“None of your business,” retorted Phipps. He inclined his head toward the mirror. “Climb through it.”
“Where is she?” he screamed and attempted to grab Phipps by the throat.
Randall was never clear as to just what happened next. Phipps raised one hand-and he found himself tumbled against the side of the bed. He tried to struggle up again-fruitlessly. His efforts had a helpless, nightmare quality. “Mr. Crewes!” Phipps called out. “Mr. Reifsnider-I need your help.”
Two more faces, vaguely familiar, appeared in the mirror. “On this side, Mr. Crewes, if you please,” Phipps directed. Mr. Crewes climbed through. “Fine! We’ll put him through feet first, I think.”
Randall had nothing to say about it; he tried to resist, but his muscles were water. Vague twitchings were all he could accomplish. He tried to bite a wrist that came his way and was rewarded with a faceful of hard knuckles-a stinging rap rather than a blow.
“I’ll add to that later,” Phipps promised him.
They poked him through and dumped him on a table-the table. It was the same room he had been in once before, the board room of Detheridge & Co. There were the same pleasant, icy faces around the table, the same jovial, pig-eyed fat man at the head. There was one minor difference; on the long wall was a large mirror which did not reflect the room, but showed their bedroom, his and Cynthia’s, as if seen in a mirror, with everything in it swapped left for right.
But he was not interested in such minor phenomena. He tried to sit up, found that he could not, and was forced to make do with simply raising his head. “Where did you put her?” he demanded of the huge chairman.
Stoles smiled at him sympathetically. “Ah, Mr. Randall! So you’ve come to see us again. You do get around, don’t you? Entirely too much, in fact.”
“Damn you-tell me what you did with her!”
“Silly and weak and stupid,” Stoles mused. “To think that my own brothers and I could create nothing better than you. Well, you shall pay for it. The Bird is cruel!”
At his last emphatic remark he covered his face briefly. The others present followed his motions; someone reached out and clapped a hand roughly over Randall’s eyes, then took it away.
Stoles was speaking again; Randall tried to interrupt him-once again Stoles thrust a finger at him and said sternly, “Enough!” Randall found himself unable to talk; his throat choked up and nauseated him whenever he tried it.
“One would suppose,” Stoles continued urbanely, “that even one of your poor sort would understand the warning you were given, and heed it.” Stoles stopped for a moment and shoved out his lips, pressing them tightly together. “I sometimes think that my only weakness lies in not realizing the full depths of the weakness and stupidity of men. As a reasonable creature myself I seem to have an unfortunate tendency to expect others unlike myself to be reasonable.”
He stopped and turned his attention away from Randall and toward one of his colleagues. “Don’t raise up any false hopes, Mr. Parker,” he said, smiling sweetly. “I do not underrate you. And if you should wish to wrestle for my right to sit where I sit, I shall oblige you-later. I wonder,” he added thoughtfully, “what your blood tastes like.”
Mr. Parker was equally courteous. “Much the same as yours, Mr. Chairman, I imagine. It’s a pleasant idea, but I am satisfied with the present arrangements.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. I like you, Mr. Parker; I had hoped you were ambitious.”
“I am patient-like our Ancestor.”
“So? Well-back to business. Mr. Randall, I tried before to impress you with the necessity of having nothing to do with-your client. You know the client I mean. What do you think would impress you with the fact that the Sons of the Bird will tolerate no interference with their plans? Speak up-tell me.”
Randall had heard little of what had taken place and had understood none of it. His whole being was engrossed with a single terrible thought. When he found he could speak again, it spilled forth. “Where is she?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. “What have you done with her?”