As for the Griffin, despite his phrases, Manning knew that his main grievance lay in the suggestion that he, the chosen of the gods, an immortal of a thousand reincarnations, should be compared, however remotely, with an ape. That, and the fact that he was insanely jealous of anyone, or anything connected with progressive achievement.
Harding had to be seen, and warned. Manning knew how his friend would take it, victor over scores of desperate risks against savage men and beasts, and the forces of nature. None the less, Manning believed that he could persuade Harding to let him take every precaution that would not insult Harding’s manhood.
He could not get a man like Bayard Harding to hide himself, to surrender his ordinary affairs. And the Griffin, when he killed, had penetrated even to the most modern of vaults and claimed his victim.
The clew was in that pawn the Griffin condescended to give his opponent, it lay in the “Analects of Lao Tsze.” Through some habit of Harding’s that might also be a habit of Manning’s, the fatal blow would materialize. And a man’s habits were legion.
There was the commissioner of police to be informed, but not the press. Time enough for criticism if the Griffin’s gambit won the game.
III
The Poison Is Tested
The Griffin, in his long robe of sable silk, embroidered with cabalistic symbols in gold, descended by the concealed elevator from his private chamber to the cellars where he had set up his laboratories.
His face was masked with the clinging stuff that looked like goldbeater’s skin, half screening, half revealing his saturnine features. He looked like a pharaoh risen from his sarcophagus.
Al, the legless, deaf and dumb freak, ambled after him, like a familiar spirit. He knew to what such a visit tended, the rudimentary soul in him delighted in the horrors he would witness.
As they left the chamber it was redolent of burned amber, of hasheesh-tinged tobacco, filled with faint strains of strange music.
A man in denim overalls, whose face was bloodless, like something that had grown in a dungeon, a man with the cranium of a genius, but whose eyes were dull with despair, was waiting for his master. He had no name, only a number stenciled on the overalls.
“I am conducting an experiment,” said the Griffin. “It is a dangerous one, Number Twenty-Four. I wish you to stand by, to use every effort to resuscitate any one who may be affected. You are to do your utmost. I wish you to gather your apparatus and your materials in readiness.”
The voice of Twenty-Four was hollow as an echo in a tomb.
“I must ask the nature of the experiment,” he said. “At least, what I must expect to combat.”
“Asphyxiation covers it, broadly. This will be the agent.”
The Griffin gave the ex-physician a slip of paper on which chemical symbols had been set down by another unnamed slave, once a famous chemist, whose disappearance had never been solved, though it was accounted for officially by the sudden death of his unfaithful mistress. The Griffin had offered him a haven.
Number Twenty-Four glanced at the paper.
“This is an intensely toxic, volatile and rapid poison, classed as protoplasmic,” he said. “Employed in this form, which should prove difficult, I doubt if the victim could be resuscitated.”
“Nevertheless, you will do your best,” the Griffin told him, his tones like sharp steel, rasping on sharp steel. “Your mention of poison and victim is untimely, Twenty-Four. I do not know that an accident may happen. If it should, tell me your treatment.”
“To wash out the stomach, using oxidizing agents, such as hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate, injections of methylene blue. The absorption of the poison will be terribly swift, however, and all antidotes may be ineffective.”
“Go on,” said the Griffin. His voice had softened now, but it was none the less suggestive. It suggested an inner chuckle. “What else?”
“Possibly hypodermic or intravenous injections of sodium thiosulphate. If I only knew how the poison would be administered….”
“Ah,” said the Griffin, rubbing his palms together, “that is my secret, entirely my own idea, Twenty-Four; as to how, in the course of the experiment, it might be administered. Try all these things. If you are successful you will be rewarded. I will see that you are able to communicate with your family. There will be a monetary consideration. Kindly hurry.”
Twenty-Four wondered wherein his success would lie. In resuscitation, or in failure. As for his reward, if he was given it, it would be like Dead Sea fruit, ashes in his mouth.
“I am in hell,” he muttered as he went back to his special cubicle, “and the Devil is my master.”
