The commissioner flushed slightly.
“I did,” he answered. “And the Griffin is still getting hospital treatment in the insane ward. Why?”
“This case has some of the earmarks of the Griffin’s modus operandi. Bizarre and ingenious…. Though The Griffin was sporting enough to announce the date of his crimes. I trust he never makes a break from Dannemora, for all our sakes. By the way, it would be wisest, I think, not to give out anything about meteorites, either in connection with my statement or anything Hogan may find.”
“It’ll be hard to keep it from the news sharks,” growled the commissioner. “They smell out such things. And we’ve got between three and four hundred police at headquarters who are clerks and operators. The place leaks like a sieve. I’ll do my piece. You’ve got a good reason for it.”
Manning nodded as he stood up to leave.
“Quite a good reason. I don’t want the chap warned that we have any kind of a clew at all. If you don’t mind taking another suggestion, don’t bully Bino too much. He might go juramentado.”
“Whatever that is.” It was clear that the commissioner believed the Filipino guilty.
“Mata glap, they call it in Java,” Manning said. “It is a curious state of the Malayan mind when they think they are being accused unjustly, or insulted. They run amok, or amuck, as some call it.”
“He’ll not run amuck where we’ve got him.”
“He may have the brainstorm, just the same. I’d like to see him first.”
It leaked, as Manning knew it would, as important news leaks from headquarters on all occasions, despite discipline and the fine morale of the majority of the force.
An exultant press and avid public got vicarious thrills out of the theories and suggestions put forward by the ingenious writers.
Gordon Manning, the capturer of the Griffin, had been called in. And reporters made trips to Dannemora to make certain that maniac was still behind bars. The star men put out their best efforts. The worst one was a suggestion that the shot might have been fired from a passing airplane. It took the over-credulous to support the idea.
But—the body had been found gazing into the firmament.
He was a delver into the laws of the infinite.
The missile came from space. Manning’s statement was confirmed by experts on meteorology. It was a bolt of Jove sped with terrible accuracy that had sped the cosmic projectile to still the brain of the man who had presumed to probe the secrets of the universe.
It was as if indignant gods had rebuked him, destroyed this too daring mortal.
Meteorites, it was pointed out, could fall by day and might well travel unnoticed, not flaming spheroids that showed plainly after dark.
Such things were eerie, gripping the imagination of both the superstitious and the stolid.
A famous meteorologist pointed out that these chondrules did not fall singly. That they were sprayed from the exploding mass like shrapnel bullets. No more had been found in the neighborhood. Twenty years before fourteen thousand had fallen at Holbrook, Arizona. He cited other instances. Reports and opinions came from England, from Germany, France, Holland and Japan. But they were not played up.
The theory of the avenging “Bullet from the Blue” was much too fascinating.
One thing did not break. Hogan kept his mouth shut. Manning got to the house before the find was made. A dozen similar pellets with other odds and ends of celestial origin. They were on a high shelf in a carved ceremonial bowl from African Congo, which was split with age, stained black by sacrificial blood. But the contents lay under dust and under spider webs closely woven, which themselves were filmed.
“Just like the house opposite,” said Hogan. “I was over there. If there was any one there, the dust gives him a perfect alibi. He must have floated.”
“There’s no such thing as a perfect alibi,” said Manning. “Or a perfect crime, though I wouldn’t wonder if the chap back of this imagines it one.”
“ ’Tis beyond me,” said Hogan. “Will I go on looking?”
“Carry on,” said Manning, “though I’m afraid you won’t find anything.” Nor did he.
Nor did Manning find anything in the house across the way—but dust.
It had been trodden in by the sturdy feet of exploring detectives, but even they had early seen the folly of trampling all over a house that eminently proclaimed its long desertion. Manning saw their blurred footprints on the stairs and the planking of the rooms. He confined his own search largely to the floor that was on the level with the terrace, and to the stairways, aside from a trip to the basement.
