“Perhaps. We’ll listen again for him, and if he gives any more warnings we’ll put the direction-finders on him, and he’ll very soon have his license taken away—if he has one,” said Jerrold.
“Well, it’s curious,” exclaimed Geoffrey laughing. “I wonder why I’m forbidden to go East, and what peril is in store for me?”
“Ah! that I don’t know. The message was given at twenty-eight minutes past three. So we’ll listen to-morrow at the same time, and on the same wave-length.”
“Right-o!” said Falconer, hanging up the receiver and then strolling back into the garden, wondering what the message really meant.
He had no intention of going East, save that he had a week before received instructions to proceed to Lucerne, where, close by, on the Tomlishorn, the highest peak of the Pilatus, above Alpnachstad, the Marconi Company were erecting a one-and-a-half kilowatt telephone and telegraph set ordered by the Swiss Government, the set used at the meeting of the League of Nations at Geneva having proved such a great success.
Lane, one of the engineers, was already out there, and he had been ordered to follow him and superintend the fitting and testing of the station before it was handed over to the Swiss authorities. Switzerland certainly lay to the East, but what mysterious peril awaited him there was certainly obscure. At first he grew a trifle anxious in view of his previous adventures, but later that evening he decided that it was some amateur who, having learned of his impending departure, was playing a practical joke. Yet curiously enough only about three or four people at the Marconi Works knew of the order he had received.
At dinner that night he mentioned the incident to the Professor, but both decided that it was only some silly joke.
On the following Thursday he left Charing Cross for Lucerne, where, at the Schweizerhof, that well-known hotel facing the lake, Lane, who had come by boat from Alpnach, came to meet him. Next day they ascended to the famous Hôtel Pilatuskulm, where they took up their quarters, only half an hour’s walk by a good path to the site of the new wireless station.
Already the two one-storeyed buildings, and the aerial upon masts of steel lattice, were erected. The material had all come out from England, and the contractors had finished their work on the masts. Indeed, Lane and his colleagues from Chelmsford had already commenced their work of fitting the apparatus.
The wireless station which the Swiss Government had ordered was situated high upon the wild rocky mountains, and was intended for the communication of post-office messages with Rome, Vienna, and Paris, the apparatus being the last word in Marconi invention.