Köbke--and both were hurried off to the police bureau.

The wireless engineer, Petersen, was at once telephoned for, and
together they made a second examination of the premises, when after
nearly an hour they found in the cellar a concealed door which led into
a second cellar beneath a courtyard behind the house, wherein stood a
small printing office.

In this subterranean chamber beneath the printing office they found a
fine continuous-wave transmission set of one-and-a-half kilowatt power,
together with its generator. Apparently the printing office had been
established as a blind, so that the neighbours should believe the noise
to be that of printing machinery.

Then they searched for the aerial wires, but it was a long time ere
they discovered them. At last, to their great surprise, they found
them very cunningly concealed behind and about an enormous sky-sign
which, illuminated at night, advertised the merits of a certain brand
of cocoa, a sign which Geoffrey had noticed nightly, never dreaming, of
course, that the secret lay hidden up there.

The two prisoners who were proved to be dangerous emissaries of the
Moscow Bolsheviks, were convicted, and sentenced to long terms of
imprisonment for establishing secret wireless against the laws of
Denmark, the result being that the world has ever since been spared the
dissemination of the poisonous Bolshevik propaganda.

And the credit of its suppression was certainly entirely due to
Geoffrey Falconer.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GREAT INTRIGUE

“Hulloa? Hulloa? Hulloa? Hulloa, Croydon? Brussels calling!” cried
Geoffrey Falconer one afternoon over the wireless telephone at the
aerodrome just outside Brussels. “It’s Falconer speaking. Changing
over.”

“Hulloa, Falconer? Yes,” came a clear voice through the ether.
“Changing over.”

“Oh, it’s you, Heddon. Would you please ask Dennis to speak to me if
he’s there?” said Falconer.

“Right-o! Stand by, and I’ll try and get him. Switching off.”

Falconer, seated at the operating bench in the small wireless office,
the window of which commands an extensive view of the aerodrome,
with the city of Brussels in the distance, still retained the
head-telephones, and waited.

About five minutes later he heard the strong continuous-wave sent out
by Croydon, and a moment later another voice exclaimed:

“Hulloa, Brussels? Hulloa, Brussels? Croydon calling. Dennis speaking.
Dennis speaking. Over.” Falconer drew over the transmitting switch and
then asked Dennis, the pilot, whether he was bringing over the air mail
in the morning. Receiving an affirmative reply, Falconer said:

“Do me a favour, old chap, and bring over two or three things for me.
You can get them put on passenger train to-night if you’ll telephone to
the Works at Chelmsford for them. I want them very urgently to-morrow.”
And then he gave descriptions of two air condensers and a double note
magnifier and a microphone, adding that the tests he was making at the
new wireless station he had just fitted near Dinant, on the Meuse, were
satisfactory, but he hoped to still improve them.

Dennis, having written down the list, promised to bring them over
by air next day, adding that he would be at Brussels just about one
o’clock.

Then Geoffrey rose, handed the telephones to the Belgian operator, and
switched off.

He had been nearly two months in Belgium, and had had quite a pleasant
time. The Marconi Company were fitting the new aerodrome at Bouvignes,
opposite old-world Dinant, with a one-and-a-half kilowatt telegraph
and telephone set of exactly the same pattern as the new one they had
installed at Croydon. Bouvignes had been adopted as the centre of
Belgian civil aviation, air lines having been arranged to perform daily
services to Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin, Milan, and other cities; hence
it was necessary to be in wireless communication with the aerodromes at
those places.

Only three weeks before Mrs. Beverley had brought Sylvia over to see
Brussels, as she had never been there, and Geoffrey had for a week
acted as their guide and shown them the sights of the pleasant little
Belgian capital. Of course, during the greater part of the day he was
away at Bouvignes, but he returned to Brussels each evening, and the
lovers spent many happy hours together.

Now, however, mother and daughter had gone on to Paris, leaving the
young engineer to complete his work in preparation for the official
tests before the new station was taken over by the Belgian authorities.

So next day about one o’clock Geoffrey returned to the aerodrome
outside Brussels, and asked the Belgian wireless operator the
whereabouts of the Handley-Page.

“She was over Ghent when I spoke to her five minutes ago. She ought to
be in quite shortly,” was the reply in French.

So Geoffrey went outside and strained his eyes to the south-west until
he at last saw a speck in the distance which each moment increased,
until the giant machine approaching came gradually lower, and after
making a turn of the aerodrome, landed gracefully against the wind.

“Hulloa, Falconer!” cried Dennis, a round-faced, boyish-looking fellow,
as in his leather suit and helmet he climbed out of the machine. “I’ve
got your gear all right.”

They waited for the passengers to land, five of them, and chatted the
while. Then from among the sacks of mail from England he pulled out a
small wooden box, saying: “I went up to Liverpool Street and got it
early this morning.”

The customs officer asked what the box contained, whereupon Falconer,
who was known to him, chaffingly said it contained cigars. The
good-humoured Belgian only laughed, and shrugging his shoulders chalked
it as “passed.”

That afternoon, having an unexpected appointment at the Ministry
of Posts and Telegraphs, Geoffrey resolved to remain the night in
Brussels. Therefore, he had taken a room at Wiltshire’s Hotel up on the
Avenue Louise, rather than at the Grand or the Palace, for in summer,
both being down in the city, they are unpleasantly hot. He kept his
appointment at five, and then walking back to the hotel, dined, and
set out for an evening stroll back down the steep hill into the city,
where at one of the little tables set on the pavement before the Café
Métropole, in the Place de Brouckère, he took his _café noir_.

Unknown to him, however, a slightly-built, thin-faced young man, who
had been watching outside the hotel for nearly two hours, had followed
him, and taken a seat unobtrusively near the table Geoffrey had
selected, but inside the café in such a position that he could remain
and watch.

There is always light, movement, and gaiety on a summer’s night at that
point of the Belgian capital, for along the broad pavement passes a
perfect panorama of Belgian life.

Geoffrey had been seated for about a quarter of an hour, and was idly
smoking a cigarette when suddenly a tall, well-dressed, rather elderly
man who was passing, caught sight of him, halted, and crossing to him,
exclaimed in excellent English:

“Well, my dear Monsieur Falconer! Fancy finding you here--in Brussels!”

Geoffrey sprang to his feet, for instantly he recognised in the
stranger a Frenchman named Henri Amelot, a radio-engineer like himself,
who was attached to the powerful wireless station at Croix d’Hins,
near Bordeaux, which the Americans erected during the war for direct
wireless communication between the American army and Washington, and
which had now been taken over by the French Government.

He had met Amelot at Bordeaux about three months before, and he had
been of considerable service to him, hence their meeting was a most
cordial one, and they sat together for a long time, until darkness fell
and the great arc lamps shone above them. And all the time the silent
watcher sat idling over the _Independance_, but glancing at the pair
furtively ever and anon.

Amelot told Geoffrey that he was in Brussels in connection with some
newly-invented apparatus which they were about to test at Croix d’Hins,
while the young Englishman explained the object of his visit to
Belgium.

“Then your new Marconi set at Croydon gives wonderful results,” Amelot
was saying. “Your Air Ministry ought to be greatly pleased with
it. I was listening to it at Le Bourget the other day. Speech was
marvellously clear.”

“Yes,” replied Geoffrey. “It is an exactly similar set that we are
fitting at Bouvignes. My only regret is that Monsieur Marvaut, the
Director of Civil Aviation, is absent from Brussels. He’s been away all
the time I’ve been here, and there’s no sign of his returning yet--so
his lady secretary, Mademoiselle Levie, tells me.”

“Marvaut was in Paris,” said the French radio-engineer. “I saw him
about a month ago. He went afterwards to Marseilles. But you mentioned
his lady secretary. I did not know he had one. His secretary, Charles
Roosen, is with him.”

“But Mademoiselle Odille Levie called upon me on the first day of my
arrival in Brussels, and conveyed Monsieur Marvaut’s regrets at his
absence,” said Geoffrey.

“Ah!” remarked Amelot. “Then I suppose she is another secretary.” And
the subject dropped. Later, Falconer walked with his friend to his
hotel, the Palace, and then continued his way alone up the boulevard to
the Avenue Lousie, being followed by the silent watcher who had sat so
patiently in the café reading the _Independance Belge_.

Next morning at ten o’clock a waiter brought to Geoffrey the card of
Mademoiselle Levie, and on entering the lounge a pretty, dark-haired,
extremely chic young lady rose and greeted him merrily.

“I heard from Dinant that you were here, M’sieur Falconer,” the girl
said. “Last night I had a message from Monsieur le Directeur to say
that he is returning to his country château on Tuesday next, and asking
whether you could make it convenient to visit him on that evening. He
is rather unwell, it seems, and his doctor has forbidden him to come to
the Ministry at present.”

“Where is his château?” asked Geoffrey.

“The Château de Rochehaut, in the Semois, not very far from Dinant,”
the girl replied. “He has asked me to get his official car from the
Ministry and take you there.”

“It is very kind of Monsieur Marvaut,” Falconer said. “Please tell him
I shall be delighted to visit him. I hope the wireless station will be
ready for the official tests by Wednesday.”

“Very well,” she said. “I have the car outside now. If you are
returning to Dinant I can take you as far as Namur--for I am going
there. The morning is delightful.”

Nothing loth, Geoffrey quickly packed his suit-case, paid his bill, and
putting into the car the box of instruments which had come over from
London by air, got in beside his extremely handsome companion.

But the driver of the car, a smart chauffeur, though Falconer was
ignorant of the fact, was the same man who had so closely watched his
movements at the Café Métropole on the previous night. The morning
was indeed glorious, and the run out to Etterbeek, and through the
beautiful forest of Soignes to Groenendael, and on by way of Ottignies
and Gembloux to Namur, thirty miles distant from Brussels, was most
enjoyable.

Mademoiselle, bright and vivacious, was in excellent mood. Several
times she had come from Brussels with messages from the director, and
called upon him at the Tête d’Or Hotel, in Dinant, where he had taken
up his quarters. Yet more than once it had struck Geoffrey as curious
that the messages had always been verbal ones. And now it seemed
strange that the invitation to visit Monsieur Marvaut had come through
her, and not in the form of a personal letter.

As they were speeding along into Namur, Mademoiselle suddenly turned,
saying:

“I expect you may have to wait for a train to take you on to Dinant. I
have plenty of time--so I’ll take you on to your destination.”

Hence he asked her to lunch at the Tête d’Or on their arrival, and they
took their meal at a little table out on the veranda which overlooks
the rock-girt river, a corner well shaded, where, seated opposite to
each other, they both chatted and laughed merrily.

“I saw you one night about three weeks ago at the Opera, in Brussels,
M’sieur Falconer,” the girl exclaimed, laughing. “You were in a box
with two ladies, one was elderly, and the other was probably her
daughter--eh? You seemed very attentive to them--especially to the
younger one.”

Geoffrey smiled mysteriously.

“Well--I did not know that you were watching, mademoiselle,” he said
laughing. “They were friends of mine.”

“Your _fiancée_--eh?”

“How absurd!” he exclaimed. “Whatever makes you think that?”

“Oh!--well--from your careful attention to her,” said mademoiselle,
raising her wine-glass. “When a man is engaged he always has it written
across his back. Women can conceal their love, but a man seldom.”

“Just as, I suppose, women delight in tears--eh?”

“Ah! don’t let us be too philosophical. The weather is too good. Let’s
keep that for a dark and rainy day,” she laughed, leaving her companion
surprised and puzzled that she should have been watching him on that
night when he took Mrs. Beverley and her daughter to the Théâtre de la
Monnaie.

From the first this very smart girl had puzzled him. In the midst of
his work over at the aerodrome on the opposite side of the river she
had come to him once or twice with messages of unimportance.

Suddenly, as they sat together over their dessert and liqueurs,
Geoffrey recollected Amelot’s words, and asked:

“Where is Monsieur Roosen?”

“Roosen?” she echoed in rather a blank voice, gazing at her companion
across the table. He noticed that her countenance changed. But it was
only for a moment. “Oh! you mean the--the other secretary who always
travels with Monsieur le Directeur. Ah! I do not know, m’sieur. He is
away.”

Her confused attitude when he had unexpectedly mentioned Roosen’s
name struck him as distinctly curious. Mademoiselle Odille was very
charming, it was true, but she was somewhat of an enigma.

Presently she put on her gloves, and rose.

“Thank you, monsieur, for a very excellent _déjeuner_,” she said. “And
now I must leave you to your wires and bewildering apparatus, and get
back to Namur and on to Brussels.”

“You must come and see the official tests on Wednesday, mademoiselle.
No doubt you will like to hear the wireless telephone,” he said.

“I shall. I’m intensely interested,” she declared. “But remember on
Tuesday I will meet you here at about seven and take you over to the
Château de Rochehaut.”

And she got into the car and drove away.

Geoffrey telephoned over to the aerodrome to send the service car over
for the box of apparatus, and when it arrived, he drove across the
river and through the ancient village of Bouvignes. The old place,
surmounted by the ancient ruins of Crêve Coeur, the castle where the
Three Ladies of Crêve Coeur, sole survivors of the garrison besieged
by the Duc de Nevers in 1554, hurled themselves from the tower to death
in the eyes of their French conquerors, was quiet and out of the world.
But Geoffrey was much preoccupied as the car tore through the dusty
village and away up to the plain, where the great new aviation ground
was being constructed.

On one side stood the row of up-to-date hangars, with all the latest
inventions of British and French aviation, while on the other, facing
it, rose the aerial wires on eighty-feet poles temporarily erected, for
the lattice masts were in process of manufacture.

In two long army huts, situated a short distance from each other, the
wireless office had been established. One of them housed the generator
and transmitting gear, while in the other was the operating key and
reception set. To the latter hut Geoffrey went, and there, with the
assistance of a Belgian wireless operator, he unpacked the double-note
magnifier and condensers which had travelled by air from Croydon.

