Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (13 page)

“Glad to work under you, Major Manning,” said Carey, while the sheriff looked askance, like an old dog fox. Carey knew that, during his search for the Griffin, Manning had been given a special commission by the governor that had probably not been revoked, since Manning was again in the field.

“I’m observing privately, on a request by Mr. Willoughby himself,” said Manning. “I’m not interfering with local rights.”

The sheriff grunted, eying Bailey.

“I suppose your nephew told you, sheriff,” said Mills. “If he did he loses his job.”

“Never mind how I learned about it,” retorted the sheriff. “You should have reported it yourself. I understand this here freeman knows something about it.” He jerked his head at Bailey, who blinked back through his heavy lenses. “I called in the State Police because I ain’t got no efficient force to handle a case like this. There’ll be hundreds camping round here, inside here, like enough, inside twenty-four hours. Mr. Willoughby was a big man. This case’ll kick up a rumpus. I’m holding this Bailey, to begin with. He’s a material witness. Yes, sir. I’m taking him to the county seat and holding him.”

“You can’t hold me,” Bailey protested. “There has been no crime committed.”

“That’s as how it turns out,” the sheriff replied. “It ain’t no ordinary affair. Millions in it. I’ve got the authority. Judge Smalley’ll back it. He was a close friend of Willoughby. So was the County District Attorney. If Willoughby ain’t dead, where is he? Dead, or kidnaped. He ain’t the sort to drop out of sight. And here’s the last one to see him alive. I’m holding him, first and last, unless he puts up bail and that’ll be plenty, if I know the Court.”

“I’ve got no funds for bail,” said Bailey, glowering and angry. “I’m a poor man. I’m supporting five people. You can’t hold me. I’ll get out on a writ of habeas corpus as soon as I get in touch with an attorney.”

“Try it,” snapped the sheriff.

Manning said nothing. He knew how county politics and court procedures worked. His sympathy was with the tree surgeon and he did not think the latter would have much trouble in getting away after a little.

“We’ll examine everyone on the place,” the sheriff went on. “And me and the lieutenant, and Mr. Manning, if he wants to,” he added grudgingly, “I’ll search the whole place. I ain’t going to have it said there was a leaf or a stone left unturned.”

His anxiety to protect his own position was almost pitiful. It was clear that he believed that if the mystery was unsolved he would be held responsible for it when it came to reëlection—or if Willoughby reappeared and thought he had been derelict—though, on the other hand, Willoughby might deem him too officious, Manning reflected.

“We’ll have the house servants in here first, if you please, Mr. Mills,” said the sheriff with growing importance. “Check ’em all over as to their occupation and whereabouts yesterday afternoon. Take the outside men later. I suppose you can testify to where you were, Mr. Mills,” he went on with a chuckle that was not entirely convincing. The man would have arrested his own father if he thought it politic, Manning believed.

“There’s no evidence of foul play, so far,” the sheriff went on. “But that don’t….”

A knock on the door checked him and he stared at the entrance. Mills called out, “Come in.”

The sudden knock had struck them all as intensely dramatic, almost as prophetic, Manning thought, as the knocking on the gate in Macbeth. They were startled, and not calmed when a houseman ushered in a keeper whose coat sleeves were soaked below the elbows, the cuffs, and his hands, that carried something wrapped in a blue bird’s-eye bandanna handkerchief, were smeared with green weeds. Water dripped a little from the object he held so carefully.

His face was twitching a little with excitement. It was a dramatic incident, an entrance that seemed timed with almost the precision of a play.

“What is it, Curtis?” asked Mills.

The man looked at the sheriff, at the uniformed lieutenant, at Gordon Manning and then his glance rested on Bailey and stayed there.

“You can tell
me,
” the sheriff broke in.

So far, like Manning, the lieutenant had not interfered. He was a well balanced officer, controlled of judgment and action.

“I was looking down along the brook,” said the newcomer, “along where they say Mr. Willoughby was going time he was last seen. I went clear down to where it runs under the fence. There’s a grating there, a sort of grid that fits the bed of the stream. Ain’t room for even a mink to get under it, I reckon. Fence crosses on top of it. It’s all choked with weeds, leaves and rubbish, but I saw something there that looked different.

