The Snake Woman

In 1890, Martha dies giving birth to a daughter in Bellingham while Horace Adderson's snake venom keeps her illness under control. The newborn is surrounded by superstition and fear as villagers whisper of a curse. Midwife Addie Harker proclaims the baby the devil's offspring and vows she must be destroyed.

Aggie Harker declares the child the devil's offspring and insists the infant must be destroyed. She even attempts to stab the baby with scissors, but is thwarted before harming it.

An angry mob follows Aggie to Adderson's laboratory and burns the house to the ground. The chaos ends with Adderson killed by a snakebite as the lab burns, leaving the baby unprotected.

Before the mob arrives, Dr. Murton saves the baby by handing her to a sympathetic shepherd to watch over the night. He then leaves Bellingham for Africa to pursue extended research, believing Adderson will return for the child.

Nineteen years pass and corpses with lethal king cobra venom are found on the moors, fueling fear of the snake woman's curse among the villagers.

Col Wynborn contacts an old army colleague who is now an Inspector at Scotland Yard, prompting the dispatch of a young detective to investigate the strange events.

Inspector sends Charles Prentice and he begins to encounter the unblinking, cold to the touch young woman named Atheris, the long-lost child of the Addersons. She is strangely drawn to Charles by the tune of his snake-charmer flute that Wynborn had given him.

Back at Addie's house, Aggie pins a voodoo doll to the wall and instructs Charles to shoot it three times to break the curse. When he does, Aggie declares the curse broken but warns that Charles must shoot Atheris three times to ensure her safety.

Charles contemplates the evidence and, after Polly the barmaid persuades him that the curse is real, he heads into the night to find Atheris.

Charles encounters material proof when he discovers Atheris's shed full-body snake skin and Aggie explains what it means, reinforcing that she is the snake woman.

A village boy dies from a snakebite and Murton suspects Atheris has murdered him. He confronts her with a shotgun and is killed by her; the boy's drunken father then dies in his pursuit of revenge on the moors.

Charles catches up to Atheris and tells her he understands she cannot help being what she is, promising she will come to no harm. She transforms into a cobra and menaces him, forcing him to shoot her three times as Aggie predicted.

Back at Scotland Yard, Charles submits his report, but the Inspector destroys it not to silence belief but to keep the truth from being believed. The case ends with a chilling silence in the official record.