Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [112]
And this would be satisfying indeed.
THE MORNING AFTER THE LECTURE, Fleming wrote a letter about it to Marconi. “Everything went off well,” he began, but then added: “There was however a dastardly attempt to jamb us; though where it came from I cannot say. I was told that Maskelyne’s assistant was at the lecture and sat near the receiver.”
In a second letter soon afterward Fleming told Marconi that Dewar “thinks I ought to expose it. As it was a purely scientific experiment for the benefit of the R.I. it was a ruffianly act to attempt to upset it, and quite outside the ‘rules of the game.’ If the enemy will try that on at the R.I. they will stick at nothing and it might be well to let them know.”
Marconi’s responses to these letters are lost to history, but if he or anyone else counseled Fleming as to the benefits of letting dogs sleep, the advice went unheeded.
On June 11, 1903, in a letter published by The Times, Fleming first reminded readers of his lecture at the Royal Institution and his demonstration, then wrote: “I should like to mention that a deliberate attempt was made by some person outside to wreck the exhibition of this remarkable feat. I need not go into details; but I have evidence that it was the work of a skilled telegraphist and of some one acquainted with the working of wireless telegraphy, whilst at the same time animated by ill-feelings towards the distinguished inventor whose name is always popularly and rightly connected with this invention.
“I feel certain that, if the audience present at my lecture had known that in addition to the ordinary chances of failure in difficult lecture experiments the display was carried through in the teeth of a cowardly and concealed attempt to spoil the demonstration, there would have been a strong feeling of indignation.”
Fleming allowed that tapping Marconi’s wireless communications might indeed constitute fair play, but disrupting a lecture to the Royal Institution was out of bounds. “I should have thought,” he sniffed, “that the theatre which has been the site of the most brilliant lecture demonstrations for a century past would have been sacred from the attacks of a scientific hooliganism of this kind.”
He wrote that he did not yet know who had attempted this sacrilege and urged any reader who might “happen to obtain a clue” to pass the information to him. “There may not be any legal remedy against monkeyish pranks of this description; but I feel sure that, if the perpetrators had been caught red-handed, public opinion would have condoned an attempt to make these persons themselves the subject of a ‘striking experiment.’”
From Fleming’s perspective, the letter was perfect, a jewel of subtle threat. He could not prove beyond doubt that Maskelyne was the pirate and therefore could not accuse him openly, but he had crafted his letter so as to transmit to the magician a warning that such behavior would not be tolerated. It is easy to imagine his satisfaction at opening The Times that Thursday morning and seeing those few inches of black type, knowing full well that not just Maskelyne but all of Britain’s scientists, statesmen, barristers, thinkers, and writers, perhaps even the king, would read them, and that Maskelyne’s teacup would by then be chattering against its saucer as the chill of impending danger crept down his spine.
THE LETTER WAS PERFECT—EXACTLY what Maskelyne had hoped for. Better, actually, given the charmingly veiled threat that Fleming might stoop to inflicting physical harm. If his teacup chattered, it was from delight at the prospect of composing his reply. He posted his own letter on Friday, June 12, from the Egyptian Hall. The Times published it the next day.
“Sir,” Maskelyne wrote, “The matter referred to in your columns, yesterday, by Professor Fleming has a public importance far greater than he appears to imagine. It is a case in which members of the public are driven to take extreme measures in order to obtain information to which they are justly entitled.”
He wrote, “The Professor