Pigeons from Hell 63

BY ROBERT E. HOWARD

Frightfid 'death, a whistle in the 'dark, and three women whose bodies hung in some dreadful room of horrors

ceiling and gaping black fireplace was spec­ tral and unfamiliar. Then as he emerged The Whistler in the Dark from the clinging, cobwebs of his recent sleep, he remembered where he was and ~>|RISWELL awoke suddenly, 'every how he came to be there. He twisted his —. nerve tingling with a premonition head and stared at his companion, sleeping CJ of imminent peril. He stared about on the floor near him. John Branner was but wildly, unable at first to remember where a vaguely bulking shape in the darkness he was, or what he was doing there. Moon­ that the moon scarcely grayed. light filtered in through the dusty windows, Griswell tried to remember what had and the great empty room with its lofty awakened him. There was no sound in the

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house, no sound outside except the mourn­ sun sank, darkness came quickly, the thick, ful hoot of an owl, far away in the piny black, absolute darkness of the pinelands. woods. Now he had captured the illusive They knew that rattlesnakes and copper­ memory. It was a dream, a nightmare so heads haunted Southern forests, and they filled with dim terror that it had frightened did not care to go groping for firewood in him awake. the dark. They ate frugally from tins, then Recollection flooded back, vividly etch­ rolled in their blankets fully clad before ing the abominable vision. the empty fireplace, and went instantly to Or was it a dream? Certainly it must sleep. have been, but it had blended so curiously This, in part, was what Griswell had with recent actual events that it was diffi­ dreamed. He saw again the gaunt house cult to know where reality left off and fan­ loorning stirk against -the crimson sunset; tasy began. • ' saw the flight of the pigeons as he and Dreaming, he had seemed-to relive his Branner came up the shattered walk. He past few waking hours, in accurate detail. saw the dim- room in which they presently The dream had' begun^ abruptly, as he and lay,, and .he saw the two fprins that were John Branner came in sight of the house himself and his companion, lying wrapped where they now lay. They had'come rat­ in their blankets on,the diisty floor. Then tling and bouncing .over the sturnpy, un­ from that poirit his dream altered" subtly, even old road that led through the pine- passed out of the realm of the common­ lands, he and John Branner, wandering far place and became tinged with fear. He was afield from their New England home, in looking into a vague, shadowy chamber, lit search of vacation, pleasure. They had by the gray light of the moon which sighted the old house with its balustraded streamed in from some obscure source. For galleries rising amidst a wilderness of weeds, there was~no window in that room. But in and bushes, just as the sun was setting be­ the gray light he saw. three silent shapes hind it. It dominated their fancy, rearing that hung suspended in a row, and their black and stark and gaunt against the low" stillness and their outlines woke chill horror lurid rampart of sunset, barred by the black in his soul. There was no sound, no word, pines. but he sensed a Presence of fear and lunacy, They were tired, sick of bumping.and crouching in a dark corner. . . . Abruptly pounding all day over woodland roads. The he was back in the dusty, .high-ceilinged old deserted house stimulated their imag­ roorn, before the great fireplace. ination with its suggestion of ante-bellum splendor arid ultimate decay. They left the E WAS lying in his blankets, staring automobile beside the rutty road, and as H tensely through the dim door and they went vip the winding walk of crum­ across the shadowy hall, to where a beam bling bricks, almost lost in the tangle of of moonlight fell across the balustraded rank growth, pigeons rose from the balus­ stair, some seven steps up from the landing. trades in a fluttering, feathery crowd and And there was somethmg on the stair, a swept away with a low thunder of beating bent, misshapen, shadowy thing that never wings. moved fully into the beam of light. But a The oaken door sagged on broken hinges. dim yellow blur that might have been a face ' Dust lay thick on the floor of the wide, dim was turned toward him, as if something hallway, on the broad steps of the stair that crouched on the stair, regarding him and mounted up from the hall. They turned his companion. into a door opposite the landing, and en­ Fright crept chilly through his veins, and tered a large room, empty, dusty, with cob- . it was then that he awoke—if indeed he had webs shining thickly in the corners. Dust been asleep. lay thick over the ashes in the great fire- He blinked his eyes. The beam of moon­ ' '^lace. light fell across the stair just as he had They discussed gathering wood and build- dreamed it did; but no figure lurked there. ^ iing a fire, but decided against it. As the Yet his flesh ^ill crawled from the fear

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 64 VEIRD TALES the dream or vision had roused in him; his whole night seemed to hold its breath. Then legs felt as if they had been plunged in ice- an awful scream split the stillness, and Gris­ water. well started up, echoing the cry. He made an involuntary movement The strange paralysis that had held him to awaken his companion, when a sudden was broken. He took a step toward the door, sound paralyzed him. then checked himself. Tlie footfalls were It was the sound of whistling on the resumed. Branner was coming back. He was floor above. Eery and sweet it rose, not not running. The tread was even more carrying any tune, but piping shrill and deliberate and measured than before. Now melodious." Such a sbund in a supposedly the stairs began to creak again. A giroping deserted house was alarming enough; but hand, moving along the balustrade, came it was more than the fear of a physical into the bar of moonlight; then another, invader that held Griswell frozen. He could and a ghastly thrill went through Griswell not himself have defined the horror that as he saw that the other hand gripped a gripped him. But Branner's blankets rustled,, hatchet—;a hatchet which dripped blackly. and Griswell saw he was sitting upright. Was that Branner who was coming down His figure bulked dimly in the soft dark­ that stair? ness" the head turned toward the stair as if Yes! The figure had moved into the bar the man were listening intently. More sweet­ of moonlight now, and Griswell' recognized ly and more subtly evil rose that weird it. whistling. ' Then he saw Branner's face, and a shriek "John!" whispered Griswell from dry burst from Griswell's lips. Branner's face lips. He had meant to shout-^to tell Bran- was bloodless, corpselike;- gouts of blood ner that there was somebody upstairs, some­ dripped darkly down it; his ^es were body who could mean them no good; that glassy and set, and blood oozed, from'the they must leave the house at once. But his reat gash which cleft the crown of his voice, died dryly in his throat. f eadl Branner had risen. His boots clumped on the floor as he moved toward the door. He RISWELL never remembered exactly stalked leisurely into the hall and made for G how he got out of that accursed ;house. jthe lower • landing, merging with the Afterward he retained a mad, confused im­ shadows that clustered black about the pression of smashing his way through a stair. I dusty cobwebbed window, of stumbling Griswell lay incapable of movement, his blindly across the weed-choked lawn, gib­ mind a whirl of bewilderment. Who was bering his frantic horror. He saw the black that whistling upstairs? Why was Branner wall of the pines, and the moon floating in going up those stairs? Griswell saw him a blood-red mist in which there was neither pass the spot where the moonlight rested, sanity nor reason. saw his head tilted back as if he were look­ Some shred of sanity returned to him ing at something Griswell could not see, as he saw the automobile beside the road. above and beyond the stair.-But his face was In a world gone suddenly mad, that was like that of a sleepwalker. He, moved across an object reflecting prosaic reality; but even the bar of moonlight and vanished from as he reached for the door, a dry chilling Griswell's view, even as the latter tried to whir sounded in his ears, and he recoiled shout to him to come back. A ghastly whis­ from the swaying undulating shape that per was the only result of his effort. arched up from its scaly coils on the driver's The whistling sank to a lower note, died seat and hissed sibilantly at him,'darting a out. Griswell heard the stairs creaking un­ forked tongue in the moonlight. . der Branner's measured tread. Now he had With a sob of horror he turned and fled reached the hallway above, for Griswell down the road, as a man runs in a night­ heard the clump of his feet moving along mare. He ran without purpose or reason. k, ' " _ His numbed brain was incapable of con­ Suddenly the footfalls halted, and the scious thought. He merely obeyed the blind

