Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (10 page)

Manning chuckled. He knew Henley, realized he was tired, baffled and chagrined.

“It’s pretty secret, even to me,” he answered. “I’ve got a glimmer of light, but it’s far from brilliant. As to your poison. I don’t think it was any vegetable toxin. More likely an active organic secretion. I may know more about it this time to-morrow. I was rather hoping you might have got some trace of formic acid, though I wasn’t counting on it.”

“Formic acid?” Henley stared at him.

Manning produced the little brass image and set it on the medical examiner’s desk.

“I’ve got this,” said Manning. “I may see that you get it for a paperweight later on, Henley. This—and a smell of ants. Doherty is in on that tip.”

“You’re too mysterious for me,” said Henley. I see the connection between ants and formic acid, of course, but….”

“Mysterious because I have to be,” said Manning. “I’m like some one who’s picked up two scraps of a jigsaw puzzle. They don’t fit, but it’s odd they belong to the same answer. I must be going. I’ll call my office first, if you don’t mind. And I want to get a quantity of buhach, two or three pounds. Where’s the best place to get it? Write it down, will you? I’ll send out after it.”

He picked up the telephone. Henley looked at him, shook his head and wrote down the address of a wholesale supply house for drugs. Manning hung up. He had got the name of the insurance company, also an appointment with its president.

“That secretary of mine is a most efficient girl,” he said to Henley. “Homely, positively homely, but clever. If anything ever happens to me, Henley, you grab her, or get some friend of yours to grab her.”

“Thinking of making your will?” asked Henley.

Manning grinned at him in friendly fashion.

“Made it, long ago,” he said. “I’m not really looking forward to a prompt shuffling off this mortal coil. I weathered the Griffin, you know, but I’ve got a hunch I might have a close call between now and, let us say, midnight.”

He picked up his hat, gloves and the stick he always carried, whether he was driving or walking. It was a steel rod, gold-capped at the head, tapering to a blunt point that served as ferrule. The steel was covered with rings of leather closely shrunk together. The cane was very flexible and it was a dangerous weapon in the hands of a man who knew how to use it to good effect, whether as a fencer or handling it as a staff or bludgeon.

If the theory that was beginning to slowly evolve a core out of more or less nebulous surroundings proved itself, Manning was going to have need of all his energies, all his resources of mind and body. He would be pitted against forces that could only be surmised until their final revelation, forces bordering on the unreal, malevolent and deadly.

He was going to face them alone, and he went out with a lithe stride to keep the rendezvous with danger.

VII

There was no answer, by tube or bell, to Manning’s summons for admission to Zerah’s penthouse. He had not expected there would be, but he was persistent. He had no authority to use force, no warranty, but he meant to stay there until somebody came in, or out. In a way the penthouse was a little stronghold. He imagined there might be some sort of dumb-waiter system for supplies and also meals, since the apartment house served them, but that was not the way he wanted to get in, even if it was negotiable. No doubt the superintendent and the engineer had means of releasing the automatic elevator. A man, with means to scale the back wall of the terrace where Pelota had been found, could break in, but this was no time for burglary, for forced entrance.

Finally a foreign voice came down the tube.

“Zerah mus’ not be disturb’!” it said. “He will see no one to-day.”

Manning’s eyes held a twinkle as he thought of the effect his swift Hindustani reply was having on the wallah at the other end of the tube. His sentences were blistering and imperative, those of white master to servant, speech the wallah was used to in India. In the United States he had grown insolent. But Manning brought him to.

“Tell your master,” he concluded, “that this is police business and must be attended to. Rung ho!”

A moment later he heard the elevator coming down. Now, when he clicked the latch button, it responded and he entered the private lift, pushing another button that took him up to where it opened again on a foyer. A Hindu servant, in loose tunic, trousers and turban, with a sash and slippers, salaamed profoundly.

Manning’s travel and observations placed the wallah as a member of the sudra, or lowest, caste. He wondered whether Zerah was any higher in the Hindu social scale. He thought more likely the man was a clever sharper who might have once carried the begging bowl of a priest and learned many matters he was now putting to use. In his capacity of mystic he did not have to bring references. The sensation-seeking society women swallowed all his specious sayings.

