Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2

by J. Allan Dunn

  Tanaka, Manning’s Japanese butler, entered silently, with ice, charged water and two kinds of whisky in square decanters.

  Belden, the commissioner, selected rye. Manning chose the Scotch. Highballs were skillfully compounded by Tanaka.

  The guest pledged his host.

  “Good luck to you! Hope you’ll always look as well as you do now.”

  “Thanks,” Manning answered. “I’m feeling fairly fit, but I’ll be fitter after I’ve had my vacation. King’s invited me for a Caribbean cruise.”

  He knew then, in his bones, that the cruise was off, so far as he was concerned. He knew that the police commissioner had not come out to Manning’s house at Pelham Manor, driving himself, and using a private car, to make complimentary remarks about Manning’s appearance. There was something in the wind and it was not an ordinary thing, or the commissioner would have telephoned. He knew Manning’s strictly unlisted number. But Manning waited for the commissioner to unburden himself.

  “Manning,” said Belden, “you’ve got a holiday coming to you, if any man ever had, after your bout with the Griffin. We’ve got that mad devil out of the way, but there are other things going on that disrupt the public morale almost as much as his crimes. I mean the recent kidnapings and blackmailings.”

  “The snatch racket,” said Manning, beginning to see what was coming. “Who is it now, man, woman or child?”

  “It hasn’t happened yet,” replied Belden. “I want to stop it. I want you to stop it. You’re the one man for the job,” he added. “Your special commission still stands, Manning. Do this for me and you can turn it in and trade your shield for a gold medal with diamonds in it.”

  “Thanks,” said Manning. “Just what would I do with it? Shoot, Belden. What is it?”

  Belden was silent for a few seconds, regarding the lean figure, the tanned, hawklike face of Gordon Manning, ex-Secret Service man with the A.E.F., explorer, scientist, and now, by avowed profession, a consulting attorney. There were fine, deep lines in his face that had not come from the weather or from age. Lines engraved there during Manning’s weeks and months of mortal combat against the insane genius and homicide named the Griffin, safely corralled at last in a State institution. Lines that would never entirely disappear.

  “You know Willoughby? Amos Willoughby the tool manufacturer?” Belden finally asked.

  “Know him? I’ve met him. He’s not a friend of mine.”

  “I doubt very much if he’s got a friend,” said the commissioner judicially. “And I’m sure he’s got plenty of enemies. He’s a man who trusts nobody but himself, and he came up fast, from nowhere. His last merger practically gives him complete control of the tool making industry. It’s a monopoly, or about to be. ‘Ten-Per-Cent’ Willoughby, his workers call him, always the first to cut ten per cent off his employee’s wages, and the last to restore it. They had another demonstration outside his Erie plant again yesterday. Papers haven’t said much about it—and they won’t. He’d make it too interesting for their advertising departments. But his social side and his business methods have nothing to do with this. He’s a big man and he rates protection. He’s asked for it. He’s staying on his place in Delaware County, where he was born. That’s where he goes when he wants privacy and is planning a new coup.”

  “Fairtrees,” said Manning. “He’s invited me up there. Bought up a whole village and demolished it to include it in his estate, so that his birthplace is actually inside his own fences though not the cottage. His father was the village postmaster and ran a small general store. His mother was a seamstress. He’s frank about those matters, principally because it helps to show what a big man he is. About the only human thing I know of him is his hobby for trees. He has transplanted any amount and variety of them, and they say he has succeeded in developing chestnuts immune to the blight. If he has, it’s the first thing he’s ever done for the cause of humanity.

  “I always understood that Fairtrees was always well guarded. There’s a fine trout stream there. He tried to tempt me with it. He doesn’t fish himself, and no one outside his guests are allowed to. Hence the keepers. Also for preservation of the trees and shrubbery, and the wild game. The place is a natural preserve. If it belonged to any one else you might call it a Bird and Deer Sanctuary. With him it’s plain selfishness. But he never struck me as a man to be lightly alarmed.”

