The Trail of the Serpent

The Trail of the Serpent

By M. E. Braddon.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Book I: A Respectable Young Man
   1. I: The Good Schoolmaster
   2. II: Good for Nothing
   3. III: The Usher Washes His Hands
   4. IV: Richard Marwood Lights His Pipe
   5. V: The Healing Waters
   6. VI: Two Coroner’s Inquests
   7. VII: The Dumb Detective a Philanthropist
   8. VIII: Seven Letters on the Dirty Alphabet
   9. IX: “Mad, Gentlemen of the Jury”
4. Book II: A Clearance of All Scores
   1. I: Blind Peter
   2. II: Like and Unlike
   3. III: A Golden Secret
   4. IV: Jim Looks Over the Brink of the Terrible Gulf
   5. V: Midnight by the Slopperton Clocks
   6. VI: The Quiet Figure on the Heath
   7. VII: The Usher Resigns His Situation
5. Book III: Holy Institution
   1. I: The Value of an Opera-Glass
   2. II: Working in the Dark
   3. III: The Wrong Footstep
   4. IV: Ocular Demonstration
   5. V: The King of Spades
   6. VI: A Glass of Wine
   7. VII: The Last Act of Lucretia Borgia
   8. VIII: Bad Dreams and a Worse Waking
   9. IX: A Marriage in High Life
   10. X: Animal Magnetism
6. Book IV: Napoleon the Great
   1. I: The Boy from Slopperton
   2. II: Mr. Augustus Darley and Mr. Joseph Peters Go Out Fishing
   3. III: The Emperor Bids Adieu to Elba
   4. IV: Joy and Happiness for Everybody
   5. V: The Cherokees Take an Oath
   6. VI: Mr. Peters Relates How He Thought He Had a Clue, and How He Lost It
7. Book V: The Dumb Detective
   1. I: The Count de Marolles at Home
   2. II: Mr. Peters Sees a Ghost
   3. III: The Cherokees Mark Their Man
   4. IV: The Captain, the Chemist, and the Lascar
   5. V: The New Milkman in Park Lane
   6. VI: Signor Mosquetti Relates an Adventure
   7. VII: The Golden Secret Is Told, and the Golden Bowl Is Broken
   8. VIII: One Step Further on the Right Track
   9. IX: Captain Lansdown Overhears a Conversation Which Appears to Interest Him
8. Book VI: On the Track
   1. I: Father and Son
   2. II: Raymond de Marolles Shows Himself Better Than All Bow Street
   3. III: The Left-Handed Smasher Makes His Mark
   4. IV: What They Find in the Room in Which the Murder Was Committed
   5. V: Mr. Peters Decides on a Strange Step, and Arrests the Dead
   6. VI: The End of the Dark Road
   7. VII: Farewell to England
9. Colophon
10. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Book I

A Respectable Young Man

I

The Good Schoolmaster

I don’t suppose it rained harder in the good town of Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy than it rained anywhere else. But it did rain. There was scarcely an umbrella in Slopperton that could hold its own against the rain that came pouring down that November afternoon, between the hours of four and five. Every gutter in High Street, Slopperton; every gutter in Broad Street (which was of course the narrowest street); in New Street (which by the same rule was the oldest street); in East Street, West Street, Blue Dragon Street, and Windmill Street; every gutter in every one of these thoroughfares was a little Niagara, with a maelstrom at the corner, down which such small craft as bits of orange-peel, old boots and shoes, scraps of paper, and fragments of rag were absorbed⁠—as better ships have been in the great northern whirlpool. That dingy stream, the Sloshy, was swollen into a kind of dirty Mississippi, and the graceful coal-barges which adorned its bosom were stripped of the clotheslines and fluttering linen which usually were to be seen on their decks. A bad, determined, black-minded November day. A day on which the fog shaped itself into a demon, and lurked behind men’s shoulders, whispering into their ears, “Cut your throat!⁠—you know you’ve got a razor, and can’t shave with it, because you’ve been drinking and your hand shakes; one little gash under the left ear, and the business is done. It’s the best thing you can do. It is, really.” A day on which the rain, the monotonous ceaseless persevering rain, has a voice as it comes down, and says, “Don’t you think you could go melancholy mad? Look at me; be good enough to watch me for a couple of hours or so, and think, while you watch me, of the girl who jilted you ten years ago; and of what a much better man you would be today if she had only loved you truly. Oh, I think, if you’ll only be so good as watch me, you might really contrive to go mad.”