" He turned the lens toward his friend. The filament was dark.
CHAPTER III
THE MOVING FINGER WRITES
The condition of affairs in the Atlas Building lasted long enough to carry
the matter up to the experts in the employ of the companies; that is to
say, until about three o'clock the following morning. Then, without
reason, and all at once, the whole building from top to bottom was a blaze
of incandescent light.
One of the men, stepping to the nearest telephone, unhooked the receiver.
To his ear came the low busy hum of a live wire. Somebody touched a bell
button, and the head janitor, running joyfully, two steps at a time, from
his lair, cried out that his bell had rung.
The little group of workmen and experts nodded in a competent and
satisfied manner, and began leisurely to pack their tools as though at the
successful completion of a long and difficult job.
But every man jack of them knew perfectly well that the electrical
apparatus of the building was now in exactly the same condition as it had
been the evening before. No repair work had followed a futile
investigation.
As the group moved toward the outer air, the head repair man quietly
dropped behind. Surreptitiously he applied the slender cords of his pocket
ammeter to the zinc and carbon of the dead batteries concerning whose
freshness he and his assistant had argued. The delicate needle leaped
forward, quivered like a snake's tongue, and hovered over a number.
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