The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag Page 9

  Potbury! He didn't know anything about the old beezer, but he looked competent. He looked up the number, misdialed three times, then got the operator to call it for him.

  "Yes, this is Potbury. What do you want? Speak up, man."

  "I said this is Randall. Randall. R-A-N-D-A-double L. My wife and I came to see you yesterday, remember? About -- "

  "Yes, I remember. What is it?"

  "My wife is sick."

  "What's the trouble? Did she faint again?"

  "No...yes. That is, she's unconscious. She woke up unconscious -- I mean she never did wake up. She's unconscious now; she looks like she's dead."

  "Is she?"

  "I don't think so -- but she's awful bad off, doctor. I'm scared. Can you come over right away?"

  There was a short silence, then Potbury said gruffly, "I'll be over."

  "Oh, good! Look -- what should I do before you get here?"

  "Don't do anything. Don't touch her. I'll be right over." He hung up.

  Randall put the phone down and hurried back to the bedroom. Cynthia was just the same. He started to touch her, recalled the doctor's instructions, and straightened up with a jerk. But his eye fell on the piece of paper from which he had improvised a stethoscope and he could not resist the temptation to check up on his earlier results.

  The tube gave back a cheering lubadup; he took it away at once and put it down.

  Ten minutes of standing and looking at her with nothing more constructive to do than biting his nails left him too nervous to continue the occupation. He went out to the kitchen and removed a bottle of rye from the top shelf from which he poured a generous three fingers into a water glass. He looked at the amber stuff for a moment, then poured it down the sink, and went back into the bedroom.

  She was still the same.

  It suddenly occurred to him that he had not given Potbury the address. He dashed into the kitchen and snatched the phone. Controlling himself, he managed to dial the number correctly. A girl answered the phone. "No, the doctor isn't in the office. Any message?"

  "My name is Randall. I -- "

  "Oh -- Mr. Randall. The doctor left for your home about fifteen minutes ago. He should be there any minute now."

  "But he doesn't have my address!"

  "What? Oh, I'm sure he has -- if he didn't have he would have telephoned me by now."

  He put the phone down. It was damned funny -- well, he would give Potbury three more minutes, then try another one.

  The house phone buzzed; he was up out of his chair like a punch-drunk welterweight. "Yes?"

  "Potbury. That you, Randall?"

  "Yes, yes -- come on up!" He punched the door release as he spoke.

  Randall was waiting with the door open when Potbury arrived. "Come in, doctor! Come in, come in!" Potbury nodded and brushed on by him.

  "Where's the patient?"

  "In here." Randall conducted him with nervous haste into the bedroom and leaned over the other side of the bed while Potbury took his first look at the unconscious woman. "How is she? Will she be all right? Tell me, doctor -- "

  Potbury straightened up a little, grunting as he did so, and said, "If you will kindly stand away from the bed and quit crowding me, perhaps we will find out."

  "Oh, sorry!" Randall retreated to the doorway. Potbury took his stethoscope from his bag, listened for a while with an inscrutable expression on his face which Randall tried vainly to read, shifted the instrument around, and listened again. Presently he put the stethoscope back in the bag, and Randall stepped forward eagerly.

  But Potbury ignored him. He peeled up an eyelid with his thumb and examined her pupil, lifted an arm so that it swung free over the side of the bed and tapped it near the elbow, then straightened himself up and just looked at her for several minutes.

  Randall wanted to scream.

  Potbury performed several more of the strange, almost ritualistic things physicians do, some of which Randall thought he understood, others which he definitely did not. At last he said suddenly, "What did she do yesterday -- after you left my office?"

  Randall told him; Potbury nodded sagely. "That's what I expected -- it all dates back to the shock she had in the morning. All your fault, if I may say so!"

  "My fault, doctor?"

  "You were warned. Should never have let her get close to a man like that."

  "But...but...you didn't warn me until after he had frightened her."

