“I think I’ll stay here and work,” said Long. “I’m not very hungry to-day.”
So Evans went to lunch, leaving Long alone in the radio room except for the operator on watch. He had not been gone two minutes, however, before he returned to get a notebook he had left there. Entering quickly, he saw Long rise hastily from behind one of the receivers at the sound of the opening door, and on his face an ugly scowl gave way rapidly to a look of utter indifference. The place where Long was at work was so concealed from the operator on watch that it was impossible for him to see anything of the nature of the changes Long was making without leaving the receiver at which it was his duty to listen. Evans remarked something about forgetting his notebook, fumbled for a minute among the papers on the table, then left again and went to his lunch.
When next he returned, half an hour later, Long was in a different part of the radio room making some adjustments on the main transmitter, and took no notice at all of Evans as he entered.
Evans sat down unconcernedly and looked over some recent dispatches, then began to engage Long in conversation. A few platitudes were exchanged, and the atmosphere became a bit less tense. Evans began tinkering with some apparatus, and, opening a drawer, took out a strip of polished metal and set it down on the bench before him, propped against the panel of a receiver. Looking intently at the panel and with his back to Long, he asked in a casual voice, “What do you think of Commander Rich as an authority on radio?”
The reflection in the metal strip revealed a sudden start and a quick glance at Evans, but the voice was casual enough as Long replied, “Why, he’s the greatest radio man we’ve got. Of course, I scarcely know him personally, but from all I’ve heard, I guess he heads the list, all right.”
Evans continued to tinker with some odds and ends on the bench in front of him and to examine the adjustments of the receiver, glancing now and then at the strip of metal. Long continued to kill time, fussing ineffectually over some wires. Evans then sat down comfortably in a chair with his feet up in another, and, taking his slide-rule out of his pocket, began to seek in it the answer to a mathematical riddle. He was determined not to leave the room now until Long had left it, and not then until he had done a bit of looking round. He made it evident that he was settling down to stay. But the slide-rule told him nothing more erudite than that two times two equals four; and even that bit of erudition was quite lost on him, for his thoughts were tussling with ugly conjectures.
An hour passed; Long kept as busy as he was able doing nothing, while Evans wielded his slide-rule, and once in a while scribbled a figure on a slip of paper. At last Long said, “Well, I guess I’ll go to the machine shop and see if I can find some things I shall need to-morrow.”
Evans took no notice of him as he went out, but, as soon as the sound of his steps had died away, he opened the door and looked out to be sure Long was not still lurking near by. Then shutting it again he hastened to examine the apparatus. He soon satisfied himself that the only changes Long had made in the main transmitter were trifling readjustments whose only effect would be to impair its efficiency a little without making enough trouble to attract the attention of the operators. Clearly that was not worth sending a man all the way from Washington to do. Evans then began examining the gear in the vicinity in which he had surprised Long when he first returned after his false departure for lunch. At first everything appeared to be wholly undisturbed. But on more careful examination he saw the tiny scratch of a screwdriver freshly made on the woodwork at the back of a receiver not much used in port, but on which much would depend in communicating with the fleet in action. Seizing a screwdriver he hastily opened the receiver. Inside everything appeared as it should be; not a wire appeared displaced. But as he examined it more closely with a flashlight something caught his eye. Two wires had been removed from their terminals and then adjusted so that they rested in contact with them and would continue to do so as long as the receiver was not disturbed, but their position was so unstable that the jarring of the ship under way was certain to shake them loose and leave their ends dangling in the air. The result of this would be that as long as the ship remained in harbor the receiver would meet all tests without a flaw, but as soon as she put to sea this important means of receiving information from the fleet would be crippled.
The case against Long was proved as far as Evans was concerned, and he no longer had any doubts as to Commander Rich’s complicity. He must see Barton at once. He looked at his watch and recalled that Fraser and Elkins had already gone ashore to meet Barton, and that in less than an hour these three were to start on a tour of inspection of the defenses on Saint Michael’s, Santa Maria, and Formigas where were located the stations with the devices for detecting the approach of hostile craft to the outer line of nets. They would not return till late in the afternoon of the following day. It was just time for a boat with a liberty party to shove off for the shore; there would not be another for an hour, and that would be too late. He must catch that boat. He said to the operator on watch and the chief radio electrician who had just entered, “Keep your eyes open and notice the changes Mr. Long is making, as far as you can; it will make it easier for him to teach you anything you will need to know about operating the set when he gets through.”
Then leaving the room he ran for all he was worth till he came on deck, and, rushing to the starboard rail, looked over. There was the big motor-sailer already loaded with sailors and away, swinging round to her course for the inner harbor; in a minute she would be passing close to the ladder hanging from the boom off the quarter-deck.