Owing to what Geoffrey was able to disclose to the Criminal Investigation Department, a very curious state of things became revealed.
It was found that the genial George Glover—who, by the way, was promptly arrested and subsequently extradited to Paris—was none other than the notorious Henry Harberson, head of a great gang of International crooks and jewel thieves, who had recently established their temporary headquarters in London, and who had as receiver an old Dutchman at Utrecht named Van Hoover.
Thanks to Falconer’s patient investigations, extending over a further period of some weeks, it was also rendered clear that Harberson had, with the latest refinement of criminality, actually established wireless communication with each of the six members of his gang in England, by means of a very ingenious transmitter, the signals of which were unreadable save under certain conditions. A man named Jensen of Copenhagen had devised it, and that mysterious signal of four numerals had been sent out daily just before half-past seven in order to inform each member all was safe, and that no police inquiry was being made.
The jewels had been stolen from Nassington Hall by the pretended wealthy man, whose oil interests in Roumania were bogus, and handed out of the conservatory window to a confederate from New Orleans named Blades, who was dressed for the occasion as a Sussex farmer.
Both men, with two of their accomplices, who were found in possession of secret receiving sets, were sent over to France, and at the time of writing they are all serving long terms of imprisonment for three sensational jewel robberies committed there.
Mrs. Beverley was, however, naturally delighted to be again in possession of her pearls, while in Geoffrey Falconer’s private laboratory there is to-day Harberson’s very up-to-date secret wireless set which the police seized at the pretty house which, as George Glover, he rented on the Thames, not far from Maidenhead. In construction it is, after all, only a variation upon a set previously devised in the research department at Chelmsford, yet there are two factors in it which, to Geoffrey, established a new theory, and which, as will later on be apparent, were destined to be of distinct advantage to him in his experiments and investigations into the romance of wireless.
CHAPTER II
THE VOICE FROM THE VOID
One afternoon about a month after the curious Affair of the Secret Signal, while Geoffrey was busy conducting some experiment in the research laboratory at Chelmsford, a tall, well-dressed young foreigner entered, and advancing to where he was seated, placed his hand upon his shoulder.
“Well!” gasped Geoffrey starting, his face lighting with pleasure. “Why, my dear Enrico! Wherever have you sprung from?”