“It is snake venom all right, Mr. Washington; only snake venom that has been most carefully treated by a man who knows the art of concentration of its bad and the extraction of its harmless constituents. My theory is that certain alkaloids are added, and it is possible that there has been a blending of two different kinds of poison. But you’re right when you say that no one animal carries in his poison sac that particular variety of death-juice. If it is any value to you, we are prepared to give you a snake-proof certificate!”
“I don’t want another experience of that kind,” Elijah Washington warned him; but Leon turned the conversation to the state of the road and the problems of traffic control.
There had been nothing seen or heard of Mirabelle, and Meadows’ activities had for the moment been directed to the forthcoming inquest on Barberton. Nowadays, whenever he reached Scotland Yard, he moved in a crowd of reporters, all anxious for news of further developments. The Barberton death was still the livliest topic in the newspapers: the old scare of the snake had been revived and in some degree intensified. There was not a journal which did not carry columns of letters to the editor denouncing the inactivity of the police. Were they, asked one sarcastic correspondent, under the hypnotic influence of the snake’s eyes? Could they not, demanded another, give up trapping speeders on the Lingfield road and bring their mighty brains to the elucidation of a mystery that was to cause every household in London the gravest concern? The Barberton murder was the peg on which every letter-writing faddist had a novel view to hang, and Mr. Meadows was not at that time the happiest officer in the force.
“Where is Lee?” asked Washington as they came into Curzon Street.
“He’s in town for the moment, but we are moving him to the North of England, though I don’t think there is any danger to him, now that Barberton’s letters are in our possession. They would have killed him yesterday to prevent our handling the correspondence. To-day I should imagine he has no special importance in the eyes of Oberzohn and Company. And here we are!”
Mr. Washington got out stiffly and was immediately admitted by the butler. The three men went upstairs to where George Manfred was wrestling with a phase of the problem. He was not alone; Digby, his head swathed in bandages, sat, an unhappy man, on the edge of a chair and answered Leon’s cheery greeting with a mournful smile.
“I’m sending Digby to keep observation on Oberzohn’s house; and especially do I wish him to search that old boat of his.”
He was referring to an ancient barge which lay on the mud at the bottom of Mr. Oberzohn’s private dock. From the canal there was a narrow waterway into the little factory grounds. It was so long since the small cantilever bridge which covered the entrance had been raised, that locals regarded the bridge floor as part of the normal bank of the canal. But behind the green water-gates was a concrete dock large enough to hold one barge, and here for years a decrepit vessel had wallowed, the hunting-ground of rats and the sleeping-place of the desperately homeless.
“The barge is practically immovable: I’ve already reported on that,” said Leon.
“It certainly has that appearance, and yet I would like a search,” replied Manfred. “You understand that this is night duty, and I have asked Meadows to notify the local inspector that you will be on duty—I don’t want to be pulled out of my bed to identify you at the Peckham police station. It isn’t a cheerful job, but you might be able to make it interesting by finding your way into his grounds. I don’t think the factory will yield much, but the house will certainly be a profitable study to an observer of human nature.”