Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 2, 1922 — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

ABOVE SUSPICION, he found a note thrust half out of sight beneath a flower pot on the steps. Ignor- ing for once the excited welcome of his canine companions, he unfolded the pre- scription blank and read laboriously the message scrawled in evident haste on its back. Dear GEOFF: Come to my house quick as you can. Man we met last night wants to see you. Yours truly, Evans Hoop. So Lyons had lost no time in getting on the trail! Had he hit the nail on the head regarding this Zoey woman? She’d made gosh-almighty fools of senators and envoys and ambassadors, and Joseph Benkard, powerful as he had been, seemed small fry, after such big fish. But her name had been connected with his by a chosen few in Wall Street, and old Robbins had appeared to know what he was talking about. Geoff fed the dogs, watered the mare, and after hastily making his toilet with the aid of a tin bucket and a comb he snatched a cold bite and struck off across the short cut to the village and the doctor’s home on Main Street. The latter admitted him and fairly dragged him into the little parlor and office combined. He found Detective Lyons pacing impatiently up and down. “Look here, Peters, I don’t know where you*got your information, but it was on the level as far as it went. I want to ask you if you’re holding out anything on us,” the headquarters man beg2n abruptly. ‘ Dr. Hood says you’ve helped him a lot on an- other case or two out here, but you only did it in your own way. “Sunny Beach was a village then, but it’s part of New York City now, and that is a different matter. You needn’t be afraid to speak because of getting mixed up in this, for you’re not even a special deputy, and we'll keep you out of it; but if you’re keeping back any dope that may be useful to us now, come across with it!” “T ain’t keepin’ back nothin’!” Geoff asserted with dignity. ‘I ain’t a dep’ty, as you say yourself, but a carpenter and mason, and I got a hull lot more work on my hands now than I kin ’tend to, even O75 if I mind my own business, which I ain’t been a doin’. There wasn’t no call for me to tell Doc Hood, in the first place, what the cook had said ’bout the quarrel between Lane and Benkard, if I hadn’t ’a’ wanted to; but he’s an old friend o’ mine, and I didn’t take to the browbeatin’ airs o’ that feller from the district attorney’s office. I’m willin’ and glad to help, but I ain’t namin’ no names unless I’ve a mind to!”’ ““ Nobody’s asking you to, Geoff.” The fat little doctor backed him into a chair. “We just wanted you to tell us all you know in your own way, and what put you on the right track.” ““ Well ”—Geoff deposited his cap on the floor beside him—‘‘I heard tell o’ a old gentleman who had friends down in that there Wall Street and kinder liked to gab *bout what he picked up from ’em. It come to me there was one thing mebbe in Ben- kard’s life nobuddy ’d thought to look into —wimmen. There ain’t no man so wrapped up in money makin’ and gittin’ “long in the world but what he’s liable to let him- self be sidetracked by some feemale critter or ‘nother, and when they git to Benkard’s age without ever philanderin’ ’round they generally fall the hardest when it comes. ‘Look at Lane! Look at that senator and them foreign gov’mint rep’sentatives you told us "bout last night yourself, mis- ter! Now, I ain’t heard tell o’ Benkard ever bein’ married or even keepin’ steady company ’mongst the society folks, so it stood to reason that if he had ’a’ been in love with somebuddy it ’d be the kind 0’ lady he’d keep quiet ‘bout, and the quieter he kept the more whispers there’d be. That’s the way I figgered it out, any- how.” “Go on, Peters,” the detective urged, as he paused. “Well, it seemed to me that his Wall Street friends would have knowed, and if they did so would Lane, and I got the idee that the old gentleman I told you ‘bout would ’a’ heard tell o’ the gossip if there was any, so I went to town yes- terday mornin’ and asked him, sayin’ Doc Hood had sent me.” Geoff grinned at his friend’s round, amazed countenance. CoOmmicooOoKkSsConn