In the Grip of the Griffin: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 3

by J. Allan Dunn

  They barely moved. They might have been shrouded corpses, stacked against the wall.

  “We do not know,” said one of them in a hollow voice. “It would do us little good to go free, while the Griffin is alive.”

  “He won’t be for long, if I can get at him,” rasped Manning, exasperated at these remnants of manhood. “Haven’t any of you got any nerve left?”

  It was, he knew, an idle question. The bulbs were growing more and more dim. Manning fancied them fed by a storage battery of limited capacity; enough for an escape, insufficient to help a pursuit.

  There was one thing he had brought away, and that was the knowledge of the Griffin’s next intended victim. In his egoism, the Griffin had called off the list. And Manning had noted the sign upon the planisphere. The shallow curve above a circle that represented Taurus, the Bull.

  If on that list there was one born between April 19 and May 20, that man or woman must be protected immediately, even if he or she had to be shipped secretly to the Gobi Desert.

  Provided Manning did not get the Griffin.

  In the end the police would break in, rescue him, capture the hooded slaves—unless the Griffin had prepared, which was likely enough, some final trap to cover his retreat, a contact-mine of some sort that would wreck the houses, the cellars, and all within them.

  The bulbs gave a final dull flicker, went out.

  VI

  The Smear of Blood

  Manning was not afraid of being attacked again by the nameless ones. His own gun would be a real weapon, even in the dark; and the spiritless creatures had been already defeated. They thought themselves doomed. He snapped on his cigar lighter and began to search the paneling; sure there was somewhere a concealed outlet. The Griffin was on the other side. With every second the chance of getting him grew fainter.

  He passed his lighter up and down the edges of the panels, bordered with Gothic carving. It seemed useless, but suddenly the flame wavered, blown by a draft that drifted in through an imperceptible opening at the side of the panel.

  Manning tried every projection in the carving; rosette after rosette, with no effect. The paneling was heavy oak. He doubted if he could splinter his way through with his gun. Not without ruining the weapon.

  He tried the other side of the corridor. There was a creak, and wood gave at last to his pressure on the center of a boss. The draft blew strongly, with a gust of cold air as the panel slid back. His lighter was blown out.

  Light was of little use in the passage ahead of him.

  He held out his hands and found stone masonry as he felt his way down a short flight of stairs. He touched the frame of a metal door, and groped out into a vast space.

  Far away, down a mighty corridor the roof of which was upheld by massive, square pillars, he saw lights moving, electric torches and lanterns that now revealed, now hid a group of robed figures who occasionally showed the numerals on their backs.

  Herding these slaves were a few men in ordinary clothing, the lieutenants of the Griffin. And the Griffin himself stood by, with folded arms, shown in a flash of light, then lost again in the darkness, in the enormous and distorted shadows that shifted and merged into gloom.

  This was the unopened subway. There was some way out of it that could not be one of the boarded-up street exits.

  Manning did not have to look at his watch. He knew that dawn had long since come, that New York was wide awake. Unless the fog was thick as that of London, even the Griffin would not dare to emerge in that fashion.

  Whatever the exit, it was a narrow one. The group lessened one by one as Manning strove to reach them.

  It was no easy job. There were only the far-off bobbing lights to be occasionally glimpsed. For the most part he blundered along, striking against the great pillars, hurrying all he could.

  Now and again he saw the lights. They were moving no more. They were directed upon one spot where the group was dwindling, all too fast.

  They seemed mounting some kind of steep, narrow and difficult ladder. And the Griffin was plain in one of the beams. It showed his black robe, his yellow, leprous mask.

  Manning ran toward them, shouting, summoning them to surrender.

  He spared one shot to emphasize his authority, reveal an actual threat. The report was multiplied a hundred times, until it sounded like a burst of machine-gun fire.

  A flashlight was swung toward him. Its white light was strong and he shielded his eyes against it as best he could.

