The wreck of the wave-measuring machine once installed in the
laboratory, every energy was bent towards putting it into perfect
working condition. A maddening task it was. Thrown hither and thither
in the corners of warehouses, the missing parts and waving broken wires
of the apparatus, as it first stood on the laboratory table, gave but
little promise of final renovation. But the possibilities which it
held entranced both Dorothy and Tom. Each day I came up to find them
working. Each night they came back to the laboratory for a few more
hours’ work. The minds of all of us were turning more and more to our
one fixed purpose, the discovery of the man who was trying to stop all
war. The stir and tremor of the tumultuous world around, eager for news
of the dread tragedies, seemed to be but an outside interest, compared
with the tremendous possibilities of running down the individual at the
bottom of this gigantic undertaking.
Gradually the chaos began to take on form. Cylinders of shining metal
rose above the polish of the base. Revolving hemispheres and cones
resumed their original forms or were replaced by reproductions. Broken
wires, replaced by new wire, found their connections. Jones was
indefatigable. He was forever polishing, adjusting, scraping, and his
mild blue eyes behind his big spectacles glowed with enthusiasm, as
he sat gazing at the wave-measuring machine and working on one of its
parts.
On the evening of the fourth day I came up to the laboratory about ten
o’clock, and found Tom making some last adjustments, while Dorothy and
Jones looked on.
“We think we have it,” said Dorothy, as she greeted me. “This is the
last connection.”
“Now that you have it all set up, tell me how it works,” I said.
“You’ve been so tied up in the thing, that I’ve hardly heard a word
from you in a week.”
“Too bad,” answered Dorothy, laughing. “We’ll tell you enough about it
to show you what to expect.”
I leaned over curiously to examine the wave-measuring machine. It stood
on a round table ten or twelve feet in diameter looking not unlike
some fortressed town, such as rises on the banks of many a river in
southern Europe. A belt of broad, shining metal a foot high encircled
it as the gray walls of stone surround the town. Within the belt stood
polished cones and hemispheres, which rose for a height of some two
feet, bringing to mind round towers of fortalice and dwelling within
battlemented walls. Wires, ranged with mathematical preciseness,
completed the comparison by their similarity to streets surmounted
by telegraph wires. The surrounding belt seemed solid, but, as Jones
threw the reflector of a powerful incandescent on it, I could see it
was lined with millions of tiny seams. Tom threw a switch and, to my
surprise, the belt began slowly to revolve about the central portion.
“What’s that belt for?” I asked.
“That’s where the wave of electrical energy enters. It goes into the
interior of the machine through one of those tiny slits which you see.
Once inside, the wave strikes a magnetic coil about a mirror, which
swings when the energy acts upon it, and throws a beam of light down
that scale.” He pointed to the opposite wall.
There, extending from one side to the other of the room, some fifty
feet in all, stretched a scale like a foot rule suddenly grown
gigantic. Its space was covered with divisions, a big zero in the
middle and numbers running up from zero into the hundreds of thousands
and millions on either side. Just at the zero point rested a long
narrow beam of light.
“You see that beam,” Tom went on. “When the waves come into the
machine, they go through as I explained, the machine stops, and the
light goes up or down the scale. The distance that it goes shows how
far away the wave started. The slit through which the wave comes shows
the exact direction from which it comes, and we can get that easily
because the machine stops as the wave goes through. Then, by means
of a certain amount of mathematics, we hope to be able to find just
where a wave comes from. We can adjust the machine so that it will
register anything from a wireless telegraph message through a radium
discharge to the enormously powerful waves which ‘the man’ uses. We
have it adjusted now for the waves which ‘the man’ uses in destroying
battleships. We know something of them from the way in which they
charged the reflectoscopes. That’s the whole thing.”
“One thing more,” I said inquiringly. “If ‘the man’ destroys a
battleship, does the machine stop and the beam of light run down the
scale.”
“Yes,” answered Tom. “That’s just what it does.”
“All right,” I said.
