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.”