Authors: J. Allan Dunn
Tags: #Action and Adventure
Brooks entered into it gravely, listened to Manning’s brief recital or recapitulation of the Griffin’s crimes, more particularly since he had been working on them.
“You wish, I assume,” he said, “to afford me protection, to be with me yourself during the threatened period. You state that the Griffin, who is undoubtedly insane, may be depended upon, if one may use that word in such a grisly business, to make his attempt during that stated time. Not to, would, I imagine, be a blow at his own conceit.”
Manning nodded.
“Without prejudice, it would seem my predecessors in his plots have been unfortunate.” Brooks went on, “through no fault of yours or the police department. This Griffin is a resourceful villain with a brain inflamed to weird and bizarre ideas that, so far, have baffled protection. However, this time I think the Griffin will be foiled.”
Manning listened attentively.
He had heard almost precisely such statements of assurance on each occasion of his conferences with the men the Griffin had marked for death. All had been men of brains, some of great resources, yet this confidence, backed by his own efforts, had failed.
“It happens,” Brooks went on, “and this is a matter known only to the President, certain members of the Cabinet and the head of the Secret Service, that I am about to depart on a strictly secret mission. You are the only other person to know this. I may not tell even you what this mission is, save that it is important to world progress.
“The point is that I sail on the France at midnight on the eighth. My incognito may be discovered after we sail, hardly before. The suite has been retained in the name of the man, a high official at Washington, who, ostensibly, I shall be seeing off. I should have done so in any case. He will take another suite reserved in still another name. I shall simply not go ashore with the rest when the steamer sails. You know the confusion of those midnight sailings. It is impossible to tell who leaves. I shall go into the suite quite naturally. I shall have my own man along, who is absolutely to be trusted. Moreover, as I have the misfortune to be a very bad sailor I shall certainly keep to the suite for two or three days in any event, beyond the limit set by the Griffin.”
Manning nodded again. This bettered matters if the secret could be kept. It looked as if it could. It would not be difficult to have a special guard.
“The captain will have to be taken into our confidence,” he said. “There will be no danger there. I shall sail also, but that must not be known. I am tailed by the Griffin’s men, without question. If it was known I was sailing, the inference to the Griffin would be plain that you were going to be on the boat, all evidence to the contrary.
“It can be managed. You will have to endure me whether you are seasick or not for that twenty-four hours. It is my responsibility, it is the only way by which we can hope to thwart this maniac. I shall have to see the officials of the line, but I shall not explain to them that it is you I expect to protect. The captain will not know it until we are at sea. But I must have men aboard to form a cordon round your suite unostentatiously on the tenth. They will appear as deck and other stewards. You have relieved me immensely. This trip is something that the Griffin cannot have taken into consideration.”
It was Brooks’s turn to nod.
“Still, if they are tailing you—as you term it?…” he ventured.
“Their skill is not so great but that I can break it when I take the trouble. I shall go aboard in efficient disguise. Mr. Brooks, you give me heart, fresh courage. The burden has been a heavy one; will be until this monster is destroyed—and this has been the best chance to show him that his game—as he terms it—has its flaws. We can hardly hope to take him in the attempt, as it looks as if he will be left in the dark. Still, I shall omit no precautions. He has extraordinary resources. Without doubt you have been on his list for weeks, perhaps months. He casts horoscopes and selects his men as they seem to be most vulnerable according to his astral reckonings. But, if he fails, I am inclined to think that it will unnerve him, or even totally destroy the uncertain balance of his already deranged mentality.
“I am sorry that you put off your engagements for this evening. If I had known at the start you were sailing I could have told you the interview would not be long.”
“I am glad to have a free evening,” said Brooks. “Let us spend it together. I should like to hear something of your travels. That is something denied to me as my ambitions run and my duties seem to point. It is a very great happiness to me, Major Manning, that I have been able to serve this country,
my
country in my peculiar capacities.”
It was late when Manning left. He had not been the only talker. He bore with him the mental portrait of a fine American. A man the country needed, could not afford to lose.