“Now, we’ll start up,” remarked Tom. “Turn off the lights, throw off
the inner insulation,” he commanded, turning to Jones, who obediently
threw a couple of switches.
We were left in partial darkness. On the long scale, on the opposite
side of the room, the single line of light rested at the centre,
illuminating the zero. There was a shaded incandescent in one corner,
which threw no light on the black wall where stood the scale, but gave
a dim radiance sufficient to reveal the belt of polished metal as it
swiftly revolved about the mass within. Dorothy sat near the apparatus.
Jones was puttering with something at one end of the scale, and Tom and
I sat side by side, watching the whole scale. Suddenly the beam swept
swiftly far up the scale, fluttered for a moment and rested on a point.
The moving belt stopped with a slight click.
“That’s it. There’s another battleship gone,” cried Tom, as we all
hurried over to the scale. “Now we can tell just where he is doing his
deadly work. 2, 340, 624. 1401” he read, scrutinizing with a microscope
the scale at the point where the beam rested. “Here, Jones, turn on
the lights. Bring me the logarithm tables, our table of constants, and
Denckel’s table of constants that we found under the middle cylinder.”
Jones ran excitedly across the laboratory, returning with the needed
things. Tom, Dorothy and Jones each sat down to figure while I watched
Dorothy’s nimble fingers, as they flew over the paper, filling sheet
after sheet with computations. What different powers lay in those
little hands. Abstruse calculations vied with bread making, careful
manipulations of delicate instruments with the steering wheel of her
motor car. Last week we had eaten a dinner prepared wholly by her. This
week she was working out one of the great triumphs of modern science.
It seemed almost a shame to confine those talents in a single home--but
yet--and the old train of thought started on its ever recurring cycle.
Suddenly Tom threw down his pen. “Beat you that time, old girl!” he
said. Dorothy gave no heed, but figured on for a minute more. Then she,
too, dropped her pen.
“Want my figures, Tom?” she asked.
“Not yet,” answered Tom. “Wait for Jones. I’ll go and get the maps, and
we’ll work the second step as soon as we have checked these figures.”
Jones worked laboriously on, and Tom had gone and returned, bearing two
huge portfolios, before his task was ended.
“Read off,” said Tom, and a whole series of numerals came from
Dorothy’s lips, at each of which Jones nodded his head. As she ended
she looked inquiringly at Tom.
“Right,” said he. “Now reverse the beam to find the slit.”
Jones brought a small scale, with lights mounted with flexible cords.
He placed it across the beam, sighted through it as Tom threw off the
lights, and, after a brief manipulation, threw a switch. All turned
to gaze at the belt. Through a single slit an almost geometric line of
light shone forth.
“Beautiful! beautiful!” cried Tom; and Dorothy cried, “Oh, Jim! oh,
Tom! we’ve got it.”
My name came first to her hour of triumph. I had time to notice that,
before the lights went on once more. Tom took a dozen hasty readings,
and rapidly read them off. Another period of rapid computation
followed, then one by one, Dorothy leading, they made a swift survey of
maps. More and more anxious grew the trio as they went on. Map followed
map, till Dorothy came to a final one, made her last measurement, and
sat back in apparently complete bewilderment. Tom, by a different
route, reached the same map and drew it from her, shaking his head
vehemently, and Jones, laboring heavily along in the rear, finally
stretched his hand for the same sheet.
“What have you got, Jones?” said Tom sharply.
“Tokio, Japan,” said Jones. “What do you get?”
“Tokio, confound it!” said Tom.
Dorothy sat back in her chair and began to laugh at his disgusted tone.
“Tom, you get excited too easily. How do you know that he may not be
there!”
“I don’t,” growled Tom. “But I don’t believe he’s gone from Brest to
Tokio in ten days, especially when he is to sink a German warship next.”
“But there may be a German warship there,” answered Dorothy.
“There isn’t a first-class German battleship in Asiatic waters to-day,”
I broke in. “I’m following every one, and they’ve all been called in
to home stations within a month, on some excuse of trial mobilization.
