He pointed with his pipe.
"In the second drawer of the desk you will find a heliograph. It is only a toy, but will justify me."
They ran together, and found the little circular mirror. The next wave passed unheeded. Smiling, he went up to the lamp. Even yet there was hope they might go to bed when the respite came.
After much talk of disordered hair, wan cheeks, rings round the eyes, cracked lips, and other outrageous defects which a pretty woman mourns when divorced from her dressing-table, Constance called him.
"Here is a queer thing," she said. "Have you heard any steamer hooting?"
"No," he answered. Bending between the two of them he saw that the pointer of the auriscope bore due southwest, though the last siren of which they had any knowledge sounded from the opposite direction.
He picked up a little trumpet resembling the horn of a motor-car.
"I use this for tests," he explained. Its tiny vibrator quickly brought the needle round towards his hand.
"It is improbable in the highest degree that any steamer is near enough to affect the auriscope," he said. "On a night like this they give the coast a wide berth."
He quitted them again. The girls, having nothing better to do, watched the dial to see if any change occurred. He heard them use the small trumpet three times. Then Enid sang out: