The Crime Master: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 1 (Gordon Manning and The Griffin)

by J. Allan Dunn

  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.

  Manning came on deck, not limping now, ready for action. He did not know what had happened, but he knew that the Griffin was some how in it, was striking or about to strike.

  He read the letters, listened. The enormity of it was staggering. Had the Griffin gone raving, stark mad beyond control? It looked like it.

  “My God,” cried some one, “we’ve only got five minutes more!”

  V

  MANNING glanced about him, at the excited groups of people who were helpless under this menace. Some thronged, dumb with terror, whispering, white-lipped; others were wildly articulate, calling for the boats to be launched, the steamer set on a zigzag course. The name of the Griffin was known to all of them, with his frightful deeds.

  And Manning knew that, sick as he was, Brooks would sacrifice himself for these others. Knew also that any moment the frenzied passengers might drag him from his bed and have the sailors launch a boat or throw him into the sea.

  The plane was returning. The moments flying.

  He saw the faces of some of his guards, of Brooks’s own servant, the latter perhaps sent up to see what the racket was. Brooks’s window to his bedroom was open to give him air, he would have heard the racket—he might….

  Suddenly Manning broke away with a shout. He clubbed his way through those who tried to detain him, drawing his gun as he fought to where he could swing down to the next deck, close to Brooks’s suite.

  He saw a man there, by the open window, closing it. The other saw Manning’s descending, rushing figure and slammed the window down, thrusting his hand under his coat.

  Manning fired first. The man went down, shot through the throat, bright blood spurting to the deck, his weapon fallen from his nerveless hand. Manning smashed the window with the barrel of his own automatic. Through the glass he had seen Brooks, after one wild, convulsive leap, lie prone on the bed, his face horribly contorted. Through the broken pane he caugh
t a whiff of some sort of gas, frightfully pungent, virulent that seared his nostrils and his eyes. He ducked, running for the door that led to the corridor off which Brooks’s suite opened. He had not breathed in the vapor that he knew had killed Brooks, but he was dizzy with its fumes.

  The Griffin might have carried out his threat, but the action had been a clever ruse to draw all on deck while his man killed Brooks. Undoubtedly the Griffin had learned that Brooks was invariably seasick. It was the knowledge of such details of his victims’  habits that had made him succeed with his crimes. How he had learned Brooks was on board was another matter.

  Manning saw Brooks’s own man, faithful, returning to report, opening the door to the suite. He saw his own guards coming and he shouted to the valet not to open the door, to his own men to attend to the assassin he had shot. He held no doubt that Brooks was dead, the suite charged with deadly gas.

  The valet was either willful in his eagerness to reach his master—defend him—or did not hear. He opened the door, started to enter and immediately fell, like a moth in a cyanide jar. Manning yelled hoarsely:

  “Keep away from that door. Keep the passage clear. Gas.”

  A cheer came from the deck. The plane was leaving, circling high. It had sent down one more dart with a message, but it was going. They did not know yet what had happened, guess that the Griffin, from his height, had watched through lenses what had occurred on the lower deck. That a servant of his was dead was immaterial to him, so long as he had scored once more, so long as his boast had been made good—and Brooks was dead.

  A draught was blowing through from broken window to door, dissipating the fatal fumes. Inside Brooks and his valet lay contorted, their lungs shriveled. The actual killer sprawled in his own blood. He was free of the gas which had blown inward by the ocean breeze.

  Manning, gray and grim of face, went up on deck. Men questioned him but he did not answer. They would learn soon enough. He got through to the captain who handed him the last letter that had been flung.

  “It is addressed to you,” said the commander of the liner.

  It was clear to Manning that this letter, that the other notes, had been prepared beforehand in the Griffin’s certainty that his plans would not go awry.

  He read the letter that was his own humiliation—for it was scant comfort to him that he had shot the instrument of the Griffin. There, too, he had failed. It had been man to man in a death duel, but luck had forced him to shoot the other in the throat, to render him silent when he might have spoken, might have given a real clew to the Griffin’s identity or whereabouts. By the way his head hung Manning knew the man’s spine was broken, that he could not live long.

  Dear Manning:

  I do not know if you are alive or not. If not I trust the captain will give this letter to the press. It is too much to hope that you will.

  It was all very simple, Manning. You have amused me greatly. Brooks’s man, if he is living, will remember the hotel employee who entered his rooms at the hotel recently to make the usual inspection of electric lights. In Brooks’s suite he never used the overhead, indirect lighting. It was a simple matter to install a dictaphone in each one, to connect it with the suite above—which was rented by me. Amusing to hear you play into our hands.

  Then there was the matter of Brooks’s mal-de-mar. It all helped.

  As for the phantom plane, it is modeled after the one recently tried out by the British Government at Nottingham, England, made of the new material, plass, transparent and tough. It has demonstrated itself. There is no danger of our being overhauled, even if a fighting plane had been launched from the steamer. At a very short distance we are completely invisible.

  And the gas, tossed into Brooks’s suite by my agent while the deck was crowded to watch my performance, paralyzed at my threat—it was in a small, brittle globe of glass that breaks readily, but there was enough of it to kill a hundred. Super-gas—instant death to any one inhaling it. As much more deadly than phosgene as that was than lewisite. It is said that, though its secret is in the possession of all the great nations of the world, they would hesitate to use it because of its horrible, awful effects.

