Authors: J. Allan Dunn
Tags: #Detective/Hard-Boiled
Two of them! One for Harland. One for Manning.
And Manning had escaped, merely because he did not like sugar in his tea!
Manning was inured to sudden, secret murder; but a light perspiration broke out on his own brow as he knew how narrowly, once more, he had escaped the infernal trickery of the Griffin.
He went to the open window as he wiped his forehead.
There was light on all the floors of the house, from basement to attic. It cast a suffused glow over the formal garden, faintly illumined the far wall. On that, Manning saw a swiftly moving shadow, as of a man in a cloak and Spanish hat. There was the profile of a nose like the beak of an eagle.
Then the effect, or the illusion, seemed to go out of focus, vanished.
Automatically, Manning’s hand shot to his shoulder, touched the butt of his pistol. The shadow was gone.
The telephone was ringing.
He listened, knowing what he would hear. The exotic rhythm of barbaric, compelling music, then the mocking laugh of the Griffin. A final word.
“To-morrow!”
There was no use trying to trace that call. The Griffin had men in his power who knew how to tune in on wires with exact vibrations, defying detection.
To-morrow!
With that threat in his ears, Manning closed the windows; put the cover about the cage of a canary that would sing no more for its beloved master; and drove back to Pelham Manor, to his own house, in his own powerful roadster.
The Griffin knew that he had killed, and had also failed to kill. The next day he had threatened to strike again.
It was hard to sleep that night, but Manning compassed it. The Griffin had lately given him a bizarre sort of holiday, a chance to rest, to knit nerves that had come close to raveling.
Manning was ready to take up whatever challenge might be flung by the insane being, through whose brain surged the vagrant hallucinations of dementia grandiosa.
Yet, even Manning would not have compassed sleep if he could have foreseen what the morrow would spawn of evil.
III
One Out of Four
There were twenty-four hours in to-morrow, and they dragged for Manning. Aside from the shadow he had seen on the wall, which might have been only the projection of a silhouette pasted on the lens of an electric torch, he was inclined to think that the Griffin in person had talked chess with Harland, planted the poisoned sugar.
It was not very often that the Griffin acted personally, but Manning had a sturdy hunch that he was never far away from the scene of any of his crimes. Manning had seen him more than once. He might be more reckless these days. He would be enraged at Manning’s escape, and anger had before this decreased the Griffin’s cunning.
But, ever since the day after Manning’s secret commission had been bestowed upon him, supposedly in secret, the Griffin had referred to the antagonism between them as a game—likening it mockingly to a game of chess. The metaphor was in some ways apt, since, as in chess, the essence of success or failure lay in the ability to see moves ahead, both of yourself and your opponent.
The Griffin always had the better of it because he invariably opened the game, but he had not always won.
Eighteen hours out of the twenty-four had passed. It was six o’clock, and Manning’s man had just served him an exquisitely iced and balanced cocktail, when the telephone rang.
Manning knew that, this time, the Griffin was not on the other end of the wire. He missed the premonitory thrill of evil that always manifested itself on such occasions.
It was the commissioner of police, speaking over his private phone. His stern voice, the voice of a soldier, was agitated.
“I’ve got some news I want to talk over with you, in person, Manning. I wanted to make sure you were at home. I’m driving out, immediately.”
“You’ll have dinner with me?” asked Manning.
“Dinner? Good God, man, you won’t feel like eating after you talk with me!”
Manning shrugged his shoulders as he hung up, not to minimize the weight of the commissioner’s news, which he felt sure would be sinister enough; but because he had a fixed maxim that a man, like an army, met danger better when his metabolism was properly balanced, the human mechanism properly supplied with fuel. It was the Griffin, of course. He had not chosen to communicate first with Manning. He was going to leave him to work in the dark.
In how much of darkness and complexity, Manning could not dream until the commissioner arrived, his face grave and lined, refusing the offered drink.
“That’s a good cocktail,” Manning demurred politely. “It’ll do you more good than harm.” The head of the police grunted, picked up the beaded glass, emptied it. He nodded his appreciation.
