Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (15 page)

And there was no weapon, no lightest imprint in the house across the street.

The press called it
The Marble Mystery,
and rode the police.

II

The Police Commissioner held appointment in his private office with Gordon Manning, specialist in crime, late Investigation Officer in the A.E.F., renowned traveler and explorer; the man called in to run down the madman known as the Griffin, who selected prominent people for horrible deaths and dared to announce the date of his crime. His special commission, signed both by the commissioner and governor, was still in effect.

The commissioner showed the lean, tanned specialist a moulage cast of the missile, colored in facsimile, together with what the analysts had left of the original after their pestles and acids had failed of a solution.

Manning examined the cast, touched a portion of the pellet to his tongue, and produced a pocket magnascope through which he inspected it closely for a few minutes.

“It is, it was, a meteorite,” he said. “What is known as a chondrule. A cosmic granule with traces of nickel but consisting in the main of chrysolite, which is magnesium iron silicate, found in certain igneous and metamorphic rocks, in masses or grains. When it occurs in transparent crystals it is called olivine, or peridot, a semiprecious stone of a yellowish emerald color much used by jewelers for inexpensive ornaments. I’ve picked up olivines by the quart on volcanic slopes in the South Seas.”

“Good God!” cried the commissioner. “You mean to say Hyde was killed by a gem?”

“Without question, but this one came from space. No doubt of that, that fused film-crust proves it. They are common enough. The Moros call them sky-stones. They are carried as amulets. I’ve known Arabs to use them as bullets to kill enemies supposed to be protected by magic. There are plenty of them in the museums, in private collections, or sold for charms and cure-alls. Almost every desert prospector has one for a mascot. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if Hyde himself had several in that museum room of his. He was interested in anything connected with space that might tend to prove or disprove cosmic theory. He wouldn’t value them, probably forgot he had them.”

“Wait a minute,” said the commissioner. “I’m sending Hogan down there now. Bino cleaned the place.”

“As I remember it from the time I once dined there,” said Manning, “the top shelves were pretty dusty. Hyde said so himself and apologized for not getting down some Indian drums. You haven’t got anything out of Bino, Commissioner?”

“Nothing. He pretends we’ve scared his knowledge of English out of him. He’s stubborn as a mule. Just the same, there was five thousand dollars coming to him on Hyde’s death. That’s a lot of money for a Filipino. He might have got tired waiting for it. But there isn’t a thing to pin on him except motive. He called the police and he didn’t leave the house. We’ll hold him until he comes through.”

“I’ll have a talk with him,” said Manning. “I can talk his lingo well enough. I know the five main dialects. The language is based on Malay. I’ll drop down to the house myself—to both the houses. Hyde’s and the one across the street.”

“If you find anything but dust in the latter I’ll eat it. The dust.”

Manning grinned.

“I don’t want to make you eat dirt, Commissioner,” he said as he filled his pipe. “By the way, have you called up Dannemora lately?”

The commissioner flushed slightly.

“I did,” he answered. “And the Griffin is still getting hospital treatment in the insane ward. Why?”

“This case has some of the earmarks of the Griffin’s modus operandi. Bizarre and ingenious…. Though The Griffin was sporting enough to announce the date of his crimes. I trust he never makes a break from Dannemora, for all our sakes. By the way, it would be wisest, I think, not to give out anything about meteorites, either in connection with my statement or anything Hogan may find.”

“It’ll be hard to keep it from the news sharks,” growled the commissioner. “They smell out such things. And we’ve got between three and four hundred police at headquarters who are clerks and operators. The place leaks like a sieve. I’ll do my piece. You’ve got a good reason for it.”

Manning nodded as he stood up to leave.

“Quite a good reason. I don’t want the chap warned that we have any kind of a clew at all. If you don’t mind taking another suggestion, don’t bully Bino too much. He might go
juramentado.
”

“Whatever that is.” It was clear that the commissioner believed the Filipino guilty.