The fine dust made him sneeze, as it must have the police. They had gone to the windows, by their tracks, and looked out through the dirty panes to where the murdered man had sat. Manning was willing enough to take the commissioner’s word, backed by that of the sharp observer, Hogan, that there had been only the filmed floors when they searched; that the tracks now there were of the police.
Manning tried the front windows. Both were locked and the catches were gray with the silt of old houses, the silt of the street, that had sifted in. The right-hand window slid up easily and he looked across the narrow way, trying to reëstablish what might have happened. It was uncanny. One writer had brought in a harrowing touch, in his search for something different; and suggested a spook, that used a phantom weapon and a bullet from another world.
Did a ghost kill Morton Hyde? had been the heading to his contribution.
Manning had seen many strange things in the far places, things that seemed to insist upon a supernatural origin. He believed in psychic affairs but, when it came to criminal investigation, he insisted upon physical foundations.
If the meteorite had been discharged from this house, as seemed certain, the killer must have left traces, though they might be as impalpable as the dust that rose about Manning as he left the place.
There was still Bino. Lately, there had been several killings by Oriental servants of their white employers. There was a prejudice against them that boded Bino little good. The average jury would believe that he would murder for far less than the sum he would inherit. The evidence might not send him to the chair, but the motive would go far in the hands of a clever prosecutor. It would mean penal servitude. And an out for the police.
III
He found the Filipino despondent in his cell, broken down, miserable, and weak. He had no visible marks upon him, but Manning imagined that he might have been introduced to the “goldfish”; made to sit under a terrific light, thirsty and sleepless, while dicks questioned him. That sort of thing might go for a Manhattan gangster. It would not answer with Bino.
Manning spoke to him first in Tagalog and got only a wild stare. Then in Bisayan, and Bino, haggard and glaring, gave a hectic greeting. Manning had him out of his cell, gave him cigarettes and told him he was his friend, showed him he knew his country, his own district; spoke of men Bino knew and respected.
“Why do they keep me here?” he demanded. “I have done no wrong. I would have given my life for the tuan. Once he saved mine. I am a son of Islam, I am not a lying dog. I have made the trip to Mecca, I am hajj’. I have kissed the Black Stone and I have seven times circled the Kaabah. Tuan, I swear to you, by the beard of the Prophet, by my hope of Paradise, that I have done nothing but my duty. Bring me a copy of the Koran and I will swear upon it. But these infidels think that a follower of Muhammad is an outcast. They laugh at me when I perform my devotions. They offer me beans, with pork. To me, who may wear the green turban.”
Manning soothed him as best he could. He promised him that he should be placed where he would not be ridiculed, where, when he praised Allah four times a day, he should be given a chance to observe his rites. Also he said he would arrange that suitable food should be brought in. He had the authority and they were willing enough in the Tombs to cater to the conqueror of the Griffin.
Bino had been kept without news. He could read a little English, but he had not been give
n the papers. He had been urged to confess that, in some way, he had fired a stone into his tuan’s brain, and he was bewildered. Manning’s visit saved his sanity and aroused his gratitude. He remembered Manning as having once been a guest of Hyde’s and did not connect him with the police, but accepted him as a protector.
“How well do you remember the men who came to your tuan’s house?” asked Manning.
“I should know them all,” said Bino. There might be a means here, Manning thought. A long way round, unless some shortcut showed. He did not press the matter. He explained to Bino about the stone that had killed Hyde and saw the Filipino’s face go suddenly blank, his dark eyes lose their luster. The commissioner had sworn that Bino was holding out information. It looked like it.
“There were more of these sky-stones in the carved bowl on the top shelf, Bino,” said Manning. “But the bowl has not been touched for a long, long time. Many people think those stones are magic. Did the tuan ever give you one?”
Minutes passed and Bino stayed remote. Manning knew he could not be forced. At last the Filipino spoke.
“There were three prophets to whom God revealed himself,” he said. “To Moses he gave the Taurat, which is the Law. To Jesus the Injil, which is the Gospel. To Muhammad the Qu’ran (Koran). Muhammad is the seal, and the Last of the Prophets. There is no God but God, and He is Allah, the Just and Merciful! I speak under the Seal of Muhammad. What I speak is truth, but, unless you swear to me, by Taurat, by Injil and the Qu’ran, that you will keep it secret, I shall be dumb, as if they tore out my tongue.”
He meant it. He had made the hajj’, the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was assured of Paradise if he did not forswear sacred vows. It was not a matter to be explained or considered in an American courtroom, any more than the admission of medical science as opposed to common law.
But Manning had a free hand. He felt that here was a vital clew. He took the triple oath.
“I had one of the sky-stones,” said Bino. “The tuan gave it to me long ago as a luck charm. They are star-dust. Aguinaldo had one, or he would not now be alive. And I lost it. There is an Arab in this city who is a cunning workman in gold and silver, and he made me an open cage of silver for it, so it would hang from my watch chain, as an amulet. But I lost it and, with the loss, came ill fortune to me—worse to my tuan.”
“Know when you lost it?” asked Manning.
“It was at a dinner that the tuan gave. There were five there, three women and two men, beside the tuan. That night he made a salmi….”
“Go on,” said Manning. The more details Bino remembered, the better. It looked like a definite clew. It might not go far but it would serve, it might be a bit of a jigsaw puzzle that he could solve, putting it together and suddenly sensing the whole in a flash of inspiration, as he had suddenly lit upon the solution to wartime secret ciphers, after weeks of patient work. “Did you show anyone the sky-stone that night?”
“My tuan noticed it. It was the first time I had worn it. They all looked at it and I told them about Aguinaldo. They smiled. I did not miss it until I went to bed. It had been wrenched loose. It might have caught in a chair. I searched everywhere, but I could not find it. I feared it had fallen while I was cleaning up, fallen into the rubbish and gone into the incinerator. The tuan wished to give me another, but I explained that one may not bring back luck that way. I did not suspect any of the honorable guests of finding it, and keeping it.”
“Can you remember those guests ?”
“By sight, yes. By name, no. Perhaps one or two. One was bald, I think, but I am not sure. Tuan, I have not eaten, I have not slept. It is hard to think.”
“You try, Bino. Sleep first. Eat, perform your devotions. Rest. Remember I am your friend. Salaam aleikum!”
He left the Tombs tingling inwardly. If Bino could remember…. A long, long way from proof, from conviction. But, like a hunting dog, Manning faintly winded the early scent. He was a thoroughbred; he would not turn aside for lesser game. If only the scent lasted!
Meantime, he borrowed the use of the Department’s fluoroscope and made an interesting discovery that set his eyes glowing with an inner fire. The quarry was not yet in sight, but he knew he had picked up the trail.
He drove home in his powerful roadster to his own house at Pelham Manor, and was greeted by his Japanese servants.
There was mail awaiting him. He reserved one envelope, addressed in unfamiliar writing, to the last. Ito, his butler, had brought him a highball, he was slippered, his pipe drew well and his dog was at his feet. Manning chuckled as he read. It was like old times—with the Griffin. He had told himself he needed a long vacation from the wear of that affair, but now the zest of the chase rose within him.
The epistle was written on a sheet of thick paper of the type known as vellum finish, without a watermark, easy to procure at any drugstore. The envelope was of the same material, mailed at the Grand Central Station post office during the morning rush hours marked 8:45. The ink seemed ordinary writing fluid. The writing was characteristic, distinct and scholarly. The letter had none of the Griffin’s arrogant showing of gray paper and purple ink, of scarlet seal and griffin’s head for signature. This was unsigned. Yet it was somewhat patterned on the Griffin’s methods.
Dear Manning:
It is an honor to have you assigned to the affair of the Bullet from the Blue, as the papers so euphoniously describe it. If it had not been for you, I doubt whether they would ever have known the bullet was a meteorite. You must make the most of it. I really had nothing against Hyde. He was a man of parts, though he was ridiculous in his efforts to bring cosmos out of chaos by mathematical calculus.
