"Forgive me," he said to Juve. "I cannot keep my colleague waiting."
Leaving Chaleck, Juve went back to the attendant who had patiently waited for him.
"Stranger than ever!" he murmured. "There is no making it all out. Josephine writes that Loupart means to rob Chaleck. I track Loupart and he gives me the slip. I spend a night in a room where I see nothing, and where nevertheless a horrible amazing crime is committed. The murder takes place scarce a yard from me, and the doctor, the tenant of the house, sees nothing either, and does not even know the victim who is found next morning on his premises! Thereupon our informant, Josephine, goes into hospital; pain in the stomach, they say—hem! Poison, maybe? Then she gets a threatening letter from Loupart. And when I come to the hospital to protect her, whom do I meet but Doctor Chaleck!"
Juve, turning to the attendant who was escorting him, asked:
"You know the person I was speaking to just now?"
"Doctor Chaleck? Yes, sir."
"What is his business here?"
"He is a foreign doctor, I believe. I should fancy a Belgian. Anyhow, he is allowed by the authorities to follow the clinical courses and make researches in the laboratory."