  He lit his pipe, seeing in the smoke the sturdy, dominant figure of Amos Willoughby, tool magnate, ruthless absorber of smaller plants, of larger ones also. A shortish man, though he carried his square, solid body erectly. A man who looked a great deal like Andrew Carnegie, with trimmed beard that was gray, like his hair; with gray eyes that were always cold as ice.

  “He may be forearmed and now he’s forewarned,” said the commissioner, “I don’t think he’s actually frightened, I don’t believe the man has any more emotions than a shark. You can’t actually scare him, mentally or physically. He’s overcome a lot of stiff opposition in his time. There are still plenty who consider him a menace to general prosperity, but they’re leaving him alone. He’s the sort of man who battens on depression. He has no more patriotism than a newly landed Armenian immigrant. He doesn’t give a whoop in Hades about the common people, but right now he’s afraid he may get wiped out.”

  “By whom?” asked Manning. “The proletariat?”

  Belden shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s the mystery of it that has got Willoughby’s goat,” he said. “He has a private wire, an operator in his own house. He lives like a Nabob. But he plugged in himself this time and got through to me. He’s been threatened plenty of times, but now he’s had three letters, mailed from the General Post Offices in New York, Albany and Philadelphia, all typed on the same machine, with the same ribbon. He checked that up. They all said the same thing. You’ve been warned enough. This time you go. Brief and to the point.

  “I don’t know if he told me everything, but he believes these communications are authentic and mean business. He wants protection. He’s a potentate and I’m a policeman—you, too, Manning. We’ve got to give protection, or, for one thing, I may lose my job and, for another, if anything breaks like the elimination of Amos Willoughby, right now, people are going to get hysteria.”

  “Did he ask for me?” suggested Manning. Belden grunted.

  “He did,” he confessed, “and he gave reasons that are just what I would have advanced. He wants the prevention, the investigation kept perfectly private. He doesn’t want a stranger coming to Fairtrees whose presence might be suspected as out of the ordinary. He said he had invited you. You can go fishing. One hint sneaking out that he was taking precautions against kidnaping, or killing, or blackmail, and the place would be surrounded with State Police, County Police, reporters, cameramen, newsreel operators and amateur detectives. You know what they did in the case of Major Olstrom’s child. He doesn’t want any publicity.

  “He doesn’t think himself in any immediate danger so long as he is at Fairtrees, but I think he figures that something may start there and be culminated the minute he leaves the place. It’s surrounded with steel wire, with barbed slantbacks; steel grids go into the stream bed and it can all be charged with enormous voltage from the power lines. Probably is, nowadays. That fence cost him plenty of money. He wants you to nose out the direction his danger is coming from. Of course, Manning, our appropriations can’t begin to pay you your proper fees. You took on the Griffin in a sporting way, largely from a sense of public duty. Willoughby realizes you are not professionally connected with the force. He is willing to pay any amount you care to charge.”

  “I’ll care to charge him plenty,” said Manning grimly. “Half of it goes into the Unemployment Fund, a quarter of it to the Police Benefit Association. The rest I’ll find use for myself. What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I’d see you. Manning, except that the Griffin always named the date on which he meant to kill—and the fact that I called Dannemora this afternoon to find out he
was still in the hospital, I’d think he had a finger in the pastry of this pie.”

  “The Griffin only went after men who were public benefactors,” said Manning. “But you’re right. And it’ll be a public benefit to check anything happening to him. There’s been too much of that sort of thing. But I can’t go until the day after to-morrow. I have certain matters that must be attended to.”

  “That’s all right,” said Belden. “He doesn’t seem, as I told you, to worry much, so long as he remains at Fairtrees.”

  “Then he’s a bigger fool than I’ve ever credited him with being,” said Manning. “That’s where they strike, these days, unexpectedly, in the place considered the most secure. And get clear on the sheer audacity of it. If it’s a racket and the big shots are in it, we’re up against brains.”

  “You don’t think it’s the communists, then?”

  “The proletariats, the underdogs, the downtrodden hoi polloi? My dear Belden, I haven’t any opinion on the matter. I’m going into this with an open mind.”