“Mata glap, they call it in Java,” Manning said. “It is a curious state of the Malayan mind when they think they are being accused unjustly, or insulted. They run amok, or amuck, as some call it.”

“He’ll not run amuck where we’ve got him.”

“He may have the brainstorm, just the same. I’d like to see him first.”

It leaked, as Manning knew it would, as important news leaks from headquarters on all occasions, despite discipline and the fine morale of the majority of the force.

An exultant press and avid public got vicarious thrills out of the theories and suggestions put forward by the ingenious writers.

Gordon Manning, the capturer of the Griffin, had been called in. And reporters made trips to Dannemora to make certain that maniac was still behind bars. The star men put out their best efforts. The worst one was a suggestion that the shot might have been fired from a passing airplane. It took the over-credulous to support the idea.

But—the body had been found gazing into the firmament.

He was a delver into the laws of the infinite.

The missile came from space. Manning’s statement was confirmed by experts on meteorology. It was a bolt of Jove sped with terrible accuracy that had sped the cosmic projectile to still the brain of the man who had presumed to probe the secrets of the universe.

It was as if indignant gods had rebuked him, destroyed this too daring mortal.

Meteorites, it was pointed out, could fall by day and might well travel unnoticed, not flaming spheroids that showed plainly after dark.

Such things were eerie, gripping the imagination of both the superstitious and the stolid.

A famous meteorologist pointed out that these chondrules did not fall singly. That they were sprayed from the exploding mass like shrapnel bullets. No more had been found in the neighborhood. Twenty years before fourteen thousand had fallen at Holbrook, Arizona. He cited other instances. Reports and opinions came from England, from Germany, France, Holland and Japan. But they were not played up.

The theory of the avenging
“Bullet from the Blue”
was much too fascinating.

One thing did not break. Hogan kept his mouth shut. Manning got to the house before the find was made. A dozen similar pellets with other odds and ends of celestial origin. They were on a high shelf in a carved ceremonial bowl from African Congo, which was split with age, stained black by sacrificial blood. But the contents lay under dust and under spider webs closely woven, which themselves were filmed.

“Just like the house opposite,” said Hogan. “I was over there. If there was any one there, the dust gives him a perfect alibi. He must have floated.”

“There’s no such thing as a perfect alibi,” said Manning. “Or a perfect crime, though I wouldn’t wonder if the chap back of this imagines it one.”

“ ’Tis beyond me,” said Hogan. “Will I go on looking?”

“Carry on,” said Manning, “though I’m afraid you won’t find anything.” Nor did he.

Nor did Manning find anything in the house across the way—but dust.

It had been trodden in by the sturdy feet of exploring detectives, but even they had early seen the folly of trampling all over a house that eminently proclaimed its long desertion. Manning saw their blurred footprints on the stairs and the planking of the rooms. He confined his own search largely to the floor that was on the level with the terrace, and to the stairways, aside from a trip to the basement.

The fine dust made him sneeze, as it must have the police. They had gone to the windows, by their tracks, and looked out through the dirty panes to where the murdered man had sat. Manning was willing enough to take the commissioner’s word, backed by that of the sharp observer, Hogan, that there had been only the filmed floors when they searched; that the tracks now there were of the police.

Manning tried the front windows. Both were locked and the catches were gray with the silt of old houses, the silt of the street, that had sifted in. The right-hand window slid up easily and he looked across the narrow way, trying to reëstablish what might have happened. It was uncanny. One writer had brought in a harrowing touch, in his search for something different; and suggested a spook, that used a phantom weapon and a bullet from another world.

Did a ghost kill Morton Hyde?
had been the heading to his contribution.

Manning had seen many strange things in the far places, things that seemed to insist upon a supernatural origin. He believed in psychic affairs but, when it came to criminal investigation, he insisted upon physical foundations.

If the meteorite had been discharged from this house, as seemed certain, the killer
must
have left traces, though they might be as impalpable as the dust that rose about Manning as he left the place.