They’ve all passed Suez.”
Tom gave a long whistle. “We set the machine for those terrific waves
that ‘the man’ uses. Of course somebody in Tokio might have them, but
it’s improbable. Let’s start her up again.”
Once more the lights were lowered, once more the belt resumed its
revolution, as we watched. Scarcely a minute passed, and the machine
stopped as before, with a click. The beam fluttered for a moment, and
stopped apparently in the same place where it started.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” said Tom, as he hurried over to examine it.
“.0001,” he read off.
“Why, that’s not outside New York. Don’t figure it,” said Dorothy.
“Reverse the beam.”
No sooner said than done, and a slit on the left sprang into light. Tom
stood blankly, his hands deep in his pockets, as he gazed.
“Telephone Carrener in the Physical Laboratory up at U. C. N. Y.” said
Dorothy excitedly. “Ask him what he’s doing now.”
Tom jumped for the telephone, and a rapid-fire volley of calls and
questions followed. As he hung up the receiver, he turned to us
despairingly. “It was Carrener. He’s just been making some radio-active
experiments. The blamed machine registers every strong radio-active
wave that’s sent out anywhere in the world.”
“Then all you’ve got to do is to adjust the apparatus till you get a
new adjustment which will register ‘the man’s’ wave, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes,” snapped Tom, “and it took Denckel three years to get that
adjustment, and there’s no data on how he did it. The rest was easy
compared to this. If we only had that lost manuscript.”
Jones sat huddled in a dejected heap. Dorothy’s cheery face was
downcast. “I must confess,” she sighed, “that I’m afraid the apparatus
isn’t going to be of any immediate use to us without the manuscript.”
“Any immediate use!” sputtered Tom. “The old thing isn’t worth a rap.
It’ll be registering every trolley car that goes by next. We’ve done
every thing we know how to fix it, and it may be ten years before we
find out what’s the trouble. If we only had the Denckel manuscript.”
“Yes, if we only had Denckel’s work,” said Dorothy wearily. “But we
haven’t. There’s no use doing anything more to-night. We’ll go at it
again in the morning.”
The next two days brought no result. The wave-measuring machine would
tell where the waves came from, but it would do nothing towards
separating them. Day after day the reflectoscopes were watched for
the expected sinking of the German ship, but without avail. Change
after change was made in the Denckel apparatus, in the hope that the
next alteration might be the right one, and that it might come in
time to place the man, before the next battleship went down. Saturday
afternoon, the last day of the week in which the man was to sink
the German battleship, we sat as usual in the laboratory. The last
adjustment had been as unsuccessful as the rest, and Tom and Dorothy
sat in deep thought, while Jones was scraping the insulation from some
wire at one side.
“If we only had that manuscript,” said Tom, for the thousandth time,
“but failing it, let’s have another try. Jones, will you bring me that
manuscript? I mean the old table of wave constants we made up last
winter.”
“That’s it,” remarked Dorothy. “His mind is so intent on the manuscript
that he ordered it instead of soup the other day.”
To that maelstrom of papers, his desk, Jones turned to find the needed
table of constants, and, after watching his efforts for a few minutes,
Tom turned to Dorothy.
“Find it, will you, Dorothy? I imagine it’s there.”
Dorothy took command, as Tom and I sat in silence. Suddenly Dorothy’s
clear voice rang out. “Look, look!” and she came rushing across the
room to us, holding aloft a big brown paper package, followed by Jones.
“It’s here, it’s here! Mr. Jones had it in his desk, and forgot to give
it to you.”
Tom cast one look of scorn on the apologetic Jones, as he came slowly
forward.
“You immortal id--” he began, but Dorothy put her hand over his mouth.
“Never mind, dear, it’s here. Don’t waste time. Open it, and see what
it says.”
Scarcely five minutes passed, when Tom cried, “Here it is,” and read
rapidly in German to his assistants. “We can have it in shape in an
hour. There’s just that one missing part that threw us completely off,”
he ended. He looked at his watch. “Five o’clock by London time, and
sometime before twelve, if the man does as he said he would, the German
battleship will be destroyed, if it’s not gone already. We’ve got to
hustle.”
