"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 319 - Murder on Main Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"And?"

"There's a ladder next to the house behind the kitchen. It's just been painted today, I guess. The
weather's been clabberin' up for a storm. Been humid. Paint hasn't dried. No marks on the ladder."

It was late. The sheriff glanced at his watch. Two thirty. The storm, if it was coming, was in the stage
where it holds its breath, just before it blasts out. There was no sound. They might have been in some
hidden spot on the moon. There was a feeling of not being connected with the world. The small town,
usually quiet at night, was dead still.

And the dead are still, aren't they, the sheriff thought wearily— that's one of the few good things about
death. Aloud he said, "Any foot prints?"

"Some funny ones." The man scowled in perplexity. "Two feet from the ladder there are two smudges.
They've sunk about an inch into the loam around the house. It's fresh loam, they musta' been figuring on
seedin' the lawn. These two smudges, they're about a foot around and they're almost circular."

"That's all?"
"Umm..." The man scratched his head. Then he took a notebook out of his pocket and riffled the pages.
It seemed to aid thought. He said, "About a pace away from them two marks there's a crazy stone path.
Whatever made the marks coulda' stepped right on to the stones. Wouldn't a' left no marks on that."

"Where does the path lead?"

"You know these houses, it leads all around and then out on to the street."

"I see." The sheriff rumpled his hair. He gestured for his man to go. The doctor and the sheriff were alone
in the house where death had seemingly walked through solid walls and left no marks. None but those
two circular impressions in the soft dirt outside the house.

Doctor Ender said, "Sheriff Tennan..." His voice dribbled off, was lost in the silence that hung as
oppressively as the humidity.

"Yes, doc?"

"Is there anything I can do to help? You know how close I was to the Archers..."

"You're some sort of a relation, aren't you?"

"If you can call it that." The doctor smiled tiredly. "We were some kind of second cousins. I never did
figure it out. Old Thomas said something about it the first time I met him right after I moved to the
beautiful town of Harris."

"How long have you been here, doc?"

The doctor said, "I dunno. Seems like it's been forever... but it's only about four years, I guess."

"What did you do, before you came here?"

"Had a practice in another town just like this one. Name of Middletown. Why?"