Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (6 page)

They would set up a tall fence of vertical boards about their street excavation, as if they expected to build a cement or brick forebay there. And they would work under cover of it, moling through the hill, if necessary, straight to the cellars.

Here, Manning was almost convinced, by reasoning as well as his own hunch, was the likeliest of all places for the Griffin to select. The lane to the sea, a beach with a boathouse and a wharf that looked ancient but needed no repairs. The boathouse had a waterfloor on deep water, doors opening to the Sound, closed tight, padlocked. There were windows, but they were shuttered. The shore end of the wharf joined steps that led down from a gate in the steel fence, exit of a path that was veiled by brush and trees.

The piles of the wharf had been renewed quite recently. Here was either the hideout of a rum-runner or the lair of the Griffin. There would be a fast launch in that boathouse, Manning was sure. Or it might even be an amphibian plane. The Griffin had used one once.

Manning, driving his own roadster, approached the excavation. He had to be careful, for he was working with a wary opponent. But he hoped that the Griffin was still underestimating him, that in his still colossal, if crumbling, egoism, he would not credit Manning with making many elaborate moves out of the usual routine of police investigation, which the Griffin had long laughed at and despised.

Yet it would not do to avoid every caution. By prearrangement, a workman stepped out, carrying a red flag, and halted the car. He seemed to be suggesting that the ground was dangerous and Manning appeared to demur. He wanted to linger as long in the neighborhood as might be discreet, as well as to get a general report.

“We’re running in a side tunnel,” said the man. “We’re going through soft soil, without any bad ledges so far. Mostly loose rocks. We’ll go round any obstructions we can. We’ll board up as we go. The new dirt-drills chew it up and we are sucking out the loose stuff by pneumatic.”

“That’s fine, sergeant. Anything else?”

Sergeant Doyle of the Homicide Squad, Manhattan, on special duty. A good man, he looked now like nothing more than what he represented, a somewhat shambling and elderly underling who got three bucks a day to tote a red flag.

“Yes, sir. There’s some one up in the cupola, on top the house. You can see it from here if you want to look.”

Manning did not look.

“I’ve got a sort of periscope rigged up back of the boarding and”—he stopped talking for a moment as some one struck with a hammer on the lumber—“some one there now, sir, probably got binoculars, piping you off.”

“Right! You get out two trestles and shove your detour barrier board across the road. I’ll turn back. If any one asks, you tell them the detour means going around a block uphill. And that I kicked. Said I was going to Larchmont and didn’t see the sense of it. Inspector Riverton is tailing me. He’s in one of those tricycle vans, painted red, delivering laundry from the Swan Cleanery. If he should say he’s lost me, you bust into that house and don’t bother to dig a tunnel to it. I’ll be there. I’ve got a tingling in my thumbs, sergeant.”

“Me, too, inspector. If we get the word, we’ll be on the job, believe me. Good luck, sir.”

Manning was slowly turning while Doyle erected the barrier and set up the sign. As he headed back he saw in his mirror that a car was coming down the drive from the house. A car of neutral tint with a long hood that hid a powerful engine. Manning’s thumbs tingled again. He was sure he knew that car, had chased it once fruitlessly, had seen it once pass him and annihilate another machine that held two would-be informers.

The hunt was up indeed.

He swung uphill, turned, and the smoke-gray car passed him.

It was the Griffin!

VI

No doubt of that. The Griffin, unmasked, but easily recognizable. A face like a hawk, an imperious nose, flat cheek bones and eyes that blazed with insanity. A face that worked with vicious impulse, that leaned forward as if to get a good sight of Manning, but, in reality, to let Manning get a good glimpse of the Griffin.

The lure! Manning had lured the Griffin out of cover. The Griffin believed that he himself was the lure that Manning would surely follow—to destruction.

Manning played his rôle, pretended not to recognize the Griffin, but braked, slowed, swung about and trailed the smoke-gray car that was traveling at less than a third the speed it could use on occasion.

A red tricycle delivery van stopped at the curb and a man got out with a bundle. Inspector Riverton, inside the van at the wheel. First-grade Detective Halloran playing delivery boy.

They would follow.