The thought that a maniac like the Griffin should dare to even contemplate his destruction was infuriating, but Manning controlled himself in the hope that this time the tables would be turned.
He did not doubt that he was being shadowed, and he did not bother to verify it, to shake off the tailers. The Griffin would expect him to get in touch with Brooks. This merely verified it, and the long time they had spent together would suggest that they were planning elaborate defense against the machinations of the Griffin’s carefully thought out scheme.
He even grinned a little, and he had not been smiling much of late, when he found, attached to the horn button, an oval cartouche of heavy paper embossed with the griffin, the symbol of the man who used the name of that mythical, rapacious creature, half lion, half eagle, to represent him and his cruel, ruthless deeds.
The burden seemed lifting. He had been chosen after the police had utterly failed. He had not, he told himself, done much better, and the responsibilities of not having saved the lives he had tried to protect had at times weighed heavily upon him. To-night, for once, he got five hours of sound, refreshing sleep.
IV
THE liner was on her second day at sea, logging her twenty-five knots an hour. Everything was in full swing aboard that palatial steamship with its spacious salons, its elegant suites, its shops, its lounges, its big swimming pool and gymnasium.
Every one but those who, like Brooks—his presence unknown aboard—were confined to their cabins by seasickness, was making the most of the voyage, exhilarated by the sea air, enlivened by new acquaintanceships, the informality of shipboard.
It was fine weather. A good sea was running, but the liner sheared through the long, frothing hills of brine on a nearly level keel. It was the idea, rather than the fact, that made people suffer from
mal-de-mar.
Her wake was like a silver ribbon from the churning of her powerful propellers. Her graceful hull trembled ever so slightly as if with eagerness to beat the record. The sky was deep blue, mottled with shreds of white vapor to a semblance of marble. There was no haze, the horizon was sharply defined as if drawn by a firm hand and a fine brush dipped in deep purple.
This was the Atlantic, with the United States over eight hundred miles astern as seven bells struck in mid-morning, and the bibulous ones announced jocularly that the sun was over the yard arm and it was time to patronize the bar.
Brooks was wretched. Psychological or physical, as the source might be, he was a seasick man. He ate nothing. He lay like a bundle of wet rags and his face was the hue of verdigris.
His man waited on him absolutely, allowing no one else in the suite, save Manning, who did his best to cheer the patient and, every little while, quietly inspect the suite and see that the unostentatious guards kept their cordon. Seven hours were gone of the fatal twenty-four but he showed no exultation, felt none and would not until eight bells sounded at midnight. As for Brooks, he was too sick to bother much about anything. He was confident that the Griffin had been thrown off the track and that he was quite safe, aside from Manning and his men.
Manning had come aboard in disguise that was slight but effective. He used a cane and walked with a limp. He wore pads under a suit too large for his actual trim figure. He affected sideburns that were artificial but looked real enough, as a mustache or beard would not have deceived sharp eyes. In public he used cheek plumpers that altered his whole face, his skin was darkened and hollows stained under his eyes. He looked—acted—the semi-invalid, not appearing at meals or on deck save for short, rare intervals. None at all to-day. The captain was in the secret.
Eight bells struck. Luncheon was served. By two it was well over. At six bells, three o’clock, the radio operator received a message asking them to stand by for the plane.
It was a somewhat cryptic message, but in these days one never knew what new stunt might be trying out, or what flyer in distress might be sending out an S O S, sighting them far up, perhaps, making for them on long volplanes with his gasoline clogged.
The word got out, passed round. Passengers and officers began to look for the airplane that was still invisible. At length they heard its motors, sounding clear and sweet and plain, but there was nothing to be seen in the azure. Those who knew anything about flying confessed themselves puzzled. A man jocularly suggested it was a ghost plane.
The rhythmic purr sounded ever louder, nearer. The sky was without blemish, but it was empty.
At last one of the officers pointed, using his binoculars. The captain followed suit, his glasses glued to his eyes. All those who owned them, sent for them or fetched them.