They had worked before eagerly. They worked feverishly now. Even my
unskilled labor was called in, and I held and scraped, polished and
hammered to the best of my limited ability. Six o’clock, seven, eight,
nine, one by one they passed. Tom’s hour had grown to four, and reached
almost to five, ere the last connection was made. He stood back and
threw the switch that set the belt in motion. As the belt revolved, he
glanced at the reflectoscope beside him. “No result there as yet,” he
said reflectively. “I guess we are safe.” Ten had passed, eleven come
and gone, still we waited. Tom had set his laboratory clock to London
time, and as the first stroke of twelve struck he rose, stretching
his arms. “First time he’s mis--” As he spoke, the beam flashed from
the zero well down the board, fluttered as before, and stood still
while the belt stopped. We glanced at the reflectoscopes. Their golden
ribbons had sprung apart and stood stiffly separate. Everything was
at hand this time. Not a word was spoken, but the three bent to
their task, figuring with intense rapidity. Tom and Dorothy finished
together. Jones, just behind, ran his computing rule faster than he had
ever done anything before in my presence. As they ended, Tom spoke.
“The harbor--”
“Of Portsmouth, England,” finished Dorothy, and the other two nodded
gravely. I sat beside the telephone. We had made sure that an operator
who knew that a call was coming sat at the branch exchange, and
without a second’s delay I had the office and had told the news. I held
the wire till the word came back. “O. K. Nobody has heard of it yet. If
it is true, it is another big beat.”
The real gravity of the situation did not come to me with full force,
until I read the accounts in the morning papers. The first news
that appeared of the sinking of His Germanic Majesty’s first-class
battleship, Kaiser Charlemagne, had come from me. The moment my story
was received in the office, they had cabled their London correspondent
in cipher. As soon as the other papers saw the story in our special
edition, they had likewise rushed cables and wireless messages across.
In consequence, a horde of correspondents had descended on Portsmouth
before morning dawned. The night before there had lain in the harbor
three German battleships, the Kaiser Charlemagne, the flagship,
standing farthest out. In the morning there were but two. At first,
half incredulous but yet fearful from the past, the officers of the
German and of the English fleets refused to believe the story, but
the watch on three ships had seen the lights of the German flagship
disappear, and hasty search had proved the fact of her disappearance.
By early morning they were forced to the conviction that the Kaiser
Charlemagne had followed the Alaska, the Dreadnought Number 8 and La
Patrie Number 3.
The cumulative effect of this last blow was tremendous. Before this
the world had been hoping against hope, but now sudden, unreasoning
panic took control. Up to this time the stock markets of the world had
been buoyed up by the support of the great capitalists, and by the
aid of the governments. But they had been growing steadily weaker and
weaker, and the opening of the Exchange in London and of the Bourses
on the continent saw stocks tumbling as never before. All America knew
of the ruin abroad when our stock markets opened here, and a panic day
unparalleled in our financial history began. After a sleepless night
one operator remarked to another, as they walked up Wall Street, “The
sinking of battleships is bad enough, but how much worse if he should
begin to sink merchant vessels.” The market quivered. The next man
passed it on. “How terrible if ‘the man’ should sink the transatlantic
liners carrying gold.” The market trembled. A brokerage house gave
forth the tip. “The man who is stopping all war has declared that he
will sink every transatlantic liner carrying gold, as he considers
gold the sinews of war.” The market shook to its very foundations.
The papers heard the lying news, and published it in scare heads.
The market broke utterly and went plunging to utter destruction.
Industrials and railroads dropped sixty to two hundred points in an
hour. It was one wild scramble, which ended only when no one would buy
at any price whatsoever. The day ended with meetings of ruined men
sending delegates to the various governments, in a first general appeal
for disarmament.
