The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag Page 5

  "I don't know, Teddy. I just feel as if we were tackling the kingpin of Cicero with a pea shooter."

  "I shouldn't have talked business before breakfast. Have your coffee -- you'll feel better."

  "All right. No toast for me, Teddy. What's your brilliant idea?"

  "It's this," he explained, while crunching toast. "Yesterday we tried to keep out of his sight in order not to shake him back into his nighttime personality. Right?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Well, today we don't have to. We can stick to him like a leech, both of us, practically arm in arm. If it interferes with the daytime half of his personality, it doesn't matter, because we can lead him to the Acme Building. Once there, habit will take him where he usually goes. Am I right?"

  "I don't know, Teddy. Maybe. Amnesia personalities are funny things. He might just drift into a confused state."

  "You don't think it will work?"

  "Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But as long as you plan for us to stay close together, I'm willing to try it -- if you won't give up the whole matter."

  He ignored the condition she placed on it. "Fine. I'll give the old buzzard a ring and tell him to wait for us at his apartment." He reached across the breakfast table and grabbed the phone, dialed it and talked with Hoag. "He's certainly a June bug, that one," he said as he put the phone down. "At first he couldn't place me at all. Then all of a sudden he seemed to click and everything was all right. Ready to go, Cyn?"

  "Half a sec."

  "O. K." He got up and went into the living room, whistling softly.

  The whistling broke off; he came quickly back into the kitchen. "Cyn -- "

  "What's the matter, Teddy?"

  "Come into the living room -- please!"

  She hurried to do so, suddenly apprehensive at the sight of his face. He pointed to a straight chair which had been pulled over to a point directly under the mirror near the outer door. "Cyn -- how did that get where it is?"

  "That chair? Why, I pulled a chair over there to straighten the mirror just before I went to bed. I must have left it there."

  "Mm-m-m -- I suppose you must have. Funny I didn't notice it when I turned out the light."

  "Why does it worry you? Think somebody might have gotten into the apartment last night?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, sure -- that's what I was thinking." But his brow was still wrinkled.

  Cynthia looked at him, then went back into the bedroom. There she gathered up her purse, went through it rapidly, then opened a small, concealed drawer in her dressing table. "If anyone did manage to get in, they didn't get much. Got your wallet? Everything in it? How about your watch?"

  He made a quick check and reported, "They're all right. You must have left the chair there and I just didn't notice it. Ready to go?"

  "Be right with you."

  He said no more about it. Privately he was thinking what an involved mess a few subconscious memories and a club sandwich just before turning in could make. He must have noticed the chair just before turning out the light -- hence its appearance in the nightmare. He dismissed the matter.

  V

  Hoag was waiting for them. "Come in," he said. "Come in. Welcome, madame, to my little hide-away. Will you sit down? Have we time for a cup of tea? I'm afraid, he added apologetically, "that I haven't coffee in the house."

  "I guess we have," agreed Randall. "Yesterday you left the house at eight fifty-three and it's only eight thirty-five now. I think we ought to leave at the same time."

  "Good." Hoag bustled away, to return at once with a tea service on a tray, which he placed on a table at Cynthia's knees. "Will you pour, Mrs. Randall? It's Chinese tea," he added. "My own blend."

  "I'd be pleased." He did not look at all sinister this morning, she was forced to admit. He was just a fussy little bachelor with worry lines around his eyes -- and a most exquisite apartment. His pictures were good, just how good she had not the training to tell, but they looked like originals. There were not too many of them, either, she noticed with approval. Arty little bachelors were usually worse than old maids for crowding a room full of too much.

  Not Mr. Hoag's flat. It had an airy perfection to it as pleasing, in its way, as a Brahms waltz. She wanted to ask him where he had gotten his drapes.

  He accepted a cup of tea from her, cradled it in his hand and sniffed the aroma before sipping from it. He then turned to Randall. "I'm afraid, sir, that we are off on a wild-goose chase this morning."

  "Perhaps. Why do you think so?"

