He disconnected one of the room's tube-lights and contacted with the cathode. It was a makeshift method, but as he dropped to the floor, uncoiling a little length of his wire for an external pick-up, we saw that the thing worked. The pointer on the dial-face was swaying.
"Gregg!" he muttered. "Look at that. Didn't I tell you?"
The pointer quivered in positive reaction. An eavesdropping ray was upon us.
Anita gasped, "I had no idea!"
"No, but I did." Snap added softly. "No one very close."
He and I carried the detector to the length of the hall. The indicator went nearer normal. "It must be the other way," I whispered.
We went to the moonlit balcony. "Way down there on the pedestrian arcade," I said.
"We'll soon fix that," Snap said.
Inside the room, we made connection with a newscaster's blaring voice. Under cover of it we could talk. Snap gathered us close around him.
"Halsey has something important, and it's about this interstellar invader. It all connects. His office paged me on a public mirror. I happened to see it at Park-Circle 40. When I answered it, Halsey's man wanted me to talk in code. I can't talk in code; I have enough to worry about with the interplanetary helios. Then they sent me to an official booth, where I got examined for positive legal identification, and then they put me on the official split-wave length. After all of which precautions I was told to be at Halsey's office tonight at midnight, and told a few other things."