Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (26 page)

“And you,” said Carruthers, “the chap in the machan; the man up the tree. I trust you’ll shoot in time to save the goat.”

“I hope so,” said Manning gravely, “if it comes to shooting.”

It was late that night when Manning reached his own house in Pelham Manor. He had been closeted with the police commissioner whose position and reputation was at stake already with the Griffin’s last crime. Another successful attempt, aside from the sheer shock of failure, would mean a new commissioner.

Manning’s commissions, both from New York City and the Governor of the State, were still in effect. The police as well as the public pinned their faith on his ability to once more cope with this cunning fiend. The commissioner had promised him entire coöperation. Fifty men were detailed, picked from the squads. The manager of the Highland Apartments was enlisted. His first reaction was to insist that Judge Carruthers leave, but they persuaded him not to do it.

“I wanted the judge to promise to spend the day at Centre Street,” said the commissioner. “You might as well ask Fighting Bob Evans to come off the bridge at the battle of Manila. His Honor was offended. He’s a bit touchy about his dignity and his duty. We can take care of him, if you’ll help us. It won’t do you any harm if we land the Griffin. Let us put our own operators on your elevators, on your telephone board, and in your lobby.”

The manager capitulated. He pointed out that there was a vacant apartment across from Carruthers’ suite, which made their arrangements perfect. Aside from the servants, no one was to be allowed to leave the judge’s quarters and even they would be shadowed. No one was to be permitted in on any pretext. Provisions would come up in the dumb-waiter and be inspected by Manning.

He realized that merely tasting the food might not be protection. A slow-acting poison might get him, as well as the judge, which would suit the Griffin just as well. The Griffin had always been fond of suggesting that Manning ran equal risks. Now, more than ever, Manning knew that the Griffin hated him with deadly enmity, that his maniacal mind might suddenly decide to include him in the murder. He intended to take along an analysis kit.

He was served a perfect meal by his Japanese servants. Afterwards he read and smoked, trying to relax enough to get some sleep. But the same prescience of oncoming disaster, ever coming closer and closer, like a hungry beast stalking its quarry—the warning hunch that had come to him on lonely jungle trails—possessed him now.

He overhauled his analytical apparatus in his private laboratory, made some delicate experiments, but when he sought sleep it would not come to him.

He lay at last on a leather couch, in pajamas, a fan blowing air from a refrigerating atmospheric adjuster. The night was hot and muggy. Indian summer had come to the city.

At two in the morning the telephone rang sharply. He knew who it was. His spirit was tuned up, vibrant to that evil sending. He knew the mocking voice, deep, confident; but with a strident note that betrayed the abnormal. He heard once more the strains of exotic music.

“Manning?” asked the Griffin. “I have not as yet reconstructed all my methods, but the dialing system makes precaution unnecessary. I am close by. I am slowly getting reëstablished, Manning. The next time you pay me a visit I shall be better prepared to really welcome you, as a permanent guest, I hope.

“Your precautions are excellent, no doubt. It makes the game better worth winning. Only—you do not know my opening move, the fatal move, Manning.” The voice broke off into low, diabolical chuckling through which the music sounded. “I trust the judge, as a lawyer, has made his will. If not, tell him to do so, Manning. Ha-ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho-ho!”

The mocking laughter ceased, the music died while Manning, still holding the receiver to his ear, sat with his face setting into a mask of grim resolve that, this time, the Griffin should not score. But still that inner tremor, as of an alarm, persisted.

At eleven o’clock on the night of the sixteenth Manning was admitted to Judge Carruthers’ suite by the latter’s butler, Roberts. Manning had already inspected the hidden guards, given final instructions. The protection seemed perfect, impassable.

“The judge is expecting you in the library, sir,” said Roberts respectfully.

“Shall I show you to your room first?”

Roberts was the perfect servant. A tall man, partly bald, in regulation black trousers and jacket with a vest cut high and banded with narrow wasp-stripes of black and yellow. Silent and deft. He looked pretty muscular. He might, Manning speculated, be handy for defense.

The butler hovered in the well appointed guest room with its private bath, unpacking Manning’s bag—though not the locked case that held the analytical kit—laying out pajamas, hanging up dressing gown and extra clothes, disposing of toilet articles with trained dexterity. Then he left.

