THE CLOVEN HOOF
“It should be quite a pleasant trip for you, Falconer,” remarked the
little, middle-aged, well-dressed man who was one of his superiors, as
they sat together in a room in the Engineering Section at Marconi House
on a bright October afternoon. “The plant went out from the works at
Chelmsford three months ago, and we have been advised that it has all
arrived in Hungary, or I suppose they call it Czecho-Slovakia now, and
it is lying at the station at Arad.”
“I will do my best,” replied Geoffrey, greatly delighted at the
instructions he had just been given, namely, to proceed to Hungary to
erect two complete one-and-a-half kilowatt stations for continuous-wave
telegraphy and telephony. “I have never been in Hungary, and it will,
no doubt, be interesting.”
“It will. I’d dearly like to go with you,” laughed Mr. Millard,
one of the best-known of wireless engineers. “The sets have been
purchased by the Baron de Pelzel, on behalf of the new Government of
Czecho-Slovakia, and one of the conditions of the contract provides
that we should send out an engineer to erect the stations.”
“Will anyone go with me?” asked Geoffrey.
“No. There is, I think, no need. I myself looked through the
instruments before they were packed. All is in order. You can employ
local labour. There are surely some quite good electricians in Hungary.
The first station is to be erected somewhere near Arad--wherever that
may be--and the other in some other part of Hungary. We thought you
would like an opportunity to go abroad.”
Geoffrey thanked the chief of his department, and then, after receiving
a number of other instructions, he went down in the lift and out into
the busy Strand.
Half an hour later he was at Mrs. Beverley’s.
“Hulloa, Geoff!” cried Sylvia as he entered the room. “Where have
you sprung from? I thought of you down at Chelmsford with your
uncomfortable old telephones on your ears, turning little handles very
slowly, and listening! Oh, Geoff, you look so funny sometimes when you
listen! You look as if your whole life depended upon it,” added the
girl chaffingly.
“And so it does, dear. At least my bread-and-cheese depends upon it.”
“Why, the other day Colonel Maybury, of the Air Ministry, told me that
your improved amplifier will probably bring you a comfortable fortune
in royalties!”
The keen, smooth-haired young fellow shrugged his shoulders, and
replied:
“I only hope it will. We wireless men are never optimists, you know.
We always look for failure first. Success surprises us, and bucks us
up. When one is dealing with a science which is in its infancy one must
first look for failure.”
“My dear Geoffrey, as I’ve said before, you are so horribly philosophic
about things,” she declared with a laugh.
At that moment her mother entered, and invited Geoffrey to stay to
dinner _en famille_. The ladies, however, put on dance frocks, for they
were due at Lady Waterden’s at nine o’clock. So about that hour, after
Falconer had told them of his impending journey to Hungary, he saw them
into the car and then walked to the corner of Grosvenor Square, where
he took a taxi to Liverpool Street and caught the train to Warley.
At the Works at Chelmsford next day he was handed a copy of a letter
from the Baron de Pelzel, who had purchased the installations on behalf
of the Government of Czecho-Slovakia. It was a private letter dated
from the Schloss Nyék, in Transylvania, recalling the fact that all the
plant had already arrived at Arad, and asking the Marconi Company to
send their engineer to Budapest as soon as possible, where he would
meet him at the Ritz Hotel and consult with him.
A week later Falconer left London--after an affectionate farewell to
Sylvia--and travelling by the Orient express by way of Paris, Wels, and
Vienna, duly arrived at the Hungarian capital. The moment he entered
the taxi to drive to the Ritz--that _hôtel de luxe_ overlooking the
Danube--a great change was apparent in what was once the gayest city in
Europe. The war had brought disaster upon the unfortunate Hungarians,
who, owing to the terribly low rate of exchange, and the difficulty of
food imports, were now half-starving.
As in the late afternoon Geoffrey went from the station along the wide
handsome street half the shops were closed, and the passers-by were
mostly thin-faced, ill-dressed and shabby.
