There were two hours to wait before he could put his plan into operation. He telephoned from his bedroom to a bookseller’s in the Buckingham Palace Road.
“Have you a good life of Peter the Great?” he asked.
They had two. He ordered them to be sent to him immediately. He was rather amused with himself.
He was less amused when he heard of the fate of one who had aspired to the affections of Catherine, and whose head had been placed into a large glass jar and displayed in Catherine’s boudoir to remind her that husbands have their feelings. There was another gentleman who loved Catherine, and him Peter had hanged on a high gibbet, under which he promenaded arm in arm with Catherine. The arm and arm was a domestic touch not lost upon Gordon. On the whole, he decided thoughtfully, a profound admiration for Peter’s character would have no softening tendency upon any man, especially a man who was mad, mad.
He put away his book, drew on his overcoat, and, passing down in the elevator, found his cab still waiting, the meter bloated with charges. He had forgotten all about the cab.
At the corner of the street he paid the man and walked rapidly into Cheynel Gardens, his nose showing above the collar of his overcoat. Happily, the street was empty. He almost ran when he reached the familiar façade of his house, turned into the side passage, and, with a trembling hand, fitted the key into the lock of the back gate. Suppose it were bolted? The horrid doubt was no sooner in his mind than it was dispelled. The key turned easily, and he found himself looking up at the familiar window of his study.
Tiptoeing to the little door, he listened. There was no sound, and, with minute care to avoid making the slightest noise, he pushed his pass-key slowly in the lock, and pushed the door open a fraction of an inch. Not a sound. He opened it a little further, slipped behind the curtain which hid the door, and closed it behind him.
The room was empty, the two doors into the hall ajar. He could hear the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock on the staircase.
His first step, he had decided, must be to get into touch with Bobbie. Listening at the hall door, he heard the click of steel on china—Diana was at lunch, as he had expected. He closed first the baize, and then the inner door softly, shot a bolt and tiptoed across the room. Bless Diana for bringing the telephone into The Study!
Bobbie’s office responded. A late leaving clerk had heard the ring of the ’phone and came back to answer.