But he had his methods. The foyer wall was paneled with tapestries and paintings of the doings of the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. Some were mere prints on cotton, others on gold backgrounds. They were impressive, but Manning knew how easily and cheaply they could be purchased in the bazaars of Calcutta or any Hindu city.

At one end of the entrance hall was a stone statue of Brahma, at the other one, carved in gilded wood, of Siva. This showed the god in beneficent aspect, seated on the sacred cow. Bronze braziers gave out incense.

Manning thought about the smell of ants. Nor had he forgotten that checked sentence of Power—
You have been to India
—
then
…. Those things were tied up with this visit.

He was ushered into a main room that was clearly the lecture hall and also the temple of Zerah’s cult. Here there were more incense, more panelings and these pictures were subtly grosser than those of the hall.

The furniture was of inlaid teak, set with pearl and ivory. There were many cushions, floor pillows and low lounges. The lights were dim, showing through globes of pierced brass. At one end hung drapes of black from ceiling to floor. The windows were curtained. Behind the black drapes there would be the altar, the so-called shrine, where Zerah officiated.

“The swami will come,
sahib,
presently,” said the wallah, salaamed again and vanished.

Manning shifted a window curtain, verified the exposure of the room, generally oriented himself. A gong sounded, deep and resonant. Then a silver bell chimed. Manning gazed at one of the picture-panels. He was not surprised to hear a voice, to see Zerah standing in the middle of the room. Wherever Manning had happened to stand, he fancied, Zerah would have come in behind him, unseen, through some trick panel. It was useless mummery to Manning.

Zerah was in flowing robes of deepest purple, figured in some small pattern of brocade. His high turban was scarlet. His slippers were scarlet, as was his sash. He had black and piercing eyes, a nose that was thinly aquiline. A striking figure and, to Manning, a challenging one. Those dark eyes held cunning and could hold cruelty, the mouth, half hidden by a carefully groomed mustache and forked beard, was sensuous, greedy, dominant.

He gave off a scent of jasmine that made Manning’s nose wrinkle.

“Not much like ants,” he told himself.

“You wish to see me?” said Zerah. “I hear you are from the police. I am in retreat to-day, in deep sorrow because of the death of one who sat, with me, at the feet of Parvati. It is perhaps, concerning that you come to me?”

“I am
of
the police,” Manning corrected. “How did you learn of the death of Mrs. Power, who sat with you at the feet of Kali?”

He saw those black eyes show sudden fires of suspicion, of hatred, then of caution. Zerah was wondering how much Manning knew, this man
of
and not
from
the police. He was appraising his visitor, who knew the difference between Parvati and Kali, who wanted to know how he had learned of the death of the woman who had worshiped there, in the big room with the dim lights.

“I should not have known, but for a friend of hers who called me and thought I had heard the news. One of my pupils. I do not care to give the name. There will be much talk and printings.”

“There will be much talk,
and
printings,” said Manning. Zerah was on guard. “And you grieve for Mrs. Power? Doubtless she has attained Nirvana, under your teachings. Could you give me any reason for her death, Zerah?”

The glint of hate that had shone when Manning mentioned Nirvana changed again to calculation.

“I should not care to say, save to the police, whom I respect,” replied Zerah. Now his tone was slightly mocking. Manning was not inclined for a wordy duel.

“It is as well to always respect the powers of a foreign nation,” he said. “What’s your idea? Suicide? After all the philosophy you have shown her? You think she may have been despondent, taken poison? Why?”

He saw Zerah’s mind grasp the suggestion. It glowed in the look he turned on Manning.

“She had not acquired enough philosophy,” he said. “It is hard to teach, to those who are not of my race. But she was not happy.”

“With her husband, eh?
He
might have poisoned her?”

He saw Zerah re-rating him, placing him as an obtuse official, the typical policeman.

“It might be,” said Zerah. “I cannot say.”