“Manning,” he said, “four communications, exactly the same; with a cryptic message, each bearing the red seal of that infernal madman, have been delivered today. Two by messenger boys, two by mail. The mailed letters were dropped at Grand Central. We’ve traced the messenger service, so far as it can be traced.
“The police were informed reluctantly, and in a roundabout manner, in two cases. One got through direct to me, another came through a local captain. The press, by some miracle, hasn’t got on to it yet. If it broke, the city would be in a panic. As it is, four families are terror-stricken. It’s a marvel that chuckling fiend hasn’t given it out. I’m doing my best to prevent it. Coming on top of Harland’s murder, it would be the final straw. One that would break my official back—though I’m not thinking of that. It’s the incredible craft and malice of that hell-spawned ghoul!”
Manning heard him without seeing him, looking at the four missives the other had produced and handed to him. Each was a duplicate of the other. Heavy, gray, handmade paper, the writing on envelopes and the single sheets in purple ink, in striking script, the chirography of eccentricity, of pride and conscious power.
4–1 leaves 3?
Then, for signature, the scarlet, oval seal, the cartouche red as newly-spilled blood, the demi-griffin embossed upon it.
Four seals; with the two in Harland’s sugar bowl, six scarlet seals in all. One man already murdered, four more threatened, one of them doomed to die in some fantastic and horrible fashion—unless Manning could determine where the Griffin would strike, and how; which of his intended victims he would select for a strange and awful death.
The cryptic line could mean nothing else. It was refined torture. It said that one of four would be murdered, leaving three. Leaving meanwhile the hideous and grisly horror of uncertainty.
“Do they all know?” Manning asked. “I mean, have they been told of the other letters, the meaning of the message?”
“I thought it best,” replied the commissioner. “I have taken precautions to guard them all. We may learn something from one of them that will save the other. But we’ve guarded them before,” he added wearily, as the lines seemed momentarily to etch deeper into his face. “What do you suggest, Manning?”
“Strong guards, cordons that will not be evident, but of picked men, ready to act swiftly. The Griffin knows we’ll do our best. He’ll try to beat us with some fantastic device, as he has before. He may not have made his choice as yet. That may depend entirely upon his study of our plans. You know his ingenuity in basing an attack upon the habits of his victim. We must plan to trap him, to show some apparent opening. I have started to get together some agents of my own, but my private force is far from complete. I am trying to establish a chain that will give me some idea of what the Griffin may contemplate, ultimately lead me to him, perhaps. But this latest threat is satanic, Commissioner. He’s going to play four games of chess at once, damn him, with his eyes open, and ours blindfolded.”
Manning touched a bell. His Japanese butler entered. Manning nodded at the cocktail glasses. “Dinner for two,” Manning ordered. The commissioner made no further objection. He drank the second cocktail mechanically, seated to one side of the fireplace, laid but not lighted, scowling at the problem that confronted them.
Four minus one leaves three. And then the question mark. Which one to die, which to be left?
Manning’s chair faced the window that gave out to a path, bordered with grass and low shrubbery, an ivyclad wall beyond. That wall was topped with spikes. The path led to the garage, and was closed with a fence and a gate of steel. Manning knew his own life was in constant jeopardy and took his precautions.
It was dark by now. Dinner would be served soon. Then would come their council of war.
“These private agents of yours, Manning? How good are they? Under cover men, I suppose?”
“Men, and boys, some of them. I took a leaf from Sherlock Holmes’ book, Commissioner. Newsboys and bootblacks are the best of shadows. And I’ve got some smart young men out of jobs who are good in their specialties. Limited, of course. They are coming along. When we get the Griffin, I’ll turn ’em over to you. Some of ’em should be valuable.”
“When we get him.”
Manning studied the four addresses, the names, trying to find some clew as to which one the Griffin might select, especially if the way seemed open. It might be a dangerous guess. And to-night, from now on until the blow had fallen, or been averted, four families were shuddering, if not cowering, under the dread threat. As for the four principals….
They were all married men, with families. All men useful to the world.
