In the Grip of the Griffin: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 3 by J. Allan Dunn Read Free Book Online Page B

Olympic winners. Cooke will be there. He’ll speak, distribute special awards. I shall be there. You’re a member, aren’t you? Good. Then we can talk with him. He’s not going to be easy to handle.”
    IV
    Cooke was not easy. He did not pooh-pooh the danger. No man could do that against the Griffin’s scarlet record; but Cooke declined to take special means to protect himself.
    “Look at this last chap the Griffin killed,” he said. “Shut himself up with you in vaults, Manning, wouldn’t eat or drink. And he died. If my time has come I can’t stop it. I suppose I’m a bit of a fatalist. They say the Griffin is also. He reads the stars and uncovers fates. He may have uncovered mine. You chaps can take all the precautions you want to, so long as you don’t interfere with the fête I’ve arranged.
    “I’m opening my new pool at my country place. No sports program except that a few record holders have kindly promised to christen the pool with the spray from their dives and sprints. It’s built just the length of my own record underwater dive and I’m going to see if I’m still equal to it.”
    He looked it, Manning fancied; a man in his prime at something over forty, deep-chested, powerful. A fine specimen, a model for the type he hoped to develop.
    “That’s one fine pool,” he went on enthusiastically. “I’m trying out, demonstrating rather, the new method of purifying swimming pools with ultraviolet rays instead of using chlorine to sting the eyes out of you. It works wonderfully. And I’m jing-ding-damned,” he added, half humorously but evidently in dead earnest, “if I’m going to let the Griffin put off that event. The invitations have been sent out. It’s a private affair so I haven’t announced it to the press. They’ll probably scent it and be on the job, however. Now, I suppose, I’ll have to add you and the commissioner to the guest list?”
    “We’ll both be there,” said Manning grimly. “Invited or not. What’s more, Cooke, I want a list of your guests. I want to know very precisely who will be present, as guests or employees. I don’t propose to annoy any of them at all unnecessarily. We’ll check ninety-five per cent out inside of twenty-four hours. But we’ve got to know; and I want to go to your place to-morrow and look things over. I’ll drive there, may be there continually.”
    Evans Cooke looked at Manning more attentively. There was a manner about the crime investigator that was as evident and compelling as a flow of magnetic current. His eyes were cold with purpose.
    “You’re welcome, of course,” said Cooke. “I wish it was only as a guest, Manning. I should like to know you better. Like to have you interested in my movement. You’re the sort of chap could stir up enthusiasm.”
    “I’m interested right now in you, ” said Manning. “Take this threat seriously, Cooke. It’s more than a threat. It’s mighty likely to become a certainty.”
    Evans Cooke looked into Manning’s eyes and there was laughter in his own. Not merriment, not derision, but the gay humor of a man who is unafraid. Manning gripped his outstretched hand with genuine liking. A man of this caliber was well worth preserving. Cooke made a gallant gesture.
    “Te morituri salutamus,” he quoted, and turned to greet some of the guests of the evening.
    “What was that he just said?” asked the commissioner who had come up from the ranks and lacked a classical education.
    “It was a slogan of the Roman arena,” Manning told him. “The gladiators stood in front of the imperial box and chanted it to Caesar or Nero or whoever happened to be imperator. ‘Hail!’ they said. ‘We who are about to die, salute thee!’ ”
    “Ludonia,” Evans Cooke had named his place. It was after the Latin verb indicating “sporting pastime.” The place was on the level land of Long Island. The house itself was well designed but not unusual. There was a separate sports building with as complete an