At the hotel a brave show of luxury was made, and naturally the charges
were high--in Austrian coinage. The price asked for a room with
bathroom adjoining was enormous, but when he calculated it in English
money at the current rate of exchange it was about two shillings and
sixpence a night!
He inquired at the bureau if the Baron de Pelzel had arrived, and
received an affirmative reply. The Baron and his niece had gone out
motoring to Szajol, a place on the River Tisza, and would return about
six. He had left that message for Geoffrey.
About half-past six a waiter came to Falconer’s room asking him to go
along to the Baron’s sitting-room, which was on the same floor. This he
did, and there met a tall, well-built, very elegant, brown-bearded man
of about forty, with a round, merry, fresh-complexioned face and a pair
of dark, humorous eyes.
He welcomed Falconer in very good English and at once introduced him
to his niece, Françoise Biringer, a tall, rather slim, dark-eyed girl,
very smartly attired, who spoke to him in French. Apparently she knew
but very little English.
Then when the girl had gone to dress for dinner, the two men sat down
and discussed the business in hand.
The Baron seemed an extremely affable and cultured man, as so many
Hungarians are. He lived mostly in Paris, he explained, but since the
war he had assisted his Government in various matters.
“I hope you will have an enjoyable time, Mr. Falconer,” he went on.
“When I was at Marconi House they told me they would send out an expert
engineer to fit both stations and get them going. How far do you think
I can speak over the set they have sent me?”
“Speech should carry from seven hundred to nine hundred miles--perhaps
more under favourable conditions, but Morse signals will carry very
much further.”
The Baron seemed highly satisfied.
“You see, my Government is greatly interested in certain mining
enterprises, and it is my plan to set up two wireless stations on
either side of Hungary, so that we can conduct rapid business from
one zone of operation to the other, and also with Budapest when we so
desire. But,” he added, “it is annoying that the plant should have been
sent to Arad. There must have been some mistake. I went to Arad last
week and saw the railway people there. It has already been passed on
to its proper destination. But I do not expect it will arrive for a
week or even ten days, so during that time I hope you will honour me
by being my guest here, as well as during the time you are engaged in
fitting the installation.”
“I shall require assistance,” Geoffrey said. “Do you happen to know of,
say, two good electricians whom I could engage as assistants?”
“I will inquire,” replied the Baron. “No doubt we can find two good men
who, during the war, were engaged in radio-telegraphy.”
Afterwards Geoffrey, well-impressed by the genial Baron, returned to
dress for dinner, and later on took a perfectly cooked meal with his
elegant and courteous host and his niece. The young man found the
pretty Françoise extremely interesting. They discussed many things at
table, new books, new plays, and, of course, the terrible havoc of the
war.
The Baron was pro-British in all his remarks. He deplored the
ridiculous weakness of the poor old doddering Emperor Franz-Josef, who,
as every one knew, was beneath the thumb of a wily adventuress, and
with vehemence declared: “We were always Britain’s friends. We should
never have opposed her. Look at our poor Hungary now! Only ruin and
starvation! Until we can recover ourselves we shall be at the mercy
of any of the petty Powers who make themselves so conspicuous and
obnoxious at the eternal _pourparlers_ presided over by your Premier.
We want peace, Mr. Falconer,” cried the Baron furiously. “Peace,
and with it renewed prosperity. But there!” he added. “Pardon me! I
apologise. Françoise knows that this constant casting of dust in the
eyes of our poor starving people goads me to the point of fury.”
Even though Hungary was in such evil case, and half the population were
starving, yet at that hotel people--many of them war-profiteers as in
London--dined expensively, danced, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
To them it mattered not how freely the bones of the poor rattled, or
how many children died daily of sheer starvation. They had money--and
with it they bought merriment and “life.”
After dinner the Baron’s car took them down the Nagy-Korut--the Great
Boulevard--to the Folies Caprice, where they spent the evening at an
excellent variety performance.