The smoke-gray car turned into the wooded lane that ran down to the beach. It had many tire tracks. Bathing and picnic parties used it. The shore sand was firm and they often did not return by the same route.

Manning followed. That steep bank where there was no fence? It had one or two features that had intrigued him. One was that the bluff was covered, almost matted, with ivy. That was not altogether extraordinary, but the ivy was of the evergreen variety. It would screen the bank summer and winter alike. What else might it screen?

It was a rough lane that necessitated slow going, if one regarded car springs. Manning went slowly. He saw the gray car almost stop, saw a tall, lithe figure get out, lean against the verdure-clad bank. It was hidden from view for a moment by the ivy. Then it came forward, or seemed to come forward, stepped into the car again and the car drove on, beachward.

But, to Manning’s eyes, the figure was not just that of the first man. Dressed like him, similar in size, but lacking the alert gait, though it imitated it.

He chuckled to himself. There was something back of that ivy.

Did the Griffin think Manning would investigate?

He did.

Manning stopped, locating the spot readily enough by the tire marks that showed where the big car had started up again. He leaned against the ivy and felt, back of the strands, hard metal.

At the foot of the lane the red delivery van had halted. Halloran, bundle in hand, was arguing with Riverton. All programmed.

Programmed also, Manning told himself, was this heavy, hidden door that slowly yielded to his pressure. The lock had failed to catch?

That did not seem likely, even with the Griffin stark crazy.

Manning remembered a story of the Spanish Inquisition, where a captive found a door ajar and wandered fearfully through corridors, hoping for freedom, shrinking behind a pillar when wandering friars passed by in chat, reaching at last the final gate—and being welcomed by the chief inquisitor with a mock benediction.

Just the sort of devilish device the Griffin would use—in his present state of mind. A door, ajar, for Manning to enter.

But Manning was not an escaping, tortured prisoner. He was armed, he was trained to a hair, and he had allies close at hand.

He pushed back the door and entered.

It clanged instantly behind him.

The tunnel had been cemented. It dripped moisture and it was faintly lighted by electric globes. It showed unbroken sides on to where it turned to the left. He might be trapped, but he was sure it would lead to the Griffin at last. The Griffin wanted to gloat in person over his captive, to twit him, break him down. And Manning was prepared for the ordeal.

He made the left turn and passed through vaulted rooms that were equipped with benches, machines and apparatus, but were empty. And he came at last to one that seemed to be used as a sort of refectory, a table and stools, a stale smell of cooking.

Here a score of gaunt men in overalls were whispering furtively together, men who were stamped with intellect, though bowed by slavery. They looked at Manning with parted lips that showed their teeth. Some almost snarled at him.

The Griffin—if it was the Griffin—had passed on. There was a dark corridor leading from this chamber deeper into the core of the hill, but Manning calculated they should not be far from directly beneath the house.

These wasted men had numbers in brassards on their arms, like convicts.

“I’m not looking for any of
you,
” he said. “I am Special Deputy Commissioner Manning of the Manhattan Police Department. I am here—and not alone—to get the man who has held you here. You may be wanted, but not by me. If you can get away, that’s your affair.”

It was a slim hope enough, for any of them, he thought, but he was willing to give the poor devils a chance. They would be picked up, destitute, wearing what they did. Half starved, at that.

Wolfish eyes gleamed avidly as he showed his badge. Dry tongues licked drier lips. Here was something the Griffin had overlooked, would not have overlooked in former times. He despised these creatures, even as he affected to despise Manning, whom he had tolled within. After all, he had possibly calculated on them. What he wanted most was to get Manning caught in his web.

“You
mean
that?” gasped one man as Manning showed his badge. “You say you’re not alone. Then your men’ll pick us up if we can get that door open.”

“Not this trip. They are not concerned with you. But—I want one thing in return. Where did that insane monster go and how can I follow him?”

He still stood in the passage entrance—exit now—to the refectory, a slightly smiling, efficient, formidable and eloquently official figure. As a few started up, and forward, he shook his head at them and suddenly two guns showed in his hands.

“Play fair,” he said.

A man with a gray beard—none of them were lately shaved—cackled.

