The Crime Master: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 1 (Gordon Manning and The Griffin), Page 3

  Manning read the report of Rafferty, on a flimsy, sent by ordinary messenger service to his office.

  Suspect traced to Hermes Hotel, room 637, registered as David Sesnon. Checked out at 1.20. Took Yellow taxi 3748, name Alekko Kalimachos—driver has good record. Two bags. Checked in at Hotel Clarence at 1.30, under name of Daniel Sievers. Same initials. Probably careful of laundry marks. Went to barber shop. Shaved off close-clipped mustache and had hair cut. Looks different, but could identify. Took taxi to Pennsylvania Hotel stockbrokers, watched market. Am continuing shadow.

  R.

  There was some delay at the Morgue. Manning insisted on a special autopsy. He believed he had circumvented the Griffin, but he was not congratulating himself beforehand. Sesnon—Sievers, was still under observation, but they had nothing on him, and the Griffin was not to be caught easily.

  The observation of the market, powerfully “bear,” suggested that the man he had trailed was more than ordinarily interested, but it did not prove it. The latest editions carried the announcement of the police surgeon that Ordway had died of heart failure, but they hinted at other, more sinister reasons.

  The grim operation of autopsy was under way. There were two surgeons present, one distinguished specialist supplementing the regular official, by request of the chief commissioner. Assistants in the laboratory searched the organs.

  A third man stood with the surgeons. He was accredited, had proved his identity, shown his knowledge of their craft. He made no suggestions. It was Manning, but he was subtly altered. His skin was darkened, his lean cheeks were plumped, his body was cleverly padded. His voice was altered, his movements slow and deliberate. Glasses veiled his eyes, though their eagerness pierced the lenses.

  There was nothing, after long investigation. No sign of a weakened heart, only the body of a man who regularly visited his doctors, who had recently passed a practically perfect test for a vast sum of additional insurance. Dead, he still commanded millions by his demise.

  No sign of bullet, of knife. None expected. No trace of known poisons. No unusual traces in any analysis.

  Manning had said nothing of his telephone call. This affair was his own. He would conduct it in his own fashion. It could add nothing to their thorough search. The scarlet seal proclaimed that murder had been done, but the men of science stood baffled.

  There were no bruises, no discolorations on the body. A blemish or two, a mole, blotches that looked like slight eruptions, lesser pimples, such as might appear on the skin of any man.

  A ghastly spectacle, though the proceedings had been conducted with dignity.

  Manning moved closer, under the powerful overhead light. He looked at the reddish marks, one in particular.

  He knew of poisons in the Far East, largely vegetable ones that, even when introduced into the blood, would be absorbed within an hour or so by the tissues, leave no trace by any reactions known to Occidental science, if to Oriental.

  “Would you mind examining this mark closely?” he asked the surgeons. “It looks like a half-healed eruption, there seems to be a slight trace of what might be pus. I have a theory it may not be.”

  His credentials and his manner, his knowledge, made them deferential. They were willing enough to try anything, perplexed, weary.

  An incision was made, the pallid and bloodless flesh removed about the spot, the specimen taken off for minute observation.

  Manning was examining the dead man’s coat when they got back, regarding critically a slight stain, almost invisible, on the sleeve.

  “We find no trace of anything toxic,” said the specialist. “But there has been a parting of the tissues, not by any sharp instrument, hardly discernible. The curious thing is that stearine, wax of some sort, seems to have been injected. We have not yet determined its exact composition.”

  “Exactly,” said Manning. “And the mark, as you will see, was on the shoulder, beneath this spot on the sleeve. I think you will find your stearine also there. It should show slightly on his shirt. His undervest was sleeveless.”

  They gazed with animation, energetic to follow his theory, though they did not see what it would prove.

  The stain on the fine weave of cloth, on the linen of the shirt, swiftly yielded results. A waxy substance was held in the fibers.

  “It passed through,” said Manning. “A pellet of wax that has almost dissolved, but not so thoroughly as its contents. You may know that a candle can be fired through a board from a gun. This capsule, loaded with virulent poison, was probably discharged from an air pistol. Probably at close range.

