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

by J. Allan Dunn

  II

  THE curving walls of the Griffin’s chamber were of steel. So were the floor and the ceiling. It was soundproof, fireproof, bulletproof. The walls were covered with golden tapestries; the floor with rare rugs. The great desk where the Griffin sat in contemplation and in judgment, where he cast the horoscopes that his weird fantasy connected with his selection of victims, was elaborately carved.

  On it stood a brazen disk, suspended between two standards of bronze, each tipped with a small statuette of a griffin. The lid of his inkstand was of the same design. A paperweight was a griffin cast in gold upon black onyx that held crimson streaks, like blood. A creature that could fly and swoop, run and leap, rend and tear with beak and talons, ruthless, infinitely malicious. That was the symbol of the Griffin.

  Noiselessly, an arc of the wall slid aside and a grotesque figure, bizarre, like some dwarfed, distorted butt of a medieval court, stepped into the empty room from an elevator that immediately descended again as the door vanished.

  This was Quantro, the bodyguard of the Griffin, looking like a fiend’s familiar. He came from Haiti, the land of voodoo, and it seemed as if its bestial customs surged through his veins. A high turban surmounted his grotesque head, too long, too narrow, too close between the mischievous eyes, red-rimmed, that looked like the eyes of a chimpanzee, furtive, not quite human. His hands could scratch his knees without his stooping his enormous shoulders. His costume was fantastic, vivid in its velvet and brocade contrasts.

  There was a long knife thrust into his sash. His fingers itched constantly for the feel of its hilt; he ached for the sensation of the sharp steel sinking home. He was a deaf mute and his perceptions were limited. He was the Griffin’s dog, but at times he was a moody one, sulky or merely curious. His strength was prodigious.

  Now, with a duster of ostrich plumes he removed imaginary dust from the furnishings. The chamber was dustless in its own construction, but the Griffin sometimes gave audiences to strange and not altogether spotless characters; therefore the dwarf performed his perfunctory and meticulous task, his eyes rolling in their yellowish, blood-flecked whites.

  He tested, as he had scores of times, the locked drawers, fruitlessly. Then, swayed by an irresistible impulse that, for once, broke down his fear, he pointed his finger at the brazen disk, his red tongue thrust between his blubbery lips. He was like an overgrown child stealing jam as his finger gradually approached the object he had been strictly forbidden to touch.

  Suddenly it gave out a low, deep sound, infinitely musical, penetrating, like the soft vibrations of a distant temple gong.

  Quantro shrank back, his dark skin turning the hue of cigar ashes, his eyeballs projecting. He looked like nothing so much as some masquerading ape that had inadvertently, ignorantly, touched a red hot stove. Yet he had not touched the disk. His soul, if he had one, shriveled within him.

  Again the elevator door showed, and the Griffin stepped into the chamber. His tall figure was clad in a voluminous robe of dull black velvet, the loose sleeves lined with vivid scarlet His face was masked with a close clinging domino of yellow, shining fabric, like goldbeater’s skin. Through it his beaklike nose projected, his cheekbones and outstanding jaw showed as if through some outer, leprous skin. His eyes glittered like balls of jet, reflecting lurid flame.

  He did not speak, since Quantro could not hear, knew no language beyond that of a limited system of signs. The Griffin had no mind to lessen his ignorance. He stood there until the wretched dwarf slowly turned his head on his neck, owlishly, like an automaton.

  The Griffin pointed, inexorably. His eyes flashed fire. The eyes of a madman, beyond question, but a madman whose brain tissues were inflamed, but functioned. He exuded evil. He entertained the persistent idea of some real or imaginary wrong that had set him against all that was worthy, all that was beneficial. His was the mind of Lucifer, cast out of heaven, powerful for sin.

  Quantro understood. He gibbered, and then, in hypnosis, he moved forward with extended, faltering finger that at last touched the disk. It gave out a hideous clamor that might have been the barking of Cerberus, that blended with the brutish howl of Quantro as he rolled in anguish on the floor, half numb, his coördination severed, while the agony of the shock he had sustained seemed to flood his veins and arteries with searing acid.