“Play
fair?
It’s a long time since we heard that. You don’t get it here. Well, I’ll show you where he went, but if you’re wise you won’t follow him. I’ve been up there. He’s a devil—a devil straight from hell, I tell you. He’ll get you and he’ll torture you. He’ll….”

“Steady.”

Manning saw signs of swiftly coming hysteria. He took the elderly man by the elbow.

“Show me where he is: how to get there,” he said, “and I’ll promise you immunity for whatever you may have done. I’ll see you get an ample reward.”

The man turned on him, hope in his eyes. Manning saw, with a shock, that, for all his gray beard, he was young.

“I’ll give you a note now,” Manning went on. “On my card. To the police commissioner.”

He wrote rapidly while the others looked on.

This man is to be taken care of. He has rendered me valuable assistance and I have promised him immunity, no matter what happens.

G.M.

“Now,” said Manning as he signed his initials and the man put away the card, his eyes glistening with tears and his chin trembling. “Brace yourself. Where did he go?”

VII

Manning found himself, with his guide, at a corner that curved outward. It looked just like the surrounding cement. But the man grinned at him.

“I saw how Quantro—that’s his dwarf and bodyguard—worked it,” he said. “You want to be careful of that dwarf. He’s strong as a gorilla. Look.”

He stood with feet astride a crack in the cement floor that suggested adjoining slabs; then rocked from side to side. The convex corner slid aside and showed the tubular entrance to an elevator.

“There are buttons inside. It’s automatic,” said the young-old man. “Good luck to you.”

“Good luck to
you!”
said Manning, and meant it. No penitentiary could be worse than this underground prison. And that gleam in the man’s eyes had seemed to Manning to mean much. Pardon, a fresh start, a reunited family.

He inspected the buttons, touched one, and immediately the curved entrance closed and he shot up—to what?

Manning stepped into the circular chamber. It was filled with the incense of amber and the music he had so often heard over the telephone. He saw the Griffin, unmasked, back of his carved desk, erect, showing above his bronze disks.

“Welcome, Manning. I have been expecting you. Now you are here. I trust you will not disappoint me. As an antagonist, I mean. You cannot win, but….”

Manning had made up his mind just what to do. He was a crack shot, though he had missed the Griffin once, through some chance distortion of a glass window pane. He saw now, out of the side of his eyes, a crouching figure that must be Quantro.

Quantro the dwarf, of whom he must be careful. Crouching like a beast ready to leap. The gleam of a naked knife.

Manning fired pointblank at the Griffin. He wanted his man. He aimed to crack his sternum and his collar bone, to shatter the scapula. The nerve-shock would bring down his quarry. If the dwarf persisted he would get the same medicine—a dose of lead.

The Griffin swayed, caught at the carved edge of his desk, shook his head.

“I am not vulnerable, Manning,” he said. “If I was, I would not have let you come here. Hey, Quantro! Up!”

The command was doubtless superfluous and unheard. But obeyed. The dwarf launched himself sidewise at Manning with the shock of a star interferer, interlocking arms about Manning’s knees, teeth snatching at cloth and flesh. He had orders not to use his knife—not now.

Manning almost went down. He hesitated to kill the witless moron with a bullet, far more ready to slay the Griffin, though he did not want to. He survived the first shock of the tackle, staggering and raining blows on Quantro’s head from the butt of the gun that had proved useless against the Griffin. The dwarf’s voluminous turban protected him and masked Manning’s objective, which he reached at last, the rocking bone of the cranium. Then Quantro suddenly dropped, nerveless.

Manning pointed the muzzle of his gun at the Griffin, holding it high.

“Wear a steel jacket, do you?” he said a little pantingly. “Well, this is a steel-jacketed bullet that will drill through your head if you are not very careful.”

“Manning,” said the Griffin, “I have too many headaches recently. For the present, I regret to say that you are safe. The stars protect you. Why, I cannot tell. But they are infallible. I submit.”

He held out his wrists. Manning had handcuffs, slender bracelets of chilled steel. The dwarf lay senseless. The Griffin’s madness, his paranoia, might well include a sudden surrender. But Manning was still cautious.