“Yes,” he said gratefully. “Yes, that is exactly it.”
“And you want us to find out what you do? Shadow you, find out where you go, and tell you what you have been doing?”
Hoag nodded emphatically. “That is what I have been trying to say.”
Randall glanced from Hoag to his wife and back to Hoag. “Let’s get this straight,” he said slowly. “You really don’t know what you do in the daytime and you want me to find out. How long has this been going on?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Well — what do you know?”
Hoag managed to tell his story, with prompting. His recollection of any sort ran back about five years, to the St. George Rest Home in Dubuque. Incurable amnesia — it no longer worried him and he had regarded himself as completely rehabilitated. They — the hospital authorities — had found a job for him when he was discharged.
“What sort of a job?”
He did not know that. Presumably it was the same job he now held, his present occupation. He had been strongly advised, when he left the rest home, never to worry about his work, never to take his work home with him, even in his thoughts. “You see,” Hoag explained, “they work on the theory that amnesia is brought on by overwork and worry. I remember Dr. Rennault telling me emphatically that I must never talk shop, never let my mind dwell on the day’s work. When I got home at night I was to forget such things and occupy myself with pleasant subjects. So I tried to do that.”
“Hm-m-m. You certainly seem to have been successful, almost too successful for belief. See here — did they use hypnosis on you in treating you?”
“Why, I really don’t know.”
“Must have. How about it, Cyn? Does it fit?”
His wife nodded, “It fits. Posthypnosis. After five years of it he couldn’t possibly think about his work after hours no matter how he tried. Seems like a very odd therapy, however.”
Randall was satisfied. She handled matters psychological. Whether she got her answers from her rather extensive formal study, or straight out of her subconscious, he neither knew nor gave a hang. They seemed to work. “Something still bothers me,” he added. “You go along for five years, apparently never knowing where or how you work. Why this sudden yearning to know?”
He told them the story of the dinner-table discussion, the strange substance under his nails, and the non-co-operative doctor. “I’m frightened,” he said miserably. “I thought it was blood. And now I know it’s something — worse.”
Randall looked at him. “Why?”
Hoag moistened his lips. “Because — ” He paused and looked helpless. “You’ll help me, won’t you?”
Randall straightened up. “This isn’t in my line,” he said. “You need help all right, but you need help from a psychiatrist. Amnesia isn’t in my line. I’m a detective.”
“But I want a detective. I want you to watch me and find out what I do.”
Randall started to refuse; his wife interrupted. “I’m sure we can help you, Mr. Hoag. Perhaps you should see a psychiatrist — ”
“Oh, no!”
” — but if you wish to be shadowed, it will be done.”
“I don’t like it,” said Randall. “He doesn’t need us.”
Hoag laid his gloves on the side table and reached into his breast pocket. “I’ll make it worth your while.” He started counting out bills. “I brought only five hundred,” he said anxiously. “Is it enough?”
“It will do,” she told him.
“As a retainer,” Randall added. He accepted the money and stuffed it into his side pocket. “By the way,” he added, “if you don’t know what you do during business hours and you have no more background than a hospital, where do you get the money?” He made his voice casual.
“Oh, I get paid every Sunday. Two hundred dollars, in bills.”
When he had gone Randall handed the cash over to his wife. “Pretty little tickets,” she said, smoothing them out and folding them neatly. “Teddy, why did you try to queer the pitch?”
“Me? I didn’t — I was just running up the price. The old ‘get-away-closer.'”