Day of Doom: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 2 (12 page)

“That’s all right,” said Belden. “He doesn’t seem, as I told you, to worry much, so long as he remains at Fairtrees.”

“Then he’s a bigger fool than I’ve ever credited him with being,” said Manning. “That’s where they strike, these days, unexpectedly, in the place considered the most secure. And get clear on the sheer audacity of it. If it’s a racket and the big shots are in it, we’re up against brains.”

“You don’t think it’s the communists, then?”

“The proletariats, the underdogs, the downtrodden hoi polloi? My dear Belden, I haven’t any opinion on the matter. I’m going into this with an open mind.”

“You
are
going into it?”

The commissioner’s face was eloquent of relief.

“You can get in touch with Ten-Per-Cent Willoughby and tell him I’ll start early in the morning the day after to-morrow, and drive up to Fairtrees with my fishing tackle. I wouldn’t wonder if I have to bait this affair. It’ll be bottom fishing rather than dry-fly casting, I fancy. Tanaka,” he added as the butler glided in, answering the buzzer. “Two more highballs, please.”

II

Manning was stopped by closed gates outside the main entrance to Fairtrees. A man came out of a lodge in response to his horn, another drifted into sight from some shrubbery. Both were armed, he noticed. He gave his name and showed credentials, but the house was phoned before he was admitted. Both men were like robots, expressionless, but watchful, suspicious as watchdogs. They wore a compromise between livery and uniform, with shoulder belts and heavy automatics in open holsters. They seemed plain evidence that Willoughby was taking threats seriously, even at Fairtrees. One of them rode up with Manning to the house in the latter’s car.

He noticed other men who seemed comparatively idle as they drove through the grounds. These looked like keepers rather than gardeners in their general attitude. There was no pretense of anything like landscape gardening in the grounds, but the shrubberies and the trees were in magnificent condition. While there were no vistas, everything was given maximum space.

Manning looked with surprise and admiration on the house. It was built entirely of logs, but it had been designed by some notable architect. It had dignity. It looked like some forest fortress of a powerful Fur Company’s factor in far western wilds. It fitted its surroundings. Trees grew above it on all sides and cast their shadows over lawns like green velvet carpets, fringed with rhododendron, azalea, laurel and semi-tropical canna and croton. Perfection everywhere. Arboriculture, rather than forestry, was practiced at Fairtrees.

A butler received Manning in the hall, a second man close beside him. They were respectful enough, but plainly vigilant. Manning suspected that both of them were armed. They looked more like the type of guards in a penitentiary than men trained in social service.

The great door of oak and wrought iron reinforcements could hardly have been pierced by machine gun bullets. Fairtrees, Manning fancied, could withstand any ordinary siege, might even have been built with that possibility in mind.

There was a subtle air of preparedness about the whole place. A slightly sinister atmosphere. There were no indoor plants. The walls were hung with great heads and antlers, and with weapons. Manning noticed that, amid the savage spears and clubs and bows, there were modern sporting rifles. If these were kept oiled and loaded there was a very efficient armament ready to hand.

He was ushered up the great stairway, where a third man awaited him on the landing and walked ahead to the door he held open.

“Mr. Willoughby’s secretary, Mr. Everest Mills, will be with you, in a moment, sir,” said this third man as he bowed. His accents were crisp, deferential enough, but rough. The butler had remained in the hall downstairs with the second man.

The library was a splendid room with a great stone fireplace, carved and hooded. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, save for some paneled spaces where fine paintings hung—all of them of trees, mostly of the Barbizon school.

Everest Mills was sedate, precise and poised, a man of about forty, keen green-hazel eyes, sharp nose, and thin lips. A tall man who moved silently. Without question clever. Manning placed him as one who would serve well, even brilliantly, but might betray a trust. That would not matter to Willoughby, who demanded efficiency and trusted nobody.

Mills greeted Manning gravely. His well kept hands were cold.

“Misfortune has happened,” he said, without preamble. “I doubt whether you could have averted it. I trust you can solve the mystery. But Mr. Willoughby has disappeared. Nothing has been seen of him since shortly after three o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

“Since yesterday?” Manning exclaimed. “You have not reported it. I have called New York twice on my way down.”

