CHAPTER X
THE MYSTERY OF BERENICE
Over the picturesque Welsh mountains the wind blew fresh, even though the afternoon was a brilliant one in August.
Outside the great Marconi wireless station high up at Ceunant, midway between Carnarvon and Llanberis, Geoffrey stood with Sylvia and her mother, explaining the huge aerial system with its ten masts, each four hundred feet high, placed around the cluster of white buildings comprising the power-house, transmission rooms, and other departments. The tall masts dwarfed the buildings beneath them, and both mother and daughter gazed up at them wonderingly when Falconer explained that from them messages had actually been sent through the ether and received clearly at Sydney, a distance of twelve thousand miles.
They had spent a most interesting afternoon watching the commercial messages, most of them in code, being transmitted to Belmar, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, and now the car was waiting to take them back to Carnarvon where they were staying the night at the Royal Hotel. They had all three travelled down by the Irish Mail from Euston to Holyhead, arriving there in the morning, and after breakfast at the hotel the car had taken them out to Ceunant, where they had lunched with the engineer-in-charge, and Geoffrey had afterwards acted as their guide, making full explanation of all they witnessed.
“Wonderful!” declared Sylvia as they entered the car. “The public speak airily of wireless, yet they little know to what marvellous perfection it is being brought.”
“That’s so, dear,” replied the South American widow. “I’m sure we’re awfully obliged to Geoffrey for showing us the station. It is a privilege accorded to very few.”
“Well,” laughed Geoffrey, “the company certainly do not encourage the merely curious. Otherwise all our stations would be overrun with visitors.”
The drive back through Llanrug to old-world Carnarvon was delightful, and after tea Sylvia and her lover took a stroll through the town as far as the great mediæval fortress which is washed on two sides by the waters of the Menai Straits and the Seiont. They were shown the Eagle Tower, where the first Prince of Wales was born; the Queen’s Tower, and the other historic portions of the fine old castle, and then returned to the hotel to rejoin Mrs. Beverley.
Later on, while they were at dinner, a tall, good-looking, dark-haired young man entered and glanced around to find a seat.