“Where is he—down here?”
“No, I left him up there. I thought it might be best to have some one there. Did you want to speak to him? There’s a telephone down here in the boat-house up to the switchboard at the Lodge.”
Riley jerked his thumb back over his shoulder at a little shelter built on the end of the dock.
“N-no,” considered Burke. “I wouldn’t know what to tell him.”
“But I think you ought to tell Kennedy that,” I interrupted. “He might know what to do.”
Together Riley and I walked across the float to where Craig was at work, and briefly I told him what had happened.
He looked grave, but did not pause in his adjustment of the machine, whatever it was.
“That’s all right,” he approved. “Yes, get the operator on the wire. Tell him to stay up there. And—yes—tell him to detach that phonograph recording device and go back to straight wireless. He might try to wake up the operator on the Sybarite, if he can. I guess he must know the call. Have him do that and then have that telephone girl keep the line clear and connected from the boat-house up to my room. I want to keep in touch with Steel.”
Riley and I pushed through the crowd and finally managed to deliver Kennedy’s message, in spite of the excitement at the Lodge, which had extended by this time to the switchboard operator. I left Riley in the boat-house to hold the wire up to our room, and rejoined Burke and Hastings on the float.
Kennedy had been working with redoubled energy, now that the light bombs had gone out after serving their purpose. We stood apart now as he made a final inspection of the apparatus which he and his assistant had installed.