Intrigues with the Beautifiers

In Chapter 13, Part III Gottlieb has just "produced antitoxin in the test-tube." He's at dinner with Hunziker and others, and is being praised for his work. 

"Of them all, Hunziker was most generous in his praise. Gottlieb wondered if someone had not tricked this good bald man into intrigues with the beautifiers."

Admittedly, I didn't immediately know that was meant by intrigues with the beautifiers, and the translator got it flat wrong too. 

This work gets me deep into every passage, but also takes place alongside many other activities and investigations, so I often have a gap of a day or more between paragraphs. 

Such was the case here. Just as I was wondering whether Gottlieb was finding Hunziker more handsome than usual, in the light of the reflected glory, I realized that just a few paragraphs earlier Gottlieb had discovered some of the shady business of the firm, including a facial cream "guaranteed to turn a Canadian Indian guide as lily-fair as the angles." 

Aha, just the intrigues we were looking for. As he was being praised for his scientific work, Gottlieb couldn't help but think this wasn't a bad man after all.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing If

In Chapter 13 Part III we read this:
"Gottlieb would have made an excellent Sherlock Holmes -- if anybody who would have made an excellent Sherlock Holmes would have been willing to be a detective."

The Japanese translation is mostly fine, except that the word if is missing.

So, is it a good translation? I guess that depends upon what the definition of the word if is.