Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 2, 1922 — page 113: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ABOVE SUSPICION. staring straight before her in dull misery and only roused herself at the doctor’s ques- tion. ‘What is it you can tell us that perbaps only you know, Miss Dawn? I assure you again that you are speaking in the strictest _ confidence, and I beg that you will be ab- solutely frank with us.” “J shall be.” The woman raised her dry, haggard eyes to his. “ Doctor, there was something in Joseph Benkard’s life that he feared! He was no coward, that much must be said for him, but something must have occurred in the past that preyed upon his mind, although he never consciously ad- mitted it to me. I am sure now that he anticipated the death which actually came to him. The haunting dread of murder was ever in the back of his mind! “When we first became interested in each other and I grew to know his every mood I observed that he had curious fits of de- pression at two periods of the year, in the early autumn and around the midwinter holidays. He told me that he had been re- ceiving anonymous letters, evidently written by some lunatic, and threatening him with all sorts of dire things. I knew that could not be the real cause; that there was some- thing deeper, something stamped indelibly on his memory. ‘“‘He had boasted to me of the men he had used and whose trust he had afterward deliberately betrayed, of the firms which, through his secret machinations, had been driven to the wall. He thought it supreme cleverness on his part, strokes of genius. His conscience did not trouble him in the least. Of this other thing he never spoke in his waking moments.” “You mean, ma’am ”—the doctor leaned forward with his hands on his chubby knees —‘ you mean that he talked in his sleep?” She nodded. “He often came to me straight from the office after the market closed in the after- noon, utterly exhausted in mind and body with the day’s conflict and strain, and would throw himself on the davenport in my library and fall almost instantly into a brief but deep and profound slumber. He awoke strengthened and refreshed, but I began to fancy that he looked at me oddly, in a 583 queer, suspicious sort of way, and on one occasion he remarked that he had had a wretched dream full of vague, silly horrors, and asked if he had talked any gibberish. “fT assured him that he hadn’t, but after that I commenced to wonder, for beside those strange periods of depression which lasted for days he had recurring moods which would come upon him at any time without warning or apparent reason. In restaurants, at the races, the play, in the midst of the most frivolous conversation he would suddenly become detached and sit staring in front of him as if at something which no one else could see. He roused himself at once when I touched or spoke to him, but I noticed that he studied me after- ward in a keen, wary fashion to see if I was surprised or curious, and I schooled myself to ignore these moments of preoccupation and let him shake them off of his own accord. “They worried me, though, and my won- derment grew until one afternoon a year ago last winter when he had fallen asleep in the library while I made tea. All at once he cried out in a horrible, choking fashion and then the words came distinctly: ‘ Not murder! Not that!’ “There was such indescribable terror in. his tone that I was frightened, too, and I sat absolutely still and waited, but he only mumbled after that, then sighed and sud- denly opened his eyes. Oh, I was glad I had learned self-control, and could smile and tease him about being so bored with my company that he had fallen asleep! He sus- pected nothing, but after that almost as though his subconscious mind trusted me he talked frequently in those weird dreams of his, sometimes defying ‘ them’ to harm him and at others begging abjectly, piteous- ly for his life. But most often of all there would be that recurring word ‘ murder’ and a shuddering fear and horror of it. That is all. There was never a hint as to who he feared nor why, but I thought, doctor, that you should know of this.” “Jt is interesting, certainly,” the doctor remarked with a side glance at Geoff. “‘ You say that Mr. Benkard never once in his waking moments referred to this matter?”’ ‘“Never, but he was always on guard com Gbooks-.com —