It could not in any case go until the night-mail.

He had finished it and directed it by six o'clock in the evening and he went down with the letter in his hand into the big lounge to post it in the box there.

But it never was posted.
Close to the foot of the staircase stood a tape machine, and as Thresk descended he heard the clicking of the instrument and saw the usual small group of visitors about it.

They were mostly Americans, and they were reading out to one another the latest prices of the stock-markets.

Some of the chatter reached to Thresk's inattentive ears, and when he was only two steps from the floor one carelessly-spoken phrase interjected between the values of two securities brought him to a stop.