They were standing in Jack Halliday’s little sitting-room at the time, and he glanced around. Mrs. Gibbons pointed to one or two souvenirs of travel upon the walls, and a few curios upon a side-table which she kept carefully dusted in the eager expectation of her wandering lodger’s return.
Geoffrey Falconer left Bayswater with a distinct impression that something was radically wrong. He could not understand why Jack, if he were called from his prospecting upon the Red Sea coast to go to Cuba, should have wanted his private papers sent to Cook’s at Marseilles—that great baggage organisation through which passes half the luggage of those going to India and the Far East.
That night he spoke to Sylvia, telling her the whole facts.
“I believe with you, Geoff, that something is wrong. Why should Mr. Farrer, who is not an expert mining engineer like your friend Halliday, be in possession of the secret of the Berenice Mine?”
“I mean to make it my business to inquire,” replied the young fellow. “Jack shall not suffer if I can help it.”
Falconer did not allow the grass to grow beneath his feet, for next day he was on the alert. The telegram had been sent by the Eastern Company’s cable from Alexandria, but at ten o’clock that morning he inquired of S.U.H. (Ras-el-Tin), the radio station at Alexandria, whether the Englishman, Mr. Halliday, could be found in that city.
Half an hour later there came back a reply that inquiry had been made at the chief post-office at Alexandria, but nobody of that name was known there.
The next message Falconer sent was to the engineer-in-charge at Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, south of Cape Ras Benas, asking him if he had heard anything of the young mining prospector, Jack Halliday.
The answer by wireless was “Wait—wait—wait: for two hours.”
Geoffrey waited. Two hours later Port Sudan replied that nothing was known of Mr. Halliday, and suggested that inquiry be made of Cairo. But the high-power station at Abu Zabal, outside Cairo, later on answered as follows to the experimental call-signal he had used: