As we pulled up near the hotel dock Burke beckoned to the strange man who had been waiting for him.
“Let me introduce you to Steel, whom they have sent to me on that matter I told you about.”
Kennedy and I shook hands with the man, who glanced out over the harbor as he explained briefly, “I’m an operator over there at the Seaville Station, which you can see on the point.”
We also gazed out over the water. The powerful station which he indicated was on a spit of sand perhaps two miles distant and stood out sharply against the horizon, with its tall steel masts and cluster of little houses below, in which the operators and the plant were.
“It’s a wonderful station,” Steel remarked, noticing that we were looking at it also. “We’d be glad to have you over there, Mr. Kennedy. Perhaps you could help us.”
“How’s that?” asked Craig, keenly.
“Why,” explained the operator, with a sort of reflective growl, “for the past day or so, now and then, when we least expect it, our apparatus has been put out of business. It’s only temporary. But it looks as though there was too much interference. It isn’t static. It’s almost as though some one was jamming the air. And we don’t know of any one around here that’s capable of doing it. None of us can explain it, but there are some powerful impulses in the air. I can’t make it out.”
Kennedy’s eye rested on the graceful white hull of the Sybarite as she lay still at anchor off the Harbor House. I had not noticed, although Kennedy had, that the yacht was equipped with wireless.
“It’s not likely that it is any one on the Sybarite who is responsible?” he considered, tentatively.
The operator shook his head. “No, the apparatus isn’t strong enough. We would be more likely to put them out of business.”