"Not so large, either. All we have to do is to look for a place
that is very isolated and yet quite near New York."

"How do you know it is quite near New York?"

"Because Harvey Craig went there and back between noon and two
o'clock, Professor Gehren says. Now, we've got to find such a place
which is near a stretch of deserted, swampy ground, very badly
infested with mosquitoes. I'd thought of the Hackensack Meadows,
just across the river in Jersey."

"That is all very well," said Bertram; "but why mosquitoes?"

"Why, the poisoned and swollen face and hands both of them suffered
from," explained Average Jones. "What else could it be?"

"I'd thought of poison-ivy or some kind of plant they'd been
grubbing at."

"So had I. But I happened to think that anything of that sort, if
it had poisoned them once, would keep on poisoning them, while
mosquitoes they could protect themselves against, if they didn't
become immune, as they most likely would. As there must have been a
lot of 'skeeters' to do the kind of job that 'Smith's' face showed,
I naturally figured on a swamp."

"Average," said Bertram solemnly, "there are times when I conceive a
sort of respect for your commonplace and plodding intellect. Now,
let me have my little inning. I used to commute--on the Jersey and
Delaware Short Line. There's a station on that line, Pearlington by