There was still Bino. Lately, there had been several killings by Oriental servants of their white employers. There was a prejudice against them that boded Bino little good. The average jury would believe that he would murder for far less than the sum he would inherit. The evidence might not send him to the chair, but the motive would go far in the hands of a clever prosecutor. It would mean penal servitude. And an out for the police.

III

He found the Filipino despondent in his cell, broken down, miserable, and weak. He had no visible marks upon him, but Manning imagined that he might have been introduced to the “goldfish”; made to sit under a terrific light, thirsty and sleepless, while dicks questioned him. That sort of thing might go for a Manhattan gangster. It would not answer with Bino.

Manning spoke to him first in Tagalog and got only a wild stare. Then in Bisayan, and Bino, haggard and glaring, gave a hectic greeting. Manning had him out of his cell, gave him cigarettes and told him he was his friend, showed him he knew his country, his own district; spoke of men Bino knew and respected.

“Why do they keep me here?” he demanded. “I have done no wrong. I would have given my life for the
tuan.
Once he saved mine. I am a son of Islam, I am not a lying dog. I have made the trip to Mecca, I am hajj’. I have kissed the Black Stone and I have seven times circled the Kaabah.
Tuan,
I swear to you, by the beard of the Prophet, by my hope of Paradise, that I have done nothing but my duty. Bring me a copy of the Koran and I will swear upon it. But these infidels think that a follower of Muhammad is an outcast. They laugh at me when I perform my devotions. They offer me beans, with
pork.
To
me,
who may wear the green turban.”

Manning soothed him as best he could. He promised him that he should be placed where he would not be ridiculed, where, when he praised Allah four times a day, he should be given a chance to observe his rites. Also he said he would arrange that suitable food should be brought in. He had the authority and they were willing enough in the Tombs to cater to the conqueror of the Griffin.

Bino had been kept without news. He could read a little English, but he had not been given the papers. He had been urged to confess that, in some way, he had fired a stone into his
tuan’s
brain, and he was bewildered. Manning’s visit saved his sanity and aroused his gratitude. He remembered Manning as having once been a guest of Hyde’s and did not connect him with the police, but accepted him as a protector.

“How well do you remember the men who came to your
tuan’s
house?” asked Manning.

“I should know them all,” said Bino. There might be a means here, Manning thought. A long way round, unless some shortcut showed. He did not press the matter. He explained to Bino about the stone that had killed Hyde and saw the Filipino’s face go suddenly blank, his dark eyes lose their luster. The commissioner had sworn that Bino was holding out information. It looked like it.

“There were more of these sky-stones in the carved bowl on the top shelf, Bino,” said Manning. “But the bowl has not been touched for a long, long time. Many people think those stones are magic. Did the
tuan
ever give you one?”

Minutes passed and Bino stayed remote. Manning knew he could not be forced. At last the Filipino spoke.

“There were three prophets to whom God revealed himself,” he said. “To Moses he gave the Taurat, which is the Law. To Jesus the Injil, which is the Gospel. To Muhammad the Qu’ran (Koran). Muhammad is the seal, and the Last of the Prophets. There is no God but God, and He is Allah, the Just and Merciful! I speak under the Seal of Muhammad. What I speak is truth, but, unless you swear to me, by Taurat, by Injil and the Qu’ran, that you will keep it secret, I shall be dumb, as if they tore out my tongue.”

He meant it. He had made the hajj’, the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was assured of Paradise if he did not forswear sacred vows. It was not a matter to be explained or considered in an American courtroom, any more than the admission of medical science as opposed to common law.

But Manning had a free hand. He felt that here was a vital clew. He took the triple oath.

“I had one of the sky-stones,” said Bino. “The
tuan
gave it to me long ago as a luck charm. They are star-dust. Aguinaldo had one, or he would not now be alive. And I lost it. There is an Arab in this city who is a cunning workman in gold and silver, and he made me an open cage of silver for it, so it would hang from my watch chain, as an amulet. But I lost it and, with the loss, came ill fortune to me—worse to my
tuan.
”

“Know when you lost it?” asked Manning.