Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (18 page)

Manning puffed another smoke ring. It seemed commonplace enough, for all Stanhope’s suppressed, but visible, emotion.

“I rang the bell. A Japanese answered. Mr. Manning, I know the Orient fairly well, though, of course, nothing compared with you. That man was not merely hideous, he was evil. He hissed at me and said he would see Mr. Burton. He showed me in to a sort of reception room, and locked me in. Rather, it was a spring lock set to open only on the outside. I heard it click and I tried it.

“Burton came in wearing flannels. He said he had been playing tennis with his sister. I told him who I was and he said he knew about me from Alice. Then his sister came in. I think she is older than he is. She’s red-headed, and she wasn’t over amiable. To make a long story short, they told me I could not see Alice unless I got permission from her doctor—Dr. Thorndyke of Larchmont. The sister said that Alice was not at all well—confined to her room, and in a wheelchair. She seemed to blame the illness on me. Said Alice had gone into a decline after I went away, hinted that she was not expected to live long. I told her that if my love had harmed her it could also cure her, but they wouldn’t let me see her. She wasn’t at the window when I went away.”

It seemed to Manning that Stanhope was too much wrought up with the shock of finding the girl seriously ill; of her not having recognized him after four years—bronzed as he was. He fancied Stanhope inclined toward tragedy.

“I called up Dr. Thorndyke,” Stanhope went on. “He was out. I wrote him and I got an answer. He regretted that he could not consent to any interview that would, in his opinion, be extremely detrimental to his patient, who was high strung and in a precarious state of health; a condition that appeared to have been primarily evoked by a shock to a nature, peculiarly sensitive, that might not survive a second.”

Stanhope spoke scornfully, evidently quoting the letter whose sentences had bitten into his brain as if they had been etched there by acid.

“I don’t see what can be done,” said Manning. “Thorndyke is a reputable physician. A specialist, by the way, in psychiatry. I’ve heard of him. Burton is a reputable sculptor. You can’t very well force your way to her against the advice of a doctor and the consent of those who take care of her. That she failed to recognize you after four years is not so surprising. Also Thorndyke suggests that a visit from you might be detrimental. A decline, in medicine, means two or three things. One of those is the expression for a general deterioration of mental and physical health. You would not forgive yourself easily if you injured her. I am not a detective….”

“I realize that,” Stanhope broke in. “I tried to see you in New York before I learned you lived here, within a stone’s throw of where this thing is happening. You are a consulting attorney, but, just the same, you solved the mystery of the Griffin when the police failed. You’re famous. I haven’t told you all. Burton’s red-headed sister acted as if she had no use for me, but Burton was grinning up his sleeve. I knew it then and I knew it for certain yesterday. I was outside the house at the same time. Alice was there, waving at the kids coming from school again. She saw me. I saw her eyes shift. And then she pulled down the blind. And, as I passed the gate, I saw Burton picking a flower for his buttonhole. He stood back of the hedge and grinned like a wolf. Thought I didn’t see him.

“I had a hard time finding Alice at all. Finally I learned she was living with her cousins—with the Burtons. And I found out something about Burton. He’s not selling, these days; he hasn’t exhibited for three years. He has an apartment in town and a studio. I went to both of them. The studio was closed. A man who runs a store across the street told me Burton hadn’t been there for months. The apartment is a penthouse that costs him a big rental, aside from the parties he pulls there. Parties that the columnists wise-crack about. He has a Jap there, too, and he sold me the information about Burton living here—when he isn’t raising Cain in his penthouse. Where does he get his money from? I’d give a lot of mine, to find out. I’m going to. You don’t see it the way I do, but I’m telling you there’s something devilish going on. They’ve done something to Alice. And I’m going to do something about it. I’m obliged to you for the interview.”

He rose and Manning touched a bell. His own Japanese butler came, showed the ruffled Stanhope out.

Manning tapped out his pipe, ran a fresh cleaner into it and put it in a rack. He was sorry for Stanhope, sorry for the girl. He trusted Stanhope would do nothing rash. He regretted he had been unable to serve him and their mutual friend. He read the letter of introduction over again.

