The Crime Master: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 1 (Gordon Manning and The Griffin) by J. Allan Dunn Read Free Book Online

by the desire to come to grips with the Griffin, to destroy him, Manning was an advisory attorney. He did not appear in court, but his counsel was accounted valuable, his fees were all sufficient.
    Toyata grunted as he surveyed his master, handed him his dinner clothes, valet as well as trainer. His own body was stalwart, muscular. Manning’s was lean. But he had given Toyata a hard quarter of an hour. He kept fit, body and mind. And he did not despise the wisdom of the Orient, physically, mentally and psychologically, in which he had traveled.
    “Little more, you too smart for me,” said Toyata. Manning patted him on his brown shoulder.
    “You teach me,” he said. “Some time I need. Some time, maybe, I need you.”
    “You need us? All same you find us,” said Toyata. And meant it. Manning had brought his three Japanese overseas. They were devoted to him. If the Griffin had his fortress, Manning’s house held its secrets and it held three devoted retainers. No Romio of Old Nippon was better served.
    To-night, as always, when he touched the envelope, Manning felt a crepitation. It was as if a slug crept down his spine. He did not have to look at the bold handwriting to turn and see the scarlet seal. He was not afraid of the Griffin, but he knew that this missive was a death warrant. Before he could enter the field a man had gone out into the void, suddenly, unshrived. Sometimes he felt as if the Crime Master was half justified. There were scoundrels and scoundrels, but the Griffin was the greatest of them all. He held no power of judgment. The man was a fiend who must be wiped out of existence, or social order was in constant peril.
    While Manning believed he had to deal with a maniac that did not mend matters so long as the Griffin was at large, using his infernal cunning. Manning had nothing of the ordinary thing called fear in his composition. His war record proved that. Fear was one thing, it was another to believe that the odds were too great, to believe one could not win out. But a man could face such an issue with courage.
    This was different. He had not been able to face the Griffin. He knew the tones of his voice, their subtle inflections, the mockery that underlay all he said. Some day he hoped to recognize him by that voice, where he could come to grips with him. Meantime he was up against something intangible, invisible.
    A man’s writing meant nothing, unless you tied up the two. Paper and postmarks led nowhere when a superbrain covered the details. But even a superman or a superdevil might slip. And Manning hoped for the benefit of that margin of error.
    He had been on the trail of his quarry once. He had taken the active perpetrators and they had been found guilty, but nothing could break down their determination to cover the Griffin. One man was condemned to die in the chair, but he revealed nothing. The Griffin’s influence was uncanny, it held a hint of the supernatural. Manning believed it was the latter, from the standpoint that a madman was not controlled by the laws nature designed for man.
    IV
    MANNING had the resources of Centre Street behind him. None but the chief commissioner of police had known of his appointment, and he had meant to keep under cover, but the Griffin had found out about it. If the Griffin did not show himself, if he merely played the game, moving pieces on the board; so Manning must pit wits against him, but he could not longer count on concealment. The Crime Master had more than the one advantage he boasted of—the first move. He knew where Manning lived, in Pelham Manor; he had set one of the scarlet seals on the lock of Manning’s front door after the last coup in which a man had died and the Griffin gathered riches.
    Manning felt now that he was watched, that he would be trailed if he worked in the open, yet that hardly seemed a necessary procedure so bold was the Crime Master in his invitations. It seemed as if he at once invited Manning to take part in the game