Then he took up a watch-case receiver to listen through in place of the regular receiver.
"Who is it?" he answered.
Apparently the voice at the other end of the wire replied rather peevishly, for Kennedy endeavoured to smooth over the delay. I wondered what was going on, why he was so careful. His face showed that, whatever it was, it was most important.
As he restored the telephone to its normal condition, he looked at me puzzled.
"I wonder whether that was a frame-up!" he exclaimed, pulling a little cylinder off the instrument into which he had inserted the telephone receiver. "I thought it might be and I have preserved the voice. This is what is known as the telescribe—a recent invention of Edison which records on a specially prepared phonograph cylinder all that is said—both ways—over a telephone wire."
"What was it about?" I asked eagerly.
He shoved the cylinder on a phonograph and started the instrument.
"Professor Kennedy?" called an unfamiliar voice.
"Yes," answered a voice that I recognized as Craig's.
"This is the detective agency employed by Mr. Whitney. He has instructed us to inform you that he has obtained the Peruvian dagger for which you have been searching. That's all. Good-bye."