How had the destruction of La Liberté been accomplished?
It was, of course, the work of Germany. Those two strangers, who spoke German in a moment of great excitement, who had arrived five minutes before the disaster, who had hastened away immediately afterwards, who had lied about their destination, and for whom a steam-yacht had been waiting—all this, as Crochard said, could have but one meaning.
And then Delcassé fairly bounded in the bed. Fool that he had been not to think of it! There was another proof! The telegram from the Emperor!
He lay a moment trembling, then calmed himself by a mighty effort. How was it the Emperor had learned so promptly of the disaster? There was only one possible answer: an emissary had hastened to flash the news to him—an emissary dressed, prepared, who needed to delay for no investigation, since the roar of the explosion told him everything—one of the men, perhaps, who had waited on the quay. And Delcassé, biting his nails, his face wet with perspiration, pictured to himself the Emperor also waiting, pacing restlessly back and forth, until the word should come! He gnashed his teeth with rage, this good Frenchman, and shook trembling fists up into the darkness. Ah, Germany should pay! Germany should pay!
But again he calmed himself, wiped his forehead, and composed himself for thought.
How had La Liberté been destroyed? There was the question which must be answered, and at once.
By a mine, set to explode at a certain hour? Delcassé shook his head. It was absurd to suppose that a mine could be planted in a harbour as strictly guarded and policed as that of Toulon. By a torpedo, then, which could be launched some distance away? But that was even more absurd. The launching of a torpedo required a complex mechanism; as well suppose that an enemy would be able to install a cannon on the docks unobserved. By a submarine? But La Liberté had lain at anchor in an enclosed basin; besides there were the outer basins, patrol boats, sentries, the constant coming and going of sailors and marines, of launches, of boats of all kinds. How could an enemy creep unobserved past all these?
True, the accident had occurred at dawn, when every one but the sentries was asleep. But even at that hour the harbour was strictly guarded. An enemy, to enter unseen, would have to be impalpable, invisible....
Besides, how could a mine or a torpedo or a submarine have caused the explosion of the magazines, one after the other, at regular intervals—"spaced," one of the officers had said, "like the reports of a heavy gun." First one had been fired, and then a second, and then a third; Delcassé, closing his eyes, had a vision of a ghostly figure stealing from one to another, torch in hand....
His mind roved back again over his talk with Lépine. Could it have been done by wireless? Not the ordinary wireless, but some subtle variant of ether waves, some new form of radio-activity, which in some way caused combustion? There was an enemy which could flit unseen from magazine to magazine, which no locks nor bars could guard against....