  He rolled into a corner while the Griffin took seat in the thronelike chair behind the desk, touched a secret button that opened a drawer and took out a scroll on which were written names. Some had been marked with a scarlet pencil. Now he checked off another with a low, indescribably malicious chuckle.

  The music swelled, died away. The brazen disk gave off more vibrations, melodious again. Quantro crept on all fours to his post behind the chair, submissive, whimpering.

  For the third time the lift ascended. A man stepped out of it who was dressed in an overall stained with smears of oil, with metallic filings that grimed his artistic hands. He looked with apathy at the strange surroundings, his face devoid of expression, unless it was that of utter hopelessness.

  He was a man without a name, a number, one of the Griffin’s clever slaves, bound by the Griffin’s knowledge of the other’s indebtedness to the law. With others who had been carefully selected for their skill, this one had thought to find a refuge and had realized only a stern and unrelenting drudgery, known by their tasks that they were participants in crimes far worse than they had committed, fettered faster than any links of steel could hold them.

  In his hand he carried a mechanical contrivance which he set down on the desk at the Griffin’s gesture and exhibited in action. The Griffin watched, nodded.

  “You have done well, Number Twenty-Nine,” he said in his deep voice, always baleful, toned with doom. The other showed no pleasure, no expectation of reward. But the Griffin opened another drawer and took from it a crisp currency bill for a hundred dollars. “I am not ungrateful for good workmanship,” he continued with the tinge of mockery that was always in his lightest utterance. “Send this to your family. You may write them. Naturally you will attempt to give no information, though there is none you could extend that would be of any value to those who—who do not appreciate my activities. Give the letter to Quantro, who will attend to it. That is all. You may leave the model. Go.”

  Twenty-Nine left, his misery relieved, not so much by appreciation of the gift from the man who held him in thrall, owned him, body and spirit, beyond all ransom, as thankful in the knowledge of what the money would do for the family he had renounced.

  The Griffin gazed after him sardonically, anticipating the eagerness of those relatives, of wife and children, changed to bitterness as they read the barren lines, charged with blank despair, the money, precious enough, cast aside like the fairy gold that turns to withered leaves.

  “I think,” said the Griffin aloud, softly, purringly, “that we can now get in touch with our friend Manning.”

  III

  MANNING came out from the showers in the down town gymnasium where he kept himself in training, his lean body glowing from the brisk rub down with a rough towel after his game of handball. The lithe muscles played beneath the smooth, tanned skin, showing a little too prominently. He was too gaunt, body and face.

  The grizzled trainer, owner of the place, regarded his favorite client with affectionate anxiety. Manning had started out to fight the Griffin under cover, but the Griffin had himself exploded that in a congratulatory letter to Manning the day after his appointment. Publicity could not be avoided. The trainer surmised the strain, the danger Manning incurred, and he feared he was in danger of going stale.

  “You’re wanted on the telephone, Mr. Manning,” he said. “Take it in the booth. Better put this over you.”

  He draped a big towel over Manning’s shoulders as the latter stepped toward the booth. Already Manning felt the premonitory vibrations that warned him of a message from the Griffin. He had never received one here before, but he knew too well that the Griffin kept himself well inform
ed of Manning’s whereabouts.

  For a split second he hesitated before he took down the receiver. He knew what he would hear—the confident announcement of another murder, another prominent and useful citizen to be sacrificed to the death-lust of the madman. A wave of weariness and depression submerged his soul; he fought through it. There had been so many failures, so many almost victories. He had caught and destroyed the Griffin’s agents, but none had ever given the slightest clew to where they might find the Griffin’s lair. This time, surely, he would succeed. The very laws of nature could not justify the continued triumphs of this malignant destroyer of civilization and progress.

  The Griffin’s deeds palsied the city, alarmed the nation, broke down the machinery of justice, threatened finance, encouraged crooks, and advanced the reign of terror that seemed to threaten the greatest city in the world.