“I was chancy about getting it out, account the grating was charged like the fence. But I fished it out with a stick I cut to a forked end—and here it is.”

IV

“It” was a tool with a crescent blade thickest in the center, that was twin-edged, inset in a brass socket at the head of a thick wooden handle. The edges had evidently been frequently ground, and they were sharp as razor blades. The amount of steel had plainly so balanced the flotation power of the handle as to act as a keel, insufficient to sink it, sufficient to carry it along the surface of the brook without being totally submerged until it brought up at the grid and was found by the keeper. A sort of knife that was a lethal weapon, that could inflict a frightful, fatal wound at one stroke.

Its owner, forgetting to take into account the many honings that had reduced the weight of the blade with its size, might have tossed it into a deep pool in the brook, believing it would sink, or he might have flung it away in the swift revulsion of a murderer.

They examined it as the keeper exhibited it. Manning picked it up carefully by the tip of the steel blade, which was broken. It looked like a recent fracture. He could see no sign of bloodstains, no evidence of finger-prints; but the immersion in swift water for hours, the chafing against the slime and rubbish of the grid might destroy those. Manning said so. Bailey looked at it stolidly. Mills was greatly disturbed. The sheriff was triumphant.

“I suppose you’ll say this ain’t one of your tools for scraping rotten wood or cutting it out,” he gloated. “Well, we’ll hold you now. You might as well confess, Bailey. That knife’ll put you in the chair, anyway.”

“It looks a bit serious,” Carey suggested to Manning as the sheriff brought out a pair of handcuffs, intent upon making an arrest.

“There’s no body, as yet,” said Manning. “That might be a skiver, a knife leather workers use for thinning, or skiving, leather. The sort of knife a tree surgeon might use, but so also might a saddler, for instance. I’ve heard of a man named Friel who was once a saddler here and held a grudge against Willoughby. There are rumors he was round here lately. I can see no motive for Bailey’s supposed crime. And, as I said, the corpus delicti is the vital factor.”

“You don’t think the tree man did it, then?”

“I’m hardly down to the reasoning point,” Manning told him. “But I don’t believe Bailey killed Willoughby. I’m not at all sure Willoughby is dead.”

Bailey was talking now, aroused.

“That’s not my tool,” he said. “I’ll come with you and I don’t need handcuffs. It will be wiser for you not to put them on. I wouldn’t get out on bond now if I could. I’ll go to prison until you have to release me, and then, by God, I’ll sue the county and the estate for false imprisonment. I’ll make you pay for this, all of ye.”

Mills tried to quiet him.

“I don’t think you’re guilty,” said the secretary. “I think Sheriff Horton is being hasty.”

The sheriff merely grinned. Bailey waved his arms wildly.

“You say that so I’ll not sue the estate,” he cried. “But I will. This is an outrage.”

“You’ll come with me,” said the sheriff. “Lieutenant, I’ll leave further examination to you and Mr. Manning. If you find anything important you can let me know.”

“If we run across anything more important than Horton we’ll have a worthwhile find,” said Carey, under his breath. “I hope you’re right, sheriff,” he said aloud.

“I know doggone well I am,” replied the other triumphantly. “Come on, Bailey. I’ll leave the cuffs off, seeing you’re so willing. Will you phone the gate to let us out, Mr. Mills?”

The examination of employees and the search of the grounds produced little of importance, but Manning was not satisfied. The ground all about the swamp maple, especially, was trodden down. It was plainly high time the maple was treated to preserve it. Even now it did not look over sturdy to Manning. Its trunk must have been more or less a shell before the expert doctored it, and parts of its roots protruded through the bank of the brook beside which it stood. Looking for prints, marks of a struggle, proved fruitless. They raked up the ground to find the broken tip of the knife, or tool, without success, and though Manning submitted the soil for analysis he had faint hope of finding blood traces that would prove anything.

One thing he did observe, that it might be possible for a passage to be made
above
the charged wire at certain places where heavy tree limbs stretched almost horizontally and sometimes overlapped. But he could not see a man like Willoughby, warned, taking precautions, being ambushed, snatched away in such fashion.