Dinner was served in the library, an excellent meal, deftly served, eaten in tense silence. After it was cleared Manning took down the latest “Who’s Who.” He made brief notes, reading them to the commissioner—condensed biographies of the four men to whom the scarlet-sealed mandate of dread had been despatched.
Both men hoped, against hope, to find some hint of the Griffin’s ghastly preference.
shackelford, nicholas e. Botanist. Introducer of many valuable trees and plants into United States. Important factor in development of national forests and economic plant distribution and adaptation. Married, with one son and daughter, aged 58. Residence, Astoria, L.I.
chandler, douglas l. Chemist; important worker in Chemical Warfare Research, in organic and engineering chemistry. Aged 47. Married, two daughters and one son. Residence, New York; Central Park West.
osgood, clive t. Law editor and publisher. Residence, Syosset, Long Island. Aged 61. Married, three daughters.
“It was he,” said Manning, “who denounced the medieval aspects of the law at the time of the Griffin’s trial. He protested against the code that sentenced him to imprisonment, instead of annihilating him.”
“A likely lead,” commented the commissioner. “The Griffin would never forgive him for that.”
“I’ve no doubt he’s on that devil’s death-list,” said Manning grimly. He set down his final notes:
beale, bernard b. Clergyman, educator. Radio lecturer for reform of charities, agitator for organized state and national insurance against old age, sickness and unemployment of all citizens. Married, five children, three sons, two daughters. Aged 51. Residence, Forest Hills.
“There is a practical philanthropist,” said Manning. “Three of those children are adopted. You know what they call him. Not Bernard B., but ‘Best Beloved,’ Beale. He’s got following enough to elect him President twice over. A man like that affects the Griffin like the sign of the Cross to Satan. I’ll have to see all of them, find out how they live. We daren’t concentrate on any lead until we know something. We’ve got to look out for all of them. I’ll take Beale first. He’s nearest.”
He reached for the telephone. Presently he put it down again.
“The line is out of order,” he said tersely. “Suppose you call the others, Commissioner. The books are under the stand. It might be best to do it through headquarters.”
Fifteen minutes later, they stared at each other.
All the telephones were out of order. It could not be mere coincidence. The commissioner had issued orders to rouse the trouble-service of the telephone company for an emergency.
“They won’t locate the fault,” said Manning. “He tunes in, in some devilish fashion, as I’ve told you. No doubt he can tune out. How many men have you at Beale’s place?”
“Four, continuously. Two inside, two out. It’s a detached villa in a restricted district. About half an acre of grounds, landscaped.”
“You’ll come with me?”
“Of course. Immediately.”
Manning’s telephone tinkled, rang more strongly, with a peculiar timbre in its sound, eerie, and somehow vicious. The commissioner was the nearer to it. He lifted the instrument. Instantly there stole into the room a strain of weird, exotic, barbaric music. Above it came the booming notes of a basso voice, incredibly sardonic.
“You’re listening in with Manning, Commissioner? Splendid! Trying to pick the loser, gentlemen? Sporting odds, of three to one. I can’t give you a tip. I haven’t come to a decision myself. All four are meddlers. It leaves you slightly in the air, eh, Manning? You will admit I play a good game of, let us say, chess. Harland would admit that, if he were alive. Don’t forget this, gentlemen; you can’t avert the fate decreed by heaven.”
Sardonic, hideous laughter ended the transmission. It broke into madhouse cacklings, died away as the bizarre music took predominance, and, in turn, faded.
Manning slipped an automatic into the side pocket of his dinner jacket. The commissioner was already armed, his service revolver in a shoulder-clip.
“Let’s go,” said Manning. “I think my car’s the faster.”
IV
The Face Without a Body
In the chamber, lined with sable tapestries, where a golden pattern gleamed in strange arabesques, Al, the legless freak, squatted in a corner, fearful and fascinated.
The Griffin strode up and down, his body draped in black, his features hidden by a clinging mask that half veiled, half revealed his beaklike nose, high cheekbone, outthrust brow and chin. His eyes glittered through slits.