  Manning heard music, the strains that always came to him when the Griffin spoke through the telephone. He fancied he could hear the strum of barbaric drums, the blare of strident trumpets, the clash of cymbals and the high wail of strange, stringed instruments. It might have been the celebration of some savage Tartar raid, prefacing horrible orgies. It made his flesh creep.

  Then came the devilish chuckle of the Griffin before his deep voice followed:

  “I fancied I should find you here, Manning. I have found the intimate study of the habits of those in whom I am interested a great source of success. I understand you are looking a bit drawn. I trust you are not allowing your misfortunes in our Game to weigh upon you. I rely upon you to be always at your best.”

  The music had died away. Manning did not answer. There was no use. He wanted to know, to strive once more to get to grips with this insane assassin.

  “You know my hatred of hypocrisy, Manning, how I despise those blatant prigs who fancy themselves demi-gods, philanthropists. So, I have decided to eliminate a man who boasts that he conducts a forum where the truth is told and the cause of the downthrodden championed. Bah!

  “You should know his name without my telling you. John Fremont, head of the chain of sheets he calls newspapers. We will give them something worthwhile publishing, the demise of the owner and dictator of the contemptible rags.”

  Manning’s eyes narrowed, his jaws clamped down.

  John Fremont, whose publications from coast to coast fearlessly published news that was clean, exposed all graft, defied all who tried, by threat or deed, to silence them. Fremont, the man who stood for true American citizenship.

  “You have pad and pencil?” the mocking voice went on. “Or perhaps you will not need it. The date is Thursday, which is the thirtieth and the last day of the month. This is Monday, which gives you ample time, my dear Manning, to make those elaborate precautions of yours that have, hitherto, not proved eminently successful.

  “I shall not tell you any exact hour. Some time between midnight on Wednesday and the same hour on Thursday. This provides the element of suspense and adds interest which I hope you will appreciate as I do. Considering Fremont’s position in the Fourth Estate, there will be no question about adequate publicity—for both of us, Manning, both of us.”

  Then there was nothing but the mocking laugh, once more the faint music and, Manning could have sworn, the scent of burning amber in his nostrils. He had known that perfume often in his Oriental travel. He could not be mistaken.

  His face was haggard when he emerged from the booth. To the hovering trainer he looked years older.

  “You’re not ill, Mr. Manning? Nothing I can get you? No bad news, I hope. I’ve got a bottle of good Scotch.”

  Manning summoned a smile, knew that he was only grinning in somewhat ghastly fashion. He was not an abstainer, and he felt he needed a drink.

  “News I hope to turn to good account, Mac,” he said. “Not altogether unexpected, not altogether pleasant. I could stand a drink. Thanks.”

  In his mind’s eye he could see the flaring headlines announcing the death of Fremont, latest victim of the Griffin, the news that Gordon Manning had once more been worsted. It was not so much the personal element that affected him, though he would feel the blame of that, for the whole of the resources of the regular police force had failed ignominiously, time and again, before he had been called in. No, it was the dread of a failure that would take off a brilliant, honorable man whose stand and whose force did much to restore and maintain public confidence in the belief, none too vigorous these days, that the right must prevail.

  Fifteen minutes later Manning was weaving through traffic uptown in his powerful roadster. He was an expert at the wheel. He did not waste time in telephoning, knowing Fremont was a hard man to get access to, with a corps of secretaries who warded off any but definite appointments.

  His card and his personality broke through the outer guard at the offices of the Clarion. The man he finally met was eminently competent, as were all those close to the big newspaper publisher. His glance at Manning’s face was comprehending.

  “It is something important?”

  “Vital.”

  Manning’s grim emphasis brought a corresponding gravity to the features of the secretary.

  “Mr. Fremont is not very well. It is not serious, a bad cold from which he is recovering. The doctor persuaded him to stay at home for a few days. He is at his country place on Long Island.”

