"Well, in that time I determined the exact extent of the phenomena. I found that it extended in a rough circle. And when I went outside and looked up—something every one else was apparently too busy to do—I saw that this phenomenon of darkness also extended above the building, out into open space. At the moment I noted the fact merely, and tried to fix in my own mind approximately the dimensions. Then here is another point: when the city-wide phenomena took place, I again determined their extent. To do so I did not have to leave my chair. The papers did it for me. They took pains to establish the farthest points to which these modern plagues of Manhattan reached."
Darrow selected several clippings from his bundle of papers.
"Here are reports indicating Highbridge, Corona, Flatbush, Morrisania, Fort Lee, Bay Ridge as the farthest points at which the phenomena were manifested. It occurred to nobody to connect these points with a pencil line. If that line is made curved, instead of straight, it will be found to constitute a complete circle whose center is the Atlas Building!"
The audience broke into exclamations.
"Going back to my former impressions, I remembered that the pall of blackness extended this far and that far in the various directions, so that it required not much imagination to visualize it as a sphere of darkness. And strangely enough the center of that sphere seemed to be located somewhere near the floor on which were installed the United Wireless instruments. It at once became probable that what we may call the nullifying impulses radiated in all directions through the ether from their sending instrument.
"Next I called upon the janitor of the Atlas Building, representing myself as looking for a suitable office from which to conduct my investigations. In this manner I gained admission to all unrented offices. All were empty. I then asked after the one next door, but was told it was rented as a storeroom by an eccentric gentleman now away on his travels. That was enough. I now knew that we had to do with a man next door, and not miles distant, as purely scientific reasoning would seem to prove."
"But Professor Eldridge's experiments—" began Jack.
"I am coming to that," interrupted Darrow. "When Eldridge began to call up Monsieur X, that gentleman answered without a thought of suspicion; nor was he even aware of the very ingenious successive weakenings of the current. In fact, as merely the thickness of a roof separated his receiving instrument from the wires from which the messages were sent, it is probable that Eldridge might have weakened his current down practically to nihil, and still Monsieur X would have continued to get his message."
"Wouldn't he have noticed the sending getting weaker?" asked Jack shrewdly.
"Not until the very last. Our sending must have made a tremendous crash, anyway, and he probably read it by sound through the wall."