The box from japan, p.58
The Box from Japan, page 58
“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.”
CHAPTER XLIX
Tittle-Tattle of Ether Land
Holding the telephone instrument by its now useless receiving end, Baxter extended the other end ridiculously in front of his lips, wielding it somewhat as a pointer, gripping it as one might a half-peeled banana.
“Hello Ish? This is Baxter—of the Morning Sun. Yeah, Chicago.”
“Hullo, Bax. What are you calling up about?”
“Just to inquire, Ish, how you like your new promotion to being head radio traffic copper?”
“Not so good, Bax. I used to get a plane ride now and then when I was in charge at Wheaton. Here all I do, it seems, is to sit in the office and prepare legal cases to send folks to the penitentiary.”
“Anything interesting in illicit transmission, Ish? I’m shy on copy these days, you know!”
“Oh—nothing much, Bax. Fellow named Punkindinger—you might get a humorous headline out of the name—caught broadcasting last week from the top of an old abandoned mill in Ohio. Had an antenna wire stretched to the limb of a maple tree. Fellow was using a thermionic triode he’d had ten years. Bought back in 1933. Regular curio, but it could throw out the etheric ripples all right. You know, Bax, we know fairly well where most every transmitting triode, or oscillator, made today is. Or its wreckage in case it’s got smashed. Uncle Sam’s jealous about people holding oscillating tubes, and he registers every one and makes folks sign all along the line. Well, Punky was sending out slanderous vilification around the countryside. Couldn’t get very far—didn’t have the power—but he didn’t want to get further than his own environs anyway. We nabbed him. He just got 3 months for libel—and 3 years for broadcasting without a license!”
“Ow!”
“Another fellow, in Montana, named Stevens, had it in for a newspaper, and played interference only, with the newspaper’s station. He’d stolen his triode tube. It had been reported stolen weeks before. We got him the second night. Two years for that baby! He went down to the pen yesterday.”
“Ow! Anything else, Ish? Copy, for God’s sake, copy!”
“Nothing else, I guess. Oh yes, a nut in Indiana named Felix Wack actually broadcast obscene pictures. Yep, for a fact! Lord, we got a thousand wires the night he did it. He threw two fearfully naughty Paris postcards on a lot of the older televisian screens that couldn’t tune in automatically to the hair. First time, Bax, television was ever used illicitly. However, before he even had his picture inserted in front of his scanner next night, we had him. He didn’t catch a penitentiary sentence, though. He was plain coocoo. Got sent to the Indianapolis State Insane Hospital. Of course none of the sub-monitor stations or monitor planes got to see any of his pictures; and the air inspectors are a little peeved that they didn’t catch at least a view or two!”
“How come that? If he was broadcasting pictures, wouldn’t—”
“Listen, Methuselah, what do you know about modern radio devices?”
“We-e-ell, Ish, I know that—that the Goldschmidt alternator—”
“The Goldschmidt alternator? Man alive! Noah used that on his ark to communicate with Mount Ararat. Don’t you know anything about modern radio devices—and radio detection instruments?”
“Well—er—ah—um—”
“It’s no use! Old chap, there isn’t much use of trying to explain anything coherently to you. There’s been so many detection instruments been created since you sailed with Noah—’specially during 1936, 1937 and 1938—that you wouldn’t know what I was talking about if I even mentioned ’em. But you do know, don’t you, that television comes in as sound—or hum—a disturbed hum—if you take it audibly, instead of visually?”
“Um—yes—think I did hear something about that.”
“Then everything is a hum, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Everything’s a hum. Hum sweet hum. But what about it?”
“Well, do you perchance know, then, that every registered broadcasting station in the entire world has in its frequency a ‘tick’—or variation—what shall I call it?—I should say a combination of dash-dot ticks that don’t come out at all in a receiving set as sound—”
“Something like the tick in the house lighting current that used to regulate the telechron clocks?”
“Yes—and still does! Well did you know that each station’s combination of ‘ticks’ is like a Yale key, and there is no duplicate to that particular key because it’s a permutation, rather than a combination? And did you know that with a vario-combinometer, it can be told in an instant what particular permutation of ticks a particular station is carrying in its frequency at any time?”
“Well, um—er—ah—”
“Then of course you didn’t know that that tick-permutation is changed every day in the year—for every station. In North America, that is. That every station in the U.S.A. gets its 365 permutations in advance, each January 1st, each year. Each one is in code, but is changed each day at noon, Eastern standard time, in accordance with a daily morning wire sent out, decoding it. Now do you get it, Methuselah? One permutation—each day—for each station. The monitor station here—also the sub-monitor stations—revolve the whole arc-sleeve of their frequo-synchro-vario-combinometer each day in accordance with the plan under which those changes have been laid out—and all they have to do is to keep its contacting arm twirling ’round and ’round the whole series, automatically, ’round and around. The minute a single wave frequency is picked up that has the wrong tick permutation for it, it registers on the frequo-synchro-vario-combinometer as a red light. A red light, my boy. If the frequency is only slightly off what it should be for that permutation of ticks—and that can be determined by a hand-adjustable microscale at the tap—some broadcasting station gets immediately notified by wire that they’ve slipped off their assigned wave length. But if station—or plane—find anything phoney, like a huge discrepancy, it tunes in, notifying its nearest sub-monitor station if it’s a plane; if the audible reception is in the least way peculiar, or sounding like code, or words, or Morse—the sub-monitor station immediately throws on four other instruments, including a Camberly ether-wave nodal interferometer, to measure direction, intensity, and several other vital things, and, being a ground station, wires the next nearest sub-monitor station, even though 200 miles away, to do the same. If the suspicious disturbance is just a whistle or a hum—this happens rather frequently when it’s caught in a monitor plane—the plane operator figures as a rule that his plane has strayed to a point of possible interaction between two or more broadcasting stations, and that he’s getting frequency-beats—that the noise is interference of some sort—and doesn’t generally regard it seriously. But if a sub-monitor station on the ground catches such a thing, even a hum, it knows it just isn’t interference. It looks into it. As I say, they throw onto any suspicious band music—voices—words—coming in with the wrong tick-frequency permutation, four other instruments. These instruments—Oh Bax, there’s no use of explaining it to you. Enough to say that that revolving frequo-synchro-vario-combinometer arm takes one minute to traverse the whole circuit of radio-frequencies; that one second after that red light flashes on, it’s possible to be listening audibly to any source that has the right frequency and the wrong tick-permutation—or vice versa! One half minute after that, the four sets of data that can be measured from any two ground points are enough to localize the illicit sending oscillator almost to within fifty square feet. Why man, the micrometically accurate directive measurements alone will localize such a sending triode to within a city block, even leaving out the intensity and other measurements.”
