“Not to go East! How strange!” Geoffrey remarked.
“Yes; it’s a bit uncanny--isn’t it? He repeated it several times, and then added the words: ‘Anyone hearing this urgent message, will they kindly give it to Geoffrey Falconer at Warley, Essex, England?’”
“Some silly ass having a joke,” laughed Falconer. “I heard the other day that some horrible spook message was given by a practical joker over the radiophone, and the fellow who heard it, being a spiritualist, nearly died of fright. Perhaps it’s the same fellow up to his tricks again!”
“Perhaps. We’ll listen again for him, and if he gives any more warnings we’ll put the direction-finders on him, and he’ll very soon have his license taken away--if he has one,” said Jerrold.
“Well, it’s curious,” exclaimed Geoffrey laughing. “I wonder why I’m forbidden to go East, and what peril is in store for me?”
“Ah! that I don’t know. The message was given at twenty-eight minutes past three. So we’ll listen to-morrow at the same time, and on the same wave-length.”
“Right-o!” said Falconer, hanging up the receiver and then strolling back into the garden, wondering what the message really meant.
He had no intention of going East, save that he had a week before received instructions to proceed to Lucerne, where, close by, on the Tomlishorn, the highest peak of the Pilatus, above Alpnachstad, the Marconi Company were erecting a one-and-a-half kilowatt telephone and telegraph set ordered by the Swiss Government, the set used at the meeting of the League of Nations at Geneva having proved such a great success.
Lane, one of the engineers, was already out there, and he had been ordered to follow him and superintend the fitting and testing of the station before it was handed over to the Swiss authorities. Switzerland certainly lay to the East, but what mysterious peril awaited him there was certainly obscure. At first he grew a trifle anxious in view of his previous adventures, but later that evening he decided that it was some amateur who, having learned of his impending departure, was playing a practical joke. Yet curiously enough only about three or four people at the Marconi Works knew of the order he had received.
At dinner that night he mentioned the incident to the Professor, but both decided that it was only some silly joke.