“There are all the makings,” Manning told himself. “I’ve got a hunch there might be something to it.”

He summoned Takayama again.

“There is a Japanese who works for Mr. Burton, at ‘The Lilacs,’ close by,” said Manning. “I am interested in a young girl who lives there. It seems hard to get information about her.”

He did not have to say more to Takayama. He and the other servant of Manning, also Japanese, were devoted to him. There were a number of Japanese servants in Pelham Manor.

“That Japanese at that place name Ito,” replied the butler. “He not very good. Other Japanese boys not like Ito. I don’t think he speak along of me. But I try.”

A note came in the morning mail from Stanhope, written on the heavy paper of the Brummell Apartments. Its tone lacked courtesy.

…Some day—it ended—you will find out that I am right. In the meantime, since you won’t help me, I shall do the best I can by myself.

It was clear that Stanhope was convinced there was something unnatural in his reception. Clear also that he was going into unadvised action.

Takayama made his report as he served Manning his melon, omelette and coffee. He had compiled it over night, as Manning expected.

“Young lady that house very sick. Doctor come one time a week. Nobody else see her except Missy Burton and Mister Burton. Maybe Ito see some time. Nobody outside. All time she stay in room, big room upstairs. Missy Burton stay home all time and take care of young lady. Mister Burton he go New York plenty time. Play tennis with Missy Burton plenty time. Young lady she very fond of children. She give plenty present to school for them. All time she like to wave to them and they wave back every day when they go along to school. They say her face never smile. She very sad.”

Manning did not feel he had learned very much, save that Stanhope’s opinion of the Japanese Ito seemed to be well founded, that Miss Burton devoted herself to the sick girl and was fond of playing tennis with her brother who, it appeared, was content to exercise with her as an opponent. Nothing else new except the reason for the hand waving.

Yet that strange phenomenon called, for want of a better term, a hunch, seemed to flourish on these items.

As a dog knows of the existence of a buried bone in a strange yard, so Manning was sensing that there was something rotten here, something that needed the light.

His special commissions from the New York Commissioner of Police and the Governor of the State had never been revoked. The police were still grateful for Manning’s detection and defeat of the maniac known as the Griffin, homicide extraordinary, now in Dannemora. He got the commissioner personally on his private wire and asked for a service which was promptly granted. Burton was being investigated by men more competent in such matters than Stanhope.

Twice during the day he called up Stanhope, but found him out. He held no offense against Stanhope for his letter. He was willing to aid him, because of his hunch, not because of any definite suggestions or clews.

At midnight Stanhope had not returned to his apartment. In the morning there was a registered letter from him. A legal looking document was enclosed which Manning set aside for the moment. He read the letter twice. Its contents struck him as illogical, considered in the light of the previous note, which had been almost insulting.

Dear Mr. Manning:

By the time you receive this I shall have gone away—not to return. My plans are not entirely definite, but I am leaving for the Orient.

I have seen Alice at last, through the courtesy of Dr. Thorndyke and Miss Burton. She does not love me, she does not ever want to see me again; it was very evident that my visit was painful to her, and may have been harmful.

It smashes things up for me. I shall always love her. I have made a will, a copy of which I enclose, leaving her everything. To offset legal complications I have provided that, if I should be missing for the space of one year, the estate shall pass to her.

I have taken the liberty of naming you an executor, together with Dr. Thorndyke and I use this opportunity of thanking you for your patience and courtesy in my behalf.

Very truly yours,

John Hartley Stanhope.

The legal document was typed. The letter hand-written. Manning compared it closely with the shorter note. It seemed authentic, but its wording did not ring true. Stanhope, after writing the first note, would not be the kind to ask so great a favor.

He took the letter up to his private laboratory in the attic of his house and made some curious discoveries. Under enlargement the second letter stood up with the first. The words showed no signs of patching. There were some slight discrepancies, but none that might not occur in the ordinary course of writing. Checked by the Lee and Abbey analysis chart, both classified alike. Yet Manning was assured that the letter appointing him executor was a forgery, though it might be hard to prove, except for one thing. Even that, handled by a clever lawyer, could be discounted.

