Authors: J. Allan Dunn
Tags: #Action and Adventure
Another was the Griffin’s boast of new methods. Untried, they might, it was likely they would, be imperfect. And he must find that flaw.
Must.
As the hour of seven chimed he found himself pacing up and down. He filled his pipe, and the hand that applied the match shook ever so slightly.
“Pshaw!” he exclaimed aloud. “I’m getting nervous.”
Then the phone sounded. It meant that some one was dead, by foul means, that the Griffin had struck again. It jangled in his ears, then he was cool again. He had to be so, with such an adversary.
“The name is Severy Hastings, Manning. The address Pebble Manor, Stony Ridge, Long Island. There are plenty of trains, or you might take your little car. You may even arrive before the family knows what has happened.
“Hastings sleeps late. He is not as young as he might be—he
was
not as young. Perhaps his conscience troubled him of nights. It should. He made his millions through manipulating other people’s money, and kept it all. Of late he had posed as philanthropist. He contributed to charities, to institutions and popular appeals. Always publicly. Perhaps he thought that advertising below might help him get through the needle’s-eye gate of his old-fashioned heaven.”
Manning contained himself. He must not lose a word. He wanted to perfect his impressions of that jibing voice.
“He will sleep well now. Sleep till he
rots.
”
For an instant the voice lost suavity, it was the voice of an unleashed beast, wild and feral.
“He married a young wife lately. She may mourn him. There is one thing she
will
mourn. A choice collection of uncut stones that Hastings kept in a so-called safe in his own room. That was the only taste of his that I approved. I like uncut gems. He saves me the trouble of gathering them. You’ll hear from me again.
Au revoir!”
Silence, save for that faint suggestion of music, though Manning had put up the receiver.
Manning lost no time. In five minutes he had got his roadster and was letting it out to top speed, losing not a second when he got into traffic, careful to avoid trouble, intent upon arrival.
“Severy Hastings!” It was a name to conjure with! Manning knew little of the way in which he had acquired his great wealth, save that he wondered whether at some time the Griffin had lost money through those manipulations he spoke of. He felt sure that revenge for injuries, fancied or real, was at the bottom of this madness.
But Hastings never failed to respond to any call for money. He was now retired. Had married a widow, comparatively young compared to himself. Played golf. Now he was dead.
Manning wore no disguise. It did not seem needed at present. He carried his cane, a curious accessory for a car. Later—
V
PEBBLE MANOR was a stately place, apart, on rising ground overlooking the Sound, set in gracious and spacious gardens. The name manor belonged to them, rather than the house. That was nondescript but beautiful, largely Italian.
As Manning drove in through the gates, catching sight of a lodge-keeper running out of the little building there, he knew he was too late to bring news. There were other cars at the door.
It was opened by a butler, tall, dignified, dressed in his morning semi-livery. Back of him, Manning saw scurrying maids, one hurrying up the stairs, another disappearing toward the back with a scared look over her shoulder.
“My name is Manning,” said the special agent curtly. “I have come from New York, on an investigation.”
“Ah, yes, sir. A most distressing occasion. You will be wanting to see the local authorities?”
The man was precise. Birth, death, no occasion would flurry his trained composure.
“I shall want to see Mrs. Hastings,” said Manning.
“Yes, sir. I am afraid you will have to wait. She is quite prostrated. The doctor is with her. A severe shock.”
A man came bustling out of a room on the right. Manning placed him, officious, cursed, rather than blessed, with authority.
“What do
you
want?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you privately,” said Manning. “Let’s go where you came from.” The butler opened the door of that room, closed the front one.
“Too damn smug that man,” said the local officer. He looked at the special credentials Manning showed him with respect, but he was still dubious.
“I’ve phoned New York,” he said. “There’ll be men out here soon.”
“Then I’m glad I got here first,” said Manning evenly. “They’ll know these credentials of mine, or you can telephone again. I would suggest the chief commissioner.
If
you please.”
He was in no mind to wait until others arrived. He wanted a preliminary investigation, to find his own clews. Centre Street detectives were sometimes primitive clumsy.