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primitive urge to run—run—run until he be mad! Something came and looked over fell exhausted. the balustrade of the stair—something with The black walls of the pines flowed end­ a yellow face! I thought I dreamed it, but lessly past him; so he was seized with the it must have been real. Then somebody be­ illusion that he was getting nowhere. But gan whistling upstairs, and Branner rose presently a sound penetrated the fog of his and went up the stairs walking like a man terror—^the steady, inexorable patter of feet in his sleep, or hypnotized. I heard him behind him. Turning his head, he saw scream—or someone screamed; then he something loping after him—wolf or dog, came down the stair again with a bloody he could not tell which, but his eyes glowed hatchet in his hand—and my God, sir, he like balls of green fire. With a gasp he in­ was dead! His head had been split open. I creased his speed, reeled around a bend in saw brains and clotted blood oozing down the road, and heard a horse snort; saw it his face, and his face was that of a dead rear and heard its rider curse; saw the gleam man. of blue steel in the man's lifted hand. "But he came down the stair!. As God He staggered and fell, catching at the is my witness, John Branner was murdered rider's stirrup. in that dark upper hallway, and then his. "For God's sake, help me!" he panted. dead body came stalking down the stairs • "The thing! It killed Branner—it's coming with a hatchet in its hand—to. kill me!"- after me! Look!"- The rider made no reply; he sat his horse Twin balls of fire gleamed in the fringe like a statue, outlined against the stars, and of bushes at the turn of the road. The rider Griswell'Could not read his expression, his swore again, and on the heels of his~pro- face shadowed by his hatbrim. fanity came the smashing report of his' six- "You think I'm mad," he said hopeless­ shooter—again and yet again. The fire- ly. "Perhaps I am." sparks vanished, and the rider, jerking his "I don't know what to think," answered stirrup free from Griswell's grasp, spurred the rider. "If it was any house but the old his horse at the bend. Griswell staggered Blassenville Manor—well, we'll see. My up, shaking in every lirnb. The rider was name's, Buckner. I'm sheriflf of this county. out of sight only a moment; then he came . Took a colored man over to the county- galloping back. seat in the next county and was ridin' back "Took to the brush. Timber wolf, I late." reckon-, though I never heard of one chasin' He swung oS his horse and stood beside a man before. Do you know what it Griswell, shorter than the lanky New Eng- was?" lander, but much harder knit. There was a Griswell could only shake his head natural manrie'r of decision and certainty weakly. about him, and it .was easy to believe-that The rider, etched in ^ the moonlight, he would be a dangerous man in any sort looked down at him, smoking pistol still of a fight.. . lifted in his right hand. He was a com­ "Are you afraid to go back to the house?" pactly-built man of medium height, and he asked, and Griswell shuddered, but his broad-brimmed planter's hat and his shook his head, the dogged tenacity of Puri­ boots marked him as a native of the coun­ tan ancestors asserting itself. try as definitely as Griswell's garb stamped "The thought of facing that horror again him as a stranger. turns me sick. But poor Branner—"he "What's all this about, anyway?" choked again. "We must find his body. My "I don't know," Griswell answered help­ God!" he cried, unmanned by the abysmal lessly. "My name's Griswell. John Branner horror of the thing; "what will we find? —ray friend who was traveling with me— If a dead man walks, what—" we stopped at a deserted house back down , "We'll see." The sheriff caught the reins the road to spend the night. Something—" in the crook of his left elbow arid began jat the memory he was choked by a rush of. filling the empty chambers^ of his big blue •horror. "My God!" he screamed. "I must pistol as they walked along.

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S THEY made the turn Griswell's blood Some were killed in the War; most of the was ice at the thought of what they others died out. Ndjody's lived in the might see lumbering up the road with Manor since 1890 when Miss Elizabeth Ifloody, grinning death-mask, but they saw Blassenville, the last of the line, fled from fflniy the house looming spectrally among the old house one night like it was a plague the pines, down the road. A strong shudder spot, and never came back to it—^this your shook Griswell. . . auto?" ' "God, how evil that house looks, against , They halted beside the car, and Griswell iihose black pines! It looked sinister from stared morbidly at the grim house. Its dusty ahe very first^—whenw e went up the broken panes were empty and blank; but they did walk and saw those pigeons fly up from not seem blind to him. It seemed to him ^e porch—" , - _ that ghastly eyes • were fixed hungrily on "Pigeons?" Buckner cast him a quick him through those darkened panes. Buck­ glance. "You saw the pigeons?" ner. repeated his question. "Why, yes! Scores of them perching on "Yes. Be careful. There's a snake on the ahe porch railing." seat—or there was." They strode on for a moment in silence, "Not there now," grunted Buckner, tying before Buckner said abruptly: "I've lived his horse and pulling an electric torch out ' in this country all my life. I've passed the of the saddle-bag. "Well, let's have a aid Blassenville place a thousand times,.! look." aeckon, at all hours of the day and night. He, strode up the broken brick-'wjalk as But I never saw a pigeon anywhere around matter-of-factly as if he were paying a social it, or anywhere" else in these woods." call on friends. Griswell followed close at "There were scores of them," repeated his heels, his heart pounding suffocatingly. Criswell, bewildered. ' A scent of decay and moldering vegetation "I've seen men who-swore they'd seen a blew; on the faint wind, and Griswell grew Sock of pigeons perched along the balusters faint with nausea, that rose from a frantic just at sundown," said Buckner slowly. abhorrence of these black woods, these an­ "Colored people, all of them except one cient plantation houses that hid forgotten ' man. A tramp. He was buildin' a fire in- secrets of slavery and bloody pride and mys­ ^e yard, aimin' to camp there that night. terious intrigues. He had thought of the 1 passed along there about dark, and he South as a sunny, lazy land washed by soft i)id me about the pigeons. I came back by breezes laden with spice and warm blossoms, Mierethe next mornin'. The ashes of his where life ran tranquilly to! the rhythm of Sre were there, and his tin cup, and skillet black folk singing in sun-bathed cottonfields. where he'd fried pork, and his blankets But now he had discovered another, unsus­ .iboked like they'd been slept in. Nobody pected side—a dark, brooding, fear-haunted. aver saw him again. That was twelve years side; and the discovery repelled him. '2go. The Negroes say they can see the The oaken door sagged as it had before. jigeons, but no Negro. would pass along The blackness of the interior was intensified 2iis road between sundown and. sixn-up. by the beam of Buckner's light playing on 'fhey" say the pigeons are the souls of the the sill. That beam sliced through the dark­ 31assenyilles, let out of hell at sunset. The ness of the hallway and roved up the stair, Uegroes say the red glare in the west is the and Griswell held his breath, clenching his sight from hell, because then the gates of fists. But ho shape of lunacy leered down tell are. open, and the Blassenviiles fly at- them. Buckner went in, walking light •mit." as a • cat, torch in one hand, gun in the "Who were the Blassenviiles?" asked other. •feiswell, shivering. As he swung his light into the room "They owned all this land here. French- across from the stairway, Griswell cried out jEigUsh family. Came here from the West •—and cried out again, almost fainting with .fedies before the Louisiana Purchase. The the intolerable sickness at what he saw. A Sivi!. War ruined them, like it did so many. trail of blood drops led across the floor,

