Professor Gehren broke in upon him. “For the peril in which you have involved him, sir, you have to answer to me, his guardian.”
The foreigner raised a hand. “He was without family or ties. I told him the danger. He accepted it. Once he was careless—and one is not careless twice in that work. But he was fortunate, too. I, also, was fortunate in that the task was then so far advanced that I could complete it alone. I got him to the hospital at night; no matter how. For his danger and illness I have indemnified him in the sum of ten thousand dollars. Is it enough?”
Professor Gehren bowed.
“And you, Mr. Jones; are you a detective?”
“No; merely a follower of strange trails—by taste.”
“Ah. You have set yourself to a dark one. You wish to know how Telfik Bey”—his eyes narrowed and glinted—“came to his reward. Will you enter, gentlemen?”
“I know this much,” replied Average Jones as, followed by his friends, he passed through the door which their host held open. “With young Craig as an assistant, you prepared, in the loneliest part of the Hackensack Meadows, some kind of poison which, I believe, can be made with safety only in the open air.”
The foreigner smiled and shook his head.
“Not with safety, even then,” he said. “But go on.”
“You found that your man was coming to New York. Knowing that he would probably put up at the Palatia or the Nederstrom, you reserved rooms for him at both, and took an office across from each. As it was hot weather, you calculated upon his windows being open. You watched for him. When he came you struck him down in his own room with the poison.”