He stood beaming upon the company, his white panama crushed under his arm, both huge hands thrust into his trousers pockets. “Glad to know you folks,” he greeted them in a deep boom of a voice. “I guess Mr. Barberton told you all about me. That poor little guy! Listen: he was a he-man all right, but kinder mysterious. They told me I’d find the police chief here—Captain Meadows?” “Mister,” said the inspector, “I’m that man.” Washington put out his huge paw and caught the detective’s hand with a grip that would have been notable in a boa constrictor. “Glad to know you. My name is Elijah Washington—the Natural History Syndicate, Chicago.” “Sit down, Mr. Washington.” Poiccart pushed forward a chair. “I want to tell you gentlemen that this Barberton was murdered. Snake? Listen, I know snakes—brought up with ’um! Snakes are my hobby: I know ’um from egg-eaters to ‘tigers’—_notechis sentatus_, moccasins, copperheads, corals, mamba, _fer de lance_—gosh! snakes are just common objects like flies. An’ I tell you boys right here and now, that there ain’t a snake in this or the next world that can climb up a parapet, bite a man and get away with it with a copper looking on.” He beamed from one to the other: he was almost paternal. “I’d like to have shown you folks a worse-than-mamba,” he said regretfully, “but carrying round snakes in your pocket is just hot dog: it’s like a millionaire wearin’ diamond ear-rings just to show he can afford ’em. I liked that little fellow; I’m mighty sorry he’s dead, but if any man tells you that a snake bit him, go right up to him, hit him on the nose, and say ‘Liar!’” “You will have some coffee?” Manfred had rung the bell. “Sure I will: never have got used to this tea-drinking habit. I’m on the wagon too: got scared up there in the backlands of Angola——” “What were you doing there?” asked Leon. “Snakes,” said the other briefly. “I represent an organization that supplies specimens to zoos and museums. I was looking for a flying snake—there ain’t such a thing, though the natives say there is. I got a new kinder cobra—_viperidæ crotalinæ_—and yet not!” He scratched his head, bringing his scientific perplexity into the room. Leon’s heart went out to him. He had met Barberton by accident. Without shame he confessed that he had gone to a village in the interior for a real solitary jag, and returning to such degree of civilization as Mossamedes represented, he found a group of Portuguese breeds squatting about a fire at which the man’s feet were toasting. “I don’t know what he was—a prospector, I guess. He was one of those what-is-its you meet along that coast. I’ve met his kind most everywhere—as far south as Port Nottosh. In Angola there are scores: they go native at the end.” “You can tell us nothing about Barberton?” Mr. Elijah Washington shook his head. “No, sir: I know him same as I might know you. It got me curious when I found out the why of the torturing: he wouldn’t tell where it was.”