Free Death on the Lizard by Robin Paige Page A

“Hell and damnation,” he said quietly.

CHAPTER SIX
    [Marconi] was under tremendous commercial pressure to claim success, as this would undoubtedly push up Marconi company shares. . . . The sense of urgency was growing every day, as Marconi feared that one morning the newspapers would announce that some other “wireless wizard” had outdistanced him and stolen his thunder.
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Signor Marconi’s Magic Box
Gavin Weightman
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“Really,” said the Scarecrow, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself for being such a humbug.”
    â€œI am—I certainly am,” answered the little man sorrowfully; “but it was the only thing I could do.”
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The Wizard of Oz, 1900
L. Frank Baum
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Guglielmo Marconi had demonstrated what the newspapers called his “magic box” all over the world, but his favorite venue was the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, off Piccadilly. There, he could always count on an interested and supportive audience which would hang upon his every word: amateur and professional scientists eager to learn about the latest innovation in wireless telegraphy; the informed public, which was fascinated by the rapidly changing world of communication; and a substantial number of attractive and wealthy ladies, some of whom were regular habitues. Science, it seemed, was an alluring topic, and a handsome, unmarried scientist—especially one with Marconi’s fame and fortune—was a highly desirable prize.
    Marconi had always had a sharp eye for the fairer sex, and he especially enjoyed it when women besieged him after his lectures, begging him to autograph their programs, clamoring for a private word. Nattily dressed and faultlessly groomed and quite the ladies’ man, he occasionally asked the prettier ones out to dinner, and every now and then something interesting came of it.
    Not long ago, for instance, he had become engaged to an American woman named Josephine Holman. A shipboard romance, it had been. They had been introduced on the first night out of New York and Marconi had been immediately smitten. In science, he was cool and deliberate: “I am never emotional,” he said, when asked how he felt when he heard that first faint wireless signal from far across the Atlantic. But in matters of the heart, he was a passionate, impulsive lover, given to wild and all-consuming infatuations. By the time the St. Paul docked in Southampton, he had persuaded Josephine Holman to accept his proposal of marriage.
    Marconi’s prospective in-laws, however, held a privileged place in the social world of Indianapolis, Indiana, and were not enthusiastic about the prospect of their Josephine marrying an Italian, even (or perhaps especially) one who cut so dashing an international figure and who appeared so frequently in the newspapers’ society pages.
    And Marconi had to acknowledge his own ambivalence. He dreamt of marriage, but he knew himself to be a man easily tempted by female charms and hardly discreet in his romantic affairs. He wavered a bit too long, and Josephine broke off the engagement, remarking enigmatically, “There have been disasters on both sides.” The commitment at an end, Marconi was forced to console himself with the ladies he met in London. Not a bad alternative, when he thought about it, for while Josephine’s American connections would have undoubtedly benefited Marconi Wireless, the London ladies were stunning—and willing, into the bargain. What’s more, they were here, and not in Indianapolis, which had to be admitted as a distinct advantage.
    Marconi had looked forward to the Wednesday night lecture at the Royal Institution, because among the other special attendees (the French investors whom he had wooed that afternoon and who now seemed eager to consummate their affair by investing heavily in his company) he was expecting Miss Pauline Chase. He and Miss Chase had met at dinner at Lord