Cartoner called him, and did not wait for him to descend to unhook the heavy leather apron.
And when the driver had settled down to his usual breakneck speed, he urged him to go faster. The passers on the pavement were going about their ordinary business now, bent on paying Sunday calls or taking Sunday exercise. None knew yet what had taken place a few hundred yards away.
Cartoner sat with clenched teeth and thought. He had a strong grasp over his own emotions, but his limbs were shaking inside his thick furs. He made a supreme effort of memory. It was a moment in a lifetime, and he knew it. Which is not always the case, for great moments often appear great only when we look back at them.
He had not his code-books with him. He dared not carry them in the streets of St. Petersburg, where arrest might meet him at any corner by mistake or on erroneous suspicion. His head was stored with a thousand things to be remembered. Could he trust his memory to find the right word, or the word that came nearest to the emergency of this moment? Could he telegraph that the Emperor was dead when he had last seen him living, but assuredly feeling his way across the last frontier? The Czar must assuredly be dead before a telegram despatched now could reach England. It was a risk. But Cartoner was of a race of men who seem to combine with an infinite patience the readiness to take a heavy risk at a given moment.
The telegraph office was quiet. The clerks were dignified and sedate behind their caging--stiff and formal within their semi-military uniform. They knew nothing. As soon as the news reached them the inexorable wire windows would be shut down, and no unofficial telegrams could be despatched from Russia.
Cartoner had five minutes' start, perhaps, in front of the whole world. Five minutes might suffice to flash his news beyond the reach of recall.
The sense of discipline was strong in him. His first message was to London--a single word from the storehouse of his infallible memory.
He sent a second telegram to Deulin, in Warsaw, which was no longer. The first message might reach its destination. The chances of the second were not so good, and the second might mean life or death to Wanda. He walked slowly back towards the double doors. He might even gain a minute there, he thought, by simulating clumsiness with the handle should any one wish to enter in haste. He was at the outer door when a man hurried up the steps. This was a small man, with a pale and gentle face, and eyes in which a dull light seemed to smoulder.