Sentence:  The Bat—they called him the Bat.nb.... He...played a lone hand,nb.... Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine <WSD>telegraph</WSD> could locate her. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  An apparatus, or a process, for communicating rapidly between distant points, especially by means of established visible or audible signals representing words or ideas, or by means of words and signs, transmitted by electrical means.