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crossing the blankets Branner had occupied, This makes it pretty tough for you, Gris­ which lay between the .door and those in well." which Griswell had lain. And Griswell's "How so?" the New Englander asked blankets had a terrible occupant. John dully. Branner lay there, face down, his cleft head "Knocks any plea of self-defense in the revealed in merciless clarity in the steady head. Branner couldn't have swung at you light.. with this hatchet after you split his skull His outstretched hand still gripped with it. You must have pulled the ax out the haft of a hatchet, and the blade was im­ of his head, stuck it into the floor and bedded deep in the blanket and the floor clamped his fingers on it to make it look beneath, just where Griswell's head had like he'd attacked you. And it would have lain when he slept there. been damned clever—if you'd used another hatchet." MOMENTARY, rush of blackness en­ "But I didn't kill him," groaned Gris­ gulfed Griswell. He was not aware well. "I have no intention of pleading that he staggered, or that Buckner caught self-defense." • • -• . him. When he could see and hear again, he "That's what puzzles me," Buckner ad­ was violently sick and hung his head against mitted frankly, straightening. "What mur­ the mantel, retching miserably. derer would rig up such a crazy story.as Buckner turned the light full on him, you've told me, to prove his innocence? making him blink. Buckner's voice came Average killer would have told a logical from behind the blinding radiance, the man yarn, at least. Hmmm! Blood drops leadin' himself unseen. from the door. .The body was dragged—no, "Griswell, you've told me a yarn that's couldn't have been dragged. The floor isn't hard to believe.. I saw something chasin' smeared. You must have carried it here, you, but it might have been a timber wolf, after killin' him in some other place. But in or a mad dog. that case, why isn't there aay blood on your "If you're holdin' back anything, you clothes? Of course you could have changed better spill it. What you told me won't clothes and washed your hands. But the hold up in any court. You're bound to be fellow hasn't been dead long." accused of killin' your .partner. I'll have "He walked downstairs and across the "to arrest you. If you'll give me the straight room," said Griswell hopelessly. "He came goods now, it'll make it easier. Now, didn't to kill me. I knew he was coming to kill, me you kill this fellow, Branner? when I saw him lurching down the stairs. "Wasn't it something like this: .you He struck where I would have been, if I quarreled, he grabbed a hatchet and swung hadn't awakened. That window—I burst out at you, but you dodged and then let him at it. You see it's broken," have it?" "I see. But if he walked then, why isn't Griswell sank down and hid his face in he walkin' now?" his hands, his head swimming. "I don't know! I'm too sick to think "Great God, man, I didn't murder John! straight. I've been fearing that he'd rise up Why, we've been friends ever since we from the floor where he lies and come at me were children in school together. I've told again. When I heard that wolf running up you the truth. I don't blame you for not the road after me, I thought it was John believing me. But God help me, it is the chasing' me—^John, running through the truth!" night with- his bloody ax and his bloody The light swung back to the gory head head, and his death-grin!" again, and Griswell closed his eyes. His teeth chattered as he lived that hor­ He heard Buckner grunt. ror over again. "I believe this hatchet in his hand is the Buckner let his light play across the one he was killed with. Blood and brains floor. plastered on the blade, and" hairs stickin' "The blood drops lead into the hall. to it—hairs exactly the same color as his. Come on. We'll follow them."

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Griswell cringed. "They lead upstairs." leaf. Here, in darkness and horror, John Buckner's eyes were fixed hard on him. Branner had died. "Are youafraid to go upstairs, with me?" "Somebody whistled up here," he mut­ Griswell's face was gray. tered. "John came, as if he were being "Yes. But I'm going, with you or without called." • I ' you. The thing that killed poor John may Buckner's eyes were blazing strangely in still be hiding up there." the light. . "Stay behind me," ordered Buckner. "If "The footprints lead down the hall," he anything jumps us, I'll take care of it. But, muttered. "Same as on the stairs—one set for your own sake, I warn you that I shoot going, and one coming. Same prints— quicker than a cat jumps, and I don't often Judas!" ' ". • ' miss. If you've got any ideas of layin' me Behind him Griswell stifled a cry, for he out from behind, forget them." had seen what prompted B'ucknefr's exclama- j "Don't be a fool!" Resentment got the tion. A few feet from the head of the stairs better of his apprehension, and this outburst Branner's footprints stopped abruptly, then seemed to reassure Buckner more than any returned, treading a:lihost in the other tracks. of his protestations of innocence. And where the trail halted there was a great "I want to be fair," he said quietly. "I splash of blood on the dusty floor—^and, haven't indicted and condemned you in my other tracks met it-—tracks of bare feet, nar­ miiid already. If only half of what you're row but with splayed toes. They .too receded tellin' me is the truth, you've been through a • in a second line from the spot. hell of an experience, and I don't want to be Buckner bent over them, swearing. • too hard on you. But you can see how hard "The tracks meet! And where they meet it is for-me to. believe all that you've told there's blood and brains on the floor! Bran­ me." ner must have been killed on that spot— Griswell wearily motioned for him to lead with a blow from a hatchet. Bare feet com­ the way, unspeaking. They went out into the ing out of the darkness to rneet shod feet— hall, paused at the landing. A thin string of then both turned away again; the shod feet crimson drops, distinct in the thick dust, led went downstairs, the bare feet went back up the steps. down the hall." He directed his light down . "Man's tracks in the dust," grunted the hall. The footprints faded into darkness, ^. : Buckner. "Go slow. I've got'to be sure of beyond the reach.of the beam. On either '"'^ what I see, because we're obliteratin' them hand the closed doors of chambers were as we go up. Hmmm! One set goin' up, one cryptic portals of mystery. comin' down. Same man. Not your tracks. "Suppose your crazy tale was tryiQ," Buck­ Branner was a bigger man than you are. ner muttered, half to himself. "These aren't Blood drops all the way—blood on the ban­ your tracks. They look like a woman's. Sup­ nisters like a man had laid his bloody hand pose somebody did whistle, and Branner there—a smear oi stuff that looks—brains. went upstairs to investigate. Suppose some-' » Now what—" body met him here in the dark and split his , "He walked down the stairs, a dead head. The signs and tracks would have been, - man," shuddered Griswell. "Groping with in that case, just as they really are. But if one hand—the other gripping the hatchet that's so,, why isn't Branner lyin' here where that killed him."' he was killed? Could he have'lived long , "Or was carried," muttered the sheriff. enough to take the hatchet away from who­ "Biit if somebody carried him—where are ever killed him, and stagger downstairs with the tracks?" it?" . "No, no!" Recollection gagged Griswell. HEY came out into>the upper hallway, "I saw him on the stairs. He was dead. No Ta vast, empty space of dust and shadows man could live a minute after receiving such where. time-

