“Then during the next fortnight we must be very watchful,” Falconer said, and as at that moment Mrs. Mapleton, walking with the handsome Madame Garcia, came along the terrace, they dropped the subject, and Falconer became most enthusiastic regarding the glorious view.
Next morning at about ten o’clock Geoffrey Falconer was busy re-wiring part of the powerful transmitting apparatus at the wireless station at Aranjuez, when one of the operators handed him a telegram which had just been received over the land line from Madrid.
It was open, upon a form, just as it had been received. The words he read were:
“Another seizure. Unconscious for three hours. Just recovered. Meet me at the Ritz in Madrid at four this afternoon.—Sylvia.”
Geoffrey realised the extreme gravity of the situation. He had been making many secret inquiries. The mystery of it all had not only fascinated him, but it had placed him upon his mettle. Sylvia, the girl whom he loved so passionately, had, by her woman’s shrewd keenness, first aroused the suspicion which had daily grown stronger until the grave peril of the banker’s charming wife obsessed him.
On five different occasions, from that complicated-looking apparatus of the high-power wireless station, with which at the moment he was surrounded, he had sent out with great difficulty and very weakly in the Marconi International Code, long messages to M.P.D.—or Poldhu in Cornwall—inquiries concerning Mapleton and others—which next day had been answered in the same code.
These answers, unknown to Sylvia, had opened up an entirely new channel of inquiry. That telegram from El Pardo confirmed certain suspicions which had come to him during the past two days.
That there was a deliberate and desperate attempt to get rid of Mrs. Mapleton had become an established fact. It only lay with Sylvia and her lover to save the unfortunate victim, to lay bare the plot, and to bring the guilty person or persons to their just punishment.
When at four o’clock Sylvia met Geoffrey in the Ritz, her first words were:
“Poor Mrs. Mapleton had a terribly narrow escape last night! Dr. Garcia grew very alarmed, and at two o’clock this morning telephoned to Madrid to Dr. Figueroa, who, I believe, is one of the most distinguished pathologists in Spain. He arrived at about half-past four, and in consultation agreed with Garcia that it was acute indigestion. Fortunately, an hour afterwards Mrs. Mapleton was quite well again.”