Lord Sanderlake’s gaze went to the red telephone and for some moments he played with the idea of ringing the office and telling them to stand by for drastic action. He had a predilection for impinging himself upon the workings of his newspaper with dramatic suddenness; and to scream at his harassed chief editor “Kill the front page!” was his idea of good fun, but sober reflection told him that in this case he would hardly be justified. It was still barely six o’clock and even if the news-break did prove as sensational as Digby Cox claimed there would still be plenty of time to reorganise the paper’s make-up, and if there was one thing that Lord Sanderlake liked better than screaming “Kill the front page!” at six o’clock, it was screaming “Kill the front page!” at eight o’clock. Besides, fo
