His face grew more cruel, more like the profile of the sculptured griffin radiator cap. Then, as he mused, a look of devilish contentment supplanted wrath. His newest plans were maturing. Soon he would challenge civilization again, challenge Manning to a game of wits and action.
The tobacco in the bowl of the Turkish pipe was mostly ash, the smoke bubbled slowly through the perfumed water, when there came a knock upon the door.
II
The Griffin had refilled his hubble-bubble, deliberately, while his visitor waited, ill at ease, tall and gaunt, a haunted look upon his sensitive Latin face.
“Ah, Raspetti,” said the Griffin at last. “Guido, my good Guido, I am well pleased with you.”
“Signor,” replied the man, speaking in Sicilian dialect. “That name is forgotten. I am Pietro Volenta.”
“As you please. Let us trust the other name is forgotten. There is only one in this country, outside of your wife and perhaps your children, who knows of Guido Raspetti. Pietro, then; our little experiments have been very successful. Soon they will achieve their ultimate purpose.”
“Dear God, signor! You have not—you will not….”
“Did you think I used your skill to kill a cat? You have well earned the money I promised you. I shall send it to your family. It is only for them you exist?”
“I will take it to them, signor. I…”
The Griffin checked him with a gesture.
“Pietro. You can never tell. Something might happen. I might have another errand to send you upon.”
Raspetti stiffened, slumped to an attitude of desperate pleading.
“Signor, if I have done well, dismiss me. Ask no more. Always I have dreams. My head burns and spins. Sometimes I think I shall go mad.”
“If I dismiss you, what would you do? Return to the position in which I found you, or rather refound you, after my—illness?”
“I do not know if they would take me back. But I can get another. I am an expert analyzing chemist. I….”
“Also an expert toxicologist. In medieval times the Borgias would have protected you—as I protect you—they would have proclaimed you the perfect poisoner. Even in their day such secrets were known, brought from the Orient by Marco Polo. Pietro, or Guido, if they knew in Rome that you were here, even my power could not save you. If you are going mad, how can I let you go? You have that fatal complaint, a conscience. Some night you will babble my secrets, you will confess them to your wife, or to a priest. And I do not trust either priests or women. Your formula has been tested. It establishes your research, your wisdom. It answered to the day, aye, almost to the hour. You have killed again, by proxy. So….”
“Signor. I would not betray you….”
The Griffin’s sensitive nostrils widened, his eyes were arrogant and luminous.
“No. I do not think you will betray me. You say your head spins. I have a cure for that. Behold this globe. Gaze on it, Guido. Gaze!”
The crystal orb clouded and then was shot with sudden fires. They whirled in spirals, changing like a kaleidoscope. Raspetti’s look became a fixed stare. Again he stiffened in his chair, clutching it by its carven arms. Such a chair as Cesare Borgia himself might have occupied.
“So,” said the Griffin, softly but with infinite force. “So, my Guido. I will cure your headache. Your brain holds too much. You shall not betray me. Relax, Guido, relax, and listen….”
The Griffin leaned forward, his look compelling.
“When you leave me, Guido, you will walk down the stairs, very quietly, very carefully. If you think anyone sees you you will pause and not go on until the way is clear. Thus to the street, thus to Fifth Avenue. The subway is running now. There will be few to enter or alight. You will look forward when you hear the rumble of the train, like a dragon in a cavern, its green eyes gleaming. So—you lean out, your foot slips, you fall, before the oncoming monster. And that, Guido mio, will be the end. The end! Now go.”
The hypnotized man arose, moved like a sleepwalker to the door. The Griffin listened to his retiring footsteps, along the hall, softly down the stairs. Then he closed his portal and returned to his water pipe.
The coals flickered and made wavering, changing arabesques of light and shadow on the walls, the vapor from the herb bubbled through the rose-scented water; the incense, fragrant of amber, wisped about the great chamber while the exotic music rose and fell, swelled into a barbaric chant, dwindled to a desert lullaby.
The Griffin roused himself at last.
