“Tell me the story,” I urged. “If it is so strange the evening papers will have a good time to-morrow.”
“No, no,” he cried in quick alarm. “You must publish nothing yet—nothing. You understand that I give you these facts only on condition that you promise not to publish any thing until I give you permission. You alone will know of it. We must preserve the utmost secrecy. Not a word must leak out yet. You understand in what an awkward position you would place me were you to publish anything of this affair.”
“Of course. I promise you to keep the matter a strict secret,” I answered. “There are many cases in which the publication of the details of a crime might defeat the efforts of the police, and this I supposed to be one of them.”
“Well,” he said, “I made the discovery in a most curious manner. Just before seven o’clock this evening, just as it was growing dark, I was returning to the station after visiting the ‘fixed-point’ at the corner of Earl’s Court Road. You know the spot—just opposite Holland Park.”
I nodded. I knew that particular street-corner where Earl’s Court Road joined Kensington Road quite well.
“I had previously been my usual round through Campden Hill Road and Holland Walk, and was strolling back along the main Kensington Road, past that terrace of houses Upper Phillimore Place, when my attention was suddenly arrested by seeing on the steps leading from the pavement up to the front garden of one of the houses a small object moving. It was inside the gate, and in the dim half-light I bent to examine it. What do you think it was?”
“Don’t know,” I replied. “Don’t ask riddles—describe facts.”
“Well, it was the very last thing one would dream of finding on a London doorstep—a small, strangely-marked snake.”
“A snake!” I echoed. “You didn’t arrest it for being found without visible means of subsistence, I suppose?”
“No,” he answered, controlling the smile which played about his lips. “But the thing’s too serious for joking, as you’ll recognise when I’ve told you all. Well, the squirming reptile, as soon as it saw me, coiled itself round, and with head erect and swelled, commenced hissing viciously. I saw that there was considerable danger in a thing like that being at large, and surmising that it had escaped from the house, having been kept in captivity by somebody fond of such pets, I opened the gate, passed it, not, however, without it making a dart at me, and walking up to the door, rang the bell. The house was in total darkness, but daylight had only just faded, and in many of the houses in the same terrace the gas in the hall had not yet been lit. I rang and rang, but there was no response. In a large house of that character it seemed strange that no servant was about. Indeed, most of the houses there, large, roomy and old-fashioned, let furnished apartments, but this one seemed to be superior to its neighbours, inasmuch as it has a balcony on the first floor, and the small front garden is well-kept in comparison to the patches of bald, weedy grass with which the others are content. As I stood on the doorstep, trying to arouse the inmates, I watched the reptile squirming about the paved path, apparently enjoying its liberty immensely. I placed my ear attentively at the door, trying to detect some sound of movement, but failed, until suddenly I heard within the ringing of an electric bell, subdued by reason of the closed door. It was certain that, after all, some one was within.”