Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 by J. Allan Dunn Read Free Book Online

mischief.”
    “In the chair,” said the commissioner vindictively. “And that’s a death far too good for him.”
    “Well, this time we’ll get him,” said Manning confidently. “He used to call our encounters games of chess, but he has lost his ability to look moves ahead. I’m banking on that. We are narrowing down the search for him and I am hoping any day, any hour, to hear he is located.”
    “There is no sense in your uselessly exposing yourself, Manning,” said the other. “You are much too valuable to risk.”
    “I’m guarded all the time,” said Manning. “We’ve got over two hundred men now in the district where we think he must live. But, I’m hoping to catch him at his own game. He figures, I feel certain, that somehow or other he can get me in his clutches. He’d find that a hard job to do by force. We’ve got too many men who can be swiftly concentrated. And he wants a personal vengeance. I feel a good deal the same way.
    “I think he’ll try to lure me into his lair. I’m willing. He may use himself as the bait. I’m going to use myself. And the best man wins. I’m up against a madman. I’m sane. I ought to score, other things being equal. To even the score against me. Or against him.”
    The commissioner had seen many faces grow hard in front of him in his time, but none that set more purposefully than that of Gordon Manning. Many of the Griffin’s victims had been Manning’s personal friends, others had been men who stood for the same thing that Manning did. And there was Ito, needlessly and wantonly sacrificed.
    “You’re in charge,” the commissioner told him. “Run it your own way. Just the same, don’t run too much personal risk. I want you to come back and tell me all about it.”
    “It’s on the knees of the little red gods,” said Manning with a grin and a handgrip. “I’m coming back if it’s fated so, and if I do, I’m bringing the Griffin with me—dead or alive.”
    V
    Manning would not have called himself a fatalist, though his extensive travels, often through the Orient, had made him acquainted with strange cults and a witness of if not an actual believer in their marvels. But he did believe that he was going to meet the Griffin at last, face to face, and he had laid his plans accordingly.
    Intensive but discreet questioning had been extended to doctors and professional ranks. This was a process of reduction and of elimination. Manning had his suspicions of five places now, one of which was the secluded colonial house on a wooded hill. He had sent men to all of these spots who arrived on various likely errands, as solicitors for various household articles. Two of the five he had discovered, through a lucky capture of a speedboat, had nothing to do with his own investigation, but were linked up with a rum-running syndicate, being cover for their land operations.
    The three remaining were all within the length of a mile, in a strip along the shore of the Sound. And they were being watched night and day, though not ostentatiously, from sea and shore. By day Manning commanded what might be termed a flying squadron, a land fleet of motor vehicles manned by picked officers, masquerading as delivery men for stores, some using small trucks and side cars with the names of actual local stores displayed upon them, others in wagons for garbage, in large trucks carrying materials, together with a sprinkling of comparatively obvious detectives.
    Manning did not attempt to disguise himself, or his car. He had a simple signal and call system devised by which he could summon a score of his men to his side in less than two minutes at any time, with the balance centering to the alarm at fire engine speed. He was never completely out of sight of at least one man.
    The house on the wooded hill, with its screening trees and its acreage, attracted his especial attention because of its special advantages for the purposes of the Griffin. It seemed to be one of the few remaining