She read it, and reread it; then looked at Van Ingen with bewilderment written on her face.
He took the telegram from her hand; it had been readdressed from Falmouth and ran:
"By wireless from Port Sybil. Do not part with book to anybody on any account.
"It means," he said, "that our friend is just two minutes too late."
"This business is a little too hot to hold," said the editor in a final interview with T. B., who had persuaded him to keep back his story, until he had bagged the "Nine Men." "To-night I must tell the whole of the affair."
"To-night," said T. B., "you can tell what you like. I shall have played my stake for good or ill.
"I have been talking with Escoltier; we have got him lodged in Scotland Yard--though you needn't mention that fact in your account--and I think we know enough now to trap the 'Nine Men.'"
"Who are they and what does the 'C.' stand for in 'N.H.C.'?"
"I can only guess," said T. B cautiously. "Do you know anything about wireless telegraphy?" he demanded.
"Well, you know enough to realise that the further you wish to communicate the more electrical energy you require?"
"That much I understand," said the journalist. "The principle is the 'rings on the pond.' You throw a stone into still water, and immediately rings grow outward. The bigger the stone, the farther-reaching the rings."
"At Poldhu," continued T. B., "Hyatt was in charge of the long-distance instrument. As a matter of fact, the work he was engaged on was merely experimental, but his endeavour seemed to be centred in securing the necessary energy for communicating 900 miles. Of course, wireless telegraphy is practicable up to and beyond 3,000 miles, but few installations are capable of transmitting that distance."
"So 'C.' is, you think, within 900 miles of Cornwall?"
"I have a feeling that I know 'C.,'" he said. "I have another feeling that these wireless messages do not come from 'C.' at all, but from a place adjacent. However,"--he took from his pocket a flat exercise book filled with closely written columns of words and figures--"we shall see."
He took a cab from Fleet Street; and, arriving at the block of Government buildings which shelters the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, he entered its gloomy doors.