That night when Geoffrey retired to his room he was fully satisfied
with the warm reception and generosity of the Baron, and charmed with
the chic and verve of his pretty niece Françoise, who seemed to have
spent most of her life in Paris, where her father had an apartment
close to the Étoile.
Next day the Baron invited the young radio-engineer to have a run in
the Mercedes, and the rather morose Frenchman, Lebon, who drove, took
them out to Tepla, a very beautiful spot with warm springs that have
been visited for centuries by the Hungarian nobility. They lunched at
the Sina-haz, one of the many excellent hotels, and ran back through
Trencsen, where they pulled up to find the “Lovers’ Well.”
After an inquiry from the Baron, who alone spoke the Hungarian tongue,
they discovered it just outside the village, within the confines of the
ruin of a Roman castle--a well dug in the rock.
The Baron and the peasant who conducted them to it had a short chat.
Then Françoise’s uncle turned to them, and explained in French:
“A most curious story this good man tells. It seems that centuries ago
a young Turk of high rank and family offered a large ransom for his
bride, who was in captivity in this castle. But the lord of the castle,
Stephen Zapolya, demanded as the price of her release that her lover
should dig a well through the rock. After seven years’ hard work the
well was completed, and the spring is to this day called the ‘Lovers’
Well.’”
With Françoise, Geoffrey peered down into the pitch darkness, and saw
that it was really cut in the rock. As they did so, their hands came
into contact. Indeed, she grasped his instinctively as they stood
together at the edge of the deep well.
Then she withdrew her hand quickly with a word of apology, and ten
minutes later they were in the car back upon the broad highway which
led to Budapest.
The autumn days passed very pleasantly. Living so much in Paris, as
he had done of late, the Baron, apparently, had but few friends in
Budapest. He, however, had much business to attend to in the daytime on
behalf of his Government, hence Falconer and the Baron’s pretty niece
were thrown constantly into each other’s society.
She was a smart girl, full of a keen sense of humour, and possessing
all the verve of the true Parisienne. She knew Budapest, of course, and
acted as Geoffrey’s guide in the city, but her heart was always in
Paris. She regarded the Hungarians as an uncouth race.
Her mother had been French, she told him one day. She had, alas! died
two years ago. But she had induced her father to take the flat in Paris
rather than remain in the wilds of Hungary.
More than once Falconer wrote to Sylvia telling her of the society
junketings in Budapest, while the city starved. Each night they dined
expensively and went either to the opera, or to the Vigszinhas to see
comedy; to the Fortress, or the People’s Theatre. They also went to the
Arena in the Town Park, the performances at which were quite as good as
in pre-war days.
One evening as Geoffrey sat in the palm court of the Ritz with
Françoise, she exclaimed suddenly in French: “I think we go to-morrow
or the next day. My uncle was with Count Halmi this afternoon, and they
were speaking of it. All the wireless apparatus has arrived at Zenta.”
“Zenta? Where is that?” asked Geoffrey, removing his cigarette, for
the pair were alone together in a corner of the lounge. Françoise
looked very pretty in a jade-coloured dance frock, for a dance to weird
Tsigane music was to commence in the great ballroom in half an hour.
“Zenta! Why, don’t you know? Has not the Baron told you? It is his
estate right away on the other side of Hungary--near the Russian
frontier. I confess that it is out of the world, and I do hope you will
not be bored to death there!”
“No doubt I shall not; I have my work to do,” laughed the well-set-up
young Englishman, for he was really having a most enjoyable time.
Hence he was not surprised when two days later his host, the Baron,
departed for the Schloss Zenta.
In the express between Budapest and Debrechen, on the line which leads
out to the Polish frontier, the Baron, lolling lazily in the corner of
the first-class compartment, remarked in English:
“I hope, Mr. Falconer, you have not been disappointed with Budapest.
Unfortunately I have had so many official affairs to attend to. We
shall be at home at Zenta to-night. I fear it may be very dull for you,
as it is far away up in the mountains. I only yesterday received word
that all your apparatus has arrived there.”
