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

it up and we are sucking out the loose stuff by pneumatic.”
    “That’s fine, sergeant. Anything else?”
    Sergeant Doyle of the Homicide Squad, Manhattan, on special duty. A good man, he looked now like nothing more than what he represented, a somewhat shambling and elderly underling who got three bucks a day to tote a red flag.
    “Yes, sir. There’s some one up in the cupola, on top the house. You can see it from here if you want to look.”
    Manning did not look.
    “I’ve got a sort of periscope rigged up back of the boarding and”—he stopped talking for a moment as some one struck with a hammer on the lumber—“some one there now, sir, probably got binoculars, piping you off.”
    “Right! You get out two trestles and shove your detour barrier board across the road. I’ll turn back. If any one asks, you tell them the detour means going around a block uphill. And that I kicked. Said I was going to Larchmont and didn’t see the sense of it. Inspector Riverton is tailing me. He’s in one of those tricycle vans, painted red, delivering laundry from the Swan Cleanery. If he should say he’s lost me, you bust into that house and don’t bother to dig a tunnel to it. I’ll be there. I’ve got a tingling in my thumbs, sergeant.”
    “Me, too, inspector. If we get the word, we’ll be on the job, believe me. Good luck, sir.”
    Manning was slowly turning while Doyle erected the barrier and set up the sign. As he headed back he saw in his mirror that a car was coming down the drive from the house. A car of neutral tint with a long hood that hid a powerful engine. Manning’s thumbs tingled again. He was sure he knew that car, had chased it once fruitlessly, had seen it once pass him and annihilate another machine that held two would-be informers.
    The hunt was up indeed.
    He swung uphill, turned, and the smoke-gray car passed him.
    It was the Griffin!
    VI
    No doubt of that. The Griffin, unmasked, but easily recognizable. A face like a hawk, an imperious nose, flat cheek bones and eyes that blazed with insanity. A face that worked with vicious impulse, that leaned forward as if to get a good sight of Manning, but, in reality, to let Manning get a good glimpse of the Griffin.
    The lure! Manning had lured the Griffin out of cover. The Griffin believed that he himself was the lure that Manning would surely follow—to destruction.
    Manning played his rôle, pretended not to recognize the Griffin, but braked, slowed, swung about and trailed the smoke-gray car that was traveling at less than a third the speed it could use on occasion.
    A red tricycle delivery van stopped at the curb and a man got out with a bundle. Inspector Riverton, inside the van at the wheel. First-grade Detective Halloran playing delivery boy.
    They would follow.
    The smoke-gray car turned into the wooded lane that ran down to the beach. It had many tire tracks. Bathing and picnic parties used it. The shore sand was firm and they often did not return by the same route.
    Manning followed. That steep bank where there was no fence? It had one or two features that had intrigued him. One was that the bluff was covered, almost matted, with ivy. That was not altogether extraordinary, but the ivy was of the evergreen variety. It would screen the bank summer and winter alike. What else might it screen?
    It was a rough lane that necessitated slow going, if one regarded car springs. Manning went slowly. He saw the gray car almost stop, saw a tall, lithe figure get out, lean against the verdure-clad bank. It was hidden from view for a moment by the ivy. Then it came forward, or seemed to come forward, stepped into the car again and the car drove on, beachward.
    But, to Manning’s eyes, the figure was not just that of the first man. Dressed like him, similar in size, but lacking the alert gait, though it imitated it.
    He chuckled to himself. There was something back of that ivy.
    Did the Griffin think Manning would investigate?
    He did.
    Manning stopped,