“It is,” said Mortimer, turning to Tompkins and awaiting his reply.
“The voice sounded exactly like the Secretary’s; I had no doubt of it at the time,” said Tompkins.
“Now,” said Evans, “according to Tompkins’s story, Commander Rich went through the usual procedure of calling this room through the Bureau switch-board. In due course a voice, which Tompkins believed he recognized as yours, answered. You never received the call. If Tompkins’s story is true, some one must have cut the wires from Commander Rich’s room to the switch-board; otherwise the call would have gone through to this room. Furthermore, some one who could mimic your voice must have been at the other end of the cut wires. When Goss was charged with cutting in on Tompkins’s line and impersonating Commander Rich, more than one man in the Bureau testified to having seen him with a portable phone in the vicinity of the wires leading to the switch-board, on the morning when all this happened. He was also shown to be an expert mimic. It remains, then, to see if the wires from Commander Rich’s phone to the switch-board have been cut.
“As for the possibility that they have been cut since then in order to corroborate the story, you will notice that Tompkins himself has not suggested that mode of corroboration, and you have granted that he has had no opportunity of suggesting it to me. Furthermore, if his story is true, the wires must have been cut and spliced together again a week ago when all this happened. But if, as Commander Rich suggests, he had made up his story as the result of a recent conference with his gang, after hearing that he had a good chance to get in on the frame-up, then, if he has had the forethought to cut and splice the wires in order to back up his story, he must have done it within a few hours. Now an experienced electrician could tell, on examining the splices, whether they were done within a few hours, or as long as a week ago. In fifteen minutes we can find out whether those wires have been cut, and approximately when.”
“I think, Mr. Secretary,” said Admiral Bishop, “it would be a gratuitous insult to a distinguished officer to follow the inquiry further by looking for such evidence against him. I am satisfied the whole business is an audacious conspiracy to discredit Commander Rich.”
“Don’t you think that fair play to Mr. Tompkins requires that we should look at those wires before concluding that he is lying?” asked Mortimer.
“I do not see it,” said the Admiral.
“I do,” said Mortimer.
The electrician who had installed the wires in the Bureau at the outbreak of the war was sent for; also two other expert wire-men as witnesses. It was a strangely assorted procession that walked through the corridors of the Navy Department from the Secretary’s room to the Bureau of Engineering. Secretary Mortimer and Admiral Rallston went first; behind them followed Admiral Bishop and Commander Rich, while Barton, Evans, Rand, Tompkins, and Long brought up the rear. Evans and the electricians set to work removing planks to explore the wires leading from Commander Rich’s room to the switch-board. It was not long before Evans, who had chosen a place where a man could work unseen, to begin his search, called the others to come and look. There were the wires, each with a swelling of electric tape. This was carefully removed by one of the electricians, and under the tape the wires were spliced. Every one had a look at the splices.
“Do you recall whether the wires were spliced at that point when you put them in?” asked Mortimer.