Then throughout the remainder of the afternoon the keen young engineer
was engaged in setting them up upon the operating bench. With many
patient tests he listened-in constantly for various stations of between
nine hundred and sixteen hundred mètres. The small oblong box, on the
ebonite top of which were fixed two little vacuum tubes which shone
brightly when current was passed through them--the piece of apparatus
used in conjunction with the seven-valve amplifier--magnified the
weakest signal to such an extent that the telephones could hardly be
borne upon his ears.

He had another there, but it somehow did not give such good results as
the one he had just requisitioned from Chelmsford. As a matter of fact,
it was one of a rather newer design, for wireless apparatus is every
week improving. And so rapid is the advance of radio discoveries that
much of the latest experimental apparatus to-day will six months hence
be relegated to the scrap-heap.

Through the whole afternoon he worked on patiently, joining up the
receiving circuit of many wires, the transmission side being already
in running order. Only three days before he had spoken over the
radio-telephone to Croydon, Lympe, Pulham in Norfolk, Le Bourget, and
Cologne. Each test gave excellent results, even though the atmospheric
conditions were none too good.

So he had every hope of the official tests being satisfactory. As a
loyal and trusted servant of that wonderful organisation, the Marconi
Company, he had worked hard and done his level utmost to make the
Bouvignes station a credit to his employers. Hence he was most anxious
that on the great day when the final tests were made everything
should go right, and that signals by continuous-wave telegraphy,
direction-finding, and radio-telephony should be equally satisfactory.

He was listening to Paris transmitting to Bucharest, reading the
commercial messages, and gazing through the small window of the Army
hut away across the grass-covered aerodrome to where, below, the
winding Meuse lay bathed in the soft evening light. Still listening,
he raised his wave-length until he heard the peculiar arc note of
N.S.S.--which is Annapolis in the United States--sending its time
signals, for it wanted a minute to five o’clock. Having compared
the time with the big round clock above the bench he reduced his
wave-length to one thousand mètres, when suddenly he heard the shrill
high-pitched note of a continuous-wave transmitter which sounded as
though it were in the near vicinity.

It was calling S.R.4. repeatedly, without giving its own call-sign. But
as the wireless station being called did not appear in the official
register at his elbow, he took it to be some private station and
disregarded it.

At that moment Captain Hanateau, who was in charge of the new
aerodrome, entered the hut, saying in good English:

“Here is a telegram for you, Meester Falconer.”

Geoffrey thanked him, tore open the message, but as he read it, he held
his breath in anxiety and astonishment. His heart stood still.

It was from Mrs. Beverley, dated from the Grand Hotel, in Paris, asking
whether Sylvia was with him. Four days before she had suddenly packed
a small dressing-case during her mother’s absence, and left the hotel,
leaving behind a note stating that in consequence of an urgent telegram
from Geoffrey she had gone back to Brussels and would write.

Geoffrey had sent no telegram! What could have happened?

The Captain saw that the news distressed the young radio-engineer, and
expressed his regret if the message was disconcerting.

“Yes, it is,” replied the young man as he removed the telephones from
his ears and re-read the long message. “Is the car in use? I must go to
Brussels at once.”

“You can have it, of course. I’ll go and order it for you.”

Therefore, a quarter of an hour later Geoffrey was speeding back over
the dusty road to Brussels. On arrival his first inquiry was at the
Palace Hotel, where Sylvia had stayed with her mother. Nobody, however,
had seen her there since her departure for Paris. He drove up the
boulevard to Wiltshire’s, and there made similar inquiry, but to no
purpose. To other places he went that night, making diligent inquiry
everywhere, and then he drove out to the aerodrome, for she had been
with him there once or twice. But no trace could he discover of her.

So at eleven o’clock he sent a telegram to her mother saying that he
had not seen her, and that apparently she had not come to Brussels. He
added that he had sent her no telegram.

Sylvia, to whom he was so devoted, was missing! But why?

Just before midnight, so perturbed had he become, that he went to
the Bureau of Police, and there saw Monsieur Guiette, the well-known
Belgian _chef de la Sûreté_. To him he told the story, after explaining
who he was. The official heard him patiently, and promised to have some
inquiries made. He suggested, however, that inquiries should be also
made in Paris, as perhaps the young lady had not left for Brussels
after all.

“She may have gone to London with some motive known only to herself,”
Monsieur Guiette suggested.

“But the telegram which purported to have been sent by me must have
been despatched from Brussels,” urged Falconer.

“Agreed, monsieur, but that telegram does not appear to have been seen.
The young lady herself says that she received a message from you. She
evidently did not leave it for her mother to see.”

At two o’clock next morning Geoffrey was in the express for Paris,
where he arrived at breakfast time, and in frantic haste sought Mrs.
Beverley.

“I can’t think what can have happened,” she said in great distress.
“The other morning I went out to Armenonville with my friend, Mrs.
Bridges, but Sylvia could not come, as she had an appointment at her
dressmaker, Martin’s, in the Rue de la Paix. When we returned at one
o’clock we found that she had gone, leaving this note.”

Geoffrey read the scribbled note of his well-beloved, which explained
how soon after her mother had gone she received a wire from him urging
her to come to Brussels at once, as he was in a great difficulty, so
she had caught the next train.

Falconer stood staggered. He had sent no telegram, and he certainly was
in no difficulty.

“It is curious that she did not leave the telegram for you to see,”
remarked the young radio-engineer.

“She forgot it, I suppose,” replied the mother.

“True, but it may be that she did not go to Brussels at all! The police
will probably assist us, though they are never very anxious to help
when people leave home of their own accord.”

“Oh, do go and see them, Geoffrey. Do go!” Mrs. Beverley implored,
for she was in a terribly agitated state of mind. She had inquired of
the servants at Upper Brook Street, but they had seen nothing of Miss
Sylvia.

Geoffrey, spurred to activity by his deep affection for the girl,
took a taxi at once to the Prefecture of Police, and a detective
was detailed to go with him to the Gare du Nord and there prosecute
inquiries. From the stationmaster they learnt that the person who had
booked passengers by the Brussels express on the morning of Sylvia’s
departure was a certain Mademoiselle Le Grelle. She was also on duty
at the booking-office at that moment; therefore, they at once sought
her, and the detective closely questioned her as to whether the young
English lady, whom Geoffrey described, had taken a ticket for Brussels
on the morning in question.

Mademoiselle reflected for a few moments, and then said:

“Yes, I recollect quite well. A young English lady asked me the
quickest route to Brussels. I told her that the quickest was
by Maubeuge, but the direct, without change, was by Amiens and
Valenciennes. She chose the later route. The lady I mean wore a long
pale-grey cloak and a small hat trimmed with blue. She was the only
girl from Paris by that train.”

“It was Sylvia!” gasped Falconer. “She has a grey cloak. Then she did
go to Brussels--after all!”

“Apparently, m’sieur,” remarked the detective. “It is certainly for the
Brussels police to inquire at once whether she arrived there.”

Back at the Grand Hotel he related to Mrs. Beverley Mademoiselle
Le Grelle’s statement, her description of her dress, and the small
dressing-case she carried.

“Well, Geoffrey,” exclaimed the anxious widow “I’m at my wits’ ends to
know what to do, or how to act. My girl has disappeared. Surely she had
no secret appointment with anybody?”

“I feel certain she had not,” declared Falconer. “There’s some deep
plotting at work somewhere. Of that I’m absolutely convinced. But we
now have the first clue to her, and we must follow it up without a
moment’s delay.”

“Yes, I agree,” said Mrs. Beverley, standing at the window of her
private sitting-room, which looked out upon the busy boulevard. “We at
least know that she actually left for Brussels. And if she did--then
she went there to meet you.”

“But I sent her no urgent telegram! I wrote to her about a week ago
saying that I expected to be back home in ten days--after the official
tests were through.”

It was then about one o’clock, so Falconer ate a hurried lunch with
Sylvia’s mother down in the big restaurant, and at three o’clock
returned to Brussels. He was not a man to allow the grass to grow under
his feet, for again before eleven o’clock--while Mrs. Beverley elected
to wait for news of her daughter in Paris--he was closeted once more
with the famous detective, Monsieur Guiette.

The astute, bald-headed little man heard him through, nodding ever and
anon, until at last, he exclaimed:

“_Bien!_ M’sieur Falconer. I will have every inquiry made to-morrow,
and will send you word to--where?”

Geoffrey hesitated. He was in the midst of the serious wireless tests,
and had arranged with other stations to listen-in for his speech.

“Oh, it will be best to telephone to me at the Tête d’Or at Dinant, or
to the new aerodrome at Bouvignes,” he said.

And then he took his hat, and departing, ascended the hill to the
Avenue Louise, where he spent a sleepless night at the hotel.

Sylvia, his beloved Sylvia, was missing! Had she fallen victim to
some evil and cleverly conceived plot? In the dark hours of the night
he became seized by all sorts of terrible apprehensions. That false
telegram sent from Belgium showed a distinct malice aforethought, She
had, without doubt, fallen into the hands of enemies.

But where?

Unable to sleep, he rose, opened the window, and gazed forth upon the
well-lit leafy avenue, so gay and brilliant by day, but now entirely
silent save for the soft rustling of the leaves. It was three o’clock
in the morning, and he had travelled many miles to and fro to France
since last he had slept.

Sylvia’s disappearance was a mystery, deep and inscrutable.

Without some strong motive, such as the receipt of the telegram of
distress, she would certainly never have left her mother and travelled
so hastily back to Brussels.

For over an hour he sat at the open window trying to solve the
problem, and hoping that Monsieur Guiette’s inquiries would have some
result. She would certainly have to show her passport at the frontier,
where a register would be kept.

Day broke, but he did not return to bed. At five he dressed, and then,
after his coffee, he strolled anxiously down the Montagne de la Cour in
the morning sunshine towards the Bourse, waiting for midday, when he
had arranged to call again at the Prefecture, and hear the result of
the inquiries at the frontier.

Noon came at last, and he again sat in Monsieur Guiette’s dull drab
room.

“Well, m’sieur,” exclaimed the bald-headed little official, “it seems
that mademoiselle, the South Américaine, left Paris as you allege,
travelled by the train you mention, and showed her passport at the
frontier. She told the passport officer that she was going to the
Palace Hotel here, but evidently on arrival changed her mind. Then,” he
added, “she was noted by the police at the barrier when she arrived,
and was seen to be met by somebody--a woman.”

“Met by a woman?”

“Yes. Here our information becomes a little hazy,” replied the great
detective. “One witness says that the woman outside the barrier rushed
up to her and gave her some message, while another witness, the
collector of tickets, declares that it was a little old man who speaks
English, and sometimes acts as guide, who met her.”

“But what happened then?” exclaimed Geoffrey bewildered.

“Both persons tell the same story, that a car was in waiting, and that
the young lady entered it very hurriedly, apparently much upset at what
had been told her, and was driven away.”

“Driven away into the unknown--eh?”

“Exactly, m’sieur.”

“And how shall we now follow her?”

Monsieur Guiette raised his shoulders, and after a moment’s silence,
answered:

“The young lady has simply disappeared. We have had in the years of
my service, both before the war and since, a number of such cases
of English and American ladies being lost in Belgium. But such
cases are always difficult to deal with. Girls have lovers--secret
lovers--so very often. And when at last traced they are always highly
indignant--and never tell us the truth. Ah! m’sieur, when one deals
with love one is always mystified.”

“But in the present case I am convinced that Miss Beverley has fallen
victim to some plot. She received a telegram purporting to have come
from myself, whereas I sent her no message. She obeyed my wish, and
on arrival here was given a false message, to which she instantly
responded.”

“Yes, m’sieur; I quite agree. But we cannot go further. How can we?”
asked the famous commissary.

“I certainly think we ought to. A lady has been enticed to Brussels by
a false telegram, and it is the duty of the police to follow up the
clue which I have supplied!” exclaimed Geoffrey in indignation at the
apparent reluctance of Guiette to carry the inquiry further.

“Please, do not be distressed,” said the famous detective pleasantly.
“I have already given orders that the inquiries are to be pushed
forward in every quarter. The case interests me personally. And,” he
added, “I entirely agree with you. There is some very deep-laid plot,
otherwise that urgent telegram would never have been forged.”

Geoffrey was now torn between love and duty. From the Prefecture he at
once walked to the Place de la Monnaie, and from the central telegraph
office despatched a long message to the missing girl’s mother. He urged
her to wait in patience, as Sylvia was known to be in Belgium, and all
inquiries were being instituted.

Afterwards he lunched at the Taverne Joseph, close to the Bourse, and
later was compelled to take train back to Dinant, leaving the further
inquiries in the hands of the Brussels police.

That evening, with faint heart, he returned to the wireless office
at the aerodrome and tried to continue his work, tuning up the
wireless set ready for the official tests. But it was in vain. He was,
very naturally, thinking more of Sylvia than of the elaborate and
highly-efficient apparatus under his care, notwithstanding the fact
that it represented the latest development of the Marconi Company’s
system of instant communication, and was, therefore, of special
interest.

Next day was Tuesday. At first he resolved not to keep his appointment
with Mademoiselle Levie, who was to take him to see Monsieur Marvaut at
his country house on the Semois. Yet Marvaut was the director of the
civil aviation, and it was his duty to the Company to see him, if only
for an hour. He had told Monsieur Guiette this, and promised to be back
in Bouvignes for the test next morning, so that he could be rung up
from Brussels.

Torn by stress of apprehension he managed to control himself
sufficiently to meet Mademoiselle Odille when about seven o’clock in
the evening she drove up before the Tête d’Or, in Dinant to keep her
appointment. The thin-faced watcher was again driving. Meeting Geoffrey
she laughed merrily, and asked:

“Could we have a more glorious evening? It has been perfect ever since
we left Brussels.”

“Won’t you come in for a moment, mademoiselle?” Falconer asked.

“No, thanks. We’re late now,” she said. “I promised monsieur to get you
to the château before dark. Come, get in.”

