Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (19 page)

It was of cement. The cement had heaved and cracked, scaled and pitted. Accurate play was impossible. They went at it mechanically, as if the exercise were a tiresome duty.

The woman double-faulted in play, tripped, but recovered herself. She shook her head and walked off the court towards the house. Burton shrugged his broad shoulders and followed.

Manning took a window seat to smoke a pipeful before he let himself out at the rear, to depart out through the garden entrance where there were big gates leading to a garage and a hedge.

It was quite dark when Manning stirred. Street lamps were lit, but trees broke up their light, making flickering screens of shadow.

Something moved in that shadow, something shifted stealthily in the laurel hedge that bordered the rear of The Lilacs. Leaves shifted uncertainly in the vague-light, and they shifted to the height of a stooping man. A form evolved itself. It was in black, amorphous, crouching. There was the glint of steel, gone, shown again in swift, offensive movement.

Manning’s steel-cored cane flicked like a whiplash, like a Toledo blade—twice. Twice it struck bone on shin and arm, and he heard a queer, guttural yelp of muffled agony as the leaves swerved and a dark figure darted away. A knife dropped at Manning’s feet. He kicked it to one side before he picked it up. Whoever that lurking assassin might be he was marked. His shin was notched, his elbow cracked.

Manning did not follow. He was not ready to bring the issue to a close. He had a fancy that this attack was individual, not planned by the master minds of the plot he was now certain existed—and which he meant to unmask.

That letter—the second one—which Stanhope had not written, had been a direct challenge from those who sought to blindfold him.

Stanhope had vanished. Manning had put in a call to headquarters that automatically started a checkup of railroads, steamers and ticket bureaus of the United States and Canada. Manning did not expect much more from this than corroboration of his own belief that Stanhope was within a twenty-five mile radius of the Empire State Building—and was in jeopardy. As for Alice Minturn, he had begun to fear he was too late to save her.

The knife that had been dropped at his feet was of the sort sold in so-called Oriental bazaars. A bone handle coarsely carved, a long crude blade with Japanese characters upon it that denoted its factory. The sort of thing a tourist buys for a paperknife, but nevertheless an excellent weapon.

Manning ate dinner leisurely. He had had a busy day, and he expected a busy night. To-morrow might prove even more crowded and more exciting.

At eight o’clock the man he had borrowed from headquarters drove up in a private car, a first-grade detective named Doherty.

“This guy Burton,” said Doherty, “throws some fancy parties in this penthouse of his. Nothing to crash in about, so far, but something hot might break there any dawning, take it from me! He has plenty cuties and he gives them plenty hooch. One of  ’em may make a dive over his parapet some morning, though they ain’t the type to do it to save their virtue. His babies ain’t got any. It’s just hot-cha-cha, but it costs him pe-lenty. Here’s a list of some of his guests. Them marked ones are regulars.”

Manning glanced over the names.

“That’s fine, thanks,” he said. “You’ll have another drink, and a fresh cigar? Now, what is the address, and does Burton lease the place?”

“He leases it and pays the rent regular, which is why he can do what he pleases. I wrote the address down on this card.”

Manning saw that Burton’s penthouse was on the roof of the building in which Thorndyke had his offices, which might, or might not, be pure coincidence, viewed in the light of the fact that Dr. Thorndyke’s name was on the list as a regular guest at Burton’s revels.

“He’s pulling one of these parties to-night,” Doherty went on. “They don’t start until round one or two o’clock. I got a line on Burton’s income. If he’s earned enough in the last two years to pay three months’ rent on that penthouse, I’m a Chinaman. To say nothing of what his chow and alky sets him back. He’s had one job in the last twelve months for a theatrical outfit. The show flopped and he didn’t get paid. But he sure lives high in town. I’m telling you that if he sculps in the nude, he gets plenty inspiration, from what the lad who runs the all-night elevator that goes to the roof tells me. It was him I got the list from. He wants to be a detective. Can you beat it?”

“That’s just what I wanted to know, Doherty,” said Manning. “I’m going to make a call presently. I wish you’d stay here and make yourself comfortable. You and I may drive into the city later. I’d like to get a peep at that party, if it can be arranged.”

“Duck soup,” said Doherty. What between panatelas, pinch-bottle Scotch and a lounge chair in Manning’s library he foresaw a pleasant hour or so ahead of him.

Soon afterwards Manning drove off to Larchmont in his own car to keep his appointment with Dr. Thorndyke. As he went he considered the clause in Stanhope’s will that provided for his estate to be turned over to the girl if he should be found missing for over a year. He doubted whether that was legal. It was the sort of thing a quixotic lover might insert, but the outstanding fact was that the sooner Stanhope died, the sooner the girl would acquire his estate. In view of her own fortune she would hardly need it. But others might.

Thorndyke was more or less the usual type of successful physician—in his thirties, well set up and handsome in a way that would, Manning considered, make him attractive to many women. His features were aquiline. His mustache and pointed beard, together with his dark hair that grew to a peak on his forehead and was silvered at the temples, and upward curving eyebrows gave him a satanic cast of countenance. His dress was immaculate, though a trifle foppish. He was in dinner clothes, as was Manning, and he received the investigator affably, offering refreshment, which Manning declined. He would never have cared to accept the doctor’s hospitality. The man was plausible, cultured, but he suggested secret dissipations.

Manning came promptly to the point, speaking of his having received the letter and the copy of the will. He did not mention the first letter. He was pretty certain the doctor did not know of its existence; he fancied that, in that unwitting omission, Thorndyke had made a mistake. He, or Burton, or both.

“Before I decide whether to accept or decline the responsibility of being Stanhope’s joint executor with you,” said Manning, “I should like, at least, to see Miss Minturn. Stanhope brought me a letter of personal introduction from a mutual friend in the Orient that gives him a claim on my offices. He was in a morbid mood when he wrote that letter and made that will. I hardly set him down as a suicidal type, though inclined to be rash. He may have exaggerated conditions.”

“I don’t quite agree with you, speaking as a psychiatrist,” said Thorndyke, stroking his torpedo beard. “Even today there are plenty of the Romeo type, killing themselves on the bier of a dead love. Otherwise normal. I think Stanhope might make away with himself. The case is unfortunate. When he returned he found Miss Minturn suffering from partial amnesia, induced by a shock to her amatory emotions, induced by young Stanhope’s refusal to marry her, his departure and silence. This upset her sex reflexes, it has put her on the borderline between sanity and insanity at certain periods. It produced in her, at first, lack of recognition of her lover, later, a revulsion that wounded him to the quick, that upset his own normality. It may seem involved to a layman, not to an alienist.”

Manning had himself studied medicine, but he did not mention it. He knew that Thorndyke had been called in as expert in several prominent trials where good fees resulted and the alienists on either side invariably disagreed. He had his own opinion of such testimony.

“You think her condition will improve?” he asked.

“I trust so. I sincerely hope so and believe that with the proper treatment it will. She has suffered a second shock, a renewal of the bruise. She is now too readily excited, her cerebral tissues too readily inflamed.

“As to your seeing her,” Thorndyke continued, “that can be arranged. I should, however, have to be present, out of mere medical precaution. I am going out, presently, on an important call. So, let us make it to-morrow evening at, say this time. She is usually calmer at that hour, more rational in her behavior.”

“We will consider it an engagement, then,” said Manning as he took his leave. He was aware that his dislike towards Thorndyke was fully reciprocated. It was a mutual mistrust, as sincere and natural as that of the trained dog for vermin, the mongoose for the cobra. He also gathered that Thorndyke in no way considered himself inferior.

The penthouse was not set exactly in the middle of the roof of the building. On one side there were two shallow terraces with steps joining them. These were set with lawns, flowers and shrubbery with dwarf trees of weeping willow reflected in twin pools where water lilies floated, and Midas fishes swam, fat and golden. Lanterns of fretted metal-work were suspended everywhere, giving broken spots of color, amber and crimson and emerald. More light filtered through from the windows of the penthouse that faced this hanging garden of Manhattan, windows shuttered with Venetian blinds. Casements were up to offset the warmth of the summer night.

Through the windows came the sound of laughter, of gay voices, the clink of glasses, a babble of revelry that sounded a little forced, a trifle boisterous. Now and then there were exclamations, false protests, little bursts of applause.