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what sane man would think up and work out He swung the beam around; and Griswell such an elaborate and utterly insane plan to had never dreamed that the sight of the escape punishment for murder, when a sim­ gory body of a murdered man could bring ple plea of self-defense would have been so such relief. much more eflfective? No court would recog­ . "He's still there," grunted Buckner. "If nize that story. Well, let's follow these other he walked after he was killed, he hasn't tracks. They lead down the hall-—here, walked since. But that thing—" what's this?" . Again he turned the light up the stairs, With an icy clutch at his soul, Griswell and stood chewing his lip and scowling. saw the light was beginning to grow dim. Three times he half lifted his gun. Griswell "This battery is new," muttered Buckner, read his mind. The sheriff was tempted to and for the first time Griswell caught an plunge back up that stairs, talce his chance" edge of fear in his voice. "Come on—out with the unknown. But common sense held of here quick!" ' him back. The light had faded to a faint red glow. "I wouldn't have a chance in the dark," The darkness seemed straining into them, he muttered. "And I've got a hunch the creeping with black cat-feet. Buckner re­ light would go out again." treated, pushing Griswell stumbling behind He turned and faced Griswell squarely. him as he walked backward, pistol co{jked "There's no usedodgin' the question. and lifted,- down ^ the dark hall. In the There's somethin' hellish in this house, and growing darkness"" Griswell heard what I believe I have an inklin' of what it is. I sounded like the stealthy opening of a door. don't believe you killed Branner. Whatever And suddenly the blackness about them was killed him is up there—now. There's a lot vibrant with menace. Griswell knew Buck­ about your yarn that don't sound'sane; but ner sensed it as well as he, for the sheriff^s there's nothin' sane about a flashlight goin* hard body was tense and taut as a stalking out like this one did. I don't believe that panther's. thing upstairs is human. I never met any­ But without haste he worked his way to thing I was afraid to tackle in the dark be­ the stairs and backed down it, Griswell pre­ fore, but I'm not goin* up there until day­ ceding him, and fighting the panic that light. It's not long until dawn. We'll wait . ^, urged him to scream and burst into mad for it out there on that gallery." =f" flight. A'ghastly thought brought icy sweat out on his flesh. Suppose the dead man were HE stars were already paling when they creeping up the stairs behind them in .the T came out on the broad porch. Buckner dark, face frozen in the death-grin, blood- seated himself on the balustrade, facing the caked hatchet lifted to strike? door, his pistol dangling in his fingers. Gris­ This possibility so overpowered him that well sat down near him and leaned back he was scarcely aware when his feet struck against a crumbling pillar. He shut his eyes, •. the level of the lower hallway, and he "was grateful for the faint breeze that seemed to only then aware that the light had grown cool his throbbing brain. He experienced a brighter as they descended, until it now dull sense of unreality. He was a stranger gleamed with its full power—but when in a strange land, a land that had become Buckner turned it back up the stairway, it suddenly imbued with black horror. The failed to illuminate the darkness that hung shadow of the noose hovered above him', and • *" like a. tangible fog at the head of the in that dark house lay John Branner, with stairs. his butchered head-^like the figments of a "The damn thing was conjured," mut­ dream these facts spun and eddied in his tered Buckner. "Nothin' else. It couldn't act brain until finally all merged in a gray like that naturally." twilight as sleep came uninvited to his weary "Turn the light into the room," begged soul. Griswell. "See if John—if John is—" He awoke to a cold white dawn and full He could not put the ghastly thought into memory of the horrors of the night. Mists words, but Buckner understood. curled about the stems of the pines, crawled

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in smoky wisps up the broken walk. Bucknet "Let's go then; help me pack the body livas shaking him. out to your auto." "Wake up! It's daylight." - Griswell's soul revolted at the sight of Griswell rose, wincing at the stiffness of John Branner's bloodless face in the chill his limbs. His face was gray and old. white dawn, and the feel of his clammy- "I'm ready. Let's go upstairs." flesh. The gray fog wrapped wispy tentacles "I've already been!" Buckner's eyes about their feet as they carried their grisly burned in the early dawn. "I didn't wake burden across the lawn. you up. I went as soon as it was light. I found noth'in'." II "The tracks of the bare feet—" "Gone!" ^ The Snake's Brother. "Gone?" "Yes, gone! The dust had been distiirbed GAIN the shadows were lengthening all oyer the hall, from the point where A over the pinelands, and again two men Branner's tracks ended; swept into corners. camie bumping alotig the old road in a car No chance of trackin' anything there now. with a New England license plate. Something obliterated those tracks while we Buckner was driving. Griswell's nerves sat here, and I didn't hear a sound. I've were too shattered for him to trust himself gone through the whole house. Not a sign at the wheel. He looked gaunt and haggard, of anything," and his face was still pallid. The strain of Griswell shuddered at the thought of the day spent at the county-seat was added to himself sleeping alone on the porch while the horror that still rode his soul like the Buckner was in the house conducting his shadow of a black-winged vulture. He had exploration. not slept, had not tasted what he had "What shall we do?" he asked listlessly. eaten. "With those tracks gone, there goes my only "I told you I'd tell you about the Blassen- chance of proving my story." - _ vUles," said Buckner. "They were proud "We'll take Branner's body into -the folks, haughty, and pretty **damh' ruthless county-seat," answered Buckner. "Let me do when they wanted their -way. They didn't the talkin'. If the authorities knew the facts treat their help as well as other planters as they appear, they'd insist on you being did-^got their ideas' in the West Indies, I confined and indicted. I don't believe you reckon. There was a streak of cruelty in killed, Branner—but neither a district at­ them-^especially Miss Celia, the last one of torney,' judge nor jury would believe what the family to come to these parts. That .was you told me, or what happened to us last long after the slaves had been frieed, but she night. used to whip her mulatto maid just like she "I'm" handlin' this thing my own way. was a slave, the old folks say. ... The Ne­ I'm not goin' to arrest you until I've ex­ groes said when a Blassenville died, the devil hausted every other possibility. was always waitin' for him out in the black "Say nothin' about what's happened here, pines. when we get to town. I'll simply tell the dis­ "Well, after the Civil War they died oflf trict attorney that -John Branrier wis killed pretty fast, livih' in poverty on the planta­ by a party or parties unknown, and that I'm tion which was allowed to go to riiin. Finally workin' on the case. only four girls were left, sisters, livin' in the "Are you game to come back with me to old house and ekin' out a bare livin', with a this house and spend the night here, sleepin' few Negroes livin' in the old slave huts and in that room as you and^Branner slept last workin' the fields oh the share. They kept night?" to themselves, bein' proud, and ashamed of Griswell went white; but answered as their poverty. Folks wouldn't see them for stoutly as his ancestors might have expressed months at a time. When they needed sup­ their determination to hold their cabins in plies they sent a Negro to town after the teeth of the Pequots: "I'll do it." them. .

