The Gay Triangle: The Romance of the First Air Adventurers. Le Queux William
of the camera. To each ran electric wires from a bracket on the wall of the room. The whole of the electrical apparatus was weird and complicated.
There were also on the table two head telephones connected by wires to the horn of what looked like a large phonograph.
“Now, Mr Manton,” said Fédor in a low, intense voice, “I will show you my new apparatus. Mademoiselle Pasquet knows about it.”
Dick was breathless with excitement. Yvette’s story of Fédor’s wonderful invention had filled him with keenest curiosity.
“If you will look through one of the holes in this shutter,” Fédor went on, “you will see, directly opposite, the window of Mestich’s dining-room. The curtains are drawn, but you will see the room is lighted inside. He and his friends have been there for some time; apparently they have been awaiting Horst.” Dick looked through the hole and saw the lighted window. “Now, come and look at the screen,” urged the Count.
As he spoke he touched an electric switch. Immediately a soft purring noise came from the camera and on the screen there showed a vivid well-focused picture of a room with about a dozen men seated round a long table. The interior of the closed room was revealed by the new invention. At the head of the table, facing the camera, sat a big, soldierly man whom Dick at once recognised, from his published photographs, as General Mestich.
Fédor rapidly named the others – Bausch, Horst, Colonel Federvany, leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, several officials of the Galdavian Government and War Office, and two or three Jew financiers, one of whom named Mendelssohn Dick knew to be of international reputation.
The marvellous picture was framed in a solid black outline. It gave a curious effect, just as though one were looking from the darkness into a fiercely lighted cave.
Dick was almost stupefied with astonishment.
“Do you mean to say that that is the room in the house on the opposite side of the road?” he asked.
“Certainly I do,” said Fédor with a grim smile.
“But how is it done?” demanded Dick, aghast. “The shutters are closed here and the curtains drawn on the other side.”
“It’s a new electric ray I stumbled upon quite by accident,” Fédor explained. “I was experimenting, and found it. It passes quite readily through wood, fibre and fabric, in fact through almost anything except stone, mica, and metal. That is why you see only part of the room; the walls cut off everything except the space directly behind the window. If the table were in the corner of the room they would be safe enough – if they only knew!”
“Marvellous!” Dick ejaculated.
“This new ray is projected from these two rods of silenium,” the Count went on, “and for some reason which I cannot explain it follows the direction of the longitudinal axis of the metal. Thus any object at which the rods are pointed is rendered luminous by the ray on the screen, which is coated with the barium sulphate used in X-ray work. It can be photographed by the cinema and we shall have evidence enough to hang the lot.”
Then he paused for a few seconds.
“Now we must begin,” he said suddenly. “They are just about to start. Hold the telephone receivers to your ear. Mademoiselle will look after the cinema.”
Picking up the receiver, Dick heard a voice speaking clearly and earnestly. It was evidently that of General Mestich, who, as he saw by the screen, was on his feet and speaking. The language, of course, he did not understand, but Fédor, who was also listening, became excited and snapped on a switch which started the phonograph. In the meantime Yvette was turning the handle of the cinema camera.
“Here it comes,” Fédor ejaculated a moment later, and Dick saw General Mestich take from his pocket a big blue document which he unfolded and spread on the table before him. Bausch at the same time produced a similar paper.
Then Bausch got to his feet and also spoke briefly. Immediately after the documents were passed round and signed by all present. The treaty was made! But every action of the plotters had been caught by the eye of the camera, and every word they uttered was recorded by the phonograph! The evidence was complete!
“Now, Manton,” said Fédor, “we have all we want except Mestich’s copy of the treaty which will be signed by the German Secretary of State, as well as Bausch and Horst. To get that and get away is your work. I have to stay in Langengrad and I dare not risk being seen and identified. You understand?”
“Of course,” answered Dick. “You have done wonders – absolute wonders! But just tell me how this telephone works.”
“That is Mademoiselle Pasquet’s invention,” replied Fédor. “It is really a secret change-over switch which projects an electric ray which sets the General’s transmitter working even when the receiver is on the hook and the instrument would in the ordinary way be ‘dead.’ It can be put in in three minutes; as a matter of fact I slipped it in one day when I called to see the General and was kept waiting. The main wire from the General’s ’phone to the Exchange passes over the house and it was easy enough to ‘tap’ it with a fine wire that can be pulled away so as to leave no cause for suspicion. I shall do that now; we shall not want it again.”
Soon after, the party opposite began to break up and finally, on the screen, they saw the General standing alone, the treaty in his hand, and a look of triumph and elation on his handsome face. It was the picture of a man who had very nearly reached the summit of his ambitions. A moment later he crossed to the big, high stove, lifted a heavy picture, and slid aside a small door in the panelling of the wall. This disclosed a recess in which the treaty was deposited, the slide was closed, and the picture replaced.
“Clever,” said Dick, “but easy now we know. I thought he would put it in a safe. But how are we going to get it?”
Yvette, who had been silent, interposed.
“I think the General’s house might unexpectedly catch fire,” she said quietly. “That will give Dick a chance to make a dash for the treaty in the confusion.”
“I don’t see any better plan,” Fédor agreed. “It can easily be managed. I have plenty of petrol here, and there is a small leaded window on the ground floor that can be pushed in without making too much noise.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed Dick. “I’ll manage that. I’ll see there’s plenty of confusion.”
“Very well, that is settled,” answered Fédor. “Now I will take Mademoiselle to your car and have everything ready for you to start. It will be touch and go. Here is the phonograph record, with the cinema film rolled up inside it. Take care of them; they are priceless. The film must be developed in Paris.”
Then Fédor produced a can of petrol and thoroughly soaked the room.
“This place is going up to-night,” he explained. “That police agent will know all about it and it will be searched at once. I can’t get my camera away and I don’t want it found.”
As he spoke Fédor was laying a long strip of fuse from the room to the ground floor. Striking a match he lit the end.
“In half an hour the place will be a furnace,” he said coolly.
What to do with the police agent was a problem.
“I can’t kill the fellow in cold blood,” remarked Fédor, “and I can’t leave him here to be burnt alive.”
Finally they dragged the man outside and left him lying in the darkest corner of the alley they could find.
“Some one will find him when the fire starts,” was Fédor’s conclusion.
But some one found him much earlier, and their clemency nearly cost them their lives!
Yvette and Fédor started for the Mohawk and Dick walked swiftly over to the General’s house. It was very late and not a soul was stirring in the now deserted streets. Without difficulty Dick found the leaded window and scarcely troubling about the slight noise he made, forced it partly in, poured in a liberal supply of petrol and flung after it a lighted match. Instantly