Adventure, December 1914 — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Stolen As we stood on the end of the dock Ken- nedy seemed to be engrossed in the study in black. Here and there a moving light might be seen as a boat made its way up or down the bay, but there was no way of determining who or what they were, or whether or not their errands were legitimate. Hunting a needle in a haystack seemed to be mere child’s play to locating the power-boat of Alvarez and those who sought to avoid us. ee SUDDENLY from the darkness a ais long finger of light swept out into the night, plainly enough marked near the source, but diffused and disclosing nothing in the distance as it reached us. “The Yacht Club searchlight!” cried Sinclair. I wondered what might be happening to Burke, whether he might not need us, or, if we tried to go to him, we might not overlook something of importance nearer where we now were. “Yes,” rejoined Kennedy, “Burke has trained the light down the bay in our di- rection.” By the time the beam reached us, though, it was so weak that it was lost. 7 Craig had leaped up on a railing and was capping and uncapping with the brass cover of the case the peculiar glass prism. I looked, uncomprehending, from him down at the wide path of light aimed at us, but apparently of no avail. “What are you doing?” I asked hastily. _ “Signaling with the triple mirror,’ he called back, still busy with the prism. “I thought we might have to use some means of communicating and I had this apparatus sent up here for the purpose. I hope Burke hasn’t forgotten the code—it is simple enough.” I looked out again in the darkness, half expecting to see a ray of light, I suppose, emanating from us in the direction of Burke. Of course there was nothing. Rapidly but deliberately Kennedy kept at work, which to us looked as futile as if he had tried to shout something over the distance with a megaphone. Sinclair was more frankly sceptical than I, although he said nothing. He took a few steps toward the Streamline as if that were something tangible in which he could put faith. “Tl be ready in a moment, Sinclair,”’ War Secret 45 shouted Kennedy. “Just wait till I get Burke started.” Sinclair waited impatiently. ‘“‘What would have been the matter with using wireless?” he remarked more to me than to Craig. Craig overheard it. “In this case the triple mirror is even better than wireless,” he hastened, still working with it. ‘“‘Besides, wireless re- quires heavy and complicated apparatus. This is portable, heatless, almost weightless —a source of light depending for its power on another source at a great distance.”’ I wondered how Burke could ever be expected to detect such a feeble ray as came from the triple morror, but said nothing. “Even from a rolling ship,” continued Kennedy, alternately capping and uncap- ping the mirror, “the beam of light which this prism reflects always goes back, un- erring, to its source. It would do so, Sin- clair, from an aeroplane so high in the air that it could not be located.”’ Sinclair now for the first time seemed in- terested. He was scientist enough to ap- preciate that it was something new in the application of the laws of light that Kenne- dy was using. “Tt must be tremendously accurate,” he remarked, his scepticism shaken. “It is. The returning beam is invisible to any one not immediately in the path of the ray, and you can see what a slight chance there can be of some one being so situated. The ray always goes to the observer. It is simply a matter of pure mathematics, practically applied. The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. You recall how no matter how you looked into the prism you saw your reflection accurately?” ‘““YVes, but when you are dealing in miles it must be a very different matter,” per- sisted Sinclair. “There isn’t a variation of a foot in two miles,’’ asserted Kennedy confidently. Sinclair subsided, convinced at last. Craig had finished flashing his quick message along the invisible beam -of the searchlight. _ “What message did you send hime” I asked. “T told him simply that they were trying to avoid us and asked him to watch the roads away from the hotel and cottage. I said that we could take care of the bay, if he would show the lights.”’ MICLOOOK CO