  “I shall go there immediately,” said Manning. “I want to see him personally. It is not a matter to be discussed otherwise, at present.”

  Manning was entirely himself again. The responsibility stiffened him, invigorated him, stimulated his keen wits. He was once again the stern, efficient, uncompromising officer of Secret Service, reckoning odds, but facing them.

  The other nodded.

  “I will give you a pass,” he said. “We are obliged to constantly protect Mr. Fremont from cranks and more dangerous enemies, especially since his signed editorials on Communism. I take it this may be an even greater peril?”

  “It may be,” said Manning, tersely.

  “You could not get through without the pass and my telephoning ahead,” the secretary went on. “We must establish your identity there. We consider him efficiently guarded. We have taken every precaution.”

  “I am sure of it,” said Manning, a little wearily. He was also sure that the Griffin knew all about the guarding of Fremont, at home and abroad, very likely knew all about his indisposition though there had been no news of it.

  He unfastened the links of his right-hand cuff, rolled up his sleeve, and revealed a tattooed star in red and blue. There was a well healed scar in the middle of it, not readily visible.

  “You might fake the tattooing,” he said, “but not the scar. A bullet went through it once. Tell them to look for it if any one giving the name of Manning, looking like me, dressed like me, talking like me, driving a similar car, claims my identity.”

  IV

  THERE was no question as to the efficiency of the protective methods employed at Quiet Acres, Long Island, John Fremont’s country home. The name of the estate seemed to have been bestowed upon it in a hope that had not been entirely fulfilled. There had been sabotage in the press-rooms of the chain of papers from time to time, and threats had been made against Fremont himself, so that he had been forced, much against his will, to employ bodyguards.

  This had been exploited in his columns, occasionally, decrying the conditions that obliged a citizen who was upholding law and order to hire men to protect himself.

  Aside from his anti-Communistic editorials, Fremont, of late, had been insistent that the Federal Government condemn the manufacture and sale of weapons, save under the most rigid regulations. This stand had brought threats of reprisal from the racketeers.

  Much of this Manning recalled, more or less thoroughly, as he drove to Quiet Acres. Fremont might be dubbed an altruist, but he was honest and he was on the right track. It was no wonder that he should have enemies in high places, as well as low, who sought to destroy his efforts by his eliminat
ion. And now a far subtler foe attacked. There was a high fence of woven wire about the entire estate, surmounted by angled strands of barbed wire. In addition, this was charged with a powerful current nightly, only one of many precautions that Manning was to be shown.

  Back of the fence there grew a luxuriant and well-trimmed hedge, so that the wire was not visible from the house, a stately Colonial mansion in excellent preservation, partly restored. Its portico was columned and, seen from the main gate beyond the wide stretch of perfect lawn, shaded by magnificent trees under which was shrubbery with occasional flower beds, the place had a quiet dignity that matched the name Quiet Acres. It seemed an ideal spot for a man who was a thinker, as well as, perhaps, a dreamer, to retire for rest and recreation, or to use for the working out of his problems.

  But it was in reality strongly fortified. There was a massive gate, of wrought iron set between posts of granite, with a small lodge just inside, designed to conform with the main building. The driveway curved in a wide sweep with one diverging road to the rear, to the garage, the greenhouses and kitchen offices. This was the only entrance.

  Manning brought his car to a halt, seeing the gates closed. A man in quiet livery came out and spoke through the gate. Manning saw another lounging in the open door of the lodge, caught sight of others at its windows, half concealed by curtains and window boxes. Unless he was mistaken, he observed also the muzzle of a gun, screened by the flowering plants.

  He gave his name and the information that his arrival had been telephoned ahead by Wentworth, Fremont’s secretary. The man was polite.

  “A Mr. Manning was expected,” he said. “Could he identify himself?”

  The man in the doorway gave an order and the gates opened, evidently controlled by a lever within the lodge. Twenty yards up the drive, a chain was swung across it. Manning was invited to drive in, slowly. The guard came from the doorway and looked at the scar in the tattoo mark carefully.