So Falconer got in beside her, and a few moments later they were
speeding along the narrow, old-world streets of Dinant, past the tall
Roche-à-Bayard, a rock in the riverside road, and on through the
charming little village of Anseremme. Then by the winding road through
beautiful country they went by way of Malvoisin and Monceau, down into
the Semois valley, one of the most picturesque spots in southern
Belgium, that country now remote and still undisturbed as it was before
the Hun invader swept through it with fire and sword on his way to
Brussels.

They had left the river and passed through a great dark forest when, in
the falling darkness, the young man who drove the car--the same person
who had watched Geoffrey in the Café Métropole--suddenly turned into a
well-kept side road which led to a large country mansion, the Château
de Rochehaut.

The door stood open as they pulled up, and on alighting, mademoiselle
conducted him through a large but well-lit entrance-hall, upstairs to
a small, well-furnished room on the first floor, where she left him,
saying that she would go and fetch Monsieur Marvaut. The heavy curtains
of purple silk damask were drawn, and the place presented a more cosy
aspect than is usual in Belgian houses.

Suddenly the door reopened and Geoffrey stood amazed, for he met Sylvia
face to face!

Both uttered exclamations of intense surprise, and both asked questions
at the same moment.

“How came you here, dear?” asked Falconer eagerly. “Why, the police are
hunting for you everywhere.”

“I know,” exclaimed a big, thick-set man who had followed the girl into
the room, and was grinning evilly. “And the police will never find
either of you.”

“Who are you--and what do you mean?” Geoffrey demanded quickly.

“I mean what I say!” was the man’s defiant reply.

“I have met you somewhere before,” remarked Falconer much puzzled,
while the girl, who seemed half dead with fright, clung to her lover’s
arm.

“Yes,” was the fellow’s response; “we met at the Castle of Zenta,
in Hungary, where not only did you escape, but you were the means of
sending our brave leader, Franz Haynald, and Koblitz and Françoise to
prison. I have come from Hungary in order to carry out what has been
decided in consequence.”

“And what is that, pray?” inquired Falconer.

“We succeeded in bringing your _fiancée_ here so that you may both
share the same fate--_death_!” he said in a low, hard voice, his eyes
full of the fierce fire of vengeance.

“Stand aside!” shouted Geoffrey. “Let us pass!”

A second later the young engineer found himself cornered with a heavy
automatic pistol.

“Move, and I’ll fire!” hissed the man whom he now recognised as a
revolutionist named Stadler, who had visited the pseudo-Baron at the
great castle in the Carpathians.

Then swift as lightning the fellow slipped out of the door, banged it
after him, and ere Geoffrey could reach it, he had bolted it on the
outside.

Both realised that they were caught like rats in a trap.

Geoffrey in an instant dashed to the window, only, however, to find to
his dismay that it was closely shuttered and barred from the outside.
Precautions had been taken to prevent their escape!

“Ah!” cried the fellow from the other side of the door, “let the police
search! They will never find either of you now. You see the stove? Go
across--and open it.”

They both glanced across the room and noticed a round iron stove about
five feet in height, used for burning charcoal in winter.

Falconer crossed, and on opening it, saw within what seemed to be a
steel cylinder.

“You’ve seen it--eh?” asked the voice mockingly. “That cylinder
contains poison-gas! I will give you two minutes before I turn on your
lethal draught--two minutes to wish each other a long farewell,” and
the brute laughed heartily in his fiendish triumph.

Sylvia gave vent to a loud piercing shriek when she realised the
horrible fate in store for them, and then she fell fainting into her
lover’s arms. He bent and pressed his lips to hers for a second.
Afterwards he placed her in a chair, and taking up another and heavier
chair, began to attack the door furiously, smashing the chair in his
efforts.

“The two minutes are up!” cried that mocking voice with a low, exultant
laugh. “Good-bye!”

Next second a loud hissing came from the stove as the deadly gas,
released suddenly, filled the room. Geoffrey caught a whiff of it, and
instantly sank to the ground, inert and unconscious.

When they recovered consciousness they both found themselves in
hospital wards, attended by doctors, and both learned later that it was
Sylvia’s shriek which saved them.

Monsieur Guiette had fortunately suspected that Sylvia had met with
foul play, and wondering whether some mishap might not occur to
Geoffrey, had ordered his men to keep strict observation, unknown
to the young Englishman, with the result that in the very nick of
time they had been able to rescue both of them from that fatal room,
and unearth a desperate and widespread plot. They also arrested the
dangerous Hungarian revolutionist, Hermann Stadler--who had rented the
château furnished--as well as the young motor driver, and the pretty
girl, Stadler’s niece, who had so cleverly posed as the secretary to
the Director of Civil Aviation. In a wood at the back of the château
they found in a secluded spot an open grave ready for the reception of
the victims!

The wireless tests at Bouvignes were delayed for two days until
Falconer recovered, but at them Monsieur Marvaut--who had just returned
from France--was present, and all went off most satisfactorily,
the results being declared to be greatly to the credit of Geoffrey
Falconer.

CHAPTER IX

THE THREE BAD MEN

Geoffrey Falconer, Mrs. Beverley, and Sylvia were spending a week-end
at Tansor, in Northamptonshire, with George Barclay, a friend of the
South American widow, who rented a hunting-box and rode regularly with
the Fitzwilliam Hounds.

On the night of their arrival when they sat down to dinner with Barclay
and his go-ahead wife and the latter’s cousin, a pretty girl named May
Farncombe, all were full of expectation of some good runs. To Geoffrey,
who had recently returned from a mission abroad, the fine English
country house, with its old-world atmosphere, its old oak, old silver,
and air of solidity, was delightful after the flimsy gimcracks of
foreign life. The young radio-engineer had earned praise from Marconi
House for the manner in which certain missions abroad had been carried
out, and he was rapidly advancing in the world of wireless.

That evening proved an extremely pleasant one, and both Geoffrey and
Sylvia were attracted by the chic of May Farncombe, who was tall
and dark, about twenty-two or so, with a remarkable figure shown to
advantage by a smart dinner-frock. She talked well, sang well, and was
most enthusiastic over hunting.

The meet next morning was at Wansford, that one-time hunting centre
beside the River Nene, and as Geoffrey rode with Sylvia and May, he
noticed what a splendid horsewoman was the latter. She rode astride,
her dark hair coiled tightly, her bowler hat with its broad brim suited
her face admirably, while her habit fitted as though it had been
moulded to her figure. Tied in her mare’s tail was a tiny piece of red
silk, a warning that she was a kicker.

Hounds met opposite the Haycock, once a coaching-inn, but now a
private house, and the gathering became a large one. From the great
rambling old house servants carried glasses of sloe gin for all and
sundry who cared to partake of the old English hunting hospitality.
Geoffrey’s host introduced him to the Master, while the crowd of horses
and cars became more congested every minute, and everywhere greetings
were being exchanged.

Presently Barnard, the huntsman, drew his hounds together, the word was
given, and all went leisurely up to draw first cover.

The morning was a damp cold one in mid-February; the frost had given,
and every one expected a good run for the scent would be excellent.

The first cover was, however, drawn blank, but from the second a
fox went away straight for Elton, and soon the pace became fast and
furious. After a couple of miles more than half the field were left
behind; still Geoffrey kept on, and while Sylvia remained far behind,
yet May Farncombe was considerably in front of him. Suddenly, without
any effort, the girl took a high hedge, and was cutting across the
pastures ere he was aware that she had left the road. That she was a
straight rider was quickly apparent, but Geoffrey preferred the gate to
the hedge and ditch which she had taken so clearly.

Half an hour later the kill took place near Haddon, and of the
half-dozen in at the death May Farncombe was one.

When Geoffrey came up five minutes later, she rode forward, crying:

“What a topping run, Mr. Falconer! I have enjoyed it thoroughly!” Her
face was flushed with hard riding, yet her hair was in no way awry, and
she presented a really fine figure of the up-to-date athletic girl.

Just, however, as Geoffrey and his companion sat watching Barnard
cut off the brush, a tall, rather good-looking, fair-haired man rode
up, having apparently been left behind, as he had. As he approached,
Geoffrey noticed that he gave his handsome companion a strange look
almost of warning, while she, on her part, turned away her head. It was
as though he had made her some secret sign which she had understood.

That May Farncombe knew him was apparent. The slight quiver in the
man’s eyelids, and the almost imperceptible curl of the lips had not
passed him unnoticed. There was some secret between them, of what
nature he, of course, knew not.

“I wonder who that man is?” Geoffrey remarked quite casually, as soon
as he was out of hearing.

“I don’t know,” was her prompt reply. “He’s often out with the hounds.”

Falconer smiled within himself. He saw that she did not intend to admit
that she had any knowledge of him. Like all women, she was a clever
diplomat. But the man had made a sign to her--a sign of secrecy.

And at that moment Sylvia rode up with their host, George Barclay, and
joined them, crying:

“Oh! what a run! I was left quite out of it. You were both at the kill,
I suppose?”

That night Geoffrey sat alone with his host after the others had
retired, and from him learnt that Mr. Farncombe, his wife’s uncle, had
lived a long time in Marseilles as agent of a great English shipping
company, and that May had been born in France. Falconer then mentioned
the stranger who had exchanged those meaning glances with the girl, to
which Barclay replied:

“I often see the fellow hunting. He comes from London, and stays at the
George, at Stamford, I have heard.”

The days passed. Geoffrey managed to obtain an extension of his leave,
and with Sylvia and May went to several meets--at King’s Cliffe,
at Laxton Park, and also at Castor Hanglands. On each occasion the
stranger from London was there. His name, Geoffrey found out from the
George, at Stamford, was Ralph Phillips, but who or what he was nobody
knew. So long as he paid a generous subscription to the Fitzwilliam
pack, nobody cared.

That May Farncombe in denying all knowledge of the man had deliberately
told an untruth, was quite plain. Geoffrey, however, kept his own
counsel, and while spending many happy hours with Sylvia--Lord
Hendlewycke being away at Cannes staying with an aunt--he nevertheless
made no mention of his discovery.

How far Geoffrey was justified in watching the girl’s movements is no
concern of the writer. But he did so, for he had unexpectedly alighted
upon certain suspicions, and was determined to elucidate them.

Late one afternoon, Mrs. Beverley and her daughter having gone with
Mrs. Barclay to make a call at Burghley, Geoffrey went for a stroll
alone. While passing along the footpath from Tansor to Fotheringhay, he
was skirting the edge of a big wood, when he caught sight of a flash of
red among the bare black trees. It was May Farncombe.

He drew back instantly and watched. She was standing with the
mysterious Mr. Phillips, who was speaking in a low, earnest tone.
He seemed to be giving her directions, while she appeared to be
remonstrating with him in an appealing attitude.

Fearing discovery, the young radio-engineer turned, and treading softly
over the dead leaves--which were fortunately wet--crept away.

He met her next at the dinner-table, when he noticed how pale
and anxious she was, apparently entirely changed from her usual
light-hearted self. She, of course, said nothing of the clandestine
meeting, but made pretence of being interested in wireless, asking him
many questions concerning its present development and its possibilities.

“Are many fresh discoveries being made?” she presently inquired.

“Discoveries!” echoed Sylvia. “Why, Geoffrey and his friends are making
marvellous discoveries and improvements every day. But he won’t tell
you anything, my dear,” she added; “so it’s no use asking.”

“I could tell you a good deal,” Falconer said laughing “only I’m not
allowed. The patents of many of our fresh discoveries are not yet quite
safe.”

“Ah! then I understand,” said the dark-haired girl at his side. “But
wireless is such a bewildering puzzle,” she went on. “Somebody was
telling me the other day some most extraordinary things--that a ship,
for instance, could be guided through a tortuous channel by means of
a cable laid in the channel, and that on the way they could actually
signal through the water to the end of the cable.”

Geoffrey smiled, and asked who had told her.

She tried to recollect. It was at a dance in London--a man she met who
was connected with some wireless firm. She had forgotten his name. She
had danced with him twice, and had then seen no more of him.

“Well, Miss Farncombe, you will be a little surprised to hear that
system you speak of was invented no less than twenty years ago! It
depends on a simple principle well known to scientists, but has been
of no practical use until comparatively recently, when the wonderful
Thermionic Valve enabled us to enormously increase the sensitiveness
of the apparatus. The Americans got some kudos in connection with the
laying of a ‘leader’ cable, as it is called, at the entrance to New
York Harbour recently, but it is not generally known that we had the
system working over here during the war.”

“Ah! Geoffrey,” laughed Sylvia, “it all seems so simple to you, no
doubt, but to me it is wonderful. I am glad to hear the British were
not so behind as so many would have us believe. You are such a modest
old thing--I feel sure you had something to do with the development of
this invention. Come, tell me now.”

“Oh! really nothing at all, Sylvia,” he replied, “except perhaps
to design an amplifier which was used with the first leader cable
at--well, one of our naval bases.”

“I thought so,” said the girl whom he loved so dearly.

“But how about the long-distance telephone?” asked May Farncombe.

“What do you know about such a telephone?” Geoffrey asked in surprise,
as the girl had referred to a technical point which only a man versed
in wireless could understand.

For a few seconds the girl seemed rather confused. Then she said in a
rather faltering voice, as she took up her wine-glass: “Oh! I don’t
know anything about wireless, you know. Somebody told me of some
wonderful results in telephoning over long distances.”

Those words caused Geoffrey Falconer to ponder.

He dropped the subject. Loyal as he was to the great Marconi Company,
he refused to discuss any of its confidences over a dinner-table. And
he was relieved when the general chatter became concerned with a dance
which was to be given at Peterborough on the following evening.

Next morning, about eleven o’clock, Sylvia and Geoffrey went out for a
walk together on the high road which leads into the quiet little town
of Oundle. Sylvia in a thick grey coat and a canary-coloured scarf, and
carrying a stiff ash stick, went along with true golfing stride.

Strangely enough, she was the first to mention the girl Farncombe.

“I can’t fathom May at all,” she said. “To me she’s a mystery.”

“Why?” asked her lover, pretending ignorance.

“I don’t know, but she knows so little of you--and yet she knows so
much!”

“How?”

