Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (5 page)

The faintly intoxicating scent of amber floated through the room. From somewhere came the strains of music that were primitive yet ultra modern; music that seemed to hold the rattle of sistra and the clang of cymbals, the sonorous voice of horns, the boom of mighty drums and the blare of trumpets. Music that embraced and embodied all centuries, all time, from the hollow log, the conch and gourd of the cave dweller to the latest device for stirring the vitals and the spirit of mankind. It was an evil tune. It suggested more than merely evil things. It stirred the blood and roused the pulse to unclean, unhallowed impulses.

But it brought no solution to the Griffin of the manner in which he could desirably wreak his vengeance on Manning. He had struck, once, at the unfortunate Ito more or less blindly. It had not been hard for him, with his connections, to get the poisoned soy into the house. He had hoped to get all three of the servants, but it had been a puerile, unworthy stroke and the knowledge of that intensified his rage. Manning was the one he wanted.

He had cited Manning as having presumed to check the ordinations of the stars and, lo, the stars protected the meddler.

“He is guarded night and day. He is fearful for his life. He dreads my inevitable vengeance,” mouthed the Griffin, while Quantro huddled himself closer. “Easy to destroy him, for all the vigilance of his aides. But not so simple to get him here—
here
—alone. It shall be done, it
must
be done. He pit
his
sluggish wits against mine.

“I challenge the heavens themselves! I will not be denied!”

He rose, pacing up and down while Quantro whimpered like a cur that fears a kick. He shook his fist at the pictured sky and stars. His eyes glared as if they were varnished, his mouth showed flecks of foam. That countenance beneath the clinging, half-transparent mask was hideously handsome. It was the face of Lucifer enraged.

The music lessened, came back in stronger waves, died again. The Griffin almost stumbled over the hunkering dwarf. For a moment the Griffin’s orbs seemed like spangles reflecting crimson flame and Quantro bowed his head.

The dwarf, for all his misshapen body, was extremely powerful. He had a fearful weapon by his side, a semi-scimitar, keen as a scalpel; but he never dreamed of protecting himself that way. Had not the
Papa
blasted him by invisible, paralyzing forces, merely by pointing his finger at him? If he was to die he might not prevent it.

But it did not come. The Griffin stood contemplating him, almost elated.

“It shall be done. We will lure him here, and then you, my Quantro, shall torture him. Torture him until he screams for mercy. Treat him as you treat the goat and the white rooster in the voodoo rites, save that death shall not come so swiftly. But the warm blood will run and the entrails smoke. You shall make divination sacrifices of his heart and liver when he can no longer feel. I will see you do not cut too deep nor mortally at first. The death of a thousand slices, the Grand Lai Chee of Canton, shall be a child’s game to this. There are other things besides the knife. Acids, fire, steam, to make a man’s soul quake and crave for respite. You, my Quantro, have the lust for blood and torment in your veins. A scream is music to you. So, I shall lead the orchestra and you shall hear your symphony. The harmony of hate! Ha!”

He stood erect in his gown of black brocade, and Quantro crept out on hands and knees. He had not been able to lip-read the rapid incoherencies of the Griffin’s speech, but he sensed that he was to be used, and he was grateful. He took the Griffin’s foot and set it on his short and clumsy neck.

The Griffin smiled—if such a grimace engendered of wickedness could be called a smile.

“Sharpen that knife of yours, Quantro,” he said. “You will soon be using it. They are searching me out. Manning and his men comb the neighborhood. Well, perhaps I may help Manning to find what he seeks. To come to grips with the Griffin.”

He flung back his head and laughed. It was hardly human laughter, nor was it entirely fiendish. It was the sort of cachinnation that echoes through the dreary halls of Bedlam.

IV

It was no mere surmise on the part of the Griffin when he said that he was being searched out. The chase was on in deadly earnest, had been ever since Manning had received a communication from two of the Griffin’s unwilling but irrevocable bond-servants that they would lead him to the monster’s lair.

