Death on the Lizard (8 page)

Looking around, Charles could see how the accident might have happened. The building was not as well lighted as it might have been—just twin bare bulbs, hanging from the ceiling. It would be tragically easy to step off a mat, or make contact with an object carrying a heavy charge. A split-second's inattention, an instant's carelessness, even an accidental spill of water could lead to a sudden and grisly death.

“The constable's been here, I suppose,” Charles remarked.

“Tom Deane, yes.” Corey looked again at Bradford. “Mr. Marconi—he'll be coming? We need to get the station operating again and the work sorted out. With Mr. Gerard gone—”

“Mr. Marconi is lecturing at the Royal Institution and meeting with a group of French investors,” Bradford said sourly. “He asked me to tell you that you're in charge until he gets here.”

Corey's face lightened, as if this were the news he'd been waiting for. “Very good, sir,” he said eagerly. “As I'm sure you'll remember, I was the man who got the towers in place and the aerial back up in time to send that first signal across the Atlantic. When Mr. Marconi thinks about it, I'm sure he'll—” He stopped, straightened, and all but clicked his heels together. “You can count on me, sir. I'll do my best for the company. My very best.”

“Of course,” Bradford said heartily. “That's all we can expect, you know. Your best.”

“Has the inquest been scheduled?” Charles asked.

“I b'lieve it's tomorrow.” Corey looked glum. “The constable can tell you. Can't see much point in an inquest, but I s'pose the rules must be followed.”

“What about—” Charles looked around the room for a desk or writing table. Failing to see it, he said, “Mr. Gerard must have kept a notebook about the operation here, or a diary. Where might we find it, do you suppose?”

“A notebook?” Corey frowned. “Well, I don't—”

“He kept a detailed diary,” Bradford said. “It'll be in the station office, at the Poldhu Hotel.” And then his eyes widened. “Good God, the tuner! We need to locate it immediately. And the diary, too, of course. Come on.” He started toward the door. “Thanks for your help, Corey,” he tossed over his shoulder. “We'll talk again, as soon as more of the details are clear.”

“What's this about a tuner?” Charles said as they walked toward the hotel. “Is that what Marconi was talking about yesterday? The device Admiral Fisher is coming here to see?”

“Right. It's something Gerard has been working on for the past six or eight months. I'm a dunce when it comes to the technical details of this sort of thing, so I can't tell you much, except that it's designed to reduce interference and secure messages from interception.” Bradford gave Charles a sidewise glance. “And of course, it's all quite hush-hush, because Marconi hopes that the Admiralty will be interested. I don't mind telling you, we're pinning our hopes on this thing.”

At the hotel, the key was obtained from the desk clerk, who took it off a numbered rack on the wall. Bradford led the way to a second-floor room. “It's impossible to hold any meetings in the transmitting station because of the noise and lack of privacy,” he said as they went down the hall, “so we rented these rooms for an office and laboratory. We needed more security, too. Over there, workmen and operators and electricians are coming and going all the time. Hard to work on a secret project when you've got people looking over your shoulder.” He unlocked the door.

The office was a large, well-lighted space from which the bed and other domestic furnishings had been removed. There was a roll-top desk in one corner and a conference table and several chairs in front of the windows, as well as a sideboard stocked with brandy, port, and whiskey. There were neat stacks of papers on the table, the walls were covered with maps dotted with brightly colored flags, and wooden shelves held reference volumes and boxes of spare equipment. The door to another room stood open, and Charles could see a work table, littered with pieces of equipment, wires, and small parts—the laboratory, where Gerard had been working on his secret device. Why, Charles wondered, had the laboratory door not been kept locked?

Bradford pointed to the desk. “The diary's in the top drawer. You'll find the key in the empty inkwell.”

But when Charles approached the desk, he saw that there was no need of the key. The top drawer had been pried open, apparently with a sharp instrument. He bent closer, frowning intently. The desk was old, and the thick varnish was crazed and rough, like the skin of an alligator. Not the kind of surface where one was likely to find fingerprints, unfortunately.
²

He straightened and said, over his shoulder, “Look here, Marsden. The drawer's been forced.”

“Forced?” Bradford looked up from the work table in the laboratory, where he seemed to be searching for something. “Let me have a look.” He stopped what he was doing and came to the desk. “By Jove, you're right.” His voice was heavy with unease. “Perhaps Gerard lost the key and had to pry it open. It's a red leather diary. It ought to be easy to find.”

But it wasn't. After looking through the entire desk, they had to conclude that there was no diary. And a moment later, when Charles and Bradford went into the laboratory, it was equally clear that the tuner—the project Gerard had been working on for the past several months, the project the Admiralty was especially interested in—was not to be found.

Bradford's expression was grim. “This is bad,” he said, shaking his head, “
very
bad. That tuner—why, it's priceless! And the diary contains valuable proprietary information, which any of our rivals would be delighted to get his hands on. The outer door is kept locked at all times, and when the tuner was removed for testing, Gerard kept it under his tightest personal control. So what the devil did he do with it? And where is the bloody diary?”

“Perhaps,” Charles said, “he didn't do anything with them.”

Bradford scowled. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“That they've been stolen.”

“But the door was locked,” Bradford protested. “There was no sign of a forced entry.”

Charles laughed shortly. “Think, man! The key was hanging in plain sight behind the hotel desk. Anyone could have taken it.”

Bradford stared at him for a moment. “Hell and damnation,” he said quietly.