  “You are going into it?”

  The commissioner’s face was eloquent of relief.

  “You can get in touch with Ten-Per-Cent Willoughby and tell him I’ll start early in the morning the day after to-morrow, and drive up to Fairtrees with my fishing tackle. I wouldn’t wonder if I have to bait this affair. It’ll be bottom fishing rather than dry-fly casting, I fancy. Tanaka,” he added as the butler glided in, answering the buzzer. “Two more highballs, please.”

  II

  Manning was stopped by closed gates outside the main entrance to Fairtrees. A man came out of a lodge in response to his horn, another drifted into sight from some shrubbery. Both were armed, he noticed. He gave his name and showed credentials, but the house was phoned before he was admitted. Both men were like robots, expressionless, but watchful, suspicious as watchdogs. They wore a compromise between livery and uniform, with shoulder belts and heavy automatics in open holsters. They seemed plain evidence that Willoughby was taking threats seriously, even at Fairtrees. One of them rode up with Manning to the house in the latter’s car.

  He noticed other men who seemed comparatively idle as they drove through the grounds. These looked like keepers rather than gardeners in their general attitude. There was no pretense of anything like landscape gardening in the grounds, but the shrubberies and the trees were in magnificent condition. While there were no vistas, everything was given maximum space.

  Manning looked with surprise and admiration on the house. It was built entirely of logs, but it had been designed by some notable architect. It had dignity. It looked like some forest fortress of a powerful Fur Company’s factor in far western wilds. It fitted its surroundings. Trees grew above it on all sides and cast their shadows over lawns like green velvet carpets, fringed with rhododendron, azalea, laurel and semi-tropical canna and croton. Perfection everywhere. Arboriculture, rather than forestry, was practiced at Fairtrees.

  A butler received Manning in the hall, a second man close beside him. They were respectful enough, but plainly vigilant. Manning suspected that both of them were armed. They looked more like the type of guards in a penitentiary than men trained in social service.

  The great door of oak and wrought iron reinforcements could hardly have been pierced by machine gun bullets. Fairtrees, Manning fancied, could withstand any ordinary siege, might even have been built with that possibility in mind.

  There was a subtle air of preparedness about the whole place. A slightly sinister atmosphere. There were no indoor plants. The walls were hung with great heads and antlers, and with weapons. Manning noticed that, amid the savage spears and clubs and bows, there were modern sporting rifles. If these were kept oiled and loaded there was a very efficient armament ready to hand.

  He was ushered up the great stairway, where a third man awaited him on the landing and walked ahead to the door he held open.

  “Mr. Willoughby’s secretary, Mr. Everest Mills, will be with you, in a moment, sir,” said this third man as he bowed. His accents were crisp, deferential enough, but rough. The butler had remained in the hall downstairs with the second man.

  The library was a splendid room with a great stone fireplace, carved and hooded. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, save for some paneled spaces where fine paintings hung—all of them of trees, mostly of the Barbizon school.

  Everest Mills was sedate, precise and poised, a man of about forty, keen green-hazel eyes, sharp nose, and thin lips. A tall man who moved silently. Without question clever. Manning placed him as one who would serve well, even brilliantly, but might betray a trust. That would not matter to Willoughby, who demanded efficiency and trusted nobody.

  Mills greeted Manning gravely. His well kept hands were cold.

  “Misfortune has happened,” he said, without preamble. “I doubt whether you could have averted it. I trust you can solve the mystery. But Mr. Willoughby has disappeared. Nothing has been seen of him since shortly after three o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

  “Since yesterday?” Manning exclaimed. “You have not reported it. I have called New York twice on my way down.”

  “To have given out the news might have precipitated a catastrophe,” said the secretary. “I am sure that Mr. Willoughby would—as I hope he yet will—approve. News of his disappearance will instantly create tremendous publicity. There will be a great depression on the market of all stocks connected with Willoughby interests. And, as you know, the market is in no condition these days for such startling news. There will be something of a panic. Many investors will lose a lot of money placed because of their confidence in Mr. Willoughby. Some of the mills may have to close down. I do not know all of Mr. Willoughby’s affairs. No one did but himself. But I know enough to state that the situation is very serious.”

