He took a step toward her. "You wanted to see me, did you not?"
She gave way a step. "No," she said breathlessly. "No!"
"Ah, but you did. You expected to find me at your office, but I chose to meet you—here!"
The corridor was deserted; she could not even hear a sound of typing or conversation from any of the offices around them. The glazed doors stared sightlessly; the only sounds, other than their own sparse words, were the street noises ten stories below, muted, remote and unhelpful.
He came closer. "You wanted to take my fingerprints, didn’t you? You wanted to check them— find out things about me. You and your meddlesome husband."
"Get away from me!"
He continued to smile. "Come, now. You wanted my fingerprints—you shall have them." He raised his arms toward her and spread his fingers, reaching. She backed away from the clutching hands. He no longer seemed small; he seemed taller, and broader—bigger than Teddy. His eyes stared down at her.
Her heel struck something behind her; she knew that she had backed to the very end of the passage—dead end.
His hands came closer. "Teddy!" she screamed. "Oh, Teddy!"
Teddy was bending over her, slapping her face. "Stop that," she said indignantly. "It hurts!"
He gave a sigh of relief. "Gee, honey," he said tenderly. "You sure gave me a turn. You’ve been out for minutes."
"Unnnh!"
"Do you know where I found you? There!" He pointed to the spot just under the open window. "If you hadn’t fallen just right, you would have been hamburger by now. What happened? Lean out and get dizzy?"
"Didn’t you catch him?"
He looked at her admiringly. "Always the professional! No, but I damn near did. I saw him, from down the corridor. I watched a moment to see what he was up to. If you hadn’t screamed, I would have had him."
"If I hadn’t screamed?"
"Sure. He was in front of our office door, apparently trying to pick the lock, when—"
"Who was?"
He looked at her in surprise. "Why, Hoag, of course—Baby! Snap out of it! You aren’t going to faint again, are you?"
She took a deep breath. "I’m all right," she said grimly, "—now. Just as long as you’re here. Take me to the office."
"Shall I carry you?"
"No, just give me your hand." He helped her up and brushed at her dress. "Never mind that now." But she did stop to moisten, ineffectively, a long run in what had been until that moment brand-new stockings.
He let them into the office and sat her carefully in an armchair, then fetched a wet towel with which he bathed her face. "Feel better?"
"I’m all right—physically. But I want to get something straight. You say you saw Hoag trying to get into this office?"
"Yeah. Damned good thing we’ve special locks."
"This was going on when I screamed?"
"Yeah, sure."
She drummed on the arms of the chair.
" ’S matter, Cyn?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all—only this: The reason I screamed was because Hoag was trying to choke me!"
It took him some time even to say, "Hunh?"
She replied, "Yes, I know, darling. That’s how it is and it’s nuts. Somehow or other, he’s done it to us again. But I swear to you that he was about to choke me. Or I thought he was." She rehearsed her experience, in detail. "What does it add up to?"
"I wish I knew," he told her, rubbing his face. "I wish I did. If it hadn’t been for that business in the Acme Building, I would say that you were sick and had fainted and when you came to you were still kinda lightheaded. But now I don’t know which one of us is batty. I surely thought I saw him."
"Maybe we’re both crazy. It might be a good idea if we both went to see a good psychiatrist."
"Both of us? Can two people go crazy the same way? Wouldn’t it be one or the other of us?"
"Not necessarily. It’s rare, but it does happen. Folie a deux."
"Folee adooh?"
"Contagious insanity. Their weak points match up and they make each other crazier." She thought of the cases she had studied and recalled that usually one was dominant and the other subordinate, but she decided not to bring it up, as she had her own opinion as to who was dominant in their family, an opinion kept private for reasons of policy.
"Maybe," Randall said thoughtfully, "what we need is a nice, long rest. Down on the Gulf, maybe, where we could lie around in the sunshine."
"That," she said, "is a good idea in any case. Why in the world anyone chooses to live in a dismal, dirty, ugly spot like Chicago is beyond me."
"How much money have we?"
"About eight hundred dollars, after the bills and taxes are paid. And there’s the five hundred from Hoag, if you want to count that."
"I think we’ve earned it," he said grimly. "Say! Do we have that money? Maybe that was a hoax, too."
"You mean maybe there never was any Mr. Hoag and pretty soon the nurse will be in to bring us our nice supper."
"Mm-m-m—that’s the general idea. Have you got it?"
"I think I have. Wait a minute." She opened her purse, in turn opened a zippered compartment, and felt in it. "Yes, it’s here. Pretty green bills. Let’s take that vacation, Teddy. I don’t know why we stay in Chicago, anyway."
"Because the business is here," he said practically. "Coffee and cakes. Which reminds me, slaphappy or not, I’d better see what calls have come in." He reached across her desk for the phone; his eye fell on a sheet of paper in her typewriter. He was silent for a moment, then said in a strained voice, "Come here, Cyn. Take a look at this."
She got up at once, came around and looked over his shoulder. What she saw was one of their letterheads, rolled into the typewriter; on it was a single line of typing:
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT.
She said nothing at all and tried to control the quivering at the pit of her stomach.
Randall asked, "Cyn, did you write that?"
"No."
"Positive?"
"Yes." She reached out to take it out of the machine; he checked her.
"Don’t touch it. Fingerprints."
"All right. But I have a notion," she said, "that you won’t find any fingerprints on that."
"Maybe not."
Nevertheless, he took his outfit out of the lower drawer of his desk and dusted the paper and the machine—with negative results on each. There were not even prints of Cynthia to confuse the matter; she had a business-college neatness in her office habits and made a practice of brushing and wiping her typewriter at the end of each day.
While watching him work she remarked, "Looks as if you saw him getting out rather than in."
"Huh? How?"
"Picked the lock, I suppose."
"Not that lock. You forget, baby, that that lock is one of Mr. Yale’s proudest achievements. You could break it, maybe, but you couldn’t pick it."
She made no answer—she could think of none. He stared moodily at the typewriter as if it should tell him what had happened, then straightened up, gathered up his gear, and returned it to its proper drawer. "The whole thing stinks," he said, and commenced to pace the room.
Cynthia took a rag from her own desk and wiped the print powder from the machine, then sat down and watched him. She held her tongue while he fretted with the matter. Her expression was troubled but she was not worried for herself—nor was it entirely maternal. Rather was she worried for them.
"Cyn," he said suddenly, "this has got to stop!"
"All right," she agreed. "Let’s stop it."
"How?"
"Let’s take that vacation."
He shook his head. "I can’t run away from it. I’ve got to know."
She sighed. "I’d rather not know. What’s wrong with running away from something too big for us to fight?" e stopped and looked at her. "What’s come over you, Cyn? You never went chicken before."
"No," she answered slowly, "I never did. But I never had reason to. Look at me, Teddy—you know I’m not a female female. I don’t expect you to pick fights in restaurants when some lug tries to pick me up. I don’t scream at the sight of blood and I don’t expect you to clean up your language to fit my ladylike ears. As for the job, did I ever let you down on a case? Through timidity, I mean. Did I ever?"