“He has gone into limbo,” he muttered. “He was useful but he outlived his utility.”
He moved to where the stars shone and the zodiacal belt gleamed, on the sable setting, turning the crisp leaves of parchment in a tome that was bound in heavy leather.
The Griffin was casting a horoscope, choosing a day for murder when the stars might be favorable to death.
Gordon Manning, explorer, ex-Major in Army Intelligence, now, by avowed profession, consulting attorney, sat in the library of his own house at Pelham Manor. He had forced his mind to the solution of certain legal problems and he set aside the papers somewhat wearily.
He had been commissioned by the New York Police Commissioner and Governor of the State to combat the Griffin after the police had failed. It had been an arduous task to which he had often thrilled, of which he had sometimes despaired. He had unearthed the monster, had seen him sent to the State Institution for the Insane at Dannemora, when he should have been destroyed. Now the Griffin was loose again. Twice he had struck; once he had killed, once Manning had foiled him.
Manning’s commissions were still in force, he was still the champion against the madman, a modern St. George, but it was an unequal combat, one that never let up. He fought against one whose brain, inflamed by insanity, was superhuman as a maniac’s strength.
The Griffin chose to style it a game. In his conceit he named his victims and the day of their death, but only after he had made all his plans.
It was weeks since he had returned to his hidden lair, weeks in which his craft had plotted a killing which, this time, must be perfect. Failure would break him down, destroy his always excited coördination. Once before it had led him to collapse after strenuous encounters. But that had been at the end of tremendous stimulation. Since then, the Griffin had rested.
Soon, very soon, he would leap once more, winged, almost invincible.
In lonely places, where danger crouched, Manning had perfected his senses to super-reception. He was attuned to the vibrations of evil.
He reached for his pipe, for charged water, ice, and the decanter of good liquor set out by his Japanese butler. He mixed himself a long, cold drink, sipped it, raised a match to his pipe. Even before the sound was manifest to the outward ear, he knew the telephone was ringing; knew who it was on the wire at that hour of the night.
“Manning? It is the Griffin. Need I tell you? You scored in our last encounter but it was a fluke. This time there will be no flukes. I have done much in the past weeks, Manning. I have practically reorganized my corps. Even now, Manning, I am cutting in on your wire as I used to, so do not waste time in trying to trace me. On my part, I shall be brief, for it no longer amuses me to talk to you. I think, Manning, that you annoy me.
“If I decide so, I shall annihilate you also after I eliminate Haydn Shirley, on the twenty-fourth of this month. Twenty-four hours on that twenty-fourth day, Manning. In one of them he will cease to exist. You may accompany him across the Styx. Your horoscope does not indicate entirely his amount of peril, but the signs are sufficiently malignant to indicate that you may no longer furnish me with even a halfway satisfactory opponent.
“Until the twenty-fourth, then, five days from now, farewell! My only fear is that when you inform Haydn Shirley of his certain demise, he may disappoint me by a premature collapse. I trust not. I have designed and arranged a somewhat spectacular death for him. He has the instincts of a weasel but the heart of a mouse.
“He pretends to be a p
hilanthropist and uses charity as a cloak for his chicanery. Even you, Manning, can hardly defend him in your mind, though I trust you will endeavor to do so with your body.
“Good night—and pleasant dreams….”
The deep voice died away. The weird music that had been its background swelled suddenly like an organ. Then that subsided as Manning sat with the telephone arm still in his hand. There was a burst of mocking laughter and—silence.
Haydn Shirley! The multi-millionaire. He had endowed many institutions, he was ardent in the cause of prohibition, of the suppression of vice. He controlled the rubber industry. Haydn Shirley!
The untimely death of the man would complete the depression threatening the land. Securities would tumble, including the Shirley holdings. The foundations he had established would suffer. It would be a national disaster!
The Griffin might have been bitten by participation in Shirley corporations.
It did not matter. If Shirley died incontinently, hundreds of thousands, already harassed and impoverished, might find themselves destitute.
A hard man to reach. Surrounded with guards who might scoff at Manning’s warning.