“What height is it?” Geoffrey asked, as he was concerned with the
height of his aerial wires.
“I hardly know,” the Baron laughed. “I’ve never tested it with an
aneroid. No doubt you will. It is high, and that is why I thought it
would suit you, because I’ve always understood that aerial wires for
wireless are best on a hill.”
“Certainly they are,” said Falconer, gazing out upon the beautiful
panorama of stream and mountain through which they were passing. They
were entering the most remote, but most beautiful, district in all
Hungary, that which lies between the High Tatra--a lovely mountain
district known so little to English travellers, save those familiar
with the Carpathians--and the Roumanian frontier.
At evening they arrived at a small, picturesque town called
Nagy-Károly, the capital of the Szatmas country, nestling between the
mountains, and at once a powerful car took them for about thirty miles
up higher and higher into a wild remote district, the very name of
which was unknown to Geoffrey. Presently, just as the night was drawing
in, the pretty Françoise pointed to a high-up château perched on the
edge of a steep rocky precipice, and said:
“Look! There is Zenta--at last!”
It looked, as indeed it was, one of those ancient strongholds of the
Hungarian barons who had for ages resisted the repeated invasions of
the Turks.
Later, when they arrived and the Baron showed him round before dressing
for dinner, he found that it was a splendid old fortress, full of rare
antiques and breathing an air of days long gone by, while at the same
time it was also the comfortable home of a very wealthy man.
That night as they sat at dinner in the long panelled dining-room
adorned with many heads of stags and bears, trophies of the chase, the
Baron raised his glass of Imperial Tokay and welcomed his guest beneath
his roof.
“Here,” he said, “you have a very historic old place which you
are going to fit with the latest invention of wireless--the
radio-telephone. A strange combination, is it not? All your boxes have
arrived, and they are in the back courtyard. I am sorry that I was not
able to arrange for expert assistance for you, Mr. Falconer, but I have
two very good electricians arriving to-morrow. My agent in Vienna is
sending them.”
And at the same moment Karl, the Magyar servant, in his brown velvet
dress and big buttons of silver filigree, helped him to a succulent
dish of paprika lamb, which followed the _halaszle_, that famous fish
soup which is served nightly in all the wealthier houses in Hungary.
“Have the engines and all the other plant arrived?” Geoffrey inquired.
“Everything. Twenty-eight packages in all,” answered the brown-bearded
man, while Françoise, with her bare elbows on the table, glanced across
at the young Marconi engineer, and remarked in French:
“I suppose you will be horribly busy now--eh, M’sieur Falconer?”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” he replied. “I have lost more than a fortnight
already. But it has, I confess, been most enjoyable.” Then turning to
the Baron, he asked:
“Have you engaged any operators to work the set?”
The question, put so suddenly to De Pelzel, nonplussed him. He was
compelled to hesitate for a few seconds--a fact which did not escape
the alert Geoffrey.
“Oh! how very foolish of me!” the Baron exclaimed in his suave, easy
manner. “I have been so terribly busy of late, and also rectifying the
blunder of sending the boxes to Arad, that I quite forgot the necessity
of a staff to work the installation when it is complete. I will at once
see about getting some ex-radio military men from Vienna.”
For half an hour after dinner a gipsy orchestra, four swarthy-faced
men in brown velvet, with dark, piercing eyes, and lank black hair,
gave some wonderful music with their violins. Then, when near midnight,
the man-servant Karl showed Geoffrey to his room--a big, gloomy,
dispiriting place, lit only by two candles in ancient silver holders.
When Karl had shut the door, Geoffrey instantly experienced a curious
feeling of impending evil. Why, he knew not. He was there upon business
for his company in that remote, out-of-the-world place, and his host,
the Baron, was most kind and affable, while his niece was quite
charming. Yet somehow as he lay awake the greater part of the night he
became consumed by a strange apprehension.
At the Ritz, in Budapest, and also in the train, he had noticed on
several occasions a curious exchange of glances between uncle and
niece--or was it only his fancy?
Was anything amiss? He lay listening to the owls hooting in the great
forest which surrounded the castle on three sides, and reflected
deeply. Françoise, he remembered, had during the past few days
questioned him very cleverly, yet very closely, concerning himself and
his family. Could there be any motive in that? In the silent hours
of that night he became haunted by dark suspicions, but next morning
when he awoke refreshed and went out in the autumn sunshine along the
terrace, which gave a magnificent view of the great Hungarian plain for
many miles, all his apprehensions were quickly dispelled.
Inwardly he laughed heartily at his own misgivings.
At eleven o’clock he drove with the Baron about three miles into the
forest to a large high-up clearing--the spot which De Pelzel suggested
should be the site of the new station. Indeed, two new log huts were
already built for the transmitting and receiving gear, with a remote
control to the generator plant.
Geoffrey, looking round upon the dense firs which screened them on
every side save to the east, was surprised that such a site should have
been chosen. But next second he recollected that the Baron knew nothing
of wireless requirements.
“To tell you the truth,” Geoffrey said frankly, “I do not favour this
spot at all. Results would be far better if we fitted the station
somewhere else, for instance, near the terrace at the Schloss.”
“I quite imagine it, Mr. Falconer,” replied the eminently polite
Baron. “But, unfortunately, my Government is desirous of possessing a
confidential means of conversation between the two mining zones, and I
have granted them permission to establish it here on my estate.”
“And the corresponding station?” asked Geoffrey.
“I will explain the situation of that later--when we have decided upon
this.”
Falconer was disappointed. He saw that the aerial would be far too
directional for the best results.
“This evening,” the Baron went on, “I hope your two assistants will be
here. This car will then be at your disposal to take you backwards and
forwards from the castle.”
To protest against such a site was, apparently, useless. All that
Geoffrey could do was to warn the Baron that the results were not
likely to be too good.
“Well,” he laughed, “I’ve bought the plant, and if I choose to erect
it anywhere, I suppose I am at liberty to do so. You, Mr. Falconer,
with your expert knowledge, will, no doubt, be able to make it work all
right!” he said good-humouredly.
“Well--I’ll try,” Geoffrey replied, and on his return to Zenta he sat
down and wrote a long letter to Sylvia, telling her his whereabouts,
and how the material had been addressed to Arad wrongly, of his life
with the Baron, and of the rather unsatisfactory site that had been
chosen.
He wrote four closely-filled pages, and having finished took it to one
of the small rooms where Françoise was sitting reading a French novel.
“The post goes out every night at seven o’clock,” she said. “If you
will put it in the rack by the front entrance Karl will see that it is
put with the others this evening. Ludwig goes in the light car, and
takes the letters into Deva. They go by road to Nagy-Károly to-morrow
morning, and on by rail.”
Next day two shrewd-looking Austrian engineers presented themselves as
Geoffrey’s assistants. Both spoke French, and when Falconer questioned
them he discovered that the elder of the pair knew a good deal about
radio-telephony.
They therefore set to work to open the huge boxes of apparatus which
had been over three months on their way from Chelmsford. Each was
marked, and they, of course, only unpacked one complete set, together
with the aerial masts and wires. This work took three days, after which
the whole of the plant was carried up by horses through the forest to
the clearing which had been made near the top of the mountain.
Day by day Geoffrey was out there with his two assistants, first
erecting the aerial--one of the newest type--and then making an “earth”
by sinking three-foot copper plates edgewise in the form of a ring, and
connecting all of them to a central point. Each evening he was back at
the castle, where he spent many pleasant hours with the Baron and his
charming niece. The latter, indeed, took him on several occasions to
see the most delightful pieces of mountain scenery while the Baron,
hearty and full of _bonhomie_, was keenly interested to watch Geoffrey
at work fitting the complicated-looking apparatus.
