Venom

It began as a kidnap plot, but quickly became something even more deadly through the innocent instrumentality of the intended victim himself, a sickly ten-year-old boy. An avid pet collector, that day he brought home to Eaton Square and the awaiting kidnappers a crate in which–you could hear it–a living creature dryly rustled. It was supposed to be a harmless black house snake, but there had been carelessness along the route from Africa, and it was really a black mamba, most poisonous of all reptiles.Louise, the French maid and one of the conspirators, angrily tearing open the crate, was struck at once and was dead within the hour. And Inspector Nash, first policeman on the scene, was blasted into eternity by a panicky kidnapper when Nash pushed open the door on Eaton Square.Now began that grimmest of modern games, the game of hostages. With three of them in hand, Jacmel, the chief conspirator, bargained for a car and money and time. But outside in Eaton Square his adversary was the rocklike, contemptuous, implacable, seemingly indomitable Inspector Bulloch. And always lying in wait somewhere in the bowels of the house was the black mamba, its venom sacs scarcely depleted, ever ready to strike again . .