Mr Michael Portillo crashed out of the Conservative leadership race last night, leaving Mr Kenneth Clarke and Mr Iain Duncan Smith to battle for the succession to Mr William Hague.
Mr Portillo failed to make the final ballot to go before the party membership in September by just one vote. And he promptly announced that the end of his leadership dream also marked the end of his career in frontline politics.
MPs and journalists waiting in the Commons committee corridor gasped as Sir Michael Spicer, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, announced the result of a third-round ballot which produced a complete reversal of last Thursday's outcome.
Mr Clarke came from behind (39 last time) to top the poll with 59 votes, five ahead of Mr Duncan Smith on 54 (from 42), leaving Mr Portillo, with 53 votes (from 50), just one short of the chance to put his vision of a more socially inclusive party before its members.
Mr Clarke declared himself confident of winning the September poll, while Mr Duncan Smith, the new darling of the Thatcherite right, was "relieved and happy" to have again come second, while the bookmakers divided over who was now the favourite.
Mr Portillo announced that he did not intend "ever again" to sit on the Tory front bench. While wishing Mr Clarke and Mr Duncan Smith well, he said his continued presence would only complicate life for whichever man eventually won. "I think really the time has come for me to seek other things to do," he told the BBC.
The Conservative rank and file in turn were savouring the prospect of a battle royal between the Europhile Mr Clarke, who could count Eurosceptic MPs among his additional 20 supporters yesterday, and the Eurosceptics who refused office in Mr John Major's government to campaign against the Maastricht Treaty.
Mr Clarke again insisted it was perfectly possible for him to lead a Eurosceptic party. "We have got to make ourselves a party concerned with the big issues, and above all look like a challenge to Mr Blair and an electable government in four or five years' time," he said.
Mr Duncan Smith took a helicopter to Shropshire to immediately begin his campaign in the constituencies, signalling that Europe would be a defining issue in his battle with Mr Clarke. He acknowledged the result must have been a bitter moment for Mr Portillo, while maintaining "he is a big man and a fine man who has a big future ahead of him".
Mr Duncan Smith appealed to the Tory right which had so far seen its vote fractured by the alternative choices presented. "I am convinced we can beat Clarke because this campaign is now about what this party stands for," he declared.
However, Mr Nicholas Soames, who backed Mr Portillo, voiced the fear that his parliamentary colleagues had made "a very serious mistake". The contest between the rightwing Mr Duncan Smith and the Europhile Mr Clarke, he said, could "make flesh the polarisation that lies within the Tory party".
Another shattered Portillo supporter said: "It's awful. Either we face another four years of the same, with Duncan Smith as Hague but without the jokes. Or we go even further back with Clarke and at every turn confront the issue [Europe] on which we fought to a standstill under John Major."
But Ms Ann Widdecombe, a relentless opponent of Mr Portillo's social liberalism, pronounced herself "absolutely delighted" that Mr Clarke would now go before the party members.