Yet, curiously enough, Geoffrey’s strange feeling of apprehension had
not passed. He could not rid himself of that creepy feeling which had
stolen over him on the night of his arrival at the castle of Zenta.
Why, he could not tell.
He was surprised that he had no answer to his three letters to Sylvia
since he had been there, but he recollected that Mrs. Beverley had
spoken of going to Paris for a fortnight or so, to do some shopping,
hence it was quite possible that mother and daughter had left London.
It struck him, too, as somewhat strange that the Baron’s pretty niece
should evince so much inquisitiveness concerning his affairs. When they
were together she frequently turned the conversation very cleverly, and
questioned him about his friends in England.
“I’m terribly bored here,” she declared in French one night after
dinner, as she sat with a cigarette between her fingers and yawned. “At
last I’ve persuaded my uncle to let me go back to Paris. I shall return
very soon.”
“Will you?” asked Falconer. “I expect to be here quite another
fortnight before we can get going. Then I have to erect the other
station. Have you any idea where that is to be?”
“No,” she said. “Uncle has never told me. But, no doubt, it will be a
long way from here.”
The secrecy concerning the position of the corresponding station also
puzzled the young fellow. The Baron had, however, promised to let him
know in due course, so he continued his work out in the forest, and
gradually he assembled the engine, generator, and all the apparatus
necessary for radio-telegraphy and telephony.
One afternoon he returned to the castle unusually early, and was
surprised to discover the Baron--who had not seen him--emerge from his
bedroom and slip down the stairs. On examining his suit-case a few
moments later he saw that the lock had been tampered with, and all his
papers had been overhauled!
What object, he wondered, could his genial host have in prying into his
private affairs?
By day the two Austrians working under his direction were ever
diligent--both being excellent fellows, and very careful and precise in
their work, which is most necessary in setting up a wireless station.
At night they remained at the castle in quarters which the Baron had
provided.
So far from everywhere was the castle that the Baron seldom had
visitors except on two occasions, when two gentlemen, one a short,
stout, thick-set man, probably an Austrian, and the other a middle-aged
Russian who seemed something of a cosmopolitan, arrived, and after
spending the night, drove away again.
From Françoise he understood that the Austrian, whose name was
Koblitz, was a Government undersecretary, and the Russian’s name was
Isaakoff, and that their visits were upon official matters concerning
Czecho-Slovakia.
At last, one day when Doctor Koblitz had unexpectedly arrived alone,
the new wireless station in the forest was completed, and Geoffrey
thoroughly tested the reception side, which he found gave highly
satisfactory results, considering the screening from the trees. Both
the Baron and Doctor Koblitz, together with Françoise, took the
telephones and listened to the signals from Elvise, Rome, Warsaw,
Carnarvon, Arlington, Lafayette, Lyons, and other of the “long-wave”
stations. Indeed, during the whole afternoon Geoffrey entertained them
by tuning-in messages and copying them from dots and dashes of the
Morse code.
Both the Baron and Koblitz expressed their delight; therefore that
evening Geoffrey ventured to ask where the second station was to be
erected, for quite ten days before all the remaining cases had been
despatched to a destination of which he had been kept in ignorance.
“My Government have not yet decided,” was his reply. “The boxes have
been sent to Versec, close to the Serbian frontier. No doubt to-morrow
or next day we shall hear what is decided. You said this afternoon that
you have finished, and that all is in order to transmit--as well as to
receive?”
“Yes,” Geoffrey replied, “all is ready. I have only now to put up the
corresponding station.”
“Could you, for instance, send off a message for me to-morrow--say at
noon?”
“Certainly,” said Falconer. “We are ready to run and give a test
whenever you like.”
“Excellent. Then we will go over in the car to-morrow and send out the
test message--eh, Monsieur Koblitz?” was the genial, brown-bearded
man’s reply.