Manning opened the window of his bedroom and gazed out. There was a car drawn up to the curb, opposite, another close by. They held plain-clothes men ready to spring to action. The protection force also included a police surgeon.

Roberts came out of the pantry as Manning entered the dining room, and ushered him through the big living room—off which was the judge’s bedroom and bathroom—to the library. He knocked on the door and a dog barked.

“I didn’t know we had a dog,” said Manning to Roberts.

“No, sir. We didn’t, sir. Not till yesterday, sir. It seems a car bumped ’im, down town, just ahead of the judge’s car, sir. It didn’t hurt ’im much though he was a bit paralyzed, as it were, sir. The judge took ’im to the dog ’ospital and they found no bones broken. He ’ad a collar, but no tag. So the judge advertised ’im and brought ’im ’ome, temporary.”

The dog, a wire-haired terrier, still a trifle lame, leaped on Manning, who patted him as Carruthers rose to greet him. The judge proffered cigars, ordered Roberts to bring ice and charged water.

“I still have some authentic and licit liquor,” said the judge, clipping the end of his cigar. Manning followed his example. The butler picked up the automatic table lighter and gave them lights before he went back to his pantry. “What do you think of my latest acquisition? I confess to a most irregular hope that my advertisement will not be answered.”

Manning fondled the terrier behind its ears.

“Bathed it?” he asked.

“No. Seems tolerably clean. Thinking of fleas?”

“I knew a man in Africa,” said Manning seriously, “who had a tame serval cat. Also an enemy. The cat prowled nights. One day it scratched the man and he died, nastily. The serval’s claws had been enameled with venom. The terrier may be harmless, but it is an outside element. We don’t want any outside elements here for at least thirty hours.”

“You think the Griffin may have planted it in front of a car at precisely the moment my car came along, down town?” asked the judge with a smile.

“He would be quite capable of it,” answered Manning. “I’m going to bathe it, particularly the claws.”

Roberts helped him, found some creolin disinfectant, brought towels. The terrier sniffed a bit, but did not protest vigorously. Roberts was dismissed for the night. He would be trailed, but if he was in any way mixed up with the Griffin that trail would prove a blind one, Manning knew.

Meanwhile he was possessed with the idea that the dog’s presence was not entirely accidental. He made a final interior investigation. The judge was in the living room that looked out over the park. In the north the sky flashed sometimes violet, sometimes green. The low mutter of thunder sounded through the windows, slightly open for relief. The night was even hotter than the one before. When the lightning flared the trees in the park showed flat, like stage scenery.

The judge read a while, announced he would go to bed. The terrier followed him. Later Manning, inspecting, found him curled up at Carruthers’ feet, with a beady and vigilant eye that opened and closed as it recognized Manning as a friend. The judge slept peacefully.

Gordon Manning envied him; he knew there would be no sleep for himself until the dawn had come and a new one followed it.

The first dawn arrived with a quivering of the purple sky, a fluttering of the stars.

Then the lifting sun colored pink the man-made cliffs of the high buildings on Central Park, West. Manning watched the trees get green, the derelicts crawling out from among the rock ledges, the early riders cantering along the bridle paths.

He stripped and took a shower, dressed and assured himself the men from Centre Street were on the job. Roberts had returned when he got back to the suite. The dog was friskily on hand. The cook and maid arrived. Breakfast was served with the judge unruffled.

Carruthers had work to do, he told Manning, who was content to have the judge closeted in his library. He was expecting to move to Washington at the end of the month and was getting ready to render certain opinions to close his New York calendar.

The hours dragged. Through all the sultry day Manning felt some unseen, inexorable danger waiting for its moment to pounce, to kill. Manning received hourly reports from the police, but he felt sure that the peril was already planted. It was like a bomb whose fuse was lit, the spark eating steadily towards the explosion. He could not believe otherwise that it must come from within and he could not place it.

The cook was a cheery, stout Irishwoman, incapable of treachery. Carruthers’ household was well ordered, but the servants might be unwitting agents. Manning frankly explained the menace to Mrs. Moriarty, and she, though gasping and crossing herself, stood by, welcoming his analysis of the food. The maid and Roberts proclaimed themselves anxious to coöperate.

