"I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of the mystery of man's fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden."

South London, 1927

The events of a case rarely present themselves in neat chronological sequence. It is not the habit of the world to deliver the pieces of a puzzle all the right way up and in the right order like a jigsaw; rather we get a jumble of odd incidents, most of them part of some other puzzle altogether. The investigator must pick out the correct pieces and assemble these at best he can.

If I were to narrate matters as they occurred in real life, then the reader might be as baffled as the investigator, and moreover the stream of irrelevancy would make for tiresome reading. Therefore, it is up to the writer to fillet the facts and prepare them for easy consumption, as  a good butcher prepares meat, removing the bone and gristle and leaving just enough fat for good cooking. While this preparation makes for an easier read, it also makes the thing look far more straightforward than it actually was. The reader should bear in mind then, that the case presented to them on a platter, as it were, bears the same resemblance as a roast fowl does to a bird in the bush.

Though I did not know it at the time, my involvement in the matter started then when I was proceeding down Westow Street towards my office one morning. I was accosted from a doorway.

"Hist! Mr Stubbs - hist!"

I could not determine the source of this utterance, until an unprepossessing figure emerged from the shadows. Daylight revealed a patched and filthy army greatcoat, secured at the waist with twine. He shuffled forward on boots stuffed with newspaper, waving a hand at me.

"Good morning, Slingsby," I said, pausing in my step.

"Mr Stubbs," he said, with a black-toothed grin. "So glad I caught you, sir. I've something for you."

I was expecting to be solicited for a copper or two. Slingsby, propertyless as any homeless individual was not the sort to have anything for anybody. Not in the usual run of things.

"And what might that be?" I asked.

Slingsby waved a packet wrapped in brown paper, then held it possessively to his bosom.

"I can't show you here," he confided. "This wants somewhere private."

I folded my arms.

"Maybe you had better tell me what this is all about, Slingsby."

"It's a long story," he said. "But I wouldn't go wasting your time, Mr Stubbs. You know that. This is a business matter."

We were only two minutes from my office. While Slingsby might be no more than a tramp with a tramp's taste for drink, I doubted he would importune me without good reason. I was far from sure that his notion of good reason would coincide with mine, but in my game it pays to listen to everyone.

"You'd better come with me," I said. "But I will hold you to account."

I would never physically abuse someone in his position, but I dare say my appearance - 'brutish' being among the mildest epithets that have been applied - belies my essentially reasonable nature.

"Surely," he agreed.

We approached my place of business. The downstairs, entered through the main road, is a shop. The upper floor of the building, accessed by a rear staircase on the mews, is given over to a concern selling pottery and ceramic items by post. Except, that is, for the one room with a hand-lettered sign, Lantern Insurance.

"Morning, Mr Stubbs," said Kitty, the first to see me, and was echoed by the other women from their places by sawdust filled packing crates. But they fell silent when they saw Slingerby's figure trailing after.

"Corporal Slingersby is assisting me with a case," I explained. Generally speaking, Kitty would have obliged with two cups of tea when she saw me with a visitor, but I did not feel that courtesy could be extended this morning without a special request. "If you could bring us both a cuppa, it'd be much appreciated, Miss Albright."

My office is nothing much to look at. I would not disgrace a plumber or any other honest tradesman though, and Slingsby was hardly the fussy sort. Decent if worn secondhand furniture, a  few rugs, the walls livened with sporting prints. 

"You want me to sit down?" he asked.

"Make yourself at home," I said, hanging up my bowler and moving to my accustomed seat by the solid table that served as my desk. He put the brown paper packet in the middle of the table between us. Almost as though he wanted to be rid of it. A suspicion grew in my breast.

"Would this be human remains, body parts, or any article of that description?" I asked.

"Well, it is, and it isn't," he said.

Slingsby's face was mainly obscured by an intidy beard, his cheeks smudged and dirty, the nose covered with broken veins, eyes bloodshot. I may not be a picture, but I wondered what Slingsby thought when he saw himself in a mirror. Or maybe he preferred to avoid his reflection.

"You've a lot of books here, Mr Stubbs," said Slingsby. He had made no move to remove his coat, or even his hat. They were not so much clothes to him as skin.

"You can drop the 'mister' in here," I said. "We know each other of old."