The world has yet to learn what it owes to wireless. Little does it dream of its aid to commerce in every quarter of the globe; how much of the news it reads at its breakfast-table had been flashed through the ether for thousands of miles, or how every hour it outstrips the choked-up and behind-the-times submarine cable system.
Geoffrey Falconer was very sorely puzzled.
But why was that mysterious signal unheard by others? Further, by what method was it being transmitted? Being acquainted with every method of transmission, he guessed, after a number of tests, that it must be automatic. One day he took his improved microphone amplifier to the works at Chelmsford, and attaching it to the very complicated apparatus designed for the reception of signals automatically transmitted--a piece of apparatus far too technical to here describe--he sat at a quarter past seven awaiting the usual signal.
With him were two of the research staff, both as deeply interested in the mystery as himself, though upon their high-up aerial wires they had been unable to detect the signals in question.
“Hulloa!” cried Boyd, a fair, clean-shaven man of thirty-five, who was a well-known radio-engineer. “There she goes!”
The receiving apparatus gave a short quick buzz, thrice repeated, and then there was silence again.
Eagerly Falconer took the record which had been made, and placing it in another small box, adjusted the head-’phones, and depressing a key, allowed it to revolve slowly. The message became distinctly readable!
They were figures--_the numerals_ 4519, thrice repeated. It was that same code-message which the genial Glover had sent from the liner in mid-Atlantic! What could it mean?
Two facts were now proved--that the amplifier, as improved by Geoffrey, was a supersensitive instrument, which would, no doubt, have a great future before it, and bring its inventor both money and fame in the world of radio-telegraphy. Secondly, that some curious mystery lay behind the appearance of Mr. George Glover in London society.
That night on arrival home, he told the Professor of his discovery, and both father and son agreed that it was necessary to make some searching investigations regarding Mrs. Beverley’s friend.