"Can I help?" he asked.
"I'll have it fixed in a few minutes," said Harry from the top of the ladder. "Cooper can help if necessary."
* * *
The Englishman went in the house. He was smoking his pipe in the corner when Harry entered with Cooper. There was more difficulty with the wireless. Harry made a thorough inspection before he finally mended the trouble. He had wasted nearly an hour.
He began to call, but received no response. He joined his companions at a cold supper, then returned to his operating, with no result.
"It's nearly nine o'clock," observed Major Weston.
The Englishman was right. The time had arrived for them to start, and Harry had not received The Shadow's final message! He wondered what it could have been. The accident to the aerial and the trouble with the set had been a strange coincidence.
Yet Cooper had been on the porch when the first occurred, and Weston had been indoors on the second occasion. No one could have approached the cabin to tamper with the equipment without having been seen. There might be some reason why either Weston or Cooper could have wished to stop the wireless message, but certainly both men would not have desired it.
Harry Vincent's mind was filled with absurd doubts. Then he realized that The Shadow had planned tonight's operations, and that the mysterious director had included both the Englishman and the newcomer in his instructions.
The set was working now, yet there had been no response, which evidently signified that the interrupted message had been of minor consequence.