“Oh, indeed, no,” said Oberzohn. “It is ridiculous to ask me that.”
He hung up at this point and explained to the listening men that the police had offered him freedom if he would surrender the gang.
“As I already told you,” he said in conclusion, “that is not the way of Dr. Oberzohn. I will gain nothing at the expense of my friends.”
A little later, when Cuccini crept into the room to call police head-quarters and confirm this story of the doctor, he found that not only had the wire been cut, but a yard of the flex had been removed. Dr. Oberzohn was taking no risks.
The night passed without any further incident. Police reserves were pouring into the neighbourhood; the grounds had been isolated, and even the traffic of barges up and down the canal prohibited. The late editions of the morning newspapers had a heavily head-lined paragraph about the siege of a house in the New Cross area, and when the first reporters arrived a fringe of sightseers had already gathered at every police barrier. Later, special editions, with fuller details, began to roll out of Fleet Street; the crowd grew in density, and a high official from Scotland Yard, arriving soon after nine, ordered a further area to be cleared, and with some difficulty the solid wedge of humanity at the end of Hangman’s Lane was slowly pushed back until the house was invisible to them. Even here, a passage-way was kept for police cars and only holders of passes were allowed to come within the prohibited area.
The three men, with the police chief, had taken up their head-quarters in the factory, from which the body of Gurther had been removed in the night. The Deputy Commissioner, who came on the spot at nine, and examined the dead snakes, was something of a herpetologist, and pronounced them to be veritable fers-de-lance, a view from which Poiccart differed.
“They are a species of African tree snakes that the natives call mamba. There are two, a black and a green. Both of these are the black type.”
“The Zoo mamba?” said the official, remembering the sensational disappearance of a deadly snake which had preceded the first of the snake mysteries.
“You will probably find the bones of the Zoo mamba in some mole run in Regent’s Park—he must have been frozen to death the night of his escape,” said Poiccart. “It was absolutely impossible that at that temperature he could live. I have made a very careful inspection of the land, and adjacent to the Zoological Gardens is a big stretch of earth which is honeycombed by moles. No, this was imported, and the rest of his menagerie was imported.”
The police chief shook his head.