“I’ve heard, of course, of the Griffin; also of you, sir,” said the butler. “I only hope you get him.”

The terrier panted on a rug. The temperature mounted to a record. Carruthers, reading decisions, annotating, seemed the coolest of them all, transferring all responsibility to Manning’s shoulders. He took a nap after luncheon. Manning wondered if he was a fatalist. He himself was not, despite his travels in the mystic East. He did not believe in magic—save as a manifestation of knowledge over ignorance—in horoscopes or divinations. But he felt the pressure of the hidden menace.

Dinner was served. Carruthers talked on his favorite topic, the inadequacy of the current law to meet modern requirements. Roberts was the perfect servant. Neither ate much though the food was well chosen. The dog refused its meal.

“It looks as if it was working up for a bad storm,” said the judge. “It may relieve conditions. Suppose we have coffee served in the living room? It’s the coolest place.”

Roberts brought coffee, also liqueurs. Manning refused to have the windows opened. Fans did their best to alleviate the heat. At last, with fresh cigars lighted, the butler brought ice cubes and charged water.

“Is there anything else, sir?” he asked.

“I think not,” said Carruthers. “Have Mrs. Moriarty and her niece left?”

“Yes, sir.”

Manning watched Roberts go into Carruthers’ bedroom to see that the bed was opened, all ready for his master’s retiring. The butler bowed to the judge.

“I’ll change my things, sir, with your leave, and go home,” he said. “Unless you want me further?”

“I think not, Roberts, thank you.”

There seemed nothing less than a few hours of vigil. But Manning knew that when all seemed most serene, the Griffin was most to be feared. He had exerted himself to the utmost. He could see no flaw in the arrangements. Again he got reports from the police, vigilantly on duty.

Roberts left to change his clothes. It struck Manning as a little peculiar that the butler should have mentioned this ordinary function. It was only a small thing, but small things seemed to count, more and more as the time dwindled.

The terrier went to Carruthers, its tongue quivering.

“Thirsty,” said the judge. “I’ll get him a drink. Don’t bother, Manning. There’s a chilled-water faucet in my bathroom.”

Manning had noticed the same convenience in his own quarters. He watched Carruthers pick up the dish that had been chosen for the dog and go into his bedroom. He returned immediately with the dish filled with water and set it back of a settee. The thirsty terrier lapped eagerly.

“Do you mind if I finish up these papers, Manning?” asked the judge.

“I’d rather you stayed right here, for a while,” Manning replied.

There was a tension in his voice that made Carruthers’ eyebrows go up, but he said nothing as Manning passed quickly to the outer door of the suite and, opening it, saw the door of the opposite apartment open silently. He gave a brief order to the two men stationed there, and returned to the living room.

“Roberts generally say good night?” he asked.

The judge nodded.

Manning felt that the automatic in his shoulder sheath was loose. He took the same chair he had been using, from which he could see the dog behind the settee by the water dish. Roberts came in to make his regular formal farewell.

“Good night,” said Carruthers.

“Good night, sir. You’re sure you don’t want me to stay ’ere to-night, sir? I’m willing, though it looks as if everything would be all right, with Mr. Manning ’ere and all.”

The judge glanced at Manning, who shook his head.

“There’s one thing you might do for me before you go, Roberts,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“Get me a glass of cold water from Judge Carruthers’ bathroom.”

Roberts had a ruddy enough face, but it changed to the hue of chalk. His eyes became fixed, bulging. His voice was hoarse. He stared at Manning with his whole powerful body tense. Then he relaxed. Manning’s voice had been perfectly casual, the request ordinary.

“I’ll get you some from the pantry, sir, with ice,” he said.

“I prefer it chilled, without ice, from the house service,” said Manning evenly.

The butler’s thin lips stretched, parted, showing his teeth in what might be meant for a grin. His eyes shone maliciously.

“Very good, sir,” he said, and marched into the bedroom.

Manning made a warning gesture to the judge. The butler came back with a filled glass. He offered it to Manning.