She had decided to send a letter to Saul Hartz saying that she wished particularly to see him on an urgent private matter. To this end she would invite him to come and drink tea in her new house at four o’clock on the following Friday or Saturday afternoon. Such a letter was not at all easy to write. More than one attempt had to be put in the waste paper basket before she came near saying in the right way the particular thing she wished to express. With the letter composed at last more or less to her mind, she dropped it in the post box in the hall and went out of the Club. Turning into Bond Street, she walked as far as a locksmith’s at the Oxford Street end. Here she sought advice as to the means of opening a patent Warlock fireproof safe, of which the key had been mislaid. A duplicate key was the suggested remedy. Helen thereupon arranged that on the following afternoon at four o’clock--at which hour John was sure to be at the House or at one of his clubs--an expert should come to Brompton Square and see what could be done in the matter. LVI The days that remained of a terrible week imposed a strain upon Helen almost beyond what she could bear. On the next afternoon the locksmith came at the time appointed and was able to provide a key to the safe out of the stock of keys in his possession. As soon as the man had gone, Helen opened the safe and satisfied herself that the phial in its gun-metal case was still there. She had been given to understand that a child might use it, so remarkably simple was its operation. The colorless fluid, rather less in quantity than one tenth of a liter, had merely to be sprinkled on the coat of the victim at a point contiguous to the spinal column. Death would then ensue in three hours or less, without leaving a trace of its cause. With a sense of grim repulsion, Helen pressed the tiny spring which held together the gun-metal case--a thing of exquisite contrivance--and satisfied herself that the phial and syringe were very much as she expected to find them. Her horror of this devilish thing was very real. But to the best of her ability she had thought out what had to be done. She saw herself as the hapless instrument of destiny. And she had not endured nine-and-twenty years of life without a clear perception of the stern fact that its decrees, no matter how ruthless, how savage, must be accepted. She now awaited, with every spark of patience she could muster, a reply to her letter to Saul Hartz. He might not even deign to answer it. Or if answer he did, being the man he was, with so many calls upon his inadequate day of twenty-four hours, he was hardly likely to find the time or to take the trouble to pay a visit to Brompton Square. And in that event, which seemed to grow more and more inevitable, what then must be her course of action?