Manning called Centre Street and got an inspector. His name and reputation insured the connection he wanted. The home of the commissioner was equipped with special alarms. Soon the head of the police was on the phone.
“Haydn Shirley! Good God, man, you don’t mean it! I don’t know. The best thing to do is for me to come straight to you. Shirley is at Haydn Manor, on Long Island. We’ll get through to him, somehow.”
III
It was no easy matter, getting through to the elderly plutocrat. The grounds of Haydn Manor were walled, the walls topped by spikes. There was a gatekeeper, and all of the men working on the gardens were part of his retainers intended primarily to preserve his privacy, rather than his life. There was a butler who was harder to convince than a king’s sentry; secretaries who declined to transmit messages, who had blocked any attempt to reach Shirley by telephone.
The chief of these, when they had at last won to him, seemed frankly cynical of the suggestion that Haydn Shirley was in physical danger.
“We have our own precautions,” he said. “They have proven eminently satisfactory so far. We do not care for the interference of the police authorities, nor do we need their protection.”
His manner toward the police commissioner was condescending. He clearly regarded both him and Manning as unwarranted intruders whose persistence should be snubbed. Manning had advised the commissioner, who did the talking, not to mention the Griffin unless it became imperative to do so. The Griffin had got past defenses as adequate as these. He might have an agent now on the premises.
The secretary’s manner got under his skin.
“You have been warned,” he said. “I am Gordon Manning. If the Griffin should succeed in adding Mr. Shirley to the list of his victims, your attitude should entitle you to be cited as an accessory to the crime. We are not here to try and sell protection in any form nor to impress Mr. Shirley with the efficiency of the force. I tell you, my man, his blood be on your head!”
The secretary fell back a little. His face blanched slightly and his eyes widened at the name of dread.
“The Griffin?” he faltered. “Of course, Mr. Manning….”
Manning cut him short.
“The Griffin, following his usual habit,” he said, “has notified me that he intends killing Haydn Shirley on the twenty-fourth of this month. It is true that I foiled his last effort, as you are doubtless informed through the press. It is equally true that I may not be able to prevent this attempt, which will surely be made. Sure also that the Griffin’s plans are perfected. However, since you seem willing to accept the responsibility, there is nothing for us to do but leave.”
The secretary stammered an apology, broken off by the querulous voice of an old man speaking from a gallery that ran across one end of the room where they had been at last given an audience.
It was Haydn Shirley. He was thin and bent, his face was lined. His eyes, deep-socketed, were his outstanding feature. He clasped the rail of the gallery balustrade with veined and corded hands and barked down at them. Manning detected fear in that bark. He fancied the trembling hands were not normally so palsied. Haydn Shirley was not a feeble man but Manning knew he was a frightened one.
“What’s this? What’s this I hear?” he snapped. “The Griffin! I’m coming down there. Richards, are you sure you know these two men?”
“Mr. Gordon Manning and the New York Police Commissioner, sir,” said the secretary deferentially.
“Ha! I’m coming.”
There was a wait while he disappeared and then entered the room. He was more than merely well dressed. His clothes suggested the dandy. Other men Manning had tried to protect had been courageous. Haydn Shirley wilted, physically and morally, as he listened. The light went out of his eyes, his skin seemed to dry, and though he thrust his hands deep in his pockets, he could not control nor conceal their shaking. His voice became a squeak.
“Kill me, on the twenty-fourth? It’s incredible. Why, that’s my birthday! Good God! They say the Griffin casts horoscopes to discover when a man is vulnerable. Why…? Look here, Manning, what do you propose to do? What can I do? I don’t want to die. I can’t die. I have much to do. Important things. Important for other people. The world can’t afford to have me die yet, Manning! Mr. Commissioner! I want to live. I want to live!”
Manning noticed the secretary, Richards, gazing at his employer with a peculiar expression. He was seeing the man he had almost defied exposed, stripped of dignity, whimpering like a child in a dark room, his quivering hands now clinging to Manning’s arm. He had been hedged about with privacy but he had never feared assassination. Now his ego crumbled.