That night Geoffrey failed to sleep. Five weeks had passed since he
left London, and though he had written to Sylvia several times, he had
received no word of reply. If she had been in Paris, she was surely at
Upper Brook Street again!
He was ignorant of the significant fact that each letter he had left
for Ludwig to post had been taken by Françoise and handed to her uncle,
who had opened it and read it in conjunction with Karl, the faithful
man-servant. Afterwards each letter had been burned. This had been
repeated each time Geoffrey had written a letter, either to Marconi
House, to his father at Warley, or to any other person.
On Sylvia’s part she was still writing to the Ritz, at Budapest, whence
she had had a letter from her lover, and they were retaining the
letters expecting the young English engineer to return, as the Baron,
unknown to Geoffrey, had promised.
Next morning broke chill and misty over the Carpathians, and at
half-past eleven the Baron, accompanied by Falconer, Françoise, and
Koblitz, drove to the newly completed wireless station.
Inside the transmission hut as they stood together, the Baron took out
a slip of thin paper which he carefully unfolded and handed to his
companion, saying:
“The call-signal will not be found in the official book.” Then added:
“As you see, the message is seven-figure code.”
Geoffrey looked and saw that the call-letters written upon the slip of
paper were C.H.X.R., followed by a jumble of figures interspersed with
letters of the alphabet.
The initial letter of the call showed that the station wanted was
either in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, or Roumania. No doubt it was in the
latter country.
“The call-signal allotted to this station is the letters O.S.R.U.,” the
Baron said, after referring to his pocket-book.
So the young radio-engineer at once sat down to the key and tapped out
the usual preliminary call, followed by his own call and the call of
the unknown station he wanted.
“Get them first by telegraphy, and then I will telephone to them,”
urged the Baron excitedly.
Within ten minutes Geoffrey obtained a response, and after sending the
code message by telegraph, he switched on the telephone transmitter,
and handed the microphone to the Baron.
“Hullo! Hullo! Hullo! Petresco? Petresco?” he called, holding the
transmitter close to his lips. Then in English he went on: “Can you
hear me? Is speech all right? This is a test to you. Please tell me
whether you have heard me distinctly. Hullo! Petresco? Hullo! Petresco?
This is O.S.R.U. calling--calling C.H.X.R.”
And he handed the microphone to Geoffrey, who at once repeated the
query, and concluded it with the words always used in wireless
telephony: “O.S.R.U., changing over.”
In a few moments there came a clear voice evidently at a considerable
distance, saying:
“Hullo! O.S.R.U.? Hullo! Your signals are quite O.K. Your modulation
quite good. Congratulations!”
He handed the head-’phones to the Baron, who, with great satisfaction,
heard the speech repeated. They were certainly in touch with the
mysterious station in Roumania.
While the test was in progress Françoise stood in the narrow little
room watching intently.
“Really marvellous!” Mademoiselle declared when she herself put on
the telephones and heard the reply again repeated in a clear, rather
musical voice.
Then, after another ten minutes, the Baron asked Falconer to switch
off the generator and close down, as they would be late for luncheon.
“It does you very great credit,” declared the owner of the great estate
of Zenta. “I never dreamed that we should be in such complete touch so
quickly.” And the man Koblitz also tendered his congratulations upon
the achievement.
Later in the afternoon Mademoiselle Françoise left for Paris, and
Geoffrey shook her hand as she entered the car. After dinner Falconer
smoked with the Baron and his friend until about eleven o’clock,
when he put down his cigar and wished them both good-night. It had
become apparent that the pair wished to be rid of him for some reason.
Therefore he retired.
Back in his great, gloomy bedroom he stood for some time at the window,
gazing out upon the gorgeous scene of moonlit mountain and silent
Carpathian forest. The attitude of the two men during that evening had
become suspicious--the more so because the Baron had so constantly
evaded his question as to the site of the second wireless station, and
also the identity of the mystery station, “C.H.X.R.” Who, too, was
Petresco? It was apparently a Roumanian name. Once again a strange
intuition crept over him--a premonition of impending evil.