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"But folks knew about if when Miss Celia know what it was that chased her—said it came to live with them. She came from looked like a woman with a yellow face. somewhere in the West Indies, where the "About a hundred men rode out there, whole family originally had its roots—a fine, right away. They searched the house from handsome woman, they say, in the early top to bottom, but they didn't find any secret f thirties. But she didn't mix with folks any room, or the remains of the sisters. But they more than the girls did. She brought a did find a hatchet stickin' in the doorjamb mulatto maid with her, and the Blassenville downstairs, with some of Miss Elizabeth's cruelty cropped out in her treatment of this hairs stuck on it, just as she'd said. She maid. wouldn't go back there and show them how ""I knew an old Negro years ago, who to find the secret door; almost went crazy swore he saw Miss Celia tie this girl up to a when they suggested it. tree, stark naked, and whip her with a horse­ "When she was able to travel, the people whip. Nobody was surprised when she dis­ made up some money and loaned it to her— appeared. Everybody figured she'd'run away, she was still too proud to accept charity— of course. and she went to California. She never came "Well, one day in the spring of 1890 back, but later it was learned,, when she sent Miss Elizabeth, the youngest girl, came in to back to repay the money they'd loaned her, town for the first time in maybe a year. She that she'd married out there. came after-supplies. Said the Negroes had all "Nobody ever bought the house. It stood left the place. Talked a little more, too, a bit there just as she'd left it, and as the years wild. Said Miss Celia had gone, without passed folks stole all the furnishings out of leaving any word. Said her sisters thought it, poor white'trash, I reckon. A Negro she'd gone back to the West Indies, but she wouldn't go about it. But they came after believed her aunt ivas still in the house. She sun-up and left there long before sun­ didn't say what she meant. Just got her sup­ down." plies and pulled out for the Manor. "A -month went past, and a Negro came "TTTHAT did the people think about into town and said that Miss Elizabeth was VV ]Mis s ^Elizabeth' s story?" asked Gris- livin' at the Manor alone. Said her three well. sisters weren't there any more, that they'd "Well, most folks thought she'd gone a left one by one without givin' any word or little crazy, livin' in that old house alone. explanation. She didn't know where they'd But some people believed that mulatto girl, gone, and was afraid to stay there alone^ but Joan, didn't run away, after all. They be­ didn't know where else to go. She'd never lieved she'd hidden in the woods, and known anything but the Manor, and had glutted her hatred of the Blassenvilles by neither relatives nor friends. But she was in murderin' Miss Celia and the three girls. mortal terror of something. T^hz Negro said They beat up the woods with bloodhounds, she locked herself in her room at night and' but never found a trace of her. If there was kept candles burnin' all night. ... a secret room in the house, she might have "It was a stormy spring night when Miss been hidin' there—if there was anything to . Elizabeth came tearin' into town on the one that theory." horse she owned, nearly dead from fright. "She couldn't have been hiding there all She fell from her horse in the square; when these years," muttered Griswell. "Anyway, she could talk she said she'd found a secret the thing in the house now isn't human." room in the Manor that had been forgotten Buckner wrenched the wheel around and for a hundred years. And she said that there turned into a dim trace that left the main she found her three sisters, dead, and hang- road and meandered ofif through the pines. in' by their necks from the ceilin'. She said "Where you going?" something chased her and nearly brained her "There's an old Negro that lives off this with an ax as she ran out the front door, but way a few miles. I want to talk to him. somehow she got to the horse and got away. We're up against something that takes more . She was nearly crazy with fear, and didn't than white man's sense. The black people

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 72 WEIRD TALES know more than we do about some things. was a mass of wrinkles, and his eyes, dark This old man is nearly a hundred years- old. and vital, were filmed momentarily at times His master educated him when he was a as if his mind wandered, boy, and after he was freed he traveled more Buckner motioned Griswell to sit down extensively than most white men do. They^ in a string-bottomed chair, and himself took say he's a voodoo man." a crudely-made bench near the hearth, facing Griswell shivered at the phrase, staring the old man. uneasily at the green forest walls that shut "Jacob," he said bluntly, "the time's come""" them in. The scent of the pines was mingled for you to talk. I know you know the secret with the odors of unfamiliar plants and of BlassenviUe Manor. I've never questioned .blossoms. But underlying all was a reek of you about it, because it wasn't in. my line. rot and decay. Again a sick, abhorrence of But a man was murdered there last night, these dark mysterious woodlands almost and this man here may hang for it, unless overpowered him. you tell.me what haunts that old house of "Voodoo!" he muttered. "I'd forgotten the Blassenvilles." about that—I never could think of black . The old man's eyes gleamed, then grew magic in connection with the South. To me misty as if clouds of extreme age drifted witchcraft was always associated with old across his brittle mind. crooked streets in waterfront towns, over­ - "The Blassenvilles," he murmured, and hung by gabled roofs that were old when his voice was mellow and rich; his speech they were hanging witches in Salem; dark not the patois of the piny woods darky. musty alleys where black cats and other "They- were proud people, sirs—proud and things might steal at night. Witchcraft al­ cruel. Some died in the war, some were ways meant the old towns of New England, killed in duels—^the men-folks, sirs. Some to me—but all this is more terrible than any died in the Manor—the old Manor—" His New England legend—^these somber pine's, voice trailed off into unintelligible mum­ old deserted houses, lost plantations, myste­ blings. rious black people, old tales of madness and "What of the Manor?" asked Buckner horror—^God, what frightful, ancient terrors patiently. - " , there are on " this continent fools call "Miss Celia was the.proudest of them "young'!" all," the old man muttered. "The proudest "Here's old Jacob's hut," announced and the cruelest. The black people hated her; Buckner, : bringing the automobile to a Joan most of all. Joan had white blood in halt. her, and she was proud, too. Miss Celia Griswell saw a clearing and a small cabin whipped her like a"slave." squatting under the shadows of the huge "What is the secret, of BlassenviUe trees. There pines gave way to oaks and Manor?" persisted Buckner. cypresses, bearded with gray trailing moss, and behind the^ cabin lay the edge of a rpHE film faded from the old man's eyes; swamp that ran away under the dimness of they were dark as moonlit wells. the trees, choked with rank vegetation. A "What secret, sir? I do'not understand." _ thin wisp of blue smoke curled up from the "Yes, you do. For years that old-house stick-and-mud chimney. , - has stood there with its mystery. You know He followed Buckner to the tiny stoop, the key to its riddle." where the sherifiF pushed open the leather-- The old man stirred the stew. He seemed hinged door and strode in. Griswell blinked perfectly rational now. in the comparative dimness of the interior. "Sir, life is sweet, even to an old black A single srnali window let in a little day- man." v ' light. An old Negro crouched beside the "You mean somebody would kill you if hearth, watchiiig a pot stew over the open you told me?" fire. But the old man was mumbling again, his He looked up as they entered, but did eyes clouded. not rise. He seemed incredibly old. His face "Not somebody. No human. No human

