. Just exactly. I dare say you come from one of the sinister branches of the family. Perhaps you are a half-brother of mine—removed, of course."
Malone grinned, and tried to hide the expression. Boyd was looking puzzled, then distantly angered. Nobody had ever called him illegitimate in just that way before.