“I’ll stroll round the grounds,” he said. “Mrs. Hastings is really too ill to see?”
“Doctor gave her a shot of hop. She’s out. I reckon you’re all right. Plain case of murder. Strangled. Cord round his neck now. I ain’t touched a thing. Wall safe’s open, but those wall safes are junk. It ain’t empty. I saw papers there.”
Manning nodded and went outside. The butler came out from the back as Manning strolled around.
“Anything I can do for you, sir?” he asked.
Manning eyed him. The man seemed to take him for granted as some one of importance and authority.
“You can show me Mr. Hastings’s room from the outside,” he said. “Is it here, or in front?”
“In the rear, sir. Up there. The front gets the morning sun, you see, sir. Mr. ’Astings didn’t like it in the mornings.”
“I see.”
There was a loggia, a portico, set into the walls, arched. On the second floor.
“That’s all,” said Manning. “What’s your name, by the by? I’ll want to talk to you later.”
“Jennings, sir. I’ve not been in Mr. ’Astings’s service long, but he was a fine gentleman and a good master. Very considerate. A terrible thing to ’appen, sir.”
“Yes,” said Manning curtly. “That’s all.”
Jennings bowed and left. A bit of a hypocrite, Manning fancied, but his job called for it, he supposed. Maintaining the regret of an old retainer, a little nosey, a little reluctant to leave. Manning saw him watching from a window of what might be the butler’s pantry.
He looked for signs beneath the portico, but hardly expected to find them. The Griffin would not bungle. But that strangling cord was nothing new.
A ladder would reach there easily enough. There was a four-car garage, elaborately equipped. Stables, with riding horses in the stalls. Doubtless Mrs. Hastings rode, perhaps Hastings. No chauffeurs, no grooms. They would all be in the house, in the servants’ quarters, gossiping.
A small building that was locked. It held garden tools. It was designed in Italian fashion, with a lean-to under a tiled roof. There were ladders here—two of them, on wall hooks. Manning appraised them. There were vines on the house, and they would be used for trimming them and the trees in the orchard.
He tore a handkerchief in two, wrapped the halves about his palms, and took down the shorter ladder, carrying it back into the orchard, sliding it in a slight depression where the long grass hid it.
He was back at the tool house when he saw the butler hurrying toward him. He stood nonchalantly regarding the view, filling his pipe.
“The constable, or whatever he is, sir, says it’s perfectly all right, sir.”
“Then I’ll come in.”
The detectives from New York had not arrived. The local man was apologetic.
“The commissioner said you were to take over,” he said.
Manning nodded.
“I want you to come over the house with me, Jennings,” he said. “We’ll see Mr. Hastings’s room first.”
The body of the multi-millionaire lay on his bed in his pyjamas, his head on the pillow, his body partly underneath the clothes. The doctor had seen him, a police surgeon would presently appear.
Manning did not disturb him. He saw the cord tight about his neck, sunken, the flesh bulging. The eyes were closed. The jaw had fallen. He saw the opening of the wall safe, a circular door. It had not been jimmied, but that meant little. A man expert with a microphone could have listed the combination in a few minutes.
There was a gun on a bed table, by a lamp. A treatise on star sapphires lay close to the shaded light.
There was a button in the frame of the bed, placed handy for an alarmed man to touch.
“Did Mr. Hastings fear burglars?” Manning asked Jennings.
“I wouldn’t say
that,
sir. He was cautious. Had a lot of stones in the safe, I’m told. And, for an elderly man, he was active. Quite. It’s hard to understand how he got strangled without turning in an alarm, even if he could not get at his gun. That button sets off a gong that would wake the dead. But we heard nothing.”
Manning glanced at the open window, a door that might lead to a dressing room, another to a bath.
“Slept with the window open?”
“Always, sir. It was open when I brought him his coffee and toast.”
“You served him?”
“Yes, sir. He preferred it that way. Didn’t like a maid in his room.”
“All right. Have you a telephone directory?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring it.”
