“Spill it.”
“I was happy myself, but as I grew up I could see that my mother wasn’t. And my father wasn’t. My teachers weren’t — most of the adults around me weren’t happy. I got an idea in my head that when you grew up you found out something that kept you from ever being happy again. You know how a kid is treated: ‘You’re not old enough to understand, dear,’ and ‘Wait till you grow up, darling, and then you’ll understand.’ I used to wonder what the secret was they were keeping from me and I’d listen behind doors to try and see if I couldn’t find out.”
“Born to be a detective!”
“Shush. But I could see that, whatever it was, it didn’t make the grown-ups happy; it made ’em sad. Then I used to pray never to find out.” She gave a little shrug. “I guess I never did.”
He chuckled. “Me neither. A professional Peter Pan, that’s me. Just as happy as if I had good sense.”
She placed a small gloved hand on his arm. “Don’t laugh, Teddy. That’s what scares me about this Hoag case. I’m afraid that if we go ahead with it we really will find out what it is the grown-ups know. And then we’ll never laugh again.”
He started to laugh, then looked at her hard. “Why, you’re really serious, aren’t you?” He chucked her under the chin. “Be your age, kid. What you need is dinner — and a drink.”
IV
After dinner, Cynthia was just composing in her mind what she would say to Mr. Hoag on telephoning him when the house buzzer rang. She went to the entrance of their apartment and took up the house phone. “Yes?”
Almost immediately she turned to her husband and voicelessly shaped the words, “It’s Mr. Hoag.” He raised his brows, put a cautioning finger to his lips, and with an exaggerated tiptoe started for the bedroom. She nodded.
“Just a moment, please. There — that’s better. We seem to have had a bad connection. Now who is it, please?
“Oh…Mr. Hoag. Come up, Mr. Hoag.” She punched the button controlling the electrical outer lock.
He came in bobbing nervously. “I trust this is not an intrusion, but I have been so upset that I felt I couldn’t wait for a report.”
She did not invite him to sit down. “I am sorry,” she said sweetly, “to have to disappoint you. Mr. Randall has not yet come home.”
“Oh.” He seemed pathetically disappointed, so much so that she felt a sudden sympathy. Then she remembered what her husband had been put through that morning and froze up again.
“Do you know,” he continued, “when he will be home?”
“That I couldn’t say. Wives of detectives, Mr. Hoag, learn not to wait up.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I presume I should not impose on you further. But I am anxious to speak with him.”
“I’ll tell him so. Was there anything in particular you had to say to him? Some new data, perhaps?”
“No — ” he said slowly. “No, I suppose…it all seems so silly!”
“What does, Mr. Hoag?”
He searched her face. “I wonder — Mrs. Randall, do you believe in possession?”
“Possession?”
“Possession of human souls — by devils.”
“I can’t say that I’ve thought much about it,” she answered cautiously. She wondered if Teddy were listening, if he could reach her quickly if she screamed.
Hoag was fumbling strangely at his shirt front; he got a button opened; she whiffed an acrid, unclean smell, then he was holding out something in his hand, something fastened by a string around his neck under his shirt.
She forced herself to look at it and with intense relief recognized it for what it was — a cluster of fresh cloves of garlic, worn as a necklace. “Why do you wear it?” she asked.
“It does seem silly, doesn’t it?” he admitted. “Giving way to superstition like that — but it comforts me. I’ve had the most frightening feeling of being watched — ”
“Naturally. We’ve been — Mr. Randall has been watching you, by your instructions.”
“Not that. A man in a mirror — ” He hesitated.