“C’est pour, M’sieu’ Don Winslow!” the man murmured in soft Haitian speech.
“There’s your call. Commander!” the young officer’s host interpreted. “I put it through to Captain Holding in your name. Tell him the whole scheme as ye worked it out, and add that I’m helpin’ ye with the details. Here’s hopin’ ye persuade him!”
With a sober nod Don followed the servant through the wide doorway into the house. When he had gone, Mercedes turned to Splendor with a troubled frown.
“How do you know,” she said, “that this telephone conversation won’t be overheard? There is such a thing as wire tapping, you know. And couldn’t a radiophone message be intercepted by anyone who turned in to the right wave length? If the Scorpion’s agents should get wind of Don’s plan, it would be worse than useless to go ahead!”
“Your reasoning is excellent, my dear,” the man in the wheel chair answered. “I believe, however, that the chance of our friend’s words being overheard is less than if he and Captain Holding were sitting in the same room. Commander Winslow is sitting this minute in a soundproofed booth. The wire is connected with me own private radio room, where it is hooked up with a powerful radio beam transmitter. If an airplane with its radio tuned just right should blunder into that beam between here and Washington, the pilot might do a bit of eavesdroppin’. But the chance is one in a billion, I fancy!”
Reassured, Mercedes sank back in her chair.
“I guess it’s foolish for me to worry about such things,” she admitted. “You seem to have thought of every detail in advance, Mr. Splendor. I don’t see any armed guards patrolling about, but I suppose we’re safer here in your wild Haitian hills than we were on the high seas, aboard the Gatoon!”
Enthusiastically Red Pennington took up the same theme. He had seen enough of Michael Splendor’s shrewd planning to believe the veteran capable of handling any situation, on land or sea or in the air.
That private beam radio was the last word in preparedness, the chubby lieutenant stated. As for guards about the premises, what good would they be, he asked, if they simply strutted back and forth in plain sight like any cop on a beat?
Starting from there, he became really talkative. He praised his host’s magnificent grounds and living quarters, and especially his kitchen staff. In the meal they had just eaten all Red’s dreams of earthly happiness had come true, he declared. With a cook like that, he didn’t see how Michael Splendor could bear to miss a single meal at home!