  Manning agreed silently. He could visualize headlines. TOOL TRUST TOPPLES AS WILLOUGHBY VANISHES MYSTERIOUSLY. He could foresee the rush of newspapermen.

  “You are sure he did not leave of his own accord?” he asked. The secretary shrugged his shoulders.

  “His clothes are all here except the suit he wore yesterday, the same as he usually does at Fairtrees. A golfing suit of rough tweed, without a hat. I doubt if he had any money with him. There was a merger pending, important matters for which I had prepared papers, he was to go over last night, before telephoning to Detroit. Ever since he received the last threatening letters, the high voltage has been turned on the fence, night and day. He did not pass through any of the three gates. They are kept locked and all have gatekeepers. Extra keepers were brought here last week from the Minneapolis plant. There was no reason for his leaving.”

  “How do you manage to place the time so exactly?” asked Manning.

  “Mr. Willoughby always strolled about the estate after luncheon when the weather was fine. He sometimes stayed late. I was not alarmed when he was late for dinner. At nine o’clock I was, and I started an investigation. I found that one man, a tree surgeon named Bailey, had seen and spoken with him close to three o’clock. The man placed the time by the shadow on a tree. He is an expert woodsman and the sun is his clock. He just happened to notice the shadow after Mr. Willoughby left him and walked down along the brook.”

  “Nobody else see him?”

  “Not after he left the house. Bailey was working on a big swamp maple on the bank of Crystal Brook. It was a tree Mr. Willoughby had a strong sentiment for. He has told me how he used to climb into it when he was a poor boy and dream about the career he afterwards accomplished. He does not believe in tree surgery as a rule. A sick tree breeds and distributes decay. It is better felled. But he wanted to preserve this maple, so he sent for Bailey and was very pleased with his work. Bailey states that he had finished and that Mr. Willoughby congratulated him.”

  “Bailey still here?” asked Manning.

  “Yes. He wanted to leave yesterday, before I questioned him. He asked for his check but it was not ready. I did not make the contract with him and I was not sure
of the amount. Besides, Mr. Willoughby would have had to sign the check, and would also, I felt sure, want to see him before he left. There were no good train connections for him. So he is still here. By now he knows what has happened, of course. He has been living in the servants’ bungalow.”

  “What else did you do?” Manning inquired.

  “I organized a searching party. The estate is far from level in places, the woods are dense. A man might slip, might sprain or even break an ankle. There are over fifteen hundred acres in all. Crystal Brook is deep in places. Land might have caved in on the bank. We searched all night and kept it up until noon. Some men are still out. But we have found no trace of him, dead or alive.”

  “No signs of intruders?”

  “None. They could not have got in, any more than Mr. Willoughby himself could have gone out, without being checked.”

  “Any trouble with employees?”

  “None. Mr. Willoughby was stern, but he was just. There was no motive for anything of that sort.”

  “Any important legacies to employees?”

  Mills drew himself up.

  “I do not know the contents of Mr. Willoughby’s will, if he has made one,” he said stiffly. “You will have to consult his attorneys. It was not a matter he discussed with me.”

  “How about local hostilities, outside the estate?” probed Manning. He showed no sign of it, but he believed that Everest Mills was pretty certain how he stood in the disposition of Willoughby’s post mortem affairs; that he had lied. The attorneys might refuse to consider mere disappearance as an ethical reason for a statement.

  III

  “When Mr. Willoughby bought up the various holdings in the village of Stone Bridge,” Mills went on, “most of the owners were willing to sell, and he was liberal with them. The houses were demolished and the little farms and small acreages and plots merged in the present estate. The last man to come to any terms was a saddler named Friel. His place was mortgaged, and finally Mr. Willoughby bought the mortgage from the bank and foreclosed, but gave Friel a bonus. Friel was a surly, drinking type, and he made threats at the time because he was dispossessed.