Day grew on and at last dinner-hour arrived. He was too much excited to eat; he played with a cutlet, and drank three glasses of marvellous brown sherry for which he was famous. After dinner, although he rarely touched spirits, he had a glass of brandy-and-water with his cigar. At eight o'clock he rang for coffee. When James came with it he said: "I am going to bed soon. I shall not require you or any of the others again to-night. I shall want breakfast half an hour earlier than usual in the morning, at eight o'clock. Call me at five minutes to seven. I am not going to town to-morrow, but shall stay at home all day. Good-night." Grey waited a few minutes to give James time to get out of hearing. Then he rose, and took his way to the room he had slept in of late, the first floor of the Tower of Silence. It was now half-past eight. "In half an hour I shall be free," he exclaimed rapturously to himself, as he turned up the gas. He shook the thick shutters of the window to ascertain that they were secure. He lit a candle, went up those hideous stairs to the first floor, bolted the shutters on the front window there and the shutters on the landing window. "I do not want the neighbours to see it too soon or they might come and _rescue_ me." He chuckled at the idea of being rescued, and descended to the storey beneath. On the landing here the window stood open. He looked out. All was still below. None of his household had ever occasion to go to the rear of the house after nightfall. No stranger could approach the house at the rear unless by passing through that hideous grove. The night was calm and dark and still. "Nothing could be better," thought Grey, as he fixed the hooks of a ladder of ropes to an iron bar of the small balcony, and ascertained that the twine by which these hooks were to be unshipped ran freely through the ring screwed into the window-frame. "All's well," he thought. "Now be quick!" Going back again into the first-floor room, he rapidly took off his black frock-coat, light trousers, and waistcoat, and put on a tight-fitting corduroy suit, a pair of false whiskers and moustaches, and a low round hat.