"What the devil have we here?" he continued.
He was hauling something up from the flower-bed below the window, and now, turning to me, he held out ... a second telephone!
"Why, Gatton!" I cried, and took it from his hand, "this is the authentic instrument! See! It is connected in the proper way!"
"I see quite clearly," he replied. "It was simply placed outside, whilst a duplicate one was substituted for it. I observe a ladder against the shed. Let us trace the cable attached to the duplicate."
The ladder was one used by Coates about the garden; and now, climbing out of the window, Gatton mounted it and surveyed the roof of the lean-to which I used as a tool-shed.
"Ha!" he exclaimed. "A gas cylinder!"
"What!"
He fingered the green cable.
"This is not cable at all," he cried; "it's covered tubing! Do you see?"
He descended and rejoined me.