CHAPTER XLVIII

Mr. Baxter Becomes Converted to a Hypothesis

Baxter looked at Halsey patiently.

“Why? Wasn’t it to get fresh country butter and eggs?”

“No,” said Halsey. “It was because through McCollum, or some other agent of the Revolutionists, it has been ‘fixed’—was ‘fixed,’ in all probability, nearly a year ago—with an Indian up in Canada to turn a thing called a Master Pulsator every day—God knows just what time of day or night, however—toward Mexico, and in line with a town which has been occupied by the Revolutionists since practically the beginning of the struggle—a town which holds another Master Pulsator, in quite perfect working condition. Don’t look incredulous. ‘Bloody Juan’ has plenty of technical experts in his army.” He paused a second. “And to continue with the answer to your question, because the Revolutionists, powerfully backed financially as they are, have been hemmed in with a military steel ring, and because there have been censors in every radio station in America, killing off every thing that might constitute code information to Bloody Juan. Because two of these pulsators, once synchronized with each other by a few simple movements across each other’s path, and proven to be so synchronized by a very simple test, provide a literal private air cable over which any kind of communication can be handled on so little as 5-watts of power. Because, Artemus, to be exact, the two stations create a peculiar ether stress, or conductive band, in which—if you can get a copper rod into it anywhere—hum, now that’s a little bewildering—what’s he doing to accomplish that?—that band is a buckled-up affair with tremendous convolutions, with even their bottoms far, far above the earth—hum—hum—”

“Never mind the humming. I’ll take this stuff on trust. You seem to know what you’re talking about. And that string you just laid out seems to bear something out—whatever ’tis. But why did our man rent the Keegan farm, say, rather than—”

“Because,” interrupted Halsey, “at some specific hour of the day—or night—dependent upon a convenient time already, ‘fixed’ with an Injun electrical engineer in Canada, Mr. McCollum, having previously made string tests of his own on some large globe, perhaps down in Mexico with his own brother fielding the ball of twine—who knows?—because as I started out to say, Mr. McCollum traveled at a certain hour over the Western outskirts of Chicago in a plane, hired or privately owned by some pro-revolutionist Mexican sympathizer—it does not matter!—found that somewhere over the Keegan estate—over various other farmlands, too, which were not so susceptible to being rented—a tiny tube of ionized mercury-vapor affixed to his coat, or held in his hand, broke into a glow, showing that he was in the ether stress be— It’s no use,” he broke off. “I’ll have to explain it all to you scientifically.”

And with that, and some pencil and paper, on which he made copious diagrams, he gave Baxter a 15-minute talk about synchro=half-wave-length dephased pulsations, about which he knew quite nothing, and about Master and Co-Pulsators, of which he now knew considerable, and about the shape, structure, and characteristics of the so-called ether-stress beam which had been depicted and described to him yesterday by Braisted. The newspaperman listened to it all gravely, studying the diagrams intently. He spoke.

“Well, Halse, you’ve got it. McCollum’s the center as well as the head of the network of pro-Cifuentes agents in America, and he’s keeping himself at that Keegan farm because it gives him somehow a chance to be in continuous—well, maybe not continuous, but we’ll say daily—communication with those hedged-in Revolutionists. Gosh, no wonder, Halse, the revolution has been so long drawn out! They’re getting from 15 minutes to perhaps 30 minutes daily of vital information shot down to them, information drawn from hot, live military news despatches published practically hourly in every edition of the Chicago papers—and from letters, ingeniously coded telegrams, news and innocent tittle-tattle of all sorts coming up to various people in the U.S.A. from Mexican secret agents, relatives of American Mexicans, fat Spanish mamas, gossiping Mexican maids, all located in Almedo’s territory. Neat! It all eventually reaches Cifuentes agents here in the clannish little Mexican communities in every big city, in the big railroad camps employing Mexican labor only, gets wired or phoned in by long distance to McCollum, in code, most probably, gets sorted out a bit, and then, wheat and chaff, chaff and wheat, is dished by McCollum right into Juan’s porridge bowl! Neat! Of course, Halse, me—I’m emotionally confused! President Almedo of Mexico, I happen to know, is a rotten beast—he doesn’t truly deserve recognition—but on the other hand, ‘Bloody Juan’ has forfeited all respect a revolutionist commander could ever have. He’s conceded to be worse than Villa ever was. And you don’t remember Villa, I take it! But let my conflicting emotions be disregarded. I’m only a hound of the Press.” Baxter shook his head admiringly. “So Bloody Juan’s had a nice private wire to the outside all this past year? Radio station censors—no wonder Almedo finally demanded ’em under Clause 52. He must have been nearly crazy at the way ‘Bloody’ was checkmating him at every move. Hm! 15 minutes a day to talk—30 minutes, possibly—and yet, Halse, you say this Braisted claims that a plane trying to cut through that curved, buckled-up invisible stress beam—or a gyro drifting downward through it—would be in it, then out of, then in it again—then—”