The idle term ghost plane seemed not inadequate. An apter description came from a girl who said it was like an X-ray plate. They could see suspended in apparent space an engine, certain parts of control and dials, a pilot and a passenger. The latter’s face was indistinct. He seemed wearing a queer sort of mask that fitted closely enough to suggest hooked nose and harsh cheekbones yet concealed any individuality. These two sat in air, to all seeming. There were no pipes, no struts, no wings outside of a slight blur, like the flawing of a mirror, that disturbed the air behind the propeller that brought it on, to pass them at four times their speed, six times, perhaps.
This mysterious object, or phenomenon, banked and returned. They could see the men tilt, but nothing else save the bulk of the engine, the line of dials. It circled the steamer, descending until they could see the whites of the pilot’s eyes, the yellow, shining mask, that screened his passenger, shining like goldbeater’s skin.
Something shot down, struck the upper deck, stayed there, quivering. It was a dart and it was made apparently of toughened glass. Attached to it was a sheet of gray paper, closely clipped to the shaft.
A quartermaster handed it to the first officer who gave it in turn to the captain. He read it with frowning brows.
“This is preposterous,” he said and concealed his true feelings.
An official of the line pressed through to him, accompanied by friends, all men of big interests. The captain showed the note.
Edward Brooks is aboard, in Suite B, under an assumed name. He is seasick, but unless he is placed in a boat, set afloat and left to me within fifteen minutes I shall drop something down your funnels that will scrap your engines and blow the bottom out of you.
The Griffin.
Tell Gordon Manning that, unless Brooks considers his life more valuable than that of the ship’s passengers and crew, he will immediately place himself at my disposal.
It was written with purple ink on the gray, heavy paper, it was signed with the seal of the Griffin, the blood red cartouche of the fabled beast that could fly as well as leap, rend with claws as well as beak.
Those who read first, blanched.
The Griffin!
After Brooks! Was Brooks aboard they demanded of the commander and he told them that he was, on a secret mission.
Swiftly the dread news passed. It was staggering. It was incredible. All to be killed, sent to the bottom after a frightful explosion! The Griffin could not mean that. Yet in their hearts they felt that he did. They cringed and cowered—the stoutest of them, while women clung to men as the cry rose—“He’s coming back!”—and the hum of the propeller rose to a roar while that ghostly, ghastly plane, almost invisible, even close at hand, came fleeting back.
It was not to annihilate them. Only four minutes had passed but it seemed like hours of suspense and fear as a consultation was hurriedly held, interfered with by men who were beginning under the stress of their own terror and the appeal of their wives, to lose control.
Another arrow clicked to the deck, and a larger object landed fairly in the throat of the forward funnel while groans and shrieks went up and, for an instant, pandemonium reigned.
Nothing happened. The commander bellowed for silence, read the note aloud at their insistence.
“Just a sighting shot. You have ten minutes more in which to deliver Brooks or drown—those of you who survive the explosion. I shall give you a little demonstration of what that may be.”
The plane was away, spiraling swiftly aloft. They saw something shoot down to the sea and then a geyser leaped aloft and the big ship rocked to the concussion of the frightful blast and the sudden onslaught of great billows.
The deck was crowded. The alarm had not yet spread to the engine room. Some sick ones might be still below, unconscious or beyond caring for anything, not dreaming of what was happening. The commander had promptly taken means to keep the news from the stokehold and the liner still made her twenty-five knots while the plane hovered overhead at will, like a kingbird over a clumsy crow.
“Ask Mr. Manning to see me at once,” said the captain.
“What are you going to do? Do you expect us to stand still and be blown up—sunk?”
The passengers were approaching hysteria, the deck hands and stewards muttered, panic beginning to spread. The situation was inconceivable yet it had happened. It was true. They were called upon to sacrifice one man instead of a thousand, and many there deemed themselves of far more importance than Edward Brooks, aside from the natural instinct of self preservation, of protectiveness for their families.