Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (20 page)

“Let’s take a look at the studio,” said Manning.

The studio stood back a little from the street; with a courtyard in front, and double gates which were closed, but had a little grille through which Manning looked at the place. It had a high-pitched skylight, large, barred windows in front. Once it had been a stable. There was no light. It appeared deserted, neglected.

Manning stood in the empty street, scanning the general surroundings.

“I’m leaving you in town,” he said to Doherty. “Find out whether anyone has seen anybody come in here. Make a thorough job of it. Come down to Pelham to-morrow night. Come in time to have dinner with me. We’ve got an engagement afterwards that may prove important.”

Doherty saluted, proud of the invitation, and Manning got into his roadster and drove rapidly north through the almost silent streets.

Manning rose late. There was, after all, only one thing for him to do that evening before he kept his appointment with Dr. Thorndyke, to see Alice Minturn. It was to call on a builder and contractor who referred him to another in the same line of business. This did not take long and the call proved satisfactory.

Manning’s face did not reflect his mental grimness as he rang the bell at The Lilacs at nine o’clock. It was answered by the Japanese Ito, who was not liked by other Japanese. The man was a mixed Malayan type. He had bowed legs and long arms. He was dressed in semi-livery of black alpaca with a low-cut vest. It was hard to tell if he actually limped.

He placed Manning’s card on a silver tray and carried it stiffly ahead, after he had taken Manning’s hat and cane. Manning watched him sharply as he hefted the latter, but the man’s face betrayed nothing.

Thorndyke was with Burton in the library, both in dinner dress. They made a strong combination, for certain purposes, Manning thought; Thorndyke the plotter, likely to be an extremist; clever as the devil. Burton bluff, burly, none too intellectual, easily dominated, but dogged.

Katherine Burton came in silently. She was in black, her skin was white and smooth as ivory, her hair magnificent. Several rings gleamed on her slender fingers and there was a square-cut emerald pendant at her throat, which was apparently flawless—extremely valuable. Manning fancied all the gems were unusual. Her otherwise simple tastes seemed to permit jewels. And then Manning saw her eyes, as they looked at Thorndyke, and the jewels were dull glass in contrast.

She was infatuated with the doctor. Her gaze betrayed her to an observer like Manning. She would have followed Thorndyke barefoot over lava wastes, through cactus thickets, adoring and serving him, fired with the flame of a superlative and starved passion; a flame fanned the more by the cold airs of the physician’s demeanor toward her.

The room was momentarily electric with a current that somehow lacked a spark. It flowed from the woman and was received by the man with a certain insolence, a disdain; much as an age-old idol might receive incense.

As for Burton, Manning doubted if he realized the situation, patent as it was.

She gave Manning a ring-clustered hand. He held it a moment, admiring the star sapphire that showed its mystic and elusive fire.

“They say in Borneo, where they find a lot of those gems,” he said, “that the star is the imprisoned spirit of a woman who loved, but who died without having her love returned. That is a very beautiful stone.”

Her manner was not cordial as he released her hand. The light had gone out of her eyes. Suddenly she looked plain, old and tired.

“I will get Alice ready,” she said. “I have not told her she was to have a visitor. We were afraid it would disturb her. Do you want me in the room, doctor?” she asked Thorndyke.

“I think not. The less the better. Just Mr. Manning and myself,” he answered.

The big double chamber was dim with shaded lights. The bed, curtained and canopied, was in a recess that seemed to have been added to the original room. It would not accommodate the wheel-chair that stood at the foot of the bed; mute evidence of the helplessness of its occupant.

“We built out a solarium,” said Thorndyke, “so that when the sun shone its rays might help her. The panes are crystal. It cost a lot, but she could afford it and while the rays have not seemed to help her, one cannot say how they may have retarded disease.”

He spoke in a low voice before they moved towards the bed. There Manning saw, sunk amid soft pillows, the sorrowful, beautiful but inanimate, face he had glimpsed at the front window.

One arm was outside the coverlet, ringless. The nails had been tinted. The lips were rouged. Some feminine impulses and vanities apparently remained in her.

“This is Mr. Manning, Alice,” said Thorndyke. “A friend of mine, and of yours.”

The girl showed scant interest. Her fingers stirred, balling up the silken coverlet.

Manning had agreed to mention nothing that would link him with Stanhope.

“I represent the Seminary, Miss Minturn,” said Manning. “They appreciate so much what you have done for them. Especially for your gift of books for their library. They want a bust of you to set there. Mr. Burton, your cousin, will make it, of course, but we want your consent and, perhaps, a few words from you, over a microphone, set up here, in your room, without any outside people, just yourself, talking to them.”

The quiet, lovely face on the pillow showed no change of expression, but Thorndyke made a sound and took a step, as if he meant to interfere. Manning had startled him. There had been a gift of books in the name of Alice Minturn, but the rest was cut out of whole cloth. Manning had explained that the reason for his seeking an interview was to assure himself of the girl’s sanity. He could not, he told Thorndyke, assume executorship in a will that enriched or might enrich anyone whose reason did not seem to him, at the time, sound.

“There have been rumors, as there always are,” he assured Thorndyke. “I do not subscribe to them. This is merely a matter of form, for my own comfort.”

“You’ve overdone things,” Thorndyke said, and his low tones were suddenly menacing.

“No,” said Manning calmly. “Not I, Thorndyke. You! And overlooked things, also. I am surprised that Burton as an artist, did not catch it, but I suppose he left the staging to you?”

“Just what do you mean?” demanded Thorndyke. He stood with his hands in the side pockets of his dinner-jacket. “Just what the devil
do
you mean, Manning? Are you over infatuated with your own reputation? Look here….”

“No. Look
there,
” Manning replied quietly. “I admired Miss Burton’s ring a little while ago. I also admired her hands. Criminal science observes finger-prints closely. It has not yet advanced to the study of fingers. No two hands are alike, digitally. The palmists will tell you that. They ascribe various influences to the shape of fingers. I don’t, but I
do
know that Miss Burton’s thumbs are unusual. They extend between the first and second knuckles of her forefinger. She should not have left her hand outside the quilt. Otherwise, the illusion is excellent.”

He leaped forward into the narrow space at the side of the bed. The couched figure rose with a gasping protest as Manning tore off a mask, the pate of which was wigged with black tresses; surrounding the skull like a helmet. Its removal exposed flaming hair—and the face of Katherine Burton, deadly pale.

Manning stood sidewise to the bed. He had used his left hand for the dramatic disclosure. His right gripped a flat automatic. Thorndyke took the warning and backed to the wall.

“I want to know where the girl is,” said Manning. “Burton has been forging her signature to receive her income and pay it out, just as he forged the letter Stanhope is supposed to have sent me—forged Stanhope’s signature to the will. An excellent forgery, but a forgery none the less, as I can prove. I want to know where Stanhope is. They may both be dead. If so, you’ll burn for it, you and Burton and Burton’s sister, masquerading in the bed now, and in the window every day as Alice Minturn—when she isn’t playing on that cracked up tennis court. Stanhope may be still alive, but he won’t be long, left to you. You’re the boss devil in this conspiracy, Thorndyke. You cooked up this scheme to replenish the funds you’ve spent—giving this woman’s jewels as a sop—and wasting the rest on the orgies in the penthouse Burton leases. I was there last night, Thorndyke and I saw.”

There came a gasp from the woman on the bed. Manning had scant pity for her.

“You love Thorndyke,” he said, without taking his eyes off the doctor. “If you had seen him last night….”

She broke into uncontrolled sobbing. A hundred happenings flashed back to her, confirming doubts she had fought against. She wrung the hands from which she had removed the gems of deception.

“That tennis court of yours aroused my curiosity,” said Manning. “You seem fond of playing on it. The man who laid the cement for it tells me he warned you to put a foundation of cinders under the cement, but that at the last moment you told him to go ahead without it, after you had held up the job for three days. I want to know why? I think I can guess, but I’m going to find out.”

The woman collapsed. Thorndyke advanced, his hands up.

“You win, Manning,” he said. “I never dreamed you’d come into this. The luck ran against me. But they’re both alive. My gun is in my right-hand pocket. It’s the only one I have. I should have known better than try to hoodwink you.”

Manning took his weapon, but he did not turn his back on the bed. This surrender, sensible as it was, came too pat. Then he saw the doctor’s hand go to his mouth. His features writhed and he fell. It looked like cyanide; but his arms wrapped themselves about Manning’s legs like twin pythons as the door burst open and Burton, with the Japanese back of him leaped into the room.

Manning, half off his balance, swung his gun. He clubbed Thorndyke behind his ear and saw bright blood spurt where the gun-sight broke the skin, opened veins, and stunned the doctor.

A shot rang out and he felt the sting and sear of hot lead in his left shoulder. That arm was out of commission as he kicked free from Thorndyke’s relaxed grip and threw a light chair at the Japanese who was crouched for a spring, knife in hand.

The bullet had shattered bone and Manning fought off the nerve-shock as he dropped to one knee while Burton’s second shot roared out. The missile tore the air just above his head. Manning fired from his hip and Burton spun about, falling with a yell, his hip smashed.

The Japanese shouted. Katherine Burton huddled under the sheets. From outside Doherty crashed the rear door with his hurled weight and raced up the stairs. He threw himself upon the Jap who landed on his shoulders, his knife driven through the thick rug into the floor.

Burton was writhing; Thorndyke lay prone. Doherty struggled for a moment with the Jap and finally clicked the handcuffs on him.

“Try your damned jujutsu with me, will you?” he panted. “Howd’ye like the Kilkenny clutch? You’re hurt,” he said to Manning.

“We’ll fix that,” said Manning. “Call up the local station and tell them to bring a surgeon. We’ve got to find that girl.”

The sheeted huddle in the bed stirred. Katherine Burton spoke in a harsh voice.

“I’ll tell you where she is,” she said. “But she’s dead, and buried under the tennis court, though I don’t see how you knew that. But we didn’t kill her. If anyone did it was Stanhope; going away and not saying where. She was a romantic sort and she didn’t care what happened to her. She came to us. We were hard up. We’d lost all we had. There were no commissions for my brother. Alice let us handle her money. Thorndyke attended her. He was hard up, too. Now I can guess where some of his income went. He made a fool out of me. Now I’m fooling him. Alice died one night when he was here. It was her heart. It meant the end of the money. She had left us some, but she had made a crazy will with all sorts of bequests. My brother owed Thorndyke money, or so he claimed. Well, the ground was cleared and leveled for the court. Soft dirt, rolled. It wasn’t much of a job to bury her and roll the dirt again. But it rained the next two days and I suppose we all got nervous. Ito had seen us and he wanted to know what we had hidden away. Elmer got the contractor to leave out the cinders and finish the thing in a hurry. It’s haunted us ever since. We’ve played on it to lay the ghost, Elmer and I. Thorndyke doesn’t play tennis, but he took his share of the income. It didn’t last long. They didn’t tell me where it all went.

“I didn’t know about the penthouse,” she continued with the hellish fury of a scorned woman. “Then Stanhope came. He had money. He wanted to see Alice. So….”

“I know the rest,” said Manning. “I hope, for your sake, they haven’t made away with Stanhope.”

“Try and find him,” snarled Thorndyke. “You can’t prove anything without a body, Manning: When you disinter the one under the tennis court you’ll only uncover natural causes.”

“Aside from murder; forgery and kidnaping, fraud and a few other matters may be found interesting,” Manning answered. “I’m going to search Burton’s studio. Then I’ll turn the affair over to the police. After all, I am not a professional detective.”

“Damn you amateurs,” gritted Thorndyke and Manning laughed at him.

“That was
your
trouble, doctor,” he said. “You went outside your own profession.”

“It was a good guess, and a lucky one,” Manning told the commissioner, “looking for Stanhope in the studio. They’d have taken him for a ride before long. It doesn’t look as if we could pin murder on them, but there’s plenty beside that. The case is cleared.”

“Thanks to you,” said the commissioner. “There’s one thing not quite clear. You claim the letter that came with the will was a forgery. Our man says it isn’t. So does another expert.”

Manning chuckled.

“It was because the letter was forged that I got busy,” he said. “The trouble is with a good many criminal detective scientists that they can’t see the wood for the trees. They rely too much on modern inventions, micro-photography and black rays. I’ll show you something. Mind writing your name on a sheet of paper?”

The commissioner obeyed.