“Yes. Braisted said that information picked out of the beam that way would be in segments. Same would, I’d say, immutably apply to information sent into it. Radio waves generated extraneously to the beam, he says, like those, Artemus, emanating from the antennae of any or all the radio broadcasting stations in either Canada or Mexico, and the United States included, of course, don’t pierce it even though they may pass right between its convolutions, over, or under it. A sort of skin tension in the thing, as it were. Or surface tension. Braisted said it was something not clear even to the physicists. But you have to get right into it to pluck—or send—even if you’re right Johnny-on-the-Correct-Spot where the very fronts of the Pulsators are. Once in it, however, a thousand miles of the fool beam, or band, up-and-down stretches of its convolutions included, is almost resistless to a mere few watts of radiating power. So much so, I gathered, that radiating energy flows in and along the beam, rather than expanding outward spherically. That’s what makes it so confoundedly private and non-interfering, as well as directive. But as I say, the beam, Braisted claims, in addition to being about a sixth of a mile up in the air—that is, the bottoms of its convolutions are there—the tops are probably in heaven!—is only about 30 feet thick, in any average cross section. If you sail longitudinally through it, therefore, you’re naturally in it—then out of it—then in it again. Hence any information you might send would have to be in segments. Q.E.D.”

“Hm! Excuse me. Now it’s myself that’s humming. Well, don’t forget that a plane with a sending set on it would have a straight 600 feet or so to glide widthways—or transversely—across the beam—if the figures you put on this diagram are correct. Then, by turning, it would have another 600 feet back again—”

“If it could immediately find the beam again after turning! Don’t forget, that beam’s invisible, except to a tube of ionized gas. And 600 feet is covered mighty rapidly by a plane, Artemus, whether with motors on—or motors off.”

“Yes. True. Well, the Dutchman was emphatic in stating that no planes made any landings or ascents around about there. A pretty quiet stretch of country, in fact, it appears to be. He says there’s not even an air-mail route over it. And he claimed he was a light sleeper, as well! When he started to tighten up on me, you know, I began to pose as a real estator, wanting to talk possible sub-dividing, looking for a farm owned by a prominent sportsman who flew into town each day in a Cado-Merling one-seater.”

“Well, if the light-sleeping Dutchman never has seen a plane—nor heard the characteristic roar of taking off or zooming down, then McCollum probably has none on those particular premises. And if he hasn’t, I’d say he has a very good reason for not keeping one right there, namely that he doesn’t want Federal plane inspectors around there. You know how those fellows are. They pick up a plane in mid-air. Follow it. Drop down with it. Ask to see its license. Examine its safety devices. If it’s a private landing field, they give that the once-over as well. Then they write out a police ticket—or an O.K. and hop off. And McCollum doesn’t want any plane inspectors dropping down on the Keegan grounds.”