  For a moment they were startled into inaction. They saw him as one of themselves, as the hooded slave sent back to finish Manning. They thought he had gone mad, run amuck.

  But the Griffin knew.

  He thrust his men aside.

  It was the chance Manning had prayed for, but the glare of the light in his eyes spoiled a perfect aim.

  He flung a shot at the Griffin at the same moment that the Griffin hurled a bomb that burst into a streak of livid flame as it struck the floor.

  There was a roar like a descending cataract, like an express freight roaring through a tunnel. The squat, sturdy pillars seemed to reel and dance, the ground heaved and split. Fragments of man-made rock came tumbling.

  Manning was struck by one of them, blinded, and choked with gas. He fell stunned to the floor, his gun still in his hand.

  The last thought his brain had registered was the belief that he had hit the Griffin. He had seen him stagger in the hellish blaze that had blotted out everything.

  There were men about Manning. Some wore white. Light was stealing through his burning and still useless eyes. A voice spoke to him.

  “It’s the commissioner, Manning. We had the Griffin pretty well cooped up, but there was one thing we all overlooked. The old Croton Aqueduct. It hasn’t been used for years—is kept only for an emergency. Parallels the subway for quite a ways. Marked on the blueprints, of course, but we didn’t get at them. We blocked the street entrances, and left the houses, where Tierney thought he saw you turn in, guarded.

  “There are manholes on top the aqueduct. And curving rung-ladders that lead to them. The Griffin and his crew got away through one of them, all except some in hoods we came upon, bolting like rabbits. We got them.”

  “I thought I got the Griffin,” said Manning weakly.

  “He almost got you,” the commissioner said. “The surgeon says you’re due for the hospital. But you hit someone. I hope it was the Griffin, and that you did more than wing him.”

  “Amen to that!” said Manning.

  The Seventh Griffin

  Behind the Masks of Seven at the Charity Ball Was the One Arch-Fiend Whose Cunning Had Planned a Diabolic Trap for Gordon Manning

  I

  The Dice of Death

  Chuckles, malignant and fiendish as the masked face of the monster issuing them, echoed in the hidden chamber of the Griffin. He was surrounded by the curious paraphernalia of astrology. A completed horoscope lay upon the great desk before him, and the name at its head was that of the Griffin’s arch-enemy, Manning. The Griffin was satisfied now that his plans for Manning’s elimination would be successful, though they were not as yet complete.

  Gordon Manning, the man especially sworn to run the Griffin down, to destroy his power for evil, was as good as murdered. Once Manning had delivered the madman to the law. Medieval medical-jurisprudence had refused to send the Griffin to the chair. Instead, it had decreed Dannemora, but that institution for the criminal insane did not hold the crafty monster long.

  Many times the Griffin had planned to murder Manning. His escape, the Griffin was sure, happened only because it was so decreed by the stars. But now, now—seeking as ever, by chart and astrolabe, to discover how the heavens felt towards Manning in the enterprise at present planned, the Griffin had discovered that the influences were ineffably malignant. Manning’s star stood revealed in the House of Death.

  Nor was that all. The Griffin referred to his own forecast, always logged to date. Destruction threatened him, as it did Mannin
g, and as it did a victim already chosen; who was of slight importance save as the bait for Manning.

  This was a situation to delight the inflamed brain of the Griffin.

  He had no doubt that the menace that threatened Manning was himself. That his own danger would lie in the issue that, this time, by all the celestial signs and tokens, would be final. He had no doubt of the outcome.

  This would be a trial to test his utmost powers. And he would win.

  He stood erect in his long garment of sable silk brocade, woven with the signs and symbols of the zodiac belt. He wore a black skullcap, and he looked, with his tall, gaunt height, the high cheekbones and beaky nose, like the archpriest of some unhallowed cult.

  Over his face he wore a mask of gold-colored tissue, thin like goldbeater’s skin. His dark eyes glittered with incipient madness through the slits in the mask, but it was the madness of evil genius. The effect was weirdly horrible, as if the natural skin were shedding, like that of a snake.