The moment the butler left, Manning raced through the suite as his own setter might search the brush. The tiny colonnaded portico made for privacy. The bathroom window was large enough to admit a man, but it was fast locked, with a patent catch. So was the one in the dressing room. When Jennings came back Manning was gazing reflectively at the safe.
“We’ll go over the house,” he said. “Top to bottom.”
“Excepting Mrs. ’Astings’s apartment, sir?” Manning nodded.
There was nothing of luxury lacking in the house. Manning passed through the servants’ hall, crowded with excited help, through the kitchen, through the cemented room that held the big frigidaire. He asked for ice water and got it, Jennings pulling out a tray of cubes.
“You run this?” he asked.
“I try to, sir. Would you like some breakfast?”
“I’ve eaten,” said Manning. “Now show me where the help sleeps. All of you.”
“I ’ope, sir”—Jennings dropped intermittent hs—“you don’t think this is an inside job?”
“Inside or outside, you want to know who did it, don’t you?” he challenged Jennings.
“Of course, sir.”
“All right. I’ve had my breakfast. I’ll stroll about outdoors again until the others get here.”
He had seen two telephones in the garage. One looked like a house connection. The other might be direct. He made sure he was not overlooked when he tried the second, got a “through,” named his number.
VI
THERE were a police surgeon, a detective sergeant, and two aides, three reporters. Manning let the sergeant take charge.
The sergeant looked through the safe, found in some steel drawers morocco cases that held necklaces, other jewels.
“One drawer empty,” he said. “May or may not mean a thing. I’ll dust for finger-prints. I understand Hastings had a collection of uncut stones. Looks like they were after them. Might have been in here. There’s some bits of wadding.”
“Strangled!” said the police surgeon. “Died of suffocation. Look at this cord. Yellow silk. Oriental. Any Japs or Chinks in the household?”
“None,” said Manning laconically. “He strangled, but not from the cord. You’d better have an autopsy.”
“Why?”
“Because a man who dies that way has bulging eyes, his tongue shows. Look at that bed-clothing, look at that pillow. Strangle a man, and he struggles, writhes. This one died in his sleep.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure yet. But I think you’ll find sulphurous oxide in his lungs.”
The surgeon looked at Manning. He knew the authority he held. He looked at the pillows and the spreads upon the bed.
“We’ll do that,” he said.
The sergeant surveyed the open window, looked through the arches of the portico.
“Came in this way,” he announced.
“Yes, and no,” said Manning. “You’ll find no traces.”
The sergeant regarded him with the superior glance of a professional toward an amateur as he rated Manning.
“You got it all faded?” he asked, superciliously.
“Just a hunch,” said Manning. “Call Jennings.”
The butler came.
“You wanted me?” he asked.
“I wanted you,” said Manning. “These gentlemen have got their own theory about what happened. I don’t agree with them. I’d like a chat with you, in your own quarters. Confidentially.”
He watched the butler closely, winked at him.
“Very well, sir. Come this way.”
Jennings had a tiny suite for himself. Sitting room, bedroom and bath. There was a telephone—two phones—in the sitting room. Manning took a comfortable chair. The butler stood until Manning asked him to sit down.
“They think it’s a Jap or a Chink,” said Manning. “Tell me, have you seen any round here, probably Chinese, though it might be a Hindu?”
“Why, come to think of it, sir, there was a dark complexioned man on the same train with me the other day. He got off at the same station. Wore a cloth wrapped round his head. I took him for one of these chaps that give what they call seances in the old country. But I’ve seen nothing of him since. I’ve not been away from the house. I’ve been getting things organized and in running order, sir.
“Do you think it was some one like that who strangled the master and took the stones, sir?”
Manning shrugged his shoulders. He was not yet ready to express himself.
The telephone tinkled. Jennings answered it. It was one of the extensions of the outside service line.
“It’s for you, sir,” he said respectfully. He stood close to Manning, outwardly deferential. He must have heard, whether he intended to or not, the message. It contained one word after Manning’s voice had identified himself.
“No.”
Manning hung up. For a moment he stood silent, tapping the floor with his cane.
“Shan’t I take your cane, sir?” asked the butler.
“No, thanks; it doesn’t matter. I shall be leaving soon.”