“Well--her knowledge of wireless last night was extraordinary. She
seems to know things that are entirely confidential. How? I don’t like
such people, Geoff. They’re a bit uncanny!”

“Yes,” he laughed. “She’s somewhat of a mystery. But when one goes to
a house-party one is sure to meet people who are mysterious. Yet they
may be, after all, the most ordinary persons. It is one’s own point of
view that often creates mystery. That’s my opinion.”

With that Sylvia agreed. Yet, of course, her lover had become more than
ever puzzled over their fellow-guest, and was glad when Sylvia let the
subject drop.

Sylvia and he were lovers, it was true, but he was so plain,
straightforward, and honest, that he could not bring himself to reveal
to the girl he loved the facts which had come within his knowledge.

If May Farncombe had a secret lover, what business was it of his?
True, her undue knowledge of wireless inventions was somewhat strange,
but what was most probable was that some friend of hers, perhaps the
fair-haired man who had met her clandestinely, had given her just a
little superficial knowledge--just as so many people possess.

Geoffrey bade farewell to his host and hostess three days later,
and left for Warley, Mrs. Beverley and her daughter remaining for a
few days longer. Sylvia had become very friendly with May, and Mrs.
Beverley had asked her to stay with them for a fortnight or so in Upper
Brook Street in about a month’s time.

Back at the Works at Chelmsford, Geoffrey continued his research
work, assisting two well-known engineers in some highly interesting
experiments. Privately he was experimenting with the amplification
and magnification of wireless signals as applied to a new automatic
call-device for use at sea. One had recently been perfected by young
Falconer privately, but at present it was a secret, and not yet
patented, for a slight point about it was not to his satisfaction.

Each night at his own private experimental laboratory at Warley he
spent hours upon hours in trying to devise some means of removing the
one slight defect of his new apparatus. Several automatic call-devices
had been invented, and the Marconi one for use on ships had proved
extremely satisfactory. Yet Falconer, true experimenter that he was,
was never satisfied with results. He always endeavoured to make further
improvements.

The calling-device, it may here be explained, is a piece of apparatus
which will only ring an alarm bell when the call-signal of a
ship--three or four letters of the alphabet--or the distress signal,
“S.O.S.” is sent, and even then it is so arranged that the letters to
which it is set to respond must be repeated before the alarm rings.
The object of such a device is to enable small ships to work with one
operator, who need not keep constant watch. As a rule passenger boats
of any size carry three operators, who keep constant watch for calls
day and night. But Geoffrey hoped that, by an improvement of the new
device, a greater perfection still could be arrived at.

His hope, indeed, was to so devise a scheme that any message sent out
to the call-signal to which it was set, would be printed in Morse
automatically upon a tape instrument, so that even if the operator
were not within call, the message would be recorded. Such achievement,
however, was fraught with many technical difficulties of wave-length
and other things, as all wireless men will quickly foresee. Still he
worked hard and patiently each evening after his return from the Works.

Now and then he went to London and spent the evening in Upper Brook
Street. Once or twice he dined out with Sylvia and her mother, and went
to one or two dances in Mayfair, but the greater part of his spare
time was occupied with his wireless calling-device. His superiors
at Marconi House knew the trend of his experiments, and encouraged
him, for Marconi apparatus is always being developed, improved, and
again improved, until absolute perfection is at last arrived at. The
calling-device in use was perfect, but if the incoming message could
be recorded, then the improvement would be of immense benefit to both
shipowners and shipmasters.

One day when he called at Mrs. Beverley’s, he found that May Farncombe
had arrived upon her promised visit, and he sat in the drawing-room
chatting for a long time with Sylvia and her friend.

“Geoffrey has actually torn himself away from his horrible old
wireless,” Sylvia remarked. “For nearly a fortnight we’ve hardly seen
him.”

“I’ve been awfully busy on a new gadget,” the young man replied with a
laugh. Then, turning to May, he added: “Sylvia is always poking fun at
me because I happen to be enthusiastic over my work.”

“Well, I don’t mean anything, my dear old boy,” laughed the girl. “You
know that. What I think is that you apply yourself far too closely
to it--at the Works all day and then continuing your work at home,
sometimes into the early hours. You’ll injure your health if you don’t
take care.”

“What are you particularly interested in discovering just now?” asked
May.

In reply he explained, and found that she listened quite intelligently.

After an early dinner he took them both out to a theatre, but was
unable to see them home, having to leave before the performance was
over in order to catch the last train.

As he came out of the theatre a man in evening dress was standing upon
the step, leisurely smoking a cigarette as though waiting for some one.
As Geoffrey brushed past him, he glanced round, and was surprised to
recognise in him the mysterious stranger of the hunting-field--the man
known at the George, at Stamford, as Mr. Ralph Phillips. An omnibus
going direct to Liverpool Street was passing at the moment, and
Geoffrey jumped upon it.

The encounter was a strange one. Was it by mere accident that they
had met? Or was the man Phillips awaiting May Farncombe? The incident
sorely puzzled him. The pair might be lovers in secret, but their
attitude when he had found them together certainly negatived such a
supposition.

Back at Warley that night Geoffrey found that his father had gone to
bed, so he sat in his wireless room for a long time trying some new
adjustments upon the piece of apparatus he was bent upon improving.
But recollections of the man Phillips kept running through his
brain, so that at last he went to a drawer, and taking out some small
snapshot photographs, selected one which he carried to the light and
carefully examined. It was a photograph of Phillips which he had
taken surreptitiously in the hunting-field. The man in hunting pink
had dismounted and was leading his horse, while close beside him May
Farncombe could be seen mounted, chatting with Sylvia, who was riding
at her side.

“I wonder?” he muttered to himself. “I wonder what it all means? Why
does he haunt the girl so? Why do they in public appear as strangers? I
wonder?”

And he placed the photograph in his wallet, and turning out the lights,
ascended to his room.

About ten days went by, when one evening, being in London with Maurice
Peterson, one of the engineers from the Works, they looked in at
the Palace Theatre after dinner. The performance was excellent, as
usual, and later when they strolled into the bar the first person they
encountered was the mysterious Phillips, well-dressed, and wearing a
smartly-cut grey overcoat.

In a moment Peterson greeted him warmly, and said:

“Falconer, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Paget.”

The two men shook hands. Paget! Then Phillips was not the man’s real
name, Geoffrey thought.

“I think we met in Northamptonshire--didn’t we?” asked the man who
called himself Paget.

“Oh, you’ve met before--eh?” asked Peterson.

“Yes; in the hunting-field,” Falconer said vaguely, and then all three
had drinks together, and Falconer and his friend were afterwards
compelled to leave.

“Who is that man Paget?” Geoffrey asked as soon as they were in the
taxi.

“Oh, quite a nice fellow. I met him one day in the train as I was
coming back from Carnarvon. He seemed to know something about wireless,
and he gave me his card. So we met once or twice afterwards. He has
rooms in Half Moon Street.”

“And he’s fond of hunting,” Falconer said. “Have you ever seen him with
a tall, dark, very good-looking girl?”

“A girl with a mole on her left cheek? Oh, yes. One afternoon about
a week ago I called on him and found her having tea at his rooms. I
didn’t catch her name. She was dressed in brown, and had a beautiful
set of furs.”

It was May Farncombe!

“I know the young lady. She’s a friend of mine,” Falconer said briefly,
more puzzled than ever. “But do you really know anything about Paget?”

“Only that he seems to be a man of considerable means, very generous,
and quite a good sort.”

Geoffrey remained silent. He was thinking deeply. It seemed that
May Farncombe’s knowledge of wireless--and she quite unconsciously
had betrayed a fairly wide grasp of the science and its latest
developments--had been derived from the man whom she had pretended was
a stranger to her.

Paget’s attitude towards Geoffrey’s friend had been most affable. He
had even called him by his Christian name, and had reminded him of an
appointment for dinner two days later.

Before they left the stranger added: “I hope, Mr. Falconer, that we
shall meet again very soon.”

They did meet, and once under rather curious circumstances.

Geoffrey each night worked hard at his new design for the
calling-device, to which he was attaching apparatus to record upon the
tape the signals received. He met with failure after failure until at
last, one night, he set his calling-device to receive signals from the
efficient station of a Dutch amateur at Amsterdam--known in the world
of wireless as “P.Y.N.” In wireless both in America and England, people
and places are known by their call-signal, rather than by their names.
He knew that on that particular evening “P.Y.N.” would call by Morse
before sending telephony and music to English amateurs.

So having set his instrument attached to the “inker,” he waited.
Suddenly at nine o’clock the Morse sounder gave two or three sharp
clicks. He switched on the tape, and out upon it came a printed message
from Amsterdam to certain stations in England.

His invention was complete!

With natural pride and excitement he called the Professor, and the
pair stood watching the narrow green tape roll forth from the square
brass “recorder” mounted upon its mahogany base--the strip bearing the
message clearly printed. The calling-device had only responded to the
one signal, “P.Y.N.”

“Congratulations, my boy,” said the old man, well pleased. “You deserve
success after all that experimenting and the many hours you have given
to it. I only hope it will bring you advancement and money,” he added.
“It certainly should.”

“I hope so,” laughed the young man. “I was told at Marconi House only
the other day that if I were successful the invention would be of
inestimable value. And now it really works!”

Next day when he arrived at Chelmsford he told Peterson of his success,
and that morning in the large, well-appointed luncheon-room at the
Works--that bright apartment wherein the heads of the departments take
their midday meal, and gossip--young Falconer was the recipient of many
congratulations.

“Of course you’ll patent it at once,” said one engineer seated next to
him--a man whose name is a household word in wireless.

“Yes,” laughed Geoffrey. “I suppose I ought to do so.”

“Ought to? Why, of course. It is a wonderful advance in wireless,” said
another man a little further down the table.

That night he was again at Upper Brook Street, and naturally told
Sylvia and her friend of his great achievement.

May Farncombe instantly grew interested, and put to him a number
of questions. More than ever the clever girl showed a remarkable
intelligence concerning wireless.

Mrs. Beverley had a small party that night; therefore, there was
dancing, and the evening was most enjoyable. “The Wild Widow” had been
a great social success in London, and to her parties flocked the people
of the very best set. The penurious Lord Hendlewycke had fallen beneath
a cloud, much to Sylvia’s delight, and now her mother seemed keenly on
the alert for some rather better match for her daughter--with a man of
title, of course. She desired at all hazards to return to Buenos Ayres
as the mother-in-law of an English peer.

Geoffrey looked on amusedly at it all. With Sylvia he had a perfect
understanding. She had promised him, time after time, that if she
ever married he was to be her husband. The rest did not matter. Hence
he remained perfectly content, devoting his days--and his nights--to
scientific research.

One day Peterson told him that he was dining with Paget that night at
the Bath Club, and that his host had telephoned asking him to bring
him along. At first Geoffrey hesitated. Next moment he saw that if he
became friendly with the mysterious fox-hunter he might learn the truth
concerning certain facts which had so sorely puzzled him.

Therefore he accepted.

He found Paget a most genial host. While at table they spoke of
wireless, and Peterson made mention of his fellow-guest’s important
invention. At once Paget became interested, but Geoffrey merely
laughed, and with his usual modesty, turned the conversation into
another channel. Afterwards they went to a theatre and concluded a
merry evening.

May Farncombe’s stay with Mrs. Beverley was almost at an end. She was
joining her aunt in Paris, and then going with her down to Cap Martin.
Somehow Geoffrey could not put it out of his mind that something was
wrong. There was a secret between the girl and the affable man known
at Stamford as Phillips, and in Half Moon Street as Paget. As the
looker-on sees most of the game, he resolved to watch at Half Moon
Street. This he did on several afternoons, wondering whether the girl,
escaping from Upper Brook Street on pretence of shopping, would call
there.

On the third afternoon, as he lingered in the vicinity, very careful
to remain out of observation from the man’s windows, she came, neatly
and quietly dressed, and, unseen, Geoffrey watched her enter the house
where Paget lived.

She remained nearly an hour and a half, while he still waited against
the Park railings on the other side of Piccadilly from where he had
a clear view of Half Moon Street. At last she emerged, and gaining
Piccadilly, turned in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. Noting this,
Geoffrey slipped into a passing taxi and followed, thus getting in
front of her unnoticed in the traffic. At Apsley House he got out, paid
the man, and mingling with the hurrying crowd, walked in the direction
she was coming.

At last, as though quite unexpectedly, they met. She started as though
he were some apparition. For a moment she seemed too upset to be able
to speak. Indeed, Geoffrey detected that she had been crying, for her
eyes were swollen, and her cheeks showed traces of tears.

He was about to remark upon it, but refrained. Evidently her interview
with the fellow Paget had been the reverse of pleasant, and her
attitude set him further wondering. She, of course, had no idea that he
had watched her go to Paget’s rooms.

He turned and walked with her up Park Lane, amazed to notice how
nervous and unstrung she seemed.

“I’ve been out to a scent shop in Regent Street,” she explained.
“Sylvia and her mother have gone to tea at Lady Burford’s, and I’m busy
preparing to go over to Paris.”

“When do you leave?”

“About next Wednesday, I think. My aunt is coming from Bordeaux, and I
meet her at the Hôtel Bristol.”

The mystery of her interview with Paget, and its effect upon her,
caused him to ponder as he walked to Upper Brook Street, where he left
her at Mrs. Beverley’s door, asking her to give a message to Sylvia
that he had been compelled to get back to Warley.

In order to further endeavour to probe the mystery surrounding the
man Paget, Geoffrey next afternoon, after leaving Marconi House at a
quarter past five, called unexpectedly upon him at his chambers.

Paget, who was seated before the fire in the ease of a black velvet
lounge coat, jumped up, greeted him warmly, and bade him be seated in
the deep cosy arm-chair opposite, expressing delight that he had called.

“We’ll dine together,” he said, as he passed him the cigarette-box.
“Seen Peterson to-day?”

“No. I haven’t been at Chelmsford to-day,” Falconer replied.

“I met another of your fellows from the Works the day before
yesterday--a friend of Peterson. He tells me that your printing device
is most wonderful--and there’s a lot of money in it. I hope you’ve
patented it.”