  "Well, you see, I really am at a loss as to what to do next. Your telephone call -- I was preparing my morning tea -- I don't keep a servant -- as usual, when you called. I suppose I am more or less in a brown fog in the early mornings -- absent-minded, you know, just doing the things one does when one gets up, making one's toilet and all that with one's thoughts elsewhere. When you telephoned I was quite bemused and it took me a moment to recall who you were and what business we had with each other. In a way the conversation cleared my head, made me consciously aware of myself, that is to say, but now -- " He shrugged helplessly. "Now I haven't the slightest idea of what I am to do next."

  Randall nodded. "I had that possibility in mind when I phoned you. I don't claim to be a psychologist but it seemed possible that your transition from your nighttime self to your daytime self took place as you left your apartment and that any interruption in your routine might throw you off."

  "Then why -- "

  "It won't matter. You see, we shadowed you yesterday; we know where you go."

  "You do? Tell me, sir! Tell me."

  "Not so fast. We lost track of you at the last minute. What I had in mind is this; We could guide you along the same track, right up to the point where we lost track of you yesterday. At that point I am hoping that your habitual routine will carry you on through -- and we will be in right at your heels."

  "You say 'we.' Does Mrs. Randall assist you in this?"

  Randall hesitated, realizing that he had been caught out in a slight prevarication. Cynthia moved in and took over the ball.

  "Not ordinarily, Mr. Hoag, but this seemed like an exceptional case. We felt that you would not enjoy having your private affairs looked into by the ordinary run of hired operator, so Mr. Randall has undertaken to attend to your case personally, with my help when necessary."

  "Oh, I say, that's awfully kind of you!"

  "Not at all."

  "But it is -- it is. But, uh, in that case -- I wonder if I have paid you enough. Do not the services of the head of the firm come a little higher?"

  Hoag was looking at Cynthia; Randall signaled to her an emphatic "Yes" -- which she chose to ignore. "What you have already paid, Mr. Hoag, seems sufficient. If additional involvements come up later, we can discuss them then."

  "I suppose so." He paused and pulled at his lower lip. "I do appreciate your thoughtfulness in keeping my affairs to yourselves. I shouldn't like -- " He turned suddenly to Randall. "Tell me -- what would your attitude be if it should develop that my daytime life is -- scandalous?" The word seemed to hurt him.

  "I can keep scandal to myself."

  "Suppose it were worse than that. Suppose it were -- criminal. Beastly."

  Randall stopped to choose his words. "I am licensed by the State of Illinois. Under that license I am obliged to regard myself as a special police officer in a limited sense. I certainly could not cover up any major felony. But it's not my business to turn clients in for any ordinary peccadillo. I can assure you that it would have to be something pretty serious for me to be willing to turn over a client to the police."

  "But you can't assure me that you would not do so?"

  "No," he said flatly.

  Hoag sighed. "I suppose I'll just have to trust to your good judgment." He held up his right hand and looked at his nails. "No. No, I can't risk it. Mr. Randall, suppose you did find something you did not approve of -- couldn't you just call me up and tell me that you were dropping the
case?"

  "No."

  He covered his eyes and did not answer at once. When he did his voice was barely audible. "You've found nothing -- yet?" Randall shook his head. "Then perhaps it is wiser to drop the matter now. Some things are better never known."

  His evident distress and helplessness, combined with the favorable impression his apartment had made on her, aroused in Cynthia a sympathy which she would have thought impossible the evening before. She leaned toward him. "Why should you be so distressed, Mr. Hoag? You have no reason to think that you have done anything to be afraid of -- have you?"

  "No. No, nothing really. Nothing but an overpowering apprehension."

  "But why?"

  "Mrs. Randall, have you ever heard a noise behind you and been afraid to look around? Have you ever awakened in the night and kept your eyes tightly shut rather than find out what it was that had startled you? Some evils reach their full effect only when acknowledged and faced.

  "I don't dare face this one," he added. "I thought that I did, but I was mistaken."

