Evidently Lenin had established an entirely new lie-factory for Britain only.
Night after night Falconer, after his return from the works, listened for Moscow--at seven o’clock and at nine-thirty on “spark,” and at ten-fifteen on continuous-wave. The latter was, however, absent. It had apparently been cut off, and the new anti-British station substituted.
Though Geoffrey saw Sylvia constantly, he said nothing to her regarding the problem. Often when up at Marconi House he met her at half-past five and they had tea at the Savoy or the Carlton, after which he caught his train back into Essex, there to spend the evening in calculating and devising all sorts of new “gadgets,” with the object of improving wireless telephony--the science which must, in the near future, revolutionise commercial communication.
The difference in the strength of signals from the new station of Soviet Russia, as heard in his telephones, puzzled him intensely. As an expert he felt that there was something unusual--hence, to an experimenter, of outstanding interest.
Therefore, he set to work to determine, if possible, the exact location of Lenin’s latest wireless station. With that object he one evening travelled to Lowestoft, and at the direction-finding wireless station there beside the sea, had a long chat with the engineer-in-charge. The station is normally used by aircraft to locate their position if in any difficulty with fog while passing between the terminal aerodrome at Croydon to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, or other Continental cities. The two direction-finding stations worked in conjunction, one at Chelmsford and one at Pevensey, on the marshes between Eastbourne and Hastings--a triangle between which the sources of a wireless call can be plotted, and exactly determined.
For an hour Geoffrey discussed the problem with Mr. Finlay, the engineer, who at once volunteered to assist. Then Falconer left, and two days later arrived at the Pevensey station, down upon the pebbly beach. Here, too, the engineer-in-charge was eager to render assistance.
Geoffrey and he were walking over the beach at the edge of the sea, smoking their pipes in the afternoon sunshine.
“I’ll call you up from Chelmsford on Thursday night--if the mysterious station is transmitting then,” Falconer said. “Listen, and you will no doubt hear him on about four thousand seven hundred mètres--a rather high-pitched note. If he is going I will call you up on Morse and signal ‘Forty-four.’ I’ll do the same to Lowestoft. Then you can plot with Chelmsford where he is located.”