It was an hour later when he was again summoned, to find a man stretched upon the floor, naked, his body blotched red and purple. He showed no sign of life.
“Less than two minutes have passed,” said the Griffin. “Get busy.”
Half an hour later, haggard, wet with sweat, Number Twenty-Four gave his decision, not knowing how it would be received.
“There is no hope, there never was,” he announced. “In that form there is no chance of revival. The man is dead, has been dead since I came in. His blood is jellied in his veins, his lungs, and in his arteries. I tell you, he is dead. And he does not look like an experimental chemist to me. His fingers are spatulate, roughened, they are not even stained with acid….”
His voice rose, cracked, became hysterical.
The Griffin’s eyes surveyed him through the slits in his mask.
“Your personal comments were not asked,” he said. “I fear this exhibition forfeits your reward, Twenty-Four. Al, see that he goes back to his place.”
The Griffin spoke the words that Al could not hear but had learned to lip-read.
Twenty-Four shrank from this human gargoyle, skipping toward him, with his muscular arms for rope. He went out weeping and unnerved.
The Griffin looked at the dead man on the floor. A vigorous, but pleasant type, not long a serf in this inferno. Chosen by the Griffin, as a vivisectionist would select a rabbit or a monkey.
A crude person, promised sanctuary by an agent of the Monster. Now he had proved his utility.
“Excellent,” said the Griffin with a chuckle. “It could not be better. I promised you release if you proved worthy, Number Forty-One. You were worth more to me dead than alive, and you have your release from hunger, thirst, from all appetites of the flesh. A healthy moron, serving my purpose. For I seek to destroy the bodies of my enemies, to send them to the grave. For you, Forty-One, there is an empty space in my private cemetery. You will be fertilizer for the weeds.”
When the Griffin spoke of his private cemetery he was somewhat arrogant. The old, remote Colonial estate he had acquired possessed a graveyard, and a vault to hold the bones of the owners and those who served them faithfully.
Most of those bones had long since moldered into dust. The headstones leaned, the caskets yawned in the vault. And their vacancies were occasionally filled by the Griffin.
It was Number Seventeen, the chemist, who profited most by the Griffin’s latest experiment. The man’s soul had long ago been eaten out. To him remained his skill, and his delight in liquor, in well-spiced meals. Such matters were denied him save at rare intervals. This was one of them.
He was served food that warmed his stomach, liquor that flamed in his brain. For him, it was nepenthe. He had no doubt of the sinister intent of the Griffin. He even admired the madness that had suggested a method unknown to crime. Always a cynic, Seventeen came closest to understanding and appreciating the Griffin.
Seventeen had long ago bartered his soul. He doubted if the Griffin had ever had one. If it were not for the precision of his chemistry he might have subscribed to the idea that the Griffin was a fiend in human shape. Nor did he care, as he guzzled his curry, drank his burgundy and the brandy that the well-satisfied Griffin supplied.
In his own chamber, tended by Al, the freak, the Griffin supped less heartily, but as an epicure. After his me
al Al brought him his water pipe, and he sat in the throne chair behind his carven desk, inscrutable behind his leprous mask, while the bubbles formed in the rosewater and the fumes of the drug mounted to his brain.
Al squatted in his appointed spot, upon a cushion, worshipful. The eerie music vibrated, barbarous, voluptuous.
Now and then the Griffin chuckled.
IV
The Hours of Doom
“How long have you had this man, where did you get him from?” Manning asked his friend, Bayard Harding.
“About three months. I got him from the Elite Agency, the best in the city. I lost Itabe on my last trip. Enteric fever. But this chap has excellent references. He was with Furnell for six years. Furnell didn’t want to take him to Anticosti. The chap’s got poor lungs. But he’s top-chop as a servant.”
“Call Furnell?” asked Manning.
“Yes. He was just leaving. Gave Ali a first-class recommend. Commended him to me, and all that. Don’t worry about Ali, Manning.”