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being. The black gods of the swaxnps. My the old man's head was sunk on his withered jecret is inviolate, guarded- by the Big Ser­ breast, and he did not reply. He seemed to pent, the god above all gods. He would send slumber as he sat. Buckner shook him. "You a little brother to kiss me with his cold lips gave a brew to make a woman a zuvembie— -—a little brother, with a white crescent moon what is a zuvembie?" on his head. I sold my soul to the Big Ser­ The old man stirred resentfully and mut­ pent when he made me maker of zuvem- tered drowsily. . bies—" "A zuvembie is no longer human. It Buckner stiffened. knows neither relatives nor friends. It is one "I heard that word once before," he said with the people of the Black World. It com­ softly, "from the lips of a dying black mands the natural demons—owls, bats man, when I was a child. What does it snakes and werewolves, and can fetch dark­ mean?" ness to blot out a little light. It can be slain Fear filled the eyes of old Jacob. by lead or steel, but unless it is slain thus, it "What- have I said? No—no! I said lives forever, and it eats no such food as nothing." humans eat. It dwells like a bat in a cave or "Zuvembies," prompted Buckner. an old house. Time means naught to the "Zuvembies," mechanically repeated the zuvembie; an hour, a day, a year, all is one. old man, his eyes vacant. "K zuvembie was It cannot speak human woirds, nor think as a once a woman—on the Slave Coast they human thinks, but it can hypnotize the living know of them. The drums that whisper by by the sound of its voice, and when it slays night in the hills of Haiti tell of them. The a man it can command his lifeless body until makers of zuvembies are honored of the the flesh is cold. As long as the blood flows, people of Damballah. tKe corpse is its slave. Its pleasure lies in the "It is death to speak of it to a white slaughter of human beings." man^it is one of the Snake God's forbid­ "And why should one become a zuvem­ den secrets." bie?" asked Buckner softly. "Hate," whispered the old man,: "Hate! ^^"V^OU speak of the zuvembies," said Revenge!" X Buckner softly. "Was her name Joan?" murmured Buck­ "I must not speak of it," mumbled the ner. old man, and Griswell realized that he was thinking aloud, too far gone in his dotage to T WAS as if the name penetrated the be aware that he was speaking at all. "No I fogs of senility that clouded the voodoo- white man must know that I danced in the man's mind. • Black Ceremony of the voodoo, and was He shook himself and the film faded made a maker of zombies and zuvembies. from his eyes, leaving them hard and gleam­ The Big Snake punishes loose tongues with ing as wet black marble. death." - "Joan?" he said slowly. "I have not heard "A zuvembie is a woman?" prompted that name for the span of a generation. I Buckner., ~ seem to have been sleeping, gentlemen; I do "Was a woman," the old Negro muttered. not remember—I ask your pardon. Old men "She knew I was a maker of zuvembies— fall asleep before the fire, like old dogs. You she came and stood in my hut and asked for asked me of Blassenville Manor? Sir, if I the awful brew—the brew of ground snake- were to tell you why I cannot answer you, bones, and the blood of vampire bats, and you would deem it mere superstition.- Yet the dew from a night-hawk's wings, and the white man's God be my witness—" other elements unnameable. She had danced As he spoke he was reaching across the in the Black Ceremony—she was ripe to be­ hearth for a piece of firewood, groping come a zuvembie—the Black Brew was all among the heaps of sticks there. And his that was needed—the other was beautiful— voice broke in a scream, as he jerked back I could not refuse her." his arm convulsively. And a horrible, thrash­ "Who?" demanded Buckner tensely, but ing, trailing thing came with it. Around the

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 74 WEIRD TALES voodoo-man's arm a mottled length of that "You heard what old Jacob said," an­ shape was wrapped, and a wicked wedge- swered Buckner grimly, "Time means shaped head struck again in silent fury. nothin' to a zuvembie." ' The old man fell on the- hearth, ^ scream­ As they made the last turn in the road, ing, upsetting the simrnering pot and scatter­ Griswell braced himself against the sight of ing the embers, and then Buckner caught up Blassenville Manor looming black against a billet of firewood and crushed that flat the red sunset. Yv^hen it came into view he head. Cursing, he kicked aside the knotting,, bit his lip to keep froih shrieking. The sug­ twisting trunk, glaring briefly at the man­ gestion of cryptic horror came back • in all gled head. its power. Old Jacob had ceased screaming and • "Look!" he whispered from dry lips, as writhing; he-lay still, staring glassily up­ they came to a halt beside the road. Buck­ ward. ner grunted. "Dead?" whispered Griswell. From the balustrades of the gallery rose "Dead as Judas Iscariot,". snapped Buck­ a whirling cloud of pigeons that swept ner, frownirig at the twitching reptile. "That away into the sunset, black against the lurid infernal snake crammed, enough poison into glare. .... his veins _to_ kill a dozen men his age. But I think it was the shock and fright,that killed Ill him." "What shall we do?" asked Griswell, The Call of Zuvembie shivering.;. ^ .^. "Leave .the body on that bunk. Nothin' • OTH men sat rigid for a few mornents can hurt it, if we bolt the door'so the wild B after the.pigeons had flown. hogs can't get in, or any cat. We'll carry it "Well, I've'seen them at last," muttered into town tomorrow. We've got work to do Buckner. tonight. Let's get goin'." "Only the doomed see them; perhaps," • Griswell shrank from touching the corpse, whispered Griswell. "That tramp saw but he helped Buckner lift it on the rude them—" bunk", and then ^stumbled hastily out of the "Well,-we'll see," returned the South­ hut. The sun was hovering above the hori­ erner tranquilly, as he climbed out of the zon, visible in dazzling red flame through car, but Griswell noticed that he uncon­ the black stems of the trees. sciously hitched forward his scabbarded They climbed into the- car in silence, and gun. went bumping back along the stumpy The oaken door sagged on broken hinges. train. Their feet echoed on the broken brick walk. "He said the Big Snake would send one The blind windows reflected the sunset in of his brothers," muttered Griswell. sheets of flame. As. they came into the "ISIonsense!" snorted Buckrier. "Snakes broad hall Griswell saw the string of black like warmth, and that swamp is full of them. marks that ran across the floor and into It crawled in and coiled up among that fire­ the chamber, marking the path of a dead wood. Old Jacob disturbed it, and it bit him. man., Nothin' supernatural about that." After a Buckner had brought blankets out of short silence he said, in a diflferent voice, the automobile. He spread them before the "That was the first time I ever saw a rattler fireplace. strike without singin'; and the first time I •''I'll lie next to the door," he said. "You ever saw a snake tvith a white crescent moon lie where you did last night." on its head." "Shall we light a fire in the grate?" asked They were turning in to the main road Griswell, dreading the thought of the black­ before either spoke again. ness that would cloak the woods when the "You think that the mulatto Joan has brief tv^'ilight had died. skulked in the house all these years?" Gris-, "No. Y'ou've got a flashlight and so have well asked. I. We'll lie here in the dark and see what T'