The Griffin had blasted them out of existence before Manning’s eyes, but they had provided a definite clew, established a scent. On this Manning had concentrated the crack hounds of the law, aiding them with his own deductions.

Somewhere on the coast, beyond Larchmont. Probably in New York State, though it might be in Connecticut. But, in Connecticut, the shore line was more or less public, at least to observation. Shore rights were coveted and limited. Manning sensed some sort of place that had escaped, or defied, the realty developers, kept a fair amount of land.

This was sheer logic, proving itself as the investigation went on. They worked through the local police and fire departments, the real estate layouts, the insurance charts, the tradesmen, particularly those of the last who were ambitious in securing new accounts.

They drew blanks, mostly. Manning analyzed the results. This was a long trail and, while it called for speed lest the Griffin destroy some other useful citizen, he knew it had to be followed carefully. Now, at last, with the conviction that the Griffin wanted him and him alone, it was not so bad until Ito was killed.

He sent Sato and the other Japanese boy to the Bermudas for a holiday and closed up his own house. He provided himself with an escort, though he felt always that the Griffin would want to bring a personal issue into the climax. And Manning was willing to accept that.

It was soon shown that the Griffin did not buy supplies for his household locally. They were almost certainly brought from New York in his own cars. On top of that—connected with that—Manning figured that the goods were delivered, even as the emissaries of the Griffin came and went upon their evil errands, through some method that was cleverly hidden. So hidden, probably, that with its discovery it would appear obvious.

The Griffin might not be the supremist he once was, but in the commencement of his enterprises he had shown all the resources of evil genius.

But the lair of the monster was within a limited area and that was being very thoroughly searched. The hunt discovered speakeasies and liquor landing places—and left them alone. They found many matters that would have delighted the heart and stimulated the activity of tabloid editors, but there were no reporters along. This was anything but a picnic party.

They were on the trail of the Griffin. The hunt was up. The force detectives brought in reports of suspicious places, and while Manning investigated every spot that did not have a clear record, he did not expect to locate the Griffin anywhere that was not, apparently, eminently above suspicion.

Slowly the search narrowed, but the net results included half a hundred homes whose establishment, elaborate or limited, might harbor the Griffin. It was a grisly game of hide-and-seek. The Griffin was resolved to tag Manning. And Manning was willing to let him try, so long as he led him out into the open—or cornered him. His own safety had ceased to concern him.

There had been a time, not very recent, when Manning worried over some one else—the girl whom Manning loved and some day, when the Griffin was eliminated, he hoped to woo and wed.

The Griffin knew her, had even threatened Manning through her and so had made Manning a laggard in love because of his fear that his attentions to her would attract the Griffin. But now Manning was sure that the Griffin, enraged by having been baffled, had forgotten anything but vengeance against the man who had checked him.

It suited Manning well enough.

The Griffin must be destroyed.
When that monster swooped and struck he had done so, not merely at an individual who displeased him, but invariably against some one who was a leavening factor in the advance of civilization.

“The best bet is to hoist him through his own petard,” he told the police commissioner. “He is like a Chinaman who has lost face. He is centered on getting me out of the way in order to try and gather together the pieces of his own egotism. And our job—my job—is to corral him. To put him where he can do no more mischief.”

“In the chair,” said the commissioner vindictively. “And that’s a death far too good for him.”

“Well, this time we’ll get him,” said Manning confidently. “He used to call our encounters games of chess, but he has lost his ability to look moves ahead. I’m banking on that. We are narrowing down the search for him and I am hoping any day, any hour, to hear he is located.”

“There is no sense in your uselessly exposing yourself, Manning,” said the other. “You are much too valuable to risk.”

“I’m guarded all the time,” said Manning. “We’ve got over two hundred men now in the district where we think he must live.
But,
I’m hoping to catch him at his own game. He figures, I feel certain, that somehow or other he can get me in his clutches. He’d find that a hard job to do by force. We’ve got too many men who can be swiftly concentrated. And he wants a personal vengeance. I feel a good deal the same way.

