Gouldesbrough pressed the little electric bell upon the oak table in front of him, and in a moment a waiter appeared.
"Bring me a large brandy and soda," he said in a quiet voice.
The waiter bowed and hurried away.
The waiter did not know, being a foreigner, and unacquainted with the tittle-tattle of the day, that Sir William Gouldesbrough, the famous scientist, was generally known to be a practical teetotaller, and one who abhorred the general use of alcoholic beverages.
When the brandy came, amber in the electric lights of the smoking-room, and with a piece of ice floating in the liquid, Sir William took a small white tabloid from a bottle in his pocket and dropped it into the glass. It fizzed, spluttered, and disappeared.
Then he raised the tumbler to his lips, and as he did so the floating ice tinkled against the sides of the glass like a tiny alarum.
"Nerves gone," the stock-broking gentleman close by said to his friend, with a wink.
In five minutes or so, after he had lit a cigarette, Gouldesbrough rose and left the smoking-room. He put on his coat in the hall and went out of the front door.
It was not yet late, and the huge crescent of electric lights, which seemed to stretch right away beyond Hove to Worthing, gleamed like a gigantic coronet.
It was a clear night. The air was searching and keen, and it seemed to steady the scientist as he walked down the steps and came out from under the hotel portico on to the pavement.