The morning of the second day after the sinking of the Kaiser
Charlemagne showed practically but three things in the papers; the
account of the panic the day before; futile discussions as to the
identity and plans of the man who was trying to stop all war; and
stories of deputations entreating the governments of the various
powers to disarm. Apparently the last months had raised the numbers
of the peace advocates by millions. The papers which had given a few
columns a year to such propaganda now gave pages daily. Other factional
differences became forgotten. The real need for protecting the lives
and property of the nation, the fancied need of protecting commerce,
was the theme of every orator at every meeting.
In one place only were these deputations received with no
consideration. The German Kaiser, the War Lord, bearded by a single
man, stripped of one of his proudest battleships, received all words
regarding peace with utter contumely. All papers agreed in considering
him the chief stumbling block in the way of a universal peace.
I was running over the morning papers when a card was brought to me.
It was that of Ordway, my old Washington friend, who, as private
secretary to the Secretary of War, gave me the message!
“Hullo, Malachi, you old prophet of evil!” he remarked, with a cheerful
grin, as he entered. “Give me an inside tip on the end of the world,
will you? I’ll use it to bear the market.”
“My prophecy shop is closed to-day,” I replied, in his own vein. “What
brings you from Washington?”
“I came wholly to see you,” he said seriously. “The President made me
a special agent to get a line on what you were doing. The report that
came to him from the Attorney General, the time they put you in jail,
whetted his curiosity, so he sent me up here to see things for myself.
Will you let me see Haldane’s machine?”
“Gladly,” I answered, and we started for the laboratory.
“Between ourselves,” remarked Ordway, as we walked from the car, “and
strictly not for publication, there’s the deuce to pay with the Kaiser.
He’s mad as hops about his ship’s going down in Portsmouth Harbor. He
thinks it’s an invidious distinction to have the Kaiser Charlemagne go
down in a foreign port, when the other boats have gone down on their
own shores. He’d declare war on England for sixpence. Things were
strained enough with the commercial rivalry of the last few years, but
they’re at breaking point now. It would take a mighty small straw to
break that uneasy camel’s back.”
Tom and Dorothy were both in the laboratory, and they greeted Ordway
cordially. The especial interest centred in the wave-measuring
apparatus. The polished belt was revolving with regular precision, and
the beam stood fixed at zero.
“I wish you could have been here and seen it work, when the Kaiser
Charlemagne went down,” said Dorothy.
“I wish I might,” answered Ordway.
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when the click and the
springing beam sent my heart into my mouth. Dorothy and Tom sprang for
paper and their data. Ordway looked on in amazement.
“What’s up, Orrington?” he asked. “What did the thing stop for?”
“Another ship has gone down,” I answered; “but of what nation I know no
more than you.”
We waited silently till the computation was ended. Dorothy looked up
with knotted brow. “I make it Portsmouth again. Do you, Tom?”
“So do I,” said Tom. “There must be some mistake. Let’s go over the
figures again.”
Again they obtained the same result, and an hour passed before they
gave up searching for possible errors.
“What are you going to do about it, Orrington?” asked Ordway finally.
“I’m not going to do anything. It must be a mistake.”
“Why not telephone your office and see if they’ve heard anything?”
“I did so. They heard nothing, but promised to telephone me as soon as
they did.”
We had sat for a couple of hours talking when the bell rang, and I
answered. It was the office.
“You slipped up this time, Orrington,” said the man at the other end.
“A German battleship, the Kaiserin Luisa, has just disappeared off
Portsmouth.”
I passed the word to the eager trio.
“That means war between England and Germany,” cried Ordway.
“I believe it does,” I exclaimed, “and I’m going to take the first boat
for London. Here’s just the chance to run him down. He’ll be sure to
stay in one place now. His work will be in the British Channel.”
“We’ll come too,” cried Dorothy, her eyes lighting at the prospect of
the chase. “We’ll bring along the wave-measuring machine, and run him
down at close quarters, won’t we, Tom?”
Tom nodded vigorously. “I’m with you. This man has simply obsessed me.
I can’t do any decent work till I’ve found him.”