“To have given out the news might have precipitated a catastrophe,” said the secretary. “I am sure that Mr. Willoughby would—as I hope he yet will—approve. News of his disappearance will instantly create tremendous publicity. There will be a great depression on the market of all stocks connected with Willoughby interests. And, as you know, the market is in no condition these days for such startling news. There will be something of a panic. Many investors will lose a lot of money placed because of their confidence in Mr. Willoughby. Some of the mills may have to close down. I do not know all of Mr. Willoughby’s affairs. No one did but himself. But I know enough to state that the situation is very serious.”

Manning agreed silently. He could visualize headlines. TOOL TRUST TOPPLES AS WILLOUGHBY VANISHES MYSTERIOUSLY. He could foresee the rush of newspapermen.

“You are sure he did not leave of his own accord?” he asked. The secretary shrugged his shoulders.

“His clothes are all here except the suit he wore yesterday, the same as he usually does at Fairtrees. A golfing suit of rough tweed, without a hat. I doubt if he had any money with him. There was a merger pending, important matters for which I had prepared papers, he was to go over last night, before telephoning to Detroit. Ever since he received the last threatening letters, the high voltage has been turned on the fence, night and day. He did not pass through any of the three gates. They are kept locked and all have gatekeepers. Extra keepers were brought here last week from the Minneapolis plant. There was no reason for his leaving.”

“How do you manage to place the time so exactly?” asked Manning.

“Mr. Willoughby always strolled about the estate after luncheon when the weather was fine. He sometimes stayed late. I was not alarmed when he was late for dinner. At nine o’clock I was, and I started an investigation. I found that one man, a tree surgeon named Bailey, had seen and spoken with him close to three o’clock. The man placed the time by the shadow on a tree. He is an expert woodsman and the sun is his clock. He just happened to notice the shadow after Mr. Willoughby left him and walked down along the brook.”

“Nobody else see him?”

“Not after he left the house. Bailey was working on a big swamp maple on the bank of Crystal Brook. It was a tree Mr. Willoughby had a strong sentiment for. He has told me how he used to climb into it when he was a poor boy and dream about the career he afterwards accomplished. He does not believe in tree surgery as a rule. A sick tree breeds and distributes decay. It is better felled. But he wanted to preserve this maple, so he sent for Bailey and was very pleased with his work. Bailey states that he had finished and that Mr. Willoughby congratulated him.”

“Bailey still here?” asked Manning.

“Yes. He wanted to leave yesterday, before I questioned him. He asked for his check but it was not ready. I did not make the contract with him and I was not sure of the amount. Besides, Mr. Willoughby would have had to sign the check, and would also, I felt sure, want to see him before he left. There were no good train connections for him. So he is still here. By now he knows what has happened, of course. He has been living in the servants’ bungalow.”

“What else did you do?” Manning inquired.

“I organized a searching party. The estate is far from level in places, the woods are dense. A man might slip, might sprain or even break an ankle. There are over fifteen hundred acres in all. Crystal Brook is deep in places. Land might have caved in on the bank. We searched all night and kept it up until noon. Some men are still out. But we have found no trace of him, dead or alive.”

“No signs of intruders?”

“None. They could not have got in, any more than Mr. Willoughby himself could have gone out, without being checked.”

“Any trouble with employees?”

“None. Mr. Willoughby was stern, but he was just. There was no motive for anything of that sort.”

“Any important legacies to employees?”

Mills drew himself up.

“I do not know the contents of Mr. Willoughby’s will, if he has made one,” he said stiffly. “You will have to consult his attorneys. It was not a matter he discussed with me.”

“How about local hostilities, outside the estate?” probed Manning. He showed no sign of it, but he believed that Everest Mills was pretty certain how he stood in the disposition of Willoughby’s post mortem affairs; that he had lied. The attorneys might refuse to consider mere disappearance as an ethical reason for a statement.

