So Hammer explained, and the manner of his explanation was not calculated to soothe the doctor's feelings or those of Jenson, who had shrunk back beside his protector. The American was angry, and three years on cattle-boats give an angry man a vocabulary which is little short of being extraordinary.
When he made an end, Jenson, with his rat-like snarl, was clinging to the scientist like a frightened child, while Krausz, his revolver put aside, was looking at Hammer with an ominous glint in his black eyes. Over his temple that peculiar strip of muscle was pounding furiously with every throb of blood.
"So, Baumgardner hass confessed, no?" The doctor's voice was fairly athrill with hostility, though the words came calmly enough. "And on the word of a drunken sailor you would deprive me of my helper when I need him most?"
Hammer flushed. "Your assistant is in her tent down there, doctor," he said significantly. "And, by the way, I had a talk with her this afternoon. No, I'm not doing this on the word of any drunken sailor, doctor, but that fellow Jenson is going over the road, and you may as well make up your mind to it. Either he or John Solomon knows who killed Hans Schlak, and I'm going to find out."
There was no mistaking the rage that flashed out into the heavy eyes, but it was directed against Jenson, as if the name of the murdered mate had aroused a slumbering ferocity within the big Saxon.
"So!" he spoke slowly, looking down at Jenson with terrible quiet, only that ribbon of muscle betraying his emotion. "So? And whoever killed Hans Schlak, it wass he who took that paper from me when I wass drunk, yess. I do know Adolf Jenson. I did not suspect that it wass you or that it wass Mr. Solomon, but if it was you, Adolf, you shall be very sorry, yess!"
Until now poor Jenson had trembled in silence, but he looked up and caught the full gaze of Krausz, and it was as if something in the heavy powerful face had blasted the last remnants of courage within him. He buried his face with a muffled scream.
"I didn't! I lied because Mr. Hammer and Solomon were friends—they both hated me—don't look at me like that, Herr Doctor! Before God, I didn't take the paper!"
It struck Hammer as odd that the taking of that paper seemed more important to Jenson than the murder of Schlak. However, he had to ascertain what the attitude of the archaeologist was to be.
"See here, doctor, I want to do the square thing, but you can't stand up for this man. He's perjured himself in court and he's got to explain it. Of course, I can't scrap you and your men—for these Germans will stand by you—but what I can and will do is to go back to Melindi and send the district commissioner up here for Jenson. If you persist in sticking up for him you'll get into hot water, that's all."