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED PIGEONS FROM HELL 75 happens. Can you use that gun i gave of these, why does she steal so subtly about you?" the house? Why does she tug at my door, "I suppose so. I never fired a revolver, and glide away when I call to her? Shall I but I know 'how it's done." open the door and go out to her? No, no! "Well, leave the shootin' to me, if pos­ I dare not! I am afraid. Oh God, what shall sible." The sheriff seated himself cross- I do? I dare not stay here—but where am I legged on his blankets and emptied the to go?' " qrlinder of his big blue Colt, inspecting "By God!" ejaculated Biickner. "That each cartridge with a critical eye before he must be Elizabeth BlassenviUe's diary! Go replaced it. on!" Griswell prowled nervously back and "I can't make out the rest of the page," forth, begrudging the slow fading of the answered Griswell. "But a few pages fur­ light as a miser begrudges the waning of ther on I can make out some lines." He his gold. He leaned with one hand against read: the mantelpiece, staring down into the dust- • " "Why did the Negroes all run away covered ashes. The fire that produced those when Aunt Celia disappeared? My sisters ashes must have been built by Elizabeth are dead. I know they are dead. I seem to BlassenviUe, more than forty years before. sense- that they died horribly, in fear and The thought was depressing. Idly he stirred agony. But why? Why? If someone mur­ the dusty ashes with his toe. Something dered Aunt Celia, why should that person came to view among the charred debris—a murder my poor sisters? They were always bit of paper, stained and yellowed. Still idly kind to the black people. Joan—' " He he bent and drew it out of the ashes. It paused, scowling futilely. was a note-book with moldering cardboard "A piece of the page is torn out. Here's ~ backs. another entry imder another date—at least I "What have^you found.-'" asked Buckner, judge it's a date; I can't make it out for squinting down the gleaming barrel of his sure. gun. - : " " the awful thing that the old Ne- "Nothing but an old note-book. Looks ' gress hinted at? She named Jacob Blount, like a diary. The pages are covered with and Joan, but she would not speak plainly; writing—but the ink is. so faded, and the perhaps she feared to—' Part of it gone paper is in such a state of decay that I can't 'here; then: tell much about it. How do you suppose it " 'No, no! How can it be? She is dead came in the fireplace, without being burned —or gone away. Yet—she was born and up?" raised in the West Indies, and from "Thrown in long after the fire was out," hints she let fall in the past, I know she surmised Buckner. "Probably found and delved into the mysteries of the voodoo. I tossed in the fireplace by somebody who was believe she even danced in one of their in here stealin' furniture. Likely somebody horrible ceremonies—how could she have who couldn't read." been such.a beast? And this—this horror. God, can such things be? I know not what RISWELL fluttered the crumbling to think. If it is she who roams the house G leaves listlessly, straining his eyes-in at night, who fumbles' at my door, who the fading light over the yellowed scrawls. whistles so weirdly and sweetly—no, no, I - Then he stiffened.- must be going mad. If I stay here alone I "Here's an entry that'.s legible! Listen!" shall die as hideously as my sisters must He read: have died. Of that I am convinced.' " " T know someone is in the house besides myself. I can hear someone prowling about HE incoherent chronicle ended as ab­ at night when the sun has set and the pines T ruptly as it had begun. Griswell was are black outside. Often in the night I hear so engrossed in deciphering the scraps that it fumbling at my door. Who is it? Is it one he was not aware that darkness had stolen of my sisters? Is it Aunt Celia? If it is either upon them, hardly aware that Buckner was

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 76 WEIRD TALES holding his electric torch for him to read blur on his blankets. "I've heard of zom­ by. Waking from his- abstraction he started bies. Never knew before what a zuvembie and darted a quick glance at the black hall­ was. Evidently some drug concocted by the way. • voodob-men to induce madness in women. '"What do you make of it?" That doesn't explain the other things, "What I've suspected all the time," an­ though: the hypnotic powers, the abnormal swered 'Buckner. "That, mulatto maid Joan longevity, the ability to control corpses— turned zuvembie to avenge herself on Miss no, a zuvembie can't be merely a madwo­ Celia. Probably hated the whole family as man. much as she did her mistress. She'd taken "It's a monster, something more and part in voodoo ceremonies on her native less than a human being, created by the island until she was "ripe,', as old Jacob said. magic that spawns in black swamps and . All she needed was the Black Brew—he jungles—well, we'll see." supplied that. She killed Miss Celia and the three older girls; and would have gotten IS voice ceased, and in thesilence Gris­ Elizabeth but for chance. She's been lurkin' H well heard the pounding of his own in .this old house all these years, like a heart. snake in a ruin." , Outside in the black woods a wolf ""But why should she murder a stranger?" howled eerily, and owls hooted.- Then si­ '"You heard what old Jacob said," re­ lence fell again like a black fog. . minded Buckner. "A zuvembie finds satis- - Griswell forced hiniself • to lie still on faction in the slaughter of' humans. She his blankets. Time seemed at a standstill. called Branner up the stair and split his He felt as if he were choking. The suspens'e head and stuck the hatchet in his hand, and was growing unendurable; the effort he sent him downstairs to murder you. -No. made to control his crumbling nerves bathed court will ever believe that, but if we can his limbs in sweat. He clenched his teeth , produce. her body, that will be evidence until his jaws ached and almost locked, and enough to prove your innocence. ~My word the nails of his fingers bit deeply into his will be taken, that she murdered Branner. palms. Jacob said a zuvembie could be killed . . . He did not know .what he was expecting. in reporting this affair I don't have to be- The fiend would strike a;gain—but how? too accurate in detail." Would it be a horrible, sweet. whistling, "She came and peered over the balus­ bare feet stealing down the creaking steps, trade of the stair at us," htiuttered Griswell. or a sudden hatchet-stroke in the dark? "But why didn't we find her tracks on.the Would it choose him or Buckner? Was stair?" Buckner already dead? He could see noth­ •'"Maybe you dreamed it. Maybe a zuvem­ ing in the blackness, but he heard the bie can project her spirit—hell! why try to man's steady breathing. The Southerner rationalize something that's outside the must have nerves of steel. ' Or was that bounds of rationality? Let's begin our Buckner breathing beside him, separated by watch." a narrow strip of darkness? Had the fiend "Don't turn out the light!" exclaimed already struck in silence, and taken the Griswell involuntarily. Then he added: '"Of sheriff's place, there to lie in ghoulish glee course. Turn it .out. We must be in the until it was ready to strike?—a thousand dark as"—he gagged a bit—"'as Branner hideous fancies assailed Griswell tooth and and I were." claw. - But fear like a physical sickness assailed' He began to feel that he would 'go mad him when the room was plunged in dark­ if he did not leap to his feet, screaming, ness. He lay trembling and his heart beat and burst frenziedly out of that accursed so heavily he felt as if he would suffo- house—^not even the fear of the gallows - cate. could keep him lying there in the darkness "The West Indies must be the plague any longer—the. rhythm of Buckner's spot of the world," muttered Buckner, a breathing was suddenly broken, and Gris-