III

“When Mr. Willoughby bought up the various holdings in the village of Stone Bridge,” Mills went on, “most of the owners were willing to sell, and he was liberal with them. The houses were demolished and the little farms and small acreages and plots merged in the present estate. The last man to come to any terms was a saddler named Friel. His place was mortgaged, and finally Mr. Willoughby bought the mortgage from the bank and foreclosed, but gave Friel a bonus. Friel was a surly, drinking type, and he made threats at the time because he was dispossessed.

“The people are scattered. Friel also left. There are rumors—there were rumors—that he has been seen lately in the neighborhood though I have not confirmed them. He was an illiterate man. I doubt if he would send typewritten letters. He would have acted, if he still felt a grudge. But he could not have got in.”

“I’d like to see those letters presently,” said Manning. “Meantime I’d like to see this Bailey.”

Mills talked through a house phone. Then he got the threatening letters from a safe hidden by paneling. Manning glanced through them, returned them as the tree surgeon was shown in.

He was an elderly man with stooped shoulders and bowed legs, walking with a slight limp. He was clean shaven but his hair, almost entirely gray, was still plentiful and hung un-trimmed to the collar of his coat of ill-fitting tweed. A man who did not care for appearances, evidently. An eccentric. He wore round, thick-lensed glasses and he kept his hands, which Manning noticed were none too clean, folded behind his back as he faced them. He had his dignity. He was not subservient. Diffident, rather than respectful. He had the air of a man who was self-sufficient, master of his trade, and he seemed annoyed by his detention.

Mills introduced Manning as investigating the disappearance.

“I’ve heard of ye,” said Bailey drily, in a nasal twang. “You caught the Griffin. I’m fearful I can’t help ye much. And I’d like to get away. I work by myself, mostly. I’ve other things waiting me. This was a special job. The bill can wait. And I don’t like to get mixed up in things.”

“Just a few questions,” said Manning mildly.

Bailey answered readily enough, though it was clear he had distaste for the proceedings. Willoughby had met him three years before; Bailey had been working on a private estate in the Berkshires. He had talked with Bailey about the matter of native chestnuts becoming resistant to the blight, about pine rust and beetles. But he had said nothing of the old maple at the time. He had impressed Bailey with the idea that he was set against tree surgery. But evidently Bailey had impressed him with his craftsmanship, so that when the big maple showed signs of swift decay Willoughby had sent for him.

“The last I saw of him,” Bailey ended, “was going down the brook, like he always did. I saw the shadow on a big dogwood, and though I didn’t look at my watch I knew pretty close to the time. I just noted it incidental. Mr. Willoughby was a fine man. He liked trees and knew a lot about ’em. He ain’t the kind things happen to. That’s all I know. The job’s finished, I’m all packed and I reckon there’s nothing to detain me. As I said, the bill can wait, though I’m not a rich man. It ain’t as if he’d been killed, and I doubt then if you’d have any right to hold me.”

He exhibited doggedness and a little rancor towards the end of the questioning. Manning gathered he had been persuaded to stay this long against his will. As Mills had said, it was hard for anyone to leave Fairtrees without authority.

Bailey seemed well within his rights. The house phone rang and Mills answered it, frowning as he listened. For a moment he covered the mouthpiece as he spoke to Manning.

“The news leaked, inevitably,” he said. “The sheriff is here with Lieutenant Carey of the State Police. What shall I do?”

“You can’t do anything but let them in,” said Manning.

The thing had to happen and presently there would be a besieging mob of writers and cameramen. If they were kept outside they would fly over the place. There would be an army of curiosity mongers, professional and amateur. He was none too pleased that the search had taken place before he got there. It was natural enough, but the odds were that all clews were long ago destroyed. And there must be clews. Willoughby was not taken out by secret plane; not if there was a merger forward. He would not have left in such clothes. He had hardly been abducted, for Manning figured it would be hard for even an autogyro to take off from the wooded estate, even if it had achieved landing. And escaped observation.

The sheriff was, palpably, more politician than criminal investigator. He looked always to see which way the cat would jump. Willoughby, to him, was his supreme patron.

Lieutenant Carey was different. Manning heartily approved of him. Carey gave him a salute when Mills disclosed his identity.