That most secret and most potent of all poisons might be known to Moroni! Indeed, it apparently was known to him, and the endeavour had been to introduce it into my system by means of an infected carpet pin.
On leaving Professor Vega I at once sent a note round to Hambledon, and awaited his arrival.
When he came I related all the professor had told me.
“Well, Hugh,” he said, “we now know the truth, and it remains for us to combat the fiends. If you are marked down—no doubt I am also. So it behoves us both to be very wary.”
“Why can’t we tell the police the whole circumstances?” I suggested.
“My dear fellow, they wouldn’t believe you, and they wouldn’t arrest such a powerful man as Oswald De Gex,” was his serious reply. “Money can buy immunity from arrest in every country in Europe, and especially De Gex’s money, for it can be distributed in secret by his agents. No. If we are to be successful we must lay our plans just as cleverly as he lays his. We must allow him to believe that we are entirely unsuspicious of his plotting. That is our only way.”
I realized that there was much truth in his argument. It remained with us to pretend ignorance. Therefore we resolved to still watch and wait.
A few hours later I told Señor Andrade, the Chief of Police, of the professor’s discovery that the points of the pins had been infected with orosin, the newly discovered drug which in small doses produced loss of memory and insanity, and in larger doses sudden death.
In reply, he informed me that though every effort had been made to trace the elusive fugitive, all had been in vain, and that he was still at large.