“Not yet,” replied the young fellow frankly, “but I mean to do so in a
day or so--when I get the circuits drawn out.”

“It’s your own invention, I take it? Nothing to do with the
Company--eh?”

“At present--no. But the Company controls all wireless patents that are
worth anything at all. They will control mine,” was Geoffrey’s reply.

“Well, I hope yours will bring you in a lot of money. It certainly
must be of the greatest use in the merchant service, and you are to be
heartily congratulated.”

Geoffrey turned the conversation to the Fitzwilliam Hunt, and the
several runs in which both had taken part, hoping that he might mention
May Farncombe. But he refrained. Indeed, he seemed to have no wish to
recall his stay at Stamford. Perhaps it was because he had suspicion
that Geoffrey knew that the name he had gone under at the George Hotel
was not the one he was now using.

That night they had a pleasant dinner at Jules’, but more than ever it
became impressed upon Geoffrey’s mind that the man had some sinister
influence over the girl, hence her tears on the previous afternoon.
There was a mystery somewhere, but what it was he was utterly unable to
solve. Still, no man could have been more genial and light-hearted than
that man who, leading a life of luxury, seemed to be surrounded by many
friends.

On the following Tuesday night Falconer was again at Mrs. Beverley’s
to bid May Farncombe good-bye, as she was leaving for Paris on the
following morning. At dinner she seemed anxious to get away from
London, and Geoffrey guessed the reason. She longed to extricate
herself from some invisible net which the man Paget had cast about her.
Apparently, for some secret reason, she was entirely in his power.

“Well, Miss Farncombe,” he said, as they stood together in the hall
just before he departed, “I wish you _bon voyage_, and I hope we shall
see you back in London again very soon.”

At that moment they were alone in the big wide hall.

“Hush!” she whispered. “I shall pretend to go to Paris--but I
shall only go as far as Dover. Where can you see me alone--in
secret--to-morrow night?”

“Anywhere you like,” he replied, much surprised.

“Then let us say in the lounge of the Hôtel Russell at eight o’clock.
But not a soul must know!” she whispered.

Then aloud she said cheerily, just as Sylvia came out of the
morning-room:

“Well, good-bye, Mr. Falconer, good-bye!”

And they shook hands, and a few moments later he was walking towards
Grosvenor Square more than ever perplexed.

Next evening he was again in London, and in great anxiety arrived at
the hotel in Russell Square where, passing through the hall, he saw May
Farncombe awaiting him in the lounge. She had on her hat and coat, and
rose to meet him, pale-faced and anxious.

“You see I’m back!” she said with a faint smile. “We can’t talk here.
Somebody may overhear us! Let us walk around the Square--eh?”

This they did. They walked together slowly four times round the Square,
though the night was very cold and windy. Neither thought of the
weather, for the girl was too perturbed and excited, and the man too
annoyed and astounded at what she revealed to him.

The facts which, in desperation she disclosed, staggered him. He
promised to assist her, while she, on her part, thanked him profusely
and revealed certain extraordinary circumstances which held him
dumbfounded and fiercely angry.

At last they turned back into the hotel, and after sitting with her
in the lounge for some time, he rose, and gripping her gloved hand,
thanked her for her confidence.

“I shall really go to Paris to-morrow morning,” she said. “But remember
all that I have said, and respect my confidence--won’t you, Mr.
Falconer?”

“I certainly will, Miss Farncombe. Good-bye. You have all my sympathy,
I assure you. But keep a stout heart, for I hope in the end all will be
well,” he said reassuringly.

“But my secret!” she exclaimed.

“Leave that to me. Good-bye,” he repeated, and turning he left her.

A week later Geoffrey received a note from Paget asking him to dine
with him at the Bath Club, an invitation which he accepted. Another
and rather older man named Owen, to whom he had been introduced about
a fortnight before, dined with them. Afterwards they went round to
Paget’s rooms for an hour, and later Geoffrey left by ’bus to catch
his train from Liverpool Street.

He was walking along the platform and about to enter the train when
Owen, accompanied by a tall, clean-shaven man, came up breathlessly.

“This is the man!” Owen cried, pointing to Falconer. “I give him into
custody for stealing my pocket-book! He must have stolen it while we
were at the club!”

“What!--what do you mean?” gasped the young radio-engineer, turning
upon him aghast.

“I mean that you have my pocket-book upon you--a brown _suède_ one,
with sixty pounds in Treasury notes.”

“It’s untrue!” declared Geoffrey. “I know nothing of your pocket-book.
But look!” he exclaimed, utterly confounded. “A crowd is collecting.
Let’s go somewhere and argue it out.”

“Yes,” Owen agreed, turning to the detective. “Let’s go back to
Mr. Paget’s rooms, and then you can take him to the police-station
afterwards.”

Geoffrey naturally became indignant, but in the taxi the detective put
his hand into the inner pocket of the young fellow’s dinner-jacket and
drew forth the missing wallet!

“See!” exclaimed the man; “here is the missing property--found upon
you! You can’t make any excuse, can you?” Then turning to Owen he said:
“It’s very fortunate, sir, that you came to Vine Street at once--or he
would have thrown the case away.”

Geoffrey could not utter a word. He knew that he was the victim of some
foul plot, from which it seemed impossible to extricate himself.

Back at Half Moon Street, a prisoner in the hands of the police, he
stood with the three men, utterly dumbfounded. He protested that the
wallet must have been purposely placed in his pocket when he had taken
off his jacket in order to wash his hands. But all three laughed at
this lame explanation.

“And what do you intend to do?” asked Falconer.

“To prosecute you for theft,” answered Owen. “And it will be a nice end
to your very promising career as a wireless engineer!”

Geoffrey bit his lip in dismay.

“Is there no other way out of it?” he asked in a low, hard voice.

“Yes,” answered Paget, “there is.” And he asked the detective to retire
into the next room. Then when the door was closed, the man Paget
exclaimed:

“I propose, Owen, that if this young fellow gives us the diagrams
of his new device for printing automatic wireless signals from the
call-device, that we say nothing about it. It would only be a _quid pro
quo_--eh?”

“Yes. But he might give us false diagrams,” Owen remarked, shaking his
head dubiously.

“Make him write a statement that the money has been found upon him, and
in order to avoid arrest and scandal he undertakes to hand over to us
to-night his diagrams, and also his working apparatus. We will motor
down with him to Warley for that purpose.”

To this course the two men agreed. Therefore Paget drew up a confession
and undertaking which, under compulsion, Geoffrey signed, rather than
be brought before the magistrates next day.

Afterwards all four descended together and went out into the street,
where the taxi was still awaiting them.

Just as they were about to enter it Geoffrey slipped a police whistle
from his vest pocket and blew it, when instantly four constables
and a man in plain clothes closed upon them, and Geoffrey gave all
three in charge! The man who had posed as a detective was one of the
blackmailing gang!

The faces of the trio were a study. Their plot had been a clever one,
but the counterplot which Geoffrey had laid for them had been complete.

The man Paget and his two friends appeared in due course at the Old
Bailey, and all three returned to penal servitude, thus freeing poor
May Farncombe--whom they had compelled to be their accomplice.
They had held her in their power by first compelling her to sign a
confession of theft in a similar manner, and then holding over her
threats of exposure to her family and her friends.

The plot which the girl revealed to Falconer was a deeply-laid and
cleverly-conceived one in order to obtain the secret of his invention,
which they had planned to sell to some German firm in New York for a
very considerable sum.

Indeed, Paget had already booked his passage across the Atlantic, and
would have sailed from Liverpool on the following day had not Geoffrey
laid his plans to entrap the unscrupulous trio.

Needless to say that on the day following their arrest steps were taken
to patent the new device--which is now safe from infringement.

CHAPTER X

THE MYSTERY OF BERENICE

Over the picturesque Welsh mountains the wind blew fresh, even though
the afternoon was a brilliant one in August.

Outside the great Marconi wireless station high up at Ceunant, midway
between Carnarvon and Llanberis, Geoffrey stood with Sylvia and her
mother, explaining the huge aerial system with its ten masts, each
four hundred feet high, placed around the cluster of white buildings
comprising the power-house, transmission rooms, and other departments.
The tall masts dwarfed the buildings beneath them, and both mother and
daughter gazed up at them wonderingly when Falconer explained that from
them messages had actually been sent through the ether and received
clearly at Sydney, a distance of twelve thousand miles.

They had spent a most interesting afternoon watching the commercial
messages, most of them in code, being transmitted to Belmar, on the
opposite side of the Atlantic, and now the car was waiting to take
them back to Carnarvon where they were staying the night at the Royal
Hotel. They had all three travelled down by the Irish Mail from Euston
to Holyhead, arriving there in the morning, and after breakfast at the
hotel the car had taken them out to Ceunant, where they had lunched
with the engineer-in-charge, and Geoffrey had afterwards acted as their
guide, making full explanation of all they witnessed.

“Wonderful!” declared Sylvia as they entered the car. “The public speak
airily of wireless, yet they little know to what marvellous perfection
it is being brought.”

“That’s so, dear,” replied the South American widow. “I’m sure we’re
awfully obliged to Geoffrey for showing us the station. It is a
privilege accorded to very few.”

“Well,” laughed Geoffrey, “the company certainly do not encourage
the merely curious. Otherwise all our stations would be overrun with
visitors.”

The drive back through Llanrug to old-world Carnarvon was delightful,
and after tea Sylvia and her lover took a stroll through the town as
far as the great mediæval fortress which is washed on two sides by the
waters of the Menai Straits and the Seiont. They were shown the Eagle
Tower, where the first Prince of Wales was born; the Queen’s Tower, and
the other historic portions of the fine old castle, and then returned
to the hotel to rejoin Mrs. Beverley.

Later on, while they were at dinner, a tall, good-looking, dark-haired
young man entered and glanced around to find a seat.

Instantly Geoffrey recognised him as Jack Halliday, an old schoolfellow
at Shrewsbury, who was now a mining engineer, and was rapidly rising
in his profession. The men greeted each other warmly, and on being
introduced to the two ladies, the newcomer was invited to a vacant seat
at their table.

“When I last met you, Jack, you were just going out to Peru,” Geoffrey
said.

“Yes, that was a couple of years ago--wasn’t it? I did some prospecting
in the Andes, and was quite successful,” replied the young man. “Now
I’m off to Egypt for a trip.”

“How lovely!” remarked Sylvia. “I wish you’d go to Egypt, mother.”

“Mine will not be a very comfortable journey,” said the young man. “I’m
going prospecting.”

“In search of mines?” asked Sylvia.

“Yes. There is believed to be a rich deposit of gold at a spot a little
to the south of the ancient city of Berenice, on the west coast of the
Red Sea, not far from Cape Ras Benas. I have obtained from the Egyptian
Government a permit to prospect.”

“How extremely interesting!” remarked Mrs. Beverley. “What makes you
think that gold is there?”

“Well, it appears that after Pharaoh Ptolemy II founded the port about
three centuries before the Christian era, gold was discovered in
considerable quantities about eight miles off. For several centuries
the mines were worked, until, with the destruction of the city, they
were also obliterated,” was Halliday’s reply. “Quite recently, however,
my friend, Professor Harte, the well-known Egyptologist, has been
exploring the ruins, and among the hieroglyphic inscriptions there, he
found mention of the mines and of their richness. Therefore, it is my
intention to endeavour to locate them.”

“I wish you every success, Jack,” exclaimed Geoffrey. “You certainly
deserve it, for you’re always on the move.”

“And you meet with a good many adventures when you are on prospecting
expeditions, I suppose?” remarked the widow.

“Well--a few,” he answered modestly. “It is a pretty rough life
sometimes, but one gets used to it,” and his bronzed face relaxed into
a merry smile.

The party spent an enjoyable evening together, and while Geoffrey
gossiped with the rich widow, his friend Jack had a long chat with
Sylvia.

They all retired to bed early, and were up betimes to the usual country
hotel bacon-and-egg breakfast, the habit from which the Englishman,
however cosmopolitan, can never break himself. In northern Europe they
eat cheese for breakfast, in the south the horse-shaped roll with
coffee, but the Briton must ever have his eggs-and-bacon in no matter
what climate.

On arrival at Euston that evening they parted, and Geoffrey went
back to his work in the research department at Chelmsford. He was
experimenting with the four-electrode valve, the latest and most
scientific invention applied to wireless reception.

Hour after hour, and day after day, with his telephones clamped over
his ears, he experimented with new circuits, new inductances, and new
condensers, the main object being the application of wireless telephony
to commercial and household requirements in opposition to the heavy
cost of construction and maintenance of land lines.

Many of the experiments in that great, well-lit room had given
marvellous results, which when made public, would cause amazement
throughout the world.

One afternoon, ten days later, Geoffrey met Jack Halliday in London.
The latter was busy preparing his outfit for the expedition to recover
the mine of the ancient Egyptians. Falconer was walking along the
Strand not far from Marconi House when they accidentally came face
to face. With Halliday was a man of about forty, smartly-groomed and
well-set-up, apparently an ex-officer, with a well-dressed and rather
pretty young woman. The man’s name was Gilbert Farrer, and the girl’s
Miss Beryl Hessleton.

“We’re just going along to the Carlton to tea,” Jack said. “Come with
us.”

Geoffrey accepted the invitation, and they all took tea in the
palm-court.

Farrer struck Geoffrey as quite a good fellow--a man who had knocked
about the world a good deal, no doubt. His companion seemed a smart,
go-ahead woman, who smoked her after-tea cigarette in a long amber
holder, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.

It was soon apparent from the conversation that they were new
acquaintances of Jack’s. He had met Miss Hessleton on a steamer between
Bergen and Hull a few weeks before, and they had met again by chance at
Ciro’s. Then she had introduced him to her friend, Farrer.

After tea, while the orchestra played softly, the conversation
naturally turned upon Jack’s expedition, for he had mentioned it to
Beryl Hessleton on the trip across the North Sea.

