"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 an