  “That, I think, is the cause of death. As for the poison, there are several, not classified, their source in doubt, that I have met with in the Malay peninsula, Borneo, and other places. Unless you can think of some reason why stearine should have been injected through the coat, the shirt and shoulder of such a man as Ordway, immaculate, precise.

  There was no such reason and they knew it, all of them, standing about the riven body.

  “Damnable!” said one of them. “Damnable! No doubt as to who did it. That fiend must be found.”

  “I agree with you,” said Manning.

  “We are much indebted to you,” said the specialist. “ I wish I knew more of you. Your name.”

  “I am afraid,” said Manning dryly, “that that pleasure, my pleasure, surely will have to be deferred, doctor. I am known only by my finger whorls. You gentlemen need me no longer. You will bring in your findings without me.”

  “Those findings are indefinite enough to be losings,” said the official surgeon ruefully. “Convincing enough to us. But—”

  He shrugged his shoulders. Manning bowed to them and went out with his slow, assumed walk.

  “You’d almost think he knew what to look for,” an assistant ventured.

  “That’s nonsense, Edwards,” snapped the specialist. “We don’t know who he is, but his credentials are irreproachable. But, my God, what a devilish device! And advertising his crime with that red seal!”

  “The Griffin, if it ever existed,” said his colleague, “is extinct. I only trust this one will be soon exterminated. They ought to set this man who was here to-night, whoever he is, on his trail. He might cope with him.”

  VII

  MANNING saw that the key to Sesnon’s new room in his new hotel, under the name of Sievers, was in the box and he, presumably, in his room.

  Manning had already heard Ordway’s secretary, in a calmer mood, confirm the arrival of a man with a brief case, giving the name of Sesnon, who had an appointment with Ordway.

  That appointment must have been gained through excellent credentials, which may have been manufactured. The main bait had been what he could offer Ordway. Of that, save that it had something to do with an asbestos mine near the Pennsylvania-New Jersey line, the secretary knew little. Ordway kept such profitable matters to himself until he was ready to use them. Long-fibered asbestos in any place easily reached was a thing men had long looked for.

  A second appointment had been granted in which, presumably, Ordway would have the tests of the asbestos. Sesnon would give out the exact details, and an expert would be sent secretly to investigate. It was all a blind, and Ordway, trying to make money with himself on the big end, had lost his life.

  With his death the pool that he was manipulating was drained dry. His own estate suffered, but many, forewarned, henchmen of the Griffin, made money. Money was the cold-blooded motive for the Griffin’s selection of Ordway, coupled with the fact that the “first move” since Manning had taken hold, took place beneath the latter’s nose. If anything could have urged Manning on, this semiresponsibility did so.

  So far Sesnon was tied up with his arrival in the lobby after the murder. Manning’s intuition, his judgment, had been correct. Now the trail led to the Hotel Clarence, and Manning followed it, alone.

  The case was far from complete. That trace of stearine in cloth and flesh was not conclusive. The poison had been assimilated. But, if Sesnon—al
ias Sievers—could be found with poison pellets in his possession, with the air pistol that fired them, they had him. With the vision of the chair facing him he might well talk about the Griffin.

  Manning had arrived in a cab, with a kit bag. He registered, looked at Sievers’s signature casually, got his own room and followed the boy with his kit bag. He was not on the same floor as Sievers, but that did not matter. He knew the number of the latter’s room. It was a sweltering night and the heat suggested a plan, not too novel, but efficient.

  He got Sesnon’s phone through the hotel exchange. The answer brought a grim smile to Manning’s face. He had run the quarry to earth. Sesnon was clever, but Manning did not think he believed himself in any danger, though he had taken precautions of changing appearance, shifting his hotel, taking another name. The rub came in the question as to whether he had got rid of his lethal weapon and ammunition. That would soon be known.

  “Did you want a fan?” Manning asked the man at the other end of the wire. “This is the engineer. I can have one sent up right away.”

