Even the best detective, Malone told himself irritably, needed clues of some kind. And this thing, whatever it was, was not playing fair. It didn't go around leaving bloody fingerprints or lipsticked cigarette butts or packets of paper matches with _Ciro's, Hollywood_, written on them. It didn't even have an alibi for anything that could be cracked, or leave tire marks or footprints behind that could be photographed. Hell, Malone thought disgustedly, it wasn't that the trail was cold. It just _wasn't_. Of course, there were ways to get clues, he reflected. He thought of his father. His father would have gone to the scene of the crime, or questioned some of the witnesses. But the scene of the crime was anywhere and everywhere, and most of the witnesses didn't know they were witnessing anything. Except for Her Majesty, of course--but he'd already questioned her, and there hadn't been any clues he could recall in that conversation. Malone stubbed out his cigar, lit another one absent-mindedly, and rescued his tie, which was working its slow way around to the side of his collar. There were, he remembered, three classic divisions of any crime: method, motive and opportunity. Maybe thinking about those would lead somewhere. As an afterthought, he got up, found a pencil and paper with the hotel's name stamped on them in gold and came back to the chair. Clearing the ashtray aside, he put the paper on the table and divided the paper into three vertical columns with the pencil. He headed the first one _Method_, the second _Motive_ and the third _Opportunity_. He stared at the paper for a while, and decided with some trepidation to take the columns one by one. Under _Method_, he put down: "Little bursts. Who knows cause?" Some more thought gave him another item, and he set it down under the first one: "Psionic. Look for psionic people?" That apparently was all there was to the first column. After a while he moved to number two, _Motive_. "Confuse things," he wrote with scarcely a second's reflection. But that didn't seem like enough. A few minutes more gave him several other items, written down one under the other. "Disrupt entire US. Set US up for invasion? Martians? Russians? CK: Is Russia having trble?" That seemed to exhaust the subject and with some relief he went on. But the title of the next column nearly stopped him completely. [Illustration] _Opportunity._ There wasn't anything he could put down under that one, Malone told himself, until he knew a great deal more about method. As things stood at present, the best entry under _Opportunity_ was a large, tastefully done question mark. He made one, and then sat back to look at the entire list and see what help it gave him: _Method_ Little bursts. Who knows cause? Psionic. Look for psionic people? _Motive_ Confuse things. Disrupt entire US. Set US up for invasion? Martians? Russians? CK: Is Russia having trble? _Opportunity_ ?