  "Come now," she said kindly, "facts are never as bad as our fears -- "

  "Why do you say so? Why shouldn't they be much worse?"

  "Why, because they just aren't." She stopped, suddenly conscious that her Pollyanna saying had no truth in it, that it was the sort of thing adults use to pacify children. She thought of her own mother, who had gone to the hospital, fearing an appendectomy -- which her friends and loving family privately diagnosed as hypochondria -- there to die, of cancer.

  No, the facts were frequently worse than our most nervous fears.

  Still, she could not agree with him. "Suppose we look at it in the worst possible light," she suggested. "Suppose you have been doing something criminal, while in your memory lapses. No court in the State would hold you legally responsible for your actions."

  He looked at her wildly. "No. No, perhaps they would not. But you know what they would do? You do, don't you? Have you any idea what they do with the criminally insane?"

  "I certainly do," she answered positively. "They receive the same treatment as any other psycho patient. They aren't discriminated against. I know; I've done field work at the State Hospital."

  "Suppose you have -- you looked at it from the outside. Have you any idea what it feels like from the inside? Have you ever been placed in a wet pack? Have you ever had a guard put you to bed? Or force you to eat? Do you know what it's like to have a key turned in a lock every time you make a move? Never to have any privacy no matter how much you need it?"

  He got up and began to pace. "But that isn't the worst of it. It's the other patients. Do you imagine that a man, simply because his own mind is playing him tricks, doesn't recognize insanity in others? Some of them drool and some of them have habits too beastly to tell of. And they talk, they talk, they talk. Can you imagine lying in a bed, with the sheet bound down, and a thing in the next bed that keeps repeating, 'The little bird flew up and then flew away; the little bird flew up and then flew away; the little bird flew up, and then flew away -- '"

  "Mr. Hoag!" Randall stood up and took him by the arm. "Mr. Hoag -- control yourself! That's no way to behave."

  Hoag stopped, looking bewildered. He looked from one face to the other and an expression of shame came over him. "I...I'm sorry, Mrs. Randall," he said. "I quite forgot myself. I'm not myself today. All this worry -- "

  "It's all right, Mr. Hoag," she said stiffly. But her earlier revulsion had returned.

  "It's not entirely all right," Randall amended. "I think the time has come to get a number of things cleared up. There has been entirely too much going on that I don't understand and I think it is up to you, Mr. Hoag, to give me a few plain answers."

  The little man seemed honestly at a loss. "I surely will, Mr. Randall, if there is anything I can answer. Do you feel that I have not been frank with you?"

  "I certainly do. First -- when were you in a hospital for the criminally insane?"

  "Why, I never was. At least, I don't think I ever was. I don't remember being in one."

  "Then why all this hysterical balderdash you have been spouting the past five minutes? Were you just making it up?"

  "Oh, no! That...that was...that referred to St. George Rest Home. It had nothing to do with a...with such a hospital."

  "St. George Rest Home, eh? We'll come back to that. Mr. Hoag, tell me what happened yesterday."

  "Yesterday? During the day? But Mr. Randall, you know I can't tell you what happened during the day."

  "I think you can. There has been some damnable skullduggery going on and you're the center of it. When you stopped me in front of the Acme Building -- what did you say to me?"

  "The Acme Building? I know nothing of the Acme Building. Was I there?"

  "You're damned right you were there and you pulled some sort of a shenanigan on me, drugged me or doped me, or something. Why?"

  Hoag looked from Randall's implacable face to that of his wife. But her face was impassive; she was having none of it. He turned hopelessly back to Randall. "Mr. Randall, believe me -- I don't know what you are talking about. I may have been at the Acme Building. If I were and if I did anything to you, I know nothing of it."

  His words were so grave, so solemnly sincere in their sound that Randall was unsettled in his own conviction. And yet -- damn it, somebody had led him up an alley. He shifted his approach. "Mr. Hoag, if you have been as sincere with me as you claim to be, you won't mind what I'm going to do next." He drew from the inner pocket of his coat a silver cigarette case, opened it, and polished the mirror-like inner surface of the cover with his handkerchief. "Now, Mr. Hoag, if you please."