  Now he rubbed his thin hands together.

  “Ha, Gordon Manning,” he said in a harsh, imperative voice. “This will be good. The fates have brought us together in a glorious gamble, casting the dice of death together!”

  James Cabot Farnum was a rich man by inheritance, and he had brains enough to keep his money by taking the advice of expert financiers who were his personal advisers. He was forty-two and unmarried; a big, healthy good-natured man who was by nature a philanthropist. He made a hobby of it, with a single purpose.

  He was, perhaps, the best-loved man in America, a sort of flesh-and-blood Santa Claus to deserving children. But he gave more than toys. He sent hundreds of youngsters into the country, and followed that up by seeing they were well-clothed, fed, educated and given their chance in life. He endowed clinics and built a hospital for them. He went into it personally and without ballyhoo. He was the hardest of men to interview and he got the finest write-ups, from reporters and editors who knew he was genuine.

  James Cabot Farnum was in the “Social Register,” and he used that fact to help his protégées. He promoted the Junior Charity Ball, an annual affair of elaborate fancy costumes, with fancy-priced tickets.

  This year Farnum, as usual, was heart and soul in the preparations. It was at the end of a long day that he sat alone in his library smoking a pipe and reflecting pleasantly that the ball would be a huge success.

  His telephone rang and he took the instrument from its cradle before he recollected that it should not have rung. His butler disconnected it every night at eleven. He was a meticulous servant. Farnum was surprised at the slip, still more surprised at the unknown voice that spoke in booming, resonant tones.

  It was a voice with a sneer in it, distinctly unpleasant. A voice that held a hidden threat and a supreme confidence. Farnum was not a coward, but he felt the menace and resented it.

  “Farnum,” said the voice of the unknown, “this is your last week on earth. You will die on the night of the ball you so pride yourself upon, with your ridiculous schemes to avert the decrees of fate by attempting to guide the destinies of children. You are presumptuous. You have been condemned. No power on earth can save you.”

  Despite himself, the compelling nature of that arrogant voice had kept Farnum a listener. Now he got control of himself.

  “I do not talk with cranks,” he said quietly, and replaced the instrument.

  To his amazement a jeering laugh came through the receiver. It was a mocking, ghoulish, triumphant laugh that checked the flow of blood in his veins.

  “I am not a crank, Farnum. I am the Griffin.”

  The instrument was disconnected. Farnum saw that it rested evenly in the cradle. But the laughter came again, the obscene merriment of a fiend, or a madman, or both. Then all was silence.

  The reaction left him weak, in the grip of a horror his will could not instantly combat. He looked about him. The room was on the third floor, inaccessible. He was well-guarded with inner doors of wrought iron, with sensitive burglar alarms, faithful servants. Yet, with that jeering laughter still ringing in his ears, he felt that his doom had indeed been pronounced.

  He knew, of course, of the Griffin, of the terrible trail of crime the madman had left. But he had never imagined himself as one of the victims, even though they were always chosen because of their usefulness to humanity.

  Farnum pulled himself together. There was an automatic in a handy drawer, but he knew it was only a toy at a time like this. He was to die—so said the Griffin—on the night of the ball. That was three nights from to-night.

  He touched a button. It was idiotic to think of a general alarm, but he opened the drawer where the pistol lay and stood by it, not quite sure who or what might answer his summons.

  It was his butler, serenely efficient and impressive, even in dressing gown and pajamas.

  “Did you ring for me, sir?”

  “Yes, Saunders. Please have my extension connected with the central exchange. I find I have some telephoning to do.”

  Saunders bowed and departed. So natural was Farnum’s voice that Saunders did not listen in.

  “I should like to be put through to the commissioner of police,” Farnum told the operator. “This matter is vital. Or else to the next in authority who is available immediately.”

  There was a slight pause. Then: “Mr. Farnum, this is Inspector Tennan speaking. I am going to connect you with Major Manning. He has already been in touch with the commissioner, concerning you.”