Manning was not especially worrying about Ali. The man seemed all right, but he was an Oriental, no doubt partly Arab, hailing from the Philippines. The day was the seventeenth, and Manning had taken over, greatly to Harding’s amusement.
“Give Ali the day off,” he said. “Tell him he won’t be needed, any excuse you feel like. But I am telling you, Harding, that you taste nothing, eat nothing, drink nothing, that I do not prepare for you. I have brought in toothpaste and soap, with all other supplies. I know you like my cheroots, but for today you will smoke the regalias I just bought on the avenue.”
“Stretching it a bit, when it comes to soap and toothpaste, aren’t you, old chap? I hope you’ve included some Scotch.”
“I’ve got the Scotch. As for the toothpaste, the Griffin tried that once. I have never known him to duplicate his methods, but I am taking no chances. Let Ali stay away until this evening. He need never know we cooked our own meals. We’ll clean up. That is, I will.”
“Have your own way,” said Harding cheerily. “The Griffin is a crank. He can’t beat the pair of us. You can be chief cook and bottle-washer, if you insist upon it. You’re sleeping here, I suppose?”
Harding took it lightly. He was a big man, healthy and well-built. He was talking with Manning in the library, that was also a sort of trophy room, with many curios, strange weapons, modern guns, and mounted heads of rare specimens Harding had shot.
In one corner there was a mounted forest gorilla. It was a fine specimen of taxidermy, showing the “Old Man” upright, arms extended, as if drumming on its barrel-chest. It stood only four inches below six feet. The ferocious countenance, with its open jaws, was a fearsome thing to look at, even now.
Harding saw Manning glance at it.
“The Griffin didn’t fancy being called a cousin of that, eh? I wonder how he’d like to have faced it, alive? I didn’t want to kill the beggar. I had all the specimens I wanted. I was only studying their habits, but I suppose he thought I was too nosey. He charged—and he didn’t die easily.”
Manning was not to be diverted so easily from the matter in hand. He knew Harding was utterly fearless, but that did not armor him against the Griffin. The Griffin’s subtle attacks were infinitely more dangerous than a charging male gorilla.
“I’m sleeping here to-night,” he said. “In your room. Rather, you can sleep, I’ll stay up. An hour from now you enter the time-zone of peril. To-morrow, at midnight, it will have ended. If you are safe, then I can go home with a light heart.
“The Griffin does not repeat an attack. If it goes wrong, he blames it on the sidereal almanac, or some shifting of the ecliptic that has made him miscast your horoscope. You may be sure he did that with you, and believes that the next twenty-four hours after midnight are unfavorable to you, that you are under the malign influence of the stars, of which he is the appointed agent.”
“Bilge,” said Harding. “Let’s see that Scotch.”
Manning had not yet unpacked the supplies he had brought, but he now produced whisky and club soda. Ali brought glasses and ice in cubes. Manning regarded the ice a bit dubiously. But he was sure of one thing. Even if the Griffin had somehow contrived to tamper with the cubes, he could also contrive to be certain that Harding did not die, outside of the time he had set. That would be a matter of pride with him.
“Mind if I take seltzer instead?” asked Harding. “I make my own. The club soda is a bit sharp for my taste. It spoils the Scotch, to my mind.”
The siphon was empty. Harding unscrewed the top, removed the glass tube, and filled the wired container to the red line with water he drew from a tap in a lavatory that opened off the library.
He took a sparklet from a carton and tossed it to Manning. It was made of metal, the carbonic acid gas inside it hermetically sealed.
“You couldn’t tamper with that,” said Harding. He set the little cylinder in the charger, screwed it down to the pin, shaking the syphon until the water bubbled with the released gas.
Manning tried it instead of opening up his own soda, and agreed with Harding that it blended well with the whisky. It was still well before twelve, and he gave Harding a cheroot.
“You can have the day off, to-morrow, Ali,” Harding told the man when he came to see if there were any more chores. “In fact, you can have to-night off as well. Mr. Manning and I are going to be busy on private matters. You need not come in until nine o’clock to-morrow night.”
