He sat still, then, in a sweat. The noise of the keys fell on his tense ears like the crackling thunder of a machine gun.
He took the paper out and tore it into minute pieces.
He got another sheet, sat down at the desk and wrote a few hurried sentences in longhand.
He sealed it in an envelope, glancing nervously about the room; addressed it; and found a stamp in the desk.
Then he tiptoed down the room, softly opened the door and listened.
Hy was snoring.
He stole into the bedroom, found his clothes in the dark and deliberately dressed, clear to overcoat and hat. He slipped out into the corridor, rang for the elevator and went out across the Square to the mail box. There was a box in the hall down-stairs; but he had found it impossible to post that letter before the eyes of John, the night man.
For a moment he stood motionless, one hand gripping the box, the other holding the letter in air—a statue of a man.
Then he saw a sauntering policeman, shivered, dropped the letter in and almost ran home.
Peter had done the one thing that he himself, twelve hours earlier, would have regarded as utterly impossible.