"Dukas," Granger said with a show of great patience, "will you ever realize? We're facing a soulless horror. We must be harsh if need be. But you should be glad to give your absolute co-operation. It's your duty. We have always felt that Prell is alive, somewhere. Twice he has been part of disaster, even if unintentionally. We must stop him before he can bring us greater, unknown dangers."
Ed eyed this thin, wily man who had managed to assume a certain unofficial power in the world. And again Ed had trouble judging him. Perhaps he was entirely insincere. Yet he had, too, the marks of the rabid crusader following obsolete themes that needed revision; following them blindly, with both a kind of courage and the crassest stupidity.
"Tell me something, Granger," Ed said. "I'm curious. And I know I have a duty, however different from what you mean. Did you have a hand in the creation of the monsters of vitaplasm? I mean the real monsters, not just the androids, the Phonies. The use of terror is old in war and politics. Stirring up fury, with the blame carefully implied elsewhere."
Granger's features stiffened, as if he had been insulted, or perhaps he was just acting. "I would not dirty my hands with things from hell, Dukas!" he snapped. "Unwise as you are, you must know that! Now I think the police want to take you away."
Ed's mother stood in the doorway of his room without saying a word. She looked strong, yet bitter and scared. He knew that her loyalty was with him, though her views differed somewhat from his.
His father must have been out of the house when Granger and the other man arrived, Ed thought. Did his going out on this chaotic evening mean anything special? Wanting to be loyal, and at least half sure that the wish was returned, Ed didn't care to complete the thought.
He was concerned about his mother, yet he said, "Try not to worry, Mom. Go to bed. They'll have to guard the house. I can still insist on it. And I don't think I can be held very long, even now."
"Your father will come to you as soon as he knows, Eddie," she said.
So Edward Dukas was carted off to the local bastille. A helmet was put on his head. But what was learned from him about the whereabouts of Mitchell Prell must have been both confusing and disappointing. Certainly, though, it must have intrigued the police, as did that single name on the paper, which told them nothing under the most careful scrutiny.
Bronson, the portly local police chief, introduced Ed to a man named Carter Loman, a bullishly handsome character with a mouth like a trap, a smile to match, and a gimlet scrutiny. A big wheel of some sort, Ed assumed. Was there something familiar about him?