Geoffrey glanced at it casually. It clicked on continuously night and day in response to the automatic hand of the transmitter in Paris tapping his key.
“The Frenchmen are keeping us very busy,” Graham remarked. “Look! We’re overwhelmed, but up at the Fenchurch Street office it must be worse.”
Geoffrey nodded For some seconds he watched the “recorder” at work, and then presently he and Graham sat down at the receiving set and began to discuss where an improvement would possibly be made. They were seated close to the “recorder,” when presently, through mere force of habit, Geoffrey, even while chatting with Graham, found himself reading the incoming messages. Suddenly there became recorded on the tape in that curious crooked writing the words, “Marguerite Claudet.”
Claudet? In a moment he recollected that it was the name of the wealthy widow to whom Sylvia had introduced him in Dinard. He took the tape, and reading back, found that the message, which had been dispatched from Paris half an hour before, was addressed to a person named Mildmay, apparently living in chambers in Ryder Street, London, and that it was in code—a jumble of figures and letters.
At first, the origin of the message being Paris, Geoffrey merely smiled within himself at the similarity of the name, and recollected the seal of secrecy regarding all messages. But a few moments later, he recollected that Mrs. Beverley had addressed her friend as “dear Margot.” For aught he knew the lady was motoring with Mrs. Beverley on their trip to the ancient châteaux on the Loire.
Before leaving Dinard, Sylvia had given him the Hôtel de l’Univers, at Tours, as their central address while in Touraine. At that time Madame Claudet, though invited to join the motoring party, had not decided whether to accept. In Falconer’s presence she had declared that she would be compelled to go to Paris to see her bankers upon some matter of business from South America.
The message to Mildmay was evidently a private prearranged jumble of figures and letters, the whole perhaps meaning but one word, “yes” or “no.” Such codes are by far the most difficult to decipher.
Next day, so interested did he become in the message through space, which had, of course, been delivered to the addressee, that he telegraphed to Sylvia at Tours asking whether Madame Claudet was with them, but begging that she should not be told of his inquiry.
The reply came in due course. Madame Claudet had been on business to Paris, and had just rejoined them at Tours. Naturally, Sylvia asked the reason of his inquiry, to which he replied by wire that he would tell her when next they met.
He had, however, established the fact that the rich widow had been in Paris, and it certainly seemed as if the message he had noticed upon the green recording tape was really from her.