“My snake!” cried the queen of tragedy.  “Where is my snake?”

Archie, looked at the detective.  The detective looked at Archie.

“This lady,” said the detective, with a dry little cough, “thinks her snake is in your room, Mr. Moffam,”

“Snake?”

“Snake’s what the lady said,”

“My snake!  My Peter!” Mme. Brudowska’s voice shook with emotion.  “He is here—­here in this room,”

Archie shook his head.

“No snakes here!  Absolutely not!  I remember noticing when I came in.”

“The snake is here—­here in this room.  This man had it in a bag!  I saw him!  He is a thief!”

“Easy, ma’am!” protested the detective.  “Go easy!  This gentleman is the boss’s son-in-law.”

“I care not who he is!  He has my snake!  Here—­’ here in this room!”

“Mr. Moffam wouldn’t go round stealing snakes.”

“Rather not,” said Archie.  “Never stole a snake in my life.  None of the Moffams have ever gone about stealing snakes.  Regular family tradition!  Though I once had an uncle who kept gold-fish.”

“Here he is!  Here!  My Peter!”

Archie looked at the detective.  The detective looked at Archie.  “We must humour her!” their glances said.

“Of course,” said Archie, “if you’d like to search the room, what?  What I mean to say is, this is Liberty Hall.  Everybody welcome!  Bring the kiddies!”

“I will search the room!” said Mme. Brudowska.

The detective glanced apologetically at Archie.

“Don’t blame me for this, Mr. Moffam,” he urged.

“Rather not!  Only too glad you’ve dropped in!”

He took up an easy attitude against the window, and watched the empress of the emotional drama explore.  Presently she desisted, baffled.  For an instant she paused, as though about to speak, then swept from the room.  A moment later a door banged across the passage.

“How do they get that way?” queried the detective, “Well, g’bye, Mr. Moffam.  Sorry to have butted in.”

The door closed.  Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window and hauled in the slack.  Presently the bag appeared over the edge of the window-sill.

“Good God!” said Archie.

In the rush and swirl of recent events he must have omitted to see that the clasp that fastened the bag was properly closed; for the bag, as it jumped on to the window-sill, gaped at him like a yawning face.  And inside it there was nothing.

Archie leaned as far out of the window as he could manage without committing suicide.  Far below him, the traffic took its usual course and the pedestrians moved to and fro upon the pavements.  There was no crowding, no excitement.  Yet only a few moments before a long green snake with three hundred ribs, a distensible gullet, and gastrocentrous vertebras must have descended on that street like the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath.  And nobody seemed even interested.  Not for the first time since he had arrived in America, Archie marvelled at the cynical detachment of the New Yorker, who permits himself to be surprised at nothing.