Ali salaamed and thanked the tuan. He seemed pleased with his unexpected leave. They heard the outer door close. Manning, going over the apartment later, found Ali had departed.
They had plenty to talk over together on subjects of mutual interest and knowledge. Harding finally turned in and slept, while Manning watched.
He had been watching Harding’s habits, but they did not seem unusual. He noticed, however, that the zoölogist did not brush his teeth before turning in. The next morning Manning presented him with a new tooth brush, sealed almost as hermetically in cellophane as the sparklets were in their metal containers.
Harding chaffed about it all. The day passed without anything out of the way occurring, or being suggested. Manning’s meals were simple but appetizing.
He and Harding cleaned up all traces of their culinary work. It did not so much matter about Ali knowing, save that he would not feel it became the dignity of the tuans to act as servants.
“Spoil his holiday for him,” said Harding. “I’ve got a notion to change into lighter things, have a shower. It’s a warm night. How about you?”
“I’ll change after twelve o’clock,” Manning answered. As the fateful minutes became more and more limited his responsibility and watchfulness increased.
It was like the monster to plan his murderous coups so that the victim might begin to relax, or else—according to his temperament—become strained to the breaking point.
While Harding took his shower and changed into his lounging pajamas, Manning again made his rounds. There had been certain deliveries made. Manning had taken them in and promptly tabooed them. A clock struck nine.
There was the click of a key in the latch and Ali entered, respectful, smiling, and sober.
He went to his room to shift into his service coat. Manning went to Harding’s bedroom, found Harding cool and comfortable in his loose togs and straw slippers.
“Ali’s back,” he said. “Better tell him you won’t want him again to-night. We’ll serve ourselves with what we want in the way of ice and glasses.”
“You’re not suspecting him because he’s a Malay?” asked Harding with a laugh.
“I’d suspect him if he were the Prophet Muhammad, and could prove it,” said Manning grimly. “We’ve got about a hundred and seventy minutes to go, and I’m not going to ease up until they are over.”
“There’s another bottle of that Mountain Dew left. Let’s go into the library and finish it,” suggested Harding. “Might take that grim look off your phiz.”
Next he took up t
he ice cubes and got rid of them in the lavatory. He emptied the ewer and squirted out the contents of the siphon.
Harding shrugged his shoulders, but he knew Manning too well not to realize that he would not waste time on dramatic effect. The cubes had been all right the night before—but that was before midnight. They were in the danger zone now.
Ali’s room was next to the kitchen. The door closed too tightly to show any light, but Manning heard the thin wailing of an Oriental fiddle. He let the tap run, after he had carefully wiped the orifice; he filled up a tray for fresh cubes, after he had cleaned it. He was leaving nothing to chance.
He set the switch for quick refrigeration, staying there, with one eye on Ali’s door. It was not that he suspected Ali, but all things. Eternal vigilance might be the price of his friend’s life. Even then….
Against the thin tones of Ali’s fiddle, Manning heard Harding strumming an African marimba, with a good sense of rhythm. It was an eerie sort of accompaniment to the drama that might be unfolding its grisly plot at that very moment. The strumming stopped. Manning took out the partially congealed cubes. He did not like to leave Harding alone too long.
He shook up a fresh siphon.
It was nine twenty-five by the electric clock, with its scampering second hand marking the march into eternity.
Manning poured the Scotch for himself, after Harding. Both added ice. Harding squirted in the seltzer water, that fizzed coldly and cheerfully.
“Here’s to the next to die,” he quoted jestingly.
Manning’s jungle-trained ear noticed something. Harding, raising his glass, missed it. Ali had stopped playing. It was a trifle, but the difference between life and death.
Harding had taken a long swig of his highball, expecting Manning was doing the same thing.
Suddenly he rose, strangling, stiffening, clutching at the air with hands that grew rigid. Harding dropped before Manning could reach him. Tiny bubbles of thick froth gathered at his lips, his eyes rolled up. His face was livid, then gray, splotched with crimson. He rattled in his throat, clawing at the rug; horrible, gasping for breath.
In the Grip of the Griffin: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 3 Page 17