  Potbury seemed a little vexed at this. "Perhaps not, perhaps not. Thought you told me someone had warned you before I did. Should know better, anyhow, with a creature like that."

  Randall dropped the matter. "But how is she, doctor? Will she get well? She will, won't she?"

  "You've got a very sick woman on your hands, Mr. Randall."

  "Yes, I know she is -- but what's the matter with her?"

  "Lethargica gravis, brought on by psychic trauma."

  "Is that -- serious?"

  "Quite serious enough. If you take proper care of her, I expect she will pull through."

  "Anything, doctor, anything. Money's no object. What do we do now? Take her to a hospital?"

  Potbury brushed the suggestion aside. "Worst thing in the world for her. If she wakes up in strange surroundings, she may go off again. Keep her here. Can you arrange your affairs so as to watch her yourself?"

  "You bet I can."

  "Then do so. Stay with her night and day. If she wakes up, the most favorable condition will be for her to find herself in her own bed with you awake and near her."

  "Oughtn't she to have a nurse?"

  "I wouldn't say so. There isn't much that can be done for her, except to keep her covered up warm. You might keep her feet a little higher than her head. Put a couple of books under each of the lower feet of the bed."

  "Right away."

  "If this condition persists for more than a week or so, we'll have to see about glucose injections, or something of the sort." Potbury stooped over, closed his bag and picked it up. "Telephone me if there is any change in her condition."

  "I will. I -- " Randall stopped suddenly; the doctor's last remark reminded him of something he had forgotten. "Doctor -- how did you find your way over here?"

  Potbury looked startled. "What do you mean? This place isn't hard to find."

  "But I didn't give you the address."

  "Eh? Nonsense."

  "But I didn't. I remembered the oversight just a few minutes later and called your office back, but you had already left."

  "I didn't say you gave it to me today," Potbury said testily; "you gave it to me yesterday."

  Randall thought it over. He had offered Potbury his credentials the day before, but they contained only his business address. True, his home telephone was listed, but it was listed simply as a night business number, without address, both in his credentials and in the phone book. Perhaps Cynthia --

  But he could not ask Cynthia and the thought of her drove minor considerations out of his mind. "Are you sure there is nothing else I should do, doctor?" he asked anxiously.

  "Nothing. Stay here and watch her."

  "I will. But I surely wish I were twins for a while," he added emphatically.

  "Why?" Potbury inquired, as he gathered up his gloves and turned toward the door.

  "That guy Hoag. I've got a score to settle with him. Never mind -- I'll put somebody else on his tail until I have a chance to settle his hash myself."

  Potbury had wheeled around and was looking at him ominously. "You'll do nothing of the sort. Your place is here."

  "Sure, sure -- but I want to keep him on ice. One of these days I'm going to take him apart to see what makes him tick!"

  "Young man," Potbury said slowly, "I want you to promise me that you will have nothing to do in any way with...with this man you mentioned."

  Randall glanced toward the bed. "In view of what has happened," he said savagely, "do you think I'm going to let him get away s
cot-free?"

  "In the name of -- Look. I'm older than you are and I've learned to expect silliness and stupidity. Still -- how much does it take to teach you that some things are too dangerous to monkey with?" He gestured toward Cynthia. "How can you expect me to be responsible for her recovery if you insist on doing things that might bring on a catastrophe?"

  "But -- listen, Dr. Potbury, I told you that I intended to follow your instructions about her. But I'm not going to just forget what he has done. If she dies...if she dies, so help me, I'll take him apart with a rusty ax!"

  Potbury did not answer at once. When he did all he said was, "And if she doesn't die?"

  "If she doesn't die, my first business is here, taking care of her. But don't expect me to promise to forget Hoag. I won't -- and that's final."

  Potbury jammed his hat on his head. "We'll let it go at that -- and trust she doesn't die. But let me tell you, young man, you're a fool." He stomped out of the apartment.

