“He’ll spend most of his time on the surface,” said Tom. “With a first-class submarine he could spend two months under water at a time, but he wouldn’t want to.”
“Don’t spend any more time in discussion, boys,” interrupted Dorothy. “We must reach him the first moment possible, before any other ship goes down. Meanwhile, Jim, you want to get this to the paper, don’t you?”
“I surely do,” I responded, and I hurried off to wire the London office. I sent my telegram over our private line, and waited for the answer. In five minutes it came back.
“Too late, this time, my boy. Japanese first-class battleship disappeared in broad daylight in the harbor of Tokio. They sent it on here immediately, and we have had it for some minutes. Rest on your laurels.” Signed, Maxwell.
“Well,” I thought to myself, as I returned, “I can afford to rest on my laurels. There’s not a country in the civilized world where my name is not known to-day.” My mail was full of requests for interviews, for magazine articles, for lecture tours. I was a made man, and as I mused on these things I walked on somewhat more proudly than my wont, but as I thought over the experiences of the last months, saw in what an extraordinary fashion fortune had played into my hands, saw how Tom Haldane had saved my life by his shrewd foresight and scientific knowledge, and saw, most of all, how I had profited by my dear girl’s quick wit, I became far more humble. Most of all, I had not yet accomplished the one thing I set out to do. I had not found the man who was stopping all war. He still eluded me, and still was carrying on his dread work. I reached our hotel feeling that I was really a very ordinary mortal, after all.
While I had been gone, events had been moving swiftly. Some miles out from The Hague, there was a little inn on the shore among the dunes over beyond Scheveningen to which we had twice motored down during the conference. Thoroughly comfortable, a favorite meeting place in summer for the artist colony about the watering place, it was now almost wholly deserted, because of the lateness of the season. We felt it would make ideal headquarters for our work, and soon established ourselves there. Tom was never more in his element than when assembling apparatus, or when controlling men. Here was his chance to do both. Like magic, the tall mast reared its height among the dunes, while coils, wires, and instruments fell swiftly into place. Acting chiefly as a burden bearer, I ran to and fro, while Tom and Dorothy, with their assistants, brought things to completion. As I came in from a final staying of the aerial, Tom turned to me, wiping the sweat of honest toil from his face.
“All ready, Jim,” he said. “If you’ll start a message over that wire, we’ll send it through the ether by means of Denckel’s machine, and drop it straight on Tokio. Hold on a minute, though. Let me call up my assistant on the wave-measuring machine, and see if he has heard anything.”
A rapid conversation over the telephone we had installed, resulted. Tom turned back to me.
“As yet, I’m thankful to say, nothing happened. ‘The man’ has evidently been experimenting this morning, and was experimenting this afternoon. He’s right off Tokio, still. Go ahead.”
I pressed the key and the vibrant discharge rattled from pole to pole. Over and over again I gave the call. “To the man who has stopped all war.” Over and over again I hurled my message out across half a world. For an hour I repeated the call, my eyes and ears waiting for some response from the sounder at my left.