“I believe you’re right. He may have a private hangar a mile or two away. I think he cuts into the beam by a series of transverse glides, with motors off. Well, we’ll have to let that angle rest. Old man, you’ve uncovered plenty with your string and two thumbtacks. That wouldn’t mean anything in itself though, you know; a string connecting two points has to pass over an infinite number of intermediary points. That’s mathematics! But taken in conjunction with the fact that we know that a member of the Frantzius family—a half-brother of ‘Bloody Juan’—is in Chicago—boy, we’re building one big case.”

The two men were silent for a few minutes, both staring into space. At length Baxter spoke.

“Well, Halse, sportswriter though you are, I concur with you that that Canadian pulsator is being swung daily for 10 minutes or so—15 minutes—30 minutes—Lord knows how long—toward Mexico. But just when, in the whole 24 hours, is it being done? That’s the question. You say the beam, when lying longitudinally across Eastern Canada, or in lower Mexico, makes no interference with Canadian or Mexican radio waves?”

“So I—corroborated by Mr. Braisted, E. E., electrical engineer—said! They flow between the convolutions, under, around and over the beam. It’s just an invisible, impervious ribbon in the air which might cause interference, I would presumably judge, only to some receiving antenna right close to it. But the average U.S.A., Canadian or Mexican house roof isn’t very near that ribbon, I take it?”

“No. Well how about the power output curve of that Nippiginic River Station?”

“I gather that would show nothing. The main power, Braisted said, is used to start the pulsating. But once started, it takes very little electrical energy to keep it going.”

“All right. Then chances are that the Canadian beam is swung across the U.S.A. just before it swings eastward to either Paris or London for the use of some business outfit employing it regularly—daily—or after it’s finished—and the outfit in question pays for all the starting charges.”

“Yes. Or the bulk of the power may be generated in the station at St. Bonafacio, Mexico—and the Canadian Master-pulsator may function in this affair only as a co-pulsator. But now I’m getting over my head.”

“Lord—I as well! We are a pair of infants in this stuff, Halse, aren’t we? Well, we’ve got to wangle our way to some idea of the time this is being done.”

“Well, thanks to a little informal and quite impromptu information I got yesterday at the Electrical Manufacturers’ Temple—that, my dear Artemus, is why I’m so confoundedly up myself on Mexican revolutions, radio beam schedules, ever’thing!—I can tell you a certain time that the beam—or shall I say the Canadian pulsator?—is not directed toward Mexico.”

“When?”

“Last night. Wednesday night, in fact, every week. Practically all of the night, too. The beam, on Wednesday nights, is in continuous connection with London from 8 in the evening, Chicago time, till 4 next morning, Chicago time, while the pictures in the Midweek Pictorial and International News Weekly of 39 Fleet Street are telephotoed across, and the text is set up automatically on American Mergenthaler linotype machines in New York City, letter for letter as it gets set up in London, by some kind of synchronized linotypes connected by straight wires between Broadway and Nippiginic River, and working with perforated ribbons and compressed air.”

“Then if actual night time—or dark—is the time McCollum does his daily communication, that would mean he would not have had any communication last night with Mexico?”

“Yes. Unless he has a way of getting a word or two through, on Wednesday nights, by way of some program on some powerful American broadcasting station. But the censors—”

“Are pretty well on the job. What goes out has to be legit. And he wouldn’t try to fix a censor, I imagine, just to take care of his needs for Wednesday nights. Hm! If his time to communicate is night, then maybe Wednesday nights are vacation nights for August and Juan. Like a day of retreat in a Catholic convent! If so, they’d have an accumulation of business for Thursday night, wouldn’t they? In other words, they’d be raring to chew the fat tonight, wouldn’t they?”

“Well—I suppose—yes.”

“All right. Now what else do you know about the definitely daily scheduled times for this Canadian beam to be in connection with London—or with Paris?”

