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.
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