A quarter of an hour later he removed his evening shoes and crept back
again down the great oak staircase to the door of the room wherein the
two men were in consultation.
Bending he could hear their voices speaking low and confidentially. But
they were speaking in Hungarian, hence he could not understand a single
word. Probably it was only politics they were discussing; therefore,
after waiting ten minutes, all the time in fear of the approach of
Karl, he was about to return to his room when, of a sudden, he heard a
few words in French.
Koblitz was speaking.
“Yes, I quite agree,” he said. “Your plan is excellent. The wireless
station must remain a complete secret. This young fellow’s lips must
be closed. The two men we have here are both good wireless men, and
are affiliated to our cause. Hence they can be trusted completely.
Falconer we cannot trust--even if we attempted to bribe him, for he is
an Englishman and would accept nothing.”
“I am glad you agree, _mon cher_,” the Baron replied. “At the wireless
station to-morrow he will accept a drink from my flask--and then--well,
the forest will an hour later hold its secret,” he remarked meaningly.
Geoffrey held his breath. Could it be possible that their plan was to
poison him, and bury him in the forest, now that he had completed his
work?
It was quite apparent that the station he had erected was a secret one,
established for some illicit purpose.
He listened again, but Koblitz was only congratulating his friend upon
the success of what he termed “the great scheme.”
Silently Geoffrey crept back up to his room. His mind was made up. By
his natural intuition of impending peril he had been forewarned. Hence
putting on a pair of strong walking boots, he assumed his overcoat
and let himself out of the great rambling place by a door he knew.
In the moonlight he ascended the steep winding path which led to the
wireless huts, and on arrival there, unlocked the house in which the
transmission panel was erected. Then, switching on the light, he took
up a hammer and deliberately smashed every one of the big glass valves.
Not content with that, he also smashed every spare valve, and then
destroyed the insulation upon two transformers of the receiving set,
thus putting the whole station out of action.
Afterwards he relocked the door and made his way back past the castle
and out upon the high road which led down to Nagy-Károly. Through the
greater part of the night he walked, until at a small mountain village
he was able to induce a peasant to harness a horse and drive him into
the town.
Before nine o’clock that morning he called upon the chief of police,
and through a man who spoke French, gave him a description of the
secret wireless set, and of the dastardly plot to kill him and dispose
of his body by burying it in the forest.
At once the police official was on the alert, for the Schloss Zenta, he
said, belonged to a certain young Count Böckh, who was a minor, and at
the university of Budapest. He had never heard of the Baron, who had,
no doubt, established himself there unknown to its rightful owner, but
pretending to the servants that he had rented it furnished. This was
later on ascertained to be a fact.
Within an hour urgent telegrams were exchanged between the Ministry
of Police in Budapest and the chief at Nagy-Károly, so that at noon,
when the Baron and Koblitz put in an appearance at the railway
station--intending to fly after finding that Falconer had gone and that
the secret wireless station had been put out of action--they were at
once arrested and sent by the next train under escort to Budapest.
Later, after much inquiry, the police discovered that the
pseudo-Baron--whose real name was Franz Haynald, a well-known
revolutionist--had, with Koblitz and a number of others, formed a great
and widespread political plot, financed by Germany, to effect a union
with Hungary and Bavaria. Austria was to be overthrown, Vienna occupied
jointly by Bavarian and Hungarian troops, and Czecho-Slovakia was to be
blindfolded by creating a revolution in Jugo-Slavia. The idea was, with
the aid of Tzarist Russia, to establish a great “New Germany,” which
was to be more powerful than ever, and become mistress of the world.
This certainly would have been attempted--for the erecting of that
powerful wireless station was one of the first steps--had not Geoffrey
Falconer acted with such boldness and decision.
Haynald, with Françoise--who was the daughter of the man
Koblitz--Koblitz himself, the servant Karl, and twenty others are all
now undergoing long sentences of imprisonment.