CHAPTER SIX

 
 
 
 
Guglielmo Marconi had demonstrated what the newspapers called his “magic box” all over the world, but his favorite venue was the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, off Piccadilly. There, he could always count on an interested and supportive audience which would hang upon his every word: amateur and professional scientists eager to learn about the latest innovation in wireless telegraphy; the informed public, which was fascinated by the rapidly changing world of communication; and a substantial number of attractive and wealthy ladies, some of whom were regular habitues. Science, it seemed, was an alluring topic, and a handsome, unmarried scientist—especially one with Marconi's fame and fortune—was a highly desirable prize.

Marconi had always had a sharp eye for the fairer sex, and he especially enjoyed it when women besieged him after his lectures, begging him to autograph their programs, clamoring for a private word. Nattily dressed and faultlessly groomed and quite the ladies' man, he occasionally asked the prettier ones out to dinner, and every now and then something interesting came of it.

Not long ago, for instance, he had become engaged to an American woman named Josephine Holman. A shipboard romance, it had been. They had been introduced on the first night out of New York and Marconi had been immediately smitten. In science, he was cool and deliberate: “I am never emotional,” he said, when asked how he felt when he heard that first faint wireless signal from far across the Atlantic. But in matters of the heart, he was a passionate, impulsive lover, given to wild and all-consuming infatuations. By the time the
St. Paul
docked in Southampton, he had persuaded Josephine Holman to accept his proposal of marriage.

Marconi's prospective in-laws, however, held a privileged place in the social world of Indianapolis, Indiana, and were not enthusiastic about the prospect of their Josephine marrying an Italian, even (or perhaps especially) one who cut so dashing an international figure and who appeared so frequently in the newspapers' society pages.

And Marconi had to acknowledge his own ambivalence. He dreamt of marriage, but he knew himself to be a man easily tempted by female charms and hardly discreet in his romantic affairs. He wavered a bit too long, and Josephine broke off the engagement, remarking enigmatically, “There have been disasters on both sides.” The commitment at an end, Marconi was forced to console himself with the ladies he met in London. Not a bad alternative, when he thought about it, for while Josephine's American connections would have undoubtedly benefited Marconi Wireless, the London ladies were stunning—and willing, into the bargain. What's more, they were
here,
and not in Indianapolis, which had to be admitted as a distinct advantage.

Marconi had looked forward to the Wednesday night lecture at the Royal Institution, because among the other special attendees (the French investors whom he had wooed that afternoon and who now seemed eager to consummate their affair by investing heavily in his company) he was expecting Miss Pauline Chase. He and Miss Chase had met at dinner at Lord Lonsdale's the previous week and had immediately hit it off, for she was not only exceptionally beautiful, but interested in his work and eager for his attention, a combination which never failed to excite Marconi. By the end of the evening, she was calling him “Marky” and he was calling her “Paulie,” and he had been allowed to see her home. After another dinner together, he had asked her to attend his lecture at the Royal Institution and invited her to visit the Poldhu station with him. It would be an opportunity for the two of them to get better acquainted, he said, and she had agreed with a flattering enthusiasm.

But the news of Daniel Gerard's death had changed everything. Instead of being excited about tonight's lecture and the prospect of a new and stimulating love affair, Marconi was anxious and depressed. He and Daniel had been colleagues since Marconi arrived in England in '96, and Marconi had been closer to him than to anyone else. Daniel had been there when Marconi demonstrated his apparatus to the Post Office and to the War Office in '97. He'd been Marconi's right-hand man on Salisbury Plain, and at the Bristol Channel trials, and on board the
Carlo Alberto
. He had helped to design the “jigger” which had earned Marconi his famous “four-seven” patent, and the new tuner—the device which would revolutionize wireless—was really his idea.

As head of the company, Marconi took (quite naturally, he thought) the credit for the designs and achievements of the men who worked under him. But even though he would never say so publicly, he had to admit to himself that Gerard had been his match—oh, more than his match. Marconi knew himself to be a competent inventor, tireless and extraordinarily patient when it came to details, but it was Gerard who had a truly inventive imagination, Gerard who could see what was needed and make it happen, Gerard who could take the crudest instrument and make it sing and dance and click its heels. Now Gerard was dead, and Marconi was in despair. He felt as if both his arms had been chopped off. But the show had to go on. Customers, investors, other scientists, and the public at large could not be allowed to suspect that there were any problems, or that the company might not be able to deliver what it promised.

So Marconi put aside his fears, assumed a confident bearing, and stepped through the curtains and onto the lecture platform. Seeing that the Royal Institution's lecture hall was full and noticing the French investors and the science writer from
The Times,
he felt somewhat better. Seeing Miss Chase, splendid in a garnet evening suit with an extravagant sweep of garnet ostrich feathers on her hat, a matching boa around her neck, and a delicious smile on her pouty lips, he felt even better. He made a modest bow as Professor Werthen completed the generous introduction, stepped to the podium, and signaled for the curtain, which opened to reveal his assistant, Arthur Blok, who was managing the demonstration.

Marconi was lecturing tonight on the important topic “Resonance and Tuning in Wireless Telegraphy.” Everyone knew that the ability to tune a telegraphic receiver to a specific wavelength was the most urgent technical challenge facing wireless science. As long as the signal could be picked up by anyone with a receiver, wireless offered no privacy or confidentiality. This meant that the world's military and commercial enterprises, fearing that their enemies and rivals would eavesdrop on their secret communications, were reluctant to trade the privacy of cable for the convenience and low cost of wireless. And even if it were not for eavesdroppers, there was the problem of interference. As long as there were only a few stations owned and operated by Marconi, there was little chance that their signals would interfere. But wireless stations and wireless systems were proliferating, and so was interference.