“Well,” said Farrer, “I wish you every good luck on your venture.
There’s no doubt that there’s gold in Egypt--and a good deal of it. I
recollect when I was at Oxford reading up a lot about the mines of the
ancient Egyptians. The workings have, I suppose, during the ages, been
buried in the desert sand?”

“Yes,” replied Jack. “The sands are always shifting, and no doubt when
the ancient city was destroyed and abandoned before the advance of the
enemy, the Egyptians took good care to obliterate their mines.”

“I expect you’ll have some difficulty in finding it,” remarked the
smart young lady between puffs of her cigarette. “Oh! how I wish I were
a man, so that I could travel and prospect. I’d love it! You’ve got
nothing to do, Gilbert. Why don’t you have a trip out to the Red Sea?”

“Ah!” laughed Halliday. “I fear you would soon wish yourself back in
London.”

Three evenings later Geoffrey, who had dined at Mrs. Beverley’s, walked
round to his club to get his letters before returning home to Warley,
when in the hall he found Jack Halliday. The latter had just looked in
to leave him a note of farewell, as he was leaving the following day
for Egypt.

“Come with me round to Bevin’s and have a bit of supper,” he urged.
“It’s my last night in town. And you can get a train home and on to
Chelmsford early in the morning.”

“Chelmsford!” laughed Geoffrey. “I can’t very well turn up at the Works
in a dinner-jacket!”

But thus pressed, he nevertheless accepted his old schoolfellow’s
invitation, and went round to Bevin’s, the smart night club close to
Portman Square.

The scene there was one of gay abandon, of reckless expenditure, and
somewhat questionable morals. Alas! how the West End has degenerated
since the war! Yet these adventures of Geoffrey Falconer have no
concern with the morals of Underground London.

Beryl Hessleton and Gilbert Farrer were there, and all four had supper,
during which Halliday told them that he hoped to win a fortune upon the
information which his friend, the famous Egyptologist, had derived from
the ancient monuments in the colossal ruins of Berenice, some of which
were quite as wonderful as those at Thebes.

“If I find this mine, I have a first-class firm into whose hands I can
easily place the concession,” he said to Falconer across the table,
amid all the gay laughter and irresponsible chatter of the assembled
company. The West End to-day only emulates the Montmartre of yesterday,
with its “Heaven,” “Hell,” and “The Red Windmill,” without counting the
“Dead Rat.”

The war has passed, but your cosmopolitan of any nation is just the
same easy-going Bohemian traveller, a gipsy whose laughing boast is
that when his hat is on his roof is on.

Such a man was Jack Halliday.

Geoffrey next day saw him off from Victoria Station with an array of
green canvas bags--long bags like those of cricketers. And with him
upon the platform stood Beryl Hessleton. The young mining engineer had
been pleasant to her, but he was rather surprised that she should take
the trouble to see him off. Geoffrey noted it, but made no comment.

About six weeks went by. One evening, having worked late in the
research laboratory at Marconi House, Geoffrey walked westward to his
club. On the way he met a middle-aged man-about-town named Franks,
whose acquaintance he had formed at Mrs. Beverley’s, and after a brief
chat, Geoffrey invited him to dine at the Grill of the Piccadilly Hotel.

While they were eating their meal a stout, white-haired man entered,
accompanied by the handsome Beryl Hessleton, who, recognising the young
radio-engineer, waved her hand across at him and smiled.

“Hulloa! Do you know her?” asked Franks with some surprise.

“Slightly,” was Geoffrey’s reply.

“H’m!” grunted the other. “A pretty cute crowd she’s in with.”

“How?” inquired Falconer.

“Oh--well. That old chap she’s with is old Daddy Whittaker--a friend of
a fellow named Farrer. The whole crowd are international crooks, so be
careful if you happen to know them.”

Geoffrey was surprised at this. But, as usual, he kept his own counsel.
It seemed that his old school chum, Jack, had got mixed up with a very
queer set. But in the West End there are queer sets on every hand, the
dancing and drug-taking degenerates of both sexes who live upon their
wits, and live very well, too. In certain circles within a mile of
Piccadilly Circus, thieves and blackmailing vampires hobnob with young
and pretty women of title, while innocent persons of both sexes fall
into the vortex of vice and gaiety.

Presently Geoffrey asked, glancing across at Beryl:

“What do you really know about her? She’s rather fond of a great pal of
mine.”

“Then I pity your pal, my dear Falconer,” was the elderly man’s reply.
Franks was a member of Wells’ and the Bachelors’, and he moved in a
very fast, go-ahead set.

“Why?” asked the young radio-engineer.

“Because of the past record of the crowd of which she is the
decoy-duck. That’s all,” was his friend’s reply. “Daddy Whittaker, who
is sitting yonder with her, is an old gaol-bird who still directs the
nefarious operations of a dozen men and women. And woe betide anyone
who falls into that girl’s net.”

Falconer, full of thought, went on with his dinner. They were out of
hearing of the girl and her companion. At last the young fellow related
how he had been at Bevin’s Club with his old schoolfellow, Halliday,
where Beryl and Gilbert Farrer had also been.

“Well, all I hope is that your friend Halliday will keep clear of that
unholy organisation,” said his companion. “They’ll stick at nothing.
But why are they friendly with your old schoolfellow? What is the
motive--eh?”

“I don’t know. He’s a mining engineer, and has just gone to the Red Sea
prospecting for a gold mine of the ancient Egyptians.”

“Ah! Then he should beware. There’s no doubt some very subtle plot
afoot. You should warn your friend to have a care.”

“I can’t get at him. He’s gone out to Cape Ras Benas, and, like all
prospectors, has not left an address.”

“That’s a pity. But when you get in touch with him again, warn him at
once to avoid Daddy and his crowd as he would a poison bowl. They’re
dangerous--very dangerous. I heard from my old friend, Superintendent
Tarrant, of Scotland Yard, all about them. You recollect the Alleyn
scandals in the papers about nine months ago? Well, old Whittaker and
the girl yonder were at the bottom of it all. They escaped prosecution
for blackmail, but they had netted over ten thousand pounds out of old
Mr. Alleyn.”

Falconer now grew suspicious of Beryl’s acquaintance with his chum. Why
had she seen him off so affectionately?

“I wonder where Farrer is to-night?”

“Farrer! Why, he’s a bird of passage--the kind of man who eats his
breakfast in London, dines in Paris, and lunches next day beyond
the Mont Cenis tunnel. He’s one of the cleverest thieves in all
Europe--with Daddy’s brain, of course, behind him,” was Franks’ reply.

Falconer looked across the crowded room to where the old man and the
girl were eating their dinner together. To others they appeared to be
father and daughter. The man had an evening paper, and now and then
glanced at it when the courses were finished.

When Geoffrey and Franks rose, the former looked across and bowed as he
went out, full of wonder and suspicion.

The days that followed proved busy days for Geoffrey. An entirely new
circuit for wireless telephony had been devised by the well-known
radio-expert, Captain Meredith, at the Works, and it was being
tested--low voltage on the anode of the valves and a high amperage on
the aerial--an achievement which had been attempted for a year with
little success. Here, however, the combined brains of the Marconi
_personnel_ were again persevering towards perfection, and it had
fallen upon Geoffrey to assist in some of the most delicate and
intricate experiments.

Hence he had but little time to go up to London to see Sylvia.

One day, about three months later, as he sat down to luncheon in
the bright, airy “officers’ mess” at the Works, one of his fellow
engineers, named Davies, seated opposite him, exclaimed:

“There’s a big find of gold just made at a mine worked by the Pharaohs
in Egypt. By Jove!” he added with a sigh, “mining seems to be more
profitable than wireless!”

Geoffrey, pricking up his ears, instantly asked:

“Where is the mine situated?”

“Somewhere on the Red Sea, close to the ruins of an ancient city--I
forget the name of the place.”

“Is it Berenice?”

“Yes--that’s the name of the place. How do you know? I was told in
London yesterday, and I was told in confidence,” Davies said.

“By whom?”

“By a fellow I know named Farrer. He’s been out there and got a
concession from the Egyptian Government. And he’s no doubt made a
fortune. I wish I were in his shoes!”

Geoffrey held his breath.

“Is your friend Farrer a mining engineer?” he asked.

“Not at all. He’s a speculator--bought the concession off somebody, I
suppose. A lucky speculation. I met him the night before last at the
Palais de Danse. He had with him a very pretty girl he called Beryl.”

“And I suppose you met an old white-haired man named Whittaker?”

“Oh, yes--‘Daddy,’ they called him,” was the reply.

“And perhaps you met them at Bevin’s night club--eh?” asked Falconer.

“How did you know that?” inquired his friend.

“Well--because I guessed it.”

“Then you also know Farrer?”

“Yes,” Geoffrey replied briefly, for the conversation had increased his
wonder and suspicion. Along the table the conversation turned, as it
always does, upon wireless research and the business of the Company,
interspersed with personal chaff. At Chelmsford there is a daily
reunion of heads of departments at luncheon, where the interchange
of ideas is always intellectual, for gathered there are men of the
greatest scientific knowledge, mostly young, all enthusiastic, and all
experts in their own branches of radio-telegraphy.

Later that day young Falconer went into the testing department where
Davies was busily engaged, and returned to the conversation they had
had at luncheon.

“Is Farrer an intimate friend of yours?” asked Geoffrey.

“Not intimate. I know Beryl, his pretty little friend. I’ve dined once
or twice with him in town.”

“Have you ever met a fellow named Jack Halliday?”

“No. Never heard the name. Why?”

“Well, because Halliday, who is an old schoolfellow of mine, is
prospecting for gold on the Red Sea coast.”

“Ah! Then no doubt Farrer has bought his secret.”

“Perhaps he’s stolen it,” Geoffrey suggested.

“No,” declared his friend. “Farrer is a real good fellow, most generous
to his friends, and one of the most upright men I’ve ever met.”

Geoffrey, reflecting upon what his friend Franks had told him, became
more mystified.

Where was Jack Halliday?

Next day Geoffrey, being in London, called at the address in Bayswater,
which Jack had given him.

The landlady said it was true that he had rooms there, but she had
not seen him since he left for Egypt. About three weeks ago, however,
she received a telegram from him, and this she produced. It had been
dispatched from Alexandria three weeks before, and asked Mrs. Gibbons
to send through Pickford’s by _grande vitesse_ his big black trunk
addressed to Cook’s baggage department at Marseilles, adding that he
was unable to return to London at present, as he was sailing for Cuba.

“And you have sent the trunk?” asked Geoffrey of the pleasant,
round-faced woman.

“It went on the day after I received the message. Pickford’s collected
it,” replied the landlady.

“What did the trunk contain?”

“Oh! of that I have no idea, except that I think Mr. Halliday kept
most of his business papers in it,” she said. “Once it was open in his
bedroom, and I saw in it a lot of papers tied up with pink tape, like
lawyers use.”

Falconer paused. Why had it been sent to Marseilles when his friend had
these rooms as his _pied-à-terre_ in London?

They were standing in Jack Halliday’s little sitting-room at the time,
and he glanced around. Mrs. Gibbons pointed to one or two souvenirs
of travel upon the walls, and a few curios upon a side-table which
she kept carefully dusted in the eager expectation of her wandering
lodger’s return.

Geoffrey Falconer left Bayswater with a distinct impression that
something was radically wrong. He could not understand why Jack, if
he were called from his prospecting upon the Red Sea coast to go
to Cuba, should have wanted his private papers sent to Cook’s at
Marseilles--that great baggage organisation through which passes half
the luggage of those going to India and the Far East.

That night he spoke to Sylvia, telling her the whole facts.

“I believe with you, Geoff, that something is wrong. Why should Mr.
Farrer, who is not an expert mining engineer like your friend Halliday,
be in possession of the secret of the Berenice Mine?”

“I mean to make it my business to inquire,” replied the young fellow.
“Jack shall not suffer if I can help it.”

Falconer did not allow the grass to grow beneath his feet, for next
day he was on the alert. The telegram had been sent by the Eastern
Company’s cable from Alexandria, but at ten o’clock that morning he
inquired of S.U.H. (Ras-el-Tin), the radio station at Alexandria,
whether the Englishman, Mr. Halliday, could be found in that city.

Half an hour later there came back a reply that inquiry had been made
at the chief post-office at Alexandria, but nobody of that name was
known there.

The next message Falconer sent was to the engineer-in-charge at Port
Sudan, on the Red Sea, south of Cape Ras Benas, asking him if he had
heard anything of the young mining prospector, Jack Halliday.

The answer by wireless was “Wait--wait--wait: for two hours.”

Geoffrey waited. Two hours later Port Sudan replied that nothing was
known of Mr. Halliday, and suggested that inquiry be made of Cairo. But
the high-power station at Abu Zabal, outside Cairo, later on answered
as follows to the experimental call-signal he had used:

“2.A.Z. from S.U.S. Reply to your inquiry _re_ mining engineer
Halliday, can obtain no knowledge of him here except that he was at Ras
Benas two months ago.”

That night Falconer went up to London, and with apparent idleness,
he lounged into Bevin’s night club. The place was crowded, and the
supper-room full after the theatre. It was not, however, long before he
espied the man he sought.

“Hulloa, Farrer!” he cried in warm welcome, and a moment later he bent
over the hand of his well-dressed companion, Beryl Hessleton. “Why, I
thought you were abroad!” exclaimed Geoffrey.

“Gilbert got back some time ago,” replied Beryl. “He’s had a lovely
time in Egypt. I only wish I had been there.”

“Yes,” said the smartly-groomed man in evening clothes, “I really had
a tophole time in Cairo. And afterwards I went up the Nile to Assouan.
There I met your friend Halliday. He’s found that ancient mine, and
I’ve bought it from him. He’s gone to Cuba.”

“Did you buy it?” asked Geoffrey in surprise. “Then I suppose Halliday
will soon be back in town again--eh?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s been engaged by some big firm of American
mining engineers to prospect for iron in Cuba, I believe. Anyhow, when
we met at the Cataract Hotel, in Assouan, he was full of it. He didn’t
seem to think that the mine in Berenice was worth very much--worked out
centuries ago, he said. So he sold it to me with the concession--lock,
stock, and barrel.”

