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

Author:J. Allan Dunn [Dunn, J. Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Action and Adventure
Publisher: Altus Press
Published: 2014-09-23T07:00:00+00:00

The Griffin Flies

The Diabolical Genius of Crime Reaches Out to Snatch a Victim from the Broad Atlantic

THE three bodies lay limp on the grass in the Bronx Park Reservation. They were all dressed alike in brown, zip-closing overalls, stained and well worn. Many early drivers passed them and thought them sleepers after an alky festival. Others, imagining they might be the aftermath of some racket, of a highjacking raid, forbore to meddle, with the cynical wisdom of the New Yorker.

They lay there, prone and immobile, save for the almost imperceptible lift of their chests; like three dummies rather than men. One was bearded, another bald. All were well on in middle life, all showed signs of high intelligence. They appeared to be of a much higher type than their clothing indicated. The hands of two of them were stained with chemicals, of the third with grease, but they were all the hands of men of imagination, likely to be specialists, experts, rather than common workmen.

A cycle cop finally investigated, reported through the telephone.

“Three guys laid out here on the Driveway,” he said. “Dead to the world. They don’t smell of hooch, but they are sure out. I can’t wake ’em, can’t get a rise out of ’em. No—I tried that. Look and act like they had that sleeping sickness.”

An ambulance came, the callous interne looked them over.

“They ain’t drunk,” he said, then, turning up their eyelids, “and they don’t seem to be doped. But they ain’t got any more pulse between ’em than a sick humming bird. We’ll take ’em in.”

The tabloids made a brief of it. So did the afternoon editions. The proverbial noses for news on the part of their eager reporters were not working on that occasion. It was the morning papers that started the news, making crisp conservative comment over what the others would, and justly should, have hailed as a mystery.

Doctors on the Bellevue clinic gathered in consultation, baffled. Others came in curiosity and proved no wiser. There was absolutely nothing about any of the three to even suggest identification beyond an intimate description of their bodies. No one thought of finger-prints until later. All that was known was that they were in a stupor, that all of them were sinking, their vitality lowering hour by hour, respiration a light sigh, pulses a mere flutter. Injections, all attempts at arousing them failed. They were well nourished enough and enforced feeding was not necessary.

But second by second, minute by minute, as the hands went round the circles of the clock, their sands of life were trickling out. The physicians marked the characteristics of culture and education, the fine skull formations that did not go with the brown overalls, the coarse underwear and socks, the cheap shoes and the crude hair cutting. They noticed also that every face was lined with care, masked with a registration of dull despair.

It was a good story now. It was a better one after the commissioner of police had mentioned the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.