  The lift he had gotten from tangling wills with Potbury wore off in a few minutes after the doctor had gone, and a black depression settled down on him. There was nothing to do, nothing to distract his mind from the aching apprehension he felt over Cynthia. He did make the arrangements to raise the foot of the bed a little as suggested by Potbury, but it takes only a few minutes to perform such a trifling chore; when it was done he had nothing to occupy him.

  In raising the foot of the bed he had been very cautious at first to avoid jarring the bed for fear of waking her; then he realized that waking her was just what he wanted most to do. Nevertheless he could not bring himself to be rough and noisy about it -- she looked so helpless lying there.

  He pulled a chair up close to the bed, where he could touch one of her hands and watch her closely for any change. By holding rigidly still he found that he could just perceive the rise and fall of her breast. It reassured him a little; he spent a long time watching for it -- the slow, unnoticeable intake, the much quicker spilling of the breath.

  Her face was pale and frighteningly deathlike, but beautiful. It wrung his heart to look at her. So fragile -- she had trusted him so completely -- and now there was nothing he could do for her. If he had listened to her, if he had only listened to what she had said, this would not have happened to her. She had been afraid, but she had done what he asked her to do.

  Even the Sons of the Bird had not been able to frighten her --

  What was he saying? Get a grip on yourself, Ed -- that didn't happen; that was part of your nightmare. Still, if anything like that had happened, that was just what she would do -- stick in there and back up his play, no matter how badly things were going.

  He got a certain melancholy satisfaction out of the idea that, even in his dreams, he was sure of her, sure of her courage and her devotion to him. Guts -- more than most men. There was the time she knocked the acid bottle out of the hands of that crazy old biddy he had caught out in the Midwell case. If she hadn't been quick and courageous then, he would probably be wearing smoked glasses now, with a dog to lead him around.

  He displaced the covers a little and looked at the scar on her arm she had picked up that day. None of the acid had touched him, but some had touched her -- it still showed, it always would show. But she didn't seem to care.

  "Cynthia! Oh, Cyn, my darling!"

  There came a time when even he could not remain in one position any longer. Painfully -- the cold he had caught in his muscles after the accident last night made his cramped legs ache like fury -- he got himself up and prepared to cope with necessities. The thought of food was repugnant but he knew that he had to feed himself if he were to be strong enough to accomplish the watching and waiting that was going to be necessary.

  Rummaging through the kitchen shelves and the icebox turned up some oddments of food, breakfast things, a few canned goods, staples, some tired lettuce. He had no stomach for involved cooking; a can of soup seemed as good a bet as anything. He opened a can of Scotch broth, dumped it into a saucepan and added water. When it had simmered for a few minutes he took it off the fire and ate it from the pan, standing up. It tasted like stewed cardboard.

  He went back to the bedroom and sat down again to resume the endless watching. But it soon developed that his feelings with respect to food were sounder than his logic; he bolted hastily for the bathroom and was very sick for a few minutes. Then he washed his face, rinsed out his mouth, and came back to his chair, weak and pale, but feeling sound enough physically.

  It began to grow dusky outside; he switched on the dressing-table lamp, shaded it so that it would not shine directly in her eyes, and again sat down. She was unchanged.

  The telephone rang.

  It startled him almost out of rational response. He and his sorrow had been sitting there watching for so long that he was hardly aware that there could be anything else in the world. But he pulled himself together and answered it.

  "Hello? Yes, this is Randall, speaking."

  "Mr. Randall, I've had time to think it over and I feel that I owe you an apology -- and an explanation."

  "Owe me what? Who is this speaking?"

  "Why, this is Jonathan Hoag, Mr. Randall. When you -- "

  "Hoag! Did you say 'Hoag'?"

  "Yes, Mr. Randall. I want to apologize for my peremptory manner yesterday morning and to beg your indulgence. I trust that Mrs. Randall was not upset by my -- By this time Randall was sufficiently recovered from his first surprise to express himself. He did so, juicily, using words and figures of speech picked up during years of association with the sort of characters that a private detective inevitably runs into. When he had finished there was a gasp from the other end of the line and then a dead silence.

