"Tell what?" Ed demanded, rising.
"About where Mitchell Prell is," Granger told him. "You said things which hinted that he might be around."
Ed's throat tightened. It was still a minor shock to remember that the probe beam had probably been used on this house sporadically for years. The refined radar of the probe beam could, if minutely focused, make fair pictures of distant things inside walls. But Ed didn't think that it could make the small print on a sheet of letter paper readable. But there were instruments that could pick up faint sounds from miles away—a voice, for instance—and amplify them to audibility. Ed was still sure that, over distance, his mind itself remained inviolable.
Ed felt cornered by the brute forces that always take over whenever reason is broken down by fear. Once his uncle had been a scapegoat to blame for disaster. Then, poor memories and triumphant years had half forgiven him. But now, during trouble, he was guilty again. And according to savage concepts of justice so were his relatives.
The confusion of half blaming his uncle left Ed and was replaced by stubborn loyalty. He summoned all his self-control and grinned carefully. He wondered if the fright in Granger's large eyes reflected realization at last of the angry hands, gone completely untrustworthy, that now touched the controls of modern science. Was he getting intelligent so late? Or was he afraid of something simpler?
Ed forced a laugh. "You picked up my muttering, Granger," he accused. "I wonder what you mutter about, these days? Grant me the same privilege of nervousness under strain which you could do a lot to relieve, everywhere, as I have been begging you to see. No, I don't know where Mitchell Prell is, though I wish I did."
The plain-clothes man had moved over to the table. Now he peered into the microscope. Soon he motioned to Granger to do likewise. Ed felt the roots of his hair puckering.
"What does 'Nipper' signify to you, Dukas?" Granger asked at last, levelly.
"Suppose it's my pet name for you, Granger?" Ed answered. "Your friend can take the paper along. The police laboratories might make something else of it. Maybe I doodle with a bum pen and absent-mindedly stick the doodle under a microscope—and right away somebody wants to make a story of it. You want to psyche me? I've humored that kind of whim from the police before. This time, for cussedness, I'll stand on my rights and demand that they get a court order before they meddle with my most private possession, my memory. Especially since hotheads and hysterics seem to have taken over. But wait, Granger. I'm sure that sensible people are still in the majority. They haven't reacted very much, yet. But they will—with matters as bad as they are now. Maybe they haven't any answers to our problems, except calm and the hope of working something out. But that's a lot. We were schooled to cautious thinking, Granger, and that means something, even though you and plenty of others can lose their wits. Maybe the sensible people will finally shut you up!"
"We'll take the paper along all right," the plain-clothes man said. "And you, too. We already have the court order you mention."