  I have no such silly scruples. Manning. You must have heard of it, you who were in the Secret Service of the war. It’s name is cacodyl isocyanide.

  Those three fools who were found stupefied refused to manufacture it for me, but their fate proved an object lesson to others, and the experiment was successfully completed.

  I rather hope you are alive, Manning, seeing you still furnish me amusement, so that you can see how readily I can carry out my threats and how childish are your endeavors to prevent the will of

  The Griffin.

  The Perfect Poison

  With a New Kind of Death the Griffin Strikes at a Man in the Top of a Closely Guarded Skyscraper

  THE Griffin sat alone in the circular room at the top of his house, a room with steel walls covered with golden brocade, walls that showed no signs of openings. There were no windows, but the air was pure, slightly scented with the fragrance of the incense that smoldered on the desk at which he sat, its smoke wafting in slight spirals to the ceiling.

  There was a sound of exotic music that seemed to give him some pleasure, though his air of satisfaction only enhanced the subtle malignancy of his finely featured face with its outbridging nose and the eyes, now narrowed, that held a cold gleam, incredibly cruel, lacking humanity, containing a well restrained madness.

  There was no question that the Griffin, whose name and murderous deeds held the greatest city in the world spellbound in fear, was insane. That crafty, ingenious brain of his was warped with the belief that he held a justified grudge against all the world, especially against its more illustrious citizens of his own country. It was the dementia of grandeur. Once it would have been held that he was possessed by a devil. Certainly at times it seemed as if twin evil spirits peered from those strange orbs of his and jeered mockingly at his successful wickedness.

  In front of him there was suspended a bronze disk. Some papers were held down by the paperweight that was a golden griffin, the mythical beast, half-bird, half-brute, a winged lion with an eagle’s head that was his chosen crest, that represented his feral rapacity, his lust for the destruction of worthy deeds and the annihilation of their performers.

  Under his well kept hand lay a horoscopic chart which he had been consulting, by which in his twisted methods, he chose his next victim. He had arrived at his decision, he had checked off on a list of names the next man to be eliminated, settled on the date of his taking off, the date that he would mockingly announce to the man who had been chosen by the baffled commissioner of police to mark down the Griffin, to balk his crimes, to compass his downfall and his punishment.

  Gordon Manning, once of the Secret Service of the Army, during the Great War, was this person, none better qualified for his task and yet a man who so far had failed in it, though he had come close to handgrips with the Griffin, so close that he had begun to upset the Griffin’s demoniacal self satisfaction.

  The Griffin chose to call the contest between himself and Manning a game, a sort of sublimated chess match in which, though he reserved the right of first move, he announced his openings. Now he chuckled slightly as he reviewed his almost perfected plans for the taking off of the man whose name he had checked, surveyed others that were marked with red, names of those he had sent into the shadows of the tomb. Then, for a moment, the fierce light in his eyes became a red flame. He spoke aloud in a low, deep voice, sure of his solitude and security.

  “There are times when you come close to not amusing me, Manning,” he said. “When you bore me, my friend, beware! I shall strike twice and you will wish that you were not reserved for the second stroke. There are things to a man like you, with foolish, human sentiment as the weak spot in your armor, that are worse than your own death, and I shall see to it, that that is not an easy nor a swift one.”

  His allusion referred to the woman Gordon
Manning loved, yet whose love he dared not seek lest she be marked down by the Griffin. Once already he had threatened her. It was an advantage he held over his relentless adversary. Lacking all emotion himself, serene as Satan, the Griffin guessed how this anxiety would corrode Manning’s steady nerve, already at high tension with his inability to rid the world of this monster.

  The red light died down to the cold gleam again. The bronze disk gave out a sonorous note. Swiftly the Griffin set away his papers in the deep drawers of the deeply carven desk, locked the receptacles by the touch of a hidden spring and adjusted the mask he always wore before those who served him. He had no confederates, only slaves, whose freedom, often whose lives, he held in the hollow of his hand.

  The mask was yellow, glistening. It clung to, yet concealed his features. It seemed as another skin, repulsive, horrible, but fascinating with the sheen of his sinister eyes looking out through that domino of death.

  II

  THE wall opened. An elevator had come noiselessly up from the cellars that the Griffin had made for his laboratory. Out of the lift stepped a curious figure, a dwarf whose misshapen body was clad fantastically in turban and robes that made him look as if he might have come straight from a medieval court. His long arms swung low, his hands reached his knees. His eyes shifted like an ape’s, his expression was that of a mischievous baboon, save when it rested upon his master, the Griffin.

  This was Quantro, native of the Caribbean, the land of voodoo and obeah; faithful and devoted bodyguard of the Griffin though he looked more like the familiar to a wizard. The Griffin himself wore a robe of black brocade which, with his weird mask, made him resemble some Old World necromancer, some conjurer of demons, a caster of unhallowed spells.

  One of Quantro’s hands rested upon the hilt of the long knife he was always keen to use in the service of the man who, to him, was God. He ushered in a figure in stained overalls that, like the man’s fingers, proclaimed him a worker in acids and chemicals. The man stooped, his scanty hair was white, he coughed apologetically as the elevator door disappeared and once more the walls looked seamless. He showed no curiosity, he had been summoned there before. There was dejection, hopelessness in his attitude, though he had a plea to put forth.