  He was not satisfied. He wanted Hoag to speak so that he could interrupt him and continue the tirade. "Are you there, Hoag?"

  "Uh, yes."

  "I wanted to add this: Maybe you think that it is a joke to catch a woman alone in a hallway and scare the daylights out of her. I don't! But I'm not going to turn you over to the police -- no, indeed! Just as soon as Mrs. Randall gets well, I'm going to look you up myself and then -- God help you, Hoag. You'll need it."

  There followed such a long silence that Randall was sure that his victim had hung up. But it seemed that Hoag was merely collecting his wits. "Mr. Randall, this is terrible -- "

  "You bet it is!"

  "Do you mean to tell me that I accosted Mrs. Randall and frightened her?"

  "You should know!"

  "But I don't know, truly I don't." He paused, and then continued in an unsteady voice. "This is the sort of thing I have been afraid of, Mr. Randall, afraid that I might discover that during my lapses of memory I might have been doing terrible things. But to have harmed Mrs. Randall -- she was so good to me, so kind to me. This is horrible."

  "You're telling me!"

  Hoag sighed as if he were tired beyond endurance.

  "Mr. Randall?" Randall did not answer. "Mr. Randall -- there is no use in my deluding myself; there is only one thing to be done. You've got to turn me over to the police."

  "Huh?"

  "I've known it ever since our last conversation; I thought about it all day yesterday, but I did not have the courage. I had hoped that I was through with my...my other personality, but today it happened again. The whole day is a blank and I just came to myself this evening, on getting home. Then I knew that I had to do something about it, so I called you to ask you to resume your investigations. But I never suspected that I could possibly have done anything to Mrs. Randall." He seemed most convincingly overcome by shock at the idea. "When did...did this happen, Mr. Randall?"

  Randall found himself in a most bewildered state of mind. He was torn between the desire to climb through the phone and wring the neck of the man he held responsible for his wife's desperate condition and the necessity for remaining where he was to care for her. In addition to that he was bothered by the fact that Hoag refused to talk like a villain. While
speaking with him, listening to his mild answers and his worried tones, it was difficult to maintain the conception of him as a horrid monster of the Jack-the-Ripper type -- although he knew consciously that villains were often mild in manner.

  Therefore his answer was merely factual. "Nine thirty in the morning, about."

  "Where was I at nine thirty this morning?"

  "Not this morning, you so-and-so; yesterday morning."

  "Yesterday morning? But that's not possible. Don't you remember? I was at home yesterday morning."

  "Of course I remember, and I saw you leave. Maybe you didn't know that." He was not being very logical; the other events of the previous morning had convinced him that Hoag knew that they were shadowing him -- but he was in no state of mind to be logical.

  "But you couldn't have seen me. Yesterday morning was the only morning, aside from my usual Wednesdays, on which I can be sure where I was. I was at home, in my apartment. I didn't leave it until nearly one o'clock when I went to my club."

  "Why, that's a -- "

  "Wait a minute, Mr. Randall, please! I'm just as confused and upset about this as you are, but you've got to listen to me. You broke my routine -- remember? And my other personality did not assert itself. After you left I remained my...my proper self. That's why I had had hopes that I was free at last."

  "The hell you did. What makes you think you did?"

  "I know my own testimony doesn't count for much," Hoag said meekly, "but I wasn't alone. The cleaning woman arrived just after you left and was here all morning."

  "Damned funny I didn't see her go up."

  "She works in the building," Hoag explained. "She's the wife of the janitor -- her name is Mrs. Jenkins. Would you like to talk with her? I can probably locate her and get her on the line."

  "But -- " Randall was getting more and more confused and was beginning to realize that he was at a disadvantage. He should never have discussed matters with Hoag at all; he should have simply saved him up until there was opportunity to take a crack at him. Potbury was right; Hoag was a slick and insidious character. Alibi indeed!