“Ah, the same old dodge!” declared Mr. Hamilton, himself a youngish, good-looking man. “They pretend they can’t get our ‘C.W.,’ and always want us to send on spark just because it is easier for them. They really aren’t playing the game over there. Try them again at ten, and every fifteen minutes afterwards. Is there much to go?”
“Eighteen messages.”
“You’ll get them away soon, no doubt,” the chief engineer said. “They’ve done the same old trick before. They bang over all their traffic in a bunch to us, and then tell us to stand by for half an hour.”
“They did that early this morning,” Cator said. “They ended their transmission at four, and at once told us to stand by till five. Fortunately we cleared all our traffic to them then.”
Hamilton, a most genial and delightful man, who was loved by all the staff in that outlandish corner of England, and who was one of the best known Marconi engineers, smiled, and remarked:
“I know them, Cator—I know only too well!”
And he bent to glance at the log that had been kept during the night.
When outside in the glorious morning sunshine, Geoffrey turned to the pretty girl at his side as together they walked back past the direction-finding building along the path down to the hotel, and said:
“I’m still puzzled over that affair I told you about last night, dear. It’s most mysterious. I’m certain that the man I met in the hall of the Polurrian Hotel last night was the same man. I telephoned at eight o’clock this morning, but they tell me that Mr. Martin—which was the name he gave—has left. He had a car to Gwinear Road station last night, and caught the sleeper to Paddington.”
“Because he knew that you had recognised him—eh?”