“The one thing to do, Mr. Shirley,” said Manning, “is to secure your safety for the twenty-four hours in which your life is threatened. I am sure you are in no danger until midnight on the twenty-third, I do not believe you will be in any danger, if you are still alive, on midnight of the twenty-fourth.”
Haydn Shirley cringed at the plain words—if you are still alive. His chin was trembling, his grip on Manning’s sleeve became despairing, like the clutch of a drowning man.
“If we can foil the Griffin,” Manning went on, “we shall convince him that he is fallible in his methods, we shall pierce the armor of his colossal conceit. He will not attack you again.”
“Yes, yes,” mumbled Shirley, his own morale destroyed. The potentate was only a puppet. “We must find some place where it is impossible for anyone to reach me. Not here.” His uneasy glances darted about the place, rested with suspicion on the secretary. “Not here. The Griffin, as you say, may have made his plans already, to conform to my habits. He may have spies here. I may have traitors close to me. Why”—he sank his voice to a whistling whisper, waving his secretary to a distance—“if those close to me knew I was going to die on a certain date they could reap a fortune, a fortune! Think of some place, Manning, for me to stay—not alone. You with me. Some place utterly impregnable.”
There was no courage in him, but there was cunning. The brain that had piled up millions was now, after the first shock, concentrating on this problem.
“I have it,” he said. “Look you, Manning, Mr. Commissioner, see what you think of this. We have vaults in the Shirley Building, specially constructed. Burglar-proof, bomb-proof, fire-proof, even earthquake-proof. The last word of experts. There is a central room there where valuable papers may be shown and private matters discussed in secret and absolute safety. Access to it is guarded by the time-locks on the entrance to the vaults.
“There are guards outside. They can be doubled, tripled. The Treasury itself, the Mints, are not better protected. The twenty-fourth, my birthday, falls on Sunday. From Saturday until Monday, the time-locks hold the vaults inviolate. I will stay there, in the conference chamber—you with me, Manning. You will be armed, but there will be no n
eed. I shall fast for those twenty-four hours. I will not touch food or drink of any sort. I will not smoke. The Griffin did not think of my vaults, gentlemen. He did not think of my vaults.”
He had attained confidence, but it was not complete. He looked for assurance and the commissioner gave it to him.
“If the vaults are all you say, Mr. Shirley, we’ve got the Griffin stopped. And, as Mr. Manning points out, another failure might make a raving lunatic out of him again, instead of an insane genius. Will you consider Mr. Shirley’s suggestion that you remain with him through the zero period, Manning?”
Manning nodded. He had not mentioned it, but he had not forgotten the Griffin’s personal threat to him. And he did not think the Griffin had overlooked those vaults in the Shirley Building, invulnerable to attack as they might be.
“It sounds convincing,” he said, “but there must be no mention, no suggestion, made of your purpose.”
Haydn Shirley glanced again at his secretary. His narrow lips closed even more tightly.
“I will attend to that,” he said grimly.
“And I will attend to matters on the outside,” said the commissioner, “while Manning stays inside with you. There won’t so much as a mouse get through the cordon I’ll set round that building.”
IV
The conference chamber, set as it was in the heart of metal even harder than chilled steel, was safer than the control room of a battleship. There were doors twenty inches thick containing twelve-inch plates of pure copper that conducted heat away too rapidly for the entire body to be raised to fusing point and rendered even oxy-acetylene torches inefficient while the ductility of the copper resisted explosives. There were walls of concrete reinforced by steel plates attached to the inner faces by rag-bolts. There were combination locks and four-movement time-locks, each combination known but to one man.
Attempts at unlawful entry released gases, flooded approaches. Invisible rays played sentry.
After minute inspection Manning was assured that the Griffin was absolutely baffled in any attempt to penetrate to the interior of this fortress where he and Haydn Shirley were to stand siege for the twenty-four hours between midnight of Saturday and midnight of Sunday. Actually they would be pent-up for a longer period—from six o’clock on Saturday night until nine on Monday morning.
Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 Page 22