In the Grip of the Griffin: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 3 Read Free Page B

set high on a Manhattan skyscraper, secured to him by special privilege of the magnate who had built the towering edifice as self-tribute to a successful career. These were the days when successful financiers raised buildings, as the Pharaohs erected stele needles and pyramids.
    “I’ve heard of you, Manning,” said Allison cordially. “It seems that I am marked down by this maniac who styles himself the Griffin. A fanatic, of course. Star-gazer and so on. Well, I have been threatened before. I could paper my main room with warnings and death warrants from every variety of communist, syndicalist and the generally deluded who think that world progress must be based upon destruction.
    “Perhaps you know Dougherty?” he went on. “He has been appointed my special bodyguard to protect me from annoyance and my penthouse from sabotage. I am happy to say that he has become my close friend and also my assistant.”
    Manning shook hands with Detective Sergeant Dougherty who laughed at the idea that he was able to assist Allison. But it was clear that the upstanding Irishman was an admiring adherent of the noted scientist and that, aside from science, the two liked each other.
    The police commissioner had told Manning about Dougherty.
    “He’s due for an inspectorship,” said the commissioner. “He deserves it. There’s not a braver, straighter man on the force than Tom Dougherty. I wish I had a dozen like him. He leans over backwards when it comes to honesty and he’s got intelligence. Allison rates him highly and I miss him badly. He’s been an efficient bodyguard but, if the Griffin’s in on this, we’ll see he’s reënforced. What do you propose?”
    Manning was not backward in his proposals.
    “Here,” he said, “is a man born once in a century, once in ten centuries. His brain holds value greater than that of all the treasuries of the world. His success means not merely the supremacy of the United States but, far more than that, the establishment of world friendship. He is the outstanding product of modern intelligence. He told me, half jestingly, that he preferred his penthouse laboratory because, if the atoms should run amuck and there should be a catastrophe it would cause least damage on the top of a high building.
    “It makes it easier for us to protect. It is most vulnerable from the sky. As for that….”
    “I’ll see to that,” said the commissioner, “that the sky is clear not only during the twenty-four hours of the eleventh, but from sunset of the tenth until sunrise of the twelfth. Washington will help us in this. They know the value of Allison. We’ll not let a mosquito get within an air mile of the Whistler Building. And we’ll not let a stranger, we’ll not let anyone get on that roof or into that penthouse. Inside, it’s up to you, Manning. You and Dougherty, though of course I’ll give you all the men you want. You’ll be in a state of siege. I defy the Griffin to get through.”
    “I defy him,” said Manning, “but I don’t underestimate his resources. He is not an ordinary man. He is a fiend. His genius is as facile for evil as Allison’s is for good. I only trust I can get a glimpse of him.”
    “I’m with you in that,” said the commissioner. “Manning, if you get a chance to kill that devil, don’t hesitate.”
    “I have no intention of seeing him go to trial a second time,” said Manning grimly. He did not count his chickens before they were hatched, much less the brain children of a griffin. But his hunch told him that the Griffin had counted all defenses, calculated them as a master chess-player reckons the possible moves of a skilled opponent.
    The sky might be guarded, all approach to the penthouse protected; but the Griffin had a plan. His mine was planted, the fuse would soon be lit.
    It was midnight. The beginning of the zero hours—twenty-four hours of constant vigil to guard the life of Allison and the secret he alone held. That secret was nearing