“And you will re-sell it to a company, I suppose?”

“Perhaps. I don’t quite know yet. I’ve one or two people in the city
ready to take it up.”

“But if the mine is worked out, of what use is it?”

“I don’t think that Halliday really explored it very much. He found it,
but just at the moment he received the tempting offer from America; so
he was glad to get rid of it. I went over to Ras Benas before I bought
it, and looked into the hole in the sand which gave entrance to the
ancient workings.”

“Well, I hope you will find that it is still a rich mine. Gold is sadly
wanted now that America holds all that we had before the war.”

“That’s just it,” said the smartly-dressed man. “Old Julius Evenden
used that selfsame argument yesterday when I put the prospect before
him.”

“Then you’ve offered it to Evenden?” asked Falconer, naming one of the
greatest financial houses in the city.

“Yes, and I believe he’ll take it up. If so, it will mean a fortune for
me.”

“Oh! you always were terribly lucky, Gilbert!” laughed Beryl. “Let’s
go across and have a drink. I’m sure Mr. Falconer wants to wish you
good-luck!”

And the trio passed along to the little bar just off the dancing-room.

A Marconigram sent from Fenchurch Street to Marseilles next day by
Falconer elicited the fact, from Cook’s Agency, that the black trunk
received from London addressed to Mr. Halliday had been claimed three
days after its arrival.

Again Geoffrey inquired by wireless for a description of the man who
had claimed it, but the reply was that he was “an elderly Englishman”!

Though Geoffrey was very full of work, experimenting upon the new
circuit for wireless telephony, nevertheless he devoted all his spare
time to solving the whereabouts of his old school chum. And in this
Sylvia gladly assisted him.

By constantly spending his evenings amid the gay crowd at Bevin’s he
was able to watch Gilbert Farrer pretty closely. He often met the
sprightly Beryl, who was never loth to dance with him, Geoffrey being
an unusually good dancer, and good-looking into the bargain. So by
being on friendly terms with the girl Falconer was enabled to keep
Farrer under observation.

Farrer knew, of course, of Geoffrey’s friendship with the mining
engineer, but that fact did not concern him now that he had purchased
his interest in the re-discovered mine of the Pharaohs.

At Bevin’s, late one night, Geoffrey had been dancing with Beryl,
Farrer being absent. He had not looked in all night, and it was already
three o’clock in the morning. Geoffrey was about to return to his
club when a white-haired, benevolent-looking old gentleman, whom he
at once recognised as “Daddy” Whittaker, the notorious crook, came in
and advanced to meet the girl, who, in turn, introduced him to her
companion.

“Seen Gilbert to-night?” asked old Mr. Whittaker eagerly of Beryl.

“No; I haven’t seen him all day. He promised to take me to lunch at the
Pall Mall, but he never turned up--and he didn’t ‘’phone’.”

“Ah! he’s busy,” replied the old man in a low voice. “He fixed up that
little matter with Evenden this afternoon. They are sending out two
experts to Egypt at the end of the week.”

“What!” cried the girl. “The Berenice Mine sold! Then Gilbert’s made
his fortune! He always was a lucky fellow.”

“Yes; but he doesn’t want it known yet,” the old fellow went on
confidentially. “So say nothing about it.”

“Farrer told me about his purchase of the mine,” Geoffrey remarked
quite casually. “It’s most interesting--is it not? My friend, Jack
Halliday, re-discovered it after the secret of its existence had been
lost for two thousand years.”

At mention of Halliday the white-haired old man glanced at him quickly,
but his manner did not alter in the least.

“Yes; I believe Gilbert bought it from a man named Halliday, together
with the concession which he’s got from the Egyptian Government. Anyhow
this mine could not be in better hands than those of Evenden. Of course
it may be exhausted. But the experts they are sending out will soon
decide that.”

“In any case a company will be formed to run it, I suppose?” asked
Beryl, whereupon the crafty old man smiled knowingly, as he remarked:

“An ancient gold mine always attracts subscribers.”

Two days later Geoffrey Falconer sat in the old-fashioned room of Mr.
Julius Evenden, the world-famous financier, and made inquiry regarding
the Berenice Gold Mine.

At first the head of the great financial house, whose dealings were
world-wide, was inclined to resent undue intrusion into his business
dealings with Gilbert Farrer, until the young fellow explained that
his old schoolfellow had, owing to Professor Harte’s discovery of the
hieroglyphics, gone to the ruins of the ancient Egyptian city for the
purpose of searching for the long-forgotten mine.

“I never heard Professor Harte’s name in connection with the
affair,” said old Mr. Evenden. “Of course, he is one of our greatest
Egyptologists. Perhaps he is on the telephone,” and he rang his bell
and gave his clerk instructions to endeavour to get through to the
Professor.

Ten minutes later Mr. Evenden was speaking with the Professor, who
lived at Wimbledon, and urged him, if possible, to call at Great
Winchester Street that afternoon.

The hour fixed was four o’clock, and Geoffrey was present at the
interview.

When Mr. Evenden informed the great Egyptologist that he had purchased
all interest in the re-discovered mine from Gilbert Farrer, he stood
amazed.

“But surely my friend Halliday, to whom I gave a copy of the
inscription upon the ruins of the Temple of Isis at Berenice, and whom
I trust implicitly, would never have parted with his interest in the
mine without first consulting me!” he cried.

“Here is the transfer,” replied Mr. Evenden, handing the Professor a
document. “It was signed before a French Notary-Public in Alexandria
you will see.”

The old Professor adjusted his pince-nez, and after reading the
document carefully, examined the signature.

“That is forged!” he declared at once. “I know Jack Halliday’s
signature extremely well. I have some of his most recent letters here,”
and he took several letters from his pocket. These all three examined
very closely. Some were signed “Jack,” others “J. Halliday.” But in
no case did the signature on the document exactly correspond with the
signature on the letters!

“You see the last letter was dated from Alexandria six weeks ago, and
speaks of his success, and his intention of coming straight home,” the
Professor remarked.

“Then where is he now--and why has his luggage been sent so urgently to
Marseilles and claimed?” asked Falconer.

Mr. Evenden thereupon became suspicious, and related his dealings with
Gilbert Farrer, and how he had already paid him a considerable sum on
account, until the reports of the engineers he was sending to Egypt
should be forthcoming.

“There is no doubt that Halliday has re-discovered the workings,” said
the Professor. “But where is he now! He seems to have mysteriously
disappeared.”

“The only man who knows his whereabouts is Gilbert Farrer,” declared
Geoffrey decisively. “For what reason was that trunk containing his
private papers sent so hurriedly to Marseilles?”

“That we must discover,” declared Mr. Evenden. “Our policy must be to
act without arousing Farrer’s suspicions,” he added.

Thereupon the three sat down and evolved a plan.

The first step was taken by Geoffrey, who, through Beryl, discovered
the whereabouts of “Daddy” Whittaker. Next day he met him by
appointment in the Park, and as they were walking together, Sylvia, who
was dressed as a tourist, took a secret snapshot of them as they passed.

This photograph was quickly developed, and that same night Falconer
left with it for Marseilles.

Two days later he showed it to the employé at Cook’s baggage depôt,
who at once, and without hesitation, declared the elder man to be the
person who claimed the trunk addressed to Mr. Halliday. The trunk had
been signed for and taken away on a taxi-cab. The signature in the book
was that of “J. Halliday.” But it certainly was not Jack’s!

Geoffrey took the _rapide_ back to Paris that night, sorely puzzled.
What had become of his old chum? Marconigrams were sent broadcast in
search of him. The passenger lists of six ships sailing from Marseilles
to Cuba were examined, but in no case was there any trace of any such
person in the lists.

Early in the morning, as the express halting at Laroche awakened him,
it suddenly crossed his mind that Jack’s identity was being obliterated
by some clever combination of the crooks. In Paris he would go to the
Bureau of the Sûreté and make inquiries.

At noon he was in the dull, drab office of the famous French detective,
Gaston Meunier, to whom he told the story, and asked whether he thought
his friend had met with foul play.

The little bald-headed official raised his shoulders and replied that,
in view of the fact that the trunk had been sent to Marseilles, it was
quite possible that Monsieur Halliday had returned from Egypt to France.

Then they went into dates. Afterwards the great detective rose, and
left him. Ten minutes later he reappeared, having a number of police
photographs of persons who had been found dead, suicides, and those
wilfully murdered, whom the police both in Paris and in the Departments
had failed to identify.

The period covered was six months.

With great eagerness Geoffrey Falconer examined one after another--many
of them pictures of recovered bodies, a terrible, gruesome
collection--when at last he came across the picture of a man lying face
upward on the grass.

“That’s Jack!” he exclaimed wildly. “I have no hesitation in
identifying him!”

Monsieur Meunier turned to the back of the large unmounted photograph,
and read what was written there as follows:

  “An unknown. Supposed to be English. Discovered at 7.10 a.m., on
  October 28th, behind a small pottery factory, a mile from the village
  of St. Uze, close to Valence, Department of the Drôme. The medical
  examination showed the person to have died from some vegetable
  poison. It is believed that he was deposited at the spot during the
  night from a passing car. No arrest has been made. Any details of
  identification to be sent to the Prefect of the Drôme.”

Three days later Geoffrey arrived at Charing Cross accompanied by an
agent of the Paris Sûreté, who at once applied for the arrest and
extradition of the adventurer, Gilbert Farrer.

This took place when Farrer called at Mr. Evenden’s office next
day--and two months later, at his trial before the Assizes of the
Seine, the clever assassin who had stolen poor Jack Halliday’s secret
was sentenced to penal servitude for life.

At the present moment he is still in the convict prison at Lyons, while
his friend Beryl and “Daddy” Whittaker, who were both deeply implicated
in the plot, were each sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude at
the Old Bailey.

The great Berenice Gold Mine is being worked with huge success, but the
profits which should have been poor Jack’s are being paid regularly to
his widowed mother, who lives in seclusion in Pembrokeshire, deeply
mourning the loss of one of the finest and bravest of Englishmen.

CHAPTER XI

THE MARKED MAN

The military wireless station at Aldershot had just finished sending
the usual extracts from the press to the headquarters of the Rhine Army
at Cologne, when Geoffrey Falconer, with the telephones still over his
ears, lowered the wave-length of his reception set, and began to listen
to the strains of an orchestra being played at The Hague.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and “the Dutch Concert,” to which all
wireless men in England listen so eagerly, was in progress.

Seated in his own experimental laboratory at Warley he leaned his
elbows upon the operating-bench and listened.

Who would have dreamed a couple of years ago that a concert given at
The Hague could be heard with distinctness by wireless in every corner
of the United Kingdom! A cornet solo at the moment being played was
loud and perfectly clear. He turned a switch, when from the black
trumpet of the loud-speaker telephone on the table the sound became so
amplified that the instrument could be heard in any part of the house.

During the day he had been engaged upon some highly interesting
experiments upon a crystal producing oscillations, audible frequency
currents being obtained by two metal electrodes dipped into the powder
of a certain crystal. The matter was extremely technical, and would not
be understood by any but radio experimenters; therefore, I need not
further describe it. Suffice it to say that all the time Geoffrey could
spare from the Works at Chelmsford he devoted to research in his own
laboratory at home.

Mrs. Beverley and Sylvia were away in the Trossachs, hence he seldom
went to London save when duty took him up to Marconi House.

Geoffrey listened to several songs from The Hague, and then put down
the head-’phones, switched his aerial wires to earth, and went out into
the pleasant old-world garden to smoke a cigarette. The afternoon was
clear and bright, and along the grass path of the long rose walk he
strolled, his mind full of the scientific problems which he had been
endeavouring all the morning to solve. He wandered to the lawn and sat
down in the summer-house awaiting the Professor, for always about that
hour he, too, came forth from his study to enjoy a cigar. Suddenly,
however, the housemaid appeared saying that he was wanted on the hand
telephone.

He hastened to the instrument in the hall, when he found himself
speaking to one of his fellow-engineers, named Jerrold, who lived at
Witham, and who had a private wireless station similar to his own not
far from the Marconi station there.

“I say, Falconer,” he exclaimed, “have you been listening lately?”

“Yes. Till about twenty minutes ago.”

“Ah! Then you didn’t hear that message to you--did you?”

“No. What message?” asked Geoffrey.

“Oh, somebody on the wireless ’phone about sixteen hundred mètres
wave-length, called you by name, Geoffrey Falconer, Warley, Essex,
England.”

“Yes. What did he say?”

“I don’t know whether it was a man’s voice or a woman’s. If a man’s it
was unusually high-pitched. The modulation was not very good, though I
heard the words quite distinctly, and wondered if you also heard them.
It was a kind of warning to you.”

“Warning!” echoed the young Marconi engineer. “In what way?”

“Well, whoever was calling you evidently did not know your call-signal,
so called your name. And then he went on to warn you _not to go East_.
If you do, you go at your peril!”

“Not to go East! How strange!” Geoffrey remarked.

“Yes; it’s a bit uncanny--isn’t it? He repeated it several times, and
then added the words: ‘Anyone hearing this urgent message, will they
kindly give it to Geoffrey Falconer at Warley, Essex, England?’”

“Some silly ass having a joke,” laughed Falconer. “I heard the other
day that some horrible spook message was given by a practical joker
over the radiophone, and the fellow who heard it, being a spiritualist,
nearly died of fright. Perhaps it’s the same fellow up to his tricks
again!”

“Perhaps. We’ll listen again for him, and if he gives any more warnings
we’ll put the direction-finders on him, and he’ll very soon have his
license taken away--if he has one,” said Jerrold.

“Well, it’s curious,” exclaimed Geoffrey laughing. “I wonder why I’m
forbidden to go East, and what peril is in store for me?”

“Ah! that I don’t know. The message was given at twenty-eight minutes
past three. So we’ll listen to-morrow at the same time, and on the same
wave-length.”

