Six million people rose from their beds every morning, opened their newspapers and looked for news of the snake. Eighteen daily newspapers never passed a day without telling their readers that the scare was childish and a shocking commentary on the neurotic tendencies of the age; they also published, at regular intervals, intimate particulars of the black mamba, its habits and its peculiar deadliness, and maintained quite a large staff of earnest reporters to “work up the story.”
The black mamba, most deadly of all the African snakes, had escaped from the Zoo one cold and foggy night in March. And there should have been the end of him—a three-line paragraph, followed the next day by another three-line paragraph detailing how the snake was found dead on the frozen ground—no mamba could live under a temperature of 75° Fahrenheit. But the second paragraph never appeared. On the 2nd of April a policeman found a man huddled up in a doorway in Orme Place. He proved to be a well known and apparently wealthy stockbroker, named Emmett. He was dead. In his swollen face were found two tiny punctured wounds, and the eminent scientist who was called into consultation gave his opinion that the man had died from snake-bite: an especially deadly snake. The night was chilly; the man had been to a theatre alone. His chauffeur stated that he had left his master in the best of spirits on the doorstep. The key found in the dead man’s hand showed that he was struck before the car had turned. When his affairs were investigated he was found to be hopelessly insolvent. Huge sums drawn from his bank six months before had disappeared.
London had scarcely recovered from this shocking surprise when the snake struck again. This time in the crowded street, and choosing a humble victim, though by no means a blameless one. An ex-convict named Sirk, a homeless down-and-out, was seen to fall by a park-keeper near the Achilles statue in Hyde Park. By the time the keeper reached him he was dead. There was no sign of a snake—nobody was near him. This time the snake had made his mark on the wrist—two little punctured wounds near together.
A month later the third man fell a victim. He was a clerk of the Bank of England, a reputable man who was seen to fall forward in a subway train, and, on being removed to hospital, was discovered to have died—again from snake-bite.
So that the snake became a daily figure of fear, and its sinister fame spread even so far afield as Heavytree Farm.
“Stuff!” said Mirabelle, yet with a shiver. “Alma, I wish you wouldn’t keep these horrors in your scrap-book.”
“They are Life,” said Alma soberly, and then: “When will you take up your appointment?” she asked, and the girl laughed.
“We will make a beginning right away—by applying for the job,” she said practically. “And you needn’t start packing your boxes for a very long time!”
An hour later she intercepted the village postman and handed him a letter.
And that was the beginning of the adventure which involved so many lives and fortunes, which brought the Three Just Men to the verge of dissolution, and one day was to turn the heart of London into a battle-field.