The range of speech was even further than what had been anticipated at the Works at Chelmsford. Other wireless systems had been tried by the Swiss Government, and had not come up to the standard required. But here the Marconi Company had scored another success over its competitors.
Since Sylvia’s departure, Geoffrey had often met young Madame Pavlovitch, sometimes on the boat between Alpnach and Lucerne, and sometimes in the streets of Lucerne, for she went there nearly every other day to obtain medicines for her father, she explained. On two occasions he had seen her enter a large detached private house in the Bruchstrasse, not far from the Synagogue. She had not, however, seen him, and he had not mentioned the matter. Yet it seemed apparent that the reason of her visits to Lucerne was to call at the house in question. And further, she always seemed annoyed whenever he met her on the way backwards or forwards along the lake.
One day Geoffrey had returned from the wireless station, and was taking his tea in the lounge, when the hotel manager came to him hurriedly and mentioned that the Colonel had been taken suddenly unwell, and that his daughter could not be found. She had gone to Lucerne after luncheon, he believed.
As the matter seemed one of urgency, and as the young Englishman was going to spend the evening in Lucerne, he resolved while on board the boat to go to the house in the Bruchstrasse, see whether Marya was there, and inform her of her father’s illness.
This he did. A rather tall, elderly man-servant opened the door, and when he inquired for Madame Pavlovitch he ushered him into a cosy, beautifully-furnished room, and without inquiring his name, closed the door and left him.
The room was divided from the adjoining apartment by long white-enamelled folding doors which stood slightly ajar. The man-servant must have forgotten to inform madame of his presence there, for he had been in the room hardly half a minute when into the next room, a big place decorated in white and gold, there came several men who looked like officers in mufti, accompanied by three women, one of whom was little Madame Pavlovitch.
He could not fail to hear what they were earnestly discussing in French. He stood aghast. They were planning the assassination of Andra Nikolitch, the well-known Serbian statesman, who was now President of the Council, and was at the moment staying with the Serbian Crown Prince at the Luzerner-Hof!