“Right-o!” said Falconer, hanging up the receiver and then strolling
back into the garden, wondering what the message really meant.

He had no intention of going East, save that he had a week before
received instructions to proceed to Lucerne, where, close by, on the
Tomlishorn, the highest peak of the Pilatus, above Alpnachstad, the
Marconi Company were erecting a one-and-a-half kilowatt telephone and
telegraph set ordered by the Swiss Government, the set used at the
meeting of the League of Nations at Geneva having proved such a great
success.

Lane, one of the engineers, was already out there, and he had been
ordered to follow him and superintend the fitting and testing of
the station before it was handed over to the Swiss authorities.
Switzerland certainly lay to the East, but what mysterious peril
awaited him there was certainly obscure. At first he grew a trifle
anxious in view of his previous adventures, but later that evening he
decided that it was some amateur who, having learned of his impending
departure, was playing a practical joke. Yet curiously enough only
about three or four people at the Marconi Works knew of the order he
had received.

At dinner that night he mentioned the incident to the Professor, but
both decided that it was only some silly joke.

On the following Thursday he left Charing Cross for Lucerne, where, at
the Schweizerhof, that well-known hotel facing the lake, Lane, who had
come by boat from Alpnach, came to meet him. Next day they ascended to
the famous Hôtel Pilatuskulm, where they took up their quarters, only
half an hour’s walk by a good path to the site of the new wireless
station.

Already the two one-storeyed buildings, and the aerial upon masts
of steel lattice, were erected. The material had all come out from
England, and the contractors had finished their work on the masts.
Indeed, Lane and his colleagues from Chelmsford had already commenced
their work of fitting the apparatus.

The wireless station which the Swiss Government had ordered was
situated high upon the wild rocky mountains, and was intended for the
communication of post-office messages with Rome, Vienna, and Paris, the
apparatus being the last word in Marconi invention.

The two great buildings which comprise the hotel were full
to overflowing, as it usually is in the autumn season, a gay
cosmopolitan crowd, who dined and danced and went on excursions either
mountaineering or along the great blue lake to Kussnacht to see Tell’s
Chapel, to Vitznau, Brunnen, or Fluelen. From the verandas there spread
a wonderful panorama of lake and mountain with the various peaks, with
the names of which the visitor so soon becomes familiar.

Geoffrey was standing alone on the veranda early one morning admiring
the wonderful view in the morning light. There was passing along a very
feeble, white-haired, white-bearded old man, accompanied by a handsome
dark-haired, well-dressed young woman, who, from the attention she paid
him, was palpably his daughter. The old fellow walked decrepitly as one
of advanced age, and ever and anon he halted to take in the wondrous
scene.

As they passed by they spoke in a tongue with which Geoffrey was
unfamiliar. But the young woman, he saw, wore a wedding ring.

Their eyes met, and in hers he noted a strange, appealing look--an
expression which, being quite unusual, caused him to ponder. He was
rapidly becoming a cosmopolitan after his various missions abroad on
behalf of the Marconi Company.

All that day he spent in the wireless hut high upon the bare, rocky
mountain, carefully fitting the instruments which were to give such a
wide range of telegraphy and speech--the very latest devices that had
been invented in the research department at Chelmsford, for, after all,
the real brains of wireless are centred in that old-fashioned Essex
town.

That night he was back with Lane at the big hotel, and dined in the
great _salle à manger_, amid the gay laughter and chatter.

Across in a corner sat the white-bearded old man with his married
daughter. He seemed rather deaf, for ever and anon she bent to speak
with him. And as she did so, he saw that she was most solicitous of his
welfare, as only a daughter could be.

Later that night, there being the usual dance in the big ballroom,
Geoffrey went in, and being attracted by her, invited her to dance with
him, and she accepted.

She was alone. The old man had retired to bed.

Geoffrey’s interest was purely one of curiosity. The girl-wife seemed
to be carrying out her duty to her father, and was terribly bored in
doing so.

Before they parted that night he learned that she had come from
Serbia, and that her name was Marya Pavlovitch. She had married a state
official a year and a half before. Her father’s name was Colonel Yovan
Vanoff, a well-known officer of the King’s Guard at Belgrade, who had
fought valiantly against the Turks in the first Balkan war, and had
gained distinction at the decisive Battle of Kumanovo.

“My husband is in England,” she told Geoffrey, speaking English well.
“He is attached to the Serbian Mission. So I am here with my father,
who, alas! is becoming daily more feeble.”

Next evening they met again--and the next. The old man was most
affable, and day after day they had long chats in French, in which Lane
often joined.

One afternoon Geoffrey went by boat along to Lucerne, eager and
anxious. Mrs. Beverley and Sylvia had arrived at the Schweizerhof,
that great hotel which overlooks the lake. They had tired of the
Trossachs, and also of dusty London, so in accordance with young
Falconer’s suggestion, they had arrived to spend a couple of weeks in
“lovely Lucerne”--that town in which, before the war, one could spend a
week under the wing of any tourist company for the modest sum of five
guineas, railway fare included.

Geoffrey met Sylvia and her mother, and after half an hour in the
great lounge of the hotel they dined together. The “Wild Widow” was
charmed with the hotel and its outlook, while Sylvia, delighted at the
retirement of the penurious Lord Hendlewycke, who now no longer visited
them, contrived to snatch a few moments alone with her lover.

“Do you remember, Geoffrey, what you told me--that mysterious message
by wireless telephone warning you not to go East?” she said anxiously,
as they sat in the corridor after dinner, while her mother had gone
upstairs.

“Yes,” he replied. “But really the whole thing was so ridiculous. It
was, I’m convinced, only some amateur playing a practical joke.”

“Perhaps. But you should take no risks, dear,” she replied. “I don’t
like the situation. Remember all that has passed.”

“Why are you so anxious?” he asked.

“Well,” she answered, glancing around, “you are, no doubt, a marked
man, Geoff. You have been able to upset the plans of various
conspirators, and they, no doubt, seek their revenge. Hence, be
careful--do be very careful.”

Geoffrey laughed. He ridiculed the idea that any vengeance should be
attempted upon him.

“I have only done my duty, my dear Sylvia!” he laughed. “My duty to the
company and my duty to the Nation. Everybody surely understands that.”

“No,” the girl replied; “everybody does not understand. You, as an
honest man, are at enmity with a certain revolutionary section of
society. They know it. And they may lay their plans accordingly,” she
said warningly. “I, of course, have no knowledge of any such plot--but
I do urge you, Geoffrey, to keep very wide awake. I have some strange
intuition that something may happen to you. Why--I can’t tell you!”

“My dear Sylvia, I hope I am always wide awake,” he laughed, kissing
her clandestinely in the shadows, while a few moments later Mrs.
Beverley reappeared.

Next morning mother and daughter went up by the railway from Alpnach
to the Pilatuskulm, where they lunched with the young engineer and his
friend Lane, and afterwards ascended to the newly constructed wireless
station. It was not yet in working order, but Sylvia was highly
interested, for she had by that time quite a good superficial knowledge
of the apparatus and the power-plant, which, by the way, was almost a
replica of the set which Geoffrey had installed at Bouvignes Aerodrome,
in Belgium.

In the evening they went down again to Lucerne, but not until the
following evening did Geoffrey again see the girl with whom he was so
deeply in love. As soon as he had finished his work in that high-up
spot on the Tomlishorn, he returned to the hotel, and after changing
his clothes, descended to Lucerne and dined with the South American
widow and her daughter.

Afterwards he went out with Sylvia on to the veranda. The night was a
glorious one, the full moon rendering the lake and mountains a scene
fairy-like and beautiful such as is presented perhaps nowhere else in
the world. The view from the Schweizerhof on a moonlit night is always
superb.

Again Sylvia returned to the strange warning from the ether which
Geoffrey had received. She again confessed that she somehow felt
uncomfortable about it. But her lover only pooh-poohed the affair,
telling her that it was not the first time that jokes had been played
by wireless.

“Why, not long ago,” he said, “the operator at one of the aerodromes
for civil flying was spoken to over the wireless telephone by the Air
Minister himself, who explained that he was flying from Scotland in a
certain machine, and that in half an hour he intended to descend at
that aerodrome. There was a great bustle at the news, but though they
waited till dark the Minister never arrived. And not until next day did
they learn that it was a hoax played by one of the pilots.”

The girl laughed, but still she urged Geoffrey to take care.

“You really cannot be too careful,” she declared. “I tell you I have
once or twice experienced a strange presage of evil.”

“Oh, you make me feel quite nervy!” he declared, and then, as the air
was cold, they returned to the palm-court, where Mrs. Beverley was
seated.

The widow and her daughter remained in Lucerne for a fortnight, and
then leaving Geoffrey to complete his work, went on by way of the
Gothard to Milan.

Meanwhile Marya Pavlovitch and her father remained at the Hôtel
Pilatuskulm, and both Geoffrey and Lane frequently met them. The
girl-wife was most devoted to her father, who was often in a grumpy
mood, as is usual with men of advanced age and slight infirmity. Young
Madame Pavlovitch was naturally filled with curiosity concerning the
new wireless station--for to ladies wireless is usually an enigma to be
studied as part of Nature’s half-revealed problem--and several times,
leaving her father, she had ascended the steep rock-girt road to the
higher heights where, upon a little grass-grown plateau, the two new
huts had been built.

Three weeks passed. Geoffrey completed his work, and made tests. The
results were perfectly satisfactory. The telephony was reported as
“R.9” over the Alps as far as Genoa, and to Marseilles, Coltano in
Italy, Munich, Paris, and other places.

The range of speech was even further than what had been anticipated
at the Works at Chelmsford. Other wireless systems had been tried by
the Swiss Government, and had not come up to the standard required.
But here the Marconi Company had scored another success over its
competitors.

Since Sylvia’s departure, Geoffrey had often met young Madame
Pavlovitch, sometimes on the boat between Alpnach and Lucerne, and
sometimes in the streets of Lucerne, for she went there nearly every
other day to obtain medicines for her father, she explained. On two
occasions he had seen her enter a large detached private house in
the Bruchstrasse, not far from the Synagogue. She had not, however,
seen him, and he had not mentioned the matter. Yet it seemed apparent
that the reason of her visits to Lucerne was to call at the house in
question. And further, she always seemed annoyed whenever he met her on
the way backwards or forwards along the lake.

One day Geoffrey had returned from the wireless station, and was taking
his tea in the lounge, when the hotel manager came to him hurriedly and
mentioned that the Colonel had been taken suddenly unwell, and that his
daughter could not be found. She had gone to Lucerne after luncheon, he
believed.

As the matter seemed one of urgency, and as the young Englishman was
going to spend the evening in Lucerne, he resolved while on board the
boat to go to the house in the Bruchstrasse, see whether Marya was
there, and inform her of her father’s illness.

This he did. A rather tall, elderly man-servant opened the door, and
when he inquired for Madame Pavlovitch he ushered him into a cosy,
beautifully-furnished room, and without inquiring his name, closed the
door and left him.

The room was divided from the adjoining apartment by long
white-enamelled folding doors which stood slightly ajar. The
man-servant must have forgotten to inform madame of his presence there,
for he had been in the room hardly half a minute when into the next
room, a big place decorated in white and gold, there came several men
who looked like officers in mufti, accompanied by three women, one of
whom was little Madame Pavlovitch.

He could not fail to hear what they were earnestly discussing in
French. He stood aghast. They were planning the assassination of Andra
Nikolitch, the well-known Serbian statesman, who was now President
of the Council, and was at the moment staying with the Serbian Crown
Prince at the Luzerner-Hof!

The terms in which the matter was being discussed admitted of no doubt
that the Colonel’s pretty daughter was at its head, and that the
attempt was to be made one morning when the statesman took his usual
walk under the trees of the Schweizerhof-Quai.

Geoffrey stood astounded at his discovery. From their conversation
it was also plain that at the same time other Ministers were to be
murderously attacked in Belgrade.

Suddenly the serious fact dawned upon the young fellow that if he were
discovered there he would not be allowed to leave that house alive.
Balkan conspirators are not to be trifled with. They hold human life of
but little account.

Falconer saw that his only chance of safety was to face the situation
boldly. He placed his hand upon his hip-pocket to reassure himself
that his revolver was there. Then, suddenly, he stepped forth into
the big room and stood before those who had assembled to discuss their
dastardly plans.

His appearance caused a sensation almost electrical.

“Why!” gasped the dark-eyed Marya. “It is M’sieur Falconer!”

Next second he was surrounded by the angry company, and in more than
one hand he saw an automatic pistol. He was besieged by questions. What
could he reply?

He attempted to explain the situation, declaring that he was simply a
victim of circumstances, adding:

“I confess I have overheard your most interesting discussion!”

“The Englishman has been spying upon us!” cried a tall, rather elegant
man in a dark suit. “If he is not silenced--and at once--he will tell
the police! Remember, comrades, he is our enemy!”

“Yet M’sieur Falconer is also my friend!” declared the pretty Marya,
springing forward boldly. “I, however, had no idea that he was in this
house!”

Geoffrey tried to explain, but the clamour of the others was too
great. He told madame that her father was ill, but they only
laughed--declaring it to be an excuse. Hence he saw that unwittingly he
had entered a veritable hornets’ nest, and that retreat was impossible.
If he valued his life he would be compelled to stay and face the music.

He defied them, daring them to lay a finger upon him. But at madame’s
urgent request he withdrew his words.

“This house is closely guarded,” she explained, “but the servant,
Boris, having seen us together at the hotel and at other places, no
doubt believed you to be one of us.”

“And you must become one!” declared an elderly man who seemed to be
in authority over the rest. “You know our secret! So you will join
us--to-night--now! From this moment you will be watched night and day.
If you attempt to warn the authorities you will pay for it with your
life!”

Geoffrey protested, but in vain.

Then he was sworn in English and in French.

Afterwards, Marya Pavlovitch turned to the young wireless engineer, and
said:

“I will now tell you the truth, M’sieur Falconer. I told you that
my husband is in England with the Serbian Mission, but the fact is