  “I didn’t order one,” the answer came back, “but I could sure use one. You must have got the wrong room.”

  “Sorry, sir. I’ll shoot one up to you.”

  Two minutes later Manning knocked on the door. As it was opening he spoke his piece.

  “Here’s your fan, sir.” Then he was inside. He had no fan. He had no gun. But he wore his hat, and he carried his cane. He had sprung a surprise, but he had one given to him. There were two men in the room, both with their coats off. There was a whisky bottle on the table, with ice and soda water. Both rose to their feet as Manning strolled in. And both evidently knew him.

  The amazing thing was that they might have been twins. Hair cut, general features, coloring, height, weight, and make-up were startlingly similar. Suits and ties were similar.

  One was Sesnon, one his “ghost.” His appearance was probably brought about for use in drawing off a “tail,” if there was any. In all likelihood routine instructions, rather than alarm, for Sesnon regarded Manning coolly enough. It showed the quality of the Crime Master’s brain, the action of the expert player, looking moves ahead for all possible plays and contingencies.

  Again Manning acknowledged the Griffin’s resourcefulness. The man’s methods were bold and subtle. He was like a slippery eel that, even when seemingly caught, slides through the hand and leaves only slime behind.

  Manning knew which was which.

  “What do you want?” asked Sesnon. The presence of his seeming twin did not actually involve him. He might or might not admit that he had called on Ordway. It was not necessarily criminal to share or shift his hotel. He knew nothing of the results of the autopsy though he might now suspect he had been trailed. He was still confident.

  “I want you, Sievers, or Sesnon, for the murder of Ordway. I myself traced you from his office. Also I know how he was killed.”

  Sievers did not flinch. His eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Which of us are you talking to?” he asked.

  “You. When you made your changes, Sesnon, you forgot to put in different sleeve links. There will be no question about your identity. I’m taking you both. I have two men in the lobby to take you down. Stand still, the pair of you.”

  He saw their glances meet, shift quickly and obliquely to the window. It gave out to a narrow alley. Not the best room in the hotel, but it had one advantage for their kind. It was a fire exit.

  Sesnon’s double moved silently and swiftly. His right hand swung up—inside his partly open vest. The wrist halted, his fingers clutching for a gun. There would be a good tale for the Griffin. The latter had impressed them with the cleverness of Manning, and here they had him. The gun was muffled. There was nothing to it. Let the two dicks stay in the lobby. They would get clear.

  Then he grunted—and then he gasped.

  The steel ferrule, with a flick of Manning’s wrist, had hit and paralyzed his own, as the end of the snaky, but heavy cane struck a carpal bone where the radius joined it.

  The cane circled, shot forward, stabbed him in the belly. It lifted in a sabreur’s sweep and tapped him over the ear. He lost all interest in the proceedings. It took but a second.

  But, in that second Sesnon had hurled himself upon Manning, striving to throw him, to knock him out. He had no weapon on him, from sheer precaution, a carefulness overdone in this case. He was powerful, trained, and imagined easy conquest, astounded to find himself grasping a body that was sheathed in muscle and hard flesh, that turned his attack to defense.

  He had grasped Manning’s right wrist and Manning let his cane fall. He held a private satisfaction in tackling this murderer with his bare hands.

  He tied Sesnon in the fierce clinch, held him, and flung him loose, bewildered at the expert handling—loose for a moment—then Manning’s upper-cut traveled from his hip and connected.

  It was all over. Sesnon fell like a length of chain, his coördination unlinked.

  Manning went over him, went over the “ghost” and found little of value, save money, with which both were plentifully supplied. Then he called the office, spoke crisply to the clerk:

  “Two men there in the lounge. They’re from headquarters. Send them up here, right away.”

  He had two of Griffin’s men in the toils, but there was not much to hold them on, save suspicion and limited circumstantial evidence for Sesnon, a Sullivan act charge for his “ghost.” No jury was going to convict them of murder. There was no positive evidence that Ordway had died of anything administered externally. Only opinion, and a scanty showing of grease that an expert lawyer would laugh off. They would undoubtedly have the best legal advice. Unless Manning found the stearine pellets and the gun, found them soon, in Sesnon’s room they would be out on bail.

