They had escaped.
It was their second attempt. The first, made in daylight, had completely failed. Their cab had been followed to Paddington Station by three other cabs containing the representatives and the cameras of three Sunday newspapers. A journalist had deliberately accompanied Priam to the booking office, had heard him ask for two seconds to Weymouth, and had bought a second to Weymouth himself. They had gone to Weymouth, but as within two hours of their arrival Weymouth had become even more impossible than Werter Road, they had ignominiously but wisely come back.
Werter Road had developed into the most celebrated thoroughfare in London. Its photograph had appeared in scores of newspapers, with a cross marking the abode of Priam and Alice. It was beset and infested by journalists of several nationalities from morn till night. Cameras were as common in it as lamp-posts. And a famous descriptive reporter of the Sunday News had got lodgings, at a high figure, exactly opposite No. 29. Priam and Alice could do nothing without publicity. And if it would be an exaggeration to assert, that evening papers appeared with Stop-press News: "5.40. Mrs. Leek went out shopping," the exaggeration would not be very extravagant. For a fortnight Priam had not been beyond the door during daylight. It was Alice who, alarmed by Priam's pallid cheeks and tightened nerves, had devised the plan of flight before the early summer dawn.
They reached East Putney Station, of which the gates were closed, the first workman's train being not yet due. And there they stood. Not another human being was abroad. Only the clock of St. Bude's was faithfully awakening every soul within a radius of two hundred yards each quarter of an hour. Then a porter came and opened the gate--it was still exceedingly early--and Priam booked for Waterloo in triumph.
"Oh," cried Alice, as they mounted the stairs, "I quite forgot to draw up the blinds at the front of the house." And she stopped on the stairs.
"What did you want to draw up the blinds for?"
"If they're down everybody will know instantly that we've gone. Whereas if I--"
She began to descend the stairs.
"Alice!" he said sharply, in a strange voice. The muscles of his white face were drawn.
"What?"