The sky-stone seemed an apt vehicle for the demise of a man who prided himself upon his knowledge of the Universe. He realizes his ignorance now. I could have used something else, but this fitted in and it is a hobby of mine to produce a crime at once original and perfect. It is the process, I enjoy, the resultant exultation, far more than the demolition of the individual. He is only the end to my means, if you will pardon the paraphrase.
I think you will find this case a little hard for even you, the demolisher of the Griffin, to solve. I am willing to pit my liberty, perhaps my life, against your ability and undoubted reputation.
It may interest you to know that I am working on another problem. These things suggest themselves. But I shall not, like the Griffin, give out warning. He is now in Dannemora because he was too generous.
Some day I may devise a perfect crime in which you, my dear Manning, will be the principal. I consider you a worthy subject.
For a few moments Manning considered the calligraphy. In one respect, the writer had divulged identity. He had called the meteorite a sky-stone. That was a phrase he must have heard at Hyde’s own house. A phrase general to Tagalogs, Moros, Bisayans, but not elsewhere outside the Philippines. A phrase Bino had used.
It was another spoormark on the trail. It seemed as if the killer must have been at the dinner when Bino lost his talisman.
Still a long way to go. A long, long way. But Manning began to see a dim horizon, a vague dawn. There was still dust in his eyes.
He opened a steel file and took out the “Lee and Abbey” chart for calligraphic tests. The writing of the unknown, but acknowledged killer, fell into Class Three.
It displayed skill. The small letters were apt to be disconnected, as in Greek script. The shadings were fairly heavy. There was some embellishment indicating vanity. The movement was forearm and showed vigor, speed, freedom and originality of purpose. The terminal strokes inclined downwards, and the general degree of slant was over eighty degrees. It was the writing of an educated man, a monomaniac and something of a sadist, undoubtedly; but a clever villain.
He tested it for finger-prints and found none. Most likely the writer had used collodioned fingers.
“You are clever, my friend,” thought Manning, as he ran his fingers through the rough hide of his dog, “but you are not so clever as the Griffin. You
may be dangerous. I rather hope you are. But, with all your cleverness, you give me some ideas and a few definite clews. I rather think you’ll eat dirt instead of the commissioner, and there may be lime in it. It depends, a bit, on Bino’s memory.
IV
“The man,” said Manning to the Commissioner of Police, “is a monomaniac. His mania may be concentrated on the development of a perfect crime, but I would not be surprised if the core of it was envy. Jealousy of Hyde, for instance. The peculiarity of his type—a cultured one, mark you, very likely inbred and mentally perverted—is, that, having committed one perfect crime, or one he thinks is perfect, he will proceed to others.
“I have a literary friend who prowls New York, looking for situations that may stimulate his imagination for the mystery stories he develops. He gazes out of the windows of elevated trains, seeking combinations of buildings, of gardens, of ways of entry and escape that suggest what he emits, harmlessly, in a yarn. He studies unusual people. I have an idea it may be much the same with the man who killed Hyde. I don’t know now what his motive was, for certain, but I know he was not sane. He is like the jungle tiger who eventually kills human meat and becomes a man-eater. In the letter to me, he shows his quirk. Dislike of Hyde, ordinarily smothered by polite conventions and breedings, may have let loose his murderous idiosyncrasy. Once released, you cannot determine its limits. Aside from this crime, he is a menace to society. We’ll run him down.”
The commissioner regarded a list of five names that Manning had given him. The list of the people dining with Hyde on the night Bino had lost his sky-stone.
“It looks to me as if you are facing a stone wall,” he said. “These people are all responsible people. We’ll have to prove this thing. I don’t want to discount your record, but it looks to me as if Bino handed you something.”
“I think he did,” Manning agreed. “The East is East, and West is West, but sometimes the twain do meet, Commissioner. Christianity and Islam have points of similarity.”
“What has religion got to do with this case?” growled the commissioner.
Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 Page 12