  "What do you want?"

  "I want your fingerprints."

  Hoag looked startled, swallowed a couple of times, and said in a low voice, "Why should you want my fingerprints?"

  "Why not? If you haven't done anything, it can't do any harm, can it?"

  "You're going to turn me over to the police!"

  "I haven't any reason to. I haven't anything on you. Let's have your prints."

  "No!"

  Randall got up, stepped toward Hoag and stood over him. "How would you like both your arms broken?" he said savagely.

  Hoag looked at him and cringed, but he did not offer his hands for prints. He huddled himself together, face averted and his hands drawn in tight to his chest.

  Randall felt a touch on his arm. "That's enough, Teddy. Let's get out of here."

  Hoag looked up. "Yes," he said huskily. "Get out. Don't come back."

  "Come on, Teddy."

  "I will in a moment. I'm not quite through. Mr. Hoag!"

  Hoag met his eye as if it were a major effort.

  "Mr. Hoag, you've mentioned St. George Rest Home twice as being your old alma mater. I just wanted you to know that I know that there is no such place!"

  Again Hoag looked genuinely startled. "But there is," he insisted. "Wasn't I there for -- At least they told me that was its name," he added doubtfully.

  "Humph!" Randall turned toward the door. "Come on, Cynthia."

  Once they were alone in the elevator she turned to him. "How did you happen to play it that way, Teddy?"

  "Because," he said bitterly, "while I don't mind opposition, it makes me sore when my own client crosses me up. He dished us a bunch of lies, and obstructed us, and pulled some kind of sleight of hand on me in that Acme Building deal. I don't like for a client to pull stunts like that; I don't need their money that bad."

  "Well," she sighed, "I, for one, will be very happy to give it back to him. I'm glad it's over."

  "What do you mean, 'give it back to him'? I'm not going to give it back to him; I'm going to earn it."

  The car had arrived at the ground floor by now, but she did not touch the gate. "Teddy! What do you mean?"

  "He hired me to find out what he does. Well, damn it, I'm going to find out -- with or without his cooperation."

  He waite
d for her to answer, but she did not. "Well," he said defensively, "you don't have to have anything to do with it."

  "If you are going on with it, I certainly am. Remember what you promised me?"

  "What did I promise?" he asked, with a manner of complete innocence.

  "You know."

  "But look here, Cyn -- all I'm going to do is to hang around until he comes out, and then tail him. It may take all day. He may decide not to come out."

  "All right. I'll wait with you."

  "Somebody has to look out for the office."

  "You look out for the office," she suggested. "I'll shadow Hoag."

  "Now that's ridiculous. You -- " The car started to move upward. "Woops! Somebody wants to use it." He jabbed the button marked "Stop," then pushed the one which returned the car to the ground floor. This time they did not wait inside; he immediately opened the gate and the door.

  Adjacent to the entrance of the apartment house was a little lounge or waiting room. He guided her into it. "Now let's get this settled," he commenced.

  "It is settled."

  "O.K., you win. Let's get ourselves staked out."

  "How about right here? We can sit down and he can't possibly get out without us seeing him."

  "O.K."

  The elevator had gone up immediately after they had quitted it; soon they heard the typical clanging grunt which announced its return to the ground floor. "On your toes, kid."

  She nodded and drew back into the shadows of the lounge. He placed himself so that he could see the elevator door by reflection in an ornamental mirror hanging in the lounge. "Is it Hoag?" she whispered.

  "No," he answered in a low voice, "it's a bigger man. It looks like -- " He shut up suddenly and grabbed her wrist.

  Past the open door of the lounge she saw the hurrying form of Jonathan Hoag go by. The figure did not turn its eyes in their direction but went directly through the outer door. When it swung closed Randall relaxed the hold on her wrist. "I darn near muffed that one," he admitted.

  "What happened?"

  "Don' know. Bum glass in the mirror. Distortion. Tallyho, kid."