Again he turned the light up the stair, and stood chewing his lip and scowling. Three times he half lifted his gun. Griswell read his mind. The sheriff was tempted to plunge back up that stair, take his chance with the unknown. But common sense held him back.
-- wouldn't have a chance in the dark,--he muttered.--nd I--e got a hunch the light would go out again.-- He turned and faced Griswell squarely.
--here-- no use dodgin'tthe question. There-- somethin'thellish in this house, and I believe I have an inklin'tof what it is. I don't believe you killed Branner. Whatever killed him is up there--now. There-- a lot about your yarn that don't sound sane; but there-- nothin'tsane about a flashlight goin'tout like this one did. I don't believe that thing upstairs is human. I never met anything I was afraid to tackle in the dark before, but I-- not goin'tup there until daylight. It-- not long until dawn. We--l wait for it out there on that gallery.--
The stars were already paling when they came out on the broad porch. Buckner seated himself on the balustrade, facing the door, his pistol dangling in his fingers. Griswell sat down near him and leaned back against a crumbling pillar. He shut his eyes, grateful for the faint breeze that seemed to cool his throbbing brain. He experienced a dull sense of unreality. He was a stranger in a strange land, a land that had become suddenly imbued with black horror. The shadow of the noose hovered above him, and in that dark house lay John Branner, with his butchered head--like the figments of a dream these facts spun and eddied in his brain until all merged in a gray twilight as sleep came uninvited to his weary soul.
He awoke to a cold white dawn and full memory of the horrors of the night. Mists curled about the stems of the pines, crawled in smoky wisps up the broken walk. Buckner was shaking him.
--ake up! It-- daylight.-- Griswell rose, wincing at the stiffness of his limbs. His face was gray and old.
---- ready. Let-- go upstairs.------e already been!--Buckner-- eyes burned in the early dawn.--didn't wake you up. I went as soon as it was light. I found nothin't----he tracks of the bare feet--
--one!----one?----es, gone! The dust had been disturbed all over the hall, from the point where Branner-- tracks ended; swept into corners. No chance of trackin'tanything there now. Something obliterated those tracks while we sat here, and I didn't hear a sound. I--e gone through the whole house. Not a sign of anything.-- Griswell shuddered at the thought of himself sleeping alone on the porch while Buckner conducted his exploration.
--hat shall we do?--he asked listlessly.--ith those tracks gone, there goes my only chance of proving my story.----e--l take Branner-- body into the county seat,--answered Buckner.--et me do the talkin't If the authorities knew the facts as they appear, they-- insist on you being confined and indicted. I don't believe you killed Branner--but neither a district attorney, judge nor jury would believe what you told me, or what happened to us last night. I-- handlin'tthis thing my own way. I-- not goin'tto arrest you until I--e exhausted every other possibility.
--ay nothin'tabout what-- happened here, when we get to town. I--l simply tell the district attorney that John Branner was killed by a party or parties unknown, and that I-- workin'ton the case.
--re you game to come back with me to this house and spend the night here, sleepin'tin that room as you and Branner slept last night?-- Griswell went white, but answered as stoutly as his ancestors might have expressed their determination to hold their cabins in the teeth of the Pequots:----l do it.----et-- go then; help me pack the body out to your auto.-- Griswell-- soul revolted at the sight of John Branner-- bloodless face in the chill white dawn, and the feel of his clammy flesh. The gray fog wrapped wispy tentacles about their feet as they carried their grisly burden across the lawn.
II
THE SNAKE-- BROTHER
Again the shadows were lengthening over the pinelands, and again two men came bumping along the old road in a car with a New England license plate.
Buckner was driving. Griswell-- nerves were too shattered for him to trust himself at the wheel. He looked gaunt and haggard, and his face was still pallid. The strain of the day spent at the county seat was added to the horror that still rode his soul like the shadow of a black-winged vulture. He had not slept, had not tasted what he had eaten.
-- told you I-- tell you about the Blassenvilles,--said Buckner.--hey were proud folks, haughty, and pretty damn ruthless when they wanted their way. They didn't treat their niggers as well as the other planters did--got their ideas in the West Indies, I reckon. There was a streak of cruelty in them--especially Miss Celia, the last one of the family to come to these parts. That was long after the slaves had been freed, but she used to whip her mulatto maid just like she was a slave, the old folks say--he niggers said when a Blassenville died, the devil was always waitin'tfor him out in the black pines.
--ell, after the Civil War they died off pretty fast, livin'tin poverty on the plantation which was allowed to go to ruin. Finally only four girls were left, sisters, livin'tin the old house and ekin'tout a bare livin't with a few niggers livin'tin the old slave huts and workin'tthe fields on the share. They kept to themselves, bein'tproud, and ashamed of their poverty. Folks wouldn't see them for months at a time. When they needed supplies they sent a nigger to town after them.
--ut folks knew about it when Miss Celia came to live with them. She came from somewhere in the West Indies, where the whole family originally had its roots--a fine, handsome woman, they say, in the early thirties. But she didn't mix with folks any more than the girls did. She brought a mulatto maid with her, and the Blassenville cruelty cropped out in her treatment of this maid. I knew an old nigger, years ago, who swore he saw Miss Celia tie this girl up to a tree, stark naked, and whip her with a horsewhip. Nobody was surprized when she disappeared. Everybody figured she's run away, of course.
--ell, one day in the spring of 1890 Miss Elizabeth, the youngest girl, came in to town for the first time in maybe a year. She came after supplies. Said the niggers had all left the place. Talked a little more, too, a bit wild. Said Miss Celia had gone, without leaving any word. Said her sisters thought she's gone back to the West Indies, but she believed her aunt was still in the house. She didn't say what she meant. Just got her supplies and pulled out for the Manor.
-- month went past, and a nigger came into town and said that Miss Elizabeth was livin'tat the Manor alone. Said her three sisters weren't there any more, that they-- left one by one without givin'tany word or explanation. She didn't know where they-- gone, and was afraid to stay there alone, but didn't know where else to go. She's never known anything but the Manor, and had neither relatives nor friends. But she was in mortal terror of something. The nigger said she locked herself in her room at night and kept candles burnin'tall night--
--t was a stormy spring night when Miss Elizabeth came tearin'tinto town on the one horse she owned, nearly dead from fright. She fell from her horse in the square; when she could talk she said she's found a secret room in the Manor that had been forgotten for a hundred years. And she said that there she found her three sisters, dead, and hangin'tby their necks from the ceilin't She said something chased her and nearly brained her with an ax as she ran out the front door, but somehow she got to the horse and got away. She was nearly crazy with fear, and didn't know what it was that chased her--said it looked like a woman with a yellow face.
--bout a hundred men rode out there, right away. They searched the house from top to bottom, but they didn't find any secret room, or the remains of the sisters. But they did find a hatchet stickin'tin the doorjamb downstairs, with some of Miss Elizabeth-- hairs stuck on it, just as she's said. She wouldn't go back there and show them how to find the secret door; almost went crazy when they suggested it.