  II

  The Fiend at the Dance

  THE Junior Charity Ball was packed with a brilliant assembly of men and women, clad as their fancy prompted them.

  It was a spacious place, lofty, with two balconies, and a dome of glass in the center of the high roof, used for ventilation. The higher balcony was vacant, for it was too far off for spectators to keep in touch with the carnival, when not actively sharing in it. It was cluttered with various properties used for decoration.

  The lower balcony was partitioned off into boxes, curtained and festooned. These had been auctioned off and all had been taken, though all were not as yet occupied.

  None but those assembled there to protect James Cabot Farnum against the Griffin knew anything of the grisly threat that haunted the occasion, like a deadly miasma that might be already in the air.

  Farnum had led the grand march, as he always did, unmasked, in his costume of Messer Marco Polo, which had already been advertised in the public prints, photographed and pictured. But he liked to have all his friends, and those who might be his friends and aides to his cause, see him face to face, to smile at them, as he did to-night, despite the fact that he was well assured his life was in danger.

  It was a brave thing to do, though Gordon Manning thought it close to being foolhardy. He had talked several times with Farnum, told him how the Griffin had talked with him, through the telephones he mysteriously controlled, before he had spoken to Farnum. He did not mention that the Griffin had boastingly, but solemnly, assured him that his own death was also certain.

  Manning had heard that before, and he knew that the Griffin was always eager to kill him.

  He had fifty picked men in the place, posted long before the ball had started. Some were waiters, cloakroom attendants, bartenders and kitchen helpers. Others were to be dancers. The commissioner himself was there, with a deputy, and two inspectors. The chief medical examiner had come. Manning knew how all of these were costumed.

  Manning knew that the blow, or blows, would be delivered with devilish ingenuity. The Griffin struck with strange methods and weapons. The best Manning had been able to do with Farnum was to persuade him to change his costume after the march, and to wear a mask. Both he and Manning were now dressed alike, as mandarins. There were others on the floor, inevitably, and the loose robes helped to conceal identity.

  None had been admitted, none would be admitted, wearing masks. The men from Centre Street, on the doors, would make sure that none of the exposed faces were those of men wh
o were wanted, or who had ever been wanted.

  While tickets had been at a premium, those who bought early enough had no trouble in securing them. This was for charity; and all who could afford the price were welcome. The hall had been searched thoroughly, including the roof. Manning had made that a personal matter, leading the squad. Box-holders had special tickets, and these too were checked at the stairways leading to the balconies.

  Two splendid orchestras, and a famous military band, alternated. Manning, paired off with Farnum, always close to his side, waited, listening for some dread sound to break in upon the carnival, to know that Death, masked, or in the open, had launched his deadly dart.

  It was more than possible, even highly plausible, that he himself might be the first victim, leaving the way open for the murder of Farnum.

  “You and I, Manning,” the Griffin had told him, “are gambling in the last game we shall ever play together. See that you throw a high main, Manning, for we play with the dice of destiny.”

  Whatever dice the Griffin played with would be cogged.

  Yet Manning did not believe that the Griffin would try to kill him in a crowd. He might Farnum; but for Manning, his old enemy, he would want something more spectacular; or far more secret, for his own private satisfaction. The Griffin never meant Manning to have an easy or a sudden death. Manning was sure of that.

  The night wore on, swiftly moving after midnight, and the tension increased for all the bodyguards with every passing minute. The stroke might come when the prizes were being decided upon, or given out. It might….

  Manning felt suddenly as if an icy finger had traced the course of his spine. He was used to terror and to horror; but this gripped him, held him in a spell. It was beyond all reason.

  A dance had just ended. Many of the couples remained on the floor, applauding for an encore. But there were open spaces, and through these there stalked a grim and awful figure, clad in black, skullcapped, the face masked with leprous tissue that enhanced rather than hid the bony beak of a nose, the protruding cheek-bones.