There were no finger-prints either on the letter or the copy of the will, except those made by Manning himself in perusing them. The person writing it must have taken extraordinary precautions, using very thin silk gloves or gloves with the ends removed and his fingertips collodioned. It seemed impossible for a person to write a letter without leaving finger-prints.

There was one other matter. Testing by fluorescent ray, showed that the two letters had been written with different ink, It seemed significant to Manning.

His next move was to get Dr. Thorndyke on the telephone. They were both named as executors. This gave Manning the entrée he was glad to take advantage of. He lived quietly enough in Pelham Manor, but undoubtedly every other inhabitant knew of his fame in connection with the Griffin. If there was anything wrong, any interest he might show in the case would put people on their guard.

Thorndyke was cordial. He made an appointment for nine o’clock that evening. He seemed to have been expecting the call.

Manning filled his pipe, tucked his pouch in his pocket, took his favorite cane and went for a stroll before dinner. The cane was also a weapon.

It was a slender rod of flexible steel, one end forming the slender ferrule, the other set into a gold head. Over the core hundreds of leather rings had been set and shrunk, then varnished so that their joints were not discernible. It was light, and strong. In the hands of an expert, it was a good weapon indeed.

Children were coming home from school as he passed The Lilacs. Near the window on the second floor, he saw the girl seated there, her chin resting on one hand. Black tresses framed the exquisite oval of her face. Her hair was drawn back in a snood. A face of haunting beauty, but of great pathos. A face that never smiled. The sadness seemed graven there from suffering. That face, Manning thought, was surely meant to laugh, to show the flush of health, of varying emotions, but it hardly seemed to be alive; save for the eyes that showed light between long lashes, eyes shadowed in deep orbits, with hollows beneath them. The girl seemed unconscious of her surroundings.

Her eyes shifted and she waved a hand as two young girls came running past, calling up a greeting to the closed window. It seemed, to Manning, little short of tragic; the children, happy and carefree, waving a more or less perfunctory salute to the imprisoned girl.

Stanhope had hinted that she was held by more than illness. Manning’s hunch proclaimed anew, that here was danger, sinister and deadly. It gave Manning the same feeling he had experienced in the dense jungle when savages crept menacingly toward him.

Something sinister seemed to draw his eyes to the window of The Lilacs. He took care not to glance more than casually at the girl. He felt that she regarded him intently. He could see no one else.

He passed on, noting that the next house was For Sale; a legend frequently displayed these times. He fixed the name of the agent in his mind.

He called at the Brummell Apartments, not surprised to find that the manager recognized him. Manning explained that Stanhope had written him he was leaving hastily, but that he had hoped he might intercept him or at least get a forwarding address.

Stanhope had left none, the manager told Manning. He spoke of him as a “very pleasant gentleman, though he seemed a bit down in the mouth.” But he had “cheered up” and was “in very good spirits when he checked out.”

There was a doorman who took the numbers of cabs, but not of private cars. Stanhope had tipped him liberally and left in a Lincoln sedan whose driver was a Japanese.

It was getting on towards dusk when Manning again neared the vicinity of The Lilacs. He had with him a key to the neighboring property, entrusted to him overnight by the real estate agent. Manning passed swiftly between shrubbery of the garden and entered the empty house. Upstairs he could overlook the rear premises of The Lilacs. The window was shaded with Venetian blinds and he shifted the slats with the utmost caution.

He saw strips of lawn, flower beds, shade trees and long shadows of twilight stretching across the space and checkering a tennis court on which two players moved. One was Burton, the other his sister. The leveling rays of the sun made her uncovered hair flame. They were finishing a set. Burton was by far the better player, though his sister was agile and graceful enough. Manning, handball expert, wondered at the fraternal spirit that sought such feeble opposition. But he wondered still more why Burton played on such a court.