“Well, there’s a nightly—nightly, except Wednesdays, of course—contract for use of the beam between the London Times editorial offices and the New York Times syndicate, for thirty solid minutes. From—now wait till I figure this all out in Chicago time.” Halsey subtracted 6 hours from the London figures he had overheard discussed between Sir Alfred Leets and Harwood, the Regent Theatre stage manager. “That would be, Artemus, from 10 to 10:30 p.m. And as I understand it, it is not possible to connect up any further London business after that—I got all this from a certain discussion about the possibility of resuming that proposed televised London performance of Hamlet after a half hour gap, see?—for the reason that the beam swings entirely off from London to face the Paris co-pulsator on another nightly-except-Wednesday contract with some French newsbureau acting as European correspondent for the Chicago Tribute News Syndicate at Chicago here.”

“Some news bureau, eh? Didn’t get the name?”

“No. Not given.”

“Hm! That swinging off from London to Paris at that moment may be in actuality a werry big swing, Halse—a swing clear to Mexico! Perhaps that Paris news bureau doesn’t come in till 15 minutes—30 minutes later, when the Master Pulsator swings back from Mexico as far as Paris. Well, I wouldn’t try to get information from the Tribute, or the World’s Greatest Nuisance, for it hates the Sun since the Sun outran it in circulation and prestige all in 9 short years. They wouldn’t give a Sun man anything but phoney information at best. On top of that, they might smell a rat. Yessir, Halse, it might be that there’s 15 minutes to a half hour between swings! Like a strip of cheese snugly tucked between two slices of good rye bread. Well, we’re getting nowhere here, just surmising, and surmising, when the swing-swangs and swang-swings take place. We don’t even know yet what the procedure is that’s followed out on Keegan Road. Now let’s see. We’ll follow up another line. Maybe we’ll catch something to corroborate something we already have.”

Baxter pondered.

“Halse, I know Isham Venn well. Well enough, in fact, to call him ‘Ish’! He’s chief engineer in charge of the big American super-monitor station at Grand Island, Nebraska. Yes, that’s the station they call the Radio Traffic Cop of America. As you may or may not know, Grand Island, Nebraska, is the geometrical center of the United States, and on top of that the receiving capabilities of that station—the sensitivity, I mean—is 200 times greater than the most sensitive home receiving set ever constructed. It’s on grounds bristling with antennae, covering 50 acres. It’s in fixed constant wire connection with all the sub-monitor stations in America, who are thus, you see, put in fixed connection thereby with each other. And the sub-monitor stations, I understand, are in radio communication with the subsubs or monitor planes which cruise out from each one. A real detective bureau of the air, and no foolin’! Venn, you know, used to be in charge of the sub-monitor station and its fleet of planes, located at Wheaton, Illinois. That’s where I met him. We might pick up something through him that would throw a light connecting up our data with our present hypothesis.” He glanced at the phone on the little table. He raised the instrument up. “Long distance, please.” He paused, then: “Give me Grand Island, Nebraska, please, the U.S. Radio Monitor Station, Isham Venn.” He spelled it out. “Yes. Tower 22222.” He replaced the instrument.

“Wish you had an audi-talker,” he said grumpily. “I hate to rehearse everything people say to me. And if this bird starts to talk to me about heterodynes and mu’s, and wave frequencies, I’m a goner so far as repeating it.”

“Well, don’t you see that little insulated wire leading back from that telephone cradle base?” inquired Halsey. “Yes, going down and back of the table.” He stepped over to that piece of furniture in question, and brought up from a little shelf on it, obscured by the hanging table cover, a small box-like affair containing a large diaphragm of some sort built into it. He blew off the dust from both box and diaphragm. “Here you are. This audi-talker has been connected with this particular instrument since long before even I took possession of this room. I don’t use it of course. Why in Sam Hill should I ever need an audi-talker? Now here—see this double button in the cradle base?—push the one that’s now out, and the telephone handpiece becomes a transmitter only: the audi-talker then shouts out the received stuff.”

“Good,” said Baxter. “I—” And at that instant the bell rang. He answered it, pressing the little button Halsey had indicated. And Central’s voice came loudly out of the audi-talker.

“Grand Island, Nebraska, waiting. Mr. Isham T. Venn on the wire.”