At last Garrick returned from his hurried trip down to the office.  I don’t know what it was we expected him to bring, but I think we were more or less disappointed when it proved to be merely a simple oblong oak box with a handle.

He opened it and we could see that it contained in reality nothing but a couple of ordinary dry cells, and some other paraphernalia.  There were two black discs, attached to a metal headpiece, discs about two and a half inches in diameter, with a circular hole in the centre of each, perhaps an inch across, showing inside what looked like a piece of iron or steel.

Garrick carefully tested the batteries with a little ammeter which he carried in a case.

“Sixteen amperes,” he remarked to himself, “I don’t attempt to use the batteries when they fall below five.  These are all right.”

From a case he took a little round black disc, about the same size as the other two.  In its face it had a dozen or so small holes perforated and arranged in the shape of a six-pointed star.

“I wonder where I can stow this away so that it won’t attract attention?” he asked.

Garrick looked about for the least used part of the garage and decided that it was the back.  Near the barred window lay a pile of worn tires which looked as if it had been seldom disturbed except to be added to.  When one got tires as cheaply as the users of this garage did, it was folly to bother much about the repair of old ones.

Back of this pile, then, he threw the little black disc carelessly, only making sure that it was concealed.  That was not difficult, for it was not much larger than a watch in size.

To it, I noticed, he had attached two plugs that were “fool-proof”—­that is, one small and the other large, so that they could not be inserted into the wrong holes.  A long flexible green silk covered wire, or rather two wires together, led from the disc.  By carefully moving the tires so as to preserve the rough appearance they had of being thrown down hastily into the discard, he was able to conceal this wire, also, in such a way as to bring it secretly to the barred window and through it.

Next he turned his attention to the telephone itself.  Another instrument which he had brought with him was inserted in place of the ordinary transmitter.  It looked like it and had evidently been prepared with that in view.  I assumed that it must act like the ordinary transmitter also, although it must have other uses as well.  It was more of a job to trace out the course of the telephone wires and run in a sort of tap line at a point where it would not be likely to be noted.  This was done by Garrick, still working in silence, and the wires from it led behind various things until they, too, reached another window and so went to the outside.

As Garrick finished his mysterious tinkering and rose from his dusty job to brush off his clothes, he remarked, “There, now you may have your heart’s desire, Dillon, if all you want to do is to watch these fellows.”