He stayed only a few minutes at Prince’s Gate, and as the car returned along Piccadilly, Sir Lucien, glancing upward towards the windows of a tall block of chambers facing the Green Park, observed a light in one of them. Acting upon a sudden impulse, he raised the speaking-tube.
“Pull up, Fraser,” he directed.
The chauffeur stopped the car and Sir Lucien alighted, glancing at the clock inside as he did so, and smiling at his own quixotic behavior. He entered an imposing doorway and rang one of the bells. There was an interval of two minutes or so, when the door opened and a man looked out.
“Is that you, Willis?” asked Pyne.
“Oh, I beg pardon, Sir Lucien. I didn’t know you in the dark.”
“Has Mr. Gray retired yet?”
“Not yet. Will you please follow me, Sir Lucien. The stairway lights are off.”
A few moments later Sir Lucien was shown into the apartment of Gray’s which oddly combined the atmosphere of a gymnasium with that of a study. Gray, wearing a dressing-gown and having a pipe in his mouth, was standing up to receive his visitor, his face rather pale and the expression of his lips at variance with that in his eyes. But:
“Hello, Pyne,” he said quietly. “Anything wrong—or have you just looked in for a smoke?”
Sir Lucien smiled a trifle sadly.