“Listen!” said Mr. Washington with sudden energy. “I don’t want any more snakes—not that kind of snake! I’ve felt pain in my time, but nothing like this! I know it must have been snake venom, but I’d like to meet the little wriggler who brews the brand that was handed to me, and maybe I’d change my mind about collecting him—alive!” Leon agreed silently, and for the next few moments was avoiding a street car on one side, a baker’s cart on another, and a _blah_ woman who was walking aimlessly in the road, apparently with no other intention than of courting an early death, this being the way of _blah_ women. “Phew!” said Mr. Washington, as the car skidded on the greasy road. “I don’t know whether you’re a good driver or just naturally under the protection of Providence.” “Both,” said Leon, when he had straightened the machine. “All good drivers are that.” Presently he continued: “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.