“She was insured for two hundred thousand dollars, payable to him,” Manning went on. “At the present rate of exchange, that’s a lot of money, Zerah. Eight hundred thousand rupees. Eight lacs of rupees. A fortune, in India!”

“Also in America.”

“But it seems that her husband is no longer the beneficiary,” snapped Manning. “The man who would receive the two hundred thousand dollars, the eight lacs of rupees, according to the records of the insurance company, is
you.
”

The Hindu’s simulation, if it was simulation, was perfect in its amazement.

“I take no fees,” he said. “There is a certain voluntary endowment fund, to build a temple. It provides also for my own expenses, but I did not dream of this. It is true that she embraced the Faith, clung to it but that she had willed so much to it was unknown to me.

“That money could not be collected until after her death,” said Manning. “Of course, since you did not know of the change of beneficiary, it is quite possible that her husband was also ignorant. But, under the circumstances, you will understand that the question will come up. It establishes what we might call a motive. It does not necessarily implicate you, but you will undoubtedly be asked, in private hearing, to testify. I must ask you not to leave New York, not to change your address until that hearing has been held.”

Zerah smiled.

“Of course. I am glad to assist the authorities. After all, how could I leave without their consent? I am an alien, admitted under regulations. My papers are in perfect order, Mr….?”

“The name is Manning.”

“Manning? I am glad to have met you. I shall be pleased to assist you. That is all?”

“All, for the present.”

Manning bowed and left. The wallah took him down in the elevator. After the door had closed he rang the bell of Pelota’s apartment, hoping the woman had not left. If she had, he must make other arrangements. But he had noticed in the studio certain ladders and trestles that Pelota had used in painting his big canvas. They would be convenient for what he had in mind, a private survey and investigation of Zerah’s private activities.

Zerah had lied. Manning knew from the insurance company that he had called up, three weeks before, to know how much might be borrowed on the policy by a full beneficiary. No doubt he had been disappointed. The policy was only three years old, the loan value was not very great.

The Italian housekeeper was still there. Her face was wrung with grief.

“I may find the man who killed your maestro,” Manning told her. “Will you help me?”

She regarded him earnestly, then caught his hand, and kissed it.

VIII

Manning stood on the top round of the platform he had set up on the terrace and peered through the curtained windows of Zerah’s temple. There was light inside and the interior was fairly plain to his view.

The black drapes were drawn. There were crimson lights on and about the altar. On it were images of Siva and Parvati, his wife, in their most diabolical aspects. Two servants knelt, one on either side. Incense smoked. In front of the unhallowed shrine Zerah officiated.

It was plain to Manning that Zerah, as ever, was the dupe of the heathen rituals he practiced. Now he was offering a placation, a sacrifice. He was appealing to the gods he had falsely served to rescue him from the situation, brought about by his own greedy lusts, which now threatened him.

Dimly the sound of a gong came through the window panes. One of the wallahs left and returned with a salver on which was the skinned carcass of some animal. Manning could not see it clearly and it did not matter. It might be dog, rabbit or cat, so long as it was full of blood.

He waited tensely. These were French windows, long, opening inward, but the panes were not large. He had cut a small square in one of them, next to the latch. He had smeared on a section of flypaper to which he had attached a handle of twine with adhesive, long since dried. Now he waited for the chill of the November night to set the gluey surface so that he could snatch the cut segment free—when he was ready.

It was not going to be long. Not after that blood-filled sacrifice, that offering to Kali, had been brought in.

He saw Zerah approach the altar, step on a pedal, saw the top of the altar lower. Then a cage appeared, elevated, resting at last on a level Manning thought was maintained by the re-arising of the altar top. It was square, made of light but strong wiring, about two feet square.

In it squatted a fearsome object. Mottled, crouching. Manning caught the gleam of avid eyes. The Thing was furred. It seemed to bristle at scent of the blood of the flayed offering.

Zerah lifted the front of the cage, stepped back. Manning caught the faint sound of music that grew louder as he yanked free the square of glass, softly set it down and released the latch. Some one was playing on a pipe. The kind of pipe and the sort of music used by the snake charmers. The Thing heard it. It crept out of the cage.