Before I Wake by Brett Halliday

Author:Brett Halliday
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781504019354
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Monday, September 13th.

It is Monday afternoon, six days since I last sat at my typewriter to set down the facts behind what may well be screaming headlines in tomorrow’s newspapers.

I feel quite calm this afternoon. My plans have been well laid, and they can’t possibly fail. I’ve been so very careful. I don’t think there can be the slightest suspicion of me, and I know there will be no proof. I’ve been clever, I think, and I’m so glad I waited until tonight.

It has been agony, not knowing how long Doctor Elder would give me before he decided to ruin everything by having his talk with Florence. I shudder every time I think back to last Friday when I nearly ruined everything.

It’s almost as though God were looking after me. I don’t believe in a conventional God, of course, but sometimes I feel sure there is a guiding spirit which protects people from their own folly. I’ve been thinking a lot about things like that this past week. I’ve felt very close to death, and I think you do sort of tend to see such things more clearly when you know your hold on life depends on a mere thread which may be snapped at any moment.

That’s the way it has been with me since talking with Doctor Elder. Since exposing myself to a greater danger by confiding in him, I’ve had to fight a terrible urgency, and force myself to remain calm and not let fear stampede me into a foolish betrayal.

Sitting here alone in my room now, it seems impossible that I should have been plunged into such a situation. My mind has been so completely absorbed with this horrible thing that my former gay and happy life seems to be the dream, and this the reality. I suppose I have always been a very intense person. Ellen Chase will tell you that. Whatever I did I always put everything I had into it … like studying dramatics … or just having a wonderful time.

Hatred is something new to me, too. I have never hated anyone in my life except Florence Riddel.

I guess I just never thought about murder before. It was a six-letter word to me. An abstract thing that made headlines in the newspapers and on the radio, and something people wrote novels about. Real murder was a thing committed by other people, but not the sort of thing that could ever touch me.

I have always believed, too, in that old saying that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. But now I know that is not true. Just as I know that anyone is capable of murder. It simply depends on circumstances. It’s like anything else. One adapts oneself.

I have discovered unexpected strengths and capabilities inside myself. I don’t shrink from the thought of murder any more. In fact, I’m eager for tonight to come. It is a simple matter of survival.

But there isn’t much time. I must act while I still have surprise working on my side.

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