Pigeons from Hell | Page 6

"Man's tracks in the dust," grunted Buckner. "Go slow.
I've got to be sure of what I see, because we're obliteratin' them as we
go up. Hmmm! One set goin' up, one comin' down. Same man. Not
your tracks. Branner was a bigger man than you are. Blood drops all the
way - blood on the bannisters like a man had laid his bloody hand there
- a smear of stuff that looks - brains. Now what---"

"He walked down the stair, a dead man," shuddered Griswell. "Groping
with one hand - the other gripping the hatchet that killed him."
"Or was carried," muttered the sheriff. "But if somebody carried him -
where are the tracks?"
They came out into the upper hallway, a vast, empty space of dust and
shadows where time-crusted windows repelled the moonlight and the
ring of Buckner's torch seemed inadequate. Griswell trembled like a
leaf. Here, in darkness and horror, John Branner had died.
"Somebody whistled up here," he muttered. "John came, as if he were
being called."
Buckner's eyes were blazing strangely in the light.
"The footprints lead down the hall," he muttered. "Same as on the stair
- one set going, one coming. Same prints - Judas!"
Behind him Griswell stifled a cry, for he had seen what prompted
Buckner's exclamation. A few feet from the head of the stair Branner's
footprints stopped abruptly, then returned, treading almost in the other
tracks. And where the trail halted there was a great splash of blood on
the dusty floor - and other tracks met it - tracks of bare feet, narrow but
with splayed toes. They too receded in a second line from the spot.
Buckner bent over them, swearing.
"The tracks meet! And where they meet there's blood and brains on the
floor! Branner must have been killed on that spot - with a blow from a
hatchet. Bare feet coming out of the darkness to meet shod feet - then
both turned away again; the shod feet went downstairs, the bare feet
went back down the hall." He directed his light down the hall. The
footprints faded into darkness, beyond the reach of the beam. On either
hand the closed doors of chambers were cryptic portals of mystery.
"Suppose your crazy tale was true," Buckner muttered, half to himself.
"These aren't your tracks. They look like a woman's. Suppose

somebody did whistle, and Branner went upstairs to investigate.
Suppose somebody met him here in the dark and split his head. The
signs and tracks would have been, in that case, just as they really are.
But if that's so, why isn't Branner lyin' here where he was killed? Could
he have lived long enough to take the hatchet away from whoever
killed him, and stagger downstairs with it?"
"No, no!" Recollection gagged Griswell. "I saw him on the stair. He
was dead. No man could live a minute after receiving such a wound."
"I believe it," muttered Buckner. "But - it's madness! Or else it's too
clever - yet, what sane man would think up and work out such an
elaborate and utterly insane plan to escape punishment for murder,
when a simple plea of self-defense would have been so much more
effective? No court would recognize that story. Well, let's follow these
other tracks. They lead down the hall - here, what's this?"
With an icy clutch at his soul, Griswell saw the light was beginning to
grow dim.
"This battery is new," muttered Buckner, and for the first time Griswell
caught an edge of fear in his voice. "Come on - out of here quick!"
The light had faded to a faint red glow. The darkness seemed straining
into them, creeping with black cat-feet. Buckner retreated, pushing
Griswell stumbling behind him as he walked backward, pistol cocked
and lifted, down the dark hall. In the growing darkness Griswell heard
what sounded like the stealthy opening of a door. And suddenly the
blackness about them was vibrant with menace. Griswell knew
Buckner sensed it as well as he, for the sheriff's hard body was tense
and taut as a stalking panther's.
But without haste he worked his way to the stair and backed down it,
Griswell preceding him, and fighting the panic that urged him to
scream and burst into mad flight. A ghastly thought brought icy sweat
out on his flesh. Suppose the dead man were creeping up the stair
behind them in the dark, face frozen in the death-grin, blood-caked
hatchet lifted to strike?

This possibility so overpowered him that he was scarcely aware when
his feet struck the level of the lower hallway, and he was only then
aware that the light had grown brighter as they descended, until it now
gleamed with its full power - but when Buckner turned