“I think he’ll try to lure me into his lair. I’m willing. He may use himself as the bait. I’m going to use myself. And the best man wins. I’m up against a madman. I’m sane. I ought to score, other things being equal. To even the score against me. Or against him.”

The commissioner had seen many faces grow hard in front of him in his time, but none that set more purposefully than that of Gordon Manning. Many of the Griffin’s victims had been Manning’s personal friends, others had been men who stood for the same thing that Manning did. And there was Ito, needlessly and wantonly sacrificed.

“You’re in charge,” the commissioner told him. “Run it your own way. Just the same, don’t run too much personal risk. I want you to come back and tell me all about it.”

“It’s on the knees of the little red gods,” said Manning with a grin and a handgrip. “I’m coming back if it’s fated so, and if I do, I’m bringing the Griffin with me—dead or alive.”

V

Manning would not have called himself a fatalist, though his extensive travels, often through the Orient, had made him acquainted with strange cults and a witness of if not an actual believer in their marvels. But he did believe that he was going to meet the Griffin at last, face to face, and he had laid his plans accordingly.

Intensive but discreet questioning had been extended to doctors and professional ranks. This was a process of reduction and of elimination. Manning had his suspicions of five places now, one of which was the secluded colonial house on a wooded hill. He had sent men to all of these spots who arrived on various likely errands, as solicitors for various household articles. Two of the five he had discovered, through a lucky capture of a speedboat, had nothing to do with his own investigation, but were linked up with a rum-running syndicate, being cover for their land operations.

The three remaining were all within the length of a mile, in a strip along the shore of the Sound. And they were being watched night and day, though not ostentatiously, from sea and shore. By day Manning commanded what might be termed a flying squadron, a land fleet of motor vehicles manned by picked officers, masquerading as delivery men for stores, some using small trucks and side cars with the names of actual local stores displayed upon them, others in wagons for garbage, in large trucks carrying materials, together with a sprinkling of comparatively obvious detectives.

Manning did not attempt to disguise himself, or his car. He had a simple signal and call system devised by which he could summon a score of his men to his side in less than two minutes at any time, with the balance centering to the alarm at fire engine speed. He was never completely out of sight of at least one man.

The house on the wooded hill, with its screening trees and its acreage, attracted his especial attention because of its special advantages for the purposes of the Griffin. It seemed to be one of the few remaining homes that had once been set along the shore and were now far too valuable, with lots at three or four thousand dollars for a seventy-five foot frontage, to be preserved save by very wealthy families who did not care to sell, by heirs in litigation or disagreement, or by cranks.

Manning looked up the land records and found that the place had been bought ten years before by a man named Taylor. The deed was still in his name. The realtor who had acted as agent was dead; the lead petered out. With the other houses under suspicion he had, besides the agents, employed electricians, telephone operatives and water meter readers. With this house they had their own electric plant and water supply. The hard-featured woman who had answered the door had turned away all others.

“When we want something we send and get it,” she told them.

There was a fence round the place that had cost a lot of money, steel posts and wire with an extra overhang. Only in one section it was not used, where there was a sheer wall of dirt, a sort of bluff occurring in a wooded lane that rambled between this and the adjoining property, which was all woodland. The lane led down to the shore.

Manning made a study of the water mains in the neighborhood and discovered that a large artery of the civic supply ran close along the front of the holding. It was easy enough to get the coöperation of any one in the locality, tradesman or corporation, in getting rid of such a fiend as the Griffin. Now a force of men were to start to work excavating along the line of the big pipe. Whether the house was connected or not, Manning meant to have men inside the fence within a few hours, legally or illegally. The grounds were heavily thicketed with laurels, ground pine and artificially planted shrubberies, besides trees. No one had ever been reported seen in these grounds except when passing in or out by way of the main drive, in a car. It screened the house from observation. It would also screen his men, Manning determined.