  Yet he could hardly have arrested Sesnon on his first hunch that he was the murderer. Now he almost took the room apart and found nothing. The pair were taken away. They would get a good sweating, a rousing third degree. Sesnon, nursing a sore jaw, affected to be jaunty. The “ghost” was still feeling too sick from the jabs and strokes of Manning’s cane to say anything.

  “We won’t be there long,” Sesnon boasted.

  Manning relayed through to Centre Street, asking to have the two held as long as possible, but he did not doubt that the Griffin would soon get busy. Because of his minute examination he should be certain the poison pellets and gun were not in the room, but he was not satisfied.

  He went over the search again. Then he retained the room for himself. It was midnight when he once more got through to the commissioner. He had found his evidence. Sesnon had hidden the pistol with a cunning worthy of the Griffin himself.

  He had wrapped it in black cloth, a small parcel, for the gun could rest in the palm of the hand. He had wired it underneath the grating of the fire escape, close to the building. It was practically invisible and might have stayed there for months, though no doubt some stranger would have visited that room later, another of the Griffin’s emissaries, and removed it. It was a marvelous piece of mechanism, loaded with a tiny capsule of wax, ready for deadly action.

  If Sesnon had been able to use it on Manning, the duel for crime mastery would have ended then and there. He had evidently found Sesnon almost ready to leave, not wishing to destroy the gun, not caring to chance carrying it with him any longer.

  Strenuous efforts had been made to admit them to bail. Big Jake himself, most famous—and infamous—of mouthpieces, had left guests and tried to spring them. Politicians had been busy. Any amount would have been put up. The Griffin had scored heavily in the falling market. Bail money would be negligible compared to his profits.

  But they were still held. Sesnon would have to stand trial for murder. Yet they were faithful. What hold the Griffin held on them could not be shaken. Promises, bullying, long hours of “degree” got nothing out of them. They knew nothing of the Griffin. Nothing. Then or afterward.

  Manning drove home to Pelham Manor i
n the small hours, well satisfied though tired. He ran the car into the garage, went, patent key in hand, to his front door. The inlet of the lock was covered with a scarlet cartouche, red as blood, the head of a Griffin stamped upon it.

  The Crime Invisible

  The Red Griffin, Master of Crime, Strikes Again, and a Grisly Form is Left In a Millionaire’s Bedroom

  A GONG sounded, sonorous but mellow. The faint strains of music ceased. Perfume of amber drifted through the big room, with its curved walls that showed neither door nor window. A voice came clearly from the brazen disk that was suspended on the elaborately carved desk between two smaller ones.

  The Griffin, the mysterious malefactor whose crimes baffled and alarmed the police, the press and public of the greatest city in the world, listened intently, his hand curved beneath his chin. His face held a half sneer of malevolence, of contempt.

  It was his habitual expression. The outward semblance of a man who hated much, loved nothing, a man bereft of humanity, waging war against humanity, against society, and law and order.

  In a letter, nothing short of a challenge, to Gordon Manning, special and volunteer investigator, late of the Secret Service, youngest major in the American Expeditionary Force, the Griffin, who was otherwise nameless, had styled himself the Crime Master.

  He had admitted the possibility, though not the probability, of Manning twisting the meaning of the phrase, of proving himself the master of crime. There was a subtle distinction there, like a chuckle. It was just a jest to the Griffin. Manning took it seriously.

  The Griffin’s brain was askew. It was possessed by a diabolical urge of revenge against the world. It nursed a grudge and nurtured it in an intellect that was keen beyond the ordinary imagination. His hate was archaic, primitive, possessed of monstrous ego, but his methods were modern.

  As the voice continued, his sneer changed to a slight smile of satisfaction. He gave a few crisp orders in return. Then lit a Turkish hookah pipe, in the bowl of which hasheesh was mixed with the tobacco, a stimulant rather than a drug to the Griffin.