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well felt as if a bucket of ice-water had unbearably in his own ears. But his will­ been poured over him. From somewhere power was shattered to bits. It did not exist. above them rose a sound of weird, sweet ^He had no will. He had dropped his flash­ whistling. ... light, and he had forgotten the gun in his Griswell's control snapped, plunging his pocket. He could not command his own . brain into darkness deeper than the physical body. blackness which engulfed him. There was His legs, moving stiffly, worked like a period of absolute blankness, in which a pieces of mechanism detached from his realization of motion was his first sensation brain, obeying an outside will. Clumping of awakening consciousness. He was run­ methodically they carried him shrieking up ning, madly, stumbling over an incredibly the stair toward the witch-fire, glow shim­ rough road. All was darkness about him, mering above him. and he ran blindly. Vaguely he realized "Buckner!" he screamed. "Buckner! that he must have bolted from the house, He;lp, for God's sake!" and fled for perhaps miles before his over­ His voice strangled in his throat. He had wrought brain began to function. He did reached the upper landing. He was totter­ not care; dying on the gallows for a murder ing down the hallway. The whistling sank he never committed did not terrify him half and ceased, but its impulsion still drove him as much as the thought, of -returning to that on. He could not see from what source the house of horror. He was overpowered by dim glow came. It seemed to emanate from the urge to run—run—run as he was run­ no central focus. But he saw a vague figure ning now, blindly, until he reached the end shambling toward him. It looked like a of his endurance. The mist had not yet woman, but no human woman ever walked fully lifted from his brain, but he was with that skulking gait, and no human- aware of a dull wonder that he could not woman ever had that face of horror, that see the stars through the black branches. leering yellow blur of lunacy—he tried to He wished vaguely that he could see where scream at the sight of that face, at the glint • he was going. • of keen steel in the uplifted claw-like hand He believed he- must be climbing a —but his tongue was frozen. hill, and that was strange, for he knew Then something crashed deafeningly be­ there were no hills within miles of the hind him; the shajiows were split by a Manor. tongue of flame which lit a hideous figure Then above and ahead of him a dim glow falling backward. Hard on the heels of the began. report rang an inhuman squawk. In the darkness that followed the flash 'E SCRAMBLED toward it, over ledge­ Griswell fell to his knees and covered his like projections that were more and face with his hands. He did not hear Buck- more taking on a disquieting symmetry. ner's voice. Then he was horror-stricken to realize that The Southerner's hand on his shoulder a sound was impacting on his ears—a weird- shook him out of his swoon. mocking whistle. The sound swept the mists A light in his eyes blinded him. He a.way. Why, what was this? Where was he? blinked, shaded his eyes, looked up into Awakening and realization came like the Buckner's face, bending at the rim of the stunning stroke of a butcher's maul. He was circle of light. The sheriff was pale. not fleeing along a road, or climbing a hill; "Are you hurt? God, man, are you hurt? he was mounting a stair. He was still in- There's a butcher knife there on the Blassenville Manor! And he was climbing floor—" - the stair! "I'm not hurt," mumbled Griswell, "You An inhuman scream buirst from his lips. fired just in time^^he fiend! Where is it? Above it the mad whistling rose in a ghoul­ Where did it go?" " ish piping of demoniac triumph. He tried "Listen!" to stop—to turn back—even to fling him­ •.Somewhere in the house there sounded self over the balustrade. His shrieking rang a sickening flopping and flapping as of

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something that thrashed and struggled in "The three BlassenviUe sisters!J' muttered its death convulsions. Buckner. "Miss Elizabeth wasn't crazy, after "Jacob was right," said Buckner grimly. all." "Lead can kill them. I hit her, all right. "Look!" Griswell could barely~make his Didn't dare use my flashlight, but there voice intelligible. "There—over there in the was enough light. When - that whistlin' corner!" started you ^almost walked over me ,gettin' The light moved, halted. out. I knew you were hypnotized, or what­ "Was that thing .a woman once?" whis­ ever it is. I ifollowed. you up the stairs. I pered Griswell. "God, look it that face, was right behind you, -but crouchiri' low so even in death. Look at those claw-like hands, she wouldn't see me,.and maybe get away with black talons like those of a beast. Yes, again. I almost waited too long before I it was human, though—even the rags of an fired—but the sight of-her almost paralyzed old ballroom gown. me. Look!" "Why should a mulatto maid wear such He flashed his light down the hall,, and a dress, I wonder?" now it shone bright and clear. And it shone "This has been her lair for over forty on'an .aperture gaping in the wall where no , years," muttered Buckner, brooding over doorhad. showed before. the grinning grisly thing sprawling in the "The secret panel Miss Elizabeth corner. "This clears you, Griswell—a crazy found!" Buckner snapped. "Come on!" woman with a hatchet—:that's all the au­ He ran • across the hallway and Griswell thorities need to know. God, what a re­ followed him dazedly. The flopping and venge!—what a foul revenge! Yet what a thrashing came from beyond that mysterious bestial nature she .must have had, in the door, and now the sounds had ceased. beginnin", to delve "into voodoo as she muist have done^-T.". HE light revealed a narrow, tunnel-like "The mulatto woman?" whispered Gris­ T corridor that evidently led through one well, dimly sensing a , horror that over­ of the thick walls. Buckner plunged into it shadowed all the rest of the terror. . without hesitation. Buckner shook his head. "We misunder­ "Maybe it couldn't think like a human,"- stood old Jacob's maunderin's, and the, he muttered, shining his light ahead of things Miss Elizabeth wrote—sAe must him. "But it had sense enough to erase its have known, but family pride sealed her tracks last night so we couldn't trail it to lips. Griswell, I understand now; the mu­ that point in the wall and maybe find the latto woman had her revenge, but not as secret panel. There's a room ahead—the we'd supposed. She didn't drink the Black secret room of the Blassenvilles!" Brew old Jacob fixed for her. It was for _ And Griswell cried out: "My God! It's somebody else, to be given secretly in her the windowless chamber I saw in my dream, food, or coffee, no doubt.' Then Joan »ran with the three bodies hanging—ahhhhh!" away, leavin' the seeds of the hell she'd Buckner's light playing about the circu­ sowed to grow." lar chamber became suddenly motionless. "That-7-that's not the mulatto woman?" In that wide ring of light three figures ap­ whispered Griswell. peared, three dried, shriveled, mummy-like "When I saw her out there in the hall­ shapes, still clad in the moldering garriients way I knew she was no mulatto. And those of the last century. Their slippers were distorted features still reflect a family like­ clear of the floor as they hung by their with­ ness. I've seen her portrait, and I can't be ered necks from chains suspended from the mistaken. There lies the creature that was ceiling. orice Celia BlassenviUe."

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED "The Baronets of Mertonbridge Hall do not murder their wives," said the butler. Did he know what he was talking about?. ,

wa s It Murder? BY H. C. McNEILB

Heading by Fred Humiston

DO not profess to explain what I am June are as clear in my mind as if they had . going to set down. I hold no posi­ occurred yesterday. Some'times I wake now tive opinion on things psychic, one with the woman's last dying scream ring­ way or the other. Men of unassailable in­ ing in my ears, and, jumping out of bed, I tegrity have given the world their expe­ pace up and down my room, asking myself rience on such matters, which are open for again and again the same old question. Was" all to read, and my contribution can add it a coincidence or was it not? noithing to the wealth of materiai already collected. Nevertheless, for what it is worth, HE sea mist started to blow over the I am committing it to paper. I do it for my T Downs about eight o'clock on the eve­ own satisfaction only: For reasons which ning when it took place. It came like .a will be obvious, these words must never see dense white wall, blotting out the sur- the light of day in print. Because they either . rounding landscape, and covering the tdl of a coincidence so amazing as to be wind-screen with a film of moisture more well-nigh incredible or else Sir Bryan Mer­ difficult to see through than heavy rain. My tonbridge, sixteenth Baronet, of Merton­ destination was Brighton, but, never dream­ bridge Hall, Sussex, is a cold-blooded moir- ing that such a mist would come down on derer. And, siince his house-parties for me, I had left the main coast road, and had Goodwood are famous. throughout the taken a narrow inland one that wound county it were madness for a humble bank along the foot of the Downs, connecting up manager to bring such an accusation against a few scattered farms and hamlets that still him, when proof is impossible. escaped the daily ordeal of the charge of It happened four years ago, but let it the motor heavy brigade. The road was not be thought that time has clouded my good but narrow, with a ditch on each side, memory. The incidents of that night in so that caution was necessary owing to the 79

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