The party had only just commenced, according to the elevator lad, but seemingly all had arrived well primed. And everyone was there. Burton himself had told the operator that there would be no more.

“He told me not to let no one crash the party,” said the lad.

“We’re not crashing it,” said Doherty. “We ain’t going to make any trouble for you, kid. All we want is a looksee and then you can forget it.”

The operator showed them where a narrower terrace ran at the back of the penthouse, little more than a pathway of brick with a hip-high parapet, on which evergreens in stone tubs were set at regular intervals. This walk surrounded the penthouse on three sides. In the rear it passed unscreened windows that threw out bright light and from which came the voices of servants.

“Japanese?” asked Manning, remembering the oriental chauffeur of the car that had called for Stanhope.

“Yep,” whispered the elevator lad; “two of ’em. One lives here, the other comes in from out of town with Mr. Burton. He drives his car.”

“Lincoln?” queried Manning.

The operator nodded. Something in Manning’s authoritative query made the lad look at him more closely as they stood in the private entry that led from the elevator to the roof. He drew in his breath.

“Gee,” he said in an awed voice, “ain’t you Gordon Manning, the guy that copped the Griffin? I saw your picture in the papers,” he added as he regarded Manning’s lean, bronzed and hawklike features.

“That’s him, kid,” said Doherty. “Now scram. Keep your trap closed. We’ll ring when we want you.”

The two of them stepped out of the entry to the bricked walk. The penthouse was entirely detached; its front door opened onto the lawns and garden. Manning and Doherty stood in dense shadow. A bright moon soared over Manhattan. It turned the falling spray of a fountain to an iridescent shower.

One of the Japanese was singing a curious, broken air in a high-pitched voice. He broke off to speak to his fellow. The odor of spicy cooking came out of the kitchen and pantry windows, along with the click of dishes.

If one of these men had driven the Lincoln he could be identified by the houseman at the Brummell, but that would only prove what Burton might not care to deny; that Burton had used his own car to take Stanhope to the depot. Questioning a Jap was a pretty hopeless task.

Suddenly, as they looked between the shrubs, that masked them perfectly, Manning saw a broad sweep of light as the main door was flying open. There was a burst of strange music, pipes shrilling and drums beating, in a wild rhythm that stirred the blood. There was the plucking of strings; the wail of violins, but the syncopated drumming dominated everything. It might have been the orchestra of a camp in Tatary or Cathay or musicians in the kalang of a Javanese sultan. It was as weird as the eerie crowd of creatures that came gamboling out, capering about the terraces, posturing, dancing, as the lanterns winked out and spotlights rayed in crossing beams of orange and purple and green.

Mythical beings they seemed, half men, half beasts. Men and women alike, scantily attired in breadths of skin, in wisps of tissue with the gleam of metal and of jewels. Bizarre, incredible as a nightmare, a phantasmagoria such as Doré sometimes drew.

Griffins, cockatrices, phoenixes, dragons! Medusa and Gorgon heads, shriveled mummy faces, skulls, birds and brutes; faces of supreme beauty, faces that were frozen into types of sin and hate and cruelty. Emblazoned creatures of heraldry; fiends, harpies, sirens. Succubus, witch, virgin and harlot. Ape, warrior, hermit and troglodyte.

All these were masks, supremely wrought. Many of them covered the head as entirely as a helmet with lowered visor. They were masterpieces and those who wore them seemed to have become imbued with the attributes of the creatures they represented. Burton’s party seemed destined to become an orgy.

“That was his last job—making masks for that stage flop. ‘Manhattan Nights,’ they were going to call it,” whispered Doherty.

Manning nodded. He was beginning to see things more clearly. Masks for stage work had been a vogue, now fading. The effect was startling, but illuminating. But unless they unmasked, which did not seem likely for a while, with the saturnalia just beginning, recognition would be impossible. They knew Burton was there and Thorndyke. The elevator boy had brought them up, knowing them well.

“I’ve seen all I want,” Manning said. Doherty was surprised, but said nothing, warned by the ring in Manning’s voice that a lukewarm trail had suddenly become hot. They went down in the elevator and into the street.