Read Online In the Grip of the Griffin: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 3 by J. Allan Dunn - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: J. Allan Dunn
Tags: Detective/Hard-Boiled
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It was not a pleasant death, for he knew what was coming before he died. I only wish it had been the Griffin. He said he’d be looking on. Come outside.”
The autogyro had vanished. The police planes still circled, waiting orders.
“He was in that gyro; did you notice it?” Manning asked the commissioner.
“I saw it. I… what’s that floating in the pool, Manning, over at the outflow end?”
Manning fished out a black, wooden disk. A weight at the end of a string anchored it, had steadied it for a straight drop. Part of the center had been carved out into a shallow receptacle that was filled with sealing wax, scarlet as blood, in which was sharply imprinted the seal of the Griffin.
Death Has Its Fling
Up at Nitamo Lodge Sportsmen Hunted Game, but Gordon Manning Went There to Hunt a Savage Beast of Prey—the Diabolic Griffin!
Nitamo Lodge, named after a famous Sachem of the Mahikanders, is an exclusive fishing and hunting lodge in the Adirondacks. The stream is the Wiequaskeck and the man once privileged to cast a fly over its lively, well-stocked waters, speaks well of no other river. The club has its own hatchery and breeds its replenishment of feathered game. As for the deer, they have to be kept down.
It stands in the wilderness, almost as savage today as when Peter Stuyvesant made his treaties with the Katskils, the Mahikanders and the Indians of the Esopus. The land is beautiful, a happy hunting ground.
Membership is limited and expensive. Its privilege is rigidly guarded by a grave and severe Board of Governors. You must have right to it through family inheritance. If misfortune makes it impossible for you to meet the dues, you are still a member. They are true sportsmen who make up the gatherings at Nitamo Lodge. They never refer to it as a club.
They are liberal with guests, but a card is extended only twice a year to each one, once for fishing and once for shooting, a week at a time. If a man wants a deer he must forego trout or birds. And he must be proven. His sponsor not only guarantees his gentility, but his sportsmanship. He must know and love rod and gun. He must cast his fly with skill and proper selection. He must be able to pick off dodging bobwhite, or rocketing pheasant, with reasonable accuracy and bring down his buck with one well-placed bullet.
Above all, he must not be a braggart, or selfish, and must be as good a companion about the big fireplace as he is in field or stream. If a man does not come up to these matters his sponsor is fined his guest-right for a month. Therefore, it is not easy to be a visitor at Nitamo Lodge and a man will speak of it proudly.
As for the Lodge itself, it is convenient, it is supremely comfortable, but it is anything but luxurious. One man and his family of one son and two daughters, besides his wife, manage it completely; the plain cooking is incomparable, varied with game in season. Men do not take their private servants to the Lodge, neither do they rough it. It furnishes a happy medium and—aside from the wife and daughters of the manager—it is strictly stag.
No woman has ever cast a fly on the Wiequaskeck, or fired a shot within the coverts of the club. Nor will they, with the consent of the owners. The place is a sanctuary from everything that reminds them of everyday life and affairs; the members are like the herd bucks that leave the does and camp in seclusion on the ridges; not that they love the females less, but their own, intimate communion more.
It was the first week in May and the season fairly opened, but the weather had been unkind. The night before, frost had lightly revealed itself on the porches, again in the morning; not nipping, but enough to prevent any hatch of flies, to keep the water too cold for early fishing. The trout might rise in the late afternoon as the sun went off the pools it had warmed all day. Meanwhile only a Simple Simon would hope for fish.
On the Wiequaskeck the lusty trout were given an even break. You
The autogyro had vanished. The police planes still circled, waiting orders.
“He was in that gyro; did you notice it?” Manning asked the commissioner.
“I saw it. I… what’s that floating in the pool, Manning, over at the outflow end?”
Manning fished out a black, wooden disk. A weight at the end of a string anchored it, had steadied it for a straight drop. Part of the center had been carved out into a shallow receptacle that was filled with sealing wax, scarlet as blood, in which was sharply imprinted the seal of the Griffin.
Death Has Its Fling
Up at Nitamo Lodge Sportsmen Hunted Game, but Gordon Manning Went There to Hunt a Savage Beast of Prey—the Diabolic Griffin!
Nitamo Lodge, named after a famous Sachem of the Mahikanders, is an exclusive fishing and hunting lodge in the Adirondacks. The stream is the Wiequaskeck and the man once privileged to cast a fly over its lively, well-stocked waters, speaks well of no other river. The club has its own hatchery and breeds its replenishment of feathered game. As for the deer, they have to be kept down.
It stands in the wilderness, almost as savage today as when Peter Stuyvesant made his treaties with the Katskils, the Mahikanders and the Indians of the Esopus. The land is beautiful, a happy hunting ground.
Membership is limited and expensive. Its privilege is rigidly guarded by a grave and severe Board of Governors. You must have right to it through family inheritance. If misfortune makes it impossible for you to meet the dues, you are still a member. They are true sportsmen who make up the gatherings at Nitamo Lodge. They never refer to it as a club.
They are liberal with guests, but a card is extended only twice a year to each one, once for fishing and once for shooting, a week at a time. If a man wants a deer he must forego trout or birds. And he must be proven. His sponsor not only guarantees his gentility, but his sportsmanship. He must know and love rod and gun. He must cast his fly with skill and proper selection. He must be able to pick off dodging bobwhite, or rocketing pheasant, with reasonable accuracy and bring down his buck with one well-placed bullet.
Above all, he must not be a braggart, or selfish, and must be as good a companion about the big fireplace as he is in field or stream. If a man does not come up to these matters his sponsor is fined his guest-right for a month. Therefore, it is not easy to be a visitor at Nitamo Lodge and a man will speak of it proudly.
As for the Lodge itself, it is convenient, it is supremely comfortable, but it is anything but luxurious. One man and his family of one son and two daughters, besides his wife, manage it completely; the plain cooking is incomparable, varied with game in season. Men do not take their private servants to the Lodge, neither do they rough it. It furnishes a happy medium and—aside from the wife and daughters of the manager—it is strictly stag.
No woman has ever cast a fly on the Wiequaskeck, or fired a shot within the coverts of the club. Nor will they, with the consent of the owners. The place is a sanctuary from everything that reminds them of everyday life and affairs; the members are like the herd bucks that leave the does and camp in seclusion on the ridges; not that they love the females less, but their own, intimate communion more.
It was the first week in May and the season fairly opened, but the weather had been unkind. The night before, frost had lightly revealed itself on the porches, again in the morning; not nipping, but enough to prevent any hatch of flies, to keep the water too cold for early fishing. The trout might rise in the late afternoon as the sun went off the pools it had warmed all day. Meanwhile only a Simple Simon would hope for fish.
On the Wiequaskeck the lusty trout were given an even break. You
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