The army of newsmen and the morbid arrived and were kept outside the estate, much to their indignation. They assailed everyone who emerged or entered. Mills’ prophecy of dire depression in certain stocks was justified.

All Willoughby holdings made a new low and still descended, together with the holdings of all companies and organizations in any way affiliated with him, or suspected to be. It was a three-days wonder that lasted for another three on the front pages. The police worked hard on the case.

Bailey remained in the county jail. He was fed from outside by funds provided by Mills, who seemed concerned for his comfort. He was permitted to shave, to exercise frequently, to have the usual privileges of a material witness, since they could not prove him more in fact. To the sheriff he was the prime suspect.

Manning visited him from time to time and did not change his opinion. This man had not killed Willoughby. Manning secured, partly from Mills and partly from the County Surveyor, maps and descriptions from which he reconstructed the village as it was before Willoughby absorbed it.

The State Police ran down Friel. He admitted he had been in the neighborhood, fishing, taking delight in getting trout, with which Willoughby had stocked Crystal Brook. But he had a perfect alibi for two days ahead of and after Willoughby’s disappearance. He would have poached, he said, but he had learned the fence was charged.

Manning still studied the grounds and made a few excursions of his own, tracing the old inhabitants. The furore about the mystery died down gradually. Congress was in the throes of balancing the budget, presidential candidates were flinging their hats in the ring.

Bailey, in jail and morose, began to clamor for release. He had been there three weeks and had lost weight and money, he alleged, still set to sue for damages, surly even to Mills.

The affected shares reached their final bottom, stemmed at last by bulls who bucked the short market in the conviction that the price was absurdly low, and, slowly, Willoughby holdings and their affiliations began to rise.

V

It was the twenty-second day after the disappearance, with Manning in the library, going over some notes; when Mills came in excitedly. His calm demeanor was fled, his slick hair was rumpled.

“I’ve heard from Mr. Willoughby,” he cried. “He spoke to me over the telephone. Long-distance. Completely identified himself, and his voice is unmistakable. He has been held, presumably by racketeers who worked for a syndicate that wanted to depreciate Willoughby stocks and then buy in to obtain control and make enormous profits. A shrewd scheme. They dropped on him from the trees, he told me, drugged him, carried him off. He’ll be released in a few days. I am giving out statements to the papers.”

“How about one to the sheriff?” asked Manning drily. “This lets Bailey out.”

“Of course. But I’ll attend to the press first. After I’ve called Mr. Willoughby’s attorneys. An hour or so more won’t affect Bailey. We’ll make it up to him.”

“It seems a shame to hold him any longer than necessary,” said Manning. “Suppose I drive in with the news? The sheriff can call you, just to check up.”

“That’s good of you,” said Mills. “I’ll appreciate that.”

There were some scattering, sanguine news-gatherers still about, most of them free lancers. To them Manning gave the news as he drove through the gate, and left them jubilant, with the scoop, racing to query editors how much they might send.

Manning stopped at a filling station and phoned to Lieutenant Carey.

“Thought you’d like to be in at the death,” he said. “Meet me at the county jail.”

“A death but no funeral?” Carey commented. “You were right about Bailey after all. He didn’t kill Willoughby.”

“No. He had no motive. Like to meet you, just the same, Carey.”

“I’ll be there, Major.”

Manning liked the lieutenant, and Carey admired Manning. He felt there was some reason for Manning asking him to be present, perhaps to share in the downfall of the cocksure sheriff.

Willoughby’s attorneys had been more revealing than Manning had expected. Aside from certain not too liberal bequests, the Tool King had left his estate to found an institution of Arboriculture and Forestry that would supplement the work of the Federal Service, conduct experimental plantations for the introduction of new trees, and support a laboratory for the investigation of tree diseases. Mills had been left ten thousand dollars. Other employees in lessening sums. The trees had the best of it. It was a curious fad, but a useful one.

The weather changed as Manning drove to the county seat. The blue sky clouded and a strong wind rose in the north and east. It was sturdy enough to buck his car on certain roads. When he reached the jail, to find Carey waiting there, the heavens were black and thunderous and it was blowing a steady gale.