Free In the Grip of the Griffin: The Complete Battles of Gordon Manning & The Griffin, Volume 3 by J. Allan Dunn Page B

Governor, but for God’s sake be careful. Where will you be for the next few hours? I’ll send up some men.”
    “Better wait until you see Manning,” Thorpe replied. “There is no danger here. The place is well patrolled. Send your men if you want to but choose them carefully. I’m on a holiday with my friends. I don’t want us overrun by dicks. Get hold of Manning if you can. Meantime, I’m going fishing. May send you some trout. I expect to get some good ones this afternoon. This thing may be only a fake, Commissioner.”
    At the other end of the wire the commissioner grunted.
    Thorpe himself was not as confident as he sounded, but he forgot it, absolutely, as he worked a Parmacheenee Belle in the riffles and felt the tug of a strike, the plunge of a big trout at the end of his gossamer line.
    He was at the end of the tickles, above the pool. Bostick was at the lower end. He had creeled some good ones and Thorpe was on his mettle. The governor acknowledged the other’s supremacy when it came to close casting, but he felt he was as good when it came to manipulating the artificial fly to copy the actions of a natural one.
    This trout should tie the score. Thorpe was on to a record fish. He gave it line and braked it. It broke water, resplendent, iridescent, fighting like a bulldog against the barb in its jaw. He checked it, tip up, the splitcane bending like a bow.
    Then Thorpe’s footing slipped on the weedy boulders and he went down, instinctively holding his rod up but rolling in the current, swept down into the pool. His waders filled with water and he went deep, thrashing as he came up, plummeted down again, struggling. Vaguely he heard a shout, saw Bostick plunging, lurching out to the bank.
    He made the shallows, but got no hold. The stream gripped him, conquered him. He was a fair swimmer but the water in his waders was like lead. He wallowed, taking water into his lungs, choking, wondering if this could be some infernal trick of the Griffin, his bewildered reason even now rejecting that….
    Then someone gripped him, raised him, dragged him to safety.
    It was Bostick.
    “A close call, Thorpe! You need hip-waders here. Now, you’re all right. And the trout is still on—”
    “Don’t lose him,” said Thorpe, spewing water. He had held to his rod. Bostick knelt beside him, raising him, giving him a drink from his flask that Thorpe choked on but appreciated. “I’ll handle him,” he said, sitting up, feeble but determined. The line on the reel was almost out, but the trout was still hooked.
    Ten minutes later Bostick had the fish in his net, jubilant.
    “You’re a sport, Governor,” he said. “And you’ve landed the record!”
    “You landed me, Bostick,” said Thorpe. “I’d have drowned if it hadn’t been for you.”
    “It wasn’t your day to die,” said Bostick. “Have another drink?”
    Thorpe took it, gathered himself together.
    “No,” he said slowly. “It wasn’t my day to die. You deferred it.”
    Bostick laughed, making light of it, weighing the big fish.
    “All right to make it back?” he asked. “They’ve quit rising.”
    “I haven’t,” said Thorpe and proved it by getting to his feet. “That’s mighty good Scotch, Bostick.”
    “Don’t forget to shift to hip-waders,” said the other. “If you haven’t got any with you, I brought an extra pair. We should wear about the same size. They’re rubberized twill, made in England, keep you dry to your waist and they’re not a quarter the weight of the all-rubber ones. And much safer. It doesn’t take much for a man to drown in swift water, once his waders hold him down.”
    III
    The Police Commissioner finally located Manning at his own house in Pelham Manor, late that evening. He drove out there rather than confer over the telephone, and found Gordon Manning